Heroes of our time. Five stories about people who stepped into immortality

Introduction

This short article contains only a drop of information about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. In fact, there are a huge number of heroes and collecting all the information about these people and their exploits is a titanic work and it is already a little beyond the scope of our project. Nevertheless, we decided to start with 5 heroes - many of them have heard about some of them, there is a little less information about others and few people know about them, especially the younger generation.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War was achieved by the Soviet people thanks to their incredible efforts, dedication, ingenuity and self-sacrifice. This is especially vividly revealed in the heroes of the war, who performed incredible feats on and behind the battlefield. These great people should be known to everyone who is grateful to their fathers and grandfathers for the opportunity to live in peace and tranquility.

Viktor Vasilievich Talalikhin

The history of Viktor Vasilievich begins with the small village of Teplovka, located in the Saratov province. Here he was born in the autumn of 1918. His parents were simple workers. He himself, after graduating from a school that specialized in the production of workers for factories and factories, worked at a meat processing plant and at the same time attended an flying club. After he graduated from one of the few pilot schools in Borisoglebsk. He took part in the conflict between our country and Finland, where he received a baptism of fire. During the period of confrontation between the USSR and Finland, Talalikhin made about five dozen sorties, while destroying several enemy aircraft, as a result of which he was awarded the honorary Order of the Red Star in the fortieth year for special successes and the fulfillment of assigned tasks.

Viktor Vasilievich distinguished himself by heroic deeds already during the battles in the great war for our people. Although he has about sixty sorties, the main battle took place on August 6, 1941 in the sky over Moscow. As part of a small air group, Viktor took off on an I-16 to repel an enemy air attack on the capital of the USSR. At an altitude of several kilometers, he met a German He-111 bomber. Talalikhin fired several machine-gun bursts at him, but the German plane skillfully dodged them. Then Viktor Vasilievich, through a cunning maneuver and regular shots from a machine gun, hit one of the bomber's engines, but this did not help stop the "German". To the chagrin of the Russian pilot, after unsuccessful attempts to stop the bomber, there were no live cartridges left, and Talalikhin decides to ram. For this ram, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

During the war there were many such cases, but by the will of fate, Talalikhin became the first who decided to ram, neglecting his own safety, in our sky. He died in October of the forty-first year in the rank of squadron commander, performing another sortie.

Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub

In the village of Obrazhievka, a future hero, Ivan Kozhedub, was born in a family of simple peasants. After graduating from school in 1934, he entered the Chemical Technology College. The Shostka flying club was the first place where Kozhedub received flying skills. Then in the fortieth year he entered the army. In the same year, he successfully entered and graduated from the military aviation school in the city of Chuguev.

Ivan Nikitovich took a direct part in the Great Patriotic War. On his account there are more than a hundred air battles, during which he shot down 62 aircraft. Of the large number of sorties, two main ones can be distinguished - a battle with a Me-262 fighter with a jet engine, and an attack on a group of FW-190 bombers.

The battle with the Me-262 jet fighter took place in mid-February 1945. On this day, Ivan Nikitovich, together with his partner Dmitry Tatarenko, flew out on La-7 planes to hunt. After a short search, they came across a low-flying aircraft. He flew along the river from the direction of Frankfupt an der Oder. Approaching closer, the pilots discovered that this was a new generation Me-262 aircraft. But this did not discourage the pilots from attacking an enemy aircraft. Then Kozhedub decided to attack on the opposite course, since this was the only way to destroy the enemy. During the attack, the wingman fired a short burst from a machine gun ahead of schedule, which could confuse all the cards. But to the surprise of Ivan Nikitovich, such an outburst of Dmitry Tatarenko had a positive effect. The German pilot turned around in such a way that he eventually fell into the sight of Kozhedub. He had to pull the trigger and destroy the enemy. Which he did.

The second heroic feat Ivan Nikitovich accomplished in mid-April of the forty-fifth year in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe capital of Germany. Again, together with Titarenko, performing another sortie, they found a group of FW-190 bombers with full combat kits. Kozhedub immediately reported this to the command post, but without waiting for reinforcements, he began an attacking maneuver. German pilots saw how two Soviet aircraft, having risen, disappeared into the clouds, but they did not attach any importance to this. Then the Russian pilots decided to attack. Kozhedub descended to the height of the Germans and began shooting them, and Titarenko fired in short bursts in different directions from a higher altitude, trying to give the enemy the impression of the presence of a large number of Soviet fighters. The German pilots believed at first, but after a few minutes of battle, their doubts dissipated, and they proceeded to take active steps to destroy the enemy. Kozhedub was on the verge of death in this battle, but his friend saved him. When Ivan Nikitovich tried to get away from the German fighter, who was chasing him and being in the position of shooting the Soviet fighter, Titarenko was ahead of the German pilot in a short burst and destroyed the enemy machine. Soon a group of reinforcements arrived in time, and the German group of aircraft was destroyed.

During the war, Kozhedub was twice recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union and was elevated to the rank of Marshal of Soviet Aviation.

Dmitry Romanovich Ovcharenko

The homeland of the soldier is the village with the speaking name Ovcharovo of the Kharkov province. He was born into the family of a carpenter in 1919. His father taught him all the intricacies of his craft, which later played an important role in the fate of the hero. Ovcharenko studied at school for only five years, then went to work on a collective farm. He was drafted into the army in 1939. The first days of the war, as befits a soldier, met on the front lines. After a short service, he received minor damage, which, unfortunately for the soldier, caused him to move from the main unit to serve at the ammunition depot. It was this position that became the key for Dmitry Romanovich, in which he accomplished his feat.

It all happened in the middle of the summer of 1941 in the area of ​​the village of Arctic fox. Ovcharenko carried out the order of his superiors to deliver ammunition and food to a military unit located a few kilometers from the village. He came across two trucks with fifty German soldiers and three officers. They surrounded him, took away the rifle and began to interrogate him. But the Soviet soldier did not lose his head and, taking an ax lying next to him, cut off the head of one of the officers. While the Germans were discouraged, he took three grenades from a dead officer and threw them towards the German cars. These throws were extremely successful: 21 soldiers were killed on the spot, and Ovcharenko finished off the rest with an ax, including the second officer who tried to escape. The third officer still managed to escape. But even here the Soviet soldier did not lose his head. He collected all the documents, maps, records and machine guns and took them to the General Staff, while bringing ammunition and food at the exact time. At first, they did not believe him that he single-handedly dealt with a whole platoon of the enemy, but after a detailed study of the battlefield, all doubts were dispelled.

Thanks to the heroic act of the soldier, Ovcharenko was recognized as the Hero of the Soviet Union, and he also received one of the most significant orders - the Order of Lenin, along with the Gold Star medal. He did not live to win just three months. The wound received in the battles for Hungary in January became fatal for the fighter. At that time he was a machine gunner of the 389th Infantry Regiment. He went down in history as a soldier with an axe.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

Homeland for Zoya Anatolyevna is the village of Osina-Gai, located in the Tambov region. She was born on September 8, 1923 in a Christian family. By the will of fate, Zoya spent her childhood in gloomy wanderings around the country. So, in 1925, the family was forced to move to Siberia in order to avoid persecution by the state. A year later they moved to Moscow, where her father died in 1933. The orphaned Zoya begins to have health problems that prevent her from studying. In the fall of 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya joined the ranks of intelligence officers and saboteurs of the Western Front. In a short time, Zoya underwent combat training and began to fulfill her tasks.

She accomplished her heroic deed in the village of Petrishchevo. By order of Zoya and a group of fighters, they were instructed to burn a dozen settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo. On the night of November 28, Zoya and her comrades made their way to the village and came under fire, as a result of which the group broke up and Kosmodemyanskaya had to act alone. After spending the night in the forest, early in the morning she went to carry out the task. Zoya managed to set fire to three houses and escape unnoticed. But when she decided to return again and finish what she started, the villagers were already waiting for her, who, seeing the saboteur, immediately informed the German soldiers. Kosmodemyanskaya was seized and tortured for a long time. They tried to find out from her information about the unit in which she served, and her name. Zoya refused and did not tell anything, but when asked what her name was, she called herself Tanya. The Germans considered that they could not get more information and hung it in public. Zoya met her death with dignity, and her last words went down in history forever. Dying, she said that our people numbered one hundred and seventy million people, and all of them could not be outweighed. So, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died heroically.

Mentions of Zoya are associated primarily with the name "Tanya", under which she went down in history. She is also a Hero of the Soviet Union. Her distinguishing feature is the first woman to receive this honorary title posthumously.

Alexey Tikhonovich Sevastyanov

This hero was the son of a simple cavalryman, a native of the Tver region, was born in the winter of the seventeenth year in the small village of Kholm. After graduating from a technical school in Kalinin, he entered the school of military aviation. Sevastyanov finished her with success in the thirty-ninth. For more than a hundred sorties, he destroyed four enemy aircraft, of which two individually and in a group, as well as one balloon.

He received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. The most important sorties for Aleksey Tikhonovich were fights in the sky over the Leningrad region. So, on November 4, 1941, Sevastyanov, on his IL-153 aircraft, patrolled the sky over the northern capital. And just during his watch, the Germans made a raid. Artillery could not cope with the onslaught and Alexei Tikhonovich had to join the battle. The German aircraft He-111 for a long time managed to keep the Soviet fighter out. After two unsuccessful attacks, Sevastyanov made a third attempt, but when it was time to pull the trigger and destroy the enemy in a short burst, the Soviet pilot discovered the lack of ammunition. Without thinking twice, he decides to go to the ram. The Soviet plane pierced the tail of an enemy bomber with its propeller. For Sevastyanov, this maneuver was successful, but for the Germans it all ended in captivity.

The second significant flight and the last for the hero was an air battle in the sky over Ladoga. Alexei Tikhonovich died in an unequal battle with the enemy on April 23, 1942.

