The tragedy of the Lyuban operation. Lyuban operation through the eyes of Russians and Germans Lyuban offensive operation 1942

Lyuban operation

Spring 1942

The war began for me on the Leningrad Front in early March 1942. I commanded the 140th separate rifle brigade, which arrived at the front from Siberia, and exactly a year later, in March 1943, I was appointed commander of the 311th rifle division and went with it the entire battle route from Volkhov to the Elbe.

These two connections are equally dear to my heart. The first very difficult, bloody battles in the 140th brigade near Lyuban and Sinyavino cannot be forgotten even after decades - they are stuck in the memory like a nail.

It wasn’t easy in the 311th Division either, when we fought for Leningrad as part of the Volkhov Front, diverting enemy forces to ourselves. But that was later, when many of us already had some combat experience gained in the battles of 1942.

The 140th Brigade, having arrived at the front, became part of the newly organized 4th Guards Rifle Corps, which consisted of the 3rd Guards Rifle Division, four separate rifle brigades and artillery units. The corps commander was Major General Nikolai Aleksandrovich Gagen, a combat and competent commander. He received me and brigade commissar Boris Mikhailovich Lupolover at a command post near the city of Volkhov. We reported to him in detail about the combat composition of the brigade, its staffing and combat readiness. The corps commander listened to us carefully and, it seemed to us, was satisfied with the detailed reports. The general asked which of us had already participated in this war. Having received a negative answer, he noticeably wilted, became gloomy and looked at us without much sympathy.

Unfortunately, I looked younger than my 36 years and, apparently, made an unfavorable impression on the corps commander. He obviously regarded the restraint and lack of self-confidence in my behavior as weakness and inexperience.

Coming out of the corps commander’s dugout, the commissar and I decided that the conversation with Hagen, as they say, “began smoothly, and ended with crap.” The sudden coldness of the corps commander towards us, the commanders who had not yet been fired upon in this war, left an unpleasant aftertaste. But we tried not to lose heart, hoping to show ourselves and the brigade at their best in the very first battles.

I was a career officer, from the age of 16 in the ranks of the Red Army. In the past he took part in battles. More than once I had the opportunity to test myself as a commander who knows how to find the right solution in a difficult situation. And even now I was here only because I had repeatedly asked to go to the front from the commander of the Siberian Military District, believing that my military training and desire to fight the enemy of the Fatherland would be useful to the army in the field.

As you know, in the first half of 1942, fierce battles broke out west of the Volkhov River with the goal of breaking through the blockade of Leningrad by our troops. At the beginning of January 1942, the troops of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts went on the offensive.

The main blow from the area north of Novgorod in the north-west direction to Lyuban was delivered by the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front. Formations of the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front from the line of Voronov, Maluksa, and the southern bank of the Sokoliy Mokh swamp launched an attack on Tosno. For two months (January, February), units of the 54th Army attacked the enemy day after day with extraordinary tenacity. In order to speed up the defeat of the group of German troops in the Lyuban area, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters demanded that the commander of the Leningrad Front launch an offensive with the forces of the 54th Army from the north in the direction of Lyuban towards the Volkhov Front grouping.

On March 9, as a result of an attack by units of the 54th Army, the Nazis left the station. Pogostye, Zharok junction, forest and clearings adjacent to Pogostye. However, further attempts by our troops to develop a breakthrough were unsuccessful.

On March 15, the commander of the 54th Army, General I. I. Fedyuninsky, assigned the 4th Guards Rifle Corps the task: on the morning of March 16, go on the offensive, striking in the general direction of Zenino, Smerdynya in order to defeat the opposing enemy and reach the a depth of up to 6 km, so that later, as we advance, we can increase the impact.

As a survey of prisoners showed, the Germans expected the corps' offensive a day earlier, that is, on Sunday, saying: “The Russians always spoil our holiday.”

The combat order of the corps was built in three echelons: the first echelon - the 284th Rifle Division with the 16th Tank Brigade, the 3rd Guards Rifle Division with the 124th and 98th Tank Brigades and the 285th Rifle Division; second echelon - 33rd and 32nd separate rifle brigades; the third echelon is the 137th and 140th separate rifle brigades (the rifle divisions, except the 3rd Guards Rifle Division, were part of the corps only during the breakthrough).

On the morning of March 16, units of the first echelon of the corps went on the offensive. Having broken through the defenses and pushing back the enemy, they slowly moved forward with heavy losses. Deep snow and thickets of alder forest made it difficult to use tanks, artillery and direct fire guns.

Over five days of continuous hostilities, despite the heroism of soldiers and officers, units of the first two echelons advanced only 6–10 km and reached the line of the Korodinka River, the villages of Zenino and Dubovik. Subsequently, due to the increased width of the front and large losses, the corps’ advance slowed down even more.

