All fortified areas and defensive lines of the Second World War. The truth about small garrisons Fortified areas on the western border of the USSR 1941

Pillbox Kamenetz-Podolsky UR in the town of Zhvanets. August 1941.

Kamenetz-Podolsky 10th fortified area (KPUR) was built in 1938-40, during the construction of a line of border fortified areas.
It was one of the fortified areas of the "program of 1938", the second generation of Soviet URs. The fortified areas of this program were to significantly strengthen the line of fortifications built in 1928-34. The fortifications in the new URs differed significantly from those previously built - they became larger, more powerful, and more armed.
The northern front of the KPUR ran along the Zbruch River (Polish border), the southern front - along the Dniester River (Romanian border).

In September 1939, the western border of the USSR was moved and the unfinished fortified areas of the "program of 38" were mothballed in the form in which work was stopped in the fall of 1939.
In the winter of 1939-1940, there was an intensive transfer of personnel, mechanisms and materials for the construction of a new frontier of the SD along the Lyuboml - Vladimir-Volynsky - Rava-Russkaya - Przemysl line.

The KPUR continued to finish building and arming, since the border with Romania still remained along the Dniester (until the summer of 1940). However, all the same, the KPUR was only half built, since about 300 fortifications were to be erected according to the project.
And of the 158 built, not all were armed and equipped.

After the beginning of the Great Patriotic War On July 5, 1941, the enemy occupied Shepetovka, and on July 7, Berdichev, thus threatening the rear of the Southern Front (SF), the Headquarters of the High Command, by directive No. 00226, ordered the commander of the SF:
“Remove weapons and equipment from the Kamenetz-Podolsk UR and bring the garrisons to reinforce the defense of the corridor between Letichevsky and Mogilev-Yampolsky URs in the Kopay-Gorod, Olkhovets section.”

The result of this was the directive of the headquarters of the Southern Front and an addition to it, according to which the KPUR garrison, together with the 189th rifle division were supposed to cover the withdrawal of the main forces of the 18th Army and be withdrawn last. Before leaving the fortified area, the garrison was ordered to destroy everything that could not be taken away.

The cited documents set out the consequences of leaving the Kamenetz-Podolsk fortified region (a list and the amount of property removed and destroyed) and value judgments about the reasons for leaving the fortified region.

Memorandum addressed to the head of the General Staff Zhukov (dated 23.07.41)
The document was signed by the chief of staff of the Southern Front Romanov and the military commissar of the headquarters of the Southern Front Maslov

"Chief of the General Staff Zhukov
On No. 0039 I report:
FIRST - [in] Operational report of the front headquarters No. 037 / OP and rear report No. 013 indicate the same numbers of ammunition removed and destroyed when leaving Kamyanets-Podilsky UR, namely:
exported:
Machine guns - 200 pcs.
Light machine guns - 180
DS machine guns [Degtyarev easel machine gun] - 70
Rifle cartridge - 1500 tons.

destroyed:
guns 76 mm - 21
guns 45 mm - 59

According to the report of the operational department No. 037 / OP, there are about one million shells and a rifle cartridge of eleven million
[in] Rear Report No. 015 states that the data on the number of shells destroyed and the cartridge are questionable and are being clarified. The indicated data are based on a special report by Colonel Kharchevik, a representative of the Engineering Directorate of the Front, who was at the moment of the destruction of ammunition, weapons and firing points [in] the location of the KAMENETS-PODOLSK UR.

SECOND - Considering the destruction of military equipment a crime, when the SD was left without any influence of the enemy, the Military Council conducts a thorough investigation to bring the perpetrators [to] responsibility /
The results of the investigation will be reported to you additionally.

Chief of Staff of the Southern Front Major General Romanov
Military Commissar of Staff Brigadier Commissar Maslov
That's right: Major Zyabkin, head of the body department
23. 07.41. № 38053"

Memorandum of the representative of the Engineering Directorate of the Front, Colonel Kharchevik

Secret. Ex. No. 2
Head of the 1st department of the headquarters of the Southern Front
With an order ... from the front and an order ... No. 13 arrived at the Kamenetz-Podolsky UR at 9:30 am on 8.7. [July 8] The commandant of the UR, Colonel Safronov, already ... about the disarmament of the UR and they were given appropriate instructions to the commanders of machine-gun battalions on 7-7.
The commandant of the UR, Colonel Safronov, gave a written order and sent the middle commanders through special messengers at 11-30 ... to the battalions.

The order of the UR provided for the removal of all weapons from the bunker (mounted and light machine guns and DS machine guns, take 3000 rounds for each machine gun and 2000 rounds for a light machine gun, 100 rounds for each gun. Each UR fighter must take 200 rounds. Everything that was impossible take away, to be destroyed.

Before my arrival, representatives of the Artillery and Engineering departments of the Army came from Shtarm 18 [from the headquarters of the 18th Army], who established that it would take an experienced brigade at least 8 hours to shoot artillery pieces with a ball mount.
I found out from the commandant of the UR that the UR did not have the necessary transport in order to pick up all the ammunition.
The chief of staff of the 18th army refused to transport, because. the army had no free transport.
There was no transport at 17 sk.

UR had 12 vehicles and carts. In addition, all the wagons available in the regions were mobilized, but they were not enough.
I instructed the inspector comrade Shelepin to check all the cars moving along the highway, to detain and direct ... ... to detain only one car.

In total, it was taken out of the UR:
easel machine guns - 200
light machine guns - 180
machine guns DS - 70
screw chuck. 7.6 m / m - about 1500 thousand pieces
guns 76 m / m on wheels - 22 pieces, of which 16 were taken earlier to the places. Dunaevtsy.

More detailed information will be provided by the UR, because. for example, the commander of the 2nd company of the 149th battalion, instead of the 80 thousand put to him, took out 140 thousand cartridges.

Left: 76 m / m guns - 21
45 m / m guns - 59
Shells - about 1,000,000 pieces
Screw cartridges - about 11.000.000 pieces
Aiming and observation devices, according to the number of weapons left.

Everything left behind is destroyed by detonating explosives [explosives]. I did not find anything in the OT [firing points] examined by me after the explosion. By the force of the explosion, the wall in the firing sector of the point was pulled out at a height from the embrasure to the cover. The ceiling of the 1st floor collapsed at the place where the charge was concentrated.
Dot can be restored.

The withdrawal of the UR troops took place outside the enemy's action. Only in the southern sector did the enemy make a short chimney. The smoke acted on the eyes and led a rare artillery fire. The enemy did not carry out active operations at the CP UR at all.

Published on the VPK website, the question of how unsuccessful were the attempts of the Finns in 1941 to storm the Karelian fortified area (KAUR) was considered. But in 1941, the Finns had to comprehend the difference between the defense and the storming of the fortified area not only on the Karelian Isthmus, but also on the Hanko Peninsula.

This is how the unsuccessful attempts of the Finns to attack the Soviet fortifications on Hanko looked through the eyes of one of those who repelled the Finnish attacks.

The Finns went on the attack in solid chains

In the summer of 1941, Nikolai Shishkin was the commander of a 76 mm gun. For him, the war began like this:

“On June 22, we heard on the radio that the war had begun. On the same day, two of our fighters shot down a German Yu-88 reconnaissance aircraft, and silence on the ground. We don't know the situation. We were told: “If it starts, shoot, fight back.” On June 25, the Finns opened artillery fire on us for the first time, but did not go on the attack. And at three in the morning (what kind of night is there? As bright as day!) On July 1, artillery preparation began, which lasted for two hours. The whole forest was on fire! They also thrashed at our point. The noise was terrible! Stones cracked, scattering to the sides. We were sitting in a dugout for calculation, and the gun was standing on the platform, covered with a concrete parapet. Ours shoot back. After the artillery preparation, the Finns went on the attack in continuous chains. In front of my gun, a little to the left and to the right, there were two machine-gun bunkers that could conduct flanking fire, and our gun, as it were, covered them, being at some distance, at the top of a conditional triangle. I must say that in front of the machine-gun bunkers, to the border, a secret was put forward. On that day, Sergeant Sokur and soldier Andrienko were on duty in it. Everyone thought they were dead - both their own and foreign artillery hit them, and besides, the chains of the attackers went through them. But after the battle, they returned, and even brought a few prisoners. For this battle, Sergeant Petya Sokur received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the soldier was awarded the order Lenin.

