Penalty Strike: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander, 1943-45 (Stackpole Military History Series) [Paperback]

Alexander V. Pyl'cyn (Author)

Book Description

Series: Stackpole Military History Series | Publication Date: April 28, 2009

Extremely rare (possibly the only) book-length account of a Soviet penal unit in World War II

Gritty, intense style conveys the brutality of war on the Eastern Front

Composed of convicts--soldiers who conducted "unauthorized retreats," former Soviet POWs deemed untrustworthy, and Gulag prisoners--the Red Army's penal units received the most difficult, dangerous assignments, such as breaking through the enemy's defenses. So punishing was life in these units that officers in regular formations threatened to send recalcitrant troops to penal battalions. Alexander Pyl'cyn led his penal unit through the Soviets' massive offensive in the summer of 1944, the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the bitter assault on Berlin in 1945. He survived the war, but 80 percent of his men did not.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alexander Pyl'cyn, drafted into the Red Army at eighteen in 1941 and wounded three times, earned the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Great Patriotic War, and the Order of the Red Star for his actions during the war. He lives in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811735990
• ISBN-13: 978-0811735995
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Only WWII Red Army Memoir on Punishment Units, December 11, 2006

By 

Gilberto Villahermosa - See all my reviews
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This review is from: PENALTY STRIKE: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943-45 (Soviet Memories of War) (v. 1) (Hardcover)

This interesting and insightful book is the only War World II memoir written by an officer of the Soviet Army's World War II penal or punishment formations.

Some 422,700 Red Army soldiers served in punishment battalions during World War II. Few survived service in such formations, which one specialist of the Soviet Army described as "forlorn," "deadly," and "soul destroying."

Alexander Pyl'cyn served as a platoon commmander and deputy commander of the 8th Independent Penal Battalion. He and his battalion fought in Byelorussia, Poland and Germany, ending the war in Berlin. Wounded three times during the war, Pyl'cyn's description of life and death in a penal battalion is powerful. He and his company carried out the most difficult and dangerous missions on any sector to which they were assigned and were frequently in the lead of Red Army breakthroughs of the German lines. Suffering casualty rates of some 80 percent, he and his men usually accomplished their mission.

"Penalty Strike" is not an easy read, though it is very well written. The text is dense and packed full of people, places, and battles. Still, the author manages to clearly and powerfully convey to the reader what it meant to be a Soviet soldier on the Eastern Front in World War. II. And many parts of the story are moving, especially when dealing with close friends killed in battle or Pyl'cyn's courtship with a Red Army nurse, whom he later married.

Those interested in the Red Army or the Eastern Front in World War II will find this book an important contribution to the literature.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Account of a Red Army Penal Battalion at War, March 24, 2007

By 

Michael Slater (Ashburn, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: PENALTY STRIKE: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943-45 (Soviet Memories of War) (v. 1) (Hardcover)

As a lieutenant, the author in December 1943 was assigned to lead a platoon in a Red Army "Officer Penal Battalion". He describes the organization, training, equipment of his battalion, and the personalities he recalls, in great and fascinating detail. Essentially, Officer Penal Battalions were shock troops used to infiltrate through or breach holes in German defensive lines. The "Officer Prisoners" fought to redeem their honor and freedom after being arrested and convicted of crimes against the State. If the officer prisoners survived and fought with honor, they were often freed and reinstated to officer status, depending on the personality and quirks of the commander of the army to which the penal battalion was attached. The author was not a convicted offender; he was part of the cadre assigned to lead this unit into combat. As a platoon leader, his deputy in one battle was a lieutenant colonel who had commanded an infantry regiment with distinction before running afoul of the State. He freely admits his unit sometimes captured, interrogated, and executed German prisoners of war, because when operating behind enemy lines in his words, "What else could we do?" This is a harsh book on the nature of close in infantry combat and the soldiers who wage it. Mercy is an alien concept when you are outnumbered and slugging it out with pistol, submachine gun, grenades, and entrenching tool against German soldiers at night inside an enemy trench. Readers interested in Soviet accounts of the infantryman's war during the last years of WWII will find this one of the best books on the subject. The author tells a candid story, one chock full of fascinating details and chilling memories, quite well. Heroism, cowardice, and luck fill the pages. This book is so well written, one can almost smell the cordite and hear the sounds of the advancing German assault guns as the author and his comrades fight like lions to repulse counterattack after counterattack in the Narev Bridgehead, October 1944.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars worth it for EF junkies, May 3, 2006

By 

O. D. Bochkis - See all my reviews
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This review is from: PENALTY STRIKE: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943-45 (Soviet Memories of War) (v. 1) (Hardcover)

I have read the Russian version of the book - it is reasonably well written memoir which dispels a whole lot of legend about Soviet penal units (big bad commissars with revolvers shooting every one at the slightest hint of fear, sanding people without the weapons in battle etc). Well worth the money.