It should be clarified here that the Germans, driven back in December 1941 to the Mga-Kirishi railway line, immediately went over to an organized defense. For two full months before the start of the Lyuban operation, they were engaged in arranging defensive positions on all hills and other places convenient for defense and turned them into fairly strong strongholds and lines. All huts, barns and sheds in populated areas were turned into bunkers. The roofs were removed from the buildings and a second log house was placed next to the log house, on the outside. The gaps between the log houses were filled with earth. Window openings, partially filled with logs, served as loopholes, or loopholes were specially cut into the walls of houses. From the outside, these log houses were collapsed and compacted with snow, which made them difficult to observe. In each such defensive structure machine guns were installed, and in some - artillery pieces and mortars. Outside populated areas, walls (fences) made of logs with loopholes up to one meter high, 80–90 cm wide and 5–6 m or more long were used, and in low places, log floorings were laid for prone shooting. Our troops, leading an offensive against the enemy, who had strengthened himself in advance, were forced to operate in very difficult conditions, for which, frankly speaking, they were not yet prepared.

From the beginning of the march to the entry of the 140th brigade into battle, units of the brigade moved at night knee-deep in snow for sixteen days. Each step required a lot of physical effort, which exhausted the strength of the fighters. The short Mongolian horses sank into the snow up to their bellies and pulled carts, mortars and artillery pieces with their last strength, stopping every 40–50 m. The vehicles skidded in the snow, and they were pushed by teams assigned for this purpose. In some places, cars buried themselves in snowdrifts and got stuck. While they were being pulled out, the columns stopped, and the tired soldiers dozed while standing. The less hardy ones left the road and lay down in the snow. They were found, awakened, lifted to their feet and dragged forward until they came to their senses.

When dawn came, parts of the brigade took refuge in the forest for the day's rest. The people, hot on the march, wet from sweat, did not feel the cold for the first minutes, although the frost reached 20 degrees, they fell into the snow and, huddled closer to each other, fell asleep. The frost quickly grabbed the wet backs of the soldiers, chilled to the bone, and lifted them back to their feet.

In bad weather, it was allowed to make fires, but this measure did not bring much relief. Few of the commanders and fighters knew how to truly build huts from the branches of coniferous trees. The wind was blowing through them, blowing away the heat. The soldiers lay down closer to the fire and tossed and turned all the time, exposing first one side or the other to the fire. Thus, hours of daytime rest passed in the fight against the piercing cold for precious minutes of sleep. Daytime halts turned into real torture, and people became increasingly weaker and lost strength. With each stop, the number of people with colds grew, and there was nothing to replace the burnt sheepskin coats and felt boots. Already on March 10, the corps commander, Major General H. A. Gagen, was forced to report to the army commander: “The roads are difficult, the personnel and cavalry of the 137th and 140th brigades are overworked.”

On cloudless days, German planes swept the sky in search of corps troops. The Junkers raided and bombed several times, but, thanks to the dispersed arrangement of units at the halt and good camouflage, losses in the brigade were insignificant.

Despite excessive physical fatigue, the personnel continued to bravely endure the difficulties of the winter march. The soldiers knew well that the army was fighting to lift the siege of Leningrad, and this supported their spirit. They bravely endured the difficult conditions of the campaign. During the first ten days of the march, 47 applications for admission to the party were submitted.

From the day the corps entered the battle, the 140th brigade, with long stops, slowly advanced behind the advancing units of the corps. For some reason we were not informed about the situation. We could judge it by the slow advance of the units operating in front of us, the roar of enemy artillery and mortar fire, the number of those killed along the path of our movement and the flow of wounded soldiers. As darkness fell, the Germans intensively illuminated the approaches to their front line with rockets. By the fires of the rockets we determined the front line, which was a slightly elongated circle with a very narrow gap at the Zharok crossing.

The brigade could be brought into battle every minute, so it had to be constantly in full combat readiness, and the strength of the fighters was melting every day, the number of people with colds and extremely exhausted was growing. This caused great concern among the command and political staff of the brigade. The officers understood that it was necessary at all costs to preserve the strength of the fighters until the first decisive battle. We attached great importance to baptism of fire. Its success should have strengthened the self-confidence of units and subunits, which would have been of considerable importance for subsequent battles.

But what could really be done in these difficult conditions? The soldiers were freezing, lacking sleep and losing strength. On the morning of March 21, from the original position west of elevation. On May 36, the 137th Brigade was brought into battle with the task of breaking through the enemy’s defenses on the Korodinka River and reaching the barn area. At the same time, the 140th brigade was tasked with advancing behind the left flank of the 137th brigade, destroying the remaining enemy groups and being ready to act in accordance with the situation upon special orders.

Advancing behind the left flank of the 137th brigade, by 7.00 on March 23, the brigade reached elevation. 40.6 north of Zenino and concentrated in a dense forest five kilometers from the supposed edge of the enemy’s defense. The 3rd battalion of the brigade had been sent the day before by order of the corps headquarters to the village of Malinovka to eliminate groups of enemy machine gunners that had broken through.

