THE FEAT OF A MAN IN WAR (BASED ON THE EXAMPLE OF ONE OF THE WORKS ABOUT THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR)
A home essay, one week was allotted for preparation and writing. The essay was analyzed by three of the author's classmates.
The events of the Great Patriotic War are receding further into the past, but with the passage of time they do not lose their significance. When war breaks into the peaceful life of people, it always brings grief and misfortune to families. The Russian people experienced the hardships of many wars, but never bowed their heads to the enemy and bravely endured all the hardships. The Great Patriotic War, which dragged on for four long years, became a real tragedy, a catastrophe. Both young men and men, even old men and women rose to defend the Fatherland. The war demanded from them the manifestation of the best human qualities: strength, courage, bravery. The theme of war, the great feat of the Russian people, has become the most important theme in Russian literature for many years.
Boris Vasiliev is one of those writers who himself went through the difficult and long roads of war, who himself defended his native land with arms in hand. The most talented, in my opinion, works of this author are “Not on the lists” and “And the dawns here are quiet...”. I admire the truthfulness with which Vasiliev writes. All his works are the experiences of an eyewitness, and not the inventions of a science fiction writer.
The story “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet...” tells about the distant events of 1942. German saboteurs are thrown into the location of an anti-aircraft machine gun battery, commanded by Sergeant Major Vaskov, and he has only young girls under his command. Assuming that there are not very many Germans, Vaskov decides to destroy the invaders with the help of five of his “warriors”. And he really does his job. But too much expensive price Paid Vaskov (preferably without a surname: the author has no emphasis on Vaskov’s personal guilt, the hero himself judges himself strictly. - Author’s note) for the victorious result of the battle.
The girls did not really respect their foreman: “a mossy stump, twenty words in reserve, and even those are from the regulations.” Danger brought all six together and revealed the best human qualities of the foreman, who was ready to sacrifice his life to save the girls. The sergeant-major is a real fighter, because he went through all of Finnish training. Probably, it was thanks to such Vaskovs that the great victory in the war was won.
One of my favorite heroines in this story was Rita Osyanina. This fragile, young girl had a very difficult fate. Sergeant Osyanina was the assistant sergeant major in the group. Vaskov immediately singled her out from the rest in the group: “she’s strict, she never laughs.” Rita is the last of the group to die, and she leaves this world, realizing that no one can accuse her of cowardice. How clearly the girl’s state in these last moments seems to me. How to breathe well... Catching the last seconds of this greatest, most wonderful joy, inhaling this tart, invigorating air! How I want, how I want to live!.. Another hour, another minute! One more second!!! But everything is decided. Everything that is necessary and possible has been done. Rita entrusts her child to the elder, as to her dearest person.
The red-haired beauty Komelkova saves the group three times. The first time in the scene by the bayou. In the second, helping the foreman, who was almost defeated by the German. In the third, she takes the fire upon herself, leading the Nazis away from the wounded Osyanina. The author admires the girl: “Tall, red-haired, white-skinned. And children’s eyes are green, round, like saucers.” The writer makes the reader feel the importance and depth of Zhenya’s feat. I don’t know why, but it was her fate that struck me. At the very beginning of the war, Zhenya’s entire family was shot by the Germans, not even sparing his younger brother. But, despite this, the girl did not harden her soul, did not become rude and cruel. And this wonderful girl dies, but she dies undefeated, performing a feat for the sake of others. I think that death has no power over such people.
Liza Brichkina evokes special sympathy among the reader (and even Sergeant Major Vaskov himself). Lisa was born in a small house in the wilderness. The daughter of a forester, Liza fell in love with Russian nature from early childhood. Dreamy Lisa. “Oh, Liza-Lizaveta, you should study!” But no, the war got in the way! You won’t find your happiness, won’t give you lectures: I didn’t have time to see everything I dreamed of! Liza Brichkina dies, wanting to quickly cross the swamp and call for help. Dies with the thought of his tomorrow...
Small and discreet Galya Chetvertak... Never matured, funny and awkwardly childish girl. And her death was as small as she herself.
The impressionable Sonya Gurvich, a lover of Blok’s poetry, also dies when she returns for the pouch left by the foreman. The behavior of each of the five girls is a feat, because they are completely unsuited to military conditions. And even “non-heroic” deaths, for all their apparent randomness, are associated with self-sacrifice.
And Sergeant Major Vaskov remains. Alone in the midst of pain, torment, alone with death. Is it alone? He now has five times more strength. And what was best in him, humane, but hidden in his soul, is all revealed suddenly. The death of five girls, his “sisters,” leaves a deep wound in the soul of the foreman. After all, in each of them he sees a future mother who could have had children, grandchildren, but now “there won’t be this thread! A small thread in the endless yarn of humanity!
The war did not bypass Russian women; the Nazis forced mothers, present and future, to fight, in whom the hatred of murder was inherent by nature. These girls, completely different in character, had one feeling that united them: they loved their Motherland, they were ready to sacrifice themselves. They became soldiers. It’s scary to imagine cute, very young girls with machine guns on their shoulders. They sacrificed their youth, their happiness for the sake of our future, our joy and youth. We won't forget them. Because human pain cannot be forgotten. You can’t throw memories of her into the farthest, dustiest corner of your memory and never get them out of there. This needs to be remembered. Remember to prevent recurrence.
Forgetting the pain of the Great Patriotic War is not only impossible, but also impossible. For decades to come, dry numbers of soulless statistics will remind us of this terrible tragedy of the people and this great feat of the Russian people. And for a long, very long time, even if all the archives burn, works of art will remind us of this tragedy. And many generations, reading the books of B. Vasiliev, Yu. Bondarev, K. Simonov, M. Sholokhov, V. Nekrasov, V. Panova and other authors, will remember the heroic struggle of the Russian people in this war, will feel pain for the broken threads of human destinies and births.
