In September of this year, Oryol school No. 7 was named after Nikolai Sirotinin. For a long time, his feat, the history of which is well known in the Mogilev region of Belarus, was not immortalized in his native land - few people knew about it at all. And he never became a Hero - officially: he was not given the title due to the fact that not a single photograph of the soldier had survived.
This simple Oryol guy in July 1941, near the Belarusian city of Krichev, single-handedly destroyed 11 enemy tanks, 7 armored vehicles and 57 enemy soldiers and officers. During the battle, the Germans were never able to figure out where the Russian battery was dug in. And when we reached Kolya’s position, he only had three shells left. They offered to surrender, but he answered them with fire from a carbine.
“AiF-Chernozemye” tells the story of Nikolai Sirotinin and provides evidence from eyewitnesses and historians.
Nikolay Sirotinin Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Hard to believe
For the first time, the public learned about this rare case in the history of the Great Patriotic War only in 1957 - from Mikhail Fedorovich Melnikov, a local historian from the Belarusian city of Krichev, who began collecting details of Nikolai Sirotinin’s feat. Not everyone believed that a man could single-handedly stop a column of tanks, but the more information was obtained, the more authentic the evidence of the guy’s feat became.
Today we can say with confidence that the 19-year-old boy Kolya Sirotinin really alone covered the retreat of the Soviet troops, not letting the enemy down for a second.
From book Gennady Mayorov"Artillery Square":
“On July 10, 1941, our artillery battery arrived in the village of Sokolnichi, which was located three kilometers from the city of Krichev. One of the guns was commanded by the young artilleryman Nikolai. He chose a firing position on the outskirts of the village. In one evening, the entire crew dug an artillery trench, and then two more spare ones, niches for shells and shelters for people. The battery commander and artilleryman Nikolai settled in the Grabskys’ house.”
“At that time I was working at the Krichev main post office,” she recalled Maria Grabskaya.-After finishing my shift, I came to my home, we had guests, including Nikolai Sirotinin, whom I met. Kolya told me that he was from the Oryol region and that his father was a railway worker. He and his comrades dug a trench, and when it was ready, everyone dispersed. Nikolai said that he was on duty and you could sleep peacefully: “If anything happens, I’ll knock for you.” Suddenly, early in the morning, he knocked so hard that the entire window was blown through. We caught up and hid in the trench. This is where the battle began. Next to our hut there was a collective farm where a cannon was installed. Nikolai did not leave his post until his last breath. German cars, armored personnel carriers, tanks were driving along the highway, which was 200-250 meters from the gun. He let them get very close, hiding behind a gun shield. And when the gun fell silent, we thought he had run away. And a little later, the Germans gathered all of us, the villagers, and asked: “Matka, whose son was killed?” They buried Nicholas themselves, wrapping him in a tent.”
On July 17, 1941, a German tank column was moving along the Moscow-Warsaw highway. Our units have already left Krichev and retreated across the Sozh River. The 409th Regiment of the 137th Infantry Division took up defensive positions near the highway with the task of covering the retreating troops. When the tanks approached the village of Sokolnichi, to the bridge over the swampy Dobrost River, a camouflaged artillery gun suddenly came to life near the bridge. The first shots set fire to the lead tank and the trailing armored vehicle. The column stopped. One tank tried to break through and crush the gun, but was shot at point-blank range. Cars could not turn off the highway because there was a swamp all around. Without stopping for a minute, the cannon fired accurately and frequently. A long line of tanks and armored personnel carriers burst into flames. Through the black smoke that enveloped the column, the vehicles fired at the Soviet gun at random. Taking the enemies by surprise, Nikolai could leave the position, since his main mission was completed and time was won. But he continued to stand until the last, until he was killed.”
An example to follow
Near the bridge, tanks and armored personnel carriers were burning out, and corpses were lying. The wounded were loaded into ambulances. In a nearby birch forest, the Germans dug 57 graves for those killed in this duel with the Russian artilleryman. It seemed as if a squadron of Soviet attack aircraft was flying over the tank column. The Germans crowded around the broken cannon, everyone wanted to look into the face of this extraordinary soldier. The Nazis were just starting the war with Russia and did not yet know what a Soviet fighter was. In the presence of specially rounded up villagers, the occupiers buried the artilleryman with honors.
