It was formed in the city from the miners of the Voroshilovgrad region and volunteers.
On September 11, 1941, the division, formed from the miners of the Voroshilovgrad region, took the oath and went to the front to defend their homeland from the brown plague and fulfilled their duty, reached Berlin.
In the terrible days of the autumn of 1941, when the fascist hordes rushed to Moscow, Leningrad, approached the Donbass, in the Red Banner Voroshilovgrad, on the orders of the Supreme High Command, the formation of the 395th rifle division began. and other cities of the region. The color of the miners of Donbass brought to the ranks of the miners martial traditions heroes of the defense of Luhansk during the civil war, the traditions of the heroes of the Sharp Grave. By the end of the formation, the division had 1212 communists and 450 Komsomol members in its ranks.
Despite the fact that the unit was not yet fully provided with weapons, there was not enough equestrian staff, vehicles, combat training was already in the course of the formation of regiments. elements of combat training.
On September 11, the personnel took the Military Oath. Already a few days after the Military Oath was taken, the miners' regiments were transferred on alert from Voroshilovgrad near Zhdanov (Mariupol) and received a combat mission: to ensure the exit from the encirclement of the troops of the ninth and eighteenth armies, at the same time cover the city.
The miner's regiments did what seemed impossible, incredible in the fall of 1941. They were the first on the Southern Front to stop the enemy on the land of Donbass.
Since August 1941, Major General Anatoly Yosifovich Petrakovsky (1901-1969) commanded the 395th Mining Rifle Division formed in Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), which, under his command, together with other military units, successfully held back the advance of fascist troops along the river. Mius from October 1941 to July 1942. During this period, 145 snipers were trained in the division, on whose combat accounts there were 3623 exterminated and disabled fascists.
During the period of defense on the Mius River from January 1 to July 17, 1942, the divisional party commission accepted 2589 soldiers into the ranks of the party, of which 731 people were members of the party. Fulfilling the order of the Supreme High Command to create an impregnable defense, parts of the division tirelessly improved the occupied line. three defensive lines, anti-tank defense, which was recognized as one of the best in the army.
The long days and nights of the battle for the Caucasus will remain pages of the unfading glory of the miners' regiments in the annals of the Great Patriotic War.
On January 19, 1943, the rifle regiments of the mining division, having overcome the stubborn resistance of the enemy, broke through his defenses and went forward. Under the blows of our units, the enemy was forced to leave one line after another, throwing military equipment and weapons. Kutaisskaya, Klyuchevaya, Saratovskaya, Bakuskaya, Kovalenko farm, Shabanokhabl. These and many other villages and farms of the Kuban will not forget their liberators, who shed blood in the surrounding fields, on the village streets and lanes, when fierce battles flared up.
The feat of the miners who drove the Nazi invaders from the Kuban and the Taman Peninsula was marked by the order of the Commander-in-Chief of October 9, 1943. Among the units and formations that especially distinguished themselves in the battles for the liberation of the Taman Peninsula, the 395th rifle division Major General Turchinsky won the honorary title "Taman". And after 2 months, Moscow saluted the heroes of the battles for the liberation of the Right-Bank Ukraine, where the division was urgently transferred from the Taman Peninsula.
Among other units and formations that repeatedly distinguished themselves in battles against the Nazi invaders, the division was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. And after another 5 days, for capturing the city of Berdichev, among other units and formations, the division was awarded another military order and became known as: 395 -I Tamanskaya Red Banner Order of Suvorov, II degree, miner's rifle division.
Every year, the Motherland salutes the miners' regiments for courage and courage. Two military orders and the honorary title of Tamanskaya were won by a division that carried a scarlet banner through the fire of battles from the Caucasus Mountains to Berlin.
For the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command and the courage and courage shown at the same time, 14217 soldiers of the division were awarded orders and medals.
395 RIFLE DIVISION
714, 723 and 726 rifle regiments,
968 artillery regiment,
29 separate anti-tank battalion (since 15.1.42),
451 anti-aircraft artillery battery (692 separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion) - until 18.5.43,
576 mortar battalion (until 11/5/42),
467 reconnaissance company,
686 engineer battalion,
856 separate communications battalion (1441 separate communications company),
490 medical battalion,
483 separate company of chemical protection,
306 motor transport company,
259 field bakery,
829 divisional veterinary infirmary,
1416 field post station,
763 field cash desk of the State Bank.
In early August 1941, the Nazi troops continued to successfully advance deep into the territory Soviet Union. Millions of Soviet people stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to defend their country from the attack of the aggressor. Among them were people of various nationalities, ages and professions. The strategic task of the Soviet leadership during this period was to prevent the Germans from reaching the industrial regions in the east of the Ukrainian SSR, primarily to the Donbass. On August 18, 1941, the State Defense Committee decided (Decree No. 506s of August 18, 1941) to form the 383rd Rifle Division, which was entrusted with the task of defending the Donbass (by the time of the Victory in 1945, it was called the 383rd Feodosiysko - Brandenburg Red Banner Order of Suvorov 2nd class rifle division.
Initially, the division began to be staffed with Donetsk miners mobilized for military service. Miners, as you know, have always been a risky, hot and combat-ready people. Therefore, as expected, the division was to become one of the elite formations of the Red Army. It was precisely because of the staffing at first mainly by miners that the 383rd Rifle Division received the popular name "Miner's Division". Under him, she entered the Great Patriotic War, becoming famous for the numerous exploits of her soldiers and officers.
First commander
Two days after the signing of the GKO resolution on the creation of the 383rd Infantry Division, Colonel Konstantin Provalov, a Hero of the Soviet Union and an experienced commander, a student of the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze. It was to him that the Soviet leadership entrusted great responsibility, appointing him the commander of the 383rd Infantry Division being formed. Behind Colonel Provalov, despite the age of thirty-five, was a great military experience. Konstantin Ivanovich was born on June 11, 1906, in the Irkutsk region, into a simple peasant family. He graduated from the seven-year school and, as a literate guy, became the chairman of the Babushkino village council in his native village of Babushkino, Cheremkhovo district. He began his service in the Red Army at the age of 22, in 1928.
Having received training at the regimental school of the 3rd Verkhneudinsky regiment, Provalov was sent to study at the Irkutsk training courses for infantry commanders, then at the Omsk Infantry School. M.V. Frunze, which he graduated in 1933. In five years, yesterday's cadet managed to go all the way to the post of regiment commander. In 1938, the thirty-two-year-old Provalov commanded the 120th Infantry Regiment as part of the 40th Infantry Division. He took part in the battles at Lake Khasan on July 29 - August 11, 1938. The fighters under the command of Provalov defeated the enemy troops at the height of Zaozernaya. At the same time, the regiment commander himself was wounded twice, but continued to command the unit. For his heroism, on October 25, 1938, Konstantin Ivanovich Provalov was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. A young and talented commander was sent to study at the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze.
It was difficult to come up with a better commander for the Mining Division. Now the matter required the acquisition of command and rank and file. In the Directorate for command and command staff of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, a decision was made to equip the division with exceptionally well-trained fighters. It was decided to recruit the command staff exclusively from among the personnel commanders of the Red Army, and the entire junior staff - Red Army soldiers, squad leaders, assistant platoon commanders, company foremen - had to not only have experience in the Red Army, but also go through it no more, than three years ago. So that combat skills do not have time to be forgotten, and physical training was still on top. Fortunately, there were always enough such people among the Donetsk miners - especially in those years. Yesterday's Red Army soldiers and junior commanders, demobilizing from military service, went to work in the mines - at that time, mining work was considered honorable, even romanticized. Well, it paid well, of course.
