RUSSIAN SNIPER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3287, 12 July 1943, Page 6

RUSSIAN SNIPER

170 GERMANS KILLED CHALLENGE TO MINERS GREAT SOVIET EFFORT (By VERA MOROZOVA) A Russian soldier. Sniper Vassili Komaretsky, has already a score of .170 Germans. He practises his craft with an intensity notable even among our snipers, grudging even the time he must spend in sleep. His native village is in Nazi hands. So remarkable is his skill that Lieut.-General Belov recently presented him with his own rifle —the very rifle that had been a gift, to the General from the famous armourers of Tula. Komaretsky guards it as the apple of his eye. In one month ke killed 35 Germans with it. He picked off 17 Nazis during a single enemy attack. Waiting For Their Victims Every day at 3 a.m. Komaretsky and his senior-lieutenant take lip .their ■places in ambush about 100 yards from the advanced enemy lines. They carefully camouflage their post and settle down to wait for the dawn. In the morning the Germans set about their chores, preparing for the winter: Collecting logs for fuel; strengthening their defences. They are all fair game for Komaretsky. Not long ago, during a brief spell of leave. Komaretsky visited the Tula workmen, the makers of his rifle. He also went to the Moscow Coal Basin to se'e some miner friends 'of his in Shaft No. 10 of the Stalinogorsk coalmine. Three of them —Boriskin. Rudnev and Sharafigulin—had already cut 106 'truckloads above their yearly pffinKorametsky was delighted. ‘ When he got back to his unit he sent them a challenge. ' “Will Kill 35 Nazis a Month” “Let’s - have a competition,” he wrote. “I take on myself to kill not less than 35 Nazis a month and to master still better the soldier’s art, while you persevere for an even bigger coal output. All our efforts — yours in the mine and my own at the front—will be directed to one and the same end: to defeat the enemy as sobn as possible.” . The miners sent the sniper the following answer': “You have killed 170 Nazis. We also are working for victory. Our hammers are as good weapons as your rifle. In one month Sharafigulin produced 145 tons of coal above his normal output, Rudnev 130 and Boriskin 127. You have pledged yourself to annihilate 35 Hitlerites a month. We’ll take you on I “Show the Germans No Mercy” “Our pit was the first in the Soviet Union to fulfil its yearly plan of production. As early as October 25 we had started on our 1043 programme. We promise to produce 40 trainloads of’ coal above plan. We three pledge ourselves to turn'out another three trainloads of coal above the yearly plan, and each one of us is going to train 10 pupils. In addition, each of us has .given his word to establish a new record : to give 100 tons of coal a shift! “Dear Comrade Komaretsky! Show the Germans no mercy. Be sure that we will do our part for the front and the country!”