From the diary German Lieutenant Friedrich Henfeld:
“July 17, 1941. Sokolnichi near Krichev. In the evening, a Russian unknown soldier was buried. He alone, standing at the gun, shot at a column of tanks and infantry for a long time, and died. Everyone was amazed at his courage. It is not clear why he resisted so much; he was still doomed to death. The colonel in front of the grave said that if the Fuhrer’s soldiers were like that, they would have conquered the whole world. They fired three times in volleys from rifles. Still, he is Russian, is such admiration necessary?
A few months later, Friedrich Henfeld was killed near Tula. His diary ended up in the hands of military journalist Fyodor Selivanov. Having rewritten part of it, Selivanov handed over the diary to army headquarters and kept the extract.
Resident of the village of Sokolnichi, Krichevsky district, Mogilev region, Olga Borisovna Verzhbitskaya she recalled that after the funeral the German chief told her (the woman knew German): “Take this document and write to your relatives. Let the mother know what a hero her son was and how he died.” But a young German officer standing at Sirotinin’s grave approached and snatched the piece of paper and medallion from her, saying something rude. The Germans fired a volley of rifles in honor of our soldier and put a cross on the grave, on which they hung his helmet, pierced by a bullet.
Today in the village of Sokolnichi there is no grave in which the Germans buried Nikolai. Three years after the war, Kolya’s remains were transferred to a mass grave, the field was plowed and sown, and the cannon was scrapped.
Didn't get a Hero
Mass grave in Krichev on Sirotinina Street. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
In 1960, Nikolai Sirotinin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, which is kept in the Minsk Museum. He was also nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but never received it - the only photograph in which Kolya was captured was lost during the war. Without her, the title of hero was not given.
This is what I remembered about this Nikolai Sirotinin’s sister Taisiya Shestakova:“We had his only passport card. But during the evacuation in Mordovia, my mother gave it to me to enlarge it. And the master lost her! He brought completed orders to all our neighbors, but not to us. We were very sad. We learned about our brother’s feat in 1961, when Krichev local historians found Kolya’s grave. We went to Belarus with the whole family. The Krichevites worked hard to nominate Kolya for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But in vain, since to complete the documents, a photograph of him, at least some kind, was definitely needed. But we don’t have it!”
Everyone who has heard about this story is very surprised by one important fact. In the Republic of Belarus everyone knows about the feat of the Oryol soldier. A monument was erected to him there, a street in the city of Krichev and a kindergarten school in Sokolnichi were named after him. In Orel, until recently, few people knew about the feat of their fellow countryman. The memory of him was preserved only by a small exhibition in the museum of school No. 17, where Kolya once studied, and a memorial plaque on the house where he lived and where he left for the army. At the initiative of representatives of the Oryol Union of Journalists, it was proposed to perpetuate the forgotten or almost unknown exploits of artillery heroes on one of the city streets. They also proposed a project for a memorial plaque on which the legendary story of Nikolai Sirotinin would be told, and in the future the square was to be replenished with new plaques with photographs and names of the heroes and a brief summary of their exploits. But the city authorities decided to change the idea and instead of the original project they installed a cannon in Artillery Square, assuring that after the opening a competition would be announced among designers for the second stage to organize the adjacent space and create new information elements. A year has passed since that moment, but only a cannon remains standing alone on the site of the Artillery Square.
Who among us in Soviet times did not know about the legendary 28 Panfilov and Young Guards, Alexander Matrosov and Nikolai Gastello, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and General Karbyshev, Alexei Maresyev and Musa Jalil.
But few of us have heard about the desperate battle near the Belarusian Krichev in the summer of 41, when a 20-year-old guy - Nikolai Sirotinin - single-handedly stopped a German column, knocking out 11 tanks and 7 armored vehicles. And thus he was able to challenge the saying “Alone in the field is not a warrior.”
It is about this hero and his feat that I would like to talk.
Kolya was born on March 7, 1921 in the city of Orel.
Father - Vladimir Kuzmich Sirotinin (1888-1961), steam locomotive driver.
Mother - Elena Korneevna (1898-1963), housewife.
There are 5 children in the family, Kolya is the 2nd oldest.
Mom noted his hard work, affectionate disposition and help in raising younger children.
After graduating from school, Nikolai went to work at the Tokmash plant as a turner.
On October 5, 1940, Nikolai was drafted into the army.
He was assigned to the 55th Infantry Regiment in the city of Polotsk, Belarusian SSR.
Of the documents about Nikolai, only the conscript’s medical card has been preserved.
According to his medical records, he is not a hero at all. Sirotinin was of small build - 164 centimeters and weighed only 53 kilograms.