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During the Great Patriotic War, heroism was the norm of behavior of Soviet people; the war revealed the fortitude and courage of the Soviet people. Thousands of soldiers and officers sacrificed their lives in the battles of Moscow, Kursk and Stalingrad, in the defense of Leningrad and Sevastopol, in the North Caucasus and the Dnieper, during the storming of Berlin and in other battles - and immortalized their names. Women and children fought alongside men. Home front workers played a big role. People who worked, exhausting themselves, to provide the soldiers with food, clothing and, at the same time, a bayonet and a shell.
We will talk about those who gave their lives, strength and savings for the sake of Victory. These are the great people of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
Doctors are heroes. Zinaida Samsonova
During the war, more than two hundred thousand doctors and half a million average doctors worked at the front and in the rear. medical personnel. And half of them were women.
The working day of doctors and nurses in medical battalions and front-line hospitals often lasted several days. Sleepless nights medical workers stood relentlessly near the operating tables, and some of them pulled the dead and wounded out of the battlefield on their backs. Among the doctors there were many of their “sailors” who, saving the wounded, covered them with their bodies from bullets and shell fragments.
Without sparing, as they say, their belly, they raised the spirit of the soldiers, raised the wounded from their hospital beds and sent them back into battle to defend their country, their Motherland, their people, their home from the enemy. Among the large army of doctors, I would like to mention the name of Hero of the Soviet Union Zinaida Aleksandrovna Samsonova, who went to the front when she was only seventeen years old. Zinaida, or, as her fellow soldiers sweetly called her, Zinochka, was born in the village of Bobkovo, Yegoryevsky district, Moscow region.
Just before the war, she entered the Yegoryevsk Medical School to study. When the enemy entered her native land and the country was in danger, Zina decided that she must definitely go to the front. And she rushed there.
She has been in the active army since 1942 and immediately finds herself on the front line. Zina was a sanitary instructor for a rifle battalion. The soldiers loved her for her smile, for her selfless assistance to the wounded. With her fighters, Zina went through the most terrible battles, this is the Battle of Stalingrad. She fought on the Voronezh Front and on other fronts.
Zinaida Samsonova In the fall of 1943, she participated in the landing operation to capture a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper near the village of Sushki, Kanevsky district, now Cherkasy region. Here she, together with her fellow soldiers, managed to capture this bridgehead.
Zina carried more than thirty wounded from the battlefield and transported them to the other side of the Dnieper. There were legends about this fragile nineteen-year-old girl. Zinochka was distinguished by her courage and bravery.
When the commander died near the village of Kholm in 1944, Zina, without hesitation, took command of the battle and raised the soldiers to attack. In this battle, the last time her fellow soldiers heard her amazing, slightly hoarse voice: “Eagles, follow me!”
Zinochka Samsonova died in this battle on January 27, 1944 for the village of Kholm in Belarus. She was buried in a mass grave in Ozarichi, Kalinkovsky district, Gomel region.
For her perseverance, courage and bravery, Zinaida Aleksandrovna Samsonova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The school where Zina Samsonova once studied was named after her.
A special period of activity for Soviet foreign intelligence officers was associated with the Great Patriotic War. Already at the end of June 1941, the newly created State Defense Committee of the USSR considered the issue of foreign intelligence work and clarified its tasks. They were subordinated to one goal - the speedy defeat of the enemy. For exemplary performance of special tasks behind enemy lines, nine career foreign intelligence officers were awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This is S.A. Vaupshasov, I.D. Kudrya, N.I. Kuznetsov, V.A. Lyagin, D.N. Medvedev, V.A. Molodtsov, K.P. Orlovsky, N.A. Prokopyuk, A.M. Rabtsevich. Here we will talk about one of the scout-heroes - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.
From the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was enrolled in the fourth directorate of the NKVD, whose main task was to organize reconnaissance and sabotage activities behind enemy lines. After numerous trainings and studying the morals and life of the Germans in a prisoner of war camp, under the name of Paul Wilhelm Siebert, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sent behind enemy lines along the line of terror. At first, the special agent conducted his secret activities in the Ukrainian city of Rivne, where the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine was located. Kuznetsov communicated closely with enemy intelligence officers and the Wehrmacht, as well as local officials. All information obtained was transferred to the partisan detachment. One of the remarkable exploits of the USSR secret agent was the capture of the Reichskommissariat courier, Major Gahan, who was carrying a secret map in his briefcase. After interrogating Gahan and studying the map, it turned out that a bunker for Hitler was built eight kilometers from the Ukrainian Vinnitsa.
In November 1943, Kuznetsov managed to organize the kidnapping of German Major General M. Ilgen, who was sent to Rivne to destroy partisan formations.
The last operation of intelligence officer Siebert in this post was the liquidation in November 1943 of the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine, Oberführer Alfred Funk. After interrogating Funk, the brilliant intelligence officer managed to obtain information about the preparations for the assassination of the heads of the “Big Three” of the Tehran Conference, as well as information about the enemy’s offensive on the Kursk Bulge. In January 1944, Kuznetsov was ordered to go to Lviv along with the retreating fascist troops to continue his sabotage activities. Scouts Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov were sent to help Agent Siebert. Under the leadership of Nikolai Kuznetsov, several occupiers were destroyed in Lviv, for example, the head of the government chancellery, Heinrich Schneider and Otto Bauer.
From the first days of the occupation, boys and girls began to act decisively, and a secret organization “Young Avengers” was created. The guys fought against the fascist occupiers. They blew up a water pumping station, which delayed the sending of ten fascist trains to the front. While distracting the enemy, the Avengers destroyed bridges and highways, blew up a local power plant, and burned down a factory. Having obtained information about the actions of the Germans, they immediately passed it on to the partisans.
