Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

A good book for getting a balanced view of life on the Eastern Front when the tide had definitely turned in favour of the Red Army after Stalingrad and Kursk.
But it is a view through Rose Coloured Glasses I think, the author is an unrepentant Party Member and Russian patriot and some of his views of the 'other side' (the Germans conducting alcohol fuelled suicide charges into massed machine gun fire) are very similar to accounts written by German soldiers about their Russian counterparts. Added to this, it is the story of a Penal Company made up of former officers, upto and including colonels, sentenced to a few months service before rehabilition and return to service -- if they survived.
I think life for the ordinary soldier, or former convict, sentenced to service in a penal company was very very different to what is related in this book, but I have yet to find such an account.

Frankly, I was disappointed with this book. The author was a 20 year-old Lieutenant assigned as a permanent officer to an officer's penal battalion, and he describes his time in the Red Army until 1946. Much of the narrative is about his personal life, some of which was very interesting, but hardly valuable in learning about Soviet penal battalions and their utilization.

On the positive side, the author gives a vivid portrait of life for him in his penal company, but he was not one of the men sent to the battalion as punishment. Strikingly, his company seemed to be victorious in every battle, although it sometimes took casualties as high as 80%. However, one must remember that the time period covered was from February 1944 to May 1945, when the Soviets clearly were superior to the Germans on the Eastern Front.

There are many valuable crumbs of information dropped in the narrative as to how penal battalions worked, and the fact that the officer battalions were well-supplied with the latest weapons. Even more surprising was the fact that field-grade officers were reduced to the ranks in the penal battalions as well as specialists like fighter pilots who had committed some offense that might have been nothing more than a mistake. The offenders were considered to have served their punishment if they were killed or wounded, although sometimes they could be released due to some heroic act. Political indoctrination was constant and pervasive, and surprisingly the offenders, called "shtrafniks" often cheered "For Stalin" when in the attack. Even when unfairly abused, they remained loyal to the regime. That's really complete brainwashing.

Another fact commented on by the author was that penal battalions were not sent blindly as cattle through minefields to clear them. That being said, the author then proceeded to describe just such an incident with his company. Obviously it did happen sometimes. He also commented that the penal battalions made up of enlisted men might well have been short of arms some times, but that was not true of the officer-only units like his.

At any rate, this was an interesting book, but light on information for the serious historian. It may well be the only book available in the West on Soviet penal units in World War II, but perhaps that will be remedied in the future. The Germans likewise used penal battalions, but they have been the subject of a series of popular fictional books by Sven Hassel based on his experiences in a penal battalion on the Eastern Front and elsewhere.

For the reader interested in "blood and guts" combat books about the Eastern Front, this would be a five star book, but for me it was only three stars.

This book was written by a man who experienced life in a penal unit firsthand, and offers a unique perspective. He debunks several misconceptions about such units, while simultaneously providing an excellent account of daily life as an officer leading a unit of Shtrafniks. Pyl'cyn displays great personal bravery on a number of occasions. The only downside to this book is that, as the memoir of a junior officer, it does not give a big-picture perspective of the role of penal units in the war. I think it would be greatly aided by a companion piece written as a scholarly study of such units.

This book tells the story of Alexander Pyl'cyn, a young officer who found himself serving as a cadre member of a penal battalion. This particular unit was composed of Red Army officers who were found guilty of serious infractions during the Great Patriotic War and subsequently punished with 30-, 60-, or 90-day terms in the unit. During this period they had the rank of private. Even though Pyl'cyn doesn't really discuss this aspect, a three-month tour in a penal battalion wasn't a very healthy proposition: penal Battalions were given missions which guaranteed heavy casualties. And Pyl'cyn specifically denied that his battalion had a "blocking company," a unit of NKVD troops usually equipped with submachineguns whose job was not to engage the enemy but rather to gun down Soviet soldiers who tried to retreat. Oddly, he mentions that there was a SMERSH detachment, an NKVD unit normally used to summarily execute "spies."

However, penal battalions did provide a way for the officers to get rehabilitated, even to earn Red Army decorations. They could be restored to full or partial rank based upon their conduct as "shtrafniks." As cadre, Pyl'cyn saw many men processed through his company. This is an interesting memoir, not just for a Red Army man but for a leader of men who were condemned and hoped to restore their honor through blood. Illustrated with photos.

Alexander V. Pyl'cyn's PENALTY STRIKE: THE MEMOIRS OF A RED ARMY PENAL COMPANY COMMANDER, 1943-45 is also essential reading for any who would understand the WW2 experience from the Soviet participant's viewpoint: again a participant's vivid memories are plumbed: this time from a company commander's viewpoint. The author and his unit participated in the 1944 soviet summer offensive program and the final assault on Berlin: his accounts of penal companies and battalions offer vivid insights into the foundations of a penal battalion's operations. Both are essential for any researching the Soviet military experience during the second world war.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I thought this was going to be an interesting,an inside look at the actions of a Penal Unit.However, the writing or translation was not very good and it was more about1) Hanging out waiting for a battle and2) attacking a German position. The Penal unit is just a regular combat unit filled with court martialed individuals from all ranks with non-penalized officers. A real waste of talent as it had senior officers from all services used as Infantry! But really nothing new/interesting in the book.