Born in 1924 in the village of Nenashevo in the Nenashevsky volost of the Nenashevsky district of the Aleksinsky district of the Tula province of the RSFSR (now the Zaoksky district of the Tula region). Russian. Member of the Komsomol. He was drafted into the Red Army by the Zaoksky RVC of the Tula Region on March 22, 1942. He fought on the Western, Don and Central fronts. From March 22, 1943 he fought in the 147th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the Voronezh Front. The 27th Army of the Voronezh Front was brought into battle during the Belgorod-Kharkov offensive operation "RUMYANTSEV" (August 3 - 23, 1943) - the final operation of the Battle of Kursk, carried out with the aim of defeating the Belgorod-Kharkov grouping of the Wehrmacht, liberating the Kharkov industrial region, creating prerequisites for the final liberation of the Left-Bank Ukraine, the 147th Infantry Division, as part of the 27th Army of the Voronezh Front, advanced from the southern front of the Kursk Bulge, approximately from the area of ​​​​the urban village of PROLETARSKY in the Rakityansky district, on the city of GRAYVORON Belgorod region and Akhtyrka of the Sumy region of the Ukrainian SSR, where, south of Akhtyrka, it came under a counterattack by enemy troops. The shooter of the 1st rifle battalion of the 640th rifle regiment of the 147th rifle division, Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F. in battles with the German invaders he showed courage and courage. In one of the battles, having shown courage and resourcefulness, he quickly moved forward, noticed three Germans shooting back, unexpectedly attacked them with a machine gun in his hands, took them prisoner and delivered them to the command. For the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command on the front of the struggle against the German invaders and the valor and courage shown by the shooters of the 1st rifle battalion, Red Army soldier SILAEV Mikhail Fedorovich, commander of the 640th rifle regiment, Lieutenant Colonel POSTNOV M.M. On September 2, 1943, he was presented with the Order of the RED STAR, which, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was awarded an order to units of the 147th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the Voronezh Front No. 023-N dated September 13, 1943 (http://podvignaroda.ru/?#id= 18757367&tab=navDetailDocument). At the end of September 1943, the 147th Infantry Division as part of the 27th Army was transferred to the Bukrinsky bridgehead, where it fought for its expansion. After the liberation of the city of Kyiv from November 21, 1943, she fought south of the city, adjoining her left flank to the Dnieper River. In March 1944, the Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F. fought in the 1087 Infantry Regiment of the 322 Infantry Zhytomyr Red Banner Division. The 322nd Rifle Division was formed by order of the Supreme Commander of August 20, 1941, in August - September 1941 in the Moscow Military District, in the Gorky Region. The division received its baptism of fire as part of the 10th Army on December 7, 1941, taking part in the Tula offensive operation (December 6 - December 16, 1941) of the left wing troops Western Front- an integral part of the Moscow strategic offensive operation (September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942). Subsequently, the division took part in the Kaluga-Belev offensive operation (December 17, 1941 - January 5, 1942). Until the fall of 1942, the division held a defense zone on the eastern bank of the RESETTA river southeast of the DUMINICHI station in Smolensk (now the Kaluga region, as part of the 16th Army, it took part in the front-line counteroffensive operation of the Western Front forces - Counterstrike of the left wing of the Western Front in the area of ​​SUKHINICHI and KOZELSK, carried out from August 22 to 29, 1942 on the left flank of the front.As part of the 60th Army of the Voronezh Front, the 322nd Infantry Division of Colonel (from January 27, 1943 Major General) TERENTYEV G. N. took part in the Voronezh-Kastornenskaya offensive operation (January 24 - February 2, 1943), in an attack directly on the city of KURSK. From March 21 until the end of June 1943, the 322nd Infantry Division as part of the 60th Army of the Central Front held the defense along the Seim River east of the city of RYLSKA, Kursk Region, took part in Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23, 1943, Chernigov-Pripyat offensive operation of the Central Front (August 26 - September 30, 1943). Having made a march on the orders of the command, the 322nd rifle division moved to the Lyutezh bridgehead north of the city of Kyiv, at the first stage of the Kyiv offensive operation ( November 3 - 13, 1943) attacked in the second echelon, constituting the reserve of the commander of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front. On November 9, 1943, the division concentrated in the area of ​​the village of BONDARNYA, Borodyansky District, Kyiv Region, where it was subordinate to the 24th Rifle Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front and in its The 322nd Rifle Division, pursuing the retreating enemy, advanced in the direction of the TETEREV station in the Borodnyansky district and further to the west.Repulsing numerous counterattacks by enemy tanks and infantry, by November 15, the 322nd Rifle Division reached the border of the settlements NOVIY BOBRIK, STARY BOBRIK, FASOVA in the Khoroshevsky district of the Zhytomyr region. November 15, 1943 the enemy launched a powerful counteroffensive e, seeking to destroy the entire Kyiv grouping of troops, to eliminate its bridgeheads on the right bank of the DNEPR. By order of the commander of the 60th Army, Lieutenant General CHERNYAKHOVSKY I.D. The 322nd Rifle Division stopped the offensive, relocating to the area of ​​the village of STUDENITSA, on November 17, 1943, it became part of the 30th Rifle Corps and took up defense at the turn of the villages of GORODISCHE, Zhytomyr District, STUDENITSA, the city of KOROSTYSHEV, Korostyshev District, Zhytomyr Region, along the TETEREV River with the front to the south with the task of preventing advancing the enemy in the direction of the village of STUDENITSA, the town of MALIN, Zhytomyr region, and to prevent his maneuver along the highway ZHYTOMYR - Kyiv. The division steadfastly repelled numerous attacks of enemy tanks and infantry, on November 20, 1943, was subordinated to the 23rd Rifle Corps. Having suffered significant losses, the 322nd Rifle Division, by order of the command, withdrew to the border of the settlements PILIPOVICHI of the Radomysl region, BEZHOV of the Chernyakhovsky region of the Zhytomyr region, where it continued to steadfastly hold the defense, entering on November 21, 1943, into the composition of the 15 rifle corps that advanced from the depths. Until December 6, in connection with the partial regrouping of army troops, the 322nd Rifle Division changed its defense area several times. By mid-December 1943, the German counter-offensive west of Kyiv was suspended along the entire front. Parts of the 15th Rifle Corps entrenched themselves at the turn of RUDNIA-GORODISHCHENSKAYA, Malinsky district, MEDELEVKA, VYSHEVICHI, Radomyshl district, Zhytomyr region. In the Zhytomyr-Berdichev offensive operation of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front (December 24, 1943 - January 14, 1944), the 60th Army with two tank corps attached to it delivered an auxiliary strike in the direction of the village of CHAIKOVKA of the Radomysl district, the city of CHERNYAKHOV, Zhytomyr region. The advance of its troops, bypassing the Malinsko-Radomysl grouping of the enemy, pursued the goal of curtailing the defense of the Nazis in this sector, ensuring an effective offensive of the main forces. The 15th Rifle Corps operated in the most important direction in the combat formations of the army, the left flank of which was made up of regiments of the 322nd Rifle Division. On December 26, 1943, parts of the division went on the offensive. Having knocked down the enemy's barriers, the regiments broke through the enemy's defenses in the area of ​​​​the villages of MIRCHA, KRASNOBORKA and by the end of the day reached the villages of KOTOVKA and ZABOLOT in the Radomyshlsky district of the Zhytomyr region. On December 29, the division took part in the liberation of the city of CHERNYAKHOV with one regiment. The main forces of the 322nd Infantry Division bypassed CHERNYAKHOV from the north and developed an offensive in a southwestern direction. In four days, the division fought 60 km and cut the highway and