Zina Portnova was assigned increasingly complex tasks. According to one of them, the girl managed to get a job in a German canteen. After working there for a while, she carried out an effective operation - she poisoned food for German soldiers. More than 100 fascists suffered from her lunch. The Germans began to blame Zina. Wanting to prove her innocence, the girl tried the poisoned soup and only miraculously survived.
Zina Portnova In 1943, traitors appeared who revealed secret information and handed our guys over to the Nazis. Many were arrested and shot. Then the command of the partisan detachment instructed Portnova to establish contact with those who survived. The Nazis captured the young partisan when she was returning from a mission. Zina was terribly tortured. But the answer to the enemy was only her silence, contempt and hatred. The interrogations did not stop.
“The Gestapo man came to the window. And Zina, rushing to the table, grabbed the pistol. Apparently catching the rustle, the officer turned around impulsively, but the weapon was already in her hand. She pulled the trigger. For some reason I didn’t hear the shot. I just saw how the German, clutching his chest with his hands, fell to the floor, and the second one, sitting at the side table, jumped up from his chair and hastily unfastened the holster of his revolver. She pointed the gun at him too. Again, almost without aiming, she pulled the trigger. Rushing to the exit, Zina pulled the door open, jumped out into the next room and from there onto the porch. There she shot at the sentry almost point-blank. Running out of the commandant’s office building, Portnova rushed like a whirlwind down the path.
“If only I could run to the river,” the girl thought. But from behind there was the sound of a chase... “Why don’t they shoot?” The surface of the water already seemed very close. And beyond the river the forest turned black. She heard the sound of machine gun fire and something prickly pierced her leg. Zina fell on the river sand. She still had enough strength to rise slightly and shoot... She saved the last bullet for herself.
When the Germans got very close, she decided it was all over and pointed the gun at her chest and pulled the trigger. But there was no shot: it misfired. The fascist knocked the pistol out of her weakening hands.”
Zina was sent to prison. The Germans brutally tortured the girl for more than a month; they wanted her to betray her comrades. But having taken an oath of allegiance to the Motherland, Zina kept it.
On the morning of January 13, 1944, a gray-haired and blind girl was taken out to be executed. She walked, stumbling with her bare feet in the snow.
The girl withstood all the torture. She truly loved our Motherland and died for it, firmly believing in our victory.
Zinaida Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet people, realizing that the front needed their help, made every effort. Engineering geniuses simplified and improved production. Women who had recently sent their husbands, brothers and sons to the front took their place at the machine, mastering professions unfamiliar to them. “Everything for the front, everything for victory!” Children, old people and women gave all their strength, gave themselves for the sake of victory.
This is how the collective farmers’ call sounded in one of the regional newspapers: “... we must give the army and the working people more bread, meat, milk, vegetables and agricultural raw materials for industry. We, the state farm workers, must hand over this together with the collective farm peasantry.” Only from these lines can one judge how obsessed the home front workers were with thoughts of victory, and what sacrifices they were willing to make to bring this long-awaited day closer. Even when they received a funeral, they did not stop working, knowing that it was The best way to take revenge on the hated fascists for the death of their relatives and friends.
On December 15, 1942, Ferapont Golovaty gave all his savings - 100 thousand rubles - to purchase an aircraft for the Red Army, and asked to transfer the aircraft to a pilot of the Stalingrad Front. In a letter addressed to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, he wrote that, having escorted his two sons to the front, he himself wanted to contribute to the cause of victory. Stalin responded: “Thank you, Ferapont Petrovich, for your concern for the Red Army and its Air Force. The Red Army will not forget that you gave all your savings to build a combat aircraft. Please accept my greetings." The initiative was given serious attention. The decision about who exactly would get the plane was made by the Military Council of the Stalingrad Front. The combat vehicle was awarded to one of the best - the commander of the 31st Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, Major Boris Nikolaevich Eremin. The fact that Eremin and Golovaty were fellow countrymen also played a role.
Victory in the Great Patriotic War was achieved through superhuman efforts of both front-line soldiers and home front workers. And we need to remember this. Today's generation should not forget their feat.
Before the war, these were the most ordinary boys and girls. They studied, helped their elders, played, raised pigeons, and sometimes even took part in fights. But the hour of difficult trials came and they proved how huge an ordinary little child’s heart can become when a sacred love for the Motherland, pain for the fate of one’s people and hatred for enemies flares up in it. And no one expected that it was these boys and girls who were capable of accomplishing a great feat for the glory of the freedom and independence of their Motherland!
Children left in destroyed cities and villages became homeless, doomed to starvation. It was scary and difficult to stay in enemy-occupied territory. Children could be sent to a concentration camp, taken to work in Germany, turned into slaves, made donors for German soldiers, etc.
Here are the names of some of them: Volodya Kazmin, Yura Zhdanko, Lenya Golikov, Marat Kazei, Lara Mikheenko, Valya Kotik, Tanya Morozova, Vitya Korobkov, Zina Portnova. Many of them fought so hard that they earned military orders and medals, and four: Marat Kazei, Valya Kotik, Zina Portnova, Lenya Golikov, became Heroes of the Soviet Union.
From the first days of the occupation, boys and girls began to act at their own risk, which was truly fatal.
"Fedya Samodurov. Fedya is 14 years old, he is a graduate of a motorized rifle unit, commanded by Guard Captain A. Chernavin. Fedya was picked up in his homeland, in a destroyed village in the Voronezh region. Together with the unit, he took part in the battles for Ternopil, with machine-gun crews he kicked the Germans out of the city. When almost the entire crew was killed, the teenager, together with the surviving soldier, took up the machine gun, firing long and hard, and detained the enemy. Fedya was awarded the medal "For Courage".
Vanya Kozlov, 13 years old,he was left without relatives and has been in a motorized rifle unit for two years now. At the front, he delivers food, newspapers and letters to soldiers in the most difficult conditions.
