Baptism by fire. "Ice March"

Vladimir Ivanovich BUTKEVICH

Platoon commander, as part of the 1st Ukrainian Front, participated in the Lviv-Sandomierz, Sandomierz-Silesian, Lower Silesian, Vistula-Oder, Berlin and Prague offensive operations. Awarded with orders Patriotic War I and II degrees, the Order of the Red Star, medals “For Military Merit”, “For the Capture of Berlin”, “For the Liberation of Prague” and others. He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant. He worked at the Financial Academy in 1992-1998. duty officer of the fire service, duty instructor of the fire prevention department fire safety, fire prevention engineer of the 2nd category.

I connected my life with the Red Army in 1940, when I entered the artillery special school, and then the Kharkov Artillery School. After graduating from college with the rank of lieutenant in 1943, I was sent to the 1st Ukrainian Front in the 35th Guards Mechanized Brigade of the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 4th Guards Tank Army as the commander of a fire platoon of an artillery division. During our studies, we experienced failures at the front, the retreat of our troops, and all the hardships of war. The commanders instilled in us hatred of the invaders. We all wanted to get to the front as soon as possible.

Finally cherished dream It’s happened: I’m at the front. I was introduced to a platoon in which Ural volunteers of considerable age served, and I was only 19 years old. The platoon personnel treated me with respect, but the main test lay ahead - how I would behave in a combat situation. All of them had been at the front for several months, and this forced me to carefully become familiar with the combat experience of the personnel and study the platoon’s preparedness for combat operations.

I paid special attention to the knowledge of the hardware of the guns and the preparedness of the non-commissioned officers, gun commanders, gunners, and ammunition carriers. The task at hand was very difficult for me, considering that after the last battle the artillery battery, and especially my platoon, suffered heavy losses, and the platoon commander was killed. The Lviv operation was my baptism of fire. The fighting was fierce, our artillery division fired directly from a 76-mm caliber gun. It was behind enemy lines as the 4th Panzer Army was brought into the breach.

The front remained about 25 kilometers from us; we found ourselves face to face with the second echelon of the enemy, who was trying to raze us to the ground. How hot it was for us in this battle! But thanks to skillful camouflage, the losses were small: one gun and three wounded. I felt a lot of stress because it was my first time in a combat situation. And when the gunner was wounded, I replaced him and at the same time continued to command the platoon.

I felt the approval of my comrades; they became more dexterous in helping me rearrange the guns and bring in ammunition. However, our position was difficult, because we were fighting behind the front line. It is difficult to say how long we could have held out if not for the active actions of the tankers who attacked the enemy from the flank. Yes, it was a difficult day, but a happy one for me, because I received a real baptism of fire. He showed that the platoon artillerymen accepted me into their fighting family, people felt that they could trust me, and this is the main thing for a commander.

The 220th motorized rifle division of Colonel Poplavsky was alerted and began to mobilize and bring its units to full combat readiness. In the howitzer artillery regiment, the divisions were staffed mainly by personnel, therefore a small number of reserves and tractor-trailer equipment assigned from National economy, arrived by the end of the first day. A characteristic feature of the regiment was that it was dominated by young commanders.

On June 30, 1941, troops began to be loaded onto railway trains and sent to the front. At the Lipetsk station the 660th howitzer artillery regiment was loading. The second division, which I commanded, was declining as the leading echelon. We said goodbye to the families, and at the appointed time the train set off and began to pick up speed. The garrison orchestra performed the march "". The soldiers and commanders were very worried, some even shed tears. Many of them could not even think that this march was truly a farewell march for them...

M-30 howitzers on the move, summer 1941.

The transportation of troops by rail was carried out secretly. Information about the areas of destination of the units and the routes of movement of the trains was not communicated to the personnel. The strictest discipline was observed along the route. The trains were heavily guarded, especially at stops. As the echelon advanced westward, trouble arose. During one of the runs, the locomotive sounded an air raid alarm. The echelon stopped and was immediately attacked by three dive bombers. The division's personnel were dispersed; Red Army soldiers and commanders fired from small arms, but it was ineffective.

As a result of the air attack, the gun commander of the sixth battery was killed, five soldiers were wounded, and a food car was destroyed. After eliminating the consequences of the air raid, the train resumed movement. On July 5 we arrived at Vitebsk station. There were fierce battles in the city; it was pure hell. At the station there were six trains with troops, fuel and ammunition, which were subject to artillery fire. Arrived soon large group"Junkers" and launched a bomb attack. In one of the trains, ammunition began to explode. It is difficult to convey in words what was happening at the station.

The air strike ended, the echelons were hastily withdrawn towards Smolensk. My train was driven to the Krynka station, where it unloaded and concentrated in a forest five kilometers from the station and put itself in order. On the afternoon of July 6, troops of the mechanized corps marched towards Vitebsk. Tanks, motorized infantry, and mechanical artillery followed in an organized manner in its columns. My soldiers watched with enthusiasm the movement of the mechanized units. They had hopes that the Nazis would be stopped and repelled, but they did not yet know the true situation in Vitebsk. There the cannonade roared continuously, a huge glow was reflected in the sky at night, the city was burning...

Colonel Poplavsky's division was preparing for the offensive. It was supposed to defeat the enemy in the area of ​​the Vitebsk airfield, cross the Western Dvina, drive the Germans out of Vitebsk and drive them to Polotsk. The commander of the artillery regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Chernobaev, set the task: the second division to support the offensive of the motorized regiment of Colonel Burmistrov. Such an overly general statement of the combat mission provided almost nothing for decision-making. There was no specific information about the situation. This depressed me greatly; I was nervous and indignant at the fact that I had stood in the forest for two days and had not really organized a battle with the enemy. Returning to the division, I gathered the battery and platoon commanders, informed them about the combat mission and ordered them to prepare to move into the area of ​​combat positions. Soon the column was formed and moved to the upcoming battlefield. As the division approached the Vitebsk airfield, the column was fired upon by enemy six-barreled mortars.

By five o'clock in the morning the division deployed to firing positions in the combat formation of a motorized regiment. To the right and behind the division were our destroyed planes. In front there was motorized infantry, its fighters were located in small trenches. There was an intense rifle and machine gun firefight. The artillery batteries began direct fire, and the gun crews began to equip positions, since the only mask covering them was the tall grass that grew lushly throughout the entire field of the airfield. The artillerymen's task was to, under intense enemy fire, short term, equip platforms for guns, open cracks for yourself and cellars for shells, as well as shelters for tractors. At 6.45 on the morning of July 7, on the orders of the commander of the motorized regiment, the division opened a rapid fire raid on the enemy holed up in hangars and aircraft workshops. Units of the motorized regiment went on the attack and broke into the aircraft workshops, but under the pressure of superior enemy forces they were forced to retreat to their original position.

At approximately 8.00, the enemy launched an air strike and a powerful artillery fire attack on our units, after which his motorized units began an attack: tanks moved ahead, infantry followed the tanks in three waves. Enemy soldiers followed in close formation with rifles at the ready. On the right flank of each wave were standard bearers and drummers. I saw how the Nazis were literally on the heels of the retreating motorized infantry units, and I felt the approaching danger to my batteries. It was that if the motorized infantry did not stop at the starting line and retreated into the depths, then the batteries would not have time to withdraw from their firing positions, and would be forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat, and perhaps die in it. It was necessary to make a firm decision - to fight to the death. Having brought the enemy within 300-400 meters, the division opened fire on the tanks and immediately hit 5 vehicles. The turret of one of the tanks received such a blow from a howitzer shell that it was torn off its shoulder strap and thrown to the side. German tank crews jumped out of the burning vehicles and tried to escape, but were immediately destroyed by the fire of our infantry.

The enemy infantry advanced forward. On the right flank the Germans broke into battle formations motorized infantry and the fourth battery of my division. Hand-to-hand combat began. A big red-haired German officer shouted: Russen, ergebt euch!

Pz-lV Ausf.D, 6th Panzer Division, summer 1941.

The first killed and wounded of the division appeared. Meanwhile, two more waves of enemy infantry approached. The fifth and sixth batteries opened volley fire on them with grapeshot. They literally mowed down the approaching enemy infantry. The battery fire was increased by small arms fire from the motorized infantry. And then the moment came when the German attack fizzled out. The battalion commanders of the motorized regiment immediately took advantage of this. With the exclamation “For the Motherland, for Stalin, attack, forward!” they raised their units to complete the defeat of the enemy. But the forces were unequal, and the Soviet units retreated to their original positions. And after a short period of time, another psychic attack from the enemy followed. There were six such attacks during the day, and all of them were repelled with huge losses for the enemy. My division knocked out and burned 18 enemy tanks, destroyed and disabled up to 400 enemy soldiers and officers, but he himself lost about 200 people killed and wounded in this battle. As a result of shelling and enemy air strikes, three howitzers and five ChTZ tractors were damaged.

As dusk fell, the battle died down. The suffocating smell of burning hung in the air. On the huge field, the wounded were moaning: some restrainedly, others loudly calling for help from their mothers. Among the many killed were both Russians and Germans. Death equalized them on the same battlefield, forever extinguishing the ardent desire to live and fight, only their uniforms distinguished their calmly lying bodies. A loud-mouthed speaker, distorting the Russian language, was yelling very close by, somewhere in the area of ​​aircraft workshops: “The Red Army is defeated. Resistance is useless. Soldier und officer, destroy the commissar, surrender!” The first day of the battle ended - the day of baptism of fire for the units of Colonel Poplavsky's division.

It turned out that the 220th MSD was fighting with the enemy’s 3rd Tank Group. But it turned out that instead of “knocking the enemy out of Vitebsk and driving him to Polotsk,” our division first fought a counter battle in Vitebsk, and then was forced to fight back towards Smolensk. We could only resist the calculatedly planned actions of the Germans with our fierce resistance, which was expressed in continuous counterattacks with huge losses. The Germans were stronger, more proactive, struck first, forced the battle, and yet were unable to break the tenacity of the people for whom victory over the enemy was more valuable than life. Many did not yet have the necessary combat skills, but they had boundless courage, often sacrificial and therefore great.

Back then, no one knew how this war would end, and what our descendants would talk and remember about - the heroism of the dead and the living, or they would also blame us for fighting poorly...

Material preparation: Irina Egorova

It was only a few years later that he really became one of the strongest (equal among the best) hockey players in his rural district and many were not averse to being on the same team with him. And his backyard hockey career began rather tragicomically.