Before the units had time to settle down in the forest, the enemy suddenly attacked the area of ​​the 1st battalion and brigade headquarters with fire from two batteries. This raid puzzled us. German planes did not appear that day, and due to terrain conditions, the enemy did not have the opportunity to observe the movement and concentration of the brigade units. And yet the enemy somehow discovered us.

Later it became known that the Nazis, in addition to machine gunners, sent reconnaissance officers dressed in the uniform of the Soviet Army to the areas where our troops were located. They sent signals by radio or rockets about the location of our units. Having no experience, we did not yet know how to deal with this.

Finally it was our turn to join the battle. Unsuccessful battles took place along the entire front of the army. The enemy was well entrenched in populated areas, along roads, ravines and rivers, occupying all points dominating the terrain. Reflecting the attacks of our units and groping for weak points in their battle formations, the enemy launched short counterattacks, always well supported by concentrated artillery and mortar fire.

“The 140th brigade, providing junctions with the 137th brigade and the 3rd Guards Rifle Division, will advance with the aim of capturing the area of ​​the Khvoynaya grove, cutting the Kondui-Smerdynya road, meaning to be ready to repel enemy counterattacks from the directions of the Makaryevskaya Hermitage and Smerdynya, assisting part of the forces of the 3rd Guards Rifle Division in capturing the area of ​​Smerdynya, Dobroye, Vasino.” The brigade had to complete this task on its own without its 3rd battalion or any reinforcement.

A strip of continuous swamp overgrown with forest, more than 4 km deep, separated the brigade from the enemy. A dense alder forest stood like a wall in front of us. It was necessary to break through this obstacle, as in the Indian jungle. In addition, there was deep snow in the forest. In the direction of our advance there was only one very narrow clearing, which we decided to use to get closer to the enemy. We did not find any traces of human feet in the snow - either in the clearing itself or in the forest.

Before the start of the battle, the brigade headquarters did not have any information about the enemy’s defense, its forces and grouping. In general terms, it was known that the Germans were occupying the Khvoynaya grove, which the brigade was to capture. We had no direct contact or communication with our neighbors. In order to establish it with the 137th Brigade and the 3rd Guards Division, groups of fighters were sent who disappeared without a trace, apparently running into enemy ambushes. When units moved along a single clearing, an ambush could be expected at every step. To avoid this and timely establish the outline of the front line of the German defense, a reconnaissance company was sent forward with the task of deploying in a chain, combing the forest in the brigade's movement zone and, moving towards the Khvoynaya grove, coming into contact with the enemy.

When the reconnaissance company moved away to a distance of one kilometer, parts of the brigade began to move towards the clearing. At the head of the column moved the 1st battalion of Major G. E. Nazarov, followed by the 2nd battalion of Major K. A. Kunichev. The brigade's artillery moved behind the rifle battalions. The brigade command was at the head of the column.

Sappers of junior lieutenant S.P. Partsevsky and part of the riflemen, armed with axes and saws, cut down and sawed trees to expand the clearing and make it suitable for the movement of artillery systems and carts with mortars and ammunition. Work went slowly at first, but soon picked up, and the 1st Battalion began to be drawn into the forest. There is silence all around. Not a single shot from the enemy. There were no reports from intelligence.

Paving a road in front of them, Nazarov’s battalion went deeper and deeper into the forest. There seemed to be no sign of danger, when suddenly the air was shaken by the explosions of shells. With rapid fire from one artillery battery, the enemy attacked the column of the 1st battalion. Based on the accuracy of the fire, it was clear that the enemy was monitoring our movement, although, as before, observation from the ground and air was excluded, and our reconnaissance acted ahead. We had no choice but to quickly push forward and, in order to avoid losses, increase the distance between the battalion units. Artillery attacks were repeated methodically every 10–15 minutes.

While the battalions were making their way through the thicket of the forest, the reconnaissance company, having passed through a swamp overgrown with forest and not meeting the enemy on its way, came to the edge of a long forest clearing, behind which dense vegetation began again three hundred meters away.

Before crossing an open area of ​​terrain, the company commander had to send a reconnaissance patrol ahead. But Lieutenant P.E. Kartoshkin did not do this, and the company, deployed in a chain, moved along the clearing, without having patrols in front. As she approached the middle of the clearing, a signal flare soared up ahead from the edge of the forest, which was less than 150 m away. Before the scouts even had time to think about the danger, machine guns and machine guns crackled and mine explosions were heard. Only the deep snow in which the soldiers buried themselves saved the company from destruction.

At this time, the 1st battalion was approaching a forest clearing, and the enemy ambush, apparently fearing a detour, hastily retreated. The reconnaissance unit, however, suffered significant damage.

At dusk, the battalion approached the Khvoynaya grove, to the east of which the front line of the German defense passed. It was already dark when the battalion occupied the starting line for the attack. The Nazis were hiding 100–150 meters ahead.

Behind the first battalion, 300–400 m in depth, lay the 2nd battalion. The artillery battalions were stuck in the forest, as the horses were completely exhausted.