Petya Zub. Petya Zub chose an equally difficult specialty. He decided long ago to become a scout. His parents were killed, and he knows how to settle accounts with the damned German. Together with experienced scouts, he gets to the enemy, reports his location by radio, and the artillery, at their direction, fires, crushing the fascists." ("Arguments and Facts", No. 25, 2010, p. 42).
A sixteen year old schoolgirl Olya Demesh with her younger sister Lida At the Orsha station in Belarus, on the instructions of the commander of the partisan brigade S. Zhulin, fuel tanks were blown up using magnetic mines. Of course, girls attracted much less attention from German guards and policemen than teenage boys or adult men. But the girls were just right to play with dolls, and they fought with Wehrmacht soldiers!
Thirteen-year-old Lida often took a basket or bag and went to the railway tracks to collect coal, obtaining intelligence about German military trains. If the guards stopped her, she explained that she was collecting coal to heat the room in which the Germans lived. Olya’s mother and little sister Lida were captured and shot by the Nazis, but Olya continued to fearlessly carry out the partisans’ tasks.
The Nazis promised a generous reward for the head of the young partisan Olya Demesh - land, a cow and 10 thousand marks. Copies of her photograph were distributed and sent to all patrol officers, policemen, wardens and secret agents. Capture and deliver her alive - that was the order! But they failed to catch the girl. Olga destroyed 20 German soldiers and officers, derailed 7 enemy trains, conducted reconnaissance, participated in the “rail war”, and in the destruction of German punitive units.
Children of the Great Patriotic War
What happened to the children during this terrible time? During the war?
The guys worked for days in factories, factories and factories, standing at the machines instead of brothers and fathers who had gone to the front. Children also worked at defense enterprises: they made fuses for mines, fuses for hand grenades, smoke bombs, colored flares, and assembled gas masks. Worked in agriculture, grew vegetables for hospitals.
In school sewing workshops, pioneers sewed underwear and tunics for the army. The girls knitted warm clothes for the front: mittens, socks, scarves, and sewed tobacco pouches. The guys helped the wounded in hospitals, wrote letters to their relatives under their dictation, staged performances for the wounded, organized concerts, bringing a smile to war-weary adult men.
A number of objective reasons: the departure of teachers to the army, the evacuation of the population from the western regions to the eastern, the inclusion of students in labor activity due to the departure of family breadwinners for the war, the transfer of many schools to hospitals, etc., prevented the deployment of a universal seven-year compulsory school in the USSR during the war. training started in the 30s. In the remaining educational institutions training was carried out in two, three, and sometimes four shifts.
At the same time, the children were forced to store firewood for the boiler houses themselves. There were no textbooks, and due to a shortage of paper, they wrote on old newspapers between the lines. Nevertheless, new schools were opened and additional classes were created. Boarding schools were created for evacuated children. For those youth who left school at the beginning of the war and were employed in industry or agriculture, schools for working and rural youth were organized in 1943.
There are still many little-known pages in the chronicles of the Great Patriotic War, for example, the fate of kindergartens. “It turns out that in December 1941, in besieged MoscowKindergartens operated in bomb shelters. When the enemy was repulsed, they resumed their work faster than many universities. By the fall of 1942, 258 kindergartens had opened in Moscow!
From the memories of Lydia Ivanovna Kostyleva’s wartime childhood:
“After the death of my grandmother, I was assigned to kindergarten, older sister at school, mother at work. I went to kindergarten alone, by tram, when I was less than five years old. Once I got seriously ill with mumps, I was lying at home alone with high temperature, there was no medicine, in my delirium I imagined a piglet running under the table, but everything turned out okay.
I saw my mother in the evenings and on rare weekends. The children were raised on the street, we were friendly and always hungry. Since early spring, we have been running around on the mosses, fortunately the forest and swamps are nearby, collecting berries, mushrooms, and various early grass. The bombings gradually stopped, Allied residences were located in our Arkhangelsk, this brought a certain flavor to life - we, the children, sometimes received warm clothes and some food. Mostly we ate black shangi, potatoes, seal meat, fish and fish fat, on holidays - “marmalade” made from seaweed, tinted with beets.”
More than five hundred teachers and nannies dug trenches on the outskirts of the capital in the fall of 1941. Hundreds worked in logging operations. The teachers, who just yesterday were dancing with the children in a round dance, fought in the Moscow militia. Natasha Yanovskaya, a kindergarten teacher in the Baumansky district, died heroically near Mozhaisk. The teachers who remained with the children did not perform any feats. They simply saved children whose fathers were fighting and whose mothers were at work.
Most kindergartens became boarding schools during the war; children were there day and night. And in order to feed children in half-starvation, protect them from the cold, give them at least a modicum of comfort, occupy them with benefit for the mind and soul - such work required great love for children, deep decency and boundless patience." (D. Shevarov " World of News", No. 27, 2010, p. 27).
Children's games have changed, "... a new game- to the hospital. Hospital has been played before, but not like this. Now the wounded for them - real people. But they play war less often, because no one wants to be a fascist. Trees perform this role for them. They shoot snowballs at them. We learned to provide assistance to victims - those who fell, were hurt."
From a boy’s letter to a front-line soldier: “We used to often play war, but now much less often - we’re tired of the war, it would sooner end so that we could live well again...” (Ibid.).
Due to the death of their parents, many homeless children appeared in the country. The Soviet state, despite the difficult wartime, still fulfilled its obligations to children left without parents. To combat neglect, a network of children's reception centers and orphanages was organized and opened, and employment of teenagers was organized.
Many families of Soviet citizens began to take in orphans to raise them., where they found new parents. Unfortunately, not all teachers and heads of children's institutions were distinguished by honesty and decency. Here are some examples.
"In the autumn of 1942, in the Pochinkovsky district of the Gorky region, children dressed in rags were caught stealing potatoes and grain from collective farm fields. It turned out that the pupils of the district orphanage. And they did this not at all out of a good life. Upon further investigation, local police discovered a criminal group, or, in fact, a gang, consisting of employees of this institution.