At that time, no one even had factory clubs and everyone played to those who could break off something suitable from the nearest bushes. The most intelligent and prudent ones sharpened their squiggles. Many didn’t bother with this either - the rustic aesthetics fully allowed for playing hockey with driftwood that had not been treated in any way. And only the puck was already real, and not a frozen lump of earth or ice. Yes, and then everyone ran on the ice only in felt boots. He was still at that age at which one can be not so much a valuable teammate as a useless burden. Therefore, he, like his peers, could only watch the ice battles from the sidelines, only “cheering” for the local hockey idols.

The most pressing topic in hockey has traditionally been the question of who to put in goal? Somehow no one wanted to be a puck catcher, given that the boyish element is unbridled and there always comes a moment when the most heated opponents, neglecting all agreements, begin to hit the goal with all their might. But at that time he was not yet sufficiently privy to these psychological nuances of the game and, due to his youthful spontaneity, he took everything at face value. Therefore, he unconditionally believed the story of one of his distant and older relatives that “no one will hit the goal hard, and throwing the puck in is generally a no-no.”

In short, everyone unanimously, as if by agreement, persuaded him to stand at the gate, vowing to behave like a gentleman. The particular recklessness of such an act was that there was no talk of any kind of protection other than felt boots.

For several minutes the game went on calmly and carefully, like a warm-up, until someone thought that the opponent was not behaving in a sportsmanlike manner. And off we go. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. A real battle has begun, without which no real hockey match is complete.

He didn’t even understand how or where the puck came from, right into his jaw - the blow was so lightning fast and powerful. At first, something splashed and lit up in my eyes, then it darkened slightly. Then a terrible pain came and it seemed to him that his face had burst. All the boys, who appreciated the force of the blow, were seriously scared. The same distant relative of his jumped up to him first and began to look at him and ask him how he was “nothing,” consoling him that everything would pass, “it will change, there will be flour,” and very convincingly instilling in him that he had received a real baptism of fire and now he is a Hockey Player with capital letters. The deceived hockey recruit especially liked the latter and he perked up a lot. Moreover, the physical pain gradually subsided. Slowly but surely it was replaced by pride in himself - after all, he was praised by an authoritative boy who was much older than himself and who was one of the strongest and most dexterous. In short, everyone, almost in unison, convinced him that all he now lacked was the laurel wreath of the winning goalkeeper, who at the cost of his own chin did not miss an almost fateful goal against the team.

To be on the safe side, he was escorted almost to his home.

When he crossed the threshold, the black eye around the epicenter of the bruise was already of frightening size. The mother’s reaction was almost “they killed my son!” However, this no longer bothered him much - after all, in the eyes of all the boys, he had become a real hockey player and hero. Although for now only a hero for one day. But for the boy’s pride this was more than enough to almost ignore the pain that had not yet passed, or the lamentations of his mother.

This is how his rather long, ten-year career as a courtyard hockey player began, brightly and unusually, of which he was proud in his soul for the rest of his life. He was proud because the image of a high-class hockey player had always, with the exception of this very first case, been based on the already genuine opinion of him on the part of his peers. And for the first time he forgave the boys who deceived him then long ago. He forgave him because in this way they gave him a “start in life” of real hockey with a purchased stick and on skates.

And from that first game, he understood well what it means “hard trouble is the beginning.”

At the beginning of December 1941, the general situation on the Soviet-German front changed dramatically. The Red Army finally stopped the enemy near Moscow. The enemy was defeated near Rostov and Tikhvin. Mostly ripe the necessary conditions for the Red Army to launch a counteroffensive in the main Moscow direction at that time.
As Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov wrote in his memoirs: “It was prepared during defensive battles and the methods of its implementation were finally determined when, by all indications, Hitler’s troops could no longer withstand our attacks” (Zhukov G.K. Memoirs and Reflections APN, M., 1969, p. 364.)
The counter-offensive of the Kalinin and right wing of the Western Fronts began on December 5-6 even before the full concentration of front forces in more than 200 kilometers. The 29th Army of General Maslennikov attacked the enemy southwest of Kalinin and, having crossed the Volga here on the ice, wedged itself into the enemy defenses to a depth of 1-1.5 kilometers. The 31st Army of General V. A. Yushkevich, after three days of fighting, broke through the enemy defenses on the Volga south of Kalinin, and by the end of December 9 intercepted the Kalinin-Moscow railway. The 30th Army, which began its offensive on the morning of December 6, reinforced by Siberian and Ural divisions, broke through the enemy’s defenses north of Klin. Formations of the 1st Shock and 20th armies liberated large settlements - Yakhroma, Bely Rast, Krasnaya Polyana.
The 352nd Infantry Division took an active part in this grandiose counteroffensive as part of the troops of the 20th Army. At the beginning of the offensive, she marched in the second echelon in the direction of Krasnaya Polyana, Solnechnogorsk. The fighters saw with their own eyes the traces of the monstrous crimes of the fascist horde.
Units of the division entered the first liberated village of Bely Rast three hours after a fierce battle, when the burnt houses were still smoking with bluish smoke. More than half of the houses were completely destroyed. Smoky chimneys stuck out like trunks in a burnt forest. Fascist soldiers plundered the village, taking away everything that was of any value, even kitchen utensils and children's toys. They drove the population to the rear.
On one of the streets lay the corpse of a raped young woman with her breasts cut out, and nearby were the corpses of her young children. Not far from them, near the fence, are the disfigured bodies of Red Army soldiers tortured by the Nazis. The fascist monsters gouged out their eyes, broke off their arms and legs, and carved five-pointed stars on their chests.
Soon, two boys about twelve years old, dirty, frostbitten, in torn rags, appeared from somewhere and approached the fighters, with an old woman trailing behind them. She told how the Nazis committed outrages in the village:
“They completely ruined us, took away our last. They don’t disdain anything, damned Herods. These are not people, but animals. It was not a woman, but Satan in a skirt who gave birth to Hitler and his gang.
Wiping away the tears that were choking her with a handkerchief, she said angrily:
- Beat them, sons, so that our land burns under their filthy feet.
The soldiers and commanders listened in silence. What words can be used to express anger and hatred towards a fierce enemy who is sowing such evil that even seasoned soldiers’ blood runs cold. We must take revenge, mercilessly. Destroy fascist executioners like rabid dogs.
Following the advanced troops, units of the division entered liberated Volokolamsk. The city appeared before them almost completely destroyed and burned. There were corpses in the streets civilians, tortured by fascist thugs before leaving.
Surviving townspeople said:
— The Nazis pasted on the walls of houses the order of the German military commandant to evacuate the population to the rear. For failure to comply, everyone was threatened with execution. The next day a special Sonderkommando went to inspect the houses. Those who were found were shot on the spot.
The fascist executioners hammered the doors of the hospital, where there were more than two hundred wounded prisoners of war, doused the building with fuel and set it on fire. Those who jumped out the window were shot by the Nazis with machine guns.
Former dean of the Faculty of History and Philology of Kazan University, deputy commander for political affairs of the 1160th regiment A.P. Plakatin wrote to his wife in Kazan at that time:
“Only here do we truly learn to hate fascism. In Volokolamsk, before leaving, the Germans gathered several hundred prisoners into a building, hammered the doors and set them on fire. It’s unbearably difficult to look at the mass of these charred corpses.”
Here in Volokolamsk, our soldiers saw the gallows on which the Nazis hanged eight courageous Komsomol members: Konstantin Fedorovich Pakhomov, Nikolai Alexandrovich Galochkin, Pavel Vasilyevich Kiryakov, Viktor Vasilyevich Ordinartsev, Nikolai Semenovich Kogan, Ivan Alexandrovich Manenkov, Evgenia Yakovlevna Poltavskaya and Lukovkina-Gribkova Alexandra Vasilievna .
A rally took place in the liberated city. Speaking, the fighters, commanders and political workers vowed to take revenge on the fascist murderers for their heinous crimes. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Lapshin, said:
“The children tortured by the Germans, dishonored women and girls, and executed civilians are calling us to merciless revenge. Death to the Fascist bandits!
Retreating under the attacks of the Red Army, the Germans blew up and burned all the bridges on the highways, so parts of the division advanced along country roads, which the Nazis had mined and filled with trees. It was difficult to walk along the flat field due to the deep snow cover, which in some places reached one and a half meters. The guns had to be pushed by hand, the vehicles got stuck and skidded all the time, the horses fell from fatigue.
The forty-degree frost shackled the ground and crept under greatcoats and quilted jackets. We had to spend the night in the forest, under the open sky. Due to camouflage, it was forbidden to light fires. It was difficult for the fighters, but they bravely endured all the hardships and hardships. The successes of the Red Army inspired them and gave them additional strength. After all, for the first time since the beginning of the war, Soviet troops went on the offensive and crushed the selected German hordes, liberating their native land meter by meter.
The fascist German troops, driven out of Volokolamsk, entrenched themselves on a previously prepared line of defense, on the western bank of the Lama and Ruza rivers. Back in the fall, having driven civilians from surrounding villages and prisoners here, the Germans in a short time built this powerful defensive bastion, which in itself was a serious natural barrier. The steep banks of the Lama and the ice hole were impassable not only for tanks, but also for infantry. In the houses of populated areas, the Germans equipped machine-gun nests and placed direct-fire guns. In the forest, west of the village of Timkovo, there was a group of 120-mm mortars. The area between the villages was completely open, flat, and was covered by flanking fire. The Nazis set up many bunkers. In each settlement they had a mobile reserve of five or six tanks and a detachment of machine gunners, which could be quickly transferred to the threatened area. The Nazis built a continuous line of trenches along the river bank, and in front they installed two- and three-row wire barriers. To replace the battered 106th infantry division The 6th Panzer Division arrived here, reinforced by selected SS troops.
The Germans had high hopes for this line and were not going to retreat, as it became known later from captured staff documents and testimonies of captured fascist soldiers.
The Ivanovo resistance center was a strong link in the German defense. The 64th Naval Rifle Brigade had been fighting for the village of Ivanovskoye for five days with varying success, but could not take it. On December 23, the army commander ordered the commander of the 352nd rifle division Lieutenant Colonel Yu. M. Prokofiev to break through the enemy’s defenses and capture the settlements of Ivanovskoye and Timkovo, located three kilometers from the city of Volokolamsk. With the solution to this important task the enemy’s defense system was disrupted and the opportunity opened for our troops to throw the Germans off the defense line on the Lama River.
On the eve of the offensive, the division commander read out the combat order to the regimental commanders: “352nd Rifle Division. On December 24, at 8:00 a.m., it goes on the offensive in the Ivanovskoye-Timkovo sector. I decided to attack with two regiments. In the first echelon, the 1162nd regiment leads an attack on the village of Ivanovskoye; 1158th sp. advances southwest of the village of Ivanovskoye, with the combat mission of capturing Timkovo; The 1160th is in the second echelon with the task of developing the success of the 1158th Regiment, the 1st Division of the 914th Artillery Regiment supports the 1158th Regiment; 2nd Division—1162nd Regiment."
Preparatory work began in the division's units. Political workers held conversations and short rallies.
The participating soldiers and commanders vowed to honor the orders of the command, take revenge on the German robbers and rapists for the burned cities and villages, and fight without sparing their lives.
...Having returned from division headquarters, the commander of the 1162nd regiment, Captain V.S. Agafonov, invited Commissar Evgeniy Fedorovich Bakshtaev, with whom he had always consulted and been close friends since his formation.
When the commissar entered, the captain was leaning over the table, studying a map of the area of ​​​​the upcoming offensive. He mentally tried to imagine an attack in order to lose fewer people and complete the task more successfully. On the map, the Lama River meandered like a narrow snake, bound by thick ice, and on the opposite bank the Germans took up defensive positions. Dozens of machine guns, mortars, guns. The village of Ivanovskoe, buried in deep snow, is a strong center of resistance to the fascist defense. Not far from it, three kilometers, is the village of Mikhailovskoye. There are Germans there too...
Looking up from the map, the captain turned to Bakshtaev:
- Listen, commissar, shouldn’t we strike from three sides at once? By the forces of all battalions?
The friends sat in silence and smoked. Bakshtaev was the first to speak:
- I made the right decision, commander. We need to go around the village from three sides and attack at the same time.
At midnight, the battalions of the regiment, using forest paths and ravines, having made a roundabout maneuver, secretly reached the starting line and deployed into battle formation. The 3rd battalion attacked from the northeast, the 2nd from the east, and the 1st slightly to the right of the third.