Conclusion

As we have already said, not all the heroes of the war are collected in this article, there are about eleven thousand of them in total (according to official figures). Among them are Russians, and Kazakhs, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians, and all other nations of our multinational state. There are those who did not receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, having committed an equally important act, but by coincidence, information about them was lost. There was a lot in the war: the desertion of soldiers, and betrayal, and death, and much more, but the deeds of such heroes were of the greatest importance. Thanks to them, victory was won in the Great Patriotic War.

In Soviet times, their portraits hung in every school. And every teenager knew their names. Zina Portnova, Marat Kazei, Lenya Golikov, Valya Kotik, Zoya and Shura Kosmodemyansky. But there were also tens of thousands of young heroes whose names are unknown. They were called "pioneers-heroes", members of the Komsomol. But they were heroes not because, like all their peers, they were members of a pioneer or Komsomol organization, but because they were real patriots and real people.

Army of the Young

During the Great Patriotic War, a whole army of boys and girls acted against the Nazi invaders. In occupied Belarus alone, at least 74,500 boys and girls, boys and girls fought in partisan detachments. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia says that during the Great Patriotic War more than 35 thousand pioneers - young defenders of the Motherland - were awarded military orders and medals.

It was an amazing "movement"! The boys and girls did not wait until they were "summoned" by adults - they began to act from the first days of the occupation. They risked death!

Similarly, many others began to act at their own peril and risk. Someone found leaflets scattered from airplanes and distributed them in their regional center or village. The Polotsk boy Lenya Kosach collected 45 rifles, 2 light machine guns, several baskets of cartridges and grenades at the battlefields and safely hid it all; an opportunity presented itself - he handed it over to the partisans. In the same way, hundreds of other guys created arsenals for the partisans. Twelve-year-old excellent student Lyuba Morozova, knowing a little German, was engaged in "special propaganda" among the enemies, telling them how she lived well before the war without the "new order" of the occupiers. The soldiers often told her that she was "red to the bone" and advised her to hold her tongue until it ended badly for her. Later, Lyuba became a partisan. Eleven-year-old Tolya Korneev stole a pistol with cartridges from a German officer and began to look for people who would help him reach the partisans. In the summer of 1942, the boy succeeded in this, meeting his classmate Olya Demes, who by that time was already a member of one of the detachments. And when the older guys brought 9-year-old Zhora Yuzov to the detachment, and the commander jokingly asked: “Who will babysit this little one?”, The boy, in addition to the pistol, laid out four grenades in front of him: “That's who will babysit me!”.

Seryozha Roslenko spent 13 years in addition to collecting weapons at his own peril and risk, conducted reconnaissance: there is someone to pass on information to! And found. From somewhere, the children also had the concept of conspiracy. In the fall of 1941, sixth grader Vitya Pashkevich organized a kind of Krasnodon "Young Guard" in Borisov, occupied by the Nazis. He and his team took out weapons and ammunition from enemy warehouses, helped the underground organize escapes of prisoners of war from concentration camps, burned the enemy warehouse with uniforms with thermite incendiary grenades ...

Experienced scout

In January 1942, one of the partisan detachments operating in the Ponizovsky district of the Smolensk region was surrounded by the Nazis. The Germans, pretty battered during the counter-offensive of the Soviet troops near Moscow, did not dare to immediately liquidate the detachment. They did not have accurate intelligence about its numbers, so they were waiting for reinforcements. However, the ring was held tight. The partisans puzzled over how to get out of the encirclement. Food was running out. And the detachment commander asked for help from the command of the Red Army. In response, a cipher came over the radio, in which it was reported that the troops would not be able to help with active actions, but an experienced scout would be sent to the detachment.

And indeed, at the appointed time, the noise of the engines of an air transport was heard above the forest, and a few minutes later a paratrooper landed in the location of the encircled. The partisans, who received the heavenly messenger, were quite surprised when they saw in front of them ... a boy.

Are you an experienced scout? the commander asked.

- I. And what, it doesn’t look like it? - The boy was in a uniform army pea coat, wadded pants and a hat with earflaps with an asterisk. Red Army man!

– How old are you? - the commander still could not recover from surprise.

“It will soon be eleven!” - the "experienced scout" answered importantly.

The boy's name was Yura Zhdanko. He was originally from Vitebsk. In July 1941, the ubiquitous urchin and expert on local territories showed the retreating Soviet part a ford across the Western Dvina. He could no longer return home - while he acted as a guide, Hitler's armored vehicles entered his hometown. And the scouts who were instructed to escort the boy back took him with them. So he was enrolled as a pupil of the motor reconnaissance company of the 332nd Infantry Division of Ivanovo. M.F. Frunze.

At first, he was not involved in business, but, by nature, observant, big-eyed and memory, he quickly learned the basics of front-line raid science and even dared to give advice to adults. And his abilities were appreciated. He was sent to the front line. In the villages, he, disguised, begged for alms with a bag over his shoulders, collecting information about the location and number of enemy garrisons. He managed to participate in the mining of a strategically important bridge. During the explosion, a Red Army miner was wounded, and Yura, having provided first aid, brought him to the location of the unit. For which he received his first medal "For Courage".

... The best scout to help the partisans, it seems, really could not be found.

“But you, kid, didn’t jump with a parachute ...” the head of intelligence said contritely.

- Jumped twice! Yura objected loudly. - I begged the sergeant ... he quietly taught me ...

Everyone knew that this sergeant and Yura were inseparable, and he could, of course, follow the regiment's favorite. The Li-2 engines were already roaring, the plane was ready to take off, when the boy admitted that, of course, he had never jumped with a parachute:

- The sergeant did not allow me, I only helped lay the dome. Show me how and what to pull!

- Why did you lie? the instructor shouted at him. - He slandered the sergeant.

- I thought you would check ... But they wouldn’t check: the sergeant was killed ...

Arriving safely in the detachment, ten-year-old Vitebsk resident Yura Zhdanko did what adults could not do ... He was dressed in everything village, and soon the boy made his way into the hut where the German officer who was in charge of the encirclement was quartered. The Nazi lived in the house of a certain grandfather Vlas. A young scout came to him under the guise of a grandson from the regional center, who was given a rather difficult task - to get documents from an enemy officer with plans for the destruction of the encircled detachment. Opportunity fell only a few days later. The Nazi left the house light, leaving the key to the safe in his overcoat ... So the documents ended up in the detachment. And at the same time, Yura and grandfather Vlas brought him, convincing him that it was impossible to stay in such a situation in the house.

In 1943, Yura led a regular battalion of the Red Army out of encirclement. All the scouts sent to find the "corridor" for their comrades died. The task was entrusted to Yura. One. And he found a weak spot in the enemy ring… He became an order bearer of the Red Star.

Yuri Ivanovich Zhdanko, recalling his military childhood, said that he "played a real war, did what adults could not do, and there were a lot of situations when they could not do something, but I could."

Fourteen-year-old POW rescuer

14-year-old Minsk underground worker Volodya Shcherbatsevich was one of the first teenagers to be executed by the Germans for participating in the underground. They captured his execution on film and then distributed these shots throughout the city - as a warning to others ...

From the first days of the occupation of the Belarusian capital, mother and son Shcherbatsevich hid Soviet commanders in their apartment, for whom the underground from time to time organized escapes from the prisoner of war camp. Olga Fyodorovna was a doctor and provided medical assistance to the released, dressed in civilian clothes, which, together with her son Volodya, she collected from relatives and friends. Several groups of the rescued have already been withdrawn from the city. But once on the way, already outside the city blocks, one of the groups fell into the clutches of the Gestapo. Issued by a traitor, the son and mother ended up in Nazi dungeons. Withstood all torture.

And on October 26, 1941, the first gallows appeared in Minsk. On this day, for the last time, surrounded by a pack of submachine gunners, Volodya Shcherbatsevich also walked through the streets of his native city ... The pedantic punishers captured a report of his execution on film. And perhaps we see on it the first young hero who gave his life for the Motherland during the Great Patriotic War.

Die but take revenge

Here is another amazing example of youthful heroism from 1941...

Village of Osintorf. On one of the August days, the Nazis, together with their henchmen from the local residents - the burgomaster, the clerk and the chief policeman - raped and brutally killed the young teacher Anya Lyutova. By that time, a youth underground was already operating in the village under the leadership of Slava Shmuglevsky. The guys gathered and decided: "Death to the traitors!" Slava himself, as well as the teenage brothers Misha and Zhenya Telenchenko, aged thirteen and fifteen, volunteered to execute the sentence.

By that time, they already had a machine gun found in the battlefields hidden away. They acted simply and directly, in a boyish way. The brothers took advantage of the fact that the mother went to her relatives that day and had to return only in the morning. The machine gun was installed on the balcony of the apartment and began to wait for the traitors, who often passed by. Didn't count. When they approached, Slava started shooting at them almost point-blank. But one of the criminals - the burgomaster - managed to escape. He reported by phone to Orsha that a large partisan detachment had attacked the village (a machine gun is a serious thing). Cars with punishers rushed by. With the help of bloodhounds, the weapon was quickly found: Misha and Zhenya, not having time to find a more reliable hiding place, hid the machine gun in the attic of their own house. Both were arrested. The boys were tortured most severely and for a long time, but not one of them betrayed Slava Shmuglevsky and other underground workers to the enemy. The Telenchenko brothers were executed in October.

Great conspirator

Pavlik Titov for his eleven was a great conspirator. He partisans for more than two years in such a way that even his parents did not know about it. Many episodes of his combat biography remained unknown. Here is what is known.

First, Pavlik and his comrades rescued the wounded Soviet commander, burned in a burned-out tank - they found a reliable shelter for him, and at night they brought him food, water, and some medicinal decoctions according to grandmother's recipes. Thanks to the boys, the tanker quickly recovered.

In July 1942, Pavlik and his friends handed over to the partisans several rifles and machine guns with cartridges they had found. Tasks followed. The young scout penetrated the location of the Nazis, conducted calculations of manpower and equipment.

He was generally a slick kid. Once he brought a bale with a fascist uniform to the partisans:

- I think it will come in handy for you ... Not to wear it yourself, of course ...