That day it became sharply warmer, and the exhausted soldiers of the 1st battalion, having taken up positions and somehow dug in in the snow, immediately fell asleep. The brigade commissar B. M. Lupolover, the brigade chief of staff Major E. H. Mokshev, the battalion and company commanders and I were in battle formations of rifle units all night in order to timely prevent a possible night attack by the enemy. The Germans, expecting our night attack, remained on guard. They did not dare to take active action, being inferior to us in terms of manpower. This saved us from the tragedy that could have happened that night.

In the morning the Germans opened fierce fire from all machine guns and machine guns. We were separated by a dense thicket of small forests. We did not see each other, but this did not stop the Germans from continuously scribbling along the entire front, sparing no ammunition.

Our fighters did not fire. The brigade's artillery had just managed to reach the firing positions area. Taking advantage of impunity, the enemy increased fire, and our losses grew.

The battalion commander G. E. Nazarov was ordered to immediately open fire on the enemy located no more than 150 m away. The order was transmitted to the companies, but the soldiers still did not fire. Having assigned the task to the commanders of the artillery and mortar battalions to prepare fire on the enemy’s front line, I went to the battalion to personally find out why the fire weapons of the rifle units were silent. We had to get to the rifle line under the continuous whistling of bullets. Some fighters, physically less resilient, lay indifferently in the snow in cells unprepared for shooting. The bulk of the fighters worked conscientiously with shovels, dug well into the snow and were ready to fire. When asked why they were not firing, the soldiers and commanders answered:

We don't see any targets.

But the enemy doesn’t see us, but shoots and inflicts losses,” I answered the soldiers.

The responses of soldiers and officers were not random. The brigade was formed from personnel who, during their studies, were constantly instilled with the requirements of the regulations on the careful use of ammunition. Article 16 of the 1936 Field Regulations stated:

“The saturation of modern combat with artillery and automatic weapons causes an exceptionally high consumption of ammunition. Caring for every shell, every cartridge in battle should be an immutable rule for all commanders and soldiers of the Red Army. It is therefore necessary to educate every commander and fighter in the firm knowledge that only well-aimed, organized, disciplined fire will defeat the enemy and, conversely, indiscriminate fire, in addition to the dramatic consumption of ammunition, is only an expression of one’s own anxiety and weakness.”

Of course, the requirements of the Field Manual, correct for their time, could not serve in this situation as a guide for conducting rifle and machine-gun fire. Practice has shown that the saturation of troops with automatic weapons makes it possible to conduct massive, intense fire, flooding the enemy with lead rain. Such “indiscriminate” enemy fire, in addition to moral oppression, brought considerable losses, and we felt it ourselves.

At first during the war, it was with great difficulty that we had to increase the fire activity of riflemen and machine gunners. Very often the infantry called in artillery fire, while it could deal with the enemy with its own means. It is characteristic that in the first battles the brigade used up several rounds of artillery shells and mines and less than half of the rounds of ammunition. The corps commander, General H. A. Gagen, in almost every combat order, insistently demanded: “Everything and everything must shoot,” explaining that the massive use of automatic fire does not exclude, but, on the contrary, increases the role of single well-aimed aimed shots.

There could be no question of any salvo fire under these conditions, as the orders then insistently required. The continuous chatter of automatic enemy fire and exploding bullets overhead, not to mention the explosions of shells and mines, drowned out all commands. In this incessant roar it was necessary to crawl up to almost every soldier to give the order to open fire.

No one in the battalion could really say what the enemy’s defenses were and where their firing points were located. They also did not know whether there was a barrier in front of the front line, whether the defense was equipped with trenches and communication passages. The enemy's defense could only be judged by its dense fire, saturated with automatic weapons.

Having no combat experience yet, the commanders of the rifle companies, pinned to the ground by the fire of machine guns and machine guns, did not dare to take active reconnaissance actions, and their weak attempts in this direction brought nothing but losses. And indeed, the enemy fire was so dense that it seemed impossible for even a small group of fighters to break through.

In addition, the extreme fatigue of all personnel greatly affected activity. It was impossible to delay the attack, but throwing the battalion into battle against the unexplored and unsuppressed German defenses would be reckless.

The battalion commander, Major G. Nazarov, was wounded, as was his chief of staff. The duties of the battalion commander were assumed by the deputy chief of staff, Lieutenant Ya. I. Saltan, a young, brave, knowledgeable officer. He and I decided to reconnoiter the front line of the enemy’s defense in the direction of attack of one of the companies. It was necessary to establish what the front line of defense was and where the enemy’s firing points were located. In addition, it was necessary to establish a method for conducting reconnaissance in dense forests in order to immediately, based on personal experience, give practical instructions to the commanders of rifle companies and batteries. The success of the attack depended entirely on how reliably the enemy at the forefront was suppressed. We were joined by the head of the political department of the brigade, battalion commissar N. G. Sergienko.