At 8 o'clock in the morning artillery preparation began. Half an hour later the regiment commander gave the signal to attack. The fighters, with great difficulty overcoming the deep and loose snow, rushed forward. At first everything went well. A thick fog fell over the battlefield, covering the attackers. It seemed that as soon as the advanced fighters broke into the village, the fascist resistance would be broken. But then from the basement of a stone house, which stood at the fork of two streets, machine-gun bursts burst out, and then machine guns crackled from all sides. A fierce battle ensued. Machine guns clattered, choking, and machine guns chattered in long and short bursts. The mines splashed with a squeal, turning up fountains of snow and clods of frozen earth.
Lieutenant Colonel Prokofiev brought the 1158th into battle rifle regiment Major I. I. Vasilenko. The first battalion, under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ermolaev, received the task of capturing the village of Ivanovskoye, but when it entered a grove northeast of the village of Timkovo, it was stopped by enemy fire. By this time, the second battalion of Senior Lieutenant Knigi had bypassed Ivanovskoye on the left side and approached its southern outskirts. The Germans were in danger of encirclement. Senior Lieutenant Book, noticing a concentration of the enemy preparing for a counterattack against the 1162nd regiment, ordered the deployment of 12 heavy machine guns and opened fire on the Nazis from them.
For two hours, the soldiers of the 1158th regiment fought a heavy battle on the southern approaches to the village of Ivanovskoye, trying to break the resistance of the Nazis. With great difficulty we reached height 192.2, but here we came under strong flanking fire from German machine guns and were forced to lie down again.
It became clear to the regiment commander that the German defense could not be broken through from the front with a frontal attack. Having regrouped their forces, the first and second rifle battalions went on the offensive again from new positions, from the edge of the forest south of the village. The artillerymen immediately shot at enemy firing points located in buildings, basements and attics, paving the way for the infantry. The mortars and machine gunners opened hurricane fire, preventing the Nazis from coming to their senses and organizing resistance.
The commander of the battery of 76-mm guns, Senior Lieutenant Smetanin and political instructor Kolochkov, moved two guns towards the infantry battle formations and opened aimed fire at enemy machine guns at close range.
With a powerful and swift thrust, the fighters of the first and third battalions rushed forward. Battalion commander Kosarev ran ahead with a pistol in his hand along with the soldiers, dragging the soldiers along with him.
Another swift rush, and now the first of our soldiers burst into the southern outskirts of the village. At that time, on its eastern and northern outskirts, the soldiers of the 1162nd regiment slowly, meter by meter, moved towards the center of the village. And two companies of the first and second rifle battalions of the 1158th regiment bypassed the village of Ivanovskoye from the southwest and unexpectedly attacked.
The Nazis, stunned by such a powerful blow from all sides and fearing complete encirclement, began to retreat in panic in the direction of the villages of Timkovo and Mikhailovka, but here they came under devastating fire from machine guns of the second rifle battalion. The commander of the machine gun platoon, Lieutenant Egorov, himself lay down behind the machine gun and began to shoot at point-blank range the fascists fleeing from the village. German soldiers rushed across the field. Some of them still ran forward, some turned back. Machine gunner Oranev sent long bursts one after another into the thick of the enemy soldiers.
- So them, scoundrels! Hit it, guys! - the lieutenant shouted, spraying the enemy with a Maxim.

By evening, units of the division completely cleared Ivanovskoye of German soldiers. Here our soldiers captured four serviceable tanks and several vehicles with property looted from the local population. The Fuhrer's soldiers did not disdain anything. Blankets, women's and children's clothing, and even gutta-percha toys were found in the cars. Residents said that as soon as the Nazis entered the village, widespread looting began. The Nazis shot Soviet citizens on the spot for the slightest disobedience or refusal of anything, killing both old and young. A woman and her infant child were brutally stabbed to death just because he cried and disturbed the conquerors’ sleep. The Nazis kicked her two other young children out into the cold at night and they froze to death.
Listening to these stories and seeing with my own eyes the crimes of the fascist soldiers, a sacred hatred of the German conquerors flared up in the chest of every soldier and commander.
Before the battle for the village of Ivanovskaya had died down, the commander of the 20th Army put the division in front of new task: at night, enter a breakthrough and, deep in the enemy’s defense, capture two strong points - the villages of Mikhailovka and Timonino. The reserve 1160th regiment will capture the village of Timkovo on the front line.
At midnight, the regiments with the artillery divisions assigned to them set off. The soldiers walked through deep snow. The guns had to be dragged on special skids. The men and horses were exhausted, and the lead units had to be changed every fifteen to twenty minutes. The combat guards, to the right and left of the column, slid on skis along the upper edge of the ravine. The 1158th Regiment with the 1st Division was moving in the lead, followed by the division headquarters with a communications battalion and an engineer battalion. The 1162nd Regiment brought up the rear. And the 1160th Infantry Regiment remained on the outskirts of the village of Timkovo.
After about an hour, the enemy's front line, indicated by the flashes of rockets, remained far to the side. The hollow gradually became shallower. At the third kilometer it completely ended; parts of the division reached a flat field. Ahead was a black strip of coniferous forest, which could reliably shelter such a mass of people and equipment from the enemy. The fighters quickened their pace. At the edge of the forest, the scouts walking ahead discovered a road well cleared of snow, which stretched through the forest towards the village of Mikhailovka.
1158th Infantry Regiment with the first artillery! The division and the division headquarters column moved into the depths of the forest, and the 1162nd regiment with the second artillery division turned towards Mikhailovka. Soon the lead detachment of the 1158th regiment came across enemy rear lines. Not expecting to meet Soviet soldiers in their deep rear, the Nazis fled in panic. The hungry soldiers immediately emptied the German camp kitchens and, without stopping, moved towards Timonino. Vanguard - a company of machine gunners met a German battalion rushing to help its own. The Nazis did not have time to deploy into battle formation before they were attacked. Leaving dozens of corpses of soldiers on the battlefield, the Nazis fled to Timonino. But the element of surprise was gone and the regiment’s attempts to capture the village on the move were unsuccessful.
Events unfolded somewhat better in the offensive zone of the 1162nd regiment. His units quickly advanced towards Mikhailovka. At the head of the column, scouts in white camouflage robes silently slid on skis. Having crept up to the village, they saw two fascist soldiers near the last house, shifting from foot to foot in the cold. Two of our sentries quietly crept up to the sentries and finished them off with knives. But one of the Krauts nevertheless screamed and the Nazis began to jump out of the house one after another. The scouts were not at a loss and entered into hand-to-hand combat. The noise raised by the German guard alarmed the village. The alarm was raised. German soldiers were running through the streets. Not knowing what was going on, they jumped out of the houses and shot in different directions. The whistling of bullets and the groans of the wounded further intensified the commotion. A shootout ensued between German soldiers.
Taking advantage of the panic, Arkhipov's battalion burst into Mikhailovka. By this time, the remaining forces of the 1162nd regiment had also arrived. The village turned out to be large, and while our fighters cleared the eastern half of it from the enemy, the Nazis came to their senses and entrenched themselves in its western part. There was an infantry regiment here that arrived to take part in the counterattack with the goal of returning the village of Ivanovskoye and restoring its front line. But a sudden attack by units of the 1162nd thwarted the plans of the fascist command. Instead of restoring the broken defense, the Nazis were now forced to fight to hold Mikhailovka.
The forces turned out to be unequal. In addition to the infantry, the Germans had about twenty tanks in the village. Having assessed the situation, Captain Agafonov decided that in these conditions it was better to attack rather than wait for an enemy counterattack. He ordered the regimental guns and artillery division guns to be brought up for direct fire and he himself led the soldiers into the attack. The Nazis were never able to use their advantage in tanks. As soon as the panzer soldiers launched a counterattack, our artillerymen opened fire on them with direct fire and forced them to turn back. Storming house after house, Soviet soldiers confidently moved forward.
On the morning of December 25, one battalion of the 1158th regiment came to the aid of the 1162nd regiment and, going on the offensive from the forest south of Mikhailovka, created a threat to encircle the village. The soldiers of Senior Lieutenant Arkhipov had to fight to take not only every house, but also every basement, cellar, dugout, dugout. The battle split into dozens of outbreaks and rumbled throughout the western part of the village. IN street fight there is no defined leading edge line. Several of our fighters, rushing forward, occupied a dilapidated stone house, and in the rear they heard machine-gun fire from fascist soldiers. In the deafening chatter, it is sometimes difficult to figure out where ours are and where the German machine gunners continue to snarl.
Battalion commander Arkhipov ran in the first ranks of the attackers. The senior lieutenant jumped up to the stone house, from the basement of which a German machine gun was constantly firing, and threw a grenade into the embrasure. He quickly jumped to the side and hid around the corner. There was an explosion and the machine gun fell silent. The soldiers who arrived in time threw grenades at the windows of the house and rushed forward.
At this time, a large-caliber German machine gun struck from the outskirts with a thick bass voice, drowning out the choking crackle of machine guns. Snow fountains rose up. Two more fascist machine guns rattled from the windows of the houses on the left. The fiery trails, in smooth dotted lines, swept over the lying soldiers and went out in the deep snowdrifts. The battle flared up with renewed vigor. Trying to hold Mikhailovka at all costs, the Germans put up desperate resistance, rushing into counterattacks. Around a company of drunken fascist soldiers went straight at the fighters of junior lieutenant Gordeev. The fascists were chased by an officer waving a pistol. So he shouted something and the Germans ran along the wide street, no longer ducking, firing from machine guns as they went. When no more than a hundred meters remained before the Germans, the junior lieutenant gave the command:
- Fire!
The soldiers fired machine guns, machine guns, and rifles in unison. Confusion began among the Nazis. Some still, by inertia, continued to run forward, others lay down, continuing to fire, but many fell face down in the snow to forever remain in the land they had come to conquer. Soon the Nazis began shelling with mortars. A mine fell not far from Gordeev. The fragments struck sparks from a nearby stone. Deadly explosions were getting closer and closer to the positions of our fighters. The sky above Mikhailovka lit up with flashes of fire: guns struck somewhere outside the village. Shells rustled in the air and began to explode onto the battlefield. Everything around began to hum and howl.
Then Gordeev ran into a dilapidated stone house with a rocket launcher in his hand, rushed to the window opening and fired a red rocket towards the house that stood diagonally from him. The infantry, having cleared the Germans from the buildings to the left and right of Gordeev, rushed to the house, which looked like a school, marked by a rocket, but were met with heavy fire. “Maxims” and “Degtyarevs” struck in response. The artillerymen hit the building with direct fire. Thick walls collapsed with a roar on the heads of the dug-in fascists.
Feeling that the resistance had weakened sharply, Gordeev’s submachine gunners rushed across the street and burst inside the dilapidated house.
In the light of the rockets, you can clearly see how our soldiers, clinging to the walls of the houses, run across, smoking the fascists out of their hiding places, liberating the village inch by inch. Short grenade and hand-to-hand battles break out in different places. The climax is approaching mortal combat. By morning the enemy was expelled from Mikhailovka.
...Dawn on December 25 found the soldiers of the 352nd Division behind enemy lines. The fascist German command had not yet had time to understand the situation and hardly imagined that there was almost an entire division in their rear Soviet troops. He was more concerned about the defense line broken through by our army. Hitler's generals sought to restore it and return the village of Ivanovskaya. They wanted to kill, as they say, two birds with one stone: to regain lost positions and surround the group of Soviet troops that had broken through. The Nazis began to implement this plan on December 26th. Preparations for the counteroffensive were carried out at night, counting on surprise. But our scouts discovered two strong enemy groups in time. One of them was in the village of Vladykino, and the second in Timkovo.
The division commander Prokofiev, having received this information, ordered the artillery chief, Major Rakhmanov, to move all the fire weapons of the 1158th regiment to the eastern edge of the forest. After the liberation of Mikhailovka, the artillerymen of the 1162nd regiment also deployed their guns, expecting a counterattack from the Nazis from the rear.

