"Noble rage purifies the soul"
On the night 6 on 7 August 1941 g. the Luftwaffe made another attempt to break through to Moscow. Among the defenders of the sky of the Soviet capital was the deputy squadron commander of the 177th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment, Junior Lieutenant Viktor Talalikhin. It was he who received the order to find and destroy the He-111 traveling at high altitude..
"Caught up with, went into the tail and damaged his right motor, - sparingly told the pilot about that battle to the correspondent of "Krasnaya Zvezda". - German runaway. I'm after him. In pursuit did not notice, how did you use up all your ammo. I make a decision: ram! Approached. I slashed the fuselage. My plane flipped too. I landed by parachute ".
The story is short, modest. Meanwhile, 22-year-old fighter pilot Talalikhin was one of the first in the history of aviation to carry out a night ram.. A day later, for the perfect feat, Viktor Vasilyevich Talalikhin was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
11 August, another Soviet pilot performed another unique combat action - the first high-altitude ram in the history of aviation. 23-summer pilot of the same 6th Air Defense Air Corps, in which Talalikhin served, Lieutenant Alexei Katrich rammed a German Dornier-217 plane on a MiG-3 fighter, walking to Moscow at high altitude, after which he was able to bring a fighter with a damaged propeller to his airfield. In October 1941 g. Alexei Nikolaevich Katrich was also awarded the "Gold Star" of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
19 August company of tanks - five KV-1 (from the 1st Panzer Division) - under the command of senior lieutenant Zinovy Kolobanova, she wrote it down on her battle account - it is impossible to believe it - 43 enemy tank. Thanks to skillful camouflage, those who were in ambush near Gatchina (Leningrad front) Soviet tanks were able to remain unnoticed until the very moment of opening fire on the enemy column. Kolobanov ordered to knock out the T-IV tanks following in the vanguard and the last in the column, and then his crew knocked everything out 22 german combat vehicles. Continuing the fight, Kolobanov's subordinates hit almost the same number of German tanks.
Division Commander Hero of the Soviet Union General V.I.. Baranov signed submissions for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union of all crew members of the Kolobanov tank. But, Unfortunately, at the front headquarters did not begin to understand in detail the circumstances of the battle (this happened quite often during the war) and crew members, including Zinovy Grigorievich Kolobanov, were awarded only orders.
From the exploits of individual fighters and combat crews, crews formed a collective feat of large military teams. Within six days from 19 by 25 August our troops defended Dnepropetrovsk. Particularly distinguished only shortly before the 8th Panzer Division, which had emerged from the enemy's encirclement. (from the Reserve, subsequently 6th, Army of Major General R. Ya. Malinowski) under the command of Colonel E.G.. Pushkin. At a critical moment in the battle, such a powerful and unexpected blow was dealt to the advancing German units., that the enemy units ran. In those battles, the enemy lost 80 tanks and many other military equipment and manpower. Thanks to such a stubborn defense, with the transition to counterattacks, our troops were provided with a systematic retreat beyond the Dnieper.. On the left bank captured by the Germans, two motorized formations of the tank corps of General von Mackensen were shackled by battles, which the German command could not transfer, as planned, near Kiev.
9 November 1941 g. Colonel Efim Grigorievich Pushkin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the lieutenant general of tank forces Pushkin died in battle in the spring 1944 g. upon liberation of Ukraine.
In the context of the fierce August battles, it is appropriate to recall the heroic deed, akin to the feat of Nikolai Gastello, who, in these defensive battles for Dnepropetrovsk, was carried out by the bomber crew of Junior Lieutenant Ivan Vdovenko from the 81st Long-Range Aviation Regiment. 28 August, during an attempt to destroy the crossing of the Dnieper, the plane was hit by anti-aircraft artillery. The crew sent the plane with the remaining bombs to the enemy's ferry, at the cost of life completing a combat mission. Ivan Vdovenko and bomber navigator Nikita Gomonenko were posthumously awarded the title of Hero, radio operator Vladimir Karpov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and air gunner Mirza Pulatov - the Order of the Red Banner.
