Tanker's Oath

"A Socialist Obligation of soldiers, commanders, and political workers of the 1st Tank Battalion, 100th Tank Brigade

To the People's Commissar of Tank Production, comrade V.A. Malyshev

We, the soldiers, commanders, and political workers, take on the following obligations based on the directions given to us by you when you visited our battalion to take care of our vehicles with love, strike the fascists without mercy, and fight for the Guards brigade. We swear to:

1. Carry out comrade Stalin's order #100 with honour. We will study our weapons to perfection, master the art of war, strike the fascist invaders until their annihilation.
2. We will fight such that every crew is granted the high government honour of the Order of the Patriotic War.
3. We will always keep our menacing tanks in full fighting order. In maintaining our expensive vehicles we swear to keep the engine running for 200 hours before medium repairs.
4. Each T-34 crew swears to destroy at least 5 German tanks on the front lines of the Patriotic War and to receive a T-34 tank as a gift from you for every 5 German tanks destroyed.
5. We swear to mercilessly defeat the fascist beasts in battle, to destroy their vehicles, to fight for the Guards brigade, and to honourably execute comrade Stalin's order to defeat the German fascists in 1942.

Death to German occupants!

This obligation is unanimously approved at the meeting of the 1st Tank Battalion, 100th Tank Brigade on June 9th, 1942.

Signed:

[signatures]"

RGAE F.8752 Op.4 D.220 pp. 13-14