Dividing into two groups and taking with us two machine gunners, Lieutenant Saltan and I crawled into the neutral zone. Judging by the German fire, it was no more than 100–150 m to the front line. It was difficult to crawl through deep snow in a dense forest. Snow fell into the sleeves and over the tops of felt boots, and branches of trees and bushes clung to clothes and equipment.

Bullets whistled over us all the time and did not allow us to raise our heads. Trying not to be detected, we slowly crawled towards the German defenses, but our visibility did not improve at all. Dense vegetation still stood in front of my eyes, preventing observation. Having rested a little, we crawled further. 40–50 m from us, in the gaps of the forest, we saw a compacted snow embankment the height of a man. Behind the embankment there were Germans who continuously fired from machine guns, like fire hoses, without putting them to their shoulders. Somewhere nearby, machine guns were firing in long bursts, but none of us managed to detect them. It was dangerous to stay here any longer, so we crawled back.

Our return was overshadowed: a few steps from the battalion chain, battalion commissar N.G. Sergienko was killed. Two stray bullets hit my helmet, but, fortunately, the Soviet steel did not fail. It should be noted that our reconnaissance also had an educational value: after this, the soldiers and commanders began to act bolder and more proactive.

Now, in order to organize reconnaissance of the enemy in the battalion’s offensive zone, and then rifle and machine-gun fire at identified firing points, battalion and brigade headquarters officers were sent to each company. It took at least five hours of daylight to reconnaissance and organize rifle and machine-gun fire. It was not easy to teach soldiers and officers the basic techniques of fighting in the forest while bullets whistled. That day we were missing many officers, but as soon as our machine guns, machine guns and rifles started talking, the enemy’s fire noticeably weakened.

The situation was no better with the artillerymen and mortarmen. The time for the artillery to be ready to open fire was running out. The commanders of batteries and divisions, having lost time in long and fruitless searches for observation points, were not prepared to fire and did not know what to do next. And the head of the brigade’s artillery, Captain K.I. Pontuzenko, and I, who had been in battles more than once, did not have ready-made recipes for artillery operations in dense forest thickets. On the terrain, as flat as a table, there was not a single hill and not a single tall tree for observation. This put the artillerymen in a very difficult position. How to conduct artillery and mortar fire when not a single enemy machine gun is detected, not a single section of his defense is visible and explosions of our shells and mines are not observed?

Before giving instructions to the commanders of batteries and mortar companies, we needed to solve this problem ourselves. It would be unfair to blame the artillerymen for not knowing their job, since never before in the pre-war years had anyone had to shoot in such conditions, and no one had demanded such shooting.

Having thought together with the chief of artillery of the brigade, Captain K. Pontuzenko, and with the division commanders, Captains T. S. Zaitsev, P. M. Nikolaev and Senior Lieutenant A. R. Yasenetsky, on how to organize artillery preparation for the attack, we came to a decision: battery commanders and mortar companies go to the line of attack to the commanders of the supported rifle companies, and fire the first shots with the shells flying beyond the front edge of the German defense, and then, gradually shortening the firing distance, bring the explosions of shells and mines to the front edge of the enemy, i.e. to the distance 100–150 m from the front line of our infantry. This task was made easier by the fact that on that day the Germans conducted artillery and mortar fire in the brigade zone in separate raids, and therefore the battery commanders, in the pauses between them, could hear the explosions of their shells and mines and adjust the fire by ear. Such shooting over an area was not very effective, but in these conditions, with limited time, nothing else could be thought of.

It was also difficult with direct fire. Not seeing the targets and fearing that their troops would be damaged by shell explosions when they hit the trunks and branches of trees and bushes growing nearby, the gun crews decided that firing in these conditions was impossible. Here, too, we had to spend a lot of time training crews and organizing fire, but, again, not at targets, but at the enemy’s snow mound.

The corps headquarters was constantly rushing us to attack. The whole day was spent preparing and organizing the battle and, at the same time, training personnel to fire in wooded and swampy areas. Only by eight o'clock in the morning on March 26 were parts of the brigade relatively ready for the attack.

The brigade's battle plan boiled down to the following: after a short artillery preparation, the 1st battalion, supported by all the brigade's firepower, breaks through the enemy's defenses and captures the Kondui-Smerdynya road, three kilometers north of Smerdynya. After breaking through the front line, the 2nd battalion is brought into battle, and, building on the initial success, the battalions capture the enemy stronghold of the Khvoynaya grove. (The 3rd battalion continued to fight with the groups that had broken through in the Malinovka area.)

We had no idea what was happening on the front of the corps’ offensive. The corps headquarters did not orient us to the situation, apparently believing that truthful data about the unsuccessful actions of the corps would reduce our confidence in the success of the offensive and thereby negatively affect the fulfillment of the task assigned to us. We, however, guessed from the calm that ensued at the army front that the advance of the corps and army units was stopped by organized enemy resistance. Indeed, units of the corps and army did not conduct active operations that day.