railway ZHYTOMYR - NOVOGRAD-VOLYNSKY. The successful actions of the division in this direction facilitated the advance of troops to the city of Zhitomir. Having beaten off enemy counterattacks from ZHYTOMIR, the division, in cooperation with other parts of the Red Army, began pursuing the Nazis along the highway to the city of SHEPETOVKA, Kamenetz-Podolsk (now Khmelnitsky) region of the Ukrainian SSR, on December 31 entered Zhitomir and participated in clearing the city from the Nazis. The troops that participated in the liberation of ZHYTOMIR were thanked by order of the All-Russian Supreme Command No. 53 of January 1, 1944, and 20 artillery volleys from 224 guns were saluted in MOSCOW. In commemoration of the victory, the 322nd Infantry Division of Colonel LASHCHENKO Petr Nikolayevich was awarded the honorary title "ZHYTOMIR" among the most distinguished in the battles for the liberation of the city of ZHYTOMIR. On January 2, 1944, the 322nd Rifle Division Zhytomyr started a battle on the outskirts of the district center of the Zhytomyr region, the city of DERZHINSK (now the urban-type settlement of ROMANOV - the administrative center of the Romanovsky district) and advanced to the village of NOVY MIROPOL of the present Romanovsky district, having the task of crossing the SLUCH river on the move, breaking through the enemy’s defenses on the western bank of the river and capture the line KAMIANKA - DERTKA of the Dzerzhinsky district of the Zhytomyr region - PRISLUC of the Polonsky district of the Kamenetz-Podolsk (now Khmelnytsky) region. On January 9, 1944, units of the division liberated the center of the Polonsky district of the Kamenetz-Podolsk (now Khmelnytsky) region, the city of POLONNOE, and, moving forward, met a strong rebuff from the enemy. The regiments of the division were ordered to gain a foothold on the achieved lines with the task of frustrating all German attempts to break through to POLONNY, where they fought positional defensive battles until February 1944. During the Rovno-Lutsk operation (January 27 - February 11, 1944), the 322nd Rifle Division of Zhytomyr, as part of the 15th Rifle Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front, on February 11, 1944, took part in the battles for the liberation of the city of SHEPETOVKA, Kamenetz-Podolsk (now Khmelnitsky) region of the Ukrainian SSR. The troops that participated in the liberation of SHEPETOVKA were thanked by Order No. 73 of February 11, 1944, and 12 artillery salvoes from 124 guns were saluted in MOSCOW. For merits in the defeat of enemy forces in the area of ​​​​the city of POLONNOE and active participation in the liberation of a large railway junction and an important stronghold of the German defense of the city of SHEPETOVKA, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 322, the Zhytomyr Rifle Division of Colonel LASHCHENKO Petr Nikolayevich was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The 322nd Rifle Division of the Zhytomyr Red Banner Division under the command of Colonel LASHCHENKO Petr Nikolaevich as part of the 15th Rifle Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front took part in the Proskurov-Chernivtsi offensive operation (March 4 - April 17, 1944). On the morning of March 4, 1944, the troops of the 60th Army, as part of the shock group of the front, went on the offensive. Having broken through the defense of the Nazis in the Tarnopol direction with the support of artillery and aviation, they rushed to the west, freeing the land of Soviet Ukraine inch by inch. In accordance with the received task 322, the rifle division hastily moved behind parts of the first echelon of the corps. The march took place in incredibly difficult conditions. The country roads, along which the regiments of the division moved in two parallel routes, were so lucky after a few days that everyone walked, bogged down knee-deep in thick impassable mud. In addition to personal weapons and a pouch, a gas mask, a shovel and a duffel bag with dry rations and soldier's property, each fighter had with him spare sets of grenades and disks with cartridges - in case the convoys fell behind and had to fight a long battle, not counting on an early replenishment of ammunition . I had to walk for fourteen or more hours a day, not being able to sit down in a dry place, take a breath, rewind footcloths, not to mention dry shoes and clothes, refresh my strength with hot food, sleep for an hour or two in warmth. They ate mostly dry food and forgot themselves for a short sleep on the wet ground under open sky where the team found the exhausted people to rest. During the first three daily marches, until the thaw cleared up and the rains poured down, the fighters were still pushing cars, guns, wagons through the mud with their last strength, and they dragged along with sin in half at the tail of the columns. Then the roads finally fell into disrepair, and wheeled transport became. Now it was necessary to pull out guns and cars from potholes and bogs and tow them to the nearest sections of the highway with the help of the few extremely worn tractors available in the division. The route along which the units of the division advanced ran through ridges of small hills, cut at the foot by ravines, now filled to the brim with melt water. Often there were streams and rivulets that overflowed their banks, bridges that had destroyed tanks that had passed earlier to the ground. Drivers and riders, gunners and mortarmen, therefore, had to climb hills and descend straight from them, to wade streams. It often happened that a gun or wagon would descend into a ravine, but it could no longer get out. Then they unharnessed the horses and on themselves, along a shell, a mine, a coil of telephone cable or a box of explosives, they carried all the property to the nearest high-rise, and only then they pushed up the guns, charging boxes, wagons. After descending into the next beam, everything was repeated in the same order. If heavy artillery systems got stuck, then several pairs of oxen had to be harnessed to them at once - the exhausted horses could not do anything here. As night fell, the temperature dropped sharply. Wet, dirty overcoats and quilted jackets were covered with a crust of ice, hampering the movements of people, penetrating the body with chilling cold. The horses dragged their load: in the cold, the mud thickened and the wheels did not turn. Despite such trials, the 322nd Rifle Division moved forward unceasingly. The machine gunner of the reconnaissance platoon of the company of machine gunners of the 1087th rifle regiment, the Red Army soldier M. F. SILAEV, being in the head marching patrol group, on March 6, 1944, was among the first to enter the town of ZBARAZH, Tarnopol region. The Germans suddenly began to fire on the patrol from three sides and two soldiers were injured. Without leaving his comrades, the Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F. with a burst from a machine gun, he destroyed three Nazis from the enemy group, who were striving to capture the scouts. Having received a rebuff and suffered losses, the enemy returned to its original position. Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F. assisted the wounded comrades and took them to the shelter, and he himself took up a defensive line and fought alone until the main forces approached and the wounded were evacuated to the rear. By March 7, 1944, units of the division moved to the first echelon of the corps. Throwing back and destroying the opposing enemy, they fought 18-20 kilometers a day, which in those conditions was the limit of what was possible. Leaving behind about one and a half kilometers of impassability, by March 8, the division reached the line of the GNEZNA and GNEZDECHNA rivers, where they met organized and stubborn resistance from the enemy. By March 8, 1944, the troops of the 60th Army reached the regional center of the Ukrainian SSR, the city of TARNOPOL (now TERNOPIL) and started fighting for the capture of the city. This most important railway junction was one of the key strategic points of defense of the Nazi invaders in Ukraine. Hitler himself declared Tarnopol "the gate to the Reich." By his personal order, the commandant of the Tarnopol garrison turned the city into an almost impregnable fortress. On the night of March 9-10, 1944, the soldiers of the Red Army broke into Tarnopol for the first time and started street fighting there. However, then the Soviet troops failed to keep the city. As a result of a powerful German counterattack, they were forced to retreat and the fighting here dragged on. In an offensive battle for the village of