In August 1941, Ivan Pavlovich Sereda was serving as a cook with the 91st Tank Reg. 46th Tank Div. 21st Mechanized Corps. Based in a camp outside the city of Daugavpils, Latvia, the majority of the soldiers were out on tank maneuvers, leaving him alone in his field kitchen preparing dinner.
That evening, a tank rolled up near the camp and Sereda stared at it, wondering how many more men he would need to feed. Then he realized the tank was not Soviet-made. It was German.
Sereda hid behind the kitchen tent. The tank stopped in the clearing, and 4 soldiers got out. He grabbed his rifle and an axe he used for cutting wood and attacked the group in a screaming charge.
The Germans, thinking they were outnumbered, climbed back into their tank, they shut the hatch and seconds later opened fire with their machine gun, but Sereda was on the tank. With his axe, he hacked away at the gun barrel, pummeling until it bent.
The German troops revved up the tank to escape, but Sereda stuffed the peepholes so the Germans could not see out.
He continued hammering on the tank with his ax while yelling at his comrades to bring their tank grenades. There were no comrades around but not knowing that, the Germans surrendered.
Sereda ordered them out one by one. As each soldier appeared, he ordered them to tie each other up. On their return, Sereda’s superiors were impressed with his actions, and they made him a scout.
He was then made a platoon commander, fighting in Leningrad, the Battle of Moscow and more until being discharged as a Lt. in 1945, earning several medals for valor.
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