In total, seven people were arrested in the case, including the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev, accountant Sdobnov, storekeeper Mukhina and other persons. During the searches, 14 children's coats, seven suits, 30 meters of cloth, 350 meters of textiles and other illegally appropriated property, allocated with great difficulty by the state during this harsh wartime, were confiscated from them.
The investigation established that by failing to supply the required quota of bread and products, these criminals stole seven tons of bread, half a ton of meat, 380 kg of sugar, 180 kg of cookies, 106 kg of fish, 121 kg of honey, etc. during 1942 alone. The orphanage workers sold all these scarce products on the market or simply ate them themselves.
Only one comrade Novoseltsev received fifteen portions of breakfast and lunch every day for himself and his family members. The rest of the staff also ate well at the expense of the pupils. The children were fed “dishes” made from rotten vegetables, citing poor supplies.
For the entire 1942, they were only given one piece of candy once, for the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution... And what is most surprising, the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev, in the same 1942, received a certificate of honor from the People's Commissariat of Education for excellent educational work. All these fascists were deservedly sentenced to long terms of imprisonment." (Zefirov M.V., Dektyarev D.M. “Everything for the front? How victory was actually forged,” pp. 388-391).
At such a time, the whole essence of a person is revealed.. Every day we face a choice - what to do.. And the war showed us examples of great mercy, great heroism and great cruelty, great meanness.. We must remember this!! For the sake of the future!!
And no amount of time can heal the wounds of war, especially children’s wounds. “These years that once were, the bitterness of childhood does not allow one to forget...”
Fifty great feats of Soviet soldiers worthy of memory and admiration...
1) Only 30 minutes were allocated by the Wehrmacht command to suppress the resistance of the border guards. However, the 13th outpost under the command of A. Lopatin fought for more than 10 days and the Brest Fortress for more than a month.
2) At 4:25 a.m. on June 22, 1941, pilot Senior Lieutenant I. Ivanov carried out an aerial ram. This was the first feat during the war; awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
3) The first counterattack was carried out by border guards and units of the Red Army on June 23. They liberated the city of Przemysl, and two groups of border guards broke into Zasanje (Polish territory occupied by Germany), where they destroyed the headquarters of the German division and the Gestapo, and freed many prisoners.
4) During heavy battles with enemy tanks and assault guns, the gunner of the 76 mm gun of the 636th anti-tank artillery regiment, Alexander Serov, destroyed 18 tanks and fascist assault guns on June 23 and 24, 1941. The relatives received two funerals, but the brave warrior remained alive. Recently, the veteran was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
5) On the night of August 8, 1941, a group of Baltic Fleet bombers under the command of Colonel E. Preobrazhensky carried out the first air raid on Berlin. Such raids continued until September 4th.
6) Lieutenant Dmitry Lavrinenko from the 4th Tank Brigade is rightfully considered the number one tank ace. During three months of fighting in September-November 1941, he destroyed 52 enemy tanks in 28 battles. Unfortunately, the brave tankman died in November 1941 near Moscow.
7) The most unique record of the Great Patriotic War was set by the crew of Senior Lieutenant Zinovy Kolobanov on the KV tank from the 1st Tank Division. In 3 hours of battle in the area of the Voyskovitsy state farm (Leningrad region), he destroyed 22 enemy tanks.
8) In the battle for Zhitomir in the area of the Nizhnekumsky farm on December 31, 1943, the crew of junior lieutenant Ivan Golub (13th Guards Tank Brigade of the 4th Guards Tank Corps.) destroyed 5 "tigers", 2 "Panthers", 5 hundreds of guns fascists.
9) The crew of an anti-tank gun, consisting of senior sergeant R. Sinyavsky and corporal A. Mukozobov (542nd Infantry Regiment, 161st Infantry Division), destroyed 17 enemy tanks and assault guns in battles near Minsk from June 22 to 26. For this feat, the soldiers were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
10) Crew of the gun of the 197th Guards. regiment of the 92nd Guards rifle division (152 mm howitzer) consisting of the brothers of the guard senior sergeant Dmitry Lukanin and the guard sergeant Yakov Lukanin from October 1943 until the end of the war, destroyed 37 tanks and armored personnel carriers and more than 600 enemy soldiers and officers. For the battle near the village of Kaluzhino, Dnepropetrovsk region, the fighters were awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Now their 152-mm howitzer gun is installed in the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, engineering troops and signal troops. (Saint Petersburg).
11) The commander of the 37 mm gun crew of the 93rd separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion, Sergeant Petr Petrov, is rightfully considered the most successful anti-aircraft gunner ace. In June-September 1942, his crew destroyed 20 enemy aircraft. The crew under the command of a senior sergeant (632nd anti-aircraft artillery regiment) destroyed 18 enemy aircraft.
12) In two years, the calculation of a 37 mm gun of the 75th Guards. army anti-aircraft artillery regiment under the command of Guards. Petty Officer Nikolai Botsman destroyed 15 enemy aircraft. The latter were shot down in the sky over Berlin.
13) Gunner of the 1st Baltic Front Klavdiya Barkhotkina hit 12 enemy air targets.
14) The most effective of the Soviet boatmen was Lieutenant-Commander Alexander Shabalin (Northern Fleet); he led the destruction of 32 enemy warships and transports (as commander of a boat, a flight and a detachment of torpedo boats). For his exploits, A. Shabalin was twice awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
15) Over the course of several months of fighting on the Bryansk Front, soldier of the fighter squad, Private Vasily Putchin, destroyed 37 enemy tanks with only grenades and Molotov cocktails.