- And where did you get it?

- Yes, the Fritz were swimming ...

More than once, dressed in the uniform obtained by the boy, the partisans carried out daring raids and operations.

The boy died in the autumn of 1943. Not in combat. The Germans carried out another punitive operation. Pavlik and his parents hid in a dugout. The punishers shot the whole family - father, mother, Pavlik himself and even his little sister. He was buried in a mass grave in Surazh, not far from Vitebsk.

Leningrad schoolgirl Zina Portnova in June 1941 came with her younger sister Galya for the summer holidays to her grandmother in the village of Zui (Shumilinsky district of Vitebsk region). She was fifteen ... At first she got a job as an auxiliary worker in the canteen for German officers. And soon, together with her friend, she carried out a daring operation - she poisoned more than a hundred Nazis. She could have been caught immediately, but they began to follow her. By that time, she was already associated with the Obolsk underground organization Young Avengers. In order to avoid failure, Zina was transferred to a partisan detachment.

Somehow she was instructed to reconnoiter the number and type of troops in the Obol region. Another time - to clarify the reasons for the failure in the Obolsk underground and establish new connections ... After completing the next task, she was seized by punishers. They tortured me for a long time. During one of the interrogations, the girl, as soon as the investigator turned away, grabbed a pistol from the table, with which he had just threatened her, and shot him dead. She jumped out the window, shot down a sentry and rushed to the Dvina. Another sentry rushed after her. Zina, hiding behind a bush, wanted to destroy him too, but the weapon misfired ...

Then she was no longer interrogated, but methodically tortured, mocked. Eyes gouged out, ears cut off. They drove needles under the nails, twisted their arms and legs ... On January 13, 1944, Zina Portnova was shot.

"Kid" and his sisters

From the report of the Vitebsk underground city party committee in 1942: "Kid" (he is 12 years old), having learned that the partisans need gun oil, without a task, on his own initiative, brought 2 liters of gun oil from the city. Then he was instructed to deliver sulfuric acid for sabotage purposes. He also brought it. And carried in a bag, behind his back. The acid was spilled, his shirt was burned, his back was burned, but he did not throw the acid.

The "baby" was Alyosha Vyalov, who enjoyed special sympathy among the local partisans. And he acted as part of a family group. When the war began, he was 11, his older sisters Vasilisa and Anya were 16 and 14, the rest of the children were small and small. Alyosha and his sisters were very resourceful. They set fire to the Vitebsk railway station three times, prepared the explosion of the labor exchange in order to confuse the registration of the population and save young people and other residents from being stolen into the "German paradise", blew up the passport office in the police premises ... There are dozens of sabotage on their account. And this is in addition to the fact that they were connected, distributed leaflets ...

"Kid" and Vasilisa died shortly after the war from tuberculosis ... A rare case: a memorial plaque was installed on the Vyalovs' house in Vitebsk. These children would have a monument made of gold! ..

Meanwhile, it is known about another Vitebsk family - Lynchenko. 11-year-old Kolya, 9-year-old Dina, and 7-year-old Emma were liaisons to their mother, Natalya Fedorovna, whose apartment served as a turnout. In 1943, as a result of the failure of the Gestapo, they broke into the house. The mother was beaten in front of the children, shot over her head, demanding to name the members of the group. They also mocked the children, asking them who came to their mother, where she herself went. They tried to bribe little Emma with chocolate. The children didn't say anything. Moreover, during a search in the apartment, having seized the moment, Dina took out ciphers from under the board of the table, where there was one of the hiding places, and hid them under her dress, and when the punishers left, having taken away her mother, she burned them. The children were left in the house as bait, but those, knowing that the house was being watched, managed to warn the messengers going to the failed turnout with signs ...

Prize for the head of a young saboteur

For the head of the Orsha schoolgirl Olya Demes, the Nazis promised a round sum. The Hero of the Soviet Union, the former commander of the 8th partisan brigade, Colonel Sergei Zhunin, spoke about this in his memoirs “From the Dnieper to the Bug”. A 13-year-old girl at the Orsha-Central station blew up fuel tanks. Sometimes she acted with her twelve-year-old sister Lida. Zhunin recalled how Olya was instructed before the assignment: “It is necessary to put a mine under a tank of gasoline. Remember, only under a tank of gasoline!” “I know how it smells of kerosene, I cooked it myself on kerosene gas, but gasoline ... let me at least smell it.” A lot of trains, dozens of tanks accumulated at the junction, and you find “the very one”. Olya and Lida crawled under the trains, sniffing: this one or not this one? Gasoline or not gasoline? Then they threw pebbles and determined by the sound: empty or full? And only then they hitched a magnetic mine. The fire destroyed a huge number of wagons with equipment, food, uniforms, fodder, and steam locomotives burned down ...

The Germans managed to capture Olya's mother and sister, they were shot; but Olya remained elusive. For ten months of her participation in the Chekist brigade (from June 7, 1942 to April 10, 1943), she showed herself not only as a fearless intelligence officer, but also derailed seven enemy echelons, participated in the defeat of several military-police garrisons, had to his personal account 20 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers. And then she was also a participant in the "rail war".

Eleven-year-old saboteur

Victor Sitnitsa. How he wanted to partisan! But for two years from the beginning of the war, he remained "only" the conductor of partisan sabotage groups that passed through his village Kuritichi. However, he learned something from the partisan guides during their short breaks. In August 1943, together with his older brother, he was accepted into a partisan detachment. I was assigned to the economic platoon. Then he said that peeling potatoes and taking out slops with his ability to lay mines is unfair. Moreover, the “rail war” is in full swing. And they began to take him on combat missions. The boy personally derailed 9 echelons with manpower and military equipment of the enemy.

In the spring of 1944, Vitya fell ill with rheumatism and was released to his relatives for medicine. In the village he was seized by the Nazis dressed as Red Army soldiers. The boy was brutally tortured.

Little Susanin

He began his war with the Nazi invaders at the age of 9. Already in the summer of 1941, in the house of his parents in the village of Bayki in the Brest region, the regional anti-fascist committee equipped a secret printing house. They issued leaflets with summaries of the Sovinforburo. Tikhon Baran helped distribute them. For two years, the young underground worker was engaged in this activity. The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the printers. The printing press was destroyed. Tikhon's mother and sisters hid with relatives, and he himself went to the partisans. Once, when he was visiting his relatives, the Germans raided the village. The mother was taken to Germany, and the boy was beaten. He became very ill and stayed in the village.

Local historians dated his feat on January 22, 1944. On this day, punishers appeared again in the village. For communication with the partisans, all residents were shot. The village was burned. “And you,” they said to Tikhon, “will show us the way to the partisans.” It is difficult to say whether the village boy had heard anything about the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin, who led the Polish interventionists into the swampy swamp more than three centuries before, only Tikhon Baran showed the Nazis the same road. They killed him, but not all of them got out of that quagmire themselves.

Covering squad

Vanya Kazachenko from the village of Zapolye, Orsha district, Vitebsk region, became a machine gunner in a partisan detachment in April 1943. He was thirteen. Those who served in the army and carried at least a Kalashnikov assault rifle (not a machine gun!) On their shoulders can imagine what it cost the boy. Guerrilla raids were most often many hours long. And the then machine guns are heavier than the current ones ... After one of the successful operations to defeat the enemy garrison, in which Vanya once again distinguished himself, the partisans, returning to base, stopped to rest in a village near Bogushevsk. Vanya, assigned to guard, chose a place, disguised himself and covered the road leading to the settlement. Here the young machine gunner took his last battle.

Noticing the wagons with the Nazis that suddenly appeared, he opened fire on them. While the comrades arrived, the Germans managed to surround the boy, seriously wound him, take him prisoner and retreat. The partisans did not have the opportunity to chase the carts to beat him. For about twenty kilometers, Vanya, tied to a cart, was dragged by the Nazis along an icy road. In the village of Mezhevo, Orsha district, where the enemy garrison was stationed, he was tortured and shot.

The hero was 14 years old

Marat Kazei was born on October 10, 1929 in the village of Stankovo, Minsk region of Belarus. In November 1942 he joined the partisan detachment. 25th anniversary of October, then became a scout at the headquarters of the partisan brigade. K. K. Rokossovsky.

Marat's father Ivan Kazei was arrested in 1934 as a "saboteur", and he was rehabilitated only in 1959. Later, his wife was also arrested - then, however, they were released. So it turned out the family of the "enemy of the people", which was shunned by the neighbors. Because of this, Kazei's sister, Ariadna, was not accepted into the Komsomol.

It would seem that Kazei should have been angry with the authorities from all this - but no. In 1941, Anna Kazei, the wife of the "enemy of the people", hid the wounded partisans at her place - for which she was executed by the Germans. Ariadna and Marat went to the partisans. Ariadne survived, but became disabled - when the detachment left the encirclement, she froze her legs, which had to be amputated. When she was taken to the hospital by plane, the commander of the detachment offered to fly with her and Marat so that he could continue his studies interrupted by the war. But Marat refused and remained in the partisan detachment.

Marat went to reconnaissance, both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. Undermined the echelons. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he raised his comrades to attack and made his way through the enemy ring, Marat received the medal "For Courage". And in May 1944, Marat died. Returning from a mission together with the intelligence commander, they stumbled upon the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, Marat, firing back, lay down in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in an open field, and there was no possibility - Marat was seriously wounded. While there were cartridges, he kept the defense, and when the store was empty, he picked up his last weapon - two grenades, which he did not remove from his belt. He threw one at the Germans, and left the other. When the Germans came very close, he blew himself up along with the enemies.

A monument to Kazei was erected in Minsk with funds raised by Belarusian pioneers. In 1958, an obelisk was erected on the grave of the young Hero in the village of Stankovo, Dzerzhinsky district, Minsk region. The monument to Marat Kazei was erected in Moscow (on the territory of VDNKh). The state farm, streets, schools, pioneer squads and detachments of many schools of the Soviet Union, the ship of the Caspian Shipping Company were named after the pioneer hero Marat Kazei.

boy of legend

Golikov Leonid Alexandrovich, scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade, born in 1926, a native of the village of Lukino, Parfinsky district. That's what it says on the award sheet. The boy from the legend - that's what the glory of Lenya Golikov called.