IVANCHUV-GURNY of the Veliko-Glubochetsky district (now the village of IVACHEV GORISHNY of the Tarnopol district) of the Tarnopol region on March 13, 1944, a submachine gunner of a company of submachine gunners of the 1087th rifle regiment, a Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F. boldly and decisively fought the enemy, as a result of which he destroyed 2 firing points and 10 enemy soldiers and officers. In the battle for the village of KUTKOVTSY (now part of the city of Ternopil and forms the district of the same name), the Red Army soldier SILAEV M.F., suddenly attacking the enemy, threw grenades and destroyed a machine-gun crew of 6 people, captured a captured machine gun and repulsed two enemy counterattacks with fire from it . By March 23-24, the fortress city was completely surrounded. The Tarnopol enemy grouping that fell into the "cauldron" numbered over 12 thousand soldiers and officers. In addition to the German infantry and motorized units, it also included a regiment from the infamous 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia", formed from Ukrainian nationalists. submachine gunners Red Army soldier SILAEV Mikhail Fedorovich on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR by order of 1087 rifle regiment 322 rifle Zhytomyr Red Banner division 15 rifle corps 60 army 1 Ukrainian Front No. en/? #id=32113278&tab=navDetailDocument). On the afternoon of March 31, after a three-hour artillery preparation and strike by ground attack aircraft, units of the 94th and 15th rifle corps broke into Tarnopol. Fourteen days of street fighting began. By April 4, most of TARNOPOL was liberated. However, the resistance of the enemy did not stop. For the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the German invaders and the valor and courage shown at the same time, the submachine gunner of the company of submachine gunners, Red Army soldier SILAEV Mikhail Fedorovich, commander of the 1087th rifle regiment, Lieutenant Colonel FOMICHEV D.P. On April 8, 1944, he was presented to the Order of the RED STAR, which, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was awarded an order for the 322nd Rifle Zhytomyr Red Banner Division of the 15th Rifle Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front No. ru/?#id=30434192&tab=navDetailDocument). Fierce street in TARNOPOL ended only on April 14, 1944 with his complete liberation. The troops participating in the liberation of the city of TARNOPOL were thanked by order of the All-Russian Supreme Command No. 109 of April 15, 1944, and 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns were saluted in MOSCOW. In commemoration of the victory, the 1087 rifle regiment of Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Polikarpovich FOMICHEV, among the most distinguished in the battles of formations and units, was presented for the honorary title "TARNOPOLSKY", which was awarded by order of the Supreme Command of April 26, 1944 No. 0108. By mid-June 1944, 322 rifle division thoroughly entrenched at the turn along the VYSUSHKA stream, west of the city of TARNOPOL. Soon there was a short pause on the entire Soviet-German front: the troops went over to temporary defense, intensive and systematic preparations for summer offensive operations were in full swing in all units and formations. In the early days of the Lvov-Sandomierz operation (July 13 - August 29, 1944), the 322nd Rifle Division of the Zhytomyr Red Banner Division of Major General LASHCHENKO P.N., who fought as part of the 28th Rifle Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front, played important role in breaking through the German defenses in the Lvov direction. The offensive began on July 14 in an extremely difficult and tense situation. By the end of the first day of the operation, the troops of the 60th Army were able to advance only 3-8 km - the enemy had a very strong defense, based on natural lines and well-developed systems of engineering structures, artillery and mortar fire. By the end of the first day of the operation and from the morning of July 15, the German command committed all tactical and operational reserves, including the 1st and 8th Panzer and 14th SS Galicia Infantry Divisions, into battle. Overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, the 322nd Rifle Division, acting in the direction of the main attack, broke through the enemy defenses in the area of ​​the village of BELOKRYNYTSA, destroyed the opposing enemy and developed an offensive in the direction of the villages of PEREPELNYKI, TROSTYANETS, Zborovsky district, Tarnopol region, and the city of ZOLOCHIEV, Lviv region. As a result of this breakthrough, the so-called "Koltovsky corridor" was formed - a deep gap in the enemy's defense to a depth of 18 km, which was used by the command to bring the 3rd Guards Tank Army into the operational space, which ensured the defeat of the opposing enemy troops. In these battles, on July 16, 1944, Major General Pyotr Nikolaevich LASHCHENKO was seriously wounded and Major General Pyotr Ivanovich Zubov took command of the division. On July 17, having completely cleared the city of ZOLOCHIV from the Nazis, the division captured the villages of YASENOVTSY and CHERVONOE, on July 18 - BIG OLSHANITSA in the Zolochiv district of the Lviv region. Further advancement of the division was hampered by powerful enemy counterattacks from the area of ​​the village of GOGOGORY to CHERVONOE - the enemy, blocked in the ring west of the city of BRODY, Lvov region, tried to break through the encirclement through the villages of KNIAZHE and CHERVONE to the southwest and connect with the main forces. Divided here into two groups, the Germans went on the offensive against the villages of SKVARYAVA and KNIAZHE in the Zolochiv region. However, the enemy could not break through further and began to surrender. Thus, the Brod grouping of the enemy ceased to exist. Being in the first echelon of the 60th Army, the 322nd Rifle Division resumed its offensive against Lviv in the direction of the villages of BALUCHIN, Bussky District, ZAMETYE, ZHURAVNIKI, Pustomitovsky District, Lviv Region. Having broken the resistance of the enemy in stubborn battles on July 24-26, 1944 near the village of BELKA-SHLYAKHETSKAYA (now VERHNYAYA BELKA, Pustomitovsky district, Lviv region), units of the division pushed him back and, with a swift offensive, were the first of the infantry units to enter the city of Lviv on July 27. The troops participating in the liberation of the city of LVOV were thanked by order of the Supreme High Command No. 154 of July 27, 1944, and in MOSCOW they were saluted with 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns. Without stopping, the division left Lviv and moved west. On August 6, 1944, parts of the division liberated the city of Mielec, the administrative center of the current Mielec district of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship of POLAND. Having passed along the western bank of the Vistula tributaries - the VISLOKA river, the regiments, weakened by losses, made attempts to push back the Nazis for several days, then they themselves repelled their fierce attacks, holding the captured lines. Finally, the resistance of the enemy in its sector of the division was able to break only in the twentieth of August. The 322nd Rifle Division of the Zhytomyr Red Banner under the command of the Guards, Major General Petr Ivanovich ZUBOV, took an active part in the battles for the liberation of the city of DEMBICA in the current Podkarpackie Voivodeship of Poland. During the war, the deaf Carpathian region became an industrial region. Hiding from Allied aviation, the Germans transferred a number of large military enterprises here from Germany, deploying them in small towns and in the forests near the railway line LVOV - KRAKOV and the oil-bearing Zheshuvsky region. The enemy organized a strong defense in this direction. In particular, the Germans stubbornly defended the city of DEMBICA - an important communications center from where railways to LVIV, SANDOMIR, KRAKOW. From the west, DEMBICA is covered by a water boundary - the VISLOKA River. From the east, the Germans built the so-called Dembitsky bypass with numerous concrete pillboxes. The DEMBITSA area was heavily saturated with artillery, including anti-aircraft. The Dembica operation began on the morning of August 20, 1944. The 322nd Infantry Division advanced along the eastern bank of the Wisloka River in order to curtail the enemy's defenses. Bypassing DEMBICA from the south, the left-flank units of the 60th Army increased pressure on the enemy troops. By the end of August 22, units of