Division Artillery Chief
Lieutenant Colonel A.A. Rakhmanov

After strong artillery bombardment, the Nazi infantry, supported by tanks, moved towards the village of Ivanovskaya.
The division commander guessed the enemy's plan and ordered the artillerymen to strike the enemy's flanks and rear. Having rolled out the guns to open positions, our glorious gunners shot at point-blank range the enemy's manpower and equipment. The Nazis did not expect such a powerful rebuff and were confused. At this time, General Katukov’s tankmen entered the battle. Armored vehicles fired directly from cover. The units defending the village of Ivanovskaya took advantage of the enemy’s panic and drove him out of the western outskirts, which the Germans had already captured. The Nazi offensive stalled. They entrenched themselves at a height between the villages of Ivanovskoye and Mikhailovka, cutting off parts of the 352nd Infantry Division. from supply bases. In this battle the Germans lost twenty tanks and a large number of soldier. And they abandoned attempts to recapture Ivanovskaya.
But the situation was dangerous for our two regiments. We had to quickly develop the forest, which turned out to be, although not very large, two regiments were clearly not enough for its reliable defense. The division commander decided to block all roads and clearings leading into the forest. Do not occupy open spaces, but shoot them with machine guns. Arose no less important problem: how to feed about five thousand people and more than a thousand horses. The entire rear with all supplies of food and fodder remained behind the front lines in Volokolamsk. There was also a medical battalion there, and there were already wounded people in need of urgent help. There was also very little ammunition left. The division commander had something to think about. It was possible, of course, to gather all our forces into one fist and again break through to our own people through the front line, but the army commander did not allow us to leave the forest, ordering us to hold it by any means until our units arrived.
Then Prokofiev compromised. He decided to break through the front with part of his forces and bring out the wounded, and then make a return raid with ammunition, food, and medicine. We carefully prepared for this raid. All the wounded were wrapped in warm blankets, laid on sleighs, and more than thirty carts set off at night, behind the front line. The first part of the operation was successful, but the convoy was unable to get back from Volokolamsk.
Even earlier, during the battle, the code for radio communication with army headquarters was lost. The division commander reported this to the commander. An order came from the headquarters of the 20th Army: “Until we receive a new code, stop all negotiations on the air.” 352nd Infantry Division Having thus lost the last communication channel, the situation became even more complicated.
Junior Lieutenant Zaripov, who at that time was at the headquarters of the 20th Army, was ordered to deliver the new code and combat order across the front line to the division.
It was already dark when he reached the front edge. They were already waiting for him there. Putting on a white robe, the junior lieutenant climbed out of the trench, waved goodbye and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Waist-deep in snow, Zaripov with great difficulty made his way through enemy territory to the forest where units of the division were stationed. Using unoccupied positions in the German defenses, he reached the recent battlefield. Crawling on his bellies from one killed fascist to another, hiding behind them, Zaripov soon passed the enemy’s front line of defense. Having rested a little, I looked around.
The rockets flared up behind us, illuminating the surrounding area with their blinding white light. Half the way had been covered, but the second line of defense was ahead, there was dead silence there and it was alarming. The forest was black on the horizon.
“Another kilometer of travel and the task will be completed,” thought the junior lieutenant, “and he carefully began to move forward.” Suddenly, German speech was heard almost nearby. Zaripov hastened to crawl away from the dangerous place, but the fascist sentry heard a suspicious rustling and fired a flare upward. Against the background of white snow, the German saw Zaripov, shouted something and fired a long burst from a machine gun in his direction. And immediately, as if on command, the entire line of German defense began to move, here and there rockets shot up, machine guns banged, tracer bursts ripped through the darkness of the night.
Zaripov jumped to his feet and rushed towards the forest, but the whistling of bullets again pressed him to the ground. I crawled for some time. Feeling persecution, he decided to use a trick. He quickly took off his sheepskin coat, folded it and laid it on the snow, and he himself, in a white robe, crawled to the side and began to wait for the Nazis to approach. Soon German voices were heard and Zaripov saw two fascist soldiers cautiously approaching the sheepskin coat. Bringing them closer, the junior lieutenant killed them both on the spot with one long burst. In several jumps he jumped up to the dead, picked up a German machine gun and its clips, lay down and with long bursts forced a group of German soldiers to lie down.
The Nazis continued to shoot at the sheepskin coat, and Zaripov quickly crawled towards the forest. There were no more than two hundred meters left before him, but these were the most difficult meters. Finally, Zaripov jumped to his feet and ran forward. At the edge of the forest he was stopped by the menacing shout of a sentry:
- Stop! Who goes?
- Do not shoot! I'm mine!
Wet and tired, the Soviet officer stumbled into the division commander's dugout. Having caught his breath, he handed Prokofiev the package. The division commander hugged him tightly and said:
- Thank you for your service, hero. You did a great job and saved many of your fellow countrymen from death. Now go rest.
When the Nazi command understood the situation, they realized what a danger the Soviet unit that had penetrated their rear posed to them. Repeated attempts by the Nazis to destroy the division led nowhere. Each time the German troops rolled back with heavy losses for them. Then the enemies decided to starve the Soviet soldiers to death. Neither day nor night they stopped shelling forest area, in small groups infiltrated the location of our battalions. And one day at dawn, a small group of fascist skiers managed to break through to the division headquarters. True, they were quickly driven away.
Another time, in broad daylight, two Germans attacked a cook who was bringing lunch for the headquarters. They stunned him from behind with a blow to the head and dragged him away. But the driver was not at a loss. And although he was unarmed, he rushed to the aid of his comrade, took a machine gun from one of the Germans, finished him off, and took the second prisoner.
And so the soldiers see the following picture: a kitchen is moving along the road to headquarters, and a cook is walking behind and leading a tied up Nazi.
The soldiers then joked:
— We brought German for lunch.
The Germans placed loudspeakers around the forest and spent days agitating Soviet soldiers to surrender if they did not want to die of hunger.
And the situation in the division became more complicated every day. Ammunition was dropped into the forest at night in small batches and saved to repel German counterattacks. The only food was horse meat, and even then without salt. The fighting spirit of the soldiers, however, did not dry out. They knew that temporary hardships were due to the strategic plan of the command.
And finally the long-awaited day has come. Units of the 352nd Division, together with the tank brigade of General Katukov, went on the offensive and linked up with their troops.
The 1160th regiment under the command of Major Andreev fought fierce battles for Timkovo. The Germans put up stubborn resistance. All approaches to the village were under heavy fire from Timkovo and Khvorostenino. The units suffered heavy losses, but were unable to break into the village. Then artillery came to the aid of the infantry. The crews of sergeants Lipatov, Karim Shakirov, Shevchenko and Gapsalam fired at enemy firing points with direct fire. In the village of Khvorostenino, they destroyed four mortars and smashed a building with German machine gunners holed up in it. In Timkovo, a shed with equipment was lifted into the air.
After artillery preparation, rifle units went on the attack. One battalion from the front, and the other two, after a flanking maneuver, from the north. The entry of our units to the flanks created a threat of encirclement, which is why the Germans snapped so desperately. From the northern part of Timkovo they launched a counterattack, trying to break into the regiment's defenses and encircle it. With the support of tanks and aircraft, the Nazis managed to cut the road leading from the village of Mikhailovka to Ivanovskoye. But the enemy’s plan was thwarted thanks to the courage of our soldiers. The company sergeants, riders, and clerks, under the leadership of the tank major, took up arms, quickly organized a defense and entered the battle. Having suffered heavy losses, the Nazis rolled back.
Many of the regiment's soldiers fought heroically in this battle. Political instructor Sychev entrenched himself in a trench seventy meters from Timkovo and for ten hours repelled enemy attacks, shooting the advancing fascists point-blank with a machine gun.
At a difficult moment in the battle, battalion commander Senior Lieutenant Lapshin himself raised the soldiers to attack. Having reached the fence, about twenty meters from the last house, he gave the command:
- Behind me! - and began to climb over the fence. From the house, a machine gun clattered, choking. The battalion commander, screaming, fell into the snow, bleeding. The death of the brave commander spurred on the fighters; they rushed forward with even greater fury. Breaking the resistance of the fascists, destroying their firing points, the attackers quickly moved towards the center of the village. The tankmen of General Katukov and units of the 1162nd Infantry Regiment again came to their aid, who, having made a roundabout maneuver, entered the village from the rear and suddenly attacked the enemy.
The stubborn battle lasted all night. Early in the morning, when there was still a thick fog over the snow-covered field, Lieutenant Veshchenko’s fighters resumed the attack. Lieutenant Dedenko's company outflanked the enemy. The German bunkers came to life, the artillery began to speak. The battlefield was covered in black smoke. The roar tore my eardrums. The ring of fire inevitably tightened around the desperately resisting Nazis.
The battery commander, Lieutenant Kirichenko, ordered the guns to be rolled out for direct fire. The artillerymen opened heavy fire at enemy firing points at close range. Well-aimed hits caused defensive structures to fly into the air and the walls of houses to collapse. The village looked more like a huge fire than a populated area. It seemed that not only the wood was burning, but also metal, brick, and the earth itself.
Together with the infantry, leaving two people at the gun, a platoon of artillerymen under Lieutenant Yasnenko burst into the village. Lieutenant Chuvanev’s fighters recaptured the cannon from the Germans, turned it around and struck the Nazis.
In our mortar company, which supported the infantry, only Sergeant Mindubaev’s mortar remained intact. And he continued to fight. The sergeant noticed a group of fascist soldiers who were amassing for a counterattack on the flank of our infantry. Quickly assessing the situation, he and the carrier deployed the mortar and opened fire on the Nazis. The first shot misses. The second one already hit the target. In the midst of fascist soldiers running along the wall of a red brick building, an explosion flashed. The sergeant fired several more mines. Red-yellow flashes splashed along the wall of the house in a wide fan. When the smoke cleared, Mindubaev saw the surviving enemy soldiers rushing about.
Fascist tanks crawled out from behind a gray building that stood at a crossroads. Several vehicles, picking up speed, rushed straight towards the positions of the artillerymen of the 6th howitzer battery.
- At the tanks... aim at the lead one! Sight ten, armor-piercing. Fire! - commanded Sergeant S.S. Latypov (Native of the village of Bayrali, Yutaznsky district of Tatarstan).
A tight wave hit my ears painfully. The sergeant followed the path of his projectile. From the second shot there, in front, everything suddenly lit up violently and reared up. Following Latypov’s gun, other howitzers and neighboring batteries struck. In the heat of battle, Latypov did not hear how enemy shells began to explode along the parapet. Hot air whipped into my face, and fragments sang overhead. One crater smoked acrid smoke three meters from the gun. The calculation is out of order. The loader was killed and the others were seriously wounded, leaving the sergeant alone. And the German tanks rushed ahead, splashing out yellow flames from their thick, curly trunks.