When the war began, a schoolboy from the village of Lukino, near Staraya Russa, got a rifle and joined the partisans. Thin, small in stature, at 14 he looked even younger. Under the guise of a beggar, he walked around the villages, collecting the necessary data on the location of the fascist troops, on the amount of enemy military equipment.

With peers, he once picked up several rifles at the battlefield, stole two boxes of grenades from the Nazis. All this they later handed over to the partisans. "Tov. Golikov joined the partisan detachment in March 1942, the award list says. - Participated in 27 combat operations ... He exterminated 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition ... On August 15, in a new combat area of ​​​​the brigade, Golikov crashed a car in which the general was Major of the Engineering Troops Richard Wirtz, heading from Pskov to Luga. A brave partisan killed the general with a machine gun, delivered his tunic and captured documents to the brigade headquarters. Among the documents were: a description of new samples of German mines, inspection reports to the higher command and other valuable intelligence data.

Lake Radilovskoye was a rally point when the brigade moved to a new area of ​​operations. On the way there, the partisans had to engage in battles with the enemy. Punishers followed the advance of the partisans, and as soon as the forces of the brigade connected, they forced a fight on it. After the battle at Radilovsky Lake, the main forces of the brigade continued on their way to the Lyadsky forests. The detachments of Ivan the Terrible and B. Ehren-Price remained in the lake area to distract the Nazis. They never managed to connect with the brigade. In mid-November, the invaders attacked the headquarters. Defending it, many fighters died. The rest managed to retreat to the Terp-Kamen swamp. On December 25, several hundred Nazis surrounded the swamp. With considerable losses, the partisans broke out of the ring and entered the Strugokrasnensky district. Only 50 people remained in the ranks, the radio did not work. And the punishers scoured all the villages in search of partisans. We had to walk along untraveled paths. The path was paved by scouts, and among them Lenya Golikov. Attempts to establish contact with other detachments and stock up on food ended tragically. There was only one way out - to make his way to the mainland.

After crossing the Dno-Novosokolniki railway late at night on January 24, 1943, 27 hungry, exhausted partisans came out to the village of Ostraya Luka. Ahead for 90 kilometers stretched the Guerrilla Territory burned by punishers. The scouts found nothing suspicious. The enemy garrison was located a few kilometers away. The companion of the partisans - a nurse - was dying of a serious wound and asked for at least a little warmth. They occupied three extreme huts. Dozorov brigade commander Glebov decided not to exhibit, so as not to attract attention. They were on duty alternately at the windows and in the barn, from where both the village and the road to the forest were clearly visible.

Two hours later, the dream was interrupted by the roar of an exploding grenade. And immediately the heavy machine gun rattled. At the denunciation of a traitor, punishers descended. The guerrillas jumped out into the yard and vegetable gardens, shooting back, began to move in dashes towards the forest. Glebov with combat guards covered the departing with fire from a light machine gun and machine guns. Halfway down the seriously wounded chief of staff fell. Lenya rushed to him. But Petrov ordered to return to the brigade commander, and he, having closed the wound under the jacket with an individual package, again scribbled from the machine gun. In that unequal battle, the entire headquarters of the 4th partisan brigade perished. Among the fallen was the young partisan Lenya Golikov. Six managed to reach the forest, two of them were seriously injured and could not move without outside help ... Only on January 31, near the village of Zhemchugovo, exhausted, frostbite, they met with scouts of the 8th Panfilov Guards Division.

For a long time, his mother Ekaterina Alekseevna did not know anything about the fate of Leni. The war had already moved far to the west, when one Sunday afternoon a rider in military uniform stopped near their hut. Mother stepped out onto the porch. The officer handed her a large package. The old woman accepted him with trembling hands and called her daughter Valya. In the package was a letter bound in crimson leather. Here lay an envelope, opening which Valya said quietly: - This is for you, mother, from Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin himself. With excitement, the mother took a bluish sheet of paper and read: “Dear Ekaterina Alekseevna! According to the command, your son Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov died a heroic death for his Motherland. For the heroic feat accomplished by your son in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by Decree of April 2, 1944, awarded him the highest degree of distinction - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. I am sending you a letter from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding your son the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to keep as a memory of his heroic son, whose feat will never be forgotten by our people. M. Kalinin. - “Here he turned out to be, my Lenyushka!” the mother said softly. And there were in these words both grief, and pain, and pride for the son ...

Lenya was buried in the village of Ostraya Luka. His name is inscribed on the obelisk, installed on the mass grave. The monument in Novgorod was opened on January 20, 1964. The figure of a boy in a hat with earflaps with a machine gun in his hands was carved from light granite. The streets in St. Petersburg, Pskov, Staraya Russa, Okulovka, the village of Pola, the village of Parfino, the ship of the Riga Shipping Company, in Novgorod - the street, the House of Pioneers, the training ship for young sailors in Staraya Russa bear the name of the hero. In Moscow, at the VDNKh of the USSR, a monument to the hero was also erected.

The youngest hero of the Soviet Union

Valya Kotik. A young reconnaissance partisan of the Great Patriotic War in the Karmelyuk detachment, which operated in the temporarily occupied territory; the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union. He was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenetz-Podolsk region of Ukraine, according to one information in the family of an employee, according to another - a peasant. From the education of only 5 classes of secondary school in the district center.

During the Great Patriotic War, while on the territory temporarily occupied by the Nazi troops, Valya Kotik was collecting weapons and ammunition, drawing and pasting caricatures of the Nazis. Valentin and his peers received their first combat mission in the fall of 1941. The guys lay down in the bushes near the Shepetovka-Slavuta highway. Hearing the noise of the engine, they froze. It was scary. But when the car with the fascist gendarmes caught up with them, Valya Kotik got up and threw a grenade. The head of the field gendarmerie was killed.

In October 1943, the young partisan reconnoitered the location of the underground telephone cable of the Nazi headquarters, which was soon blown up. He also participated in the undermining of six railway echelons and a warehouse. On October 29, 1943, while on duty, Valya noticed that the punishers had raided the detachment. Having killed a fascist officer with a pistol, he raised the alarm, and thanks to his actions, the partisans managed to prepare for battle.

On February 16, 1944, in the battle for the city of Izyaslav, Khmelnytsky region, a 14-year-old partisan scout was mortally wounded and died the next day. He was buried in the center of the park in the Ukrainian city of Shepetovka. For his heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 27, 1958, Kotik Valentin Aleksandrovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the medal "Partisan of the Great Patriotic War" of the 2nd degree. A motor ship, a number of secondary schools are named after him, there used to be pioneer squads and detachments named after Valya Kotik. Monuments were erected to him in Moscow and in his hometown in 1960. There is a street named after the young hero in Yekaterinburg, Kiev and Kaliningrad.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Of all the young heroes, both living and dead, only Zoya was and remains known to most of the inhabitants of our country. Her name became a household name just like the names of other cult Soviet heroes, such as Nikolai Gastello and Alexander Matrosov.

And before, and now, if someone among us becomes aware of the feat that was then performed by a teenager or young man killed by enemies, they say about him: "like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya."

... The surname Kosmodemyansky in the Tambov province was worn by many clergy. Before the grandfather of the young heroine, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, about whom our story will go, Pyotr Ivanovich, the rector of the temple in their native village, Osin Gay, was his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Kosmodemyansky, and before him his grandfather, great-grandfather and so on. Yes, and Peter Ivanovich himself was born in the family of a priest.

Pyotr Ivanovich Kosmodemyansky died a martyr's death, as did his granddaughter later: in the hungry and cruel year of 1918, on the night of August 26-27, communist bandits heated up by alcohol dragged the priest out of the house, in front of his wife and three younger children they beat him to a pulp, tied by the hands to the saddle, dragged through the village and thrown into the ponds. The body of Kosmodemyansky was discovered in the spring, and, according to the testimony of the same eyewitnesses, “it was unspoiled and had a waxy color,” which in the Orthodox tradition is an indirect sign of the spiritual purity of the deceased. He was buried in a cemetery near the Church of the Sign, in which Peter Ivanovich served in recent years.

After the death of Peter Ivanovich, the Kosmodemyanskys remained in their original place for some time. The eldest son Anatoly left his studies in Tambov and returned to the village to help his mother with younger children. When they grew up, he married the daughter of a local clerk, Lyuba. On September 13, 1923, daughter Zoya was born, and two years later, son Alexander.

Immediately after the start of the war, Zoya signed up for volunteers, and she was assigned to a reconnaissance school. The school was located near the Moscow station Kuntsevo.

In mid-November 1941, the school received an order to burn the villages in which the Germans were quartered. Created two divisions, each with ten people. But on November 22, only three scouts turned up near the village of Petrishchevo - Kosmodemyanskaya, a certain Klubkov and the more experienced Boris Krainov.

It was decided that Zoya should set fire to the houses in the southern part of the village, where the Germans lodged; Klubkov - in the north, and the commander - in the center, where the German headquarters was located. After completing the task, everyone had to gather at the same place and only then return home. Krainov acted professionally, and his houses caught fire first, then those located in the southern part flared up, in the northern part they did not catch fire. Krainov waited for his comrades almost the whole next day, but they never returned. Later, after a while, Klubkov returned ...

When it became known about the capture and death of Zoya, after the liberation of the village, partially burned by scouts, by the Soviet army, the investigation showed that one of the group, Klubkov, turned out to be a traitor.