As soon as the Finns went, we started shooting. They worked on their knees so as not to protrude above the gun shield. The Finns began to climb on the bunkers. We shoot point-blank at buckshot, or rather, than we have to, since there is no time to choose a projectile. The correct Sasha Klevtsov, a healthy Vyatka loader, threw a cannon right and left, and more than once it happened that a shot occurred when he was holding it on weight! We were already shooting without aiming, only for the shell to explode in front of us. The gun was loaded. Shot! And there is no shot! We open the lock, the sleeve pops out, and the projectile remains in the bore. And then the attack is coming, machine-gun bursts. And then Sasha Klevtsov decided on a feat. He shouted, not me, but he shouted: “Lie down!” Of course we went to bed. He grabbed a bannik, and after all, according to the charter, if the shot did not happen, the projectile should be carefully knocked out with a half-banner, which pushes the projectile into the shoulders without touching the fuse. Bannik is flat and will hit directly on the fuse. And where to find this half-banner? Sasha jumped out under the bullets and, with a blow from the bannik, pushed out the shell, which, thank God, did not explode. Sasha survived ... So, the battle went on for two hours, the Finns repeated the attack twice. They even managed to get closer to my gun by 20 meters, but we survived, laying down about two hundred soldiers and officers. By the end of the fight, I only had six rounds left; Ozerov's carrier was wounded, the paint peeled off the gun, and we were bleeding from our ears and nose. These channels, with which our bunker was blocked, hummed so that we were completely deaf. Later it turned out that we had taken the brunt of the blow. After this fight, the entire crew was replaced, and we were sent to the hospital, where we came to our senses for about a week. Our eardrums burst, we say something, but we do not hear each other. We rested in the hospital for a week and returned to the front line. The firing point was broken, all the disguise fell off, the stones cracked and crumbled. We changed the location of the gun, making the bunker a little to the side near the village, disguising it as a barn. In general, positions had to be changed frequently, almost after each battle.

It should be noted that the participants in the defense of Hanko were quite deservedly awarded orders and medals from the very beginning of the defense. For the 41st year, this was very uncharacteristic. Apparently because our troops did not retreat on Hanko.

For the first battle, in addition to the Golden Star of Sergeant Sokur and the Order of Lenin, Private Andrienko, Klevtsov received the Order of the Red Star. But Shishkin, presented to the Order of the Red Banner of War, did not receive the award. He explained it this way: “After all, only the commander of the army could sign the submission to the order, and the guys who were introduced to the Order of the Red Star and the medals “For Courage” received them, since the commander of the regiment and division could sign the award lists. Only later, for these battles, the author of the memoirs was awarded the medal "For Courage".

Lieutenant Repnya and his stone throwers

The success of the Red Army in this and in all subsequent battles was not an accident. The Soviet troops prepared the line of defense well:

“The regiment took up defense on the Petrovsky clearing, through which, according to legend, during the war with the Swedes, Peter dragged ships from one part of the bay to another. By June 1941, we dug into the ground thoroughly. Until June 17, there were only six wooden shells on the gun, with which we trained in loading, and on that day an order was received to take up defense and instead of imitation shells, we were given 200 live shells. The bunker for our gun was not yet finished: two side walls were filled in and a rampart was poured in, covering the gun from the front, so that only the barrel stuck out over it. We blocked it with channels, dragged logs and stones, and then covered the whole structure with earth. It turned out a big hill, although we disguised it, but it stood out distinctly against the background of the terrain. A ditch was dug ahead of us, along the bottom of which three rows of live barbed wire were laid. Two machine-gun pillboxes with flanking sectors of fire were lined up in front of the moat. Everything was mined. Our regimental engineer was Lieutenant Repnya - a master of his craft and a great inventor. He installed not only mines, but also guided land mines and stone throwers (a cone-shaped pit was dug in the ground, into which a powder charge was installed, and a bag of stones was placed on top). We were told that something would happen, and they gave us the task of not letting the enemy through.”

The task was completed: “That's how they kept 164 days. We were bombarded with leaflets that said: "You are heroes, but your situation is hopeless, give up." White-white was from them. But we also overwhelmed them. I remember one of the flyers showed Mannerheim licking Hitler's bristly ass. The laughter was wild! Music was put on for us: "Stenka Razin", "Katyusha" and others, but they did not forget to fight either. The shelling was continuous, and every two or three weeks they repeated attempts to break through, but such was the defense and such people held it that they did not allow them to advance a single step. Already at the end of the defense of Hanko, the command was often given: "Shut up." We do not shoot all day, no one walks, we create the appearance of evacuating the garrison. No one doubted that it would be - we were actually cut off from the main forces ... So, after a pause, we were given the command to open fire, not to spare the shells. We will plow the entire strip a kilometer from this forward edge. Then again we conduct a sluggish skirmish. A couple of weeks pass, we are silent. Then we’ll cut it, we’ll plow everything again. On the first of December the command was given at noon to cease fire. Our regiment was the last to leave. At 12 o'clock at night we were ordered to leave the guns, throw out the locks and retreat on foot. This was followed by evacuation by sea to Leningrad ...

Finns are old friends

In addition to well-prepared fortifications, the success of the defenders on Hanko also depended on combat experience accumulated during the war with the Finns in 1939-40, when Shishkin and his comrades stormed the Mannerheim Line. The commanders and fighters knew well how to attack the Finnish fortifications. Now we had to defend ourselves against Finnish attacks. At the same time, the advancing Finns were old acquaintances: “We had to equip the border. A special commission for its demarcation was created. I went with her, dragging an artillery compass. The chairman of the commission was General Kryukov, and, in addition, it included the commander of the battalion of our regiment, Captain Sukach, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the battles on the Karelian Isthmus. On the Finnish side was the same unit that fought against us on the isthmus. When one of the Finns found out about this, he said to the captain: “We were opponents there, but here we are making a peaceful border.” I was a witness to this meeting."

It is curious - when in the summer of 1941 the peaceful border ceased to be peaceful, and the Finns from July to December once every two or three weeks had to launch deliberately unsuccessful attacks, what did they feel before the battle? Did they hope that, for example, the seventh attack would be more effective than the previous six or not? Did they try to "slope" from such suicidal fights for them? Did the Finnish interlocutor of Captain Sukach survive? Did the Red Army soldiers remember that they went into the same terrible attacks in December 1939?

How do the memories of the extermination of the attacking Finns in the summer of 1941 help to understand what happened on the Mannerheim Line in the Winter War, in what position our soldiers and commanders found themselves then, who nevertheless managed to turn the tide...

Established in 1939–1940, after the Baltic states, Western Belarus, Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia were annexed to the Soviet Union, there was also a line of fortified regions along the line of the old state border, which was conditionally called the Stalin line. IN Soviet times Russian researchers and other authors describing the initial period of the war unanimously asserted that in the early 40s the fortifications of this line were mothballed, and their equipment was dismantled. Therefore, they simply preferred not to mention the reasons for the enemy's rapid breakthrough of the fortified areas of the second line.

Once I came across issues of the almanac "Military Historical Archive", in which the memoirs of V.A. A recruit who in 1941 was the head of the Intelligence Directorate of the 6th Army Southwestern Front. He writes in particular:

“Due to the sharp deterioration of the situation at the front, our 6th Army began, by order, to withdraw from the intermediate line Krasnoye - Rogatin to the old state border to the line Novograd-Volynsky - Shepetovka - Starokonstantinov - Khmelnitsky (Proskurov). All our hope was in the fortified areas. We believed that the fortified areas were already occupied by garrisons, which, having let us through, would adequately meet the Germans. And we, having rested and having received reinforcements, will go on the counteroffensive. The troops could no longer bear the word "withdraw". Even ordinary soldiers demanded to stop the retreat and go on the offensive. And we, the headquarters, relied on fortified areas ...

Before retreating to the old border, the commander ordered me to inspect the Starokonstantinovsky fortified area, to assess the old fortified zone and its readiness for defense. It was also proposed to choose a place where it is better to place the retreating troops.

By car, I drove Volochisk, Podvolochisk, Starokonstantinov. I go, I go, I carefully inspect the area. And I am perplexed, annoyed at myself, at my inability to detect pillboxes. Good, I think, intelligence officer!

Having lost hope of finding fortified areas, I ask one old man:

Grandfather, tell me, where do the military live here, right in the field, in the ground?

Ah! Why are you asking about bunkers? And they have been gone for a long time. Mustache zruynovano that transferred to kolgospy. At the same time, we have salted cabbage and ogirki (cucumbers) there.

I decided that my grandfather was fooling me. I put him in the car and took him to Starokonstantinov to the chairman of the collective farm. However, the chairman had already managed to evacuate. Found a replacement. I ask him:

Is it true that you took all the defensive structures as vegetable stores?

That's right, comrade commander, - he answers, - some of them were blown up, and some were handed over to us. We store vegetables in them.