the 4th Guards Tank and 33rd Guards Rifle Corps, in cooperation with the 322nd Rifle Division, captured the crossing through the VISLOKA and began fighting on the near approaches to DEMBICA. Troops operating from the northwest crossed the captured bridge over the river and started fighting near the western outskirts of the city. Increasing their blows, the attackers drove the Germans out of their strongholds on the outskirts. This was followed by a decisive assault on the fortifications of the city. After a fierce battle on August 23, 1944, the city of DEMBICA was completely liberated from the Nazi troops. The troops participating in the battles for the liberation of DEMBITSA were thanked by the order of the Supreme High Command of August 23, 1944, and salute was given in Moscow with 12 artillery salvoes from 124 guns. By the end of August 1944, the fighting in the Sandomierz bridgehead began to gradually fade. However, the Nazi command continued to throw fresh forces into the bridgehead area, more than doubling its grouping in this area. On August 29, 1944, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front went on the defensive. During the Sandomierz-Silesian offensive operation (January 12 - February 3, 1945), carried out with the aim of defeating the Kielce-Radom enemy grouping, liberating SOUTHERN POLAND, reaching the ODER, capturing a bridgehead on its left bank and creating favorable conditions for conducting operations on the Berlin and the Dresden directions, the 322nd Rifle Zhytomyr Red Banner Division under the command of Guards Major General Petr Ivanovich ZUBOV, acting in the Krakow direction as part of the 28th Rifle Lvov Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front, on the second day of the offensive at 22.00 January 13 crossed the Nida River, entering the gap , entered into battles with the enemy, captured the village of Jurków (Jurków) and started a battle for the village of STASHEVICE-NOVE of the Wislice commune of the Mechow county of the Krakow voivodeship (now the Busk county of Swietokrzyski) POLAND. Pursuing the retreating enemy, the 1089th Infantry Regiment of the 322nd Infantry Division to 15. On January 30, on January 14, he reached the line 300 m west of the village of GABULTUV - 250 m south of the village of ZAGUZHYTS in the current Kazimierz poviat of the Sventokrzyski Voivodeship. At 11 o'clock on January 15, units of the division withdrew from the occupied line with the task of advancing in the strip: on the right (1085 joint venture) the city of SKALBMIERZH of the present Kazimierz county of the Swietokrzyski voivodeship - the city of SLOMLIKI of the present Krakow county of the Malopolska voivodeship, on the left (1089 joint venture) of the village of WOJECHUW - BORONICE of the present Kazimierz county Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship - the city of PROŠOWICE of the current Prošovice County of Lesser Poland Voivodeship. Overcoming the resistance of parts of the German 304th and 359th infantry divisions, by 16:00 on January 15, 1089, the infantry regiment reached the line of settlements LENTKOVICE, KONTY of the commune of Radzemice of the present Proszowice district northwest of the city of PROSHOWICE. By 20.00, parts of the division reached the line of the CZECH, PSHESLAWICE of the current commune Konyusha of the Proszowice district, where they entrenched themselves by order. Having repulsed the enemy counterattack from the PSHESLAWICE area, at 11.30 on January 16, units of the division continued the offensive in a westerly direction in the strip: on the right - SLOMNIKI, IVANOWICE in the current Krakow poviat, on the left - PSHESLAWICE, BURKOW WELKY of the commune of Koniusz of the Proszowice poviat and by the end of the day reached the line of settlements BURKOW WIELKY, HOSHICE, MARSHOWICE, GOSHZHA in the Krakow poviat. On January 16, 1945, the commander of the squad of the 8th rifle company of the 1085th rifle Tarnopol Red Banner regiment, senior sergeant SILAEV M.F. at the head of his squad, he was sent to reconnaissance and, having stumbled upon an ambush of the enemy, entered into an unequal battle, in which he was wounded. The courageous junior commander remained in the ranks and continued to lead his squad until the main forces approached. The commander of the 8th rifle company of the 1085th rifle Tarnopol Red Banner regiment of the 322nd rifle Zhytomyr Red Banner division, senior sergeant Mikhail Fedorovich SILAEV died of wounds on January 16, 1945 in the 408th separate medical and sanitary battalion of the 322nd rifle division and on January 17, 1945 was buried in a single grave No. first row on the left in the village of PECHONOGI (Pieczonogi) commune Palechnitsa (Palecznica) Proszowice county Krakow (now Lesser Poland) Voivodeship. Scheme of the location of the grave (https://obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=4064761&p=7). Report on the irretrievable losses of the 322nd Infantry Division No. 049 of 01/28/1945 (https://obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=4064810). Burial book of the 408th separate medical battalion (https://obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=58965762). Alphabetical book of registration of the dead of the 408th separate medical battalion of the 322nd rifle division (https://obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=58966066). On the morning of January 17, 1945, the 322nd Infantry Division began fighting on the outskirts of the city of Krakow. During the day, the division repelled 14 enemy infantry and tank counterattacks in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe settlements of BIBICE, BOLEN, MARSHOVICE, GOSHCHITSE, CHEKAY, KSIONZHNICHKI northeast of Krakow and by 15.00 on January 18 advanced regiments reached the line: the southwestern outskirts of the villages of CHEKAY and BOLEN ( 1085 cn), western outskirts of KONCHICE, southeastern outskirts of PELGIMOVICE (1089 cn). Having beaten off repeated enemy counterattacks, overcoming powerful fortifications with a system of anti-tank and anti-personnel obstacles, the rifle units of the division on the night of January 18-19, 1945, started a battle on the southwestern outskirts of Krakow. By 10.00, the division cleared the northern part of the enemy, captured the central part of the city by storm, crossed the VISLA river from the ice and continued the further offensive to the west. The troops that participated in the battles for the capture of the ancient capital and one of the most important cultural and political centers of POLAND, the city of KRAKOW, a powerful German defense center covering the approaches to the Dombrovsky coal district, were thanked by order of the Supreme High Command No. 230 of January 19, 1945 and a salute was given in MOSCOW 20 artillery volleys from 224 guns. For the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the German invaders and the valor and courage shown at the same time, the commander of the 8th rifle company, senior sergeant Mikhail Fedorovich SILAEV, the commander of the 1085th rifle Tarnopol Red Banner regiment, Colonel Timofeev P.K. On January 20, 1945, he was presented with the Order of GLORY III degree, which, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was awarded an order to units of the 322nd Rifle Zhytomyr Red Banner Division of the 28th Rifle Lvov Corps of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front No. ://podvignaroda.ru/?#id=42051801&tab=navDetailDocument). SILAEV Mikhail Fedorovich is immortalized in the Book of Memory of the Tula Region, Volume 6 (https://obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=404865357). During the Great Patriotic War the father of a front-line soldier SILAEV Fedor Gavrilovich lived in the village of Nenashevo, Zaoksky district, Tula region. In 1948, the remains of Soviet soldiers (including Mikhail Fedorovich SILAEV) were exhumed from mass and single graves in the village of PECHONOGI (Pieczonogi) of the commune Palechnitsa (Palecznica) of the Proszowice county of the Krakow (now Lesser Poland) voivodship (https://www.obd-memorial. ru/html/info.htm?id=87225345&page=10) and moved unnamed to the warriors' area Soviet army parish cemetery on Krakowska Street in the city of PROSHOWICE, Proszowice County, Krakow (now Lesser Poland Voivodeship) POLAND. Polish military burial passports (https://www.obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=87225345&page=1) and (http://grobywojenne.malopolska.uw.gov.pl/ru-RU/Home /Obiekt/31). Military burial passport compiled by the Russian and Polish parties in 2012 (https://www.obd-memorial.ru/html/info.htm?id=86109848&page=1).