The transcript of his interrogation contains a detailed description of what happened to Zoya:

“When I approached the buildings that I was supposed to set fire to, I saw that the sections of Kosmodemyanskaya and Krainova were on fire. As I approached the house, I broke the Molotov cocktail and threw it away, but it did not catch fire. At this time, I saw two German sentries not far from me and decided to run away into the forest, located 300 meters from the village. As soon as I ran into the forest, two German soldiers fell on me and handed me over to a German officer. He pointed a revolver at me and demanded that I reveal who had come with me to set fire to the village. I said that there were only three of us, and named the names of Krainov and Kosmodemyanskaya. The officer immediately gave some order, and after some time they brought Zoya. She was asked how she set fire to the village. Kosmodemyanskaya replied that she did not set fire to the village. After that, the officer began to beat her and demanded evidence, she was silent, and then she was stripped naked and beaten with rubber sticks for 2-3 hours. But Kosmodemyanskaya said one thing: "Kill me, I won't tell you anything." She didn't even give her name. She insisted that her name was Tanya. Then they took her away, and I never saw her again.” Klubkov was tried and shot.

The exploits of Soviet heroes that we will never forget.

Roman Smishchuk. Destroyed 6 enemy tanks with hand grenades in one battle

For an ordinary Ukrainian Roman Smishchuk, that fight was the first. In an effort to destroy the company, which took up all-round defense, the enemy brought 16 tanks into battle. At this critical moment, Smishchuk showed exceptional courage: by letting the enemy tank come close, he knocked out its undercarriage with a grenade, and then set it on fire with a throw of a bottle with a Molotov cocktail. Running from trench to trench, Roman Smishchuk attacked the tanks, running towards them, and in this way destroyed six tanks one after another. The personnel of the company, inspired by the feat of Smishchuk, successfully broke through the ring and joined their regiment. For his feat, Roman Semyonovich Smishchuk was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Roman Smishchuk died on October 29, 1969, and was buried in the village of Kryzhopol, Vinnitsa region.

Vanya Kuznetsov. The youngest cavalier of 3 Orders of Glory

Ivan Kuznetsov went to the front at the age of 14. Vanya received his first medal "For Courage" at the age of 15 for his heroic deeds in the battles for the liberation of Ukraine. He reached Berlin, showing courage beyond his years in a number of battles. For this, already at the age of 17, Kuznetsov became the youngest full cavalier of the Order of Glory of all three levels. Died January 21, 1989.

Georgy Sinyakov. Rescued from captivity hundreds of Soviet soldiers under the "Count of Monte Cristo" system

The Soviet surgeon was captured during the battles for Kiev and, as a prisoner doctor of a concentration camp in Kustrin (Poland), he saved hundreds of prisoners: being a member of the camp underground, he processed documents for them as dead in the hospital of the concentration camp and organized escapes. Most often, Georgy Fedorovich Sinyakov used an imitation of death: he taught the patients to pretend to be dead, declared death, the “corpse” was taken out with other really dead and thrown into a ditch nearby, where the prisoner “resurrected”. In particular, Dr. Sinyakov saved the life and helped the Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot Anna Egorova, who was shot down in August 1944 near Warsaw, escape from the plan. Sinyakov lubricated her purulent wounds with fish oil and a special ointment, from which the wounds looked fresh, but in fact healed well. Then Anna recovered and, with the help of Sinyakov, escaped from the concentration camp.

Matthew Putilov. At the age of 19, at the cost of his life, he connected the ends of a broken wire, restoring the telephone line between the headquarters and the detachment of fighters

In October 1942, the 308th Rifle Division fought in the area of ​​the plant and the working settlement "Barrikada". On October 25, communications were interrupted and Major Dyatleko ordered Matvey to restore the wired telephone connection connecting the regiment headquarters with a group of fighters who, for the second day, the fighters held the house surrounded by the enemy. Two previous unsuccessful attempts to restore communication ended in the death of signalmen. Putilov was wounded in the shoulder by a fragment of a mine. Overcoming the pain, he crawled to the place where the wire was broken, but was wounded a second time: his arm was crushed. Losing consciousness and not being able to use his hand, he squeezed the ends of the wires with his teeth, and a current passed through his body. Communication has been restored. He died with the ends of telephone wires clamped in his teeth.

Marionella Queen. She carried 50 seriously wounded soldiers from the battlefield

19-year-old actress Gulya Koroleva in 1941 voluntarily went to the front and ended up in the medical battalion. In November 1942, during the battle for height 56.8 in the area of ​​the Panshino farm in the Gorodishchensky district (Volgograd region of the Russian Federation), Gulya literally carried 50 seriously wounded soldiers from the battlefield on herself. And then, when the moral strength of the fighters dried up, she herself went on the attack, where she was killed. Songs were composed about the feat of Guli Koroleva, and her dedication was an example for millions of Soviet girls and boys. Her name is carved in gold on the banner of military glory on Mamayev Kurgan, a village in the Sovietsky district of Volgograd and a street are named after her. Gulya Koroleva is dedicated to the book by E. Ilyina "The Fourth Height"

Koroleva Marionella (Gulya), Soviet film actress, heroine of the Great Patriotic War

Vladimir Khazov. The tanker who alone destroyed 27 enemy tanks

On the personal account of a young officer, 27 destroyed enemy tanks. For services to the Motherland, Khazov was awarded the highest award - in November 1942 he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He especially distinguished himself in the battle in June 1942, when Khazov received an order to stop the advancing enemy tank column, which consisted of 30 vehicles, near the village of Olkhovatka (Kharkov region, Ukraine), while in the platoon of Senior Lieutenant Khazov there were only 3 combat vehicles. The commander made a bold decision: let the column through and start firing from the rear. Three T-34s opened aimed fire at the enemy, settling into the tail of the enemy column. From frequent and accurate shots, German tanks caught fire one after another. In this battle, which lasted a little over an hour, not a single enemy vehicle survived, and the platoon in full force returned to the battalion. As a result of the fighting in the Olkhovatka area, the enemy lost 157 tanks and stopped his attacks in this direction.

Alexander Mamkin. The pilot who evacuated 10 children at the cost of his life

During the air evacuation of children from the Polotsk Orphanage No. 1, whom the Nazis wanted to use as blood donors for their soldiers, Alexander Mamkin made a flight that we will always remember. On the night of April 10-11, 1944, ten children, their teacher Valentina Latko and two wounded partisans fit into his R-5 plane. At first, everything went well, but when approaching the front line, Mamkin's plane was shot down. The R-5 was on fire… If Mamkin was alone on board, he would have gained altitude and jumped out with a parachute. But he did not fly alone and led the plane further ... The flame reached the cockpit. Flight glasses melted from the temperature, he flew the plane almost blindly, overcoming hellish pain, he still stood firmly between the kids and death. Mamkin was able to land the plane on the shore of the lake, he himself was able to get out of the cockpit and asked: “Are the children alive?” And I heard the voice of the boy Volodya Shishkov: “Comrade pilot, don’t worry! I opened the door, everyone is alive, we leave ... ”Momkin lost consciousness, a week later he died ... The doctors could not explain how he could drive the car, and even safely plant it by a person whose face had melted glasses, and only his legs were left bones.

Alexey Maresiev. Test pilot who returned to the front and to combat sorties after amputation of both legs

On April 4, 1942, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe so-called "Demyansky Cauldron", during an operation to cover bombers in a battle with the Germans, Maresyev's plane was shot down. For 18 days, the pilot, wounded in the legs, first on crippled legs, and then crawled to the front line, eating tree bark, cones and berries. Due to gangrene, his legs were amputated. But even in the hospital, Alexei Maresyev began to train, preparing to fly with prostheses. In February 1943 he made the first test flight after being wounded. Got sent to the front. On July 20, 1943, during an air battle with superior enemy forces, Alexei Maresyev saved the lives of 2 Soviet pilots and shot down two enemy Fw.190 fighters at once. In total, during the war he made 86 sorties, shot down 11 enemy aircraft: four before being wounded and seven after being wounded.

Rosa Shanina. One of the most formidable lone snipers of the Great Patriotic War

Roza Shanina - Soviet single sniper of a separate platoon of female snipers of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory; one of the first female snipers to receive this award. She was known for her ability to accurately fire at moving targets with a doublet - two shots following each other. On the account of Rosa Shanina, 59 confirmed destroyed enemy soldiers and officers are recorded. The young girl became a symbol of the Patriotic War. Many stories and legends are associated with her name, which inspired new heroes to glorious deeds. She died on January 28, 1945 during the East Prussian operation, protecting the seriously wounded commander of an artillery unit.

Nikolai Skorokhodov. Made 605 sorties. Personally shot down 46 enemy aircraft.

During the war, Soviet fighter pilot Nikolai Skorokhodov went through all stages of aviation - he was a pilot, chief pilot, flight commander, deputy commander and squadron commander. He fought on the Transcaucasian, North Caucasian, Southwestern and 3rd Ukrainian fronts. During this time, he made more than 605 sorties, conducted 143 air battles, shot down 46 personally and in a group of 8 enemy aircraft, and also destroyed 3 bombers on the ground. Thanks to his unique skill, Skomorokhov was never wounded, his plane did not burn, was not shot down, and did not receive a single hole during the entire war.

Dzhulbars. Mine detective service dog, participant of the Great Patriotic War, the only dog ​​awarded the medal "For Military Merit"

From September 1944 to August 1945, taking part in mine clearance in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria, a service dog named Dzhulbars discovered 7468 mines and more than 150 shells. Thus, the architectural masterpieces of Prague, Vienna and other cities have survived to this day thanks to the phenomenal instinct of Dzhulbars. The dog also helped the sappers who cleared the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kanev and the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev. On March 21, 1945, Dzhulbars was awarded the medal "For Military Merit" for the successful completion of a combat mission. This is the only case during the war when a dog was awarded a combat award. For military merit, Dzhulbars participated in the Victory Parade, held on Red Square on June 24, 1945.

Dzhulbars, a dog of the mine-detection service, a participant in the Great Patriotic War

Already at 7.00 on May 9, the telethon “Our Victory” begins, and the evening will end with a grandiose festive concert “VICTORY. ONE FOR ALL”, which will start at 20.30. The concert was attended by Svetlana Loboda, Irina Bilyk, Natalia Mogilevskaya, Zlata Ognevich, Viktor Pavlik, Olga Polyakova and other popular Ukrainian pop stars.