16) At the height of the battles on the Kursk Bulge on July 7, 1943, machine gunner of the 1019th regiment, senior sergeant Yakov Studennikov, alone (the rest of his crew died) fought for two days. Having been wounded, he managed to repel 10 Nazi attacks and destroyed more than 300 Nazis. For his accomplished feat, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
17) About the feat of the soldiers of the 316th SD. (divisional commander, Major General I. Panfilov) at the well-known Dubosekovo crossing on November 16, 1941, 28 tank destroyers met the attack of 50 tanks, of which 18 were destroyed. Hundreds of enemy soldiers met their end at Dubosekovo. But few people know about the feat of the soldiers of the 1378th regiment of the 87th division. On December 17, 1942, in the area of the village of Verkhne-Kumskoye, soldiers from the company of senior lieutenant Nikolai Naumov with two crews of anti-tank rifles, while defending a height of 1372 m, repelled 3 attacks by enemy tanks and infantry. The next day there were several more attacks. All 24 soldiers died defending the heights, but the enemy lost 18 tanks and hundreds of infantrymen.
18) In the battle of Stalingrad on September 1, 1943, machine gunner Sergeant Khanpasha Nuradilov destroyed 920 fascists.
19) In the Battle of Stalingrad, in one battle on December 21, 1942, Marine I. Kaplunov knocked out 9 enemy tanks. He knocked out 5 and, being seriously wounded, disabled 4 more tanks.
20) During the Battle of Kursk on July 6, 1943, Guard pilot Lieutenant A. Horovets took part in battle with 20 enemy aircraft, and shot down 9 of them.
21) The crew of the submarine under the command of P. Grishchenko sunk 19 enemy ships, moreover, in the initial period of the war.
22) Northern Fleet pilot B. Safonov shot down 30 enemy aircraft from June 1941 to May 1942 and became the first twice Hero of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.
23) During the defense of Leningrad, sniper F. Dyachenko destroyed 425 Nazis.
24) The first Decree on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the war was adopted by the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces on July 8, 1941. It was awarded to pilots M. Zhukov, S. Zdorovets, P. Kharitonov for air ramming in the sky of Leningrad.
25) The famous pilot I. Kozhedub received the third Gold Star - at the age of 25, artilleryman A. Shilin received the second Gold Star - at the age of 20.
26) During the Great Patriotic War, five schoolchildren under the age of 16 received the title of Hero: Sasha Chekalin and Lenya Golikov - at 15 years old, Valya Kotik, Marat Kazei and Zina Portnova - at 14 years old.
27) The heroes of the Soviet Union were pilots brothers Boris and Dmitry Glinka (Dmitry later became a twice Hero), tankers Evsei and Matvey Vainruba, partisans Evgeniy and Gennady Ignatov, pilots Tamara and Vladimir Konstantinov, Zoya and Alexander Kosmodemyansky, brothers pilots Sergei and Alexander Kurzenkov, brothers Alexander and Pyotr Lizyukov, twin brothers Dmitry and Yakov Lukanin, brothers Nikolai and Mikhail Panichkin.
28) More than 300 Soviet soldiers covered the enemy's embrasures with their bodies, about 500 aviators used an air ram in battle, over 300 crews sent downed planes to concentrations of enemy troops.
29) During the war, more than 6,200 partisan detachments and underground groups, in which there were over 1,000,000 people's avengers, operated behind enemy lines.
30) During the war years, 5,300,000 orders and 7,580,000 medals were awarded.
31) There were about 600,000 women in the active army, more than 150,000 of them were awarded orders and medals, 86 were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
32) 10,900 times regiments and divisions were awarded the Order of the USSR, 29 units and formations have 5 or more awards.
33) During the Great Patriotic War, 41,000 people were awarded the Order of Lenin, of which 36,000 were awarded for military exploits. More than 200 military units and formations were awarded the Order of Lenin.
34) More than 300,000 people were awarded the Order of the Red Banner during the war.
35) For exploits during the Great Patriotic War, more than 2,860,000 awards were made with the Order of the Red Star.
36) The Order of Suvorov 1st degree was first awarded to G. Zhukov, the Order of Suvorov 2nd degree No. 1 was awarded to Major General of Tank Forces V. Badanov.
37) The Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree No. 1, was awarded to Lieutenant General N. Galanin, the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 1st degree No. 1, was awarded to General A. Danilo.
38) During the war years, 340 were awarded the Order of Suvorov 1st degree, 2nd degree - 2100, 3rd degree - 300, Order of Ushakov 1st degree - 30, 2nd degree - 180, Order of Kutuzov 1st degree - 570, 2nd degree - 2570, 3rd degree - 2200, Order of Nakhimov 1st degree - 70, 2nd degree - 350, Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky 1st degree - 200, 2nd degree - 1450 , 3rd degree - 5400, Order of Alexander Nevsky - 40,000.
39) The Order of the Great Patriotic War, 1st degree No. 1, was awarded to the family of the deceased senior political instructor V. Konyukhov.
40) Order Great War Wars of the 2nd degree were awarded to the parents of the deceased senior lieutenant P. Razhkin.
41) N. Petrov received six Orders of the Red Banner during the Great Patriotic War. The feat of N. Yanenkov and D. Panchuk was awarded with four Orders of the Patriotic War. Six Orders of the Red Star awarded the merits of I. Panchenko.
42) The Order of Glory, 1st degree No. 1, was received by Sergeant Major N. Zalyotov.
43) 2,577 people became full holders of the Order of Glory. After the soldiers, 8 full holders of the Order of Glory became Heroes of Socialist Labor.
44) During the war years, about 980,000 people were awarded the Order of Glory, 3rd degree, and more than 46,000 people, 2nd and 1st degrees.
45) Only 4 people - Heroes of the Soviet Union - are full holders of the Order of Glory. These are guard artillerymen senior sergeants A. Aleshin and N. Kuznetsov, infantryman foreman P. Dubina, pilot senior lieutenant I. Drachenko, who lived in Kyiv in the last years of his life.