By June 1941, the smart, hardworking, lucky, intelligent and skillful gunner boy was already a senior sergeant, a gun commander.
By the beginning of the war, his 17th Infantry Division was redeployed to the line of the Ditva River.
On June 22, 1941, Nikolai was wounded during an air raid.
The wound was slight, and two days later he went to fight at the front.
It so happened that he got separated from his division.
This is what the commander of the 55th regiment, Major Skripka, later wrote, explaining what happened and how then:
“On the evening of June 24, an order was received from the division commander to withdraw to the eastern bank of the Ditva River. Leaving a rifle company at the height as a rear marching outpost, the regiment retreated to a new line at night. The outpost was supposed to join the regiment in the morning. However, at dawn, the roar of a strong battle began to be heard from the heights. In addition, the regiment was ordered to withdraw to Lida without stopping at the Ditva line. As a result, the outpost did not return to the regiment. Her fate is unknown."
Nicholas was part of this outpost, which was surrounded and defeated at dawn on June 25.
But he managed to survive and escape the encirclement with weapons. And he went to his people.
He walked 500 kilometers to the east until he reached the front line, in the Sokolnichi region (July 9-10). His 55th Infantry Regiment retreated in an organized manner in the other direction to the southeast - to Kalinkovichi.
In fact, Sirotinin was under check, almost considered a “penalty.”
Therefore, he was assigned to the combined battalion, which was tasked with holding the defense of Krichev from the west (there are two roads there - Varshavka and the old road, just north of it).
Nikolai was placed at the disposal of Captain Kim.
He was sent to an artillery battery, where a young artilleryman commanded one of the battery's guns.
The battery commander (his last name could not be established) and artilleryman Nikolai settled in the house of Anastasia Evmenovna Grabskaya.
Nikolai Sirotinin was remembered by the village residents as a quiet, polite boy.
Grabskaya’s daughter Maria Ivanovna recalled:
“I remember the events of July 1941 well. About a week before the Germans arrived, Soviet artillerymen settled in our village. The headquarters of their battery was in our house, the battery commander was a senior lieutenant named Nikolai, his assistant was a lieutenant named Fedya, and of the soldiers I remember most of all the Red Army soldier Nikolai Sirotinin. The fact is that the senior lieutenant very often called this soldier and entrusted him, as the most intelligent and experienced, with this and that task.
He was slightly above average height, dark brown hair, a simple face, cheerful, polite, calm, and his eyes were mischievous, with gold in them.” When Sirotinin and senior lieutenant Nikolai decided to dig a dugout for the local residents, I saw how he deftly threw the earth, I noticed that he was apparently not from the boss’s family. Nikolai answered jokingly:
“I am a worker from Orel, and I am no stranger to physical labor. We Orlovites know how to work.”
Village resident Olga Borisovna Verzhbitskaya recalled:
“We knew Nikolai Sirotinin and his sister before the day of the fight. He was with a friend of mine, buying milk.
He was very polite, always helping elderly women get water from the well and do other hard work.
I remember well the evening before the fight. On a log at the gate of the Grabskikh house I saw Nikolai Sirotinin. He sat and thought about something. I was very surprised that everyone was leaving, but he was sitting.”
It must be said that at the beginning of July 1941, the tanks of the 2nd Panzer Group of Heinz Guderian - one of the most talented German generals - broke through the weak, thin and sparse line of defense of our troops near Bykhov and began crossing the Dnieper.
Crushing and knocking down our weak barriers, they rushed east along the Sozh River, to Slavgorod, and further through Cherikov to the city of Krichev, in order to then encircle our troops defending Smolensk with a blow from the south.
On the morning of the 15th, faint sounds of gunfire were heard from Mogilev.
Every hour they became louder, and the previously deserted Warsaw Highway was filled with a stream of refugees and retreating units.
Under the pressure of the 4th Panzer Division, commanded by von Langerman, units of the 13th Army of the Red Army fought back in the face of superior enemy forces.
And they took up defense behind the Sozh, on its low south-eastern bank, in beautiful forests.
The western bank of the Sozh River is very steep and high, in many places cut by deep ravines with very steep slopes and almost treeless. On the road from the city of Cherikov to Krichev there were several such ravines.
It should be noted that by July 16, the encirclement ring north of Krichev was closed, where units of the 16th and 20th armies were surrounded near Smolensk. Therefore, the capture of Krichev, as the last frontier on the right bank of the Sozh River, was given special importance.