At eight o'clock in the morning on March 26, after a 20-minute artillery barrage (to put it frankly, very weak), the 1st battalion boldly attacked the enemy and, having broken through its front edge, rushed forward. Because of the right flank of the 1st battalion, the 2nd battalion was brought into battle. The enemy hastily retreated, leaving dead and wounded on the battlefield. The first battle success inspired the fighters. Despite the deep snow and thickets of forest, the units quickly moved forward. The onslaught was so strong that it seemed that not a trace remained of the fighters’ former fatigue. Among the first to saddle the road was the 1st company of the 2nd battalion, Lieutenant V. Ya. Avdeev.

Soon, the Germans, who arrived from neighboring defense sectors, managed to take a prepared position deep in the forest and meet the battalions with fire from all their means. The battalions lay down. It was necessary to organize artillery and mortar fire again. As before, the enemy’s defenses were not visible.

There is no doubt that from the beginning of the rapprochement the Nazis tirelessly monitored the actions of the brigade, but, busy repelling attacks in other sectors of their defense, they could not concentrate the necessary forces and means against the brigade. When the advance of the army units was repulsed, the Germans had a free hand. Without much risk, they strengthened the defense in the direction of the brigade’s advance, maneuvering trajectories and pulling up infantry, artillery, and 20-mm anti-aircraft guns from neighboring areas, and attacked the brigade with such hurricane fire that in a few hours of battle the entire forest was turned into chips.

The battalions found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Machine guns, machine guns and 20-mm anti-aircraft guns fired from the front, pressing the soldiers to the ground. Shells and mines rained down in hail from above, the explosions of which produced a continuous roar.

Nothing stopped the German artillery from hammering our fire formations: we never saw our aviation, and there was no counter-battery combat. Losses in the battalions grew with every minute. The commander of the 2nd battalion, Lieutenant A. S. Filippov, who replaced the wounded battalion commander, Major K. Kunichev, asked for permission to withdraw the battalion from enemy artillery fire. He did not see that a large strip of terrain was covered by enemy fire. The withdrawal of the battalion under these conditions would have led to even greater losses.

Our artillerymen, and especially our mortarmen, saved the situation. They were able to quickly concentrate all the fire of their batteries on the enemy infantry. This forced the German infantry to take cover and weaken the fire of machine guns and machine guns.

The fire of the 120-mm mortar division of Senior Lieutenant A. Yasenetsky suppressed direct-fire anti-aircraft guns. The commander of the 82-mm mortar battalion, Lieutenant I. K. Yakovlev, who had just taken command of the battalion, and the commanders of the mortar companies of this battalion, Lieutenants S. D. Saikin and B. S. Sidorov, acted especially selflessly. Being in infantry combat formations under heavy enemy fire, they fired intensely at the German infantry and did not stop it even when two or three people remained in the calculations.

Thanks to the fire from our mortars, rifle units were able to get closer to the front line of the enemy’s defense and thereby partially escape from the most destructive artillery and mortar fire.

Communication between the brigade headquarters and the battalions and artillery was carried out by wire. There were no radio stations in the battalions. Telephone communication with brigade units was repeatedly interrupted, but through the efforts and heroism of the signalmen, it was restored again and again without delay. We must pay tribute to the organizational talent of the brigade communications chief, Senior Lieutenant I. I. Spitsa, who organized communications in the brigade so reliably that in the most difficult conditions we did not lose control of the units for a single minute. The commander of the communications battalion fell ill from the first hours of the battle, he was replaced by the battalion commissar, senior political instructor V.P. Lapchansky, who, together with the adjutant of the communications battalion P.M. had no complaints against the signalmen.

The battle did not stop from morning until late evening. The entire forest was mowed down by shells and mines, only isolated fragments of tree trunks stuck out here and there. The Nazis launched counterattacks several times, which were each time repelled by mortar and infantry fire. Our artillerymen and mortarmen spent up to two rounds of shells and mines that day. The battle began to subside only with the onset of darkness. Many units were left without company and platoon commanders. They were replaced by sergeants. The battle formations of companies and battalions were disrupted. Both battalion commanders, their deputies and chiefs of staff were out of action due to injury. There was no question of continuing the offensive. It was necessary to immediately put the units in order and remove all the wounded.

Leaving the combat guards in the positions we occupied and instructing the deputy brigade commander, Major G.K. Eroshin, to organize reconnaissance of the enemy, we pulled the battalions several hundred meters to the rear to feed the people, put the units in order and give the soldiers the opportunity to rest a little.

In addition, it was urgent to replenish artillery and mortar units with ammunition. Having given the necessary instructions to the unit commanders, the brigade commissar B. Lupolover and I headed to the command post to report by telephone to the corps commander about the results of the battle. Due to the large losses, our mood was depressed. The brigade's capture of the section of the Kondui-Smerdynya road, which at the corps front connected the two largest German defense centers and gave the enemy the opportunity to maneuver forces and means at the front for more than ten kilometers, although it was of great tactical importance, cost us very dearly.