Come with me, show me where these bunkers are.

For two hours we drove along the defensive strip. He examined many pillboxes, that is, former pillboxes. Some were indeed razed to the ground, while others were kept collective farm vegetables.

I was dumbfounded. There was no defensive line. Our hopes for the possibility of a respite, for reinforcements with weapons and manpower, collapsed.

Of course, I, who was not a direct participant in the events of the summer of 1941, do not have the moral right to trust or categorically refute eyewitness accounts. But as a military historian, I have the opportunity to express my opinion on this issue.

With regard to the destruction of bunkers along the old border of the USSR in the summer of 1940 and in the spring of 1941, I want to express complete distrust to the author. Firstly, there was neither special need nor strength to rush to the destruction of bunkers at that alarming time. This would not have been allowed by Marshal of the Soviet Union B.M. Shaposhnikov, who was directly responsible in the People's Commissariat of Defense for fortified areas. Secondly, during my service in the Carpathian military district, in particular in Khmelnytsky, I personally saw the bunkers of the Stalin line in an undestroyed state. But if they were nevertheless blown up in some directions on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, then this cannot be regarded otherwise than as the wrecking activity of the commanders of the troops of the border military districts.

Now with regard to the transfer of bunkers in fortified areas to the local collective farms. This statement also does not stand up to scrutiny. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, any military facility was on special records not only in the People's Commissariat of Defense, but also in the NKVD. No agreements were found between these two departments regarding the write-off of these objects. Moreover, there are instructions from the People's Commissar of Defense to leave certain forces to protect defensive structures along the line of the old state border. It is unlikely that the commanders of the districts agreed to transfer military facilities to the collective farms by their decision.

And, finally, the statement of V.A. A recruit that the bunkers of the fortified areas at the end of July 1941 were adapted by collective farmers for storing vegetables and therefore could not be used to strengthen the defense of the retreating Red Army troops. Firstly, at this time of the year the collective farms had not yet stocked up any large vegetable stocks for the winter, since potatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots and other vegetables were harvested only at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. This means that at the end of June 1941, all collective farm vegetable stores were empty. Secondly, even if there were some containers (barrels, boxes) in the bunkers, it took only a few hours to clean them, and in war conditions, any commander or commander could, under the threat of execution, involve the local population for this.

Thus, the work of V.A. A recruit cannot in any way serve as a basis for assessing the state of the fortified areas located on the old border of the USSR. It can be regarded only from the position that the author thus tried by all possible means to justify the command of the 6th Army, which failed to fulfill the defensive task assigned to it.

At the same time, the question naturally arises as to whether the Soviet command had sufficient forces to stop the enemy's offensive at the turn of the old state border.

Operational calculations show that the Soviet troops were not doomed to be under a sudden first blow from the enemy. In the first echelon of the armies, according to the Cover Plan, it was supposed to have 63 divisions, of which more than 75% were located at a distance of up to 50 kilometers from the border. In the second echelon of the armies there were 51 divisions, including 24 tank, 12 motorized, 4 cavalry, which were removed from the border by 70-90 kilometers. Another 45 divisions, located at a distance of 100 to 350 kilometers from the border, were in the reserve of the commanders of the districts (fronts). Also, on the territory of the border districts at a considerable distance from the state border, there were 11 divisions that were directly subordinate to General Staff Red Army.

Thus, a sudden first blow from the enemy could hit only a small part of the covering troops. The main forces were kept in depth and, if necessary, could occupy one or more rear lines of defense, and when each of these lines was breached, the enemy had to lose strength, means and time. But it was necessary to be able to conduct not only positional, but also mobile defense.

First World War showed exceptionally high effectiveness of positional defense. Therefore, the defense, which was built in accordance with the Field Manual of the Red Army of 1929, was positional defense in nature. This meant that the main defense forces were located within the front line, and it itself was designed for the fact that “the advancing enemy must be defeated before it approaches the front edge of the defensive line by fire from successively engaging fire weapons (artillery, machine guns and rifles) concentrated along predetermined boundaries.

Of course, positional defense is good. But it can be fully implemented only when all the available forces and means take up their positions before the start of the enemy offensive. At the beginning of the war, this is practically impossible to do. It is impossible to keep millions of people, tens of thousands of machine guns and thousands of artillery pieces in trenches near the state border for years, aimed at a potential enemy, who has been given the right to decide when to launch an offensive.

In this case, another defense could be more effective, in which only duty forces and equipment are located directly at the border, and the main troops are located in depth. In this case, the enemy is deprived of the opportunity, having achieved the suddenness of the outbreak of hostilities, to hit the main forces of the defending side with artillery fire and troop strikes. Its powerful first blow will fall on the duty forces, which must determine the time of the start of hostilities, the composition and direction of the enemy's main attacks, and also inflict maximum defeat on them before the main forces enter the battle on a prepared defensive line located in the depths of their territory. Such defense was envisaged by the combat regulations, and they called it “mobile” or “maneuverable”.

At the same time, pre-war charters did not give accurate description this defense and the order of its conduct, which gave rise to various discussions. Moreover, young Soviet military leaders who grew up in battles civil war and brought up on the ideas of world communism, they were extremely negative about defense, and even more so about mobile defense, which allowed the temporary abandonment of their territory. The slogan "beat the enemy on his land" sounded too often and was perceived as a program for action.

Nevertheless, in the Provisional Field Regulations of the Red Army of 1936 (PU-36), which mainly deals with positional defense, mobile defense is also considered. The same thing happens in the Draft Field Manual of 1939.

But in practice, in the training of commanders, commanders, headquarters and troops, defensive topics are practiced extremely rarely, and mobile defense is not practiced at all.

In 1940, another draft of the Field Manual of the Red Army was published. It also deals with mobile defense. With regard to mobile defense, on the whole, all the wordings of the draft Field Manual of 1939 were retained. However, some provisions have received more specific development. In particular, requirements were established for the removal of intermediate lines from each other.

At the December meeting of the highest commanding staff of the Red Army in 1940, the commander of the Siberian Military District, Lieutenant General S.A., sharply spoke out against the mobile defense. Kalinin. In particular, he said: “I believe that the unfortunate expression in our charter is “mobile defense” ... We must remember that where there is no determination to fight, depth will not save. I believe that the main thing is the decision to fight, and it is necessary to fight with all your might, from the battalion commander to all command levels, be sure to put all your strength into the work you have begun ... I believe that the defense should be tough and the order for it should be given to every commander - die, but protect your defense area.

This was the opinion of the majority of Soviet military leaders of that time, but not all. So, in his final speech, People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko paid special attention to defense issues. He noted that positional should be understood as defense, "which aims to hold a certain area prepared for defense." But "if the defense, with a lack of forces and means to create a positional defense, is built on the principles of mobile operations of troops and seeks to weaken the enemy, to preserve its forces, even sometimes regardless of the loss of space, then this will be a maneuverable defense."

S.K. Timoshenko believed that “in the first case, it is necessary to create and develop a defensive zone and defend it by all means; in the second, the defense is built on quick and sudden counterattacks or retreat to a new line.

This was precisely the situation at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when the border corps, divisions and regiments were subjected to a sudden strong blow from the enemy, but the main forces of the armies and military districts, located in the depths, were practically not affected. Also, already on the first day of the war, the front line of fortified areas in the directions of the main attacks of the enemy was broken through, but in the depths there remained an equally powerful second line located along the old border of the USSR. Almost ideal conditions were created for conducting mobile (maneuverable) defense. But the Soviet command, which had never practiced conducting such a defense, seemed to have forgotten about its existence. Troops from the depths, without proper knowledge of the situation, were thrown forward into oncoming battles, into which they entered in units, at different times, at random lines and without proper preparation. Therefore, it is not surprising that the results of these battles for the Soviet troops were truly catastrophic.

Thus, it must be admitted that the Soviet troops at the beginning of the war did not seem to master the art of defense at all. It was not possible to organize the vast majority of defensive battles of divisions; not a single defensive battle was organized on the scale of an army corps, and even more so a defensive operation on the scale of armies covering the state border. From the very first days, a retreat began everywhere, which in many directions resembled an unorganized flight. Practically without a fight, favorable natural boundaries along the rivers were left, big cities, and then the line of fortified areas along the old border of the USSR. It seemed that the experience of positional defense during the First World War and the provisions of combat regulations and instructions of the interwar period were completely forgotten.

Losses have always acted as criteria for the military art of the opposing sides. Moreover, one must understand that, according to the logic of military art, the defending side, which makes extensive use of the terrain and various engineering barriers, should suffer less losses than the attacking side. But at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, quite the opposite happened.