The beginning of the battle
The very process of the formation of the division took place in the city of Stalino, as Donetsk was then called. The formation of the division lasted 35 days. The enrollment staff sent by the military registration and enlistment offices differed a high degree preparation. In addition, the division included six Komsomol special detachments for the destruction of tanks. Unlike many other units, the Mining Division did not lack not only trained Red Army soldiers and commanders, but also logistics. The fighters were well equipped, there were no food shortages. The division also became one of the most well-armed formations of the Red Army. Each rifle regiment that was part of it was armed with 54 heavy machine guns (in total, the division had 162 heavy machine guns). The anti-aircraft division was armed with 12 anti-aircraft automatic guns. The structure of the division at the time of its formation and entering the front line was as follows. The division included the headquarters, the 149th, 694th and 696th rifle regiments, the 690th separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion.
At the end of September, the formation of the division was completed and on September 30, 1941, it was included in the 18th Army of the Southern Front. Then she moved to combat positions. On the defensive line "Grishino - Solntsevo - Trudovoy" the division took up positions 50 km wide. It happened on October 13, 1941, and already on October 14, 1941, the division entered its first battle. The Red Army soldiers had to fight with units of the 4th Wehrmacht mountain division and the Italian cavalry division "Caesar". And then, having shown high combat readiness, the units of the division in battle completely destroyed the regiment of the royal musketeers of the Caesar division. During five days of bloody fighting, while the division held its designated positions, the enemy's losses amounted to 3,000 troops, which was twice the losses of the Mining Division, which lost about 1,500 people.
On October 18, 1941, the command ordered the division to withdraw from its positions. From October 15 to October 22, it was the Red Army soldiers and the commanders of the 383rd division who carried out the defense of Stalino (Donetsk), during which they managed to destroy more than five thousand Nazis, also causing serious damage to the enemy’s weapons. The division met November 1941 on the Mius Front, occupying defensive lines near the town of Krasny Luch, and later moved to the Donsk-Bataysk area. It should be noted that the Mining Division never retreated from its occupied positions without an order from the command and, on the whole, was one of the most valiant units of the army in the field. After the fighting on the Don, the division was transferred to the Novorossiysk region, where, for almost the entire 1943, it fought bloody battles with the Nazi troops, defending the Caucasus. By this time, she was part of the Black Sea Group of the Transcaucasian Front.
Commander Gorbachev. Fighting on Taman and in the Crimea
In June 1943, Konstantin Provalov, who by that time already had the rank of major general, left the post of division commander - he was soon appointed commander of the 16th rifle corps. Colonel V.Ya. became the new division commander. Gorbachev. 
Veniamin Yakovlevich Gorbachev was no less experienced commander than Provalov. At the time of his appointment as division commander, he was not even thirty years old - he was born on March 24, 1915 in the city of Bogotol in Tomsk province. That is, he, like the first division commander, was a Siberian. A peasant son, he completed a nine-year plan, then worked as a district procurement inspector. He was accepted into service in the Red Army in 1932, and in 1936 he graduated from the Tomsk Artillery School. For several years, he went through the path of a platoon commander, a battery, and commanded a division. In 1941, after graduating from the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze, was sent to active army. His first position was Chief of Staff of the 119th Rifle Division. Western Front. When the formation of the 383rd Rifle Division began, Gorbachev, a talented and educated man in military affairs, was appointed commander rifle regiment within the division. In 1941-1943. he went through the entire combat path together with the division, and in July 1943 he was appointed its commander, replacing Provalov, who was leaving for promotion.
In the battles for the liberation of the Taman Peninsula, the 383rd division took an active part, for which it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on October 10, 1943). Tamanya was followed by battles for the liberation of the Crimean peninsula. On the night of November 7-8, under fire from enemy batteries, the division's units began crossing the Kerch Strait. Parts of the division landed in the area of Mayak and Zhukovka, engaging the enemy almost immediately, capturing and expanding the bridgehead. The beginning of November 1943 became a period of incessant and bloody battles on the Kerch Peninsula. So, on November 9, Adzhimushkay was taken by the forces of two rifle regiments, which bypassed the village of Voikov from the north-western side. On November 11, units of the division encircled more than a thousand German soldiers and officers. Most of them were destroyed, some were captured and only a minority managed to escape. On the same day, the liberation of the village of Voikov, begun a few days earlier, was completed.
During the assault on the village of Adzhimushkay, senior sergeant Yuri Bykov (1923-1945), who commanded a machine gun crew, replaced the wounded platoon commander and raised the fighters to attack. Having installed the unit's machine gun on a hill, Bykov managed to destroy 10 Nazi firing points. On November 20, left alone, he destroyed several dozen enemy soldiers with a machine gun, for which he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The feat of the young lieutenant
It was during the fighting on the Kerch Peninsula that the hero of our article, Lieutenant Vladimir Bondarenko, accomplished his feat. When on November 20, 1943, the Nazi soldiers approached the Bezymyanny farm, which is now part of the city of Kerch, the unit under the command of Lieutenant Bondarenko entered into battle with superior enemy forces. Although the Red Army managed to defeat the infantry units of the Nazis, Nazi tanks went into battle. There was a great risk of re-taking the farm Bezymyanny by the Germans. Moreover, it was attacked by a tank unit of eight tanks. And it was in this critical situation that Lieutenant Bondarenko was the first to not lose his head.
Standing in place of the dead calculation of the 45-millimeter gun, Bondarenko himself loaded and directed the gun. The third shell hit the head tank of the Nazis. The Nazis hesitated, but then made a second attempt to attack Bezymyanny. Bondarenko, with the help of his fighters, rolled a gun out of the trench and opened fire on the Nazis. The first tank was hit, then the second. The next volleys thinned out the chain of German infantry. As a result of the heroic deed of Lieutenant Bondarenko, the advance of the Nazis on the Bezymyanny farm was stopped. After this battle, the commander of the Separate Primorsky Army, General of the Army I.E. Petrov introduced Vladimir Bondarenko to the high rank of Hero of the Soviet Union.
At the time of the feat, Vladimir Bondarenko was only 19 years old. Vladimir Pavlovich Bondarenko was born in 1924 in Rostov-on-Don, in an ordinary family of a Soviet employee. Volodya's childhood was not much different from the childhood of millions of other Soviet boys of that time. Probably, he also dreamed of benefiting his country, getting a profession that society needed and a set period of time to serve the people and the Soviet state. In the summer of 1941, when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Volodya Bondarenko just finished the ninth grade of high school and went to work at the Rostov Shoe Factory. Anastas Mikoyan. When the Germans approached Rostov-on-Don, the seventeen-year-old boy was evacuated to Kislovodsk with his mother. However, with all his might, he rushed into the army. I went to the draft board, but all to no avail - they didn’t want to take the seventeen-year-old to the front: he’s still young. But in the end, perseverance won - the young man managed to get a referral to a military school.
In May 1942, Vladimir Bondarenko became a cadet of the Rostov Artillery School (RAU), more precisely, an accelerated course, on the basis of which commanders for front-line units were urgently trained. In the same 1942, Bondarenko received the rank of lieutenant and was assigned to the 383rd Infantry Division. For the first time, Bondarenko participated in hostilities near Mozdok and immediately distinguished himself in battle, for which yesterday's schoolboy was awarded the medal "For Courage". Then there were battles for Stavropol. Bondarenko also fought on Taman, including as part of a special reconnaissance group, as a very brave and trained officer. Then Bondarenko, who was respected by the personnel and command, became the Komsomol organizer of the 3rd rifle battalion of the 634th rifle regiment. In 1943 he joined the All-Union communist party(Bolsheviks).
When the division crossed the Kerch Strait, Lieutenant Vladimir Bondarenko was on the first boat and, together with his fighters, was the first to land on Kerch land. By morning, the battalion, in which Bondarenko fought, was able to gain a foothold on the nearest heights. On November 10, Bondarenko participated in the capture of Adzhimushkay, raising the Red Army to attack. Vladimir threw grenades at the nest of a German machine gun, then personally destroyed more than ten German soldiers, captured four prisoners.