Feat of Nikolai Gastello, feat of Alexander Matrosov ... Textbook feats, legendary names. But the heroics of the war did not develop according to notes. And if Vdovenko repeated the feat, perfect Gastello on the fifth day of the war, then Matrosov, in front of, contrary to long held belief, that he was the first to cover the embrasure of the enemy bunker with his body, followed the example of another hero, which we want to talk about, - junior political instructor of a tank company of the 125th tank regiment of the 28th tank division, Alexander Pankratov. In battle 24 August, near Novgorod in the area of the Kirillov Monastery, heavy fire from an enemy machine gun stopped the advance of our soldiers. Pankratov's attempt to destroy the firing point by means of grenades was unsuccessful. And colleagues died from enemy fire. And then the junior political instructor rushed to the embrasure of the enemy machine gun ... Posthumously Alexander Konstantinovich Pankratov was awarded the title of Hero.
Soviet soldiers crushed the enemy regardless of, what was underfoot - the earth's firmament or the deep sea. And the same battering ram became a versatile weapon in battle.: it was used not only by pilots, tankers, but also sailors. 28 August, under cover of night, two armored boats No. 213 and number 214 from the Red Banner Baltic Fleet under the command of Lieutenants V.V.. Tungusov and V.I.. Eskov went on patrol in the Vyborg Bay. Observers spotted enemy ships, ferrying troops from the Likhaniemi peninsula to the Turkinsari island. Since artillery fire could unmask our BKA - it was a stone's throw to the enemy-occupied coast, lieutenant Tungusov, confident in the strength of the hull of his armored boat, made a daring decision to ram an enemy motorbot. The last one broke in half and sank. The crew of Lieutenant B did not lag behind.. Eskova: one after another BKA-214 sent two more enemy ships to the bottom. The actions of the Soviet sailors were so sudden and swift, that the enemy did not even have time to use firearms. In total, the Baltic boatmen sank six enemy boats with two armored boats ramming strikes that night., two boats and a landing pontoon with infantry, weapons and ammunition.
... The third month of the war is coming. It increasingly takes on the character of just revenge of the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army for the burned cities and villages., for abused shrines, for the death of his comrades in battle, for the death of children, wives, mothers at the hands of fascist killers.
In the hearts of those, who is at dawn 22 June entered mortal combat, also lurked hatred for the enemy, occupier, but she was still speculative, "Mental". Belief in propaganda stereotypes about proletarian solidarity has not yet collapsed, About, that the German worker himself would rise up against the Nazis and, together with the Red Army, overthrow the Hitler machine. And there was still time ahead, when the slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!», who opened the front page of each printed edition, will be replaced by another slogan "Death to the German occupiers!».
In August, it’s not the same. Soldiers and commanders, throwing their bodies at enemy embrasures and their wrecked planes at enemy columns and crossings, not on someone else's, and judged from personal experience that "new order", what the heirs of the Teutonic knights carried to the Soviet people. Retreating, leaving the environment, with our own eyes saw villages burned to the ground, gallows and ditches, filled with disfigured corpses of fellow citizens. Heard the blood-curdling stories of those, who was lucky enough to escape from captivity. From the messages of the Soviet Information Bureau, learned about the Nazi massacres from the newspapers, the degree of atrocities that did not fit into my head.
8 August "Red Star" published a selection of letters from people, who witnessed the massacres of the Nazis over the inhabitants of Brest and Minsk.
“Those arrested together with their families were driven to the Spartak stadium. They kept us in the open for two days without food or water. In front of all those arrested, a German soldier kicked a crying girl of about three or four. The mother rushed to protect the child, but the fascist swung and hit her in the stomach with a butt ... Every night drunk fascists rushed into the stadium and forcibly took young women away, who then disappeared without a trace ... One of the officers began to call those arrested according to the list. In total, no less was caused 200 human. They were lined up on the north side of the football field and shot with machine guns.. The corpses of the executed were lying in the stadium for three days ".
"The Germans stopped the cars, jumped to the ground and without any warning began to shoot us from machine guns and rifles. After that we were cordoned off and driven into the city.. Those, who fell, exhausted from blood loss, the Germans pinned them with bayonets. Sasha Svergun, a 15-year-old boy wounded by a German bullet, fell to the ground and could not get up. A German soldier began to kick and beat him with the butt. Sasha's mother rushed to her son and covered him with her body. The brutal fascist pinned his mother with a bayonet, and son ".
Needless to say, with what feeling did Soviet soldiers go into battle after that?.
The wave of the people's anger rose steeper and steeper, more and more boiled "noble fury". This was not blind revenge. It was just revenge. For "Noble rage purifies the soul; blind rage destroys her " (Blessed Augustine).
A photo: culture.ru
Yuri RUBTSOV