In the Military Diary of the Chief of the General Staff ground forces Germany, Colonel General F. Halder indicated that from June 22 to July 13, 1941 total losses ground forces of the Wehrmacht Eastern Front amounted to 92.1 thousand people.

At the same time, it is known that in the course of a strategic defensive operation in the Baltic states during the first 18 days of the war, Soviet troops retreated 400-450 kilometers, while losing 88.5 thousand people. During the defensive operation in Belarus, they retreated 450-600 kilometers in 18 days, losing 417.8 thousand people. During the defensive operation in Western Ukraine, they retreated 300-350 kilometers in 15 days, losing 241.6 thousand people. Thus, only in the first 18 days of the war, the losses of Soviet troops (not counting the Arctic) reached almost 748 thousand people.

From all this, one conclusion suggests itself: the Soviet leadership and High Command With the beginning of the war, the Red Army simply "forgot" or did not "want" to recall the statutory provisions on mobile defense, although they should have been law for any grassroots commander. Such neglect of the law (a set of well-established and well-known provisions) in extreme situation(aggression of the enemy) cannot be regarded otherwise than as a betrayal of the high level. At the same time, it must be said that a number of fortified areas of the Stalin line still fulfilled their function.

According to the Great Patriotic War

In the 20-30s of the twentieth century, as now, the Pskov region was a border area. Our neighbors were not distinguished by peacefulness, and this, as well as the fact that their stronger patrons stood behind them, created a very real danger to the USSR. Therefore, after the events known as the "Military Alert" in the USSR in 1927, the construction of fortified positions began on the western borders of the country, which received the unofficial name "Stalin's Line".

Fortified areas were also built on the territory of the Pskov region. In 1930-1932. the Pskov fortified position (48 firing points) was built, covering Pskov from the west in the Valka direction, covering the fords across the Velikaya and Tukhoviksky bridges. However, for the most part, the border remained uncovered.

In 1938, a new program for the construction of fortifications was adopted, during which the Pskov fortified area was strengthened: the Ostrovsky, Sebezhsky and Opochetsky fortified areas were to be built. Grandiose construction began to boil along the border.

The events of 1939-40 changed the political map and pushed the borders of the USSR far to the West. The construction of fortified areas in the Pskov region ceased to be a priority - and it was curtailed. Already built concrete boxes of bunkers were mothballed in varying degrees of readiness, and the equipment and weapons in the warehouses, intended for installation in the built firing points, were sent to the west, to build a new line of fortified areas on the new border, now known as the "Molotov line". The construction of the Opochetsky UR was not started at all.

The outbreak of the war made its own adjustments to the pre-war plans. The rapid advance of the enemy inland forced the Soviet command to recall the fortifications on the old border, including the unfinished ones. They were supposed to become a support for the defense of the second echelon armies advanced from the internal districts. So the Sebezh fortified area was to become a support for the right flank of the 22nd Army, Lieutenant General F.A. Ershakov.

The German infantry reached the line of the Sebezh UR on July 5, 1941. The first attacks followed the next morning.

From the memoirs of V.F. Shmelev, a soldier of the 258th separate machine-gun artillery battalion (Military History Magazine No. 5, 2007, pp. 67-69):

"Before the war, I worked in Moscow at the Shcherbakov plant. On June 23, 1941, I was going to work, but received a summons to appear at 18.00 in the Ramensky district military registration and enlistment office. I went to the plant, where I received a calculation. The military registration and enlistment office announced that everyone who feels healthy, they can put a stamp “healthy” without examination.” The queue moved quickly.

In the evening they were sent to Moscow, where the 258th separate machine gun and artillery battalion was being formed. Dressed in a military uniform, issued a weapon. On June 26, late at night, in an echelon, they set off towards the front along Rzhevskaya (now Rizhskaya) railway. The train was heading west, as it became known, to the city of Sebezh. Anticipating the bombing, the battalion commander put two light machine guns on the roof of the car, and I was assigned to one of them.

Arrived. After a 25-kilometer march, we found ourselves in a hilly area that bordered the railway and was filled with pillboxes. They were intended for artillerymen and had large embrasures; At the bottom of each was a well with water, and at the top - an observation platform, not covered by anything. The exit from the pillbox was set aside.

Since we had no guns, although the battalion was called a machine-gun artillery battalion, we covered the embrasures with sandbags. They dug a trench from the exit of the pillbox down the hill to the hollow and camouflaged it. We prepared weapons with which, to be honest, we were rather weakly equipped. Each platoon, which occupied one pillbox, consisted of fifteen people together with the commander, who accounted for one easel and one light machine gun, as well as three rifles. In fact, more than half of the staff were unarmed.

On July 4, in the morning, our battalion had to fight a tense battle. The Germans first opened artillery fire, thoroughly processing our defense, however, without inflicting losses on us, since everyone was in pillboxes. When they went on the attack, the machine-gun fire from pillboxes located along the front mowed them down fairly. The attack faltered. Then, having regrouped their forces, they put forward their guns for direct fire and began to shoot directly at the embrasures, or rather at sandbags, and the wounded appeared in the pillboxes. But nothing came of the second attack. Three times the Germans tried to break into our defenses, and all three times they were forced to roll back. Our platoon did not enter the battle, since the embrasure of our firing point was sent to the rear, but four wounded Red Army soldiers who got to us from there told about the actions of the front-line pillbox.

Unable to overcome our line, the Nazis decided to go around it from the rear, but there they stumbled upon our pillboxes. We met them with devastating machine-gun fire. Having temporarily stopped active operations, the enemy placed snipers in sheltered places. If he noticed movement, then sniper bullets immediately flew. We have lost not only all mobility, but also the ability to conduct surveillance everywhere. Several Germans penetrated our pillbox from the side closed from us and threw grenades at us. They did not cause direct harm, since the fragments hit only the walls of the passage, but the smoke from the burnt charge filled the entire pillbox. Someone shouted “gases” and we fussily put on masks, but very quickly realized that the smoke was from a powder charge. After some time, the pillbox where our platoon was located was completely blocked.

For the Germans, the "honor" of storming the fortified area "head on" fell to the "SS men" from the SS division "Totenkopf". It was formed in the autumn of 1939 in Dachau. It consisted of the SS "Dead Head" units, which were engaged in the protection of concentration camps, and the defense battalion of the SS Danzig.

From the combat log of the SS division "Totenkopf" (SS-Division "Totenkopf"):

"6/7/1941 at 3.00 after a short artillery preparation on the fortified position of the enemy (from concrete bunkers) on the Latvian-Russian border near the villages of Brokhnovo-Dubrovo-Zasitino. The enemy rigidly, with the help of heavy weapons, defended the fortifications in depth. Each bunker had to be taken by an assault group sappers.One bunker was defended by 42 Russians, among them 20 Jews.Enemy artillery fire was carried out from a dominant height south of Zasitino, thus, the fortified position had effective fire in front of its line.The bridge at Zasitino was blown up during the retreat by the enemy.By 17.00, despite enemy fire, the bridge was restored. A new attack on the second line of bunkers south and east of Zasitino began at 17.45 and continues now. Losses: 50 killed, 160 wounded. No prisoners." (Translated by Andrey Ivanov)

Mikhail TUH, especially for the Pskov Information Agency

Defenders of bunkers are fighting heroically.... And even if we all die:
Long live the victory of the Red Army! Long live communism!
From the report of an unknown commandant
Soviet bunker near Rava-Russkaya. June 1941.

Captured by the enemy, this document, an excerpt from which is included in the epigraph, was apparently destroyed in its original. The fate of many documents, as well as the fate of people, during the war years was incredibly difficult. The report, found in the ruins of a bunker blown up by the enemy, on the remains of a Soviet officer, was translated by the Nazis and attached to their report on the results of the battles for Soviet fortifications on the border. And then times changed. And now the enemy headquarters has already been defeated, and the Soviet translator, among other documents, translates again into Russian, into the language of the original, these words that excite us today.

For many years, we knew practically nothing about the fate of the bunker garrisons built before the war on the border. Now, finally, we can say with full confidence that on the border in June 1941, hundreds of small fortresses fought with the enemy in fierce battles. Our story is about the combat stamina and courage of some of these garrisons.

This topic is little explored in our historical literature. Many events, names and exploits were not known for decades. Others, unfortunately, are still unknown. After all, pillboxes were built at the very border, they are motionless and their small, often several-man garrisons, surrounded by the enemy, dying, went into obscurity, into oblivion.

