Catherine Merridale

Of the 403,272 tank soldiers (including a small number of women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die. Even the most optimistic troops knew what would happen when a tank was shelled. The white-hot flash of the explosion would almost certainly ignite the tank crew__ fuel and ammunition. At best, the crew__r those at least who had not been decapitated or dismembered by the shell itself__ould have no more than ninety seconds to climb out of their cabin. Much of that time would be swallowed up as they struggled to open the heavy, sometimes red-hot, hatch, which might have jammed after the impact anyway. The battlefield was no haven, but it was safer than the armored coffin that would now begin to blaze, its metal components to melt. This was not simply __oiling up._ The tank would also torch the atmosphere around it. By then, there could be no hope for the men inside. Not unusually, their bodies were so badly burned that the remains were inseparable. __ave you burned yet?_ was a question tank men often asked each other when they met for the first time. A dark joke from this stage in the war has a politruk informing a young man that almost every tank man in his group has died that day. ____ sorry,_ the young man replies. ____l make sure that I burn tomorrow.