Current page: 10 (total book has 48 pages)

Fire mischievously and furiously grumbles in the forge. An orphaned boy of about seven, Seryozha Pekhov, diligently inflates the furs, proud of the important and responsible work entrusted to him.

A lot of iron is needed to put the ruined economy in order. And you have to find the iron yourself.

Near the forge lie the skeleton of a Nazi cannon, half of a tank and a heavy shiny part of a Junkers-88 bomber.

All this, with special permission, was dragged here by collective farm schoolchildren. The blacksmith will reforge all this, repair the plows and seeders, make shovels and pitchforks, and shoe the only surviving mare on the collective farm, Lyusya.

Spring is coming faster and faster to these places. The sun hurriedly melts the snow, drives blue water along the ditches and hurries the blacksmith and carpenter, and other collective farm people.

On Sunday, female chefs arrived from Moscow - housewives and workers. They brought with them gifts collected from various unknown people who wished to remain anonymous.

A thin girl, Nyura Petushkova, with forever frightened eyes, crawled out of the dugout. She now has no mother, no father, no older sister. They were driven away by the Germans somewhere far away, to Minsk, conquered by them and not yet recaptured by us, or something, and Nyura lives in a dugout with an old woman Bubikova, who is entrusted with watching her for the time being.

The bosses brought the guys boots and galoshes, and pants with shirts.

Nyura got a motley worn jacket, it fit her just right. She put it on, walked around the dugout in it, and her sunken, suffering cheeks turned pink with happiness.

“Maybe I’ll take the girl away from you,” says a good-natured housewife from Moscow, wrapped in a shaggy scarf. I have three of them, all boys. Well, let the fourth be a girl. We'll get through somehow. My husband is a stove-maker, a good man, very conscientious.

“No,” the old woman Bubikova answered firmly. - Our chairman will disagree with this. The girl is needed here. She is a good, sharp girl. She's just a little tired now, and then she'll get better. Do you think we'll live like this forever? We'll get better, get back on our feet. How about it, dear!

- Well, - said, a little offended, a housewife from Moscow - as you wish. And I thought the girl would be better off with me. We still have an apartment with gas, with electricity!

The old woman Bubikova called the girl.

- Would you like to live with electricity, Nyurushka, with this aunt?

“No,” Nyura said decisively. And, probably afraid of offending the visiting aunt, she immediately clung to her, played with the ends of her downy shawl and added: “I don’t want to go anywhere.” I want here. I'll go for mushrooms here in the forest. Come, aunty, to us. We have a beautiful forest...

“You have dead people in the forest,” said the Muscovite, smiling. - Look, a forest full of German dead...

“But they won’t be later,” the girl said firmly. - The dead will be buried later. And only the living will walk.

The great, heavy, terrible grief that befell the adults also befell the little, thin Nyura. But just as adults, busy repairing what has been destroyed, do not cry out of pride and are reluctant to remember what happened to them, so the girl is more willing to think about tomorrow.

Tomorrow there will still be battles, grandiose and fierce, blood will be shed, more new houses will burn down, many more children will be orphaned. But tomorrow there will be our victory, it will definitely be, by all means.

All our people believe in this with all the strength of their hearts.

And all the people are working for the war, for victory, for tomorrow, which rises and will rise from these still warm ashes.

At noon we leave this village for the highway.

The car again moves past a long line of graves, past birch crosses, past German helmets dropped in the retreat, past German cars, tanks, motorcycles abandoned during a hasty flight.

The enemy passed here quite recently - maybe only a week or a few days ago.

Two kilometers from the village we are stopped by a barrage detachment. Verification of documents. You can't go further.

The car is taken to the shelter, we go on foot.

In the distance, about four hundred meters from us, on a wide virgin snow already eroded by the sun, Red Army soldiers in white camouflage robes are crawling forward.

“They must be learning,” the driver thinks aloud.

Yes, they may be learning. And we stop and look at them.

But it's a strange thing - why are they shooting at the drills from the other side, why are bullets whistling very close and trembling bushes near the highway?

- Heads! - someone invisible from the ditch shouts anxiously to us.

We bow our heads, then lie down.

No, the Red Army soldiers do not study. They are fighting. In the virgin lands, Russian intelligence officers collided with German ones.

Ahead, only one and a half kilometers from here, is the front line of our defenses.

The war was not far from the burnt-out village of Alekseevka.

The scream and croaking, and screeching, and the roar of mines are already well audible. And a red fire flares up in the snow ahead.

But the emaciated motley rooster, who survived from the Germans, who, in spite of everything, sings with all his might about the coming harsh and tender Russian spring, still stands in my memory. And golden grain is poured into the basket, with which soon - that's how the snow will melt and the dead Germans will be removed - the peasants will sow the burnt earth, as they sowed last year and the year before, and, perhaps, a thousand years ago ...

April 1942

From the message of the Soviet Information Bureau

Konstantin Simonov

The Day Nothing Happened

In the city it seems that it is already spring. Here, in the forests of the Smolensk region, among birches and pines, littered up to the waist with unprecedented snow, it is still winter.

It has become warmer, the thawed funnels are again visible on the roads; over birch German crosses black flocks of crows fly, reminiscent of the December battles; gray turrets of broken German tanks begin to appear again from under the snow.

Spring according to the calendar. But as soon as five steps back from the road - and the snow is chest-deep again, and you can move only by breaking through the trenches, and you have to drag the guns on yourself.

On a hillside, from which hills and blue copses are widely visible with linen, there is a monument. Tin star; in the caring but hasty hand of a man going into battle again, stingy solemn words are drawn:

"Self-sacrificing commanders - senior lieutenant Bondarenko and junior lieutenant Gavrish - died the death of the brave on March 27 in the battles near the Kvadratnaya grove.

Farewell, our fighting friends. Forward, to the west!"

The monument stands high. From here you can clearly see the winter Russian nature. Perhaps the comrades of the dead wanted them to follow their regiment far away after death, now without them going west across the wide snowy Russian land.

Groves spread ahead: Kvadratnaya, in the battle under which Gavrish and Bondarenko died, and others - Birch, Oak, Curve, Turtle, Noga.

