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p Not later than June 1, 1943

I die for my country. Consider me a Communist. Please tell Lena I kept my promise and her love has gone with me.

p Heavy fighting was in progress on the Eastern Front. The Germans were holding fast to their lines but the Soviet forces doggedly pushed ahead. During the liberation of the village of Medveditsa, one soldier wiped out eight nazis. Weak, wounded, and losing a lot of blood. Sergeant Burlak seized an enemy submachine-gun and a stock of hand grenades and again rushed into the fighting.

p After the battle, Tikhon Burlak was taken to hospital, but was soon back in the trenches with his unit. He used to tell his comrades, both old and new, about his girl-friend and once mentioned that none of his family had remained alive in his Ukrainian home town of Nikolayev.

p One fine spring day. Sergeant Burlak was machine-gunning the Germans from a gun emplacement.

p Several times that day the Germans threw everything they had into the attack, but each time the brave sergeant and his machine-gun blocked their way. Towards nightfall, the fighting abated. But early on the following day the Germans tried to overrun the sergeant’s post once again. Certain there was a large group of Soviet machinegunners in the bunker, the Germans called up a bomber to snuff out the fire. Bombs and shells gradually reduced the bunker to a churnedup morass. Somehow the sergeant survived, although towards evening he was wounded in the arm and head. But he stayed at his post. He continued to fight as long as his ammunition held out. At long last, after three days of fighting he was left with only two hand 142 grenades and a flare. Tikhon Burlak fired a flare which lit up the Germans and hurled one grenade into the very thick of the Germans. The other he dropped under himself, blowing him and his machine-gun to smithereens.

p By dawn the nazis were repelled and the battle was won. Around the bunker lay 48 nazi corpses.

p The Soviet soldiers rushed into what was once the bunker and found their comrade’s remains.

p Near the tangled mass of the machine-gun lay the familiar photograph of Lena, spattered with spots of fresh blood and punctured by a grenade splinter.

On the ground also lay a note written in large blood-stained letters on a sheet of paper by the dead hero-Sergeant Tikhon Burlak.