In three years of war on the Eastern Front-from the desperate defense of Moscow, through the epic struggles at Stalingrad and Kursk to the final offensives in central Europe-artillery-man Petr Mikhin experienced the full horror of battle.

In this vivid memoir he recalls distant but deadly duels with German guns, close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, and murderous mortar and tank attacks, and he remembers the pity of defeat and the grief that accompanied victories that cost thousands of lives. He was wounded and shell-shocked, he saw his comrades killed and was nearly captured, and he was threatened with the disgrace of a court martial. For years he lived with the constant strain of combat and the ever-present possibility of death. Mikhin recalls his experiences with a candor and an immediacy that brings the war on the Eastern Front-a war of immense scale and intensity-dramatically to life.