June 22 - Day of Feat
On June 22, 485 border outposts were attacked, and not one of them, NOT ONE, wavered and lowered the flag! Someone lasted a day, someone two, 45 outposts resisted for more than two months. At one of these outposts, my grandfather's older brothers, former homeless children who became the first defenders of the Motherland, fought until their last breath. Why are the Russians not giving up? What kind of irrational desire to go to the last, even in a hopeless situation?
Only it would always be
Twenty-first June, Only the next day, Never would have come.
Y. Vizbor
The longest daylight hours were not chosen for the start of hostilities on the territory of the USSR by chance: it was planned to go as far as possible, German planes had to make as many sorties as possible, destroy as many Soviet airfields as possible and bomb cities. The first day of the war was long …
Border guards and flight personnel were the first to take the blow.
“And whatever enemies he meets, the border guard is ready to fight back!”
According to the plan, Hitler allotted half an hour to pass the frontier posts, because there were about 65 people at an ordinary frontier post, and against them a trained Nazi army, which had been marching across Europe for almost two years. But on the western border of the USSR, the invaders met with unexpected resistance. The behavior of the Soviet border guards went beyond the reasonable from the point of view of a European: the border posts, where the families of the border guards were also located, did not surrender, even when they were already surrounded. They fired back, although the enemy forces outnumbered them many times.
Near the village of Skomorokhi, Lviv region, there was an outpost under the command of Lieutenant Alexei Lopatin: 59 soldiers, three commanders and their families. In the first minutes, the border guards hid the women and children in the old brick building of the outpost, and then they carried the wounded there. Until the evening, in addition to the outpost, 15 people held the bridge, preventing the Germans from crossing the river. By the end of June 24, almost nothing was left of the fortifications, and the survivors moved to the basement of the building, making loopholes in it. At the end of the first week at night, under cover of darkness, the women, children and the wounded were taken out, and those who could still hold weapons in their hands returned to their positions to do their duty. On June 30, the Germans had already entered Lviv, and the red flag was still flying over the outpost, ten border guards continued an unequal battle. On July 2, the Germans blew up the remains of the building. Alexei Lopatin and his fighters kept the outpost not planned by the German command for half an hour, but for 10 days, pulling off the enemy forces, trying to disable as many German equipment and soldiers as possible, preventing them from freely going deep into the country. Not half an hour, ten days!
Lieutenant Alexander Sivachev's outpost near Grodno. 40 border guards against 500 German soldiers, machine guns and one machine gun against German artillery, mortars and aerial bombardment. Despite this, they skillfully organized the defense, placing machine gunners on the flanks. The outpost repelled the onslaught for more than 12 hours, 3 tanks were destroyed, hundreds of Germans were wounded, 60 were killed. When it became clear that they were surrounded and that the last minutes had come, Lieutenant Sivachev sang a song and led the remaining soldiers with grenades under the tanks. All died, but the outpost did not surrender.
On June 22, 485 border outposts were attacked, and not one of them, NOT ONE, wavered and lowered the flag! Someone lasted a day, someone two, 45 outposts resisted for more than two months. At one of these outposts, my grandfather's older brothers, former homeless children who became the first defenders of the Motherland, fought until their last breath.
Today we can imagine that they all felt what they thought about, reading on the walls of the legendary Brest fortress: “We will die, but we will not leave the fortress”, “I am dying, but I do not give up. Goodbye, Motherland! 1941-20-07 "," 1941 June 26 There were three of us. It was difficult for us. But we did not lose heart and die like heroes”,“There were five of us. We will die for Stalin."
Why are the Russians not giving up? What kind of irrational desire to go to the last, even in a hopeless situation?
When the bearers of the Russian urethral mentality are put into frames, crushed, squeezed, they impulsively torn for the flags, for a breakthrough, go on the attack, with incendiary mixture under the tank, chest on the machine gun. Without hesitation, with a smile and a song, without fear and regret. Not under the gun of the detachment and not under the influence of fiery speeches. And at the behest of the heart. It was this irrational, illogical behavior from the point of view of representatives of the Western skin mentality that terrified our enemies. They did not understand how to sacrifice themselves. They just did not know that for a urethral person, the life of his people is always more valuable than their own. And when the country and the future are in danger, the Russian person does not reason and does not count. He will not surrender Leningrad, as the French gave Paris - in the hope that by doing so they will save their lives and architectural monuments, but not freedom. Live without freedom? Is it possible for us?
To ram. Will live
“In the history of aviation, a battering ram is a completely new and no one and never, in no country, by any pilots, except for the Russians, an untested method of combat … Soviet pilots are pushed to this by the nature itself, the psychology of the Russian winged warrior, persistence, hatred of the enemy, courage, falconry daring and ardent patriotism … "(A. Tolstoy." Taran ", Newspaper" Krasnaya Zvezda ", August 16, 1941).