Early in the morning of July 17, 1941, in one of the ravines, a group of our soldiers, apparently going on reconnaissance, ambushed a column of units of the 4th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. They threw grenades at the head patrol of a huge column, fired at it and left the battle along the ravines. The soldiers managed to cross the Sozh and informed the command about a German tank division approaching Krichev.
In Krichev at that time there were units of the 6th Infantry Division, battered in battles, having lost most of their artillery and other equipment.
After news of the tanks, they received orders to cross the Sozh.
But parts of the division could not do this quickly - there were not enough transportation means.
And therefore it was necessary to delay the Germans for several hours to give everyone the opportunity to cross.
The artillery battery commander made a decision: to leave one gun at the bridge over the Dobrost River at the 476th kilometer of the Moscow-Warsaw highway with a crew of 2 people to cover the retreat with the task of delaying the tank column.
“Two people with a cannon will remain here,” said the battery commander.
Nikolai Sirotinin volunteered.
The commander himself remained second.
The order was brief: to delay the German tank column on the bridge over the Dobrost River as long as possible.
And then, if possible, catch up with your own...
Many years later, reporters found Nikolai’s sister, 80-year-old Taisiya Shestakova, in the city of Orel.
When they asked why Kolya volunteered to cover the retreat of our army, Taisiya Vladimirovna raised her eyebrows in surprise:
“My brother could not have done otherwise.”
It was the 25th day of the war...
Having volunteered to cover the retreat of his unit, Nikolai took up an advantageous firing position. He installed a 45-millimeter anti-tank gun on the outskirts of the village of Sokolnichi - on a low hillock, right on a collective farm rye field near the Dobrost River.
The low green shield of the cannon was almost completely hidden among the ears of corn.
The location was ideal for unnoticed shelling. The road leading to Krichev was about 200 meters away. From here there was an excellent view of the highway, a small river and a bridge across it, which opened the way to the east for the enemy. And near the road there was a wetland. Among the rare tufts of low sedge, water glistened in puddles and barrels - pits filled with water.
And this meant that the tanks would not be able to move either to the left or to the right if something happened.
Sirotinin was alone at the gun. He understood what he was getting into. There was only one task - to hold out as long as possible in order to gain time for the division...
At dawn, the roar of enemy engines came from the forest. The shelling of the village began. Then an enemy column - 59 tanks and armored vehicles with infantry - crawled onto the highway like a giant spotted boa constrictor.
The Nazis were approaching...
Well, the sergeant, who was an experienced artilleryman, chose the moment when to strike the enemy.
When the lead tank reached the bridge, the first – successful – shot rang out. The sergeant hit him.
With the second shell, Sirotinin set fire to an armored personnel carrier at the tail of the column. And thereby created a traffic jam.
The column stopped and panic began. The mousetrap slammed shut.
Thus, the combat mission was completed - the tank column was detained.
And the battery commander, who stood at the bridge and adjusted the fire, was wounded. And he was forced to retreat towards the Soviet positions.
However, Sirotinin refused to retreat.
Nikolai knew that he was needed here and now. He had 60 more shells. And ahead were enemy vehicles that he had to destroy.
The Germans attempted to clear the jam by dragging the damaged tank off the bridge with two other tanks.
The sergeant opened fire again.
And these tanks were hit.
An armored vehicle that tried to ford the Dobrost River got stuck in a swampy bank. There another shell found her.
Nikolai shot and shot, knocking out tank after tank...
German tanks ran into Kolya Sirotinin as if they were facing the Brest Fortress.
It was real hell.
The tanks caught fire one after another.
The infantry, hiding behind the armor, lay down.
The German commanders are at a loss. They cannot understand the source of the heavy fire. It seems like the whole battery is beating. Aimed fire. There are 59 tanks, dozens of machine gunners and motorcyclists in the German column. And all this power is powerless in the face of Russian fire. Where did this battery come from? After all, the day before, their reconnaissance was unable to detect Soviet artillery in the vicinity. And she reported that the way was open. Therefore, the division advanced without special precautions.
The Nazis did not yet know that there was only one soldier standing in their way, and that there was only one warrior in the field, if he was Russian.
Sirotinin fought alone, himself as a gunner, and as a loader.
German tanks tried to move off the road to attack the anti-tank gun, shoot at close range, crush under the tracks, but one after another they got stuck in the swampy area. One fell so deep with its front end into a hole of water that it stood up almost vertically, and Nikolai easily fell into the engine compartment. The tank immediately burst into flames.
The sergeant was already shooting at the seventh tank when the Germans finally pinpointed his firing position and opened heavy fire on the gun.
