WE FROM battalions
(from the memoirs of a veteran)
After a short training prisoners in a reserve regiment was formed penalty
«battalion named LP Beriya" and according to the request from the General K. Ro-Kossovo,the set time of latter-day soldiers put him in the heat-Luschka wagons (freight train) and sent to the destination.Penal Mikhailov IIa second
speech says: On the way to our troop train sometimes did stop for
solving economic problems.At stations agile chiefs of the NKVD as
rule, doors teplushek always exposed positions and station attendants,
choking with fear, shouted into the microphone: "The citizens ... citizens of the passengers,
immediately vacate the station to the first platform arrivestrain from the penalty box.... Citizens, citizens, take care of yourself and your belongings.Urgent osvobo-
wee train station! "Upon arrival at the station during the parking of the train - penalty box
allowed to go to the station, which, as a rule, always has been surrounded cheki-
hundred, so at exactly the appointed time all the prisoners returned tothe location of his platoon.The path from Barnaul to the station.Ponyri Kursk region echelon did
for eleven days.At the destination, the prisoners were counted and a receipt handed over wartime command.Front-line soldiers did not lose time in vain.They busily without fuss, according to the application Shevchuk battalion commander, issued a penal cartridges, grenades, mines, Molotov cocktails and ammunition PTR am, and then everyone was invited to lunch.Newly-minted soldiers liked frontline nourishing soup with American canned meat, Pshenko was also abundantly spiced Tu Schenk, it was cooked compote of dried plums and white bread each tried to take a little more.About this royal prisoners serving, not even dreamed of.After dinner, the mood of the host from the penalty, under the blessed rays of the July sun, but significant improvement to evening the battalion resting in the evening under dark pokro- vom soldiers carried out in the dugout and broken front-line trenches were ordered to dig.I dug a trench behind a thick pear, on the edge of the ring Garden, disguised its branches of lilac, and slotted niche set
anti-tank gun at the bottom of the trench folded antitank ammunition, communication
ki grenades, molotov cocktails, PTR-ovskieammunition, mines set to the trenches.At this point, a meeting of the company commander arrived the first number of the combat crew and announced that the battle with the tanks the Germans should start our boe- howling payment !!!
morning, the SS came from Ponyrevskih gardens and two columns
fastest sports step was to move to the trenches of the battalion.All of them
were tall, slim, healthy, deep steel helmets.They are closer to the positions of the penalty box, took up defensive positions.
I have clearly seen their faces: tanned, evil, alert and well-fed.After letting the Teutons very close, Battalion opened heavy rifle and machine-gun fire - Connect the Germans immediately capsized, a good half of them died in the first minutes of battle, and the rest took cover and began to crawl back to the gardens that prisoners encouraged and they opened the Germans aiming the hunt "There Adin - young voice suddenly stated to the left;fifth - already reported deep bass to the right;Eighth-of-th - joy and a sense of duty who was shouting to the left! »
people have survived only about 15-20 Germans who reached the save-enforcement gardens and dug in there.Meanwhile, courts, bypassing the art.Ponyri, from the side of the station Carts came thick rumble of tank engines, which is approaching the "Tigers" intensified, and the ground suddenly shook as in a fever shallow tremor frightened ... I barely had time to finish smoking a cigarette Ponyrevskogo vigorous home-grown tobacco as a messenger arrived from the battalion commander Shnyrevwith the order "at all costs to hold on until the arrival of the reserves!" And on the edge of the gardens have already shown two dozen German tanks and chain of trucks, filled to overflowing soldiers.I began to count: forty-seven cars!At this point the tank armada, which naschity-valos hundred combat vehicles, beating Ponyri, entered the operating room (rye field) and headed in the direction Maloarhangelskom, where they were waiting for an engineering team (ten thousand) that served andCesky heroes fought the enemy engineers in Moscow and Leningrad (on Stalin's orders they were saving).It is now known that the Germans cheated: tanks drove up the trains at the junction between art.Carts and Art.Ponyri - they unloaded built phalanx and attacked.To stop the enemy, the sons of Moscow and Leningrad, mines and grenades, threw themselves under the tanks and stopped them.About a half hour battle, killing all the engineers and burned all the German tanks.In more than thirty Ponyri "tigers", crushing shells gardens and front gardens farmers, came to the location of a penal battalion.They were crouching, was the infantry!Minaylov recalls: "I have something grown rougher in the abdomen, and the palms became wet, somehow spontaneously I picked branch wormwood, chewed it and swallowed."