They were not called so before and will not be called then. These are small nameless copses and groves of them. godfathers there were commanders of regiments fighting here for every edge, for every clearing in the forest.

These groves are the site of daily bloody battles. Their new names appear every night in divisional reports, sometimes mentioned in army reports. But in the summary of the Information Bureau, all that remains is short phrase: "Nothing significant happened during the day."

Day... Twenty-four hours of uninterrupted fighting, deaf mine explosions, crackling of trees broken by tanks, short clicking of bullets on birch trunks...

Major Grishchenko's regiment has just taken possession of a small grove with the evil name "Appendicitis". The grove crashed into our positions. The Germans dug into it. For several days she interfered with the life of the regiment. It was medically called "Appendicitis" and they did exactly what is supposed to be done with this disease, they penetrated deep and cut it off.

Now all is quiet in the grove. One and a half dozen dugouts covered in four rolls are silent. The dead German soldiers are silent, lying in various poses under the white Russian birches. One of the dead is sitting in the snow, clinging to a birch with his hands, and for some reason he wants to tear off these unclean hands clinging to it.

In two places the dead are stacked. They were killed yesterday and the day before yesterday, obviously, the Germans who had survived by that time dragged them together to be buried here or burned.

Yes, they fight like a wolf. And to defeat them means every day on every meter of the earth to break their incredible perseverance with your even more incredible pressure.

Here they know it and do not turn a blind eye to it.

In February, Hitler took an oath from every soldier not to retreat a single step without his personal order. It was a call to the warrior spirit of the soldiers.

But it turned out to be not enough. Then it was announced that the sparingly handed out awards would now be given for every wound, even a scratch.

It was a call to vanity, but it was not enough.

Then an immediate execution was introduced for every attempt to withdraw.

It was a call to a sense of fear.

All together created hopelessness, which, along with the long-nurtured habit of stupid obedience, pressed the German soldier into this snow and said: lie down to the end.

We kill a lot of them, but a pile of corpses, such as today, is rare. The Germans carry the dead to the rear by all means.

Evening. Birch trunks turn blue. Snow piles and our and German trenches merge with the surrounding snow. In German dugouts, the black holes of the loopholes are disguised with scarves and scraps of linen. Everything is white and invisible.

A short half hour of deceptive silence. Only in some places a machine gun will knock like a rare woodpecker.

Where the newly taken grove is connected by a copse with the next one, which is now called "Oak" in the reports, a battalion lies in hastily dug trenches. He dug into the snow and prepared to repel a new counterattack.

In the morning our tanks will approach and the battalion will take Oak Grove. And now, lying on the edge of a long snowy trench, the battalion commissar reads aloud the latest summary of the trophies of the Leningrad Front:

"From the sixteenth to the twenty-sixth of March, the following trophies were captured by the troops of the Leningrad Front ..."

He stops, and next to him, the lying fighter, turning to the next one, quietly repeats:

"From the sixteenth to the twenty-sixth of March by the troops of the Leningrad Front ..."

And three minutes later, these words, repeated by hundreds of mouths, are heard at the other end of the trench.

Silence is deceptive. It is worth walking along the trench, making noise, discovering yourself, and the forest will again resound with the howling flight of mines.

But the people lying on the snow of Smolensk want to know today what happened in Leningrad, and the commissar patiently repeats phrase after phrase:

"Seventy-six guns, eight tanks, two planes..."

Nine pm. Darkest time. The moon has not yet risen. Nerves are stretched to the limit. The fingers do not even notice how cold the steel of the machine gun is. Everyone is waiting for a counterattack.

But the machine-gun chatter suddenly begins not from the west, where it was expected, but from behind, from the grove taken this afternoon.

Major Grishchenko sends a detachment to comb the grove again.

As the squad advances, the fire subsides.

Short queue at the top. Pressing against the trunk of a spruce, Sergeant Korolev fires upward into the thick of the branches, where something flashed.

"Cuckoo" falls down in a clumsy gray bag. Wet snow falls in flakes from the shuddering branches.

Here are the dugouts. Narrow loopholes, thick overruns, black holes of entrances. Inside are abandoned helmets, rags. Here we passed already earlier, in the afternoon. But now, putting the bayonet under the wide low bunks, the fighters stumble upon something soft. A sharp cry. A few short hand-to-hand fights in the darkness of the dugouts.

During the day, the fighters were in a hurry, they hastily slipped through the dugouts and went on. At night, two or three of the Germans came out into the air and opened automatic fire. Both those who got out and those who remained suffered the same fate. Eighteen more corpses were added to the grove.

By dawn, the detachment clearing the grove, advancing step by step, reached almost the edge of the forest. Here, one of the fighters walking ahead was struck down by an unexpected burst of machine-gun fire. He silently fell. His neighbors continued to move forward, running from trunk to trunk, falling and rising again. The fire intensified. In a hollow thickly overgrown with forest, a large group of Germans who remained in our rear settled down. Now they were shooting not only machine guns. Intermittently, in short bursts, German light machine guns fired. In the bluish cold dawn, behind the low snow parapet of the trenches, movement was visible here and there.

It was impossible to move into the depths of the Oak Grove without destroying these soldiers who had settled in our rear. But it was also impossible to especially postpone the attack on the Oak Grove.

Major Grishchenko ordered his head battalion, covering himself from the front with a thin chain, to throw all the rest to the rear for lightning-fast destruction of the Germans who had settled there.

The attack was short and fearless. Perhaps it was precisely because of its swiftness that it was not accompanied by great sacrifices.

The Germans were driven out of a hastily dug trench, scattered and killed one by one.

There were fifty of them in all. Forty-nine dead soldiers and a chief lieutenant. The day before, they thought, leaving the grove, to sit here and then break through to their own. But their nerves were weaker than ours. They could not stand combing the forest and gave themselves away by fire.

However, there were not forty-nine dead soldiers here, but forty-five.

Remembering the story of the dugouts, the fighters, not believing their eyes alone, tried the corpses with a bayonet, and, unable to withstand this test, the four "dead" stood up and raised their hands. Deeply imprinted in the snow, blackened submachine guns lying under them, just in case.

At eleven o'clock in the grove "Appendicitis" it was all over. Oak remained.

At half past twelve one of the German dugouts, now serving as Major Grishchenko's command post, was approached by a representative of the tankers.

He reported that the tanks had arrived. The Major went out with him. Tanks stood at the edge of the forest - heavy, gray-white machines, breaking, like matches, a twenty-centimeter birch forest.

Having made several heavy fire raids early in the morning, the Germans now conducted systematic mortar and gun fire. Here and there tall pillars of snow shot up among the trunks.

Ahead, in the grove, as intelligence found out, there were two lines of deep longitudinal snow trenches with three to four dozen fortified dugouts. The approaches to them were mined.

But the major had been storming these woods and copses for more than a day.

He had previously selected small assault groups, six to seven people each. Three groups per tank. One in front of him, two on the sides. At the edge, next to the tanks, light forty-five-millimeter guns stood ready.

The major called to him at the same time the commander of the assault group, the commander of the tank and the commander of the gun.

“Here is the commander of the group that will go ahead of your tank,” he said to the tanker, pointing to a tall sergeant with a machine gun over his shoulder. - Here is a tanker who will follow you. And here is the gun commander, who will support you both.