Since 2009, February 12 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Child Soldiers. This is the name of minors who, due to circumstances, are forced to actively participate in wars and armed conflicts.

According to various sources, up to several tens of thousands of minors took part in the hostilities during the Great Patriotic War. "Sons of the regiment", pioneer heroes - they fought and died on a par with adults. For military merits, they were awarded orders and medals. The images of some of them were used in Soviet propaganda as symbols of courage and loyalty to the motherland.

Five underage fighters of the Great Patriotic War were awarded the highest award - the title of Hero of the USSR. All - posthumously, remaining in textbooks and books as children and adolescents. All Soviet schoolchildren knew these heroes by name. Today, "RG" recalls their short and often similar biographies.

Marat Kazei, 14 years old

Member of the partisan detachment named after the 25th anniversary of October, intelligence officer of the headquarters of the 200th partisan brigade named after Rokossovsky in the occupied territory of the Byelorussian SSR.

Marat was born in 1929 in the village of Stankovo, Minsk Region, Belarus, and managed to finish the 4th grade of a rural school. Before the war, his parents were arrested on charges of sabotage and "Trotskyism", numerous children were "scattered" among their grandparents. But the Kazeev family did not become angry with the Soviet authorities: In 1941, when Belarus became an occupied territory, Anna Kazei, the wife of the “enemy of the people” and the mother of little Marat and Ariadna, hid wounded partisans at her place, for which she was executed by the Germans. And the brother and sister went to the partisans. Ariadne was subsequently evacuated, but Marat remained in the detachment.

Along with his senior comrades, he went to reconnaissance - both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. Undermined the echelons. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he raised his comrades to attack and made his way through the enemy ring, Marat received the medal "For Courage".

And in May 1944, while performing another assignment near the village of Khoromitsky, Minsk Region, a 14-year-old soldier died. Returning from a mission together with the intelligence commander, they stumbled upon the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, and Marat, firing back, lay down in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in an open field, and there was no opportunity - the teenager was seriously wounded in the arm. While there were cartridges, he kept the defense, and when the store was empty, he took the last weapon - two grenades from his belt. He threw one at the Germans immediately, and waited with the second: when the enemies came very close, he blew himself up along with them.

In 1965, Marat Kazei was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR.

Valya Kotik, 14 years old

Partisan scout in the Karmelyuk detachment, the youngest Hero of the USSR.

Valya was born in 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenetz-Podolsk region of Ukraine. Before the war he completed five classes. In a village occupied by German troops, the boy secretly collected weapons and ammunition and handed them over to the partisans. And he waged his own little war, as he understood it: he painted and pasted caricatures of the Nazis in prominent places.

Since 1942, he contacted the Shepetovskaya underground party organization and carried out her intelligence assignments. And in the fall of the same year, Valya and his fellow boys received their first real combat mission: to eliminate the head of the field gendarmerie.

"The roar of the engines grew louder - the cars were approaching. The faces of the soldiers were already clearly visible. Sweat dripped from their foreheads, half-covered with green helmets. Some soldiers carelessly took off their helmets. The front car caught up with the bushes behind which the boys hid. Valya half stood up, counting the seconds to himself "The car drove past, an armored car was already against him. Then he rose to his full height and, shouting "Fire!", threw two grenades one after the other ... Simultaneously, explosions sounded from the left and right. Both cars stopped, the front one caught fire. The soldiers quickly jumped to the ground , rushed into the ditch and from there opened indiscriminate fire from machine guns, "- this is how the Soviet textbook describes this first battle. Valya then fulfilled the task of the partisans: the head of the gendarmerie, Lieutenant Franz Koenig and seven German soldiers died. About 30 people were injured.

In October 1943, the young fighter reconnoitered the location of the underground telephone cable of the Nazi headquarters, which was soon blown up. Valya also participated in the destruction of six railway echelons and a warehouse.

On October 29, 1943, while on duty, Valya noticed that the punishers had raided the detachment. Having killed a fascist officer with a pistol, the teenager raised the alarm, and the partisans had time to prepare for battle. On February 16, 1944, five days after his 14th birthday, in the battle for the city of Izyaslav, Kamenetz-Podolsky, now Khmelnitsky region, the scout was mortally wounded and died the next day.

In 1958, Valentin Kotik was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Lenya Golikov, 16 years old

Scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade.

Born in 1926 in the village of Lukino, Parfinsky District, Novgorod Region. When the war began, he got a rifle and joined the partisans. Thin, small in stature, he looked even younger than all 14 years old. Under the guise of a beggar, Lenya walked around the villages, collecting the necessary data on the location of the fascist troops and the number of their military equipment, and then passed this information on to the partisans.

In 1942 he joined the detachment. “Participated in 27 combat operations, exterminated 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition ... troops Richard Wirtz, heading from Pskov to Luga, "- such data is contained in his award leaflet.

In the regional military archive, Golikov's original report with a story about the circumstances of this battle has been preserved:

"In the evening of 08/12/42, we, 6 partisans, got out on the Pskov-Luga highway and lay down not far from the village of Varnitsa. There was no movement at night. we were, the car was quieter. Partizan Vasiliev threw an anti-tank grenade, but missed. The second grenade was thrown by Alexander Petrov from a ditch, hit a beam. The car did not immediately stop, but went another 20 meters and almost caught up with us. Two officers jumped out of the car. I fired a burst from a machine gun. Did not hit. The officer sitting at the wheel ran across the ditch towards the forest. I fired several bursts from my PPSh. Hit the enemy in the neck and back. Petrov began to shoot at the second officer, who kept looking back, shouting and fired back. Petrov killed this officer with a rifle. Then the two of them ran to the first wounded officer. They tore off their shoulder straps, took a briefcase, documents. There was still a heavy suitcase in the car. We barely dragged it into the bushes (150 meters from the highway). not at the car, we heard an alarm, ringing, screaming in a neighboring village. Grabbing a briefcase, shoulder straps and three trophy pistols, we ran to our own ... ".

For this feat, Lenya was presented with the highest government award - the Gold Star medal and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But I didn't manage to get them. From December 1942 to January 1943, the partisan detachment, in which Golikov was located, left the encirclement with fierce battles. Only a few managed to survive, but Leni was not among them: he died in battle with a Nazi punitive detachment on January 24, 1943 near the village of Ostraya Luka, Pskov Region, before he was 17 years old.

Sasha Chekalin, 16 years old

Member of the partisan detachment "Forward" of the Tula region.

Born in 1925 in the village of Peskovatskoye, now the Suvorov district of the Tula region. Before the start of the war, he graduated from 8 classes. After the occupation of his native village by Nazi troops in October 1941, he joined the fighter partisan detachment "Forward", where he managed to serve for just over a month.

By November 1941, the partisan detachment had inflicted significant damage on the Nazis: warehouses burned, cars exploded on mines, enemy trains derailed, sentries and patrols disappeared without a trace. Once a group of partisans, including Sasha Chekalin, ambushed the road to the town of Likhvin (Tula region). A car appeared in the distance. A minute passed - and the explosion blew the car apart. Behind her passed and exploded several more cars. One of them, crowded with soldiers, tried to slip through. But the grenade thrown by Sasha Chekalin destroyed her too.

In early November 1941, Sasha caught a cold and fell ill. The commissioner allowed him to lie down with a trusted person in the nearest village. But there was a traitor who betrayed him. At night, the Nazis broke into the house where the sick partisan lay. Chekalin managed to grab the prepared grenade and throw it, but it did not explode ... After several days of torture, the Nazis hanged the teenager on the central Likhvin square and for more than 20 days did not allow him to remove his corpse from the gallows. And only when the city was liberated from the invaders, the combat associates of the partisan Chekalin buried him with military honors.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Chekalin was awarded in 1942.

Zina Portnova, 17 years old

Member of the underground Komsomol youth organization "Young Avengers", scout of the Voroshilov partisan detachment on the territory of the Byelorussian SSR.

Born in 1926 in Leningrad, she graduated from 7 classes there and went on vacation to her relatives in the village of Zuya, Vitebsk region, Belarus for the summer holidays. There she found the war.

In 1942, she joined the Obol underground Komsomol youth organization "Young Avengers" and actively participated in the distribution of leaflets among the population and sabotage against the invaders.

Since August 1943, Zina has been a scout of the Voroshilov partisan detachment. In December 1943, she was given the task of identifying the reasons for the failure of the Young Avengers organization and establishing contact with the underground. But upon returning to the detachment, Zina was arrested.

During the interrogation, the girl grabbed the pistol of the fascist investigator from the table, shot him and two other Nazis, tried to escape, but was captured.

From the book "Zina Portnova" by the Soviet writer Vasily Smirnov: "The most sophisticated executioners in cruel tortures interrogated her ... They promised to save her life if only the young partisan confessed everything, named the names of all the underground fighters and partisans known to her. And again the Gestapo met with the astonishing their unshakable firmness of this stubborn girl, who in their protocols was called a “Soviet bandit.” Zina, exhausted by torture, refused to answer questions, hoping that she would be killed faster in this way. was taken to the next interrogation-torture, threw herself under the wheels of a passing truck, but the car was stopped, the girl was pulled out from under the wheels and again taken for interrogation ... ".

On January 10, 1944, in the village of Goryany, now the Shumilinsky district of the Vitebsk region of Belarus, 17-year-old Zina was shot.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Portnova Zinaida in 1958.

Chapter first
THE END OF THE BLitzkrieg

BREST FORTRESS

The Brest Fortress stands on the border. The Nazis attacked it on the very first day of the war.

The Nazis could not take the Brest Fortress by storm. Passed her left and right. She remained with the enemies in the rear.

The Nazis are coming. Fights are going on near Minsk, near Riga, near Lvov, near Lutsk. And there, in the rear of the Nazis, he does not give up, the Brest Fortress is fighting.

It's hard for heroes. Bad with ammunition, bad with food, especially bad with water for the defenders of the fortress.