Before trying to make an overview of the course of battles and the exploits of the soldiers of individual fortifications and strongholds of fortified areas, it is necessary to make a small introduction to the essence of the issue. The experience of the 1st World War and the especially successful defense of the so-called fortifications by the French. The Maginot Line, which the German troops were never able to overcome, the bitter experience of fighting for the Soviet troops to overcome the fortifications of the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. became a kind of motive for the creation of a defensive fortification before the war on the border with Germany. The fortified areas created in the border area were to become the basis for covering the border in the event of a war. As a rule, the fortified area included three defensive zones: the forefield, the main defensive zone and the rear defensive zone. The foreground passed 1-3 kilometers in front of the main defensive zone, which consisted of field-type structures - trenches for the placement of rifle units, machine guns, mortars, anti-tank guns, minefields with anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and anti-tank engineering structures.

The most important part of the defensive position was the main defensive zone. Its backbone, its basis were to be pillboxes (long-term firing points) of the fortified area. The most important tactical task of a fortified area is to force the enemy to conduct a frontal offensive, which required the completion of the system of fortified areas and the mandatory filling of them with field troops. It is clear that this required a lot of time to build, equip the fortifications with weapons and train troops. The frontal attack on the fortified area required the enemy to attract, in turn, significant forces and means. As a rule, a fortified area along the front reached 100-120 kilometers and included from 3 to 8 defense units (DO). In turn, the defense unit of the fortified area consisted of 3-5 strongholds (OP). The defense unit of the fortified area, having a front of 8-10 kilometers, was engaged in a separate machine-gun battalion (opb). Before the war, where artillery prevailed in the armament of bunkers, artillery and machine-gun battalions and divisions were created instead of opb.

On the defense sector of the opb in the defensive structures of the field type between its strong points there was a deeply echeloned rifle regiment, whose senior was the commander rifle regiment. The command post was usually located at one of the strongholds - next to the command post of the commander of the defense unit. The stronghold itself was usually occupied by a machine-gun company of the Opb or a battery of a machine-gun battalion. A rifle battalion was located at the positions of the strong point. The commanders of the rifle battalions of the field troops and the machine-gun companies of the UR had joint command posts. Reserves were usually placed on the rear defensive zone. The Soviet command considered the fortification of the area not as a passive, but as a highly active means of struggle. Because of this, in the fortified areas built before the war, the saturation with artillery increased sharply, howitzer-artillery regiments were introduced to provide maneuver with artillery fire in the UR zone. Particular attention was paid to flanking fire, anti-tank defense. Each UO was built with the expectation of conducting all-round defense.

In the late 20s and the first half of the 30s, the defense line from the fortified areas, the so-called. The Stalin Line was built along the western border of the USSR with the Baltic countries and Poland. It was imperfect and not completed, the density of long-term firing structures was insufficient, they were armed with machine guns. The events of 1939 - the outbreak of World War II, the redistribution of the borders of Eastern Europe, including as a result of a secret collusion between Hitler and Stalin, raised the issue of building fortified areas in a new way, and failures to overcome the Mannerheim Line during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 . proved great importance fortified areas in increasing the defense capability of the border. It was decided to build them primarily along the new border with Germany, which ran along the west of the lands reunited with Ukraine and Belarus, along the division line of Poland from Grodno to Przemysl - mainly along water lines - the rivers Narev, Southern Bug, San. In Lithuania, on the border with East Prussia and in the south, on the border with Slovakia (where Hungarian troops were brought in) and Romania, the construction of fortified areas was only planned, only a few small strongholds were built. Only a few of them could participate in battles. Reconnaissance of the border for the construction of SDs and control over the progress of construction have been carried out since the autumn of 1939 under the guidance of the best fortifiers, incl. General D. M. Karbyshev, whom the war found with a mission to check the progress of construction on the border in the Grodno region. Thus, it was planned to build four fortified areas in the zone of the Western Special Military District: Grodno 68th, Osovetsky 66th, Zambrovsky 64th and Brest 62nd and four in the zone of the Kiev Special Military District: Vladimir-Volynsky 2nd, Kamenka -Strumilovsky 4th, Rava-Russian 6th and Przemyslsky 8th URs. ( I do not write about Kovelsky - Kamenetz-Podolsky, which was just planned and under construction. We are talking about fortified areas that were widely involved in the battles. - A.K.)

The choice of places for the construction of fortifications from a purely engineering point of view was, as a rule, impeccable: all pillboxes were built (or were supposed to be built) on hills and skyscrapers in close coordination and interaction with each other. The fact is that the fortified areas, unlike all other types and branches of the ground forces, are tied to the ground, motionless, and therefore their regular structure is less stereotyped: there were fortified areas that included up to 8 defense nodes, and there were only 3-4 and even 1- 2. A huge role was played by the assumption about the main directions of a possible enemy offensive. So, the Brest fortified area had all three main defense centers along the eastern bank of the river. Western Bug northwest of Brest, with Brest Fortress on its left flank. To the south of Brest, almost 100 kilometers along the Western Bug, given the wooded and swampy terrain and the poor development of roads, the construction of fortifications was not expected. In a number of cases, there were rather large gaps between the fortified areas and their defense centers, which were called on the drawings and diagrams as the rear defense line being built in the first month of the war.

A significant drawback was that the pillboxes located along the heights of the Narew, Western Bug and San rivers were visible from the adjacent territory and were often spotted by the enemy during their construction, despite all the camouflage measures. Another of the proposed options for the placement of fortified areas seems to be more successful, which, unfortunately, was not accepted. According to this option, it was proposed to place defensive lines, taking into account natural conditions, at a distance of 25-50 km from the state border line. This would make it possible to build strongholds hidden from the enemy, and in the event of a sudden attack, to have time to place our troops in the built long-term and field structures.

Maybe the construction of fortified areas was not worth starting. It was started in 1940, when the Second World War was already going on in the world. Expensive in terms of funds and requiring huge expenses, it was designed for several years ( Was Stalin really so sure that the Second World War would not affect the USSR? - A.K.) and of course, by the beginning of Germany's aggression against the USSR, it was far from over. It is obvious (more precisely: it is now obvious) that the decision to build fortified areas of the first line along the new state border, taken in conditions when there was already a war in the world, should now be considered erroneous. At the same time, one cannot but consider the dismantling or conservation of the system of fortified areas on the old state border, on the already mentioned so-called. Stalin lines. Now it is clear that in the situation of 1940-1941. it would be more correct to use the huge material and human resources spent on the construction of fortified areas to create a system of deeply echeloned field lines with the deployment of our troops on them on a permanent basis while maintaining, completing and strengthening Soviet fortified areas along the line of the old state border. But we are all smart in hindsight.

And yet, the fortifications on the new frontier were built according to the most advanced designs. The bunkers were, as a rule, artillery-machine-gun, i.e. had 76-mm or 45-mm guns and machine guns in an articulated mount. The choice of their positions and layout were, as a rule, successful, reinforced concrete from steel and cement of high grades with the addition of granite was high-strength. Everything necessary was provided for the garrison to be able to wage a stubborn selfless struggle.

There is no doubt, - the commander of the 293rd Infantry Division reported at the end of June 1941, completing the siege of a number of Soviet fortifications in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bm. calibers. The bunker is constructed, as a rule, from monolithic reinforced concrete and is the main cell of the system of a long-term fortification belt. Usually this is a two- or even three-story building, but only its top with loopholes and embrasures rises slightly above the ground. This upper combat floor with firing compartments in which guns and machine guns are installed is the most fortified. The lower floor (or floors, depending on the type of structure) is reserved for the life support of the garrison: an ammunition depot, storage facilities for water and food, a place for a power plant, a place for rest of the garrison, etc. Each of the rooms is separated from the other by reinforced concrete walls. The strength of the bunker is in the moral stamina, combat training and cohesion of the garrison, in the power of the fire of perfect weapons, in the fortress of reinforced concrete walls.

The bunker, due to the limited visibility from it, is very similar to a tank, and besides, it is still motionless. And just like a tank, it is defenseless when it defends alone, without cover by fire from other pillboxes and without the presence of the so-called. infantry filling in the defense sector. Therefore, the pillboxes of a strong point should be located so as to completely block the approaches to one another with fire, and have a tactically meaningful space, especially in front and on the flanks, for infantry filling.

What was the number of Soviet fortifications - pillboxes on the new state border, which was violated by the aggressor in the morning at dawn on June 22, 1941? By the summer of 1941, fortifications were being erected along the line of the entire state border from the Baltic to the Black Sea and partly also on the border with Finland. Of course, not all over the place, but in the first place in areas of especially dangerous areas. Naturally, on the territory of Lithuania, as well as Moldova and the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine, which became part of the USSR in the summer of 1940, construction has just begun. Therefore, in our calculations on the number of combat-ready pillboxes, and then on the course of battles in their areas, we will focus on 4 fortified areas of the Western OVO:

Grodno 68th - 107 pillboxes;
Osovetsky 66th - 57 pillboxes;
Zambrovsky 64th - 54 pillboxes;
Brest 62nd - 92 pillboxes.