Three people stood in silence in front of the major. They were silent because everything was clear to them. They saw each other and saw the target that the three of them were to reach in fifteen minutes.

So, without haste, but without wasting time, the major brought together all the commanders who were supposed to go on the attack.

Everything was provided. The guns on wide skis were dragged along the trenches to the very front edge. The tanks stood with their engines turned off. People waited silently, adjusting light machine guns and machine guns on their shoulders.

It was exactly twelve. The midday sun shone through the trunks, and if it were not for the dull explosions of mines flying overhead, the forest would have looked like on a peaceful winter day.

The assault groups slid forward first. They walked through the snow, led by sappers, clearing the way for tanks.

Fifty, sixty, eighty steps - the Germans were still silent. But here's someone who couldn't resist. From behind a high snow blockage, a machine-gun burst rang out.

The assault group lay down. She did her job, causing fire on herself. The tank following behind her turned her gun on the move, made a short stop and hit the machine-gun embrasure she had noticed once, twice, a third. Snow and pieces of logs flew into the air.

The Germans were silent. The assault team rose and rushed forward another thirty paces.

Again the same thing. Machine-gun bursts from the next dugout, a short spurt of the tank, a few shells - and snow and logs flying upwards.

The Germans retreated along the trench. But the tank, now maneuvering between the trees, now breaking them, also moved along the trenches, sending shell after shell there.

First, the Germans, having run a few steps along the trench, punched a hole in the parapet and, sticking the barrel of a machine gun into it, hit our infantry, themselves remaining elusive. Now more and more often they had to jump out of one trench and, falling through waist-deep snow, try to reach the next.

But in those seconds, our fighters, walking in front of the tanks, rose, and one after another, German overcoats remained lying in the snow in dark spots.

The very air seemed to whistle in the grove, the bullets crashed into the trunks, ricocheted and fell helplessly into the snow.

The first line of trenches was occupied. Artillerymen, with the help of the infantry, clearing the loose spring snow, dragged their cannons on their hands after the tanks and at every stop they beat, endlessly beat on dugouts and dugouts.

Everything was already so close that the German mortars standing on the opposite edge were silenced, otherwise they would have had to hit their own.

Ahead was the second line of trenches. The fire from there became fierce.

The Germans lost the remnants of self-control and, no longer afraid to find themselves, hysterically and continuously fired at all the space in front of them.

It was difficult to raise one's head under this fire. But the first trench without the second would not be half the success, but only a tenth of it. In combat, ordinary arithmetic is not applicable.

And the tired fighters, no matter how much they wanted to sit out at least a minute, take a break in the newly recaptured trench, nevertheless got out and moved on next to the tanks and in front of them, causing automatic fire on themselves.

By seven in the evening, parts of the regiment, having fought eight hundred snowy and bloody meters, reached the opposite edge. The oak grove was taken. Several hundred dead German soldiers, eight prisoners, machine guns, machine guns, rifles, how many of them, they still did not know, they still continued to count, but they already knew that there were many.

There were up to forty dugouts, some abandoned, some broken. At their entrances, fragments of wood were mixed with snow blackened by gunshots.

The paramedics carried out the wounded. The day was hard, there were many wounded.

The commander of the assault group, political instructor Aleksandrenko, was carried past the regiment commander on a stretcher.

He lay mortally wounded, pale, with pursed lips.

Major Grishchenko stopped the stretcher and looked him in the face.

“Well, at least they took revenge on them, it’s at least good,” Aleksandrenko said, parting his lips with difficulty and, groaning in pain, closed his eyes.

Now the grove is entirely ours, and the Germans opened heavy mortar fire on it.

It was getting dark. Between the trunks, not only snow pillars were visible, but also flashes of gaps.

Tired people lay panting in broken trenches. Many of the tiredness, despite the deafening fire, closed their eyes.

And along the hollow to the edge of the grove, bending down and running across in the intervals between gaps, there were thermosons with lunch. It was the eighth hour, the day of the battle was ending.

At the headquarters of the division, they wrote an operational summary, in which, among other events of the day, the capture of Oak Grove was noted.

And at night, the editorial office of the newspapers received another, modest report from the Information Bureau: "Nothing significant happened at the front during the day."

Ilya Erenburg

I saw a German tank painted in green color. It was knocked out by ours in early April, when there was still snow, and the German tank looked like a dandy who changed his clothes prematurely. But it was not foppery, need drove Hitler's spring tanks and spring divisions into the cold. And now the snow is gone. The roads are leaking. They are covered with branches, you go and bounce: the car seems to be galloping. The mudslide slowed down military operations for several weeks. Somewhere - in Karelia, in the region Staraya Russa, attacks by our units continue on the Bryansk Front, but these are separate operations. Before the May battles there was a formidable lull. And along the Desna, along the Dnieper, the last ice floes pass. On the fields - broken German cars, the corpses of people and horses, helmets, unexploded shells - the snow has melted, a gloomy picture of the military spring has opened.

There has never been so much talk about spring as this year. Hitler conjured this word. He wanted to cheer up the German people. And now spring has come. The two armies are preparing for battle. Meanwhile, Hitler begins to frantically look back. What confuses him? Good fugaski Tommy? Campaign in America and England for a second front? The growing resentment of enslaved peoples? One way or another, Hitler began the spring with a campaign ... against Vichy. To do this, he did not have to use a lot of fuel. A few bucks for the trips of Laval and Abetz. English radio reports that von Rundstedt migrated from Ukraine to Paris. This, however, is only the general's journey. On the way, von Rundstedt was supposed to meet with German trains: Hitler continues to transfer divisions from France, Belgium, Norway to Russia. Apparently, neither the RAF (8), nor the article in the American press, nor the anger of the unarmed French affected the German strategy.

Before the spring battles, Hitler wants to cheer up his soldiers, who suffered defeat in the winter. He spreads rumors about the new "colossal" weapons of the Germans. He spreads nonsense reports about the weakness of the Red Army. It is unlikely that the soldiers of the 16th Army will be delighted to hear Berlin's stories on the radio that in the Russian regiments now there are only sixty-year old men and sixteen-year-old teenagers ...

Now is not the time to talk about our reserves. Summer battles will tell about them. I visited one of the reserve units, saw young, strong fighters, well trained and well equipped. The mood in the reserve units is excellent: everyone understands that the enemy is still very strong, but everyone also understands that the enemy will be defeated. Last summer people remembered Paris, Dunkirk, Crete. Now they remember Kalinin, Kaluga, Mozhaisk, Rostov. Hatred of the invaders inspires the reservists. Last summer, Germany seemed to the Russian peasant as a state; fascism could still pass for a newspaper word. Now fascism has become a reality - burned huts, the corpses of children, the grief of the people. There are not only thousands of miles between New York and the Philippines, there is peace between them. The Siberian feels that near Smolensk he is protecting his land and his children.

Our factories have worked well this winter. It is not necessary to remind in what difficult conditions this work proceeded. Millions of evacuees showed themselves as heroes. We have tanks. There are planes. Our friends often ask: "How did the American fighters perform? The British tanks?" It is easy to understand the feelings of an American worker or an English sailor who wants to see if their labor has been wasted. I will answer right away: not in vain. I saw German bombers shot down by American fighters. I saw Russian villages, in the liberation of which the English "Matildas" participated. But the truth is dearest of all, and only the truth is told to friends: our front is not a hundred kilometers long, and on our huge front British and American fighters or tanks are separate episodes. Suffice it to recall that all the factories in Europe work for Hitler. And Hitler doesn't collect planes. Hitler does not accumulate his tanks - his planes and tanks are not in France, not in Norway, they are not even in Libya - they are in front of us and above us.