But due to the fact that she stood on the reverse slope of the peak, the shells either exploded on the slope of the hillock or flew overhead. The low sloping shield rang from bullet hits. One of the shells exploded at the very top of the hillock, about ten meters to the left of the gun. And small fragments touched the left side and arm of artilleryman Sirotinin. He quickly bandaged them and continued shooting, throwing spent cartridges from under his feet.
The road was covered in black smoke from burning equipment.
There were fewer shells. And Nikolai began to aim more carefully and shoot less often. There was no need to rush - the column was locked in front and behind by burning equipment, they had nowhere to move - there was a swamp all around.
He noticed how infantrymen were running across the meadow - trying to get around him.
The cannon began to fire frequently, firing fragmentation shells that exploded under the Germans’ feet. Soon the surviving infantry crawled back.
Soon the German infantry tried once again to bypass the cannon. But after three shots of buckshot, they lay down and began to crawl away.
At that moment, three explosions were heard in the column one after another - tank turrets flew into the sky.
A gust of wind blew the smoke to the side, and Sergeant Sirotinin saw a surviving armored personnel carrier in the column, with two more of the same nearby. He started shooting again. All three caught fire. The Germans, who were hiding behind them, ran to the rear of the column. Sirotinin fought them off with fragmentation shells.
Another gust of wind blew the smoke away, and he discovered another intact tank. The sergeant fired at it several times until it finally burst into flames.
Next he hit an armored car hung with gasoline cans. The column of flame rose ten meters and dispersed the smoke. Nikolai was able to see that a tank was hiding behind the damaged armored personnel carrier, which occasionally fired at it. The sergeant only saw part of the T 2 turret.
He entered into a duel with German tank crews and won it.
Nikolai then turned the barrel to the left and fired several fragmentation shells at the tail of the column.
One after another, he aimed at tanks and armored cars and hit. Everything exploded, flew, and there was black smoke in the air from the burning equipment.
The angry Germans opened mortar fire on Sirotinin.
Mines fell one after another around the gun. The fragments mowed down the rye and rang on the shield. One of them damaged the sight, the other tore the wheel. Two fragments also hit the artilleryman.
The mines howled again. A large fragment hit the frame, half breaking it. Then the cannon shook from the hits and explosions of small shells.
The gun was broken: the shield, wheels, sight and vertical aiming mechanism were damaged.
Nikolai could do nothing more - the cannon could only fire once. At this moment the mortar fire stopped.
He stood up to charge the forty-five for the last time.
At that moment machine guns hit from behind. And Nikolai fell, pierced by bullets, onto a broken gun.
German motorcyclists walked around him through the village, entered the firing position from the rear and hit him in the back with bursts of bursts.
This is how artillery sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin, a simple Russian guy who gave his life to protect his comrades, died.
Our 6th Rifle Division managed to cross the Sozh and take up a defense there, which it, along with other units of the 13th Army, held for almost another month, pinning down Nazi units. And only then, in mid-August, she broke out of the encirclement...
This unique battle lasted two and a half hours.
The Nazis were missing 11 tanks and 7 armored vehicles, 57 soldiers and officers after this battle on the banks of the Dobrost River, where the Russian soldier Nikolai Sirotinin stood as a barrier.
Now there is a monument in that place:
“Here, at dawn on July 17, 1941, senior artillery sergeant Nikolai Vladimirovich Sirotinin, who gave his life for the freedom and independence of our Motherland, entered into single combat with a column of fascist tanks and in a two-hour battle repelled all enemy attacks.”
At first, the Nazis did not believe that only one Soviet soldier was holding them back. They put several villagers against the wall, threatening that they would shoot them if they did not hand over the rest. But there was no one to extradite. They were confronted by one guy - short, frail.
Shocked by his courage and fearlessness, the Germans walked around the gun for a long time, counting empty charging boxes and looking at the highway littered with equipment and corpses.
The tenacity of the Soviet soldier earned the respect of the Nazis.
The commander of the tank battalion, Colonel Erich Schneider (who later became a lieutenant general), ordered the worthy enemy to be buried with military honors.
The Germans gathered the residents of the village of Sokolnichi and held a solemn military funeral for Sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin.
They buried him, walked past in formation and gave the fallen hero a military salute with three rifle salvos. German officers decided to use this feat to make their soldiers the same patriots of Germany as this Russian artilleryman.
