Tanker letter

A quarter of a century after the war, in the dense forest near Vyazma, a BT tank with a clearly visible tactical number 12 was found that had sunk into the ground. Hatches were lifted up and a hole gaped on board. When the car was opened, the remains of a junior tank lieutenant were found in the place of the driver. He had a gun with one cartridge and a tablet, and on the tablet - a map, a photograph of his girlfriend and unsent letters.
October 25, 1941

Hello my Varia!
No, we will not meet with you.
Yesterday, at noon, we smashed another Nazi column. The fascist shell pierced the side armor and exploded inside. While I was taking the car to the forest, Vasily died. My wound is cruel.

I buried Vasily Orlov in a birch grove. It was light in it. Vasily died, having not had time to say a single word to me, did not convey anything to his beautiful Zoe and the white-haired Masha, who looked like a dandelion in fluff.

So one of the three tankers was left.
In the dark I rode into the forest. The night passed in agony, a lot of blood was lost. Now, for some reason, the pain that burns through the entire chest has subsided and is quiet in the soul.

It's a shame that we did not do everything. But we did everything we could. Our comrades will chase the enemy, who should not walk through our fields and forests. I would never live life like this if it weren’t for you, Varya. You always helped me: on Khalkhin Gol and here.

Probably, after all, whoever loves is kinder to people. Thank you, dear! A man is aging, and the sky is always young, like your eyes, which you can only look at and admire. They will never grow old, never fade.

Time will pass, people will heal the wounds, people will build new cities, grow new gardens. Another life will come, other songs will be sung. But never forget a song about us, about three tankers.

You will have beautiful children, you will still love.
And I am happy that I am leaving you with great love for you.

Your Ivan Kolosov

In the Smolensk region, on one of the roads, a Soviet tank with tail number 12 rises on a pedestal. On this machine, all the first months of the war, junior lieutenant Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov, a tank crewman, who began his military career from Khalkhin-Gol, fought.
The crew - commander Ivan Kolosov, mechanic Pavel Rudov and loader Vasily Orlov - looked like the characters of a song popular in the pre-war era about three tankers:

Three tankmen, three merry friends
- crew of a combat vehicle ...

The battles with the Nazis were fierce. The enemy for every kilometer of Soviet land paid hundreds of corpses of their soldiers and officers, dozens of destroyed tanks, guns, machine guns. But the ranks of our fighters also melted. At the beginning of October 1941, eight of our tanks froze at once on the approaches to Vyazma. The tank of Ivan Kolosov was also damaged. Pavel Rudov died, Kolosov himself was shell-shocked. But the enemy was stopped.

With the onset of darkness, it was possible to start the engine, and tank number 12 disappeared into the forest. Shells were collected from the wrecked tanks and prepared for a new battle. In the morning they learned that the Nazis, having rounded this section of the front, nevertheless advanced east.

What to do? Fight alone? Or throw a wrecked car and make your way to your own? The commander consulted with the loader and decided to squeeze out everything possible from the tank and fight here, already in the rear, to the last shell, to the last drop of fuel.

On October 12th, tank number 12 escaped from an ambush, suddenly at full speed flew into an enemy convoy and scattered it. About a hundred Nazis were destroyed that day.

Then they fought east with battles. On the way, the tankers repeatedly attacked the columns and convoys of the enemy, and once they crushed the "Opel Captain", in which some fascist authorities rode.

October 24 came - the day of the last battle. Ivan Kolosov told his bride about him. He had the habit of regularly writing letters to Vara Zhuravleva, who lived in the village of Ivanovka, near Smolensk. She lived before the war ...

In a boar-hellhound, remote and far from the villages, they once stumbled upon a rusted tank, covered with thick paws of a spruce and half gone into the ground. Three dents on the frontal armor, a torn hole on the side, a noticeable number 12. The hatch is tightly battened down. When the tank was opened, we saw the remains of a man at the levers - that was Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov, with a revolver with one cartridge and a tablet, in which there was a map, a photo of his beloved and several letters to her ...

E. Maximov told this story on the pages of the newspaper Pravda on February 23, 1971. They found Varvar Petrovna Zhuravlev and handed her letters written by Ivan Sidorovich Kolosov in October 1941.

Source: https://topwar.ru/22226-pismo-tankista.html