Thus, in the zone of the Western Front, 310 bunkers should have been on alert, V.A. Anfilov names 193 structures. It is closer to the truth, but a much smaller number of bunkers actually participated in the battles. We will see this on the example of the Grodno or Brest fortified areas.

In the 4 fortified areas of KOVO there were:

Vladimir-Volynsky 2nd - 97 pillboxes;
Kamenka-Strumilovsky 4th - 84 pillboxes;
Rava-Russian 6th - 91 pillboxes;
Przemyslsky 8th - 99 pillboxes.

So, on the Southwestern Front, in the strip from Przemysl to Vladimir-Volynsk, supposedly 371 pillboxes were on alert. But even here, significantly fewer points actually participated in the battles. In this review, the facts of the heroism of the defenders of a number of bunkers (wood-and-earth firing points) of the 9th Kovel fortified area under construction will also be named.

It should be noted that not all of the bunkers shown in this table were on alert. The bunker garrisons were not fully staffed, there were not enough weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, not all fortifications were fully equipped, especially with power plants.

The camouflage of the bunkers erected in spring and early summer, mainly with turf lining, as well as cut trees and bushes, turned yellow by the beginning of the fighting, and the bunkers stood out noticeably on the ground. In a number of cases, firing sectors were not cleared near the bunkers - non-settled farms, bushes, and terrain folds interfered. Serious shortcomings also occurred in the combat training of the bunker garrisons, especially in tactics and fire: there were few joint exercises with field troops, live firing from regular guns was not carried out (farms and the close placement of fortifications to the border interfered).

The structure of the system of future fortified areas was also to include the structures of the old Russian fortresses of Grodno, Osovets, Lomzha and Brest. But they did not have time to start modernizing the fortresses. The built bunkers, due to their small number, have not yet created a system of fortifications. Only in certain sections of the border strongholds, defense units of individual machine-gun and machine-gun-artillery battalions were designated. There were gaps between the fortified areas, often tens of kilometers. There were gaps between the strongholds of the companies and the defense units of the battalions. The bunkers did not cover each other enough and were not connected by a single fire system, field fortifications in gaps were only being built and were not occupied by troops.

Let us now turn to an interesting document drawn up by the enemy.

In February 1942, after a thorough study of the Soviet fortifications on our border, the headquarters of the supreme command of the enemy ground forces published the book Denkschrift uber die russische Landesbefestigung "", which contains the following information:

Comparison of the number of Russian fortifications and fortifications of the Maginot Line:

As you can see, the Germans counted the concrete boxes of bunkers from the Baltic to Przemysl and counted 1113 units, i.e. less than one bunker per kilometer of the front, but not all of them worked. According to our calculations, on the morning of the start of the war, at best, 350-400 bunkers fired at the enemy.

Those. we actually did not have a line of fortified areas either on the new or on the old border. In rare cases, there was no field filling at the level of fortifications. For example, units of the 42nd Rifle Division from the Brest region were to leave for the fortifications of the 18th Brest UR. It is 10-15-25 km northwest of Brest along the border under enemy fire. And so it was, with few exceptions, along the entire border. Is it any wonder that large motorized and tank formations of the enemy, with the dominance of enemy aircraft in the air in the directions of the main attacks, easily found weakly covered sections of the border, literally crushed small centers of resistance in the form of frontier posts and strongholds of fortified areas, and the defense centers of fortified areas that offered the strongest resistance our field troops who managed to approach them, bypassed and blocked. Guided by the well-known adage Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten, the author of these lines has been working for many years on Soviet and German archival sources and various other materials. The complexity of the issue lies in the fact that all the structures fought in the environment, in the deep rear of the advancing German troops, and therefore, only in rare cases, the sources were deposited in the archives of our retreating army, which suffered defeat after defeat in the first period of the war. In order to be more complete and objective in assessing the collected material, it was necessary to travel around most of the places of these battles from Grodno in the north to Rava-Russkaya in the south, including the Semyatichi-Drohichin area, which is now in Poland. And yet, in some cases, one has only to state a feat. The paucity of information, and in many cases only their belonging only to the fund of trophy materials, did not allow revealing the names of many heroes, describing the details of the battles. Here will be told about the most outstanding facts of heroism and fortitude, most of them were published for the first time by me.

So, the first point of a fierce struggle on the positions of our fortifications was the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe town of Sopotskino near the city of Grodno.

positions of fortified areas

Our attention to this area was attracted by a sad event, of which there were many after the war on the land of Belarus. In the fall of 1963, geologists working near the border town of Sopotskino discovered under the concrete blocks of a blown up bunker the remains of soldiers - its defenders. Time has not preserved the soldier's documents. Only one of the victims found a medallion in the name of the Red Army soldier Khadib Khabirov, a native of Bashkiria. Khadib, along with his nine fighting friends, rests in a mass grave in the town of Sopotskino. The ruins of the pillbox, which they defended until the last hour, speak of their military deeds.

But the reports of the enemy speak in some detail about these battles. The report of the commander of the 28th Infantry Division says: In the area of ​​fortifications from Solotskino and to the north ... we are talking primarily about the enemy, who firmly decided to hold on at any cost and did it. The offensive according to the current basic principles did not give success here ... Only with the help of powerful subversive means it was possible to destroy one pillbox after another ... The division's means were not enough to capture the numerous installations. The documents say that the Russians defend themselves in defensive structures skillfully and skillfully, unexpectedly open fire, often turn into counterattacks, fight hand-to-hand, the besiegers had to repeatedly repel numerous and sudden sorties of the Russians ... the soldiers who broke through from the pillboxes into the open area, and there offered stubborn resistance. Even in the bunker, the enemy complained, it is not enough to blow up one embrasure or the exit from the structure. It was necessary to fight for each room, since, as a rule, it was possible to capture only those soldiers who were in this undermined compartment.

head of the party school G.L. Grishaev

Judging by the reports, the Nazis believed: officer units or troops fought in the bunkers special purpose. In fact, these were ordinary, linear units and parts of fortified areas. So, in the Grodno region, newly built pillboxes were occupied by units of the 68th Grodno fortified area - its 9th Separate machine-gun battalion in the Sopotskino region and the 10th Separate machine-gun battalion in the Lipsk region. The soldiers of these parts of the fortified area from the very beginning of the war heroically and selflessly defended their positions. This is evidenced by the report of the head of the Political Propaganda Department of the 68th UR, regimental commissar Khabrovitsky, dated 06/30/1941 On the combat operations of units of the 68th UR from 06/22/1941, which says: 10 opb. After 1.5 hours of artillery preparation, the enemy went on the offensive, the bulbats went into battle, opening fire from pillboxes on the advancing enemy ... Until 14.00 on 22.06.1941, the commandant of the UR maintained telephone communication with the bulbats, which later stopped and restore it failed, because by that time the field troops had retreated ... The fate of the personnel of the 9th and 10th Separate machine-gun battalions, who were in the pillboxes, is unknown. The report said that the battalions of the fortified area were alerted at night two hours before the Nazi attack, and before the start of the enemy artillery preparation, they managed to occupy the pillboxes and load ammunition into them. To assist the headquarters and the department of political propaganda of the fortified area, the chief of staff of artillery captain A.I. was sent to the 9th opb. Titov and the head of the party school G.L. Grishaev.

In the middle of the day on June 22, the enemy broke through the front line at the junction of machine-gun battalions, went to the left flank, and then to the rear of the 9th brigade. The bunkers and the 10th battalion were bypassed. Our soldiers who fought in pillboxes were cut off...

Work on archival documents and in the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Defense made it possible to establish new facts about the battles in the pillboxes of fortified areas, to identify the names of many warriors-heroes of this struggle, to find some of the surviving defenders.

In August 1941, a group of Soviet officers crossed the front line near the city of Rechitsa on the Dnieper. They could hardly move, were exhausted to the limit. The group included officers from the leadership of the 68 fortified area A.I. Titov and G.L. Grishaev. Their written reports to the command revealed new names, cited new facts. When at 4 am on June 22, the officers wrote, the enemy opened heavy fire, and enemy planes appeared in the air, the town of Sopotskino and the nearest villages soon blazed with fires. The commander of the 9th Separate Machine-Gun Battalion, Captain Pyotr Vasilievich Zhila, together with the arrived officers, went to command post, located in the DOT. He personally led the struggle of the strongholds with the pressing enemy. A.I. Titov and G.L. Grishaev helped the battalion commander.