Once the "Tigers" entered the field of fire, I felt nothing, and turned to the first number, called "Ivan, Ivan ... but Ivan, his face buried in the ground, lay silently beside PTR thand "tiger", angrily growling motor over-Wigan in our trench.What to do?I hugged murdered friend and later his at the bottom of the trench, perhaps, there he is up to date, and when straightened up, he saw that the "Tiger" raised his nose and substituting the belly has been raised in the front-lying conductive mound.What can you do?We had to defend themselves!As taught - I aimed Xia and shot wide bottom of the tank, got ... tank, wrapped in black smoke, caught fire and then exploded.The joy was indescribable, but I have not had time to overcome the overwhelming enthusiasm, he saw that another "tiger", substituting the black belly, climbs on a sunny hill.Belly "Tiger" - a fairly broad-something and miss the mark has been difficult, so another German crew ever stayed in Ponyrevskoy earth ... Trenches penalty box bristling with heavy fire, and on the right flank lined extreme tank turned to the gardens and nobody managed, ran into a huge barrelwillow, leaving without protection the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, whose penal threw grenades.Miraculously surviving five tanks stopped and started firing at our positions from guns and machine guns.Shells heap lay on our trenches, clods of earth rained down on me from all sides.
The fire roared all die and collapsed;Soldiers vote disparity was seasoned selective obscenities, heard the dying cries of dying young fine-called nicknames mom !!!My antitank rifle was broken, so I switched to the position
pulemechika killed, and replaced the tape at this point suddenly from the station suddenly earned a damn "Schmeisser".I clearly understood that there is no salvation and we all perish! "All covered trembling, I opened the Revo-tionary" Maxim "and began to whip the station of lilac bushes, where the Nazis were hiding.Frantically inserting the last tape completely deaf from the explosions, suddenly the corner of his eye as a 20-feet away from me polzettank and penal on the left flank, shouting, "We are from the penal battalion!Hurrah-ah ... Hurrah-ah !, agreed with the Germans in brutal melee.Almost next to him I saw a young prisoner.He sat in a trench, somehow unnatural, his head thrown back and his throat beat trickle of blood.My heart stood still, breathing reflexively squeezed ... I grabbed a bunch of grenades and threw the tiger under the exhaust, there was an explosion, I picked up vortices-rep and I fell into some hole, the walls of which greedily licking tongues of red flame.I woke up on the back of company commander Major Volobueva (Voronezh), when he fled to the train station.The area was completely covered with the bodies of Germans and even dying prisoners fought among hundreds were killed and wounded.All the space in front of the station was stirring;groans and cries for help were heard clearly and I again lost consciousness.The second time woke up in the basement of the station learned that we are still in Ponyri.From battalion of 800 (eight hundred) people miraculously survived only 37 people.With the wound in the chest - I felt helpless and totally unnecessary not know what to say and what to do ... By the evening freight train arrived, the wounded were loaded into wagons and sent in Solnechnogorsk, Moscow region.After prolonged treatment, physicians have recognized me disabled the first group and dismissed from the ranks of the Red Army.Rylsk I graduated with honors agronomic department of agricultural school and worked in South Ossetia, in the collective and state farms of the Kursk region.However, in the Orel farm "Kulikovskii" failed to please furtively krasnopuzomu director and was dismissed as an agronomist-vegetable grower, then long been harassed by the police.I think that the victims, the people who suffered during the war were not in vain.Power spiteful Communists came to an end, that pleases and helps to live, as to krasnopuzyh, they have always tried to tear off the skin of the Russian people - believing that he had eight of them.
Kokin Valeriy
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