The sergeant grabbed the shell, pushed it into the breech, took aim and pulled the cord. The gun boomed sharply. The front tank spun in place, unwinding its flat track. The sergeant managed to shoot again, and the cross-shaped car burst into flames. Almost simultaneously, two more German tanks, hit by artillerymen from other batteries, caught fire, and the remaining vehicles turned around and went back. Left without cover, Nazi machine gunners lay down. Our riflemen rose at once and rushed to the attack. Soldiers Galimzyanov, Ermolaev, Mashkov ran ahead, dragging the rest of the soldiers with them. But oncoming fire again pressed them to the ground. The surviving German firing points spewed out a deadly rain, which was simply impossible to break through.
Then the machine gunners of Captain G. Sinkevich entered into action. Red Army soldier Pyotr Fateev, under heavy fire, skillfully using the folds of the terrain, crawled far forward and began to shoot fascist soldiers who were preparing a new counterattack. A new infantry push and another 50 meters of Soviet land were conquered from the Nazis. Suddenly, a German machine gun from a haystack started talking. Machine gunner Fateev fell to his “maxim” and fired a long burst at the haystack. The fascist fell silent. The infantry moved forward again. Fateev, having taken a new position, opened destructive fire, supporting our riflemen. Several German soldiers jumped out of the last house, but a long line put them down on the spot. The brave machine gunner, not paying attention to the enemy’s strong mortar fire, continually changed his positions and helped the riflemen kick the Nazis out of their houses and basements. His bullets overtook enemies wherever they appeared.
Pyotr Fateev, a former Stakhanovite tractor driver in the collective farm fields of Tatarstan. He fought like Stakhanov in battle too. For the skillful fighting, courage and personal bravery, the command awarded him the Order of the Red Banner of Battle.
By the morning of December 31, units of the 1162nd and 1160th rifle regiments defeated the enemy and occupied the village of Timkovo.
Private Romashko, the gunner of an 82-mm mortar, also distinguished himself in these battles. He destroyed two bunkers, a heavy machine gun and about 30 fascist soldiers.
Great assistance to the rifle units was provided by tireless war workers - sappers. On the approaches to Timkovo they removed hundreds of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. In carrying out these tasks, lieutenants Polonsky and Morozov, senior sergeants Andreev and Mishin, privates Shamsutdinov, Osipov, Sakhibullin, Zaripov, Zabelin, Arkhipov and other soldiers and commanders distinguished themselves.
Not all soldiers celebrated the victory. Many of them died brave deaths in battle for their native land. The commander of the 2nd battalion of the 1160th regiment, Captain Pytskikh, the battalion commander, Senior Lieutenant Belov, and Senior Lieutenant Golubev, were killed.
Without stopping in Timkovo, the soldiers of the 1162nd regiment launched an attack on the village of Birkino, on the capture of which the fighting of the neighboring 331st Infantry Division depended. Its fighters and commanders had already been fighting heavy battles for several days for the heavily fortified German defense point Ludina Gora.
It was not possible to take Birkino on the move. Then the regiment commander, Captain Agafonov, carefully developed an attack plan. And at dawn the frosty air was torn apart by the roar of guns and mortars. The artillery preparation lasted two hours. Birkino was filled with smoke, and fires broke out in different parts of the village. While our artillerymen were grinding down the enemy’s defenses, Lieutenant Orlov’s unit, along the bottom of a deep ravine, quietly approached Birkino and stood ready, waiting for the signal. When a red rocket burst in the air, tanks with a landing force of submachine gunners Lieutenant Chupilo and Chuvalev moved forward. Having reached the outskirts of the village, the soldiers jumped from their cars and shouted “Hurray!” attacked the fascists. The Nazis, abandoning their weapons and carts, began to retreat. Pursuing the enemy, our infantry burst into the neighboring village of Ananyevo and began hand-to-hand combat. Half an hour later, this village was cleared of fascists.
In that battle, political instructor Zotov distinguished himself; with his soldiers, he destroyed twelve carts with property and about a platoon of German soldiers. The commander of the mortar crew, Beschastnov, ensured the success of the battalion’s advance by suppressing enemy firing points.
For several days now, the units of the 1158th Infantry Regiment of Major Vasilenko had been fighting heavily for the village of Timonino, but they could not take it. The chief of staff of the regiment, Captain Phillippuk, received an order: to carry out an unexpected raid on the village at night. He immediately gathered the commanders and reported to them the task at hand.
We had approximate information about the enemy’s forces and their firing points. To finally identify the enemy’s fortifications, the captain sent reconnaissance, and he and his commanders went to the edge of the forest to study in detail the approaches to the village. Even earlier, he gave the order to one of the units to start a firefight with the Germans. The Nazis, not realizing the intentions of our command, responded with intense fire. This made it possible to identify previously unknown enemy fire weapons.
When it became completely dark, the units went on the attack. Our machine gunners opened heavy fire on the German right-flank firing points. The Nazis from the left flank transferred additional forces here. And this is exactly what our soldiers needed. They quickly burst into the village from the other side and started a battle. The Nazis began to transfer their forces to the left flank, but it was too late. Soviet infantry cleared eight houses from the Nazis, destroyed three machine guns, two guns and about 60 enemy soldiers.
Clerk Uglanov boldly went into battle. When the ammunition was running low, he delivered it to the soldiers on time under heavy enemy fire. Private Egorov destroyed four Nazis in hand-to-hand combat. The chief of staff, Captain Phillippyuk, himself led one group of Red Army soldiers and broke into the village with them. The brave warriors destroyed more than a dozen enemy soldiers, blew up an ammunition depot, and only when the Nazis threw about a battalion of infantry against them did they retreat into the forest. Captain Phillippyuk was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
During the battle, people could not calmly stay in the rear; they rushed to the front line. Before the assault on Timonino began, the chief of ammunition supply, Lieutenant Erbulatkin, came to the command post of the 1158th regiment.
The regiment commander, Major Vasilenko, looked at him in surprise, and then asked sternly:
- Why did you come here?
“Comrade Major, I don’t have the strength to sit in the rear when there’s a battle going on around me!” answered Erbulatkin. “Do whatever you want with me.”
- Stop your childish antics, Lieutenant. Go to your place immediately.
- I can’t, Comrade Major.
- I order you to leave here immediately! “I’ll see you again, I’ll punish you,” the major said irritably. “Go and don’t catch my eye here!”
“Gotta go!” the lieutenant answered, standing at attention, and in short dashes, maneuvering among the explosions of mines and shells, he ran into the forest.
The battles for Timonino did not stop day or night and continued with the same tenacity. The village was heavily fortified. Every piece of land was covered by powerful enemy fire. The division command brought artillery and a Katyusha battalion here.
Early in the morning, the cold air was shaken by volleys of guns, and fiery comets of rockets rushed towards the enemy. For an hour and a half, 12 artillery divisions hit Timonino. The entire village was enveloped in black smoke and colored with the crimson glow of fires. No individual shots were heard; they merged into a continuous roar.
At 8:30 a.m. the artillery shifted its fire deep into the enemy’s defenses. And then a rocket soared over the battlefield and a multi-voiced “Hurray!..” rang out.
Most of the enemy's firing points were suppressed, but still some of them came to life. However, it was already impossible to stop the advancing avalanche.
Lieutenant Erbulatkin was one of the first to burst into the village. In hand-to-hand combat he destroyed several fascist soldiers and captured seven. Our soldiers recaptured house after house from the enemy, destroying the resisting German soldiers. By noon, the village of Timonino was liberated.
The Germans did not expect such a powerful offensive, did not intend to retreat, and concentrated here a large amount of food, weapons, and especially property looted from the civilian population. In one car alone, our soldiers found 96 new blankets and many other household belongings.
The next day the Nazis tried to capture the village again. Early in the morning they brought down heavy fire from mortars and artillery. From the positions occupied by the enemy, the village was clearly visible and the shelling was accurate. Units of the division suffered heavy losses. The commander of the 1160th regiment, Major Maslennikov, was wounded and was replaced by Major Boyarshinov.
Some of the regiment's units retreated into the forest, leaving a company of machine gunners with light and heavy machine guns on its outskirts. The mine explosion set fire to the dressing station and communications center. Risking their lives, under continuous mortar fire, medical workers and signalmen rescued and carried the wounded out of the burning house. The head of the regiment's medical service, military doctor 3rd rank Ashraliev, worked calmly and confidently, quickly giving orders, he bandaged the wounded right on the move and calmed them down.
In the evening, the regiment's units went on the offensive again. In one of the companies, the commander was out of action during the attack; he was replaced by political instructor Itkin. He walked ahead of the attackers, inspiring the fighters by personal example. The company quickly reached the edge of the forest and began a firefight with the Nazis. Soon the Germans, fearing encirclement, stopped resisting and began to retreat. In this battle, political instructor Itkin died the death of a hero.
On January 14, in the small village of Stepankovo, several units and the headquarters of the 352nd Infantry Division. stopped to rest. Early in the morning, fascist planes flew in. This is what the former commander of the 218th communications company, A.S. Kucherenko, subsequently said about this bombing: “Several units and the division headquarters stopped in the village of Stepankovo. In the morning two fascist bombers arrived and began bombing. One of the bombs hit a two-story building where signalmen of the 218th separate communications company were located, among whom I was. An explosion of terrible force shook the entire building, walls fell, beams, bricks, plaster flew, dust and fumes were all around. I was thrown out the window like a ball by the blast wave. I fell into the snow. This was the first run. The planes turned around and started bombing again. A bomb fell behind the barn, the roof and the entire upper part were torn off, and it all fell on top of me and covered me. I can’t get out on my own. He began to call for help. About twenty minutes later one of the soldiers heard my screams and they freed me. My comrades ran up, asked something, said something, but I didn’t hear anything. I realized that I was seriously shell-shocked. During the bombing, Lieutenant Batalov, military technician Merkulov and several other soldiers and junior commanders were killed. Lieutenant Kotov was seriously wounded. It smashed the camp kitchen, killed horses, scattered food across the yard, destroyed a radio station and several telephone sets.
We had a wonderful radio station, RSB. It was mounted on a vehicle with an armored body and was intended to connect the division headquarters with higher headquarters and formations. Very reliable in operation. We took care of her like a little child and she never let us down. And the crew was good. Station chief Lieutenant Sobatkovsky, radio operators on duty: junior lieutenant Khodyashev and driver. All of them were called up from the reserves, excellent specialists. Particularly noteworthy is Khodyashev, originally from Tatarstan. This is a virtuoso of his craft. The most important transfers were always entrusted to him.
In addition to this large radio station, we also had small radios. All of them required constant technical inspection. This was done by radio technician Senior Lieutenant Kochergin. He is also from Tataria, called up from the reserves. At that time he was about thirty years old, no more.