Having accomplished his feat, as we wrote above, Bondarenko was presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, personally receive golden star he never had a chance... On December 20, 1943, Lieutenant Vladimir Bondarenko was seriously wounded in a battle near the village of Bulganak and died the same day. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to him posthumously - by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed on May 16, 1944. Fortunately, the name of Vladimir Pavlovich Bondarenko was not forgotten. The memory of the nineteen-year-old lieutenant is immortalized in Rostov-on-Don - in his homeland, as well as in the Crimea. The village of Bulganak, where Lieutenant Bondarenko died, was renamed Bondarenkovo (Leninsky District of the Republic of Crimea) in 1948. In Kerch, during the liberation of which a young lieutenant distinguished himself from the Nazi invaders, on Mount Mithridates, an obelisk was erected in memory of the soldiers of the 383rd Infantry Mining Division. The names of the heroically dead Soviet soldiers, including Vladimir Bondarenko, are carved on the obelisk. Also the name of the hero is the 28th high school in the city of Kerch. The hero is not forgotten in his native Rostov-on-Don either - one of the streets in the New Settlement is named after him - in the Leninsky district of the city. After all, Vladimir Bondarenko worked for some time at the Rostov shoe factory named after Mikoyan, which is located at the beginning of the New Settlement.
Way to Berlin
The further path of the famous 383rd Infantry Division passed through the Crimea. As part of the 16th Rifle Corps, the division liberated Feodosia, for which it received the name Feodosia, after which it participated in the battles for the liberation of Sudak, Alushta, Yalta. On May 12, 1944, the 383rd division took part in the last large-scale battle against the Nazis at Cape Khersones. The division also liberated the hero city of Sevastopol. All three rifle regiments of the 383rd rifle division received the name Sevastopol for the valor shown during the liberation of Sevastopol. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to 13 fighters and division commanders. One and a half thousand fighters and commanders were awarded various orders and medals. And this is only for the liberation of the Crimea. If we take the Great Patriotic War as a whole, then the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in the division was received by 33 servicemen. Three military personnel were awarded Orders of Glory of three degrees for military exploits. In January 1945, the 383rd Rifle Division became part of the 33rd Army of the 1st Belorussian Front. She fought in Poland and Germany, participated in the battles for Berlin on May 2, 1945. For the success in the Brandenburg operation, the division received the name Feodosia-Brandenburg.
No less heroically than during the liberation of their native land, the soldiers and division commanders fought in Eastern Europe and Germany. Here, the division, hardened in the battles of the Great Patriotic War, had new heroes. So, in April 1945, the commander of the 3rd rifle company of the 691st Sevastopol regiment, Nikolai Ivanovich Merkuriev, especially distinguished himself. A native of the Vologda region, Merkuriev managed to take part in the war with Finland in 1939-1940, from July 27, 1941 he participated in the Great Patriotic war. After being seriously wounded, he was transferred from a tank unit to a rifle unit, where he commanded a foot reconnaissance platoon as part of the 611th regiment of the 383rd rifle division.
Twenty-five-year-old lieutenant Merkuriev on April 16, at the head of a company, was the first to rush to storm enemy positions. As a result of his decisive actions, positions were captured, and fifty Nazis were captured. Further, it was Merkuriev's company that took the Markendorf point and the Frankfurt-on-Oder-Berlin highway. Mercury accomplished a new feat on April 18 - two days after the assault on the trenches, Mercury was able to destroy two Nazi machine guns and up to thirty German soldiers from captured Panzer-Faust disposable grenade launchers. On April 24, the lieutenant prevented an enemy counterattack by personally destroying about twenty Nazis from a machine gun. On April 27, Merkuriev's company captured 20 Nazis, destroyed 15. The next day, 20 Wehrmacht soldiers were destroyed and 80 captured. At the same time, the company commander himself was wounded, but did not leave the battle. For the totality of these feats, Nikolai Ivanovich Merkuriev was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union on May 31, 1945. He was lucky to return from the front alive and from 1946 to 1972. He continued to serve in the fire department. Died in 1981.
The commander of the 383rd Infantry Division, Major General Veniamin Yakovlevich Gorbachev, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 6, 1945. After the war, Gorbachev continued to command a division, then a corps. He served as First Deputy Commander of the Army. In 1953 he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff. Since 1959 he was in reserve, he died in 1985.
The first commander of the Mining Division, Konstantin Ivanovich Provalov, commanded the 16th Rifle Corps, then the 113th and 36th Corps. Participated in battles in East Prussia, liberated Prague and Berlin. He finished the war with the rank of Colonel General. After the war, after studying at the Military Academy of the General Staff, he held command posts. In 1962-1969. commanded the Southern Group of Soviet Forces. Died in 1981.
The legendary 383rd Rifle Division made a huge contribution to the great cause of victory over the Nazi aggressors. Thousands of soldiers and officers of the division died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, others managed to return from the front alive. But they all became good example courage and military duty for all subsequent generations. The memory of the fighters of the legendary Shakhtyorskaya is preserved not only in the hearts of relatives and friends, whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought in this formation, but also at the official level. Until recently, the surviving veterans of the division were honored in Ukraine. In Donetsk, where the division was recruited, memorial plaques were installed on the buildings of the formation of regiments. Streets and settlements in different regions of the former Soviet Union are named after the Heroes of the Soviet Union who served in the 383rd Infantry Division.
It was launched in Lugansk in August 1941. On August 20, 1941, Lieutenant Colonel A.I. Petrakovskii was appointed commander of the division. On September 11, the personnel of the division took the military oath in the park named after Gorky Lugansk. Initially, the main part of the division was formed from the miners of the Luhansk region, in connection with which it received the popular name "miner's". Three mining divisions were formed from the miners of Donbass: 383rd (Donetsk), 393rd (Slavyansk), 395th (Lugansk).
On September 30, the division commander received an order to advance to the Mariupol area. The 395th division arrived at the battlefield on October 4-7 and was included in the 9th Army of the Southern Front. The task before the division was difficult - to defend the front with a length of 70 kilometers in the area: Zlatoustovka – Volodarskoe – Yalta(The Field and Combat Regulations of the Red Army did not give any norms for the width of the defense strip for the division, but in practice it was believed that it should be 8–15 km along the front). The baptism of fire of the units of the 395th division took place on October 8 near the village. Mangush, when the Germans launched an offensive against Mariupol. WITH 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler units of the 726th Infantry Regiment and the 968th Artillery Regiment of the 395th Division entered the battle. It was possible to delay the German offensive only for a few hours, and on the afternoon of October 8, Mariupol was captured, which was a complete surprise for the Mariupol residents. In Mariupol, the Germans destroyed several headquarters and hospitals, which they did not have time to evacuate. On October 9, the division withdrew to a new line of defense: Kalinino - Cherdakly (Kremenevka) - Mariupol.
On October 13, the 395th division became part of the 18th Army, which was ordered to retreat to a new line of defense by October 14, preventing the Germans from breaking through to Donetsk. On October 13, the 5th SS Panzer Division "Viking", having launched an offensive on Volnovakha, in order to reach the rear of the 9th Army, breaks through the front at the line of Cherdakly (Kremenevka) - Karan (Granite) and on the same day captures Volnovakha. The blow of the German tank division fell on parts of the 395th rifle division, and unable to withstand the onslaught, the miners fled. The division was saved from complete defeat by chance - Kolosov's tank group, while on the march to a new concentration point, unexpectedly collided with a fascist motorized column pursuing the 726th rifle regiment of the 395th division, and defeated it.
