my hand. A transmitter, a radio transmitter, was on the breastwork completely smashed. They thought it had saved my life. However I don’t think so. I think I was just shaken with a wave, a blast wave; the shell hit the rifleman’s dug-out. The rifleman was torn to bits. To this day I have great pity, he was a very smart guy.”

Lev was rescued and placed on a medical train. He spent three months recuperating and began a radio training program while unable to return to combat. Radio operators were needed so Lev was sent back to the front as soon as he recovered, before officially completing his training. Lev arrived at the appointed location only to learn his new unit left ahead of schedule. He was able to join them on the way to Orsha and was with them for battles near Vitebsk and along The Moscow-Minks Highway.

“We walked around the Vitebsk fortified area, walked from the boggy area in the enemy’s rear line. Not until Vitebsk was conquered were we able to move from the flank, even from the enemy rear lines, the fortified area of Orsha section of the front. Only when the Germans started evacuation we were able to move forward to Orsha. We liberated Orsha and went on along Moscow-Warsaw highway, rather Minsk-Warsaw”.

Lev finished the war fighting in Lithuania. He was the only male attached to an all female artillery unit.

“And so when one of the radio operators left the ranks, posted from the unit, our battery commander offered “You know we need someone to come to artillery men to help”. “Will you go to the artillery crew, the gun platoon?” I go “If there is need in me, I will”. And so I was assigned to be an artillery crew member, a spotter. My task was like this. There was this antiaircraft artillery fire control device. I was to send via cables information picked up from a moving object. An object moving in the air, an enemy aircraft. My task was to read the distance and to spot the aircraft and perform adjustments to determine a type of a detonating fuse for a missile to hit the target. The spotter’s mission was very important. We had a special table showing for instance, that the altitude is 15 km… rather 15,000 meters. 15 km… I had to make adjustments taking into account the speed… for instance 4 to 12 km, that’s just an example. I was the only man there. Some of the women commanders made it clear that I was kind of in the way. “It was OK while he was a boy. When he’s in the toilet everyone has to wait for him to leave”. Anti-aircraft artillery command platoon was all women too, approximately 38 women in the platoon”.

Lev became a specialist in applied medicine after the war. He and his wife immigrated to Canada in 1994. They live in Vancouver near their children and grandchildren.