We talk about the second front everywhere - in dugouts and trains, in towns and villages, women and fighters, commanders and workers. We don't judge, we don't argue, we just want to understand. We read the figures for the monthly production of US aircraft factories and smile: we are proud of our friends. And immediately a thought is born in my head: what will be the fate of these aircraft?

We are talking about the second front as the fate of our friends. We know that now we are fighting alone against a common enemy. For three hundred days now the war has been devastating our fields, for three hundred nights now the sirens have cut through our nights. We made every sacrifice. We don't play poker, we fight. The fate of Leningrad, its tormented palaces, its dead children - this is a symbol of Russian courage and Russian sacrifice. On the eve of spring, we speak of the second front as military wisdom and human morality. So the mother, who has all the children at the front, looks at the other - her children are at home ...

Leonid Leonov

Your brother Volodya Kurylenko

The alarm bell beats in Russia. Fierce famously crawls through his native country. The silent desert remains behind him. A raven is circling there and the wind is whining, smelling of the bitterness of the conflagration, and a many-armed foreign thief is rummaging through the ruins ...

For the second year from sea to sea, without ceasing for a minute, the hundredfold Borodino of the Patriotic War thunders. In the morning the newspaper rustles in your hand, my unknown reader. And together with you the whole country will learn about the events of the day, with a roar gone down in history. Another day, another night of unparalleled combat with the enemy was over. With reverent tenderness you read about people who yesterday laid down their lives at the foot of a great mother. It seems that the very shadows of our great ancestors bare their heads and bow their holy banners before them. What a mighty call to heroism, courage and vengeance lies in the thunderous rustle of a newspaper sheet!

And even louder than the roar of guns, the hero’s word, quiet and strict, like a prayer, sounds in it:

- For your freedom, honor and property ... take me at any moment, motherland. All mine is the last heat of breath and the flame of thought, and the beating of the heart is for you alone!

Many of them have already gone forever to the unfading heights of glory - warriors, girls and children, women and elders who have taken on the noble title of a warrior. No, our stern and adamant ancestors, who defended their native land in the years of past hard times, will not be ashamed of their grandchildren. This tribe of heroes will never thin out, because the very rumor of a hero will give birth to heroes. There, in the hell of incessant battle, they stand in tight formation, one to one, like links on the steel chain mail of Nevsky Alexander. The whole world marvels now at the hardening and strength of this armor, against which the ferocious ramparts of the enemy invasion are broken. There is no such human steel anywhere in the West. And there is no such thing in the world. It is made only by us.

Glory to you, sons of the great mother!

We are familiar with thousands of famous names of our contemporaries in all areas of the peaceful human activity. We are proud of them and we know everyone by sight. Glorious machinists and miners, surgeons and steelworkers, builders of the material centers of our happiness, inventors of the smartest machines, masters of unheard-of records, musicians, artists, singers ... Our vast spaces are dotted with them, like a carpet of colorful and fragrant flowers. And so we heard new names of people who, in the fire of battles or in a sleepless partisan night, gave themselves to their homeland. They stand before us in all their gigantic growth, brighter than the sun, without which never - neither in the past nor in our future - such flowers would have bloomed on the fertile Russian land. Truly invincible is the people that gave birth to them!

In a sparkling line they pass before the face of the fatherland. Scorch the mind of the picture of their inhuman courage.

Here is a young Red Army soldier shielding the embrasure of a machine-gun nest in order to block the road of death and protect comrades going into battle. Here is a sapper, when his mine detector was smashed by a fragment, with his bare hands, to the touch, and in loose snowdrifts to the waist, he clears a minefield before the assault. Here, joking, like a relic, over pea coats, a piece of Nakhimov's uniform, the Sevastopol marines go on the last attack ...

Who raised you, proud and courageous tribe? Where did you find such power of anger and such rage?

The motherland mourns for the fallen, but oblivion will never absorb the memory of these best of her children. Terrible and beautiful is the pilot Gastello, who with his winged body, like a dagger, struck into the thick of the enemy column. The feat of twenty-eight brothers, who were related by death on a highway near Moscow, sounded like a legend. Immortal is the image of the Komsomol member Zoya, whom we first saw on the white snow of a newspaper page in a mourning frame. The whole country peered inquisitively at this Beautiful face Russian girl. Neither death torment, nor an icy grave could erase from him the expression of infinite determination and a farewell smile to his dear homeland ... The constellations should be called the names of these people who trampled death with death!

The memory of the people is a huge book where everything is recorded. Our people remember well the grief caused to them. Let's not forget anything, even a broken spikelet in the field. We have someone to take revenge, conquerors!

When the weather of war subsides, and a tremendous victory illuminates the smoky ruins of the world, and the beating of life in its broken arteries is restored, the best squares of our cities will be decorated with monuments to the immortals. And the children will play among the flowers at their granite feet and learn to read and write according to the great commandment inscribed on the stone:

"Love your homeland as we loved it!"

But even before historians, sculptors and poets find worthy forms to embody the selfless achievements of heroes, and the fatherland dresses their images in bronze, at least their most insignificant living features should be preserved in memory by any means. Remember their faces, friend! Remember forever this proud, eagle-like head of Gastello, and the gloomy faces of twenty-eight, scorched by the flames of an unequal battle, and the strict profile of Zoya, and the honest, simple, like the sky of the motherland, the gaze of the partisan Volodya Kurylenko.

We did not know him personally, although he lived among us, modestly doing his daily work. it ordinary person our heroic days. It is difficult to draw a calm portrait of him with our everyday words. Mighty warriors, his comrades-in-arms covered with glory, told a little about him. The fields of war still rumble, every moment is precious, and tender words are sparingly siphoned.

Meet him, contemporary!

Here he is standing in front of you, Vladimir Timofeevich Kurylenko, blue-eyed, fair-haired, Russian guy, very young. He was born on December 25, 1924. He turned seventeen years old in a partisan detachment, when he knew how not only to shoot, but also to get into the heart of a German. Nature has endowed this young man with everything. He was like the one who fell for his homeland in the battle of Kalka, the magnificent Daniel, about whom the chronicler said with utmost and cordial clarity: "... he was young, and there was no vice on him from head to toe." And if any young Nazi taken at random is a complete example of medieval baseness, Vladimir Kurylenko is an excellent example of an honest, active youth of our era.

So, he is the son of a teacher in the Smolensk region. He spent eight years at school. The gift of an organizer woke up in him early: he led the student committee, the pioneer detachment, then the Komsomol cell. From an early age, he was attracted to the wide expanse of the ocean, where a person measures his will and endurance with the elements. But nature did not place in the Smolensk region the gray and formidable ocean that Volodya dreamed of. Nevertheless, Volodya created a detachment of "young sailors", and, probably, an armada of children's boats sailed along the local river, and, of course, this stately and strong boy was an admiral among his comrades ...