By October 16, the assembled units of the 395th division took up defensive positions south of Donetsk at the line: Styla - Voikovo (more than four thousand soldiers were reported missing and dead). On October 17, the 18th Army, which included the 395th Division, began a retreat to the main line of defense: Panteleimonovka - Kirovo - Khartsyzsk - Ilovaiskaya - Nikolaevka, where it was supposed to gain a foothold on October 30th. On October 30, the 395th division was ordered to retreat to the line of defense beyond the Mius River in the area of the Shtergres reservoir (Miusinsk) by the morning of October 31 in order to cover the city of Krasny Luch from the south. The headquarters of the division is located in the village. Esaulovka (Antratsytovsky district, Lugansk region). By October 31, all units of the 18th Army crossed the river. Mius. The front line of defense was to pass along the line Chernukhino - Stryukovo - Yanovka - Knyaginevka - Novo-Pavlovka (now Miusinsk) and further along the river. Mius to the junction with the right flank of the 9th Army. However, the enemy, stubbornly attacking, immediately forced a change in defense plans. The regiments of the 395th division were unable to hold the indicated line along the Mius River and the Germans, wedged into the defense of the division southeast of Novo-Pavlovka, began to move towards Bokovo-Platovo. Having seized the state farm Bokovsky, they hung a real threat over the road Anthracite - Krasny Luch. The defense front of the 395th division arched and stretched to its extreme limit. The scattered parts of the division were able to keep the front on a deep bend only at the cost of incredible tension: Novo-Pavlovka - state farm Bokovsky - Esaulovka - Nizhny Nagolchik - Dyakovo - Dmitrovka. Having captured the villages of Knyaginevka and Yanovka, the Germans advanced west of the Red Beam. After the capture of mine No. 12, the threat of encirclement hung over the units of the 383rd division, which directly defended Krasny Luch. Therefore, on November 1, this division was ordered to leave Krasny Luch and withdraw to a new line of defense, but Colonel K.I. Provalov, who commanded the 383rd division, did not comply with this order and continued to fight in the same positions. Despite the strong onslaught of the Nazis, the 383rd division managed to hold its positions. A few days later, units of the 395th division went on the offensive, and on November 17 they liberated Nizhny Nagolchik. By the beginning of December, the 395th division managed to push the Germans back another 7-10 km. We also managed to push the Germans in the defense sector of the 383rd division - on December 28, Knyaginevka was liberated. Subsequently, hostilities in this sector of the front stabilized until the summer of 1942.
By June 1942 soviet front in the southern section was weakened due to failure spring offensive near Kharkov, the German command took advantage of this circumstance and launched an attack on the Caucasus. In early July, the German units of Army Group South reached the Don in the Voronezh region and, turning south, continued their offensive along the right bank of the Don to Millerovo, entering the rear of the Southwestern and Southern fronts. On July 11, units of the Southern Front withdrew to the line: Starobelsk - Voroshilovsk (Alchevsk) - Krasny Luch. By mid-July, the troops of the Southern Front, deeply engulfed by the Germans from the northeast and east, found themselves in a difficult situation, in connection with this, it was decided to withdraw the troops of this front from the Donbass so that they could, in cooperation with part of the forces of the North Caucasian Front organize defense along the left bank of the Don. By the end of July 1942, the Luhansk region was captured by the Germans. By July 25, the troops of the Southern Front, consisting of six armies, held the defense along the left bank of the Don from the village of Verkhne-Kurmoyarskaya (flooded during the construction of the Volga-Don Canal and the Tsimlyansk reservoir) to the mouth of the Don River. The 18th Army, consisting of three rifle divisions and one brigade, fought defensive battles on a front 50 km wide - from the Kiziterinka station (near Rostov-on-Don) to the mouth of the Don, and the 395th division directly held defenses in the Bataysk region. On July 28, German troops broke through the defenses of the North Caucasian Front 170 km along the front and up to 80 km in depth. The command of the Southern Front, in order to improve the operational situation, decided to withdraw the troops of the left wing to a new line. However, a systematic retreat did not work out, the divisions were unable to break away from the enemy and retreat in an organized manner. The retreat maneuver completely disorganized the command and control of the troops, communication was broken. By the end of the day on July 28, the Southern Front was no longer there, large gaps formed between the Soviet armies, the troops were unable to withstand the onslaught of the enemy and continued to roll back to the south. In a number of sectors, the retreat turned into a flight, settlements left unopposed to the enemy. In the divisions of the 12th, 18th and 37th armies, 500 - 800 people remained. In the 56th, 9th and 24th armies - only headquarters and special units.
07/28/1942 The Southern Front was abolished, and the remnants of the troops of this front, including the 18th Army, were transferred to the North Caucasian Front. In the newly created front, there were 23 rifle, 5 cavalry divisions and 9 rifle brigades. In order to improve command and control of the troops, the front commander divided the troops into two operational groups: Donskaya on the right wing and Primorsky on the left wing of the front. The Don group, consisting of the 51st, 37th and 12th armies, covered the Stavropol direction, and the Primorsky group, consisting of the 18th, 56th and 47th armies, the 1st rifle and 17th cavalry corps, covered the Krasnodar direction and the Taman Peninsula. Due to the rapid advance of the Germans, communication between the armies of the North Caucasian Front was disrupted, as a result, the counterattack, which was supposed to be launched on July 30 by the 12th and 18th armies, as well as the 17th cavalry corps, did not take place. The 18th Army began to retreat in disorder, the position of the troops of the Primorsky Group was rapidly deteriorating. By August 2, the troops of the Primorsky Group, under the onslaught of the 17th German Army, had to retreat to the line of the Yeya and Kugo-Eya rivers in the Krasnodar Territory, and on August 3, the troops of the 12th and 18th armies began to withdraw to the Kuban River. By the end of August 5, the 12th Army crossed to the left bank of the Kuban, but by this time it had lost contact with the headquarters of the Don Group and, by order of the front commander, was included in the Primorsky Group of Forces. To prevent the Germans from breaking through to Tuapse, on August 6, the front commander organized the defense of the Maikop-Tuapse direction by the forces of the 12th and 18th armies (the Armaviro-Maikop operation took place on August 6–17). The 395th division was briefly transferred from the 18th army to the 12th.
On September 4, the troops of the North Caucasian Front were transformed into the Black Sea Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front. On September 20, the 12th Army was disbanded, and its troops, including the 395th Division, were transferred to the 18th Army, which, as part of the Black Sea Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front, took part in Tuapse operation(September 25 - December 20, 1942). From October 1942 to January 1943, the 395th division fought as part of the 56th Army of the Black Sea Group of Forces, in January 1943 it was again included in the 18th Army.
On January 24, 1943, the North Caucasian Front was again formed, which in February included the Black Sea Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front. As part of this group, the 46th Army fought, to which the 395th Division was transferred from the 18th Army. The 46th Army took part in the Krasnodar offensive operation (09.02–16.03.1943) and the liberation of Krasnodar. On March 20, 1943, the 395th division was included in the 37th army (North Caucasian Front) and liberated the villages of Troitskaya, Slavyanskaya (now Slavyansk-on-Kuban) of the Krasnodar Territory. On March 23, the reinforcement of the regiments of the division began. A few days later, the 395th division launched an offensive in the direction of the village of Krymskaya (now the city of Krymsk) and from the end of March fought in the area of the Adagum River (the left tributary of the Kuban River), from May - in the area of the village of Kievskaya (now s. Kievskoe). As part of the 37th Army, the 395th Division fought until it was disbanded in July 1943, and in July it was included in the 22nd Rifle Corps, which in August-October was part of the 56th Army. In general, the summer of 1943 in the area of the battles of the 395th division on the "Blue Line" of the German defense was relatively calm. On September 16, 1943, the troops of the North Caucasian Front launched a general offensive. The 723rd regiment of the 395th division on the same day liberated the village of Kyiv. After the liberation of Novorossiysk (September 16), the operation continued to liberation of the Taman Peninsula, where there was a large grouping of German troops. At the beginning of October 1943, the troops of the North Caucasian Front, with strikes from land and landings from the sea, as a result of many days of stubborn fighting, completed the defeat of the Taman group of Germans and on October 9 completely cleared the Taman Peninsula from the German invaders, finally liquidating the operationally important German bridgehead on Kuban, which provided them with the defense of the Crimea and the possibility of offensive operations towards the Caucasus. In the battles for the liberation of the Taman Peninsula, among other things, the troops of the 395th division (22 sk, 56 a) distinguished themselves, which, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 31 of 10/09/1943, was given the honorary name "Tamanskaya".