Chief Lieutenant of the 4th Panzer Division Friedrich Hoenfeld (died near Tula in the summer of 1942) wrote in his diary:
“July 17, 1941. Sokolnichi, near Krichev. In the evening, an unknown Russian soldier was buried. He stood alone at the cannon, shot at a column of tanks and infantry for a long time, and died. Everyone was surprised at his courage... Oberst said before his grave that if all the Fuhrer’s soldiers fought like this Russian, they would conquer the whole world. They fired three times in volleys from rifles. After all, he is Russian, is such admiration necessary?
Olga Verzhbitskaya recalled:
“In the afternoon, the Germans gathered at the place where Sirotinin’s gun stood. They forced us, local residents, to come there too. As someone who knows German, the chief German, about fifty years old with decorations, tall, bald, and gray-haired, ordered me to translate his speech to the local people. He said that the Russian fought very well, that if the Germans had fought like that, they would have taken Moscow long ago, and that this is how a soldier should defend his homeland - the Fatherland. Then from the pocket of our dead soldier’s tunic they took out a medallion with a note about who and where. The main German told me: “Take it and write to your relatives. Let the mother know what a hero her son was and how he died.” I was afraid to do this... Then a young German officer, standing in the grave and covering Sirotinin’s body with a Soviet raincoat, snatched a piece of paper and a medallion from me and said something rudely. The Germans fired a volley of rifles in honor of our soldier and put a cross on the grave, hanging his helmet, pierced by a bullet. I myself clearly saw the body of Nikolai Sirotinin, even when he was lowered into the grave. His face was not covered in blood, but his tunic had a large bloody stain on the left side, his helmet was broken, and there were many shell casings lying around.
Since our house was located not far from the battle site, next to the road to Sokolnichi, the Germans stood near us. I myself heard how they talked for a long time and admiringly about the feat of the Russian soldier, counting shots and hits. Some of the Germans, even after the funeral, stood for a long time at the gun and the grave and talked quietly.”
Now there is no such grave in the village of Sokolnichi. Because three years after the war, the guy’s body was transferred to a mass grave in the city of Krichev, Mogilev region.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Sirotinin was never nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
And for his feat, only in 1960 he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously).
The hero's name, unfortunately, never became publicly known.
And this is probably one of the greatest injustices in the history of that time...
One poet (I don’t know his name) wrote a poem about this:
You are boiling with anger at the authorities:
- Why was the feat left forgotten?
- Sirotinin is a hero in people's memory
And why wasn’t he nominated for the Hero Star?
Nikolai in his young years
Voluntarily defended the banner of Freedom
Your Fatherland and its peoples,
When the enemy sowed misfortune to everyone.
The birds didn't sing to the sergeant that day.
They became quiet or flew away somewhere.
We sat waiting for terrible minutes
Alarm bells were ringing in my brain.
It covered the Moscow-Warsaw highway
Near the Dobrost River - near the village of Sokolnichi
In Belarus the battle was bloody,
Threw sword shells at enemy tanks.
Steel monsters sunbathed with a torch
And their towers, like rooks, instantly flew away,
They smoked the blue sky - they threw a stench,
Because they trampled someone else's land.
Column - of fifty-nine cars
And eleven of them tanks were knocked out,
And six armored vehicles went to another world
Dozens of enemies fell from orbit.
Nikolai Sirotinin is the only warrior in the field,
Who had both willpower and fortitude -
He really deserves the title of Hero of the Motherland,
His feat to us, to his grandchildren, is science...
The remains of a Red Army hero were found in the Mozdok region of North Ossetia. The place where the burial was discovered was the point of fierce fighting during the Great Patriotic War.
Enemy recognition
German search engines arrived in the village of Pavlodolskaya in North Ossetia to look for their fallen soldiers. The foreigners were guided by maps of the Wehrmacht, where 160 graves of Germans were marked. Near one of them, search engines found the remains of a Soviet captain. As historians note, it is nonsense when the enemy is buried along with the dead of their troops.
Almost immediately, as soon as the grave of the Russian soldier was discovered, specialists from the reburial service drew conclusions: the Red Army soldier was buried with military honors, formation and a guard of honor. The feat of the Russian soldier delighted and amazed the Germans: the Red Army soldier was held up as an example to German officers.
Captain's feat
Reburial specialists have already established the identity of the hero. This is captain Dmitry Shevchenko, who was previously listed as missing. The commander fought as part of the first battalion of the ninth brigade. When everyone left beyond the Terek, to the place of the company’s new deployment, Dmitry Shevchenko, along with the soldiers and scouts, remained in the village of Pavlodolskaya. It was at that moment that the settlement was suddenly attacked by the invaders. Almost immediately, Shevchenko lost his comrades and was left to hold the defense alone.