Around the water - the Bug River, the Mukhovets River, branches, channels. There is water all around, but there is no water in the fortress. Under fire water. A sip of water here is more valuable than life.

- Water! - rushes over the fortress.

There was a daredevil, rushed to the river. Rushed and immediately collapsed. The enemies of the soldier were killed. Time passed, another brave rushed forward. And he died. The third replaced the second. The third one did not survive.

A machine gunner lay not far from this place. He scribbled, scribbled a machine gun, and suddenly the line broke off. The machine gun overheated in battle. And the machine gun needs water.

The machine gunner looked - the water evaporated from the hot battle, the machine gun casing was empty. He looked to where the Bug, where the channels are. Looked left, right.

- Oh, it wasn't.

He crawled towards the water. He crawled in a plastunsky way, snuggled up to the ground like a snake. He is closer to the water, closer. It's right next to the coast. The machine gunner grabbed his helmet. He scooped up water like a bucket. Snake crawls back again. Closer to their own, closer. It's quite close. His friends took over.

- Bring water! Hero!

The soldiers are looking at the helmet, at the water. From thirst in the eyes of muddied. They do not know that the machine gunner brought water for the machine gun. They are waiting, and suddenly a soldier will treat them now - at least a sip.

The machine gunner looked at the fighters, at the withered lips, at the heat in his eyes.

“Come on,” said the machine gunner.

The fighters stepped forward, but suddenly ...

“Brothers, it would not be for us, but for the wounded,” someone’s voice rang out.

The soldiers stopped.

- Of course, the wounded!

- That's right, drag it to the basement!

The soldiers of the fighter were detached to the basement. He brought water to the basement where the wounded lay.

“Brothers,” he said, “voditsa ...

“Take it,” he handed the mug to the soldier.

The soldier reached for the water. I already took a mug, but suddenly:

“No, not for me,” said the soldier. - Not for me. Bring the children, dear.

The fighter carried water to the children. And I must say that in the Brest Fortress, along with adult soldiers, there were women and children - the wives and children of military personnel.

The soldier went down to the basement where the children were.

“Well, come on,” the fighter turned to the guys. “Come, stand,” and, like a magician, he takes out his helmet from behind his back.

The guys look - there is water in the helmet.

The children rushed to the water, to the soldier.

The fighter took a mug, carefully poured it on the bottom. See who to give. He sees a baby with a pea next to him.

“Here,” he said to the kid.

The kid looked at the fighter, at the water.

“Papka,” said the kid. He's there, he's shooting.

- Yes, drink, drink, - the fighter smiled.

“No,” the boy shook his head. - Folder. “I never took a sip of water.

And others refused him.

The fighter returned to his own. He told about the children, about the wounded. He gave the water helmet to the machine gunner.

The machine gunner looked at the water, then at the soldiers, at the fighters, at his friends. He took a helmet, poured water into the metal casing. Came to life, earned, zastrochit machine gun.

The machine gunner covered the fighters with fire. The daredevils have been found again. To the Bug, towards death, they crawled. The heroes returned with water. Drink the children and the wounded.

The defenders of the Brest Fortress fought bravely. But there were fewer and fewer of them. Bombed them from the sky. Cannons fired direct fire. From flamethrowers.

The fascists are waiting - just about, and people will ask for mercy. That's it, and the white flag will appear.

They waited and waited - the flag was not visible. Nobody asks for mercy.

For thirty-two days the battles for the fortress did not cease. “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland! one of her last defenders wrote on the wall with a bayonet.

These were words of goodbye. But it was also an oath. The soldiers kept their oath. They did not surrender to the enemy.

The country bowed to the heroes for this. And stop for a minute, reader. And you bow low to the heroes.

LIEPAYA

The war is on fire. The earth is on fire. A grandiose battle with the Nazis unfolded over a vast area from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

The Nazis attacked in three directions at once: Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. Unleashed the deadly fan.

The city of Liepaja is a port of the Latvian Soviet Republic. Here, on Liepaja, one of the fascist strikes was directed. Enemies believe in easy success:

Liepaja is in our hands!

The Nazis are coming from the south. They go along the sea - a straight road. The fascists are coming. Here is the village of Rutsava. Here is Lake Papes. Here is the river Barta. The city is getting closer and closer.

Liepaja is in our hands!

They're coming. Suddenly a terrible fire blocked the road. The Nazis stopped. The Nazis entered the battle.

They fight, they fight, they never break through. Enemies from the south cannot break through to Liepaja.

The Nazis then changed direction. Bypass the city now from the east. Bypassed. Here the city smokes in the distance.

Liepaja is in our hands!

As soon as they went on the attack, Liepaja bristled again with a flurry of fire. Sailors came to the aid of the soldiers. Workers came to the aid of the military. They took up arms. Together with the fighters in the same row.

The Nazis stopped. The Nazis entered the battle.

They fight, they fight, they never break through. The Nazis will not advance here, from the east either.

Liepaja is in our hands!

However, even here, in the north, the brave defenders of Liepaja blocked the way for the Nazis. Fights with the enemy Liepaja.

Days go by.

The second pass.

Third. Fourth is out.

Don't give up, keep Liepaja!

Only when the shells ran out, there were no cartridges - the defenders of Liepaja retreated.

The Nazis entered the city.

Liepaja is in our hands!

But the Soviet people did not reconcile. Gone underground. They went to the partisans. A bullet awaits the Nazis at every step. A whole division is held by the Nazis in the city.

Liepaja fights.

The enemies of Liepaja were remembered for a long time. If they failed in something, they said:

- Liepaja!

We did not forget Liepaja either. If someone steadfastly stood in battle, if someone fought with enemies with great courage, and the fighters wanted to celebrate this, they said:

- Liepaja!

Even having fallen into slavery to the Nazis, she remained in combat formation - our Soviet Liepaja.

CAPTAIN GASTELLO

It was the fifth day of the war. Pilot Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello with his crew led the aircraft on a combat mission. The plane was large, twin-engine. Bomber.

The plane left for the intended target. Bombed off. Completed the mission. Turned around. Started going home.

And suddenly a shell burst from behind. It was the Nazis who opened fire on the Soviet pilot. The most terrible thing happened, the shell pierced the gas tank. The bomber caught fire. Flames ran along the wings, along the fuselage.

Captain Gastello tried to put out the fire. He banked the plane sharply on its wing. Made the car seem to fall on its side. This position of the aircraft is called slip. The pilot thought he would go astray, the flames would subside. However, the car continued to burn. Dumped Gastello bomber on the second wing. The fire does not disappear. The plane is on fire, losing altitude.

At this time, a fascist convoy was moving under the plane below: tanks with fuel in the convoy, motor vehicles. The Nazis raised their heads, watching the Soviet bomber.

The Nazis saw how a shell hit the plane, how a flame immediately broke out. How the pilot began to fight the fire, throwing the car from side to side.

Fascists triumph.

- Less than one communist has become!

The Nazis laugh. And suddenly…

I tried, tried Captain Gastello to knock down the flames from the plane. He threw a car from wing to wing. Clearly - do not bring down the fire. The earth runs towards the plane with terrible speed. Gastello looked at the ground. I saw the Nazis below, a convoy, fuel tanks, trucks.

And this means: tanks will arrive at the target - fascist planes will be filled with gasoline, tanks and vehicles will be filled; fascist planes will rush to our cities and villages, fascist tanks will attack our fighters, cars will rush, fascist soldiers and military supplies will be transported.

Captain Gastello could leave the burning plane and jump out with a parachute.

But Captain Gastello did not use the parachute. He gripped the steering wheel tighter in his hands. He aimed a bomber at a fascist convoy.

The Nazis are standing, looking at the Soviet aircraft. Happy fascists. We are pleased that their anti-aircraft gunners shot down our plane. And suddenly they understand: a plane is rushing right at them, at the tanks.

The Nazis rushed in different directions. Not everyone managed to escape. The plane crashed into a fascist convoy. There was a terrible explosion. Dozens of fascist vehicles with fuel flew into the air.

Many glorious feats were accomplished by Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War - pilots, tankers, infantrymen, and artillerymen. Lots of unforgettable adventures. One of the first in this series of immortals was the feat of Captain Gastello.

Captain Gastello is dead. But the memory remains. Everlasting memory. Eternal glory.

Audacity

It happened in Ukraine. Not far from the city of Lutsk.

In these places, near Lutsk, near Lvov, near Brody, Dubno, big tank battles broke out with the Nazis.

Night. A column of fascist tanks changed their positions. They go one by one. Fill the area with motor rumble.

The commander of one of the Nazi tanks, Lieutenant Kurt Wieder, threw back the turret hatch, climbed out of the tank to the waist, admiring the night view.

Summer stars from the sky calmly look. To the right, a forest stretches in a narrow strip. On the left, the field runs into a lowland. A stream rushed like a silver ribbon. The road veered, took a little uphill. Night. They go one by one.

And suddenly. Wieder does not believe his eyes. A shot rang out in front of the tank. Wieder sees: the tank that went ahead of Wider fired. But what is? The tank hit its own tank! The downed one flared up, enveloped in flames.

Wieder's thoughts flashed, rushed one by one:

- Accident?!

– Oversight?!

- Are you crazy?!

– Crazy?!

But at that second, a shot was fired from behind. Then a third, fourth, fifth. Wieder turned. Tanks fire at tanks. Going behind those that go ahead.

Veeder sank faster into the hatch. He does not know what command to give to the tankers. Looks to the left, looks to the right, and rightly so: what command to give?

While he was thinking, another shot rang out. It resounded nearby, and immediately shuddered the tank in which Wieder was. He shuddered, clanged and flared up with a candle.

Wieder jumped to the ground. He darted into the ditch.

What happened?

The day before, in one of the battles, Soviet soldiers recaptured fifteen tanks from the Nazis. Thirteen of them turned out to be completely serviceable.

This is where we decided to use our fascist tanks against the fascists themselves. The Soviet tankers got into enemy vehicles, went out to the road and guarded one of the fascist tank columns. When the column approached, the tankers imperceptibly joined it. Then we slowly reorganized so that a tank with our tankers would follow behind each fascist tank.