I always walked around with a tool bag on my side and never parted with it. Educated and smart specialist. There were cases when our radio station was so damaged that it seemed that no force could return it to service. But Kochergin will tinker, work some magic on it, and it will start working again. Kochergin has never walked past a crashed plane; he is sure to find something needed for his work in it.
Military technician Ibragimov monitored the condition of the telephone equipment. We had Private Nagorny - this is simply Kulibin, a jack of all trades. He forged horses, repaired carts and sleighs, tinned boilers in the kitchen, made stoves for dugouts, repaired shoes and did many other things necessary in military life.
There were few cars and communication equipment was transported on carts, and in winter on sleighs. The riders, or as they were otherwise called, the carriage riders, were all already aged, most of them were peasants. They were tireless workers. They looked after the horses, the cart and the property. I still remember one of them - Pchelintsev. He took care of his horse Gnedok, with whom he went through the entire war. I always dug a separate dugout for him and shared with him the hardships of a soldier’s life at the front.
We had a telephone operator at our central telephone exchange, Ivanov, a young boy of about eighteen, a brave soldier. More than once during a battle, under heavy enemy fire, he had to fix a broken communication line.
Senior Sergeant Alexander Stepanovich Shepelev (originally from the village of Ilyinskoye, Tetyushsky district of the TASSR) is a neat, efficient comrade. I always knew: where Shepelev is, everything is always in order. We had good platoon commanders: senior lieutenant Puchko, senior lieutenant Dergachev, senior lieutenant Rudin, head of the central military station, senior lieutenant Golichenko, senior lieutenant Tazov and military paramedic Khaliullin.
Signalmen are tireless workers of war. There is a battle going on, shells and mines are exploding, enemy aircraft are bombing. It seems that there is nothing alive left on earth, but you pick up the phone, call the final station: “Volga, Volga, I am the Dnieper, how can you hear?” - And you will hear the words joyful to the heart of the signalman: “Dnepr, I am the Volga, I hear you well " My soul immediately becomes lighter.”
... The breakthrough of the powerful enemy defensive line along the Lama River opened the way for a further offensive by the 20th Army. Pursuing the retreating enemy, units of the division moved west, one after another liberating the settlements of the Moscow region from the invaders. The Nazis retreated, snarling fiercely. Long columns of vehicles, entire divisions of guns, hundreds of motorcycles, machine guns, mortars and other military equipment were abandoned by the German conquerors in villages and on snowy roads. The retreat path of the Fuhrer's army from Moscow was strewn with the frozen corpses of German soldiers.
The soldiers of the 352nd Infantry Division fought about 60 days of intense battles with the fascist invaders. It happened that, cut off from its supply bases, the division was left without ammunition, food, the soldiers lived in the bitter cold in the open air, but despite this, the moral and offensive spirit of its soldiers was great.
On the contrary, the mood of the German soldiers was much less militant than a couple of months ago. Fascist generals had to resort to punitive measures and issue threatening orders in order to keep the army from panicking. New Commander-in-Chief Eastern Front burst out, for example, with the following order:
“The German army must go over to a “fanatical” defense against the strongest enemy in the history of all wars.”
Carrying out this order, the commander of the 5th Army Corps in turn threatened:
“I categorically forbid giving up any position. Every commander who surrenders a village without my personal permission will be immediately tried by a military tribunal. In addition, unworthy and completely unfounded dirty rumors about our great losses and the advantages of the Russians, who have almost no guns and very few tanks. I categorically demand that these rumors be monitored and that the whiners be brought to justice.”
Similar orders were given in all Nazi divisions operating on the Western Front. They even showed German soldiers that the myth of invincibility fascist army dispelled, the lightning war did not work out, the parade in Moscow will not take place and they will not receive leave in the near future.
From the captured letters one can judge the mood of the German soldiers after the defeat of the fascist army near Moscow. On December 28, Corporal Schmidt from one tank division wrote home to Germany: “Oh, Lord! Why did you leave us? We started to retreat. Do you know what a retreat in Russian winter is? Only Napoleon knows this. We retreated into the storm and snow, into thirty-degree frost. I don't know why I'm writing. It’s hard for me and my whole body hurts. Now the wind is howling angrily, blowing snow, and my legs and arms ache so much that I can no longer stand it...
The Russians are advancing. Yes, dear ones, I have seen a lot of different fights and battles, but I have never seen what is being done here. You can’t even imagine what kind of strength the Russians have. The hell that was near Yelnya seems like child’s play and cannot be compared with what is happening here.”
Yes, Soviet land burned under the feet of the conquerors. Doubt about the successful outcome of Hitler’s adventure to conquer Russia entered the minds of many of them. In any case, it became obvious: the Soviet people will defend their Motherland to the last drop of blood, to the last breath.
Pursuing the retreating enemy, the 352nd Infantry Division led the offensive until February 22, 1942, and then went on the defensive. Its soldiers put themselves in order, received reinforcements, engaged in combat and political training, and carefully studied the experience of the battles near Moscow.
At the end of February, the division was transferred to the 5th Army of the Western Front. Preparations began for the upcoming battles for the village of Gruzdevo - a strong point of enemy resistance in the Nazi defensive line on the approaches to the ancient Russian city of Gzhatsk.
Gruzdevo was covered by a height of 255.5, to the west of which the coniferous forest. From the main trench, to the east, in the village of Klyachino, there was a trench from a height where the Nazis kept a military outpost. The Nazis thoroughly equipped this resistance unit in engineering terms and adapted firing points for oblique fire. The height was crossed by lines of trenches with bunkers and wire barriers in two or three rows. All approaches were covered with dense fire from the edges of the forest. This fortified area was to be broken through by units of the division.
As soon as the order was received, preparations for the offensive began in the units. The regiments received reinforcements at this time. Communists and Komsomol members, experienced soldiers told young people about the traditions of the division, about its battle path, passed with heavy fighting from Volokolamsk to the Gzhatsky forests. Party and Komsomol meetings were held in all units with the agenda: “Tasks of communists and Komsomol members in the upcoming battles.” Combat leaflets were issued that aimed personnel at being well organized to ensure combat.
Before the offensive, fighters and commanders submitted applications asking to be accepted into the party and asked to be considered communists if they died in battle. Thus, only in the 1162nd Infantry Regiment 100 applications were submitted. Including from Alekseev, Oleinikov, Belousov, Volkov, Bogolyubtsev, Konoplyanny, Ovsyannikov, Kotorovsky and others. The third rifle company, led by commander Lieutenant Ovsyannikov, entirely asked to be considered communist. In the 914th artillery regiment, 13 people were accepted into the party and among them: Sychugov, Soldatenko, Broshch, Uglanov, Stazhkin.
The artillerymen of the 914th artillery regiment were preparing their firing positions in the forest. To transport ammunition and guns, they dug a five-kilometer road in the meter-long snow and cut down clearings. Observation points were set up on the forest edges near the village of Klyachino, and two hundred meters from it a checkpoint for the division commander and regiment commanders was built.
All work was carried out in compliance with strict camouflage. Reinforcements arrived: tanks and Katyushas. Officers monitored the enemy's front line around the clock and carefully studied its defense system.
The offensive was planned to begin early in the morning of March 2, 1942, after a forty-minute artillery barrage. The command staff of the 914th artillery regiment, together with the commanders of the rifle units, coordinated issues of interaction, communications and worked out signals. And at night, the fighters dug trenches in the snow in order to get closer to the enemy and unexpectedly strike him. The scouts also did not sit idle, often going behind enemy lines at night.
On the eve of the offensive, Private Mikhail Tsarev, together with his fighting friends, went on reconnaissance. It was a frosty night. Soon the scouts came across a barn. In the darkness, somewhere nearby, a man was moaning. Tsarev discovered our wounded soldier and asked him:
- Who are you? Where?
“I’m dying... bunker... Here in the barn,” he whispered. The decision came to Tsarev instantly. He rose to his full height and shouted loudly:
- Soldiers, listen to my command! Fire! Hur...a...a!
His comrades understood his plan and fired long bursts at the barn. Tsarev rushed inside and deftly threw two grenades one after another. The Germans, holed up in the barn, began to rush about and then raised their hands.
The scouts returned safely to the regiment and brought with them prisoners who gave valuable testimony about the firing points and the Nazi defense system.
A day before the attack there was a severe frost. Swaying slightly in the wind, the evergreen spruces, magnificently decorated with fluffy snow, whispered, and elegant goldfinches chirped carefree, jumping from branch to branch.
And there are traces of war all around. Pale blue smoke from fires, around which soldiers settled in huts after a hard, tiring march, wounded trees, crumpled earth.
Occasionally the silence was broken by the piercing crack of an exploding mine, or a shell rushed howling over the forest and somewhere in the distance the dull echo of a deadly explosion was heard.
Having made himself comfortable near the fire, Krasnov from time to time threw dry branches of brushwood into the fire. Military life, which he had heard a lot about in the rear from experienced front-line soldiers, was new and still unknown to him. He looked with envy at the soldiers who had already been in battle more than once. I listened carefully to their advice. “Tomorrow we’ll go into battle,” he thought, “and you may not see many of your friends again.”
This thought made me feel uneasy; a small, nasty shiver ran through my body. His face darkened. He was visibly worried. Of course, he, an unfired warrior, and in the recent past a mechanical engineer, was promoted to the position of political officer of the company.
A stocky military commander, Korolkov, with powerful shoulders and large features, entered the hut. Taking a possessive look at the lying soldiers, he asked in a quiet voice:
- What, Krasnov, are you spending the day?
Raising himself a little on his knees, Krasnov answered:
- Yes, comrade military commissar. Here I sit, warming up the fighters. Let's rest and get ready for battle.
Then, after a short silence, he asked:
- Tell me, comrade military commissar, is it a little scary in the attack? And he looked intently at the commissioner, waiting for an answer.
The fighters loved Korolkov for his simplicity and sincere attitude towards them. They became close to him from the first days of their arrival at the front. He knew how to guess people's moods and always found the right word. After thinking, the commissioner replied:
- A skilled warrior is not afraid to fight. Tomorrow we’ll hit the German, we’ll rest, and then we’ll talk to you about our military affairs. Although the whole war is a terrible thing, everything that we saw in the liberated villages is also terrible. But if you always remember that for us every battle is sacred, that we are defending our Motherland, our sisters, mothers, children, then nothing is scary. It's not scary to die. But you have to live to win.
At this time, a young soldier with a face flushed from the frost ran into the hut and, stuttering slightly, hurriedly spoke:
- Comrade military commissar, the regiment commander is looking for you.
- Well, Krasnov, see you tomorrow. It will be difficult - I will help,” and, having said goodbye, he went to the checkpoint.
When he arrived at the regimental command post, many commanders had already gathered there. There was a lively conversation between them about the upcoming battle.