46) During the Great Patriotic War, the medal “For Courage” was awarded to more than 4,000,000 people, “For Military Merit” - 3,320,000.
47) The military feat of intelligence officer V. Breev was awarded with six medals “For Courage”.
48) The youngest of those awarded the medal “For Military Merit” is six-year-old Seryozha Aleshkov.
49) The medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War”, 1st degree, was awarded to more than 56,000 people, 2nd degree - about 71,000 people.
50) 185,000 people were awarded orders and medals for their feats behind enemy lines.
Law and duty No. 5, 2011
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Heroes of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945):
- Fifty facts: the exploits of Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War- Law and duty
- 5 myths about the beginning of the war from military historian Alexei Isaev- Thomas
- Pobeda or Pobeda: how we fought- Sergey Fedosov
- The Red Army through the eyes of the Wehrmacht: confrontation of spirit- Eurasian Youth Union
- Otto Skorzeny: "Why didn't we take Moscow?"- Oles Buzina
- In the first air battle - don't touch anything. How aircraft gunners were trained and how they fought - Maxim Krupinov
- Saboteurs from a rural school- Vladimir Tikhomirov
- An Ossetian shepherd killed 108 Germans in one battle at the age of 23- Cont
- Mad warrior Jack Churchill- Wikipedia
Introduction
This short article contains only a drop of information about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. In fact, there are a huge number of heroes and collecting all the information about these people and their exploits is a titanic work and it is already a little beyond the scope of our project. However, we decided to start with 5 heroes - many have heard about some of them, there is a little less information about others and few people know about them, especially the younger generation.
Victory in the Great Patriotic War was achieved by the Soviet people thanks to their incredible effort, dedication, ingenuity and self-sacrifice. This is especially clearly revealed in the heroes of the war, who performed incredible feats on the battlefield and beyond. These great people should be known to everyone who is grateful to their fathers and grandfathers for the opportunity to live in peace and tranquility.
Viktor Vasilievich Talalikhin
The story of Viktor Vasilyevich begins with the small village of Teplovka, located in the Saratov province. Here he was born in the fall of 1918. His parents were simple workers. After graduating from college, which specialized in producing workers for factories and factories, he himself worked at a meat processing plant and at the same time attended a flying club. Afterwards he graduated from one of the few pilot schools in Borisoglebsk. He took part in the conflict between our country and Finland, where he received a baptism of fire. During the period of confrontation between the USSR and Finland, Talalikhin carried out about five dozen combat missions, while destroying several enemy aircraft, as a result of which he was awarded the honorary Order of the Red Star in the forties for special successes and the completion of assigned tasks.
Viktor Vasilyevich distinguished himself by heroic feats already during the battles in the great war for our people. Although he was credited with about sixty combat missions, the main battle took place on August 6, 1941 in the skies over Moscow. As part of a small air group, Victor flew out on an I-16 to repel an enemy air attack on the capital of the USSR. At an altitude of several kilometers, he met a German He-111 bomber. Talalikhin fired several machine-gun bursts at him, but the German plane skillfully dodged them. Then Viktor Vasilyevich, through a cunning maneuver and subsequent shots from a machine gun, hit one of the bomber’s engines, but this did not help stop the “German”. To the chagrin of the Russian pilot, after unsuccessful attempts to stop the bomber, there were no live cartridges left, and Talalikhin decides to ram. For this ram he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
During the war there were many such cases, but as fate would have it, Talalikhin became the first who decided to ram, neglecting his own safety, in our skies. He died in October 1941 with the rank of squadron commander, while performing another combat mission.
Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub
In the village of Obrazhievka, the future hero, Ivan Kozhedub, was born into a family of simple peasants. After graduating from school in 1934, he entered the Chemical Technology College. The Shostka Aero Club was the first place where Kozhedub acquired flying skills. Then in 1940 he enlisted in the army. In the same year, he successfully entered and graduated from the military aviation school in the city of Chuguev.
Ivan Nikitovich took direct part in the Great Patriotic War. He has more than a hundred air battles to his name, during which he shot down 62 aircraft. From large quantity combat missions, two main ones can be distinguished - the battle with the Me-262 fighter, which has jet engine, and an attack on a group of FW-190 bombers.
The battle with the Me-262 jet fighter took place in mid-February 1945. On this day, Ivan Nikitovich, together with his partner Dmitry Tatarenko, flew out on La-7 planes to hunt. After a short search, they came across a low-flying plane. He flew along the river from Frankfurt an der Oder. As they got closer, the pilots discovered that it was a new generation Me-262 aircraft. But this did not discourage the pilots from attacking an enemy plane. Then Kozhedub decided to attack on a collision course, since this was the only opportunity to destroy the enemy. During the attack, the wingman fired a short burst from a machine gun ahead of schedule, which could have confused all the cards. But to the surprise of Ivan Nikitovich, such an outburst by Dmitry Tatarenko had a positive effect. The German pilot turned around in such a way that he ended up in Kozhedub’s sights. All he had to do was pull the trigger and destroy the enemy. Which is what he did.
Ivan Nikitovich performed his second heroic feat in mid-April 1945 in the area of the capital of Germany. Again, together with Titarenko, performing another combat mission, they discovered a group of FW-190 bombers with full combat kits. Kozhedub immediately reported this to the command post, but without waiting for reinforcements, he began an attack maneuver. German pilots saw two Soviet planes take off and disappear into the clouds, but they did not attach any importance to this. Then the Russian pilots decided to attack. Kozhedub descended to the Germans’ flight altitude and began shooting them, and Titarenko from a higher altitude fired in short bursts at different directions, trying to give the enemy the impression of the presence of a large number of Soviet fighters. The German pilots believed at first, but after several minutes of battle their doubts were dispelled, and they moved on to active action to destroy the enemy. Kozhedub was on the verge of death in this battle, but his friend saved him. When Ivan Nikitovich tried to get away from the German fighter that was pursuing him and was in the firing position of the Soviet fighter, Titarenko, with a short burst, got ahead of the German pilot and destroyed the enemy aircraft. Soon a reinforcement group arrived, and the German group of aircraft was destroyed.
