For a soldier cook to become a hero is rather unusual. But this is exactly what the Ukrainian cook corporal of the Soviet army Ivan Pavlovich Sereda achieved. Sereda was born on July 1, 1919 in the village of Oleksandrifka near the city of Kramatorsk.
Ivan studied cooking in Donetsk. In November 1939 he was called up to serve in the army. He was assigned as a cook to the 91st Tank Regiment of the 46th Armored Division. There the war found him. On June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded the USSR. In August Sereda's unit was fighting in Latvia. Sereda was alone preparing dinner.
Suddenly a tank appeared. Sereda just thought he should prepare more food. But looking more closely he found that the chariot was German. He immediately hid behind a tent. The chariot stopped and four men got out and started talking. Sereda immediately grabbed his rifle and an ax he had for chopping wood and charged at them like a madman, screaming.
The Germans panicked and re-entered the tank which began to move. It was late in the afternoon and without seeing well the Germans started firing blindly with the machine guns of the tank. Sereda, however, had already climbed onto the chariot and with his heavy ax was hitting the cannon of the chariot, rendering it useless.
He continued to hit the tank, shouting for colleagues to bring grenades. Of course there was no one else there and his shouts were intended to frighten the Germans as they did. The Germans opened the door and one by one got out of the tank.
Sereda forced one German to tie up the others. Then he supervised them until his colleagues came and took them. After that the cook became a combat soldier . A few weeks later Sereda saw a German tank pursuing Soviet soldiers. At some point the chariot stopped and its commander opened the hatch. It was the opportunity Sereda had been waiting for.
He immediately rushed, climbed the chariot and threw a grenade inside killing the crew. Then, seeing German infantrymen approaching, he opened fire with the tank's machine gun and after killing about 10 Germans, forced several more to surrender.
Sereda promoted to officer and assumed platoon command of the 4th Rifle Regiment (F) of the 46th Rifle Division (MT). With his platoon he fought in the Leningrad region. Then, as a company commander of the 7th F of the 185th MT he took part in the Soviet counterattack around Moscow in the winter of 1941-42.
Keep fighting until the end of the war and was demobilized in 1945 as a lieutenant and also a Hero of the Soviet Union, having exchanged the ladle for good with the rifle and finally with the submachine gun.
