Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front

This book is written from a very interesting perspective--by a Soviet officer commanding British Matildas and US Shermans in the Red Army. Loza covers many very interesting facets of the fighting on the Russian front from a Russian perspective:

--what the Russian tankers liked & disliked about their British and US tanks;

--being ordered to fire on Russian infantry that was pulling back without orders;

--female Russian anti-tank gunners;

--armored advance through Mongolia in Summer 1945; etc.

Although this book has alot of fresh, interesting information, I only gave it four stars because:

--generally I don't think that the book is very well written;

--I didn't like the organization very much--the book is essentially a collection of stand-alone chapters on discrete topics or engagements; there is no narrative flow and the book is not intended as a coherent chronological account of the author's experiences in the war. Indeed, many of the accounts are jumbled chronologically for some reason. Finally, while many of the included accounts were quite interesting, as described above, some of the others, such as "Graves Registration" and "Home Leave" polices were less so (at least to me); and

--perhaps understandably as a participant of the war, the author does not come across as an objective commenator on the Red Army.