A German tank column entered Ogledow that evening and shot it up, but halted after dark.Īlthough Oskin did not know it at the time, the tank unit was a platoon from sPzAbt 501, the first German tank unit on the Eastern Front with Hitler’s latest ‘wonder weapon’, the new King Tiger heavy tank.
The tank hull was already well camouflaged in a field of corn, and Oskin’s crew and the tank infantry camouflaged the turret with corn stalks. Oskin informed the brigade commander and was told to take up a defensive position and monitor the German troops. On reaching the village, no friendly tanks were located, and German troops were approaching the opposite end of the town. The patrol included a team of tank infantry which had been riding on his vehicle through the Belorussian and Polish fighting since June. Oskin of the 53rd Guards Fastov Tank Brigade (6th Guards Tank Corps) was ordered to patrol the Polish village of Ogledow where he was expected to link up with the unit’s 2nd Battalion. One of the most memorable tank engagements of the war occurred towards the end of the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive in Poland. Machine number 502 can now be seen in the armored museum in Kubinka. The next day, August 13, 1944, Oskin’s tank was one of the first to burst into the village of Oglendow and destroyed dozens of enemy soldiers.ĭuring this battle, three “Royal Tiger” tanks were captured in good condition, which were sent to Kubinka at the NIBT Polygon for study. This was the first combat use of the German Tiger II heavy tanks on the Eastern Front., which ended in complete failure for the German tankers who lost 24 tanks in this battle. Oskin, and the other two literally riddled with the main forces of the brigade and parts of the reinforcement ).
Oskin (driver Alexander Andreevich Stetsenko, gun commander Abubakir Yusupovich Merkhaidarov, gunner-radio operator Alexander Ivanovich Grudinin and loader Alexei Potapovich Khalchev) destroyed three newest of the German tank “Royal Tiger” (T-VIB “Tiger-II”) of the 501st heavy tank battalion, and one tank was damaged (according to other sources, only one lead tank was destroyed by the crew of A.P.
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