Ram. Another phenomenon that our enemies never solved. What they just said: recklessness, despair, emotions, fear …
Why does the pilot in an instant decide to go for a ram at the cost of his own life? Because he sees: an enemy plane is heading for the city, and his own ammunition has already been exhausted. What is his one life compared to tens, hundreds of lives of city residents?
On June 22, German aircraft bombed Soviet airfields in an effort to destroy as many aircraft and pilots as possible. The cities were also bombed: Kiev, Zhitomir, Sevastopol, Kaunas. It is possible that this list would have been larger if not for the professionalism, courage and ramming of our pilots.
In the first minutes of the war, three I-16 aircraft under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov were ordered to destroy a group of German bombers flying in the skies of the USSR. In the battle, one of the German cars was destroyed, others dropped bombs before reaching the cities. Returning, Ivanov noticed another bomber, which was approaching the airfield. The fuel was almost at zero, but the senior lieutenant instantly made the only possible decision: he attacked the enemy. Having released the last cartridges into him, he went to the ram. The enemy aircraft lost control and crashed into the ground without damaging the airfield. The Soviet pilot did not have time to jump, he died along with his car …
According to various estimates, on June 22, 15 to 20 rams were made. History has preserved the names of some of the heroes: Dmitry Kokorev, Ivan Ivanov, Leonid Butelin, Pyotr Ryabtsev. At the cost of their lives, they overshadowed heaven and earth in the first minutes of the war, overshadowed all of us. It was an impulsive, but the most correct decision in a situation where inaction could lead to more serious consequences: to the death of even more people, to the loss of the airfield, to the destruction and capture of the city.
All as one
“We all went to the sea in the morning. Suddenly a government message: "War!" Five minutes later, not a single man was on the beach: they got up, kissed their wives and left. Grandmothers and mothers for another 20 minutes collected things and babies from the water. When we walked home half an hour later, there was a queue at the recruiting office. All our fathers and brothers were there …”(Makhachkala, from the memoirs of L. M. Popova).
The boys attributed to themselves a year or two to get to the front. Men refused armor for age or profession. Skin-visual beauties were recorded by radio operators and nurses. In the rear, children, women and old people stood at the machines in military factories. All as one forgot about themselves and focused on the main thing: on the desire to win. And each step by step, day after day brought victory closer to its place, forgetting about sleep, pain, fatigue, fear …
- It was scary?
- Of course it was. In the morning, the offensive began with artillery fire, and the noise filled our ears. And then the whole day there was a battle, the rumble of tanks, it was hot as if on fire, and the sky merged with the ground …
- But you could not go, because you had a reservation.
- Don't go? How? My whole class is gone. If they died, and I survived, because I was left at the headquarters as a cartographer, how would I then look into the eyes of their mothers ?!
(From a conversation with a veteran)
At that time, human behavior was not determined by considerations of benefit or benefit or by law, it was governed by shame. It is a natural regulator of human behavior in society, it is stronger than fear, stronger than the law. I was ashamed not to work with my last strength, I was ashamed to be afraid, I was ashamed not to go to the front, I was ashamed to think about myself when the country was in danger. And in fact, without thinking about himself and saving everyone, everyone saved himself too. For more always includes less.
Remember forever
From the heroes of bygone times there were sometimes no names left, Those who accepted mortal combat became just earth and grass.
Only their formidable valor has settled in the hearts of the living, This eternal fire, bequeathed to us alone, we keep in our bosom.
E. Agranovich
There were still 1,418 days of war ahead, 1,418 days of the unprecedented feat of the Soviet man. The heroic defense of Moscow and the feat of Panfilov's men, the Battle of Stalingrad and the legendary Pavlov's house, Nevsky Pyatachok and besieged Leningrad, Rzhev and the Mius Front. The feat of schoolchildren in the underground of Krasnodon and Taganrog, the resistance of partisans in the forests of Belarus and the catacombs of Odessa, and more than 6 thousand groups that fought with the enemy in the occupied territory. Long hours at the machines in the rear, in cold workshops on starvation rations with one thought: "Everything for the front, everything for Victory!" Thousands more, millions of single heroes and hero divisions: Khanpasha Nuradilov and the tank crew of Stepan Gorobets, Gulya Korolev and the company of Grigoryants … For the sake of the Motherland, for the sake of peace, for the sake of a future that they will no longer see, for the sake of us who live today.
Not every feat was left with documents and certificates. We do not know all the heroes by sight and by name. But we know that they were all heroes. That is why on June 22 and May 9 after the Parade we go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. To honor their nameless immortal feat. The feat of each of them. To remember. To be proud.
After all, only a society in which true heroes are honored and equal to them, a society that lives according to the laws of justice and mercy, has a future.