Major T.Ya. Yakovlev

Until June 26, 1941, the garrisons of the bunkers of the battalion fought a fierce battle with the enemy, these were unusually heroic and tragic days. They fought in complete isolation from their forces. They fought off enemy attacks in the forehead, from the rear and flanks. They fought off the onslaught of his assault groups, armed with assault guns, rapid-fire cannons and machine guns, smoke charges and explosives. Only partially built bunkers fought alone or in small groups, often without fire contact with each other, without covering each other. Therefore, fighters armed with machine guns and rifles often had to fight from trenches dug on the outskirts of the fortifications. Using the areas that were not fired from pillboxes and the numerical weakness of our fortifications, the Nazis managed to block the fortifications one by one and undermine them. And then the battalion commander P.V. Zhila decides to go for a breakthrough. On the right flank, also surrounded, near the Neman, the 213th Infantry Regiment of the 56th Infantry Division fought, bleeding to death. Its commander, Major Yakovlev Timofey Yakovlevich, proposed jointly crossing the Neman near the village of Gozha, and then, moving through the forests in a northeast direction, making their way to the front line. During a fierce battle on June 26, 1941, the remnants of the regiment and battalion crossed the Neman, moving in the direction of Druskeniki. At the same time, near Druskeniki, they withstood a fierce battle with the enemy, defeating part of his forces. A former cadet of the training company of the regiment, teacher Sultan Askerkhanov said that it was the 142nd infantry regiment of the enemy. At the same time, he writes, 180 prisoners, 15 cars, wagons, weapons, and a banner were taken. I remember well,” he concludes, “that the banner was taken by senior sergeant Komissarov, a native of Orekhovo-Zuev near Moscow. The movement to the east, to the front, continued. In several battles and skirmishes with the Nazis pursuing the remnants of the regiment and battalion, many soldiers and commanders were killed, among them the commissar of the Chernykh regiment, political instructor Repalo, junior lieutenant Tibilov. The commander of the 213th Infantry Regiment, Major T.Ya., was captured by the enemy as a wounded man. Yakovlev. The former clerk of the first battalion, the namesake of his regiment commander, Red Army soldier L.F., who met Yakovlev in the enemy concentration camp Suwalki, tells about his last hours of life. Yakovlev: He was thin, beaten, in torn clothes, wounded, but in his uniform. In parting, he assured us of the inevitable victory over the Nazis. Do not bend before the enemy, fight and fight who and where as best as you can - this was his last appeal to us, we were already kicked further. And later we heard that Major Yakovlev had been shot by the enemy. With his hatred of the enemy, this was impossible not to believe.

Nevertheless, several groups of fighters and commanders of the 213th rifle regiment and the 9th machine-gun battalion managed to reach the front line and join their own. Among them was Captain P.V. Lived. He continued to fight at the front, received the rank of major, commanding a rifle regiment. In January 1943, in a battle near Novorossiysk, he was seriously wounded and lost his leg. And he lived after the war in Rostov-on-Don. At one time, a letter was received from him: All the garrisons fought courageously, he writes. - And fortifications of the 1st company of Lieutenant Panikleva I.A., located along the Augustow Canal from the Neman River. And the calculations of the 2nd company near the village of Novoselki, the name of the commander of which, unfortunately, I forgot. This company belonged to the bunker, in which Kh. Khabirov and his fighting friends were killed. And the training company of Lieutenant Kabylkin T.I. near the village of Novinki. The 3rd company of our battalion was located far away from us - in the area of ​​​​the city of Augustow. How it happened there, I have no information. It's hard to single out anyone in particular. If the enemy did not pass and did not break through the defenses of the 9th separate machine-gun battalion, then it was not individuals who fought, but the entire battalion met the enemy with dignity.

The front-line fate of A.I. Titov and G.L. Grishaev. After leaving the encirclement, they returned to the front again, commanded regiments. Lieutenant Colonel A.I. Titov died on September 23, 1944, commanding the artillery of the 12th Red Banner Marine Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel G.L. Grishaev died in July 1944 while commanding a rifle regiment. For four long days on June 22-25, 1941, - Lieutenant Colonel Grishaev wrote on May 24, 1944, shortly before his death, - the bunker garrisons fought with the available one ammunition load. The Germans blocked a number of bunkers, burned and undermined the calculations that closed on massive doors. Families also died in bunkers officers who fought alongside their fathers and husbands.

Section of the border near the city of Grodno (1941)

Selflessly defended in the area of ​​the village of Novinki, the garrisons of several pillboxes of the training company. This is primarily bunker 59 junior lieutenant P.N. Chus, bunker 72 of Lieutenant V. A. Pilkevich and a number of other fortifications. The Nazis undermined these fortifications one after another. In bunker 51, as his former commandant V.G., who lived in the city of Grodno, said. Machulin, junior sergeant Sorokin, cadets of the training company Evseev, Abdrakhmanov showed themselves especially heroically.

The soldiers of the battalion caused a lot of trouble to the Nazis who stormed their positions. Until the last opportunity, they covered the approaches to their fortifications, being both outside them, in the outer guard, and inside. When the enemy assault groups finally managed to get close to the pillbox, they still did not give up, but took refuge in its depths. The Nazis were forced to admit this in their reports. Thus, the commander of the enemy 28th Infantry Division, in a report on the battles for Soviet bunkers in the Sopotskino area, wrote: The garrisons took cover during the attack in the lower floors. It was impossible to capture them there ... As soon as the assault groups rolled back, the enemy came to life again and occupied the embrasures, as far as they were still intact. And further: The defenders of long-term defensive structures fought stubbornly and fiercely. They fought in most cases to the last man.

The enemy was forced to recognize the indestructible steadfastness of the Soviet soldiers. This is the first time the Germans have encountered such dedication. In one of the documents German command we find the entry: In one fortification, the last surviving man fought. He fired even when the pillbox was blown up. This defender killed two German non-commissioned officers when they tried to enter the bunker after the explosion. The wounded officer blew himself up by placing a grenade on his chest and pulling the pin, after he could no longer shoot.

This is a forced recognition of the enemy about the feat of a Soviet officer, a participant in the battles in the 59th bunker, a former cadet of the Training Company of the 9th Specialized Brigade, who lived in the village. Baryatin of the Tula region Andrei Danilovich Shmelev associates with the name of his commander. Junior Lieutenant P.N. Chus, the commandant of our bunker 59, he writes, killed many Nazis with a machine gun. When they broke into the pillbox, he blew himself up with a grenade, simultaneously destroying two enemy non-commissioned officers. So the brave Soviet officer P.N. Chus, still on the list of missing soldiers of the great war.

In the fight against our fortifications, the Nazis used everything: smoke bombs, flamethrowers, artillery of various calibers up to heavy assault and concrete-piercing systems, undermined pillboxes with charges of 150-200 kg. All norms of warfare, elementary laws of humanity were violated. The Russians in the fortifications are fighting extremely fiercely, - reports the commander of the 43rd Nazi assault battalion. - Even the seriously wounded, dying Russian, who groans in agony on the ground, continues to fight. Therefore, it is necessary to make every wounded or killed by many shots from a pistol found in the bunker, absolutely not dangerous for our troops.

A document of tremendous cynicism! Shoot the wounded, abuse the corpses of the dead ... And this was done by the line troops of the Wehrmacht! They not only shot the wounded, but also calmly left the seriously wounded to die in gunpowder and gas smoke. The number of those killed in the bunker, - reports the commander of the 742nd engineer battalion, - was not determined, because. because of the explosive gases accumulated there, it was impossible to enter the bunker.

HELL. Shmelev continues: Four cadets and Sergeant Voronin were left wounded in bunker 59. Their surnames: Kuzminykh, Petrov, but I don't remember the fourth one. There was nothing to fight, and on June 27 we calmed down. And the next day, the Nazis broke into the pillbox, and putting us against the wall (we could not stand), they shot us. I was left to live with a shot in the chest.

During the study, it was possible to find several surviving soldiers and commanders who defended pillboxes near Grodno. Interesting information about the interaction of his bunker 51 with the border outpost of Lieutenant V.I. Usov, who was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, is cited by the former commandant of the bunker, retired lieutenant V.G. Machulin: Immediately after the enemy artillery preparation, the Usov outpost, located about a kilometer from us, began to fire. Until 8-9 o'clock in the morning not a single German soldier approached us from this direction. The former commander of the sapper platoon of the 172nd sapper battalion, retired lieutenant D.I. Fedkin recalls this outpost in this way: I would especially like to note the courage of the border guards, who left their outpost only on the fourth day, i.e. June 25th. Lacking bunkers and heavy weapons, they inflicted significant losses on the enemy.