After the completion of the fighting on the Taman Peninsula, the 395th division was preparing for a landing in the Crimea, but by order of the headquarters of the Supreme High Command, it was decided to transfer it to 1st Ukrainian Front(formed 10/20/1943). On November 20, 1943, the 395th division begins a march to the village of Staronizhesteblievskaya, where on November 21-25 it is loaded into echelons and through Rostov-on-Don, sent to the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Kiev region. On December 7, 1943, units of the 395th division arrived in Kiev and, after a few days of rest, marched on foot to the front line - near Zhitomir, where on December 24, as part of the 18th Army, they took part in Zhytomyr-Berdichev operation. For distinction in the battles during the liberation of Zhytomyr, the 395th division was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and for the release of Berdichev - Order of Suvorov II degree .
By January 13, 1944, the 395th division was located southwest of Berdichev: at the turn of the villages of Vishenka - Yurovka, where it was on the defensive until the end of February. Throughout this period, it was relatively calm on this sector of the front. On the 1st Ukrainian Front, the 395th division fought until the end of the war as part of various armies. So, in March-April 1944, units of the 395th division as part of the 107th rifle corps of the 1st Guards Army (from March 10) took part in Proskurov-Chernivtsi offensive operation, during which, on the night of March 12, they were the first to start crossing the Southern Bug River near the village of Markovtsy, where they captured a bridgehead about 3 km wide. The 395th division fought fierce battles for this bridgehead for six days, and on the night of March 18 it was replaced by the 30th division. In the period of March 18-21, the 395th division was redeployed to the area of the village of Zakharovtsy north of Proskurov (now the city of Khmelnitsky). Several armies were concentrated here for the offensive towards Kamenetz-Podolsk.
On March 21, 1944, during a fierce battle, the regiments of the 395th division (with the support of the 3rd tank army) threw back parts of the 19th tank division of the Germans and entered the village of Danyuki, and the next day, during the fighting, the villages of Nemichintsy and Felshtin (now Guards). On March 27, the 723rd and 726th regiments of the 395th division, which had moved far ahead under Tynna and Nesterovtsy, were surrounded, and therefore it was decided to take up an all-round defense and hold out until the approach of the main forces. For three days (March 27-29), units of the 395th division fought in encirclement in a small forest near the Nesterovtsy station.
We have always been convinced that the Donbass was of paramount importance for the Germans. That colossal forces were thrown to capture him. That the offensive on the southern flank in the autumn of 1941 was primarily aimed at capturing the coal and metallurgical industries. They are very fond of quoting the memoirs of Erich von Manstein from the book “Lost Victories” on this occasion: “Already in 1941, Donbass played a significant role in Hitler’s operational plans. He believed that the outcome of the war would depend on the mastery of this territory, .... On the one hand, Hitler argued that without the coal reserves of this area, we would not be able to sustain the war economically. On the other hand, in his opinion, the loss of this coal by the Soviets would be a decisive blow to their strategy ... The loss of this coal would sooner or later paralyze the production of tanks and ammunition in the Soviet Union.
However, a thoughtful analysis of the events that took place casts doubt on the sincerity of the fascist commander. It can be seen that the Donbass was not so important for Hitler if, after the encirclement of the main forces of the Southern Front, the 1st Panzer Army of Kleist was by no means in a hurry to the “desired” open spaces. For some reason, all its striking power - the SS motorized brigade "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler", the 13th, 14th, and 16th Panzer Divisions - rush along the coast Sea of Azov to the east, striving for the foothills of the Caucasus. And for operations on the territory of Donbass, much less combat-ready units were assigned - the Italian expeditionary force, the Slovak mobile division, the 49th mountain rifle corps, and - an unexpected exception from this list - the SS Viking division. Total number divisions reaches seven, but they acted on a fairly wide front, ensuring the interaction of the left flank of the Kleist strike force with the 17th field army.
The commander of the 1st Panzer Group, von Kleist, meets the commanders of the Italians and Slovaks attached to him
The Italian Expeditionary Force (abbreviated as CSIR) under the command of General Giovanni Messe, included three divisions. 52nd division "Torino", 9th division "Posubio Roma", and 3rd division named after "Prince Amedeo, Duke d'Aosta" (in Russian and Ukrainian historiography it is better known as "Chelere", which means "swift, mobile").
The divisions "Torino" and "Posubio" were essentially two-regiment infantry divisions. To please Mussolini, they were proudly called "vehicle transportable", although in reality there was barely enough transport for the needs of one. Italian strategists assumed that while one division would take part in the battle, the second would maneuver on the released transport. Unfortunately, on the German maps, the Italian "autotransported" divisions had a similar designation with the "motorized" divisions, and the German strategists assigned them tasks as for motorized ones. It is clear that the Italians could not fulfill them, which created additional difficulties for the Wehrmacht, and earned themselves notoriety. The Italians were considered useless soldiers, instructing them to act on secondary sectors of the front.
The 3rd mobile division "Cheleri" (commander - Brigadier General Mario Marazzani) was, in fact, the only combat-ready unit of the Italians. It included two cavalry regiments - "Savoy Cavalry" and "Navarra", the 3rd regiment of bersaliers (shooters who used motorcycles and bicycles for movement), an artillery regiment and the only San Giorgio tank unit in the entire expeditionary corps, armed with wedges.
The young Slovak state, formed as a result of German occupation Czechoslovakia, June 26 sends to Eastern front expeditionary army group of 45,000 people. Almost immediately, in order to withstand the high pace of the German offensive, all the motorized units of the army group had to be reduced to a special mobile brigade under the command of Rudolf Pilfosek. This brigade, among other things, included a tank battalion armed with Czech-made tanks LT-35, LT-38 and LT-40.
Pilfozek's brigade advanced jointly with the 17th field army from Lvov to Kyiv, while the rest of the Slovak units were used for rear service. In August, another reorganization of the army group takes place. On the basis of the mobile brigade, pretty battered in battles, the 1st mobile, “rychla” (pronounced “loose”) division is being created, and in the rear - the 2nd security division.
The 1st mobile division, under the command of Gustav Malar, is part of the 1st Panzer Group Kleist on October 2, and takes part in the attack on the Donbass. At this point, she has two infantry regiments, a motorized artillery regiment, a company of tanks and a platoon of armored vehicles.
The German command rightly believed that the Slovaks, in the war against the brothers of the Slavs, could not be trusted. There were cases when Slovak units dispersed Red Army soldiers who had surrendered to their homes, and later they themselves began to go over to the side of the Red Army. Therefore, the "loose" division tried to be used in secondary sectors of the front, together with reliable units. During the attack on Stalino, its armored units provided support to the 49th mountain corps of the Germans, although the main forces of the division were not advanced north of Volnovakha.
The 49th Mountain Corps (commander - General of the Mountain Forces Ludwig Kübler) consisted of the 1st and 4th mountain divisions, and it ended up in the Donbass by pure chance.
The German mountain rifle units were formed from professional Bavarian and Austrian climbers who were trained for combat operations in the mountains, had specialized equipment and weapons. On the flat terrain, these troops lost their advantage, turning into ordinary light infantry units. Therefore, until October, the 49th Mountain Rifle Corps was planned to be used as part of the 11th Field Army to capture the Crimea. And only the Soviet counteroffensive near Melitopol, followed by the encirclement of the 9th and 18th armies, forced the German command to reconsider their plans. In the light of the resulting breakthrough, the Caucasus Mountains seemed no further than the Crimean ones. Wards of Kubler are transferred to the 1st tank army of Kleist, and, wanting to save money, they are sent to capture the capital of Donbass.
Alpine mountain shooters and Italian bersaliers against the backdrop of a metallurgical plant in the city of Stalino
With the phrase “SS division “Viking””, an image of a true Aryan in black and white uniform, sitting astride a tank, immediately appears before your eyes. It is so established that even some historians manage to forget that in 41 there were no tanks in the division, as well as a black SS uniform. The Vikings came to the Donbass as an ordinary motorized division - on armored personnel carriers and motorcycles.