During the war, Kozhedub was twice recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union and was elevated to the rank of marshal of Soviet aviation.
Dmitry Romanovich Ovcharenko
The soldier’s homeland is a village with the telling name Ovcharovo, Kharkov province. He was born into the family of a carpenter in 1919. His father taught him all the intricacies of his craft, which later played an important role in the fate of the hero. Ovcharenko studied at school for only five years, then went to work on a collective farm. He was drafted into the army in 1939. I met the first days of the war, as befits a soldier, on the front line. After a short service, he received minor damage, which, unfortunately for the soldier, became the reason for his transfer from the main unit to service at an ammunition depot. It was this position that became key for Dmitry Romanovich, in which he accomplished his feat.
It all happened in the middle of the summer of 1941 in the area of the village of Pestsa. Ovcharenko was carrying out orders from his superiors to deliver ammunition and food to a military unit located several kilometers from the village. He came across two trucks with fifty German soldiers and three officers. They surrounded him, took away his rifle and began interrogating him. But the Soviet soldier was not taken aback and, taking the ax lying next to him, cut off the head of one of the officers. While the Germans were discouraged, he took three grenades from a dead officer and threw them towards the German vehicles. These throws were extremely successful: 21 soldiers were killed on the spot, and Ovcharenko finished off the remaining ones with an ax, including the second officer who was trying to escape. The third officer still managed to escape. But even here the Soviet soldier was not at a loss. He collected all the documents, maps, records and machine guns and took them to the General Staff, while bringing ammunition and food on time. At first they did not believe him that he alone had dealt with an entire platoon of the enemy, but after a detailed study of the battle site, all doubts were dispelled.
Thanks to the heroic deed of soldier Ovcharenko, he was recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union, and he also received one of the most significant orders - the Order of Lenin along with the Gold Star medal. He did not live to see victory for only three months. The wound received in the battles for Hungary in January was fatal for the fighter. At that time he was a machine gunner in the 389th Infantry Regiment. He went down in history as a soldier with an axe.
Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya
Zoya Anatolyevna’s homeland is the village of Osina-Gai, located in the Tambov region. She was born on September 8, 1923 into a Christian family. As fate would have it, Zoya spent her childhood in dark wanderings around the country. So, in 1925, the family was forced to move to Siberia to avoid persecution by the state. A year later they moved to Moscow, where her father died in 1933. Orphaned Zoya begins to have health problems that prevent her from studying. In the fall of 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya joined the ranks of intelligence officers and saboteurs on the Western Front. Behind short term Zoya underwent combat training and began to carry out her assigned tasks.
She accomplished her heroic feat in the village of Petrishchevo. By order, Zoya and a group of fighters were tasked with burning a dozen settlements, which included the village of Petrishchevo. On the night of November twenty-eighth, Zoya and her comrades made their way to the village and came under fire, as a result of which the group broke up and Kosmodemyanskaya had to act alone. After spending the night in the forest, early in the morning she set out to complete the task. Zoya managed to set fire to three houses and escape unnoticed. But when she decided to return again and finish what she started, villagers were already waiting for her, who, seeing the saboteur, immediately informed the German soldiers. Kosmodemyanskaya was captured and tortured for a long time. They tried to extract information from her about the unit in which she served and her name. Zoya refused and didn’t say anything, and when asked what her name was, she called herself Tanya. The Germans decided that they could not get more information and hung it up in public. Zoya met her death with dignity, and her last words went down in history forever. Dying, she said that our people number one hundred and seventy million people, and they cannot be outweighed in all. So, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died heroically.
Mentions of Zoya are associated primarily with the name “Tanya”, under which she went down in history. She is also a Hero of the Soviet Union. Her distinguishing feature- the first woman to receive it honorary title posthumously.
Alexey Tikhonovich Sevastyanov
This hero was the son of a simple cavalryman, a native of the Tver region, and was born in the winter of 1917 in the small village of Kholm. After graduating from technical school in Kalinin, he entered school military aviation. Sevastyanov finished it successfully in 1939. In more than a hundred combat sorties, he destroyed four enemy aircraft, of which two each personally and in a group, as well as one balloon.
He received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. The most important sorties for Alexei Tikhonovich were battles in the skies above Leningrad region. So, on November 4, 1941, Sevastyanov patrolled the skies over the Northern capital in his IL-153 aircraft. And just while he was on duty, the Germans carried out a raid. The artillery could not cope with the onslaught and Alexei Tikhonovich had to join the battle. The German He-111 aircraft managed to keep away the Soviet fighter for a long time. After two unsuccessful attacks, Sevastyanov made a third attempt, but when the time came to pull the trigger and destroy the enemy with a short burst, the Soviet pilot discovered a lack of ammunition. Without thinking twice, he decides to go for the ram. A Soviet plane pierced the tail of an enemy bomber with its propeller. For Sevastyanov, this maneuver turned out well, but for the Germans it all ended in captivity.
The second significant flight and the last for the hero was an air battle in the skies over Ladoga. Alexey Tikhonovich died in an unequal battle with the enemy on April 23, 1942.
Conclusion
As we have already said in this article, not all the heroes of the war are collected; there are about eleven thousand of them in total (according to official data). Among them are Russians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and all other nations of our multinational state. There are those who did not receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, having committed an equally important act, but due to a coincidence of circumstances, information about them was lost. There was a lot in the war: desertion of soldiers, betrayal, death, and much more, but the most great importance had exploits - these are the heroes. Thanks to them, victory was won in the Great Patriotic War.