Deputy commander of the 1158th regiment
on the political side P.Ya. Chuprina

At the same time, the commanders fell silent. The tall, fit regiment commander, Major Vasilenko, entered the dugout with a quick step. In an even, calm, but with a metallic tone, voice, he set combat missions to unit commanders. Having finished speaking, he asked:
- Is everything clear, comrades?
- Clear! - the commanders answered in unison.
“Now it’s time, prepare the soldiers for the offensive.”
The commanders left the dugout one by one and went to their units. They had to complete a difficult task: to break through the defenses strongly fortified by the Nazis in the area of ​​​​the village of Gruzdevo. The final preparations have begun. The soldiers checked rifles and machine guns, stocked up on grenades, and cleaned machine guns.
An energetic, always cheerful artillery commander, who had been in more than one battle, Lieutenant Kobernik, lovingly stroking his small, short-barreled cannon, joked:
- Well, brothers, let's give the Krauts a light?
- We'll give it! - Gunner Fedorov answered for everyone. “Tomorrow I will send dozens of creeping reptiles to the next world from this cannon.”
“Well done, Fedorov,” the battalion commander praised him. “You must beat the Nazis the way they beat them at Timonino.”
At night, units of the 1158th and 1162nd rifle regiments moved to their original positions. A long line of soldiers walked to the edge of the forest near the village of Klyachino. The machine gunners, bending slightly, dragged “maxims” mounted on special sleds. With a rifle in his hands, looking around, Krasnov ran across the snowy trench. A mine exploded not far from him, lumps of snow flew to the sides, and fragments flew with a howl. The soldiers lay down, burying themselves in the snow. Next to Krasnov lay military commissar Korolkov.
- How are you, Krasnov? - asked the commissioner.
“Nothing, comrade military commissar.” Only the mine howls, damn it, it’s somehow disgusting, it gives you a pain in the liver. And so far nothing.
“This is out of habit,” the commissar answered him. “Look ahead, Krasnov.” And he pointed to where a height entangled in barbed wire loomed in the distance against a white background. “Look, you can see a burned-out village on the left.” They destroyed everything, you bastards. Can this be forgiven?
“I see, comrade military commissar,” answered Krasnov.
Soldier Safonov intervened in the conversation:
- Comrade military commissar, I cannot look at these two-legged animals with indifference. They bastards killed my mother near Ruza. I will repay them for everything today.
Exactly at 8.00 in the morning, flashes of fire began to play in the sky. Eight Katyusha rockets fired two salvos, followed by guns of different calibers. The shots merged into a continuous roar. Columns of smoke rose above the enemy's defenses, clods of earth and logs from torn-up dugouts and bunkers flew upward. The snow bank in front of the enemy trench collapsed.
The faces of the soldiers brightened as they watched this picture.
- So them, bastards! Cut tighter, god of war! - shouted the fighter Safonov, who was lying next to Krasnov.
Artillery cannonade thundered for forty minutes. And suddenly it became quiet. And a few seconds later a powerful Russian “Hurray!” rang out over the battlefield. Units of the 1162nd and 1160th rifle regiments went on the offensive.
Political instructor Krasnov jumped onto the parapet of the trench:
- Communists, forward!
Commissar Korolkov was running next to him. The fighters did not lag behind either.
One by one they began to come to life German machine guns. But their fire did not stop the attacks. The infantry confidently advanced towards the intended target. The Red Army soldier Safonov screamed loudly, grabbed his chest, and whispered with white lips: beat the bastards. And, sighing heavily, he collapsed on the snow. As if tripping over an invisible barrier, several more soldiers fell.
On the right flank there was the hum of engines and the clanging of tracks. Eight T-34 tanks with the landing force of Senior Lieutenant Smirnov rushed to the height at full speed. Following them, the third rifle company of Lieutenant Ovsyannikov advanced. Here is the first line of trenches, hand-to-hand combat has begun.
Red Army soldier Akhmetov threw a grenade and, following the explosion, jumped into the trench, sat down, looking around. A burst of machine gun fire came from around the bend and bullets screamed. He fell to the ground and, lying down, threw a grenade in that direction. Then he jumped up and ran along the trench, firing from his machine gun. A fierce hand-to-hand fight broke out not far from him. Loud screams, heavy snoring, screams of the wounded, muffled groans, and abrupt cursing were heard. Akhmetov ran to help his comrades. The Nazis desperately resisted, trying to hold the trench, but the soldiers of the third company meter by meter cleared the trenches of the enemy. Every now and then there were grenade explosions and machine guns crackled in short bursts.
The soldiers of the second company of the 1162nd regiment under the command of Piskunov, moving southwest of the village of Klyachino, started a battle in a grove on the approaches to the height. To the right, the first rifle company of political instructor Bugrov was advancing.
The commander of the 6th battery of the 914th artillery regiment, Avdeev, constantly advanced with the advanced units and directed gun fire at enemy firing points.
The Nazis could not withstand such a powerful onslaught from several sides and retreated.
The Nazis tried by all means to stop the advance of the division's units. They called in aviation, which covered the combat area square by square. The first school of planes came in to bomb from the west on a low-level flight. The Junkers, one after another, lined up in a huge circle, capturing the heights, the grove and the village of Klyachino.
A huge bomb carrier, with clearly visible black and white crosses on its side, stopped for a moment, as if it had stumbled in the air, and, predatorily extending its wheels like claws; deafening with a piercing screeching sound, it began to fall down, right into the eyes of Krasnov, who was pressed tightly into the wall of the trench. Oblong objects separated from under this roaring machine and went down with a piercing screech.
- Get down! - Commissar Korolkov did not hear his own voice in this howl, he felt with his fingers how he pulled the skirts of Krasnov’s overcoat.
Krasnov fell on him, blocking the sky, and immediately a bomb exploded not far from them, they were shaken, hit with heat and painfully pounded on the back with large clods of frozen earth. The trench was filled with acrid thick smoke. The sky was boiling with blackness and roar, only the planes of dive bombers dimly glimmered in it, and black bombs flashed. In the collapses of the explosions, the trench bent, twisted and the red-hot fragments sang in mortal voices above their heads. The earth collapsed and, along with the snow, slid to the bottom of the trench.
One bomb exploded so that the commissar and Krasnov were thrown up by the blast wave and sprinkled with large clods of earth on top.
Before one wave of explosions had time to subside, a second was approaching, followed by a third. When the bombing moved somewhere to the right of them, military commissar Korolkov stood up, shaking off the dirt and snow.
- Well, how is it, political officer?
- Hell and nothing more. “It’s like being in hell,” he answered.
“Now wait for a counterattack,” said Korolkov. “Fritz, it wasn’t in vain that he rained bombs on us.”
And before the military commissar had time to finish speaking, one of the soldiers shouted shrilly:
- Germans!
Krasnov looked towards the village of Gruzdevo. Along the snowy field, having divided into two chains, about a regiment of fascist soldiers was moving towards them. By this time, in the village of Klyachino, the artillerymen of the 2nd battery of Lieutenant Kirichenko and the 4th battery of Lieutenant Zyubin had managed to take up firing positions. Before the Nazis had time to reach the slopes of the heights, explosions shot up in their battle formations. The Germans were hit from above with machine guns. The Nazis rushed across the field, looking for salvation. The shells exploded in the very thick of the enemies.
- Three shells... rapid fire! - Kirichenko shouted commands, watching the explosions through binoculars and adjusting the sights of the guns.
The artillerymen of the 4th battery of Lieutenant Zyubin worked just as efficiently. He also did not have to rush people: the calculations acted quickly and smoothly.
The snow field was covered with round craters with ragged edges, over which a bluish smoke smoked. The Nazis, having lost about half of their soldiers, ran in disarray to Gruzdevo. But the battle continued with the same force. Our infantry, pursuing the enemy, also rushed towards the village. The first to rush into it were tanks with a landing party of Lieutenant Smirnov and Senior Sergeant Garusev. Soldiers of the 1160th regiment burst into the village from the south-eastern side.
Our soldiers kicked the Germans out of their dugouts with a bayonet and a grenade. The Komsomol organizer of the 1158th regiment, political instructor Labuta, and two soldiers jumped into the artillery dugout and in hand-to-hand combat destroyed the servants of a German anti-tank gun.
When the Nazis, with the support of a tank, launched a counterattack, Labuta and the soldiers turned the German cannon towards the enemy and opened fire. They were supported by Lieutenant Sinkevich's machine gunners. Labut and his fighters were released from German gun four hundred and forty shells. The Nazis, leaving about a hundred corpses on the battlefield, retreated.
The battalion, led by the commander of the 1162nd regiment, Major Agafonov, rushed into the breakthrough after the tanks and completed the job - Gruzdevo was liberated.
About two hours later, the Nazis, supported by aviation, launched a new counterattack. But she too choked. Until late in the evening, the Nazis fired guns and mortars at the village, and attacked it several times at night. The defenders' strength was dwindling. By dawn, about twenty people remained in the ranks. During one of the enemy attacks, Agafonov was informed that his adjutant was wounded. Vasily Sergeevich crawled up to him, encouraged him and returned to the trench again. The shell exploded almost nearby. The major was pierced by several fragments. But he still managed to say to the fighter bending over him:
- Hold the village, guys!
The Agafonovites carried out the last order of their beloved commander and did not retreat a single step.
V.S. Agafonov was one of the best commanders in the division. He loved his subordinates. He taught them and learned from them. A competent and courageous officer, Agafonov more than once led soldiers into the attack in difficult moments of battle. The bright image of Vasily Sergeevich Agafonov, who gave his life for the freedom and independence of our Motherland, will forever remain in the memory of his comrades.
Early in the morning, the Nazis opened heavy artillery fire on the village of Gruzdevo, and threw a large number of machine gunners into battle from the flanks. Units of the division found themselves in a difficult situation, suffered heavy losses, and control was disrupted. Many commanders were wounded and killed.
In the 1162nd Infantry Regiment, senior lieutenant Lutsenko took command. The regimental commissar Fadeikin was wounded, but remained in service. Political instructors Piskunov, Avdeev and battalion commissar Fomin headed the leadership of the regiment's units. They quickly restored order and organized defense. And thanks to the courage of our soldiers and commanders, the Nazi offensive was stopped. Units of the division withdrew from Gruzdevo, entrenched themselves at height 255.5 and in the village of Klyachino.
In these battles, the chief of staff of the 1160th regiment, senior lieutenant Pavlov, the commander of the first battalion of the 1158th regiment, lieutenant Egorov, and many others died the death of the brave.
Armor-piercing officer Pavel Filatov especially distinguished himself and showed his combat skills. He destroyed two enemy heavy machine guns and a mortar with an anti-tank rifle.
If Filatov had been told at the beginning of the war that he was destined to become an armor-piercing specialist, and even a master of his craft, he would never have believed it.
- Machine gun, sniper rifle“This is a weapon,” said Filatov. “And you’ll get confused with this thing.” She's not up to my standards.
However, fate decided otherwise. One fine day he was enlisted in the PTR company and was given a gun. Pavel Andreevich was at first confused.
“What am I going to do, comrade commander, with this poker?”
- This is not a poker, but a wonderful weapon. Work with him and you will find out for yourself what power lies in him,” the commander answered him.
“So it’s destined,” Filatov decided, “for that matter, you need to become a good armor-piercing fighter.”
And he began to conscientiously study his long gun. At first, not everything went well. Filatov sighed sadly and looked with envy at the riflemen and machine gunners. Two weeks have passed. During shooting practice, he hit a moving target. Three bullets hit accurately.
- Look! — Filatov was surprised. “The gun turns out to hit well.”
Seeing that the bullets were penetrating thick armor, Filatov finally became confident in his weapon and began to look condescendingly at the machine gunners and snipers.
Now Pavel Andreevich does not part with his gun. If a fascist mortar or machine gun gets in his sights, write it down. Filatov has a faithful eye, a firm hand, it will not waver even in a moment of mortal danger. A skilled armor-piercer hits without missing a beat. It camouflages itself in such a way that you can walk by it ten times and not notice it. Either he will bury himself in a bush, or he will bury himself in the ground like a mole.
In the village of Gruzdevo, fascist mortar men holed up in a hut. But it’s big, try to guess in which corner the mortar is located. Filatov began to watch carefully. He sees binocular glasses glistening in the sun in the window. He took aim, fired, and the mortar fell silent. Then it turned out that Filatov killed the commander of a German mortar crew.
If one of the soldiers now calls his gun a “poker,” Filatov gets angry:
- You yourself are a poker! Golden gun.
In the battles for Gruzdevo, artillerymen, the commander of the 6th battery, Lieutenant Avdeev, the chief of reconnaissance of the 914th artillery regiment, Lieutenant Ivanov, the commander of the control platoon, Lieutenant Bogdan, and others showed courage and heroism. The young officers, lieutenants Karpov and Popov, showed their maturity by skillfully adjusting the battery fire while always at the observation post.
At the beginning of March 1942, units of the division were taken to rest, replenished, received weapons, and prepared for the upcoming battles. There have been changes in command. Instead of B. M. Khasman, who was sent to the rear back in January, Major Yakov Nikolaevich Saburov was appointed chief of staff of the division. The deceased Major V.S. Agafonov was replaced by Major Marusnyak Naum Nikolaevich.