The second common myth claims that the Waffen-SS troops were the elite of the German army, had the best weapons and were supplied in the first place. It is also not true. The SS troops in the Wehrmacht in 41 were a forced concession to Hitler, an exception to the rule. German generals, largely hereditary military, perceived these racially pure troops as a direct threat to their prerogative. Their supply and armament was carried out according to the residual principle, and it took a special directive from Hitler to stop such discrediting. And the Viking soldiers, in addition, were not quite Germans, because. this division was formed at the expense of Volksdeutsche from the countries occupied by Germany.
On October 11, the SS Viking division begins an offensive from Mariupol in the general direction of Stalino, to secure the left flank of the Kleist strike group, which the troops of the 9th Army are constantly trying to counterattack. But having advanced slightly north of Volnovakha, the Vikings were forced to stop due to the almost complete lack of fuel.
The official Soviet version of the battle for Stalino said that the city could only be taken by concentrating more than a hundred tanks, and this version was created back in 1941, when an article in Komsomolskaya Pravda for November 1 wrote: “The fascist command threw its best units into the region of the city of Stalino. Five divisions operated here, including one motorized and 13-tank division from the Kleist group. Only by concentrating over a hundred additional tanks and throwing up aircraft, the enemy managed to capture the city of Stalino.
Indeed, if you read the combat documents of the Southern Front, then until October 22, the Soviet command assumed that one tank division and two motorized divisions were advancing on Stalino. In the intelligence report of the headquarters of the Southern Front No. 169, dated October 21, 1941, one can read the following: "Stalin's direction. Units of the 3rd Italian mobile division "Chelere" operate in the Kurakovka, (claim.) Marinka sector. On the site of Marinka, St. Units of the 1st and 4th GSD of the Germans operate Beshevo, up to one TD (tank division) (presumably 13 TD) and one MD (motorized division) of unidentified numbering. At the junction of the armies at the site (suit.) Art. Beshevo, Uspenskoe operates, presumably, md SS "Viking". However, two days later, in the combat report of the headquarters of the Southern Front No. 0080 / op, the mythical tank and motorized divisions disappear: “In the Stalinsko-Makeevsky direction, the pr-k has up to 4-5 infantry divisions, of which up to three are Italian. The actions of the pr-ka here are of a constraining nature.
It can, of course, be assumed that the 13th Panzer Division, after the capture of Stalino, was transferred to another sector of the front, but according to German data, the 13th Panzer Division was never under Stalino, as well as no other from the 1st Panzer Army. On October 13, the 13th Panzer Division reached the Mius, on October 17 it captured the bridgehead on Sambek, and on October 20, in close cooperation with the 14th tank division and the Leibstandarte brigade, launched an attack on Rostov. On October 23, she was subjected to a Soviet counterattack, which disproved the intelligence about her alleged location.
Slovak LT-35 tanks on the march in autumn 1941
However, it cannot be said that there were no tanks near Donetsk at all. They were. The Italians had the 61st vehicle, and the Slovak "Ryshla" division by that time had 12 tanks. The total number looks impressive, but you should not have any illusions about this.
Of the vehicles concentrated under Stalino, the Czech LT-35 and LT-38, which were in service with the Slovaks, looked most like tanks. These were light tanks equipped with a 37 mm gun and protected by riveted bulletproof armor. For our 45-mm anti-tank guns, they did not present any problems, as was proved by the men of the 38th cavalry division, against whom they were used.
What the descendants of the Romans brought with them from sunny Italy could only be called tanks by impulsive Italians. By October, the 3rd San Giorgio light tank group was armed with 55 L3/33 tankettes and 6 Fiat L6/40 tanks.
Tankettes L3 / 33 were developed in 1933 and by the beginning of the Second World War they were mercilessly outdated. Having tiny dimensions, thin armor (frontal armor 15 mm) and armament of twin 6.5 mm machine guns, they, in fact, were a mobile machine gun nest. At the same time, they were easily destroyed by a high-explosive projectile and did not require special anti-tank weapons. But the Donbass weather turned out to be the most effective weapon against the Italian "armored monsters". The heavy rains of the autumn of 1941 led to the collapse of all Italian tanks - they were stuck in the mud. Light tanks Fiat L6 / 40, by the beginning of the battles for the Donbass, had just begun to enter the expeditionary force and did not participate in real battles until the age of 42.
Italian "armored monster" L3 / 33 next to the motorcycle
So, telling us about the myriad of tanks during the capture of the city of Stalino, Soviet historians they are somewhat sinning against the truth, trying to justify themselves in the eyes of their descendants for the inglorious loss of Donbass. No more.
According to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, "The fascist command threw its best units into the area of the city of Stalino". We have already considered what they were, now it's time to look at those against whom they acted, at the defenders of Donbass.
It is officially believed that Donbass was defended by four armies. In the south - the 9th Army under the command of Major General F.M. Kharitonov. In the southwest - the 18th Army under the command of Major General V.Ya. Kolpakchi. In the northwest - the 12th Army under the command of Major General I.V. Galanin, (until October 16, 1941, then Major General K.A. Koroteev). In the north of the region, the defense was held by the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front. But at the same time, the bloodless 18th Army defended the shortest path to the heart of the coal region. In fact, it was not even an army, but a rifle corps consisting of 3 divisions. It was against her that the “best” fascist units acted.
If you believe the postulate about the fanatical desire of the Germans to seize the Donetsk ember, then an interesting picture emerges. The Germans are trying to take control of the Donbass, allocating for this the least combat-ready units, and the Red Army is trying to defend it with the least combat-ready army.
And there was no malicious intent or incompetence of the generals, according to the military historian Yu.I. Mukhin. It's just that the Soviet front collapsed simultaneously in several places, and the Headquarters did not have reserves to patch up all the holes. And what is the Donbass when the fate of Moscow was being decided? It was Hitler who thought that with the loss of the Donbass, we would have a fuel starvation and the factories would stop. Comrade Stalin knew perfectly well that a second line of industrial defense had already been created in Siberia, and the loss of Ukrainian steel and coal would be compensated.
But, neither in August, nor in September, no one was going to surrender Donbass. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow countrymen worked to create powerful defense lines running in the meridian direction from the Samara River to the Sea of Azov. Along the Dnieper, a natural defensive line, stood the well-armed full-blooded armies of the Southern Front. Plants and factories worked hard in the rear, supplying the front with tons of ammunition, a mass of weapons and equipment. And all these efforts turned out to be in vain overnight. The Germans crossed the Dnieper, struck a blow around the defensive lines, and closed behind the armies of the Southern Front.
For four days, from October 8 to October 12, the Stalin region remained virtually defenseless. Three unfired divisions of the 10th Reserve Army (383rd, 395th and 38th cavalry) could hardly offer any serious resistance on a front of 150 km, but the Germans could not develop their offensive, pinned down by surrounded Soviet troops. So these days, the defense of Donbass was carried out not along the outer ring of encirclement, but along the inner one.
By October 13, the 18th Army had at its disposal three divisions of the Reserve Front, the Kolosov group, the 30th NKVD regiment, reorganized the troops that had left the encirclement, and occupied the allotted line of defense.
The 383rd and 395th rifle divisions, formed in accordance with GKO resolution No. 459 of August 11, had the same strength, approximately the same weapons, both were formed from the miners of the Donbass, and both were commanded by the Heroes of the Soviet Union - Colonels Konstantin Provalov and Ivan Petrakovskiy, who, by the way, simultaneously graduated from the Frunze Military Academy.
The only difference was that the soldiers of the 395th division received their baptism of fire five days earlier, and not from the Italians, like Provalov's wards, but from the Germans. On October 8, on the outskirts of Mariupol, two rifle regiments, the 726th and 714th, could not stop the German reconnaissance battalion of the Leibstandarte SS motorized brigade, as a result of which the city was captured. The lack of anti-tank artillery affected.
A few days later, on October 13, units of the 395th Mining Rifle Division could not withstand the attack of the Viking SS division and the city of Volnovakha, a major railway junction, was captured. This time it was no longer a matter of guns - the Germans had no tanks in this sector. It just turned out that the title of "miner" in itself does not in any way affect the combat capability of a military unit, and is not able to improve combat skills.
