—— Red Army Sniper ——36and bawling songs; their selfsatisfied mugs were visible through
the telescopic sights of their rifles. An officer with a monocle in
one eye and a riding crop in his hand was giving orders. The Nazi
mob was only 300 metres away.
Our snipers did not spend a lot of time admiring this ‘amateur
artistry’. Assigning roles between them, they presented the Nazis
with their own ‘concert’. First to fall was the officer with the
monocle, felled by a bullet from Ivan Karpov. Following him the
other ranks began to tumble, precisely posed, as they were, for
the gunsights of our exterminators. Having worked out what was
happening, the others began scurrying round the gully in a panic,
looking for suitable cover. That day Dobrik wiped out eighteen
Nazis and Karpov fourteen. But the main thing was that the
German operations on this occasion were sabotaged.
The infuriated Nazis were unable to calm down for a whole
hour, conducting precise artillery fire... but only at the buildings
which had long been abandoned by the two Ivans. True, our snipers
only just managed to take cover in a cellar.
Upon subsequently analysing the results of our efforts at a
meeting organised by the Political Department about the incident
involving the Ivans, we came to the conclusion that we should not
get too carried away. An initially successful day like that could
have ended in tears for them as well. We needed in any event to
mark out several extra firing positions and move between them
more frequently.