There is a column. Relax fascists. All tanks have black crosses. We approached the slope. And here - our column of fascist tanks was shot.

Wieder rose from the ground to his feet. I looked at the tanks. They burn like coals. His gaze shifted to the sky. Stars from the sky prick like needles.

Ours returned to us with a victory, with trophies.

- Well, how is it in order?

- Consider it full!

Tankers are standing.

Smiles glow. Courage in the eyes. Insolence on the faces.

SPIRIOUS WORD

There is a war going on in Belarus. They rise behind the fire of the conflagration.

The fascists are marching. And here in front of them is the Berezina - the beauty of the Belarusian fields.

Berezina runs. Either it will spill over into a wide floodplain, then it will suddenly narrow to a canal, it will break through swamps, through swells, it will rumble along the forest, along the forest, along the field, it will rush to good huts at its feet, smile at bridges, cities and villages.

The Nazis came to the Berezina. One of the detachments to the village of Studyanka. Battles rumbled near Studyanka. Satisfied fascists. Another new frontier has been captured.

The places near Studyanka are hilly. The hump here is both the right and left banks. The Berezina here flows in a lowland. The Nazis went up the hill. As in the palm of your hand lies the district. Leaves fields and forest to the sky. The fascists are marching.

- Song! an officer in command.

The soldiers sang a song.

The Nazis are walking, suddenly they see a monument. At the top of the hill, by the road, stands an obelisk. The inscription at the bottom of the monument.

The Nazis stopped, they stopped bawling a song. They look at the obelisk, at the inscription. They do not understand Russian. However, it is interesting what is written here. Addressing one another:

What is it about, Kurt?

What is it about, Carl?

Kurt, Karl, Fritz, Franz, Adolf, Hans are standing, looking at the inscription.

And then there was one who read in Russian.

“Here, in this place…” the soldier began to read. And further about the fact that here, on the Berezina, near the village of Studyanka, in 1812, the Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov finally defeated the hordes of the French Emperor Napoleon I, who dreamed of conquering our country, and drove the invaders out of Russia.

Yes, it was in this place. Here, on the Berezina, near the village of Studyanka.

The soldier read the inscription on the monument to the end. I looked at my neighbors. Kurt whistled. Carl whistled. Fritz chuckled. Franz smiled. The other soldiers murmured:

- So when was it?

“Napoleon didn’t have that strength then!

Just what is it? The song is no longer a song. Quieter and quieter song.

- Louder, louder! an officer in command.

Nothing gets louder. This is where the song stops.

Soldiers are walking, remembering the year 1812, about the obelisk, about the inscription on the monument. Although it had been true for a long time, although Napoleon’s strength was not the same, but the mood of the fascist soldiers suddenly deteriorated somehow. They go and repeat:

- Berezina!

The word suddenly turned out to be prickly.

ESTATE

Enemies are marching across Ukraine. The fascists are rushing forward.

Good Ukraine. The air is fragrant like grass. The earth is fat as butter. The generous sun is shining.

Hitler promised the soldiers that after the war, after the victory, they would receive estates in Ukraine.

Walking soldier Hans Muttervater, picking up his estate.

He liked the place. The river gurgles. Rockets. Meadow next to the river. Stork.

- Good. Grace! This is where I will probably stay after the war. Here I will build a house by the river.

He closed his eyes. A handsome house has grown. And next to the house there is a stable, barns, sheds, a cowshed, a pigsty.

The soldier Muttervater broke into a smile.

- Fine! Wonderful! Let's remember the place.

- Perfect place!

Admired.

This is where I will probably stay after the war. Here, on a hillock, I will build a house. He closed his eyes. A handsome house has grown. And next to the house there are other services: a stable, barns, sheds, a cowshed, a pigsty.

Stop again.

The steppe lay open spaces. There is no end to them. The field lies like velvet. The rooks are walking across the field like princes.

Captured by a soldier boundless expanse. He looks at the steppes, at the earth - the soul plays.

“Here I am, here I will stay forever.

He closed his eyes: the field was earing wheat. There are scythes nearby. This is his field. This is in the field of his scythes. And cows graze nearby. These are his cows. And the turkeys are pecking nearby. These are his turkeys. And his pigs, and chickens. And his geese, and ducks. Both his sheep and his goats. And here is the beautiful house.

Muttervater decided firmly. Here he will take the estate. No other place is needed.

- Zer Gut! - said the fascist. “I will stay here forever.

Good Ukraine. Generous Ukraine. What Muttervater dreamed about so much came true. Hans Muttervater remained here forever when the partisans opened the battle. And it is necessary - right there, right on his estate.

Lies Muttervater in his estate. And there are others walking by. They also choose these estates for themselves. Who is on the hill, and who is under the hill. Who is in the forest, and who is in the field. Who is at the pond, and who is at the river.

The partisans look at them:

- Don't crowd. Do not hurry. Great Ukraine. Generous Ukraine. Enough space for anyone.

TWO TANKS

In one of the battles, a Soviet KB tank (KB is a tank brand) rammed a fascist one. The Nazi tank was destroyed. However, ours also suffered. The impact stalled the engine.

The driver-mechanic Ustinov leaned over to the engine, trying to start it. The motor is silent.

The tank stopped. However, the tankers did not stop the fight. They opened fire on the Nazis with cannons and machine guns.

The tankers are shooting, listening to see if the engine is running. Fumbling with the motor Ustinov. The motor is silent.

The fight was long and hard. And now our tank ran out of ammunition. The tank was now completely helpless. Lonely, silently stands on the field.

The Nazis became interested in a lonely standing tank. Come up. We looked - outwardly the whole car. They got on the tank. They beat with forged boots on the manhole cover.

- Hey, Russian!

- Come out, Russian!

They listened. No answer.

- Hey, Russian!

No answer.

“The tankers died,” the Nazis thought. They decided to drag the tank away like a trophy. We drove our tank to the Soviet tank. Got the rope. Attached. The rope was pulled. Pulled the colossus colossus.

“Bad things,” our tankers understand. We leaned towards the engine, towards Ustinov:

- Well, look here.

- Well, pick here.

Where did the spark go?

Ustinov is puffing at the engine.

- Oh, you stubborn!

- Oh, you, your steel soul!

And suddenly he snorted, the tank engine started. Ustinov grabbed the levers. Quickly engaged the clutch. Gave more gas. The caterpillars moved at the tank. The Soviet tank rested.

The Nazis see, a Soviet tank rested. They are amazed: he was motionless - and came to life. Turned on the strongest power. They cannot move a Soviet tank. Roaring motors. Tanks pull each other in different directions. Caterpillars bite into the ground. The earth flies from under the caterpillars.

- Vasya, press! shout the tankers to Ustinov. - Vasya!

Pushed to the limit Ustinov. And then the Soviet tank overpowered. Pulled a fascist. The fascists have changed and now our roles. Not ours, but the fascist tank is now in trophies.

The Nazis rushed about, opened the hatches. They started jumping out of the tank.

The heroes dragged the enemy tank to their own. The soldiers are watching

- Fascist!

- Completely intact!

The tankers told about the last battle and what happened.

- Overpowered, then - the soldiers laugh.

- Pulled!

- Ours, it turns out, is stronger in the shoulders.

“Stronger, stronger,” the soldiers laugh. - Give time - whether it will be, brothers, Fritz.

What can you say?

- Shall we move?

- Let's move!

There will be battles. Be victorious. But it's not all at once. These battles are ahead.

FULL-FULL

The battle with the Nazis went on the banks of the Dnieper. The Nazis went to the Dnieper. Among others, the village of Buchak was captured. The Nazis were there. There are many of them - about a thousand. Installed a mortar battery. The coast is high. The Nazis can see far from the slope. The fascist battery is hitting ours.

The defense on the left, opposite bank of the Dnieper was held by a regiment commanded by Major Muzagik Khairetdinov. Khairetdinov decided to teach the fascists and the fascist battery a lesson. He gave the order to carry out a night attack on the right bank.

The Soviet soldiers began to prepare for the crossing. They got boats from the inhabitants. Oars, poles got. We plunged. Pushed off the left bank. The soldiers went into the darkness.

The Nazis did not expect an attack from the left bank. The village on a steeper slope from ours is covered by Dnieper water. Relax fascists. And suddenly the Soviet fighters fell upon the enemies with a fiery starfall. Crushed. Squeezed. They were thrown off the steep Dnieper. They destroyed both the fascist soldiers and the fascist battery.

The fighters returned with a victory to the left bank.

In the morning, new fascist forces approached the village of Buchak. The Nazis were accompanied by a young lieutenant. The lieutenant tells the soldiers about the Dnieper, about the Dnieper steeps, about the village of Buchak.

- There are plenty of us!

He clarifies - they say that the mortar battery is on a steeper slope, the entire left bank is visible from the steep slope, the Nazis are covered by the Dnieper water like a wall from the Russians, and the soldiers in Buchak are located, like in Christ's bosom.

Fascists approach the village. Something is quiet around, silently. Empty all around, deserted.

The lieutenant is surprised:

- Yes, it was full of ours!

The Nazis entered the village. We went to the steep Dnieper. They see that the dead are lying on the steep. Looked to the left, looked to the right - and right, full.

Not only for the village of Buchak - in many places on the Dnieper at that time stubborn battles began with the Nazis. The 21st Soviet Army dealt a strong blow to the Nazis here. The army crossed the Dnieper, attacked the Nazis, the Soviet soldiers liberated the cities of Rogachev and Zhlobin, headed for Bobruisk.

Fascists were alarmed:

- Rogachev is lost!

- Lost Zhlobin!

- The enemy is moving towards Bobruisk!

The Nazis had to urgently withdraw their troops from other sectors. They drove a huge force near Bobruisk. The Nazis barely held Bobruisk.

The blow of the 21st Army was not the only one. And in other places on the Dnieper, the fascists then got a hard time.