Soviet counterattack. Donbass, October 1941.
On the soldier running on the right is an outdated helmet of the 38th model
Another brainchild of the 10th Reserve Army was the 38th Cavalry Division of General N.Ya. Kirichenko, formed in the Persianov camps near Novocherkassk. In terms of its strength, it was three times smaller than a rifle division (a total of 3277 people), but it had an armored squadron of 10 BA-6 and BA-10 armored vehicles. At that time, these were some of the best armored vehicles in the world, armed with a 45-mm cannon that hit any of the German tanks at a distance of 500 meters.
During the defense of the city of Stalino, the 38th Cavalry Division, reinforced by units of the 18th Army that had emerged from the encirclement, held the front between the two mining divisions, and the enemy never managed to achieve any success in its sector. For its valor, during the defense of the Donbass, the division was the first among the cavalry to receive the Order of the Red Banner. However, her combat path was short-lived - in May 42, she died in an encirclement near Kharkov.
After the breakthrough of the German troops at Novomoskovsk, the so-called. became a kind of lifesaver for the Southern Front. group of Colonel Kolosov, commander of the 15th tank brigade. It was formed on the personal order of the then front commander D. Ryabyshev, from the remnants of the 2nd and 15th tank brigades, the 2nd and 95th border detachments, the 521st anti-tank artillery regiment and the M-13 mortar division. A total of 33 tanks with a dozen vehicles.
Kolosov's group was used to launch counterattacks on the advanced units of the Germans, ensuring at least some stability of the front at the time of the restoration of the 9th and 18th armies. On the evening of October 8, Kolosov's group almost defeated the headquarters of Kleist himself near the village of Chubarovka, being only a few hours late, and destroying the last column of staff vehicles. On October 13, the actions of the Kolosov group allowed the troops of the 395th Infantry Division to break away from the persecution and avoid complete annihilation.
Among the units that took part in the defense of Stalino, there is one that is very difficult to judge objectively. We are talking about the 30th regiment of the operational troops of the NKVD. Some associate the execution of wounded Red Army soldiers with this regiment before retreating from Rutchenkovo, and claim that the breakthrough to the city of Stalino took place precisely on its site. Others do not remember any NKVD troops at all, calling them border guards.
Documentary sources also provide very scarce information. We can say the following with certainty. 30th motorized rifle regiment operational troops of the NKVD began to form in the city of Baku immediately after the start of the war. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Skrypnikov Vasily Alekseevich. The regiment consisted of 950 people, had a tank company, divisional and anti-tank batteries. On October 10, the regiment arrived in the Stalin region and became part of the 9th Army.
During the defense of Stalino, the famous "Katyushas" were also involved, which the Germans called the "Stalinist organ", for the characteristic roar of rockets. On October 10, units of the 2nd Regiment of Guards Mortars, which was part of the Vojvodin Task Force, managed to break out of the encirclement. The command used them in divisions, in the most threatening sectors of the front.
The inhabitants of Donbass have always been proud of the memory of their fathers and grandfathers, those who performed labor and military feats, those who saved the world from the brown plague, those who defended the freedom of both their native land and the country during the Great Patriotic War. A special line of this memory was and remains the glory of the mining divisions, which is often remembered now in the harsh days of the current undeclared war of Kiev against the Donbass, during which many of our neighbors, colleagues, colleagues, acquaintances and friends rose to defend the Motherland.
And then, only from one Donetsk region to fight as part of units and formations Soviet army 175 thousand people went, more than 350 thousand joined the ranks of the people's militia, and three divisions were formed from the miners, which are still legendary.
Mining divisions were formed already in the first days of the war. According to the orders of the people's commissar of defense and the commander of the troops of the Kharkov military district, it was supposed: "combat crews of combat units to be equipped exclusively at the expense of trained miners called up from the reserve younger ages in the relevant military specialties. With the arrival of personnel in the division, without waiting for full staffing, immediately organize enhanced combat and political training in the divisions.
In parallel with the 383rd, the 393rd and 395th divisions were formed. Almost from smart miners left for the front: a site - a platoon, a mine - a company. Sobbing children, wives, mothers remained at home, and from one glance at the map, the soul turned cold. The Nazis were already approaching Moscow, Donbass, Crimea. The rapid advance of the German troops prevented the completion of the complete formation of divisions. Understaffed with materiel, insufficiently trained, they were forced to take a baptism of fire in their native land.
On October 7, north of Osipenko (Berdyansk), the Fuhrer's 1st Panzer and 11th armies closed in, cutting off part of the Soviet troops of the 18th and 9th armies. With stubborn battles, these units broke out of the ring, the 18th army retreated to Stalino, the 9th - to Taganrog. To close them into a new ring, German tanks crawled along the coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, the fighters of the 395th Infantry Division blocked their path, it was under their cover that the surviving units left the encirclement. The miners fought to the death. So the company, located in the direction of Mangush-Mariupol, just by order, let the tanks pass through itself and stopped the German infantry. German tanks were shot down by gunfire. The miner's company did not flinch even when the tanks of the second echelon of the Kleist group went - after this attack, only six fighters survived.
In early October, units of the 383rd division also entered the Selidov area. Throughout October 1941, they fought continuous, stubborn, fierce battles with invaders who outnumbered Soviet troops by the number of manpower and equipment. The front of each of our mining divisions sometimes stretched up to seventy kilometers. And the experienced leaders of the mining divisions, Heroes of the Soviet Union Konstantin Provalov, Ivan Zinoviev, battalion commander Veniamin Petrakovskiy were forced, contrary to all academic knowledge, to wage continuous battles over a vast territory. The approaches to Stalino were defended stubbornly. Bloody battles were going on at the Mandrykino, Avdotino, at the Rutchenkovo station. Something unimaginable was happening around: yellow and black smoke crawled over the ground (the last coal mining was on fire - they didn’t have time to take it out, poured it onto the waste heaps and set it on fire), bullets whistled, people shouted, on the streets of the city they went hand to hand against the Nazis. But, despite the exceptionally fierce nature of the battles, our soldiers had to retreat. One can only guess what was going on in their hearts when they left their homes and loved ones at the mercy of the enemy.
In the battles for Stalino, the Nazi troops suffered heavy losses: up to 50 thousand killed and wounded, over 250 tanks, over 170 guns, about 1,200 vehicles with cargo. They took out all their anger on the remaining residents of the city. Looting began immediately. The Nazis went around the houses and took everything from people, right down to children's underwear. The mayor of the city of Petushkov, appointed by the occupiers, issued an order: "To the entire population, hand over food to the German command." The commandant of the city of Zimmer added the order: "Whoever does not comply will be hanged."
A wave of arrests rolled, massacres began. In just one day, on November 1, 17 people were hanged on denunciations in Stalino. But the infernal terror machine did not stop even for a minute. Palaces of culture, institutes, technical schools were turned into barracks and brothels. On the territory of the city, concentration camps created by the Nazis began to work.
Mining divisions retreated deep into the Donbass, losses in personnel reached fifty percent. Many unknown miners' graves remained in the Donetsk steppes, but quite combat-ready units reached the new frontiers. They resisted the Germans, and the Austrians, and the Italians, and the Romanians.
By the end of October, the German army occupied the Kharkov region, broke into the southwestern part of the Donbass, and reached the approaches to Rostov. The Nazis sought to seize bridgeheads on the southern bank of the Don and move on Maikop and Tuapse. They were stopped by the 383rd and 395th Mining Rifle Divisions. For more than eight months, from November 1941 to July 1942, Soviet troops held positions in the vicinity of the dominant Saur-Mogila height and the Mius River. The warriors showed miracles of heroism, fighting back to the last breath, to the last shell from the enemies. The courage of Daniil the Heretic, Zakhar Galeta and many, many others remained forever in the memory of the people. Here are the mean lines of front-line correspondence: “Three of our fighters were lying near the broken machine gun. Next to the first number, they found a piece of paper on which there were only a few lines: “I am a miner. My grandfather and great-grandfather are miners, my father is a miner, my three brothers are also miners. I fought for the Donbass."