As local residents told 1tv.ru journalists, the captain’s feat is still remembered in the village. And how can you not remember if traces of shells are still visible on the bell tower of the local church - it was from there that Dmitry Shevchenko fired back to the last.
Polina Polyanskaya, who experienced the terrible years as an 11-year-old girl, recalls: “We spent the night in church throughout the war. The bombing was like this - they bomb, they bomb, bombs explode all around. I saw it on the ceiling of the murdered man. Bricks, laid pipes, so twisted, and he lay like that.”
Priceless details
Shevchenko's feat helped the village of Pavlodolskaya to survive. In the battle, which the captain fought alone, 250 German soldiers were killed. Now specialists from Germany are searching for their graves. The Russians also joined in the reconnaissance of war graves. And we are talking not only about searching for the locations of the graves themselves, but also about obtaining any information about the fighters and their fates. This data is sometimes extremely difficult to restore: name tags or capsules with data are very rarely found during excavations. Therefore, any objects that can be found in a military grave are of enormous importance.
All finds are carefully examined and maximum information is extracted from them - erased inscriptions on pots and spoons are restored, they try to “read” information about the deceased even from buttons or cartridges. Just two buttons, a cartridge, a star and a rod for cleaning weapons were found along with the remains of the hero Shevchenko. But even such a set would not help establish the identity of what was found - local residents who knew their hero and the date of the battle in which he fell had already helped.
Sergeant Sirotinin completed his main task: the tank column was delayed, and the 6th Rifle Division was able to cross the Sozh River without losses.
The diary entries of Oberleutnant Friedrich Hoenfeld have been preserved:
“He stood alone at the gun, shot at a column of tanks and infantry for a long time, and died. Everyone was surprised at his courage... Oberst (Colonel) said before the grave that if all the Fuhrer’s soldiers fought like this Russian, they would conquer the whole world. They fired three times in volleys from rifles. After all, he is Russian, is such admiration necessary?
Olga Verzhbitskaya, a resident of the village of Sokolnichi, recalls: “In the afternoon, the Germans gathered at the place where Sirotinin’s cannon stood. They forced us, local residents, to come there too. As someone who knows German, the chief German, about fifty years old with decorations, tall, bald, and gray-haired, ordered me to translate his speech to the local people. He said that the Russian fought very well, that if the Germans had fought like that, they would have taken Moscow long ago, that this is how a soldier should defend his homeland - the Fatherland...”
Residents of the village of Sokolniki and the Germans held a solemn funeral for Nikolai Sirotinin. The German soldiers gave the fallen sergeant a military salute with three shots.
Memory of Nikolai Sirotinin
First, Sergeant Sirotinin was buried at the battle site. Later he was reburied in a mass grave in the city of Krichev.
In Belarus they remember the feat of the Oryol artilleryman. In Krichev they named a street in his honor and erected a monument. After the war, the workers of the Soviet Army Archive did a great job to restore the chronicle of events. Sirotinin’s feat was recognized in 1960, but the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was not awarded due to a bureaucratic inconsistency - Sirotinin’s family did not have photographs of their son. In 1961, an obelisk with the name of Sirotinin was erected at the site of the feat, and real weapons were installed. On the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Sergeant Sirotinin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
In his hometown of Orel, they also did not forget about Sirotinin’s feat. A memorial plaque dedicated to Nikolai Sirotinin was installed at the Tekmash plant. In 2015, school No. 7 in the city of Orel was named after Sergeant Sirotinin.
It was real hell. The tanks caught fire one after another. The infantry hiding behind the armor lay down. The commanders are at a loss and cannot understand the source of the heavy fire. It seems like the whole battery is beating. Aimed fire. There are 59 tanks, dozens of machine gunners and motorcyclists in the German column. And all this power is powerless in the face of Russian fire. Where did this battery come from? Intelligence reported that the way was open. The Nazis did not yet know that there was only one soldier standing in their way, and that there was only one warrior in the field, if he was Russian.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Sirotinin was born in 1921 in the city of Orel. Before the war he worked at the Tekmash plant in Orel. On June 22, 1941, he was wounded during an air raid. The wound was slight, and a few days later he was sent to the front - to the Krichev area, to the 55th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division as a gunner.
