The Iron Tracks of Balvinkovo

In the spring of 1942, in eastern Ukraine, Marshal Timoshenko planned the great counteroffensive at Kharkov. Vasily, a Red Army tank crewman, drove an aging BT-7 light tank as part of an independent tank brigade in the assault on Barvenkovo. The BT-7 could race across the battlefield at astonishing speed, but its thin armor was no match for antitank rifles or German tank guns. For the first three days, they broke through the German lines and advanced toward Kharkov. The soldiers believed victory was within reach. No one expected Kleist’s panzer groups to be quietly closing in on the Soviet army’s vulnerable southern flank. When the encirclement suddenly tightened, tens of thousands of troops in the salient were trapped. Stuck in mud, running low on fuel and out of ammunition, the fragile light tank was no longer the spearhead of an offensive. It could only struggle to break through the encirclement across the steppe and between villages. This is no triumphant tale of heroes, but the story of a great and devastating defeat on the Eastern Front in 1942. On the banks of the North Donets, one BT tank crew fights to survive amid the flood of retreating troops.