We, looking from today, measure the Great Patriotic War by great battles - battles near Moscow, near Stalingrad, on Kursk Bulge. But would these great victories be possible without stubborn battles for small villages, farms, forests, fields, beams?
A letter from Corporal Gotgelf Straub, written in the Donetsk steppes and never reached the addressee, can serve as a peculiar answer to these questions: “Dear Gustel! We did not receive gifts that should have been given to us in the army. We have been deceived.
I hope that we will soon be able to get out of this Russia so that we can finally live like a human being. You return from the guard, fall on the straw, and after two hours you need to be awake again. There are fewer and fewer people. How many dead fathers, sons, grooms who will no longer see home. They rest here in the black earth. We are located in the direction of Donetsk in winter apartments 50 kilometers from Stalino on the Mius River. Whoever gets out of this Russia whole can really consider himself happy.
So that there are as few such “lucky ones” as possible, the mining divisions fought in good faith, and so that the Nazis do not delude themselves about their own health, soviet soldiers reminded them of possible consequences. So, at the height of Bezymyannaya in the Novopavlovka area, behind the front line of defense, cartoons were exhibited: “Hitler”, “German soldier without legs returns to his family” and others. They were an eyesore to the Germans, they opened fire on them, fascist "hunters" crawled towards them. But the cartoons reappeared again and again.
The mining divisions became famous for their military initiative - the sniper movement. About the best snipers Maxim Byrskin and Fedor Kudel, even a song was composed:
So that the occupiers are numb in fear,
To tremble nemchura -
Combat sniper Fyodor Kudela
Friendly miner's "cheers".
Mining divisions did not retreat from their positions without an order, but, unfortunately, in the first years of the war, it was often necessary to occupy more and more defense lines. The defense of Rostov and the Kuban villages fell to the share of the divisions, but the most heated battles unfolded for the Caucasus.
The battles in the Caucasus were terrible, "multi-story" - on land, at sea, in the sky, in the mountains. They reached the greatest intensity on the outskirts of Tuapse, it was at this time that the infamous fascist order was born: "Do not take sailors and miners prisoner, immediately destroy them."
They say that every front-line soldier has a main place in the war, to which the highest spiritual impulses are given, physical labor is on the verge of the impossible. For my grandfather, Ivan Popov, who in the ranks of the 395th division since 1941 defended native land, and in 1945 he stormed Berlin, the Caucasus became this place. According to his recollections, the battles took place on sheer cliffs and narrow paths, every piece of bread, every mine and shell was delivered to the front line literally by hand. Each wounded was carried to the rear on the shoulders, walking along the steep icy slopes. And in order to finally break the will of the Soviet soldiers, the Nazis spilled and set fire to oil along the Terek. After that, even getting drunk became impossible.
But even in these unbearable conditions, the fighters of the mining divisions did not leave courage. According to eyewitnesses, junior lieutenant Golyadkin caught enemy grenades on the fly and immediately sent them back. And the machine gunners left without cartridges sometimes rose and unarmed rushed to the enemy positions.
On the night of November 19, 1943, the troops of the Southwestern and Don fronts heard the order: counteroffensive! They liberated their native land inch by inch and it is impossible to count how many "nodes of resistance" they met on the way, which were organized by the Nazis.
October 9, according to the order Supreme Commander, Soviet troops "as a result of many days and stubborn battles, completed the defeat of the enemy's Taman grouping, completely cleared the Taman Peninsula from the invaders
In battles, they especially distinguished themselves: 383rd Rifle Division 395th Rifle Division.
From now on, these formations and units will be called the 395th Taman Rifle Division, and the 393rd for especially skillful and decisive actions, submit for awarding the Order of the Red Banner.
After the battles for the liberation of the Taman Peninsula, the paths of the mining divisions parted ways. The 383rd, under the fire of the Nazis, crossed the Kerch Strait, meter by meter, recapturing a bridgehead on the Kerch Peninsula and liberating the Crimea. The 395th Tamanskaya went with battles to the north, through Belarus, the Baltic states, Poland to Berlin.
They fought heroically. For the victory in the Crimea, the title of "Feodosia" was added to the name of the 383rd division, for the successful invasion of the Brandenburg region of Germany, the title of "Brandenburg" was added to it. Now she began to be called Theodosius-Brandenburg, and her three rifle regiments - Sevastopol. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov of the second degree.
The Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov of the second degree adorned the banner of the 395th Taman Division. Unfortunately, the fate of the third mining division was tragic. The 393rd Rifle Division under the command of Ivan Zinoviev courageously fought the enemy at the beginning of the war, the Nazis even called it the “black division”, but in 1942 this division was surrounded during a breakthrough in the Kharkov-Barven direction. How many fighters were killed and captured is not known exactly. And its commander "Colonel Ivan Zinoviev was shot by the Germans for preparing to escape from the fascist camp"
Like this: three divisions - three roads. But heroism, courage, courage were common to all, as well as the contribution to the cause of our Great Victory, the defenders and liberators of Donbass and all of Europe believed unconditionally in it, as well as in the fact that their feat would not be forgotten.
And indeed, in Soviet years in memory of the feat of the defender and liberator warrior, majestic monuments were erected on the battlefields in Donetsk, as elsewhere.
One of them, a jubilant soldier with a machine gun raised up, was crowning the Saur-Mogila memorial complex. The pylons of this complex, located along the stairs leading from the foot to the top of the mound, perpetuated the glory of the military branches, military formations, as well as the names of the fallen soldiers.
During the celebration of the liberation of Donbass from the Nazi occupation on September 8 and the celebration of the Great Victory on May 9, almost the entire Donetsk region gathered at Saur-Mohyla, as well as numerous guests and liberator veterans, those who happened to break through the territory created during the occupation, including almost a dozen lines, a deeply echeloned fascist defense of the Mius Front, the key point of which was Saur-Mogila ..
A few years ago, with one of these veterans, with Vasily Peretyatko from Rostov, who during the war was the commander of the intelligence department of one of the 152nd Guards Rifle Order of Alexander Nevsky Rifle Regiment of the 50th Guards Order of Suvorov and Kutuzov of the Stalinist Division that liberated the Donbass, the author of these lines got to chat. The scout, white with gray hair, talked about those events, showed the stitches, paths and beams along which he happened to move and the trench from which he conducted fire adjustments during the assault on Saur-Mogila.
Communicating then, we did not even imagine that literally after a while the formidable Great Patriotic War would cross over the mounds and waste heaps of decades and war would again come to Donetsk land ...
In 2014, she burst directly from the Kyiv Maidan.
It was from there that the invasion of neo-fascist punitive hordes into the Donetsk steppes began. And everything happened again...
How then, in 1941, the best sons of Donbass stood up to defend their homeland. Like grandfathers and great-grandfathers, they bravely and selflessly fought and continue to fight the enemy, and now both Donetsk land and Saur-grave, which the militias defended and stormed as steadfastly as their heroic ancestors, are shrouded in new legends.
Meanwhile, in reality, the battles for Saur-Mogila continued for a long time - about three months from the beginning of June until the end of August 2014.
During these battles, the militias, in particular the soldiers of the Vostok brigade, destroyed up to a battalion of foreign, presumably Polish, mercenaries, up to a thousand Ukrainian punishers and about 45 tanks.
It is symbolic that the wounded monument of the victorious Soviet soldier, inspiring the defenders of Donbass, held out despite the shelling. It fell only when the Nazis entered Saur-Mogila for a short time, but the militia did not allow them to settle down and manage, they returned to the height on August 26, 2014.
Now, anyone who has visited Saur-Mogila is covered with awe and pride from touching the feat, and at the same time bitterness and pain ...
The majestic memorial is destroyed, and at the foot of the mound and at its top, there are fresh graves of the defenders. Now the free steppe winds of their Motherland sing songs over them and whisper with feather-grass, for the freedom to which they gave their lives.
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