On the bank of the Dobrost River, which flows near the village of Sokolnichi, the battery where Nikolai Sirotinin served stood for about two weeks. During this time, the fighters managed to get to know the village residents, and Nikolai Sirotinin was remembered by them as a quiet, polite guy. “Nikolai was very polite, he always helped elderly women get water from wells and do other hard work,” recalled village resident Olga Verzhbitskaya.
On July 17, 1941, his rifle regiment was retreating. Senior Sergeant Sirotinin volunteered to cover the retreat.
Sirotinin settled down on a hill in the thick rye near the collective farm stable that stood next to Anna Poklad’s house. From this position the highway, river, and bridge were clearly visible. When German tanks appeared at dawn, Nikolai blew up the lead vehicle and the one that trailed the column, creating a traffic jam. Thus, the task was completed, the tank column was delayed. Sirotinin could have gone to his own people, but he stayed - after all, he still had about 60 shells. According to one version, initially two people remained to cover the division's retreat - Sirotinin and the commander of his battery, who stood at the bridge and adjusted the fire. However, then he was wounded, and he went to his own, and Sirotinin was left to fight alone.
Two tanks tried to pull the lead tank off the bridge, but were also hit. The armored vehicle tried to cross the Dobrost River without using a bridge. But she got stuck in the swampy bank, where another shell found her. Nikolai shot and shot, knocking out tank after tank. The Germans had to shoot at random, since they could not determine his location. In 2.5 hours of battle, Nikolai Sirotinin repulsed all enemy attacks, destroying 11 tanks, 7 armored vehicles, 57 soldiers and officers.
When the Nazis finally reached Nikolai Sirotinin’s position, he only had three shells left. They offered to surrender. Nikolai responded by firing at them from a carbine.
Chief Lieutenant of the 4th Panzer Division Henfeld wrote in his diary: “July 17, 1941. Sokolnichi, near Krichev. In the evening, an unknown Russian soldier was buried. He stood alone at the cannon, shot at a column of tanks and infantry for a long time, and died. Everyone was surprised at his courage... Oberst (Colonel) said before the grave that if all the Fuhrer's soldiers fought like this Russian, they would conquer the whole world. They fired three times in volleys from rifles. After all, he is Russian, is such admiration necessary?
Olga Verzhbitskaya recalled:
“In the afternoon, the Germans gathered at the place where the cannon stood. They also forced us, the local residents, to come there. As someone who knows German, the chief German with orders ordered me to translate. He said that this is how a soldier should defend his homeland - the Vaterland ". Then from the pocket of our dead soldier's tunic they took out a medallion with a note about who and where. The main German told me: “Take it and write to your relatives. Let the mother know what a hero her son was and how he died." I was afraid to do it... Then a young German officer, standing in the grave and covering Sirotinin’s body with a Soviet raincoat, snatched a piece of paper and a medallion from me and said something rudely.”
For a long time after the funeral, the Nazis stood at the cannon and the grave in the middle of the collective farm field, not without admiration, counting the shots and hits.
This pencil portrait was made from memory only in the 1990s by one of Nikolai Sirotinin’s colleagues.
Sirotinin's family learned about his feat only in 1958 from a publication in Ogonyok.
In 1961, a monument was erected near the highway near the village: “Here at dawn on July 17, 1941, senior sergeant-artilleryman Nikolai Vladimirovich Sirotinin, who gave his life for the freedom and independence of our Motherland."
Monument at the mass grave where Nikolai Sirotinin is buried
After the war, Sirotinin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. But they were never nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. To complete the paperwork, we needed a photo of Kolya. She wasn't there. Here is what Nikolai Sirotinin’s sister Taisiya Shestakova recalls about this:
- We had his only passport card. But during the evacuation in Mordovia, my mother gave it to me to enlarge it. And the master lost her! He brought completed orders to all our neighbors, but not to us. We were very sad.Did you know that Kolya alone stopped a tank division? And why didn't he get a Hero?
We found out in 1961, when Krichev local historians found Kolya’s grave. We went to Belarus with the whole family. The Krichevites worked hard to nominate Kolya for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But in vain: to complete the paperwork, you definitely needed a photograph of him, at least some kind. But we don’t have it! They never gave Kolya the Hero. In Belarus his feat is known. And it’s a shame that few people know about him in his native Orel. They didn’t even name a small alley after him.
However, there was a more compelling reason for the refusal - the immediate command must apply for the title of hero, which was not done.
A street in Krichev, a school-kindergarten and a pioneer detachment in Sokolnichi are named after Nikolai Sirotinin.