P.V. Zhila, V.G. Machulin, L.I. Irin and others in their memoirs name the heroes of the battles in the bunkers near Sopotskino: Lieutenant T.I. Kabylkin, junior lieutenant F.T. Suetov, junior lieutenant I.A. Panikleva and others.

Machulin notes that the actions of the defenders of the bunkers were especially successful and effective where the field troops managed to deploy with them. On the site of the 1st company, - he writes, - a rifle regiment was entrenched ( meaning 213 sp - A.K.), things were different there. As local residents told me after the war, there were trenches in which exterminated Nazis lay in three or four rows. After the fighting, the invaders took out their remains. In the summary of the enemy command on the losses of the 28th infantry division for the first month of the war, a rather impressive figure for the division is called - 1814 people killed and wounded soldiers and officers.

There is reason to believe that the division suffered a significant part of these losses in the battles for bunkers near Grodno.

Scheme of strongholds that participated in hostilities at the beginning of the Second World War

The positions of the 10th brigade, which fought near Lipsk (now the territory of Poland), from the first hours of the war were surrounded and cut off from our units, but the soldiers fought selflessly and did their duty. At my request, the director of the military museum in Bialystok, Mr. Zygmunt Koshtyla, said that they had counted the ruins of 52 structures bearing the traces of fierce battles in the battalion's battlefield. Local residents testify that here Soviet soldiers fought not for life, but for death, defending every position, every pillbox. Much remains to be done to reveal the circumstances of this struggle, to learn new names. It must be said here that there were no such number of bunkers in this battalion. Perhaps the fortifications built by the Poles were used to cover from East Prussia.

There is direct information about the hostilities in the environment and a number of units of the 66th Osovets and 64th Zambrovsky fortified areas, whose positions are now also located on the territory of Poland.

In the report of the head of the operational department of the headquarters of the 10th Army, Lieutenant Colonel S.A. Markushevich said Machine-gun battalions of Osovetsky and Zambrovsky URs occupied firing points with an announcement of alarm and many of the garrisons successfully repelled enemy attacks and died at these points.

Another document says that the bulbats of the indicated fortified areas took up their firing positions, staunchly defended them and did not leave the battle.

It is known that the 2nd Rifle Division, relying on the facilities of the 13th Opb of the 66th Osovets Fortified Area, fought successfully against the enemy in the area of ​​the Osovets Fortress for two days. The division left its positions on orders. Along with it were subdivisions of management and rear of the fortified area. But the garrisons of a number of its military installations continued a fierce struggle directly at the border for a long time. It can be seen from the captured documents that until June 27, 1941, the 87th infantry division of the enemy could not occupy some of the Soviet fortifications in the area of ​​​​the Osovets fortress and to the south.

The Soviet surrounded bunkers in the Vincent area defended themselves especially stubbornly. The Nazis used guns of various calibers here, powerful subversive weapons, smoke candles and bombs, approached the pillboxes, hiding behind sandbag barriers. Even more stubborn, albeit for two days, the struggle for Soviet fortifications had to be endured by units of the 7th Infantry Division against the 12th and 14th Special Guards of the Zambrovsky fortified area in the Szulbozhe-Chizhuv area, which is on the railway from Warsaw to Bialystok, and also in the Lomza region. The division's report on the results of these battles says: The defenders of the bunkers fought extremely hard, literally to the last man. In one of the bunkers, women and children were identified among the combatants ( so it was in many points - A.K.). The defenders defend themselves, repelling the attack on the bunker. Then the weapon is silent for a long time. But as soon as the attackers inadvertently give themselves away, a fierce fire begins again. Even the wounded fired their weapons, often firing even through open gun barrels.

The construction of defensive structures of the 62nd Brest UR along the new border in the Brest region began in the summer of 1940. However, by the beginning of the war, less than half of the planned defensive facilities had been built. Moreover, these fortifications were not fully equipped: in the bunkers, power units were often absent, there was no water, no light. In most cases, there was no telephone cable connection between the pillboxes; communication between units and with the headquarters of the fortified area was by wire. Company strongholds, battalion defense centers were not connected by fire into a single defensive complex. To the north-west of Brest, there were sections of 10 and even 25 km, on which no long-term fortifications were erected at all. Only field-type structures were built here, and there were no troops in them.

The bunkers built were mainly single- or double-machine gun, artillery-machine-gun and artillery. At key positions, bunkers were built in three or four and even five embrasures. By the beginning of the war, their weapons were mothballed, ammunition and food were stored in company and battalion depots. The garrisons of pillboxes, depending on their size, consisted of 8-9 and 16-18 people. Some accommodated up to 36-40 people. As a rule, officers were appointed as commandants of bunkers. However, by the beginning of the war, there was a large shortage of personnel in the units; the incoming reinforcements for operations in bunkers were not prepared. All this negatively affected the overall stability of the defense. Nevertheless, from the very first days of the war, in the sections of the border where our fighters were in the pillboxes of the fortified area, the enemy met with stubborn resistance.

bunker positions

The most intense and lengthy battles with the enemy were fought by the soldiers of the 17th artillery and machine-gun battalion, located in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe town of Semyatichi. The battalion consisted of three companies. This battalion, compared to others, had more ready-made bunkers and more personnel. The fortifications in the strongholds of his mouth were placed more compactly, better covering each other. But there was still no fire communication between the companies. On June 22, 1941, early in the morning, the first orders to the companies to repel enemy attacks were given by the battalion commander, Captain A.I. Postovalov. But by noon on the first day of the war, communication with the battalion headquarters had ceased, since the village of Batiki Srednie, where the headquarters was located, was attacked by the Nazis who had broken through from the flank. Since that time, the companies of the battalion, surrounded by the enemy, acted independently: the 1st company - near the village of Anusin, the 2nd - at Moshchona Krulevskaya, the 3rd - at Slokha Annopolsky.

lieutenant
I. Fedorov

1st company, led by Lieutenant I.I. Fedorov, defended positions in the center of the battalion's sector. The five-piston bunker Orel, in which the company commander was located, the two-piston artillery and machine-gun bunkers Svetlana and Sokol, and several other structures covered the highway from the bridge across the Bug River to Semyatichi. In the first hours of the battle, a group of border guards and soldiers from the battalion headquarters joined the defenders of the bunkers.

Longer than others in this group of fortifications, the Orel bunker garrison held out. An exciting story about the heroism of the defenders of the bunkers was told by the wife of the company commander, Lieutenant I.I. Fedorova - P.E. Suleikin. By the evening of June 22, she, along with her three-year-old daughter Inessa and son Oleg, the wife of Lieutenant Smaznov with a girl in her arms and the wife of Lieutenant Goncharov, on the advice of the soldiers, began to make their way to the pillboxes, hoping to hide in them. It was not possible to penetrate Lieutenant Fedorov's pillbox: at that time the Germans fired at him from cannons, and the women took refuge in the pillbox, which was headed by Lieutenant Semyon Shikhantsev and political officer Volkov. After some time, Lieutenant Fedorov contacted them. He reported that the enemy had moved forward and surrounded them. But the company will not leave positions and will fight until our searches come up, ”Fyodorov said then.

There was not enough water in the bunkers. The fighters under enemy fire crawled after her to the village occupied by the Germans. When there was no water, the machine guns in Lieutenant Shikhantsev's pillbox went out of order. The enemy came closer and began firing at the bunker with direct fire. Large pieces of concrete fell off, the lights went out, people began to suffocate from cement dust and gunpowder burning. Thick, suffocating smoke began to penetrate the fortification. Having chosen the moment when the black cloud closed the bunker for a while, the women went outside and, dragging their children, crawled away to the nearest rye crops.

Gradually, the fire of the bunkers subsided. By June 28, of all the structures, only the bunker Orel, Lieutenant Fedorov, survived. Shooting from it stopped only in the second week of the war. The feat of the soldiers who fought in the bunker Orel became known later. P.E. Suleikina managed to see the wounded soldier Amozov, who said that the defenders of this bunker fought to the last opportunity, they responded to the offer of the Germans to surrender with fire. Together with Lieutenant I.I. Fedorov in the bunker were the medical assistant Lyatin, the fighters Pukhov, Butenko (he was the orderly of the company commander Lieutenant I.I. Fedorov) and others. According to Amozov, the defenders of the bunker died. (Former TsAMO researcher T.G. Stepanchuk discovered a report from the political department of the 65th Army to the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front. It states that after the formation of the 65th Army reached the state border of the USSR near the village of Anusin in July 1944, the Soviet Soldiers