Under the fresh and heavy impression of the bloody battle, the success achieved was involuntarily associated with a Pyrrhic victory. What was most depressing was that baptism of fire, which has great psychological significance for subsequent battles, brought us significant losses. Preparing for the battle, we expected greater results with fewer losses. Conflicting thoughts wandered through my head. It seemed that when organizing the battle, we made a mistake somewhere, we didn’t take everything into account, we didn’t do everything to avoid such large losses. Another question immediately arose: why during the entire day of stubborn, fierce battle was the brigade left to its own devices and no one helped it? The roar of artillery fire could be heard for many kilometers, but neither the army nor the corps artillery was brought in to suppress enemy fire, especially since the last reserve of the corps, the last fresh forces, was rushing into battle.

I reported to the corps commander by telephone that the brigade had completed the immediate task, but the losses were so great that until the units were brought into order, I considered a further offensive impossible. I expected the corps commander to attack me with reproaches for the heavy losses, and most importantly, for the report on the need to bring units and units in order. It should be noted that during that difficult period of the war it was not customary to report losses during battles. Such reports were obviously seen as an attempt by subordinates to justify the failure to complete a combat mission, citing “objective” reasons.

To my surprise, I heard the very warm voice of the corps commander:

The brigade fought very well and showed exceptional tenacity and resilience in achieving their goal. You have cut the enemy's main line and driven into one of their strongest strongholds. Unfortunately, we couldn't help you. Get people in order, and tomorrow morning continue to carry out the combat mission.

The conversation with the corps commander encouraged us a little, and the commissar and I went to the battalion to immediately begin preparations for tomorrow's offensive.

It was March 26th. At that time we did not yet know that the enemy had managed to cut off the communications of the 2nd Shock Army and several formations of the 59th Army in the Spasskaya Polist region. That day, and in the days that followed, it was hard for the medical staff of the brigade medical unit and the battalion medical posts. Surgeons, most of them women, did not have the opportunity to move away from the operating tables for even a minute, providing assistance to an endless stream of wounded. Doctors who had recently graduated from medical institutes and had almost no practice were forced to operate on hundreds of seriously wounded soldiers around the clock without sleep or rest. Many surgeons' feet swelled so much from standing at the operating table for long periods of time that they had to wear large shoes. It was truly selfless work. With deep gratitude I remember the doctors of the medical unit: Smirnykh, Baranov, Tikhonova, Genadenko and many, many others.

One cannot help but remember with great gratitude the battalion sanitary workers, who had to constantly be with the soldiers in the flames of battle, sacrificing their own lives, saving the wounded. These were very young girls, almost teenagers. Polina Yasinskaya, 19-year-old paramedic of the 2nd battalion, especially distinguished herself in the first battle. She carried 12 seriously wounded from the battlefield and carried them away on drags. Being shell-shocked, having lost hearing and speech, she did not leave the battlefield until all the wounded were taken to the battalion medical center. It should be said about many other girls, nurses, who, disregarding the danger, did everything that the situation required. I ask them to forgive me that over the long post-war years their names have been erased from memory.

All work to remove the wounded from the battle, provide assistance to them in the medical unit and evacuate them to the hospital was led by the head of the brigade’s sanitary service, an energetic and courageous man, doctor Ivan Danilovich Evsyukov. His assistant was a wonderful paramedic, 19-year-old Alexey Dorofeevich Luzan.

By the morning of the next day, our reconnaissance reported that at night the enemy had abandoned their positions in front of the brigade’s front and retreated into the depths of the Khvoynaya grove. The battalions, which had been put in order during the night, once again assumed battle formations, began to move forward. The enemy, leaving part of his forces and several dozen cuckoo snipers in the Khvoynoy grove, occupied the Makaryevskaya Pustyn - Smerdynya road with the main forces. At the positions abandoned by the fascists, large heaps of spent shells and cartridges lay in large piles, and abandoned machine guns and machine guns lay scattered around. One of the barns was filled with the corpses of German soldiers, which were apparently prepared for cremation. In one of the burnt barns, the corpses of Soviet prisoners of war were discovered; by many indications, they were burned alive.

Apparently, the enemy was retreating in great haste. We captured 12 machine guns and several dozen machine guns. The Konduya-Smerdynya road, cleared of snow by the Nazis, became suitable for all types of transport. The fighters were pleased by the sight of the territory we had just liberated and at the same time aroused even more burning hatred of the enemy. They saw how much this fight cost him.

The brigade now had the task of capturing the entire Khvoynaya grove. The fighting took place in a coniferous forest. The Germans skillfully and widely used their snipers: skillfully camouflaged “cuckoos” sat on many spreading trees. Without detecting themselves, they fired explosive bullets and incapacitated everyone who came within their sights. It was very difficult to conduct commander reconnaissance of enemy defenses. Observation while lying down was hampered by thick bushes, but as soon as one rose to his feet, one of the officers immediately fell, struck by a sniper shot. In one of these reconnaissance missions, the remarkable reconnaissance officer of the brigade, Captain A.N. Kochetkov, was seriously wounded in the head.