At the end of April, the division went on the defensive at the Belovka-Sorokino line.
For successful military operations to break through enemy defenses along the Lama River, the division received gratitude from the commander of the Western Front, General G. K. Zhukov. This was a high assessment of the combat actions of the division's personnel in the battles near Moscow. More than 250 of its best soldiers received orders and medals. Units of the division liberated about 60 settlements and captured rich trophies.
In the winter battles near Moscow, soldiers, commanders, and political workers wrote glorious pages in the chronicle of the Great Patriotic War. The 352nd Infantry Division played a significant role in breaking through the enemy’s defenses and the further offensive of the 20th Army.
The Army Military Council gave the following assessment of the division’s actions in carrying out the order: “...By breaking through the enemy’s Volokolamsk fortified line, the main burden of combat operations fell on the shoulders of the 352nd Infantry Division, which brilliantly completed all the combat missions of the Command and played a decisive role in the defeat of the German troops on the Lama River. A breakthrough was made and the troops of the 20th Army poured into the gap in an unstoppable stream, crushing the enemy retreating to the West" (Report of the former chief of staff of the 20th Army L. M. Sandalov. Academy Publishing House. M., 1956, p. 6 .)

Baptism of fire Express 1. First participation in battle. They met their people near Kursk, and already in March 1943, Misha Rukanov became a cadet at the anti-aircraft school. A few months later - baptism of fire near Vitebsk(V. Khalin. I do not tolerate injustice...) In the forest near Mogilev, K. Simonov received a baptism of fire - a prolonged artillery attack, and then an attack by German tanks. Like all participants in the battle, the correspondents were given grenades in case of a breakthrough by fascist vehicles.(E. Vostrukhov. The Little Doctor). 2. The first serious test in any business . Before the armed uprising in December 1905, the people in Russia were incapable of mass armed struggle with the exploiters. After December they were no longer the same people. He was reborn. He received a baptism of fire(Lenin. Letter to the workers of Krasnaya Presnya).

Russian phraseological dictionary literary language. - M.: Astrel, AST. A. I. Fedorov. 2008.

See what “Baptism of Fire” is in other dictionaries:

baptism of fire- check, debut, registration, test, exam Dictionary of Russian synonyms. baptism of fire noun, number of synonyms: 5 debut (10) ... Synonym dictionary

baptism of fire- Winter session of the first year. Almost all students passed the baptism of fire with ease. Student slang... Dictionary of modern vocabulary, jargon and slang

Baptism of fire- Razg. 1. First participation in battle. 2. The first serious test in which year? in fact. F 1, 261; ZS 1996, 508, 527; FSRY, 212 ...

baptism of fire- high. 1. about the first participation in battle; 2. about the difficult beginning of some activity... Phraseology Guide

Baptism of fire- Winter session of the first year... Dictionary of the criminal and semi-criminal world

BAPTISM- Baptism of fire. Razg. 1. First participation in battle. 2. The first serious test in which year? in fact. F 1, 261; ZS 1996, 508, 527; FSRY, 212. Baptism by fire. Book Same as baptism of fire 1. F 1, 261 ... Big dictionary Russian sayings

BAPTISM- BAPTISM, baptism, cf. (church). 1. A Christian rite performed on infants (or adults) to include them in the membership of the church. 2. (Capital). One of the main (twelfth) holidays among Orthodox Christians (church). On the eve of… … Dictionary Ushakova

baptism- , Epiphany Baptism of fire (rhetoric) 1) first participation in battle. 2) the first serious test in which year. in fact. A baptism of fire took place in the mountains. Epiphany cold (colloquial) trans. severity, icy coldness. How harsh!... Wow! How … Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language

Baptism- I'm with. 1) Christian rite of acceptance. into the number of believers, joining the church, usually performed on newborns. Receive baptism. 2) Church holiday of the baptism of Christ. Celebrate Epiphany. On the very day of baptism... on which it happens... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

baptism- noun, p., used infrequently Morphology: (no) what? baptism, what? baptism, (I see) what? baptism, what? baptism, about what? about baptism 1. Baptism is one of the main Christian sacraments, a rite of joining the Church through threefold immersion in... ... Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary

Books

• Model for assembly of the “Soviet tank destroyer “SU-100” (5044). The SU-100’s baptism of fire occurred at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War in January 1945. After the end of the war, this self-propelled unit was in service with many countries back in…