There were battles for every meter of the forest. The corps stretched out at the front for more than 15 km, and the gaps between the small formations of the corps reached two or more kilometers. The combat formations of the units consisted of sparse chains stretched along the front with many unoccupied spaces.

Despite the excessively wide front and stubborn enemy resistance, corps formations received combat missions for the offensive every day after dark. There was little progress, and many people were lost. The enemy, taking advantage of the gaps between units, increasingly launched counterattacks.

In front of the corps front there were up to 16 German infantry battalions from eight different divisions, up to 15 tanks, 16 armored vehicles, 4 artillery and 5 mortar batteries and up to 12 anti-tank guns. The composition of the enemy battalions varied: from 150 to 400 soldiers. Given the current situation, the corps could not continue the offensive on an extended front. Losses in units were significant. There was almost no artillery ammunition, and the personnel were extremely tired. The Germans, fortunately for us, were also pretty battered; they did not have the strength for active defense.

Although the enemy launched counterattacks, they were carried out briefly and were of an indecisive nature. Taking advantage of large reserves of artillery ammunition and absolute air supremacy, the Germans systematically carried out fire raids and increasingly bombed the battle formations of our units with dive bombers.

The army command continued to insistently demand decisive action from the corps. On March 28, one regiment of the 3rd Guards Division and the 32nd Brigade of the Corps organized defense at the Smerdynya - Didvino line. With the rest of his forces, he regroups to his right flank. The task of the corps is to, in cooperation with the 311th and 11th divisions, which are advancing from the north, and the 80th and 281st divisions from the west, encircle and destroy the enemy group in the area southwest of Kondui and capture Makaryevskaya Desert. After repeated attacks, the 80th and 281st divisions captured one of the strong defense centers - Conduey, but were unable to advance further. The enemy, maneuvering infantry and artillery and delivering air strikes, held the Makaryevskaya Pustyn. The 140th Brigade continued to fight in the Khvoynaya grove, but now in the direction of the Makaryevskaya Hermitage. On the second day of the battle, units of the brigade captured an ammunition depot, where there were 18 thousand 81-mm mines.

The young, brave and proactive commander of the mortar battalion I.K. Yakovlev, right there during the battle, turned to me with a request to allow him to use these German captured mines to fire from our 82-mm mortars. I immediately tasked the brigade's artillery supply service with checking the possibility of using German mines to fire our mortars. The execution of this task was entrusted to the commander of the mortar battalion, Lieutenant I.K. Yakovlev, and the artillery technician of the brigade artillery workshop, military technician 2nd rank V.L. Lupezhov. Within a day, they shot German mines from our mortars and compiled brief firing tables. The presence of a large number of German mines and the ability to conduct targeted fire with them from our mortars made it possible to more confidently solve combat missions. We no longer had our own shells and mines, except for emergency reserves, since delivering them to positions was very difficult. Now there was something to support the attacks of our infantry, especially since the day before the 3rd battalion had returned to the brigade, still relatively full-blooded.

Having a large number of mines and reinforced by the arriving battalion, we immediately, with full confidence in success, began organizing the battle, with the task of taking possession of the barns and reaching the Makaryevskaya Pustyn - Smerdynya road.

The next day, having carried out a rather impressive preparation for an attack with mortar fire for those days, units of the brigade went on the offensive. By evening, the western edge of the “Coniferous” grove and the “sheds” were cleared of the enemy. The Nazis lost about two hundred people killed and wounded. Parts of the brigade captured ten machine guns, a large number of machine guns, hand grenades, shells, a radio station and many other trophies. Now the road Makaryevskaya Pustyn - Smerdynya, stubbornly defended by the enemy as a road for maneuver along the front, was under rifle and machine-gun fire.

Almost the entire first half of April, units of the corps fought for the capture of the Makaryevskaya Hermitage and Smerdynya, maneuvering between these settlements, but all attacks that were not supported by artillery fire due to the lack of shells were repulsed by the enemy. It was impossible to operate using conventional methods without artillery support. It was necessary to change the tactics of enemy attacks, operating in small units on a wide front, first at one point, then at another. Such attacks individually did not produce tangible results in terms of advancement, but they pretty much exhausted the enemy and, in total, inflicted significant damage on the Nazis in manpower.

The initiators of such actions were platoon and company commanders. Captain A. Kochetkov was the first to set an example. With a platoon of scouts, they infiltrated the enemy's front line and suddenly attacked the German company observation post. Having destroyed up to a platoon of infantry along with the company commander, who were not expecting an attack and were not ready to fight back, the scouts held their positions until our company approached.

One day, just before dawn, a platoon under the command of junior political instructor N. Klimov, on its own initiative, broke into the German defense. Having killed part of the garrison of the company strong point, the platoon captured an artillery piece and, turning it towards the enemy, opened fire on the fleeing fascists. Thus, combat activity in rifle units increased day by day. What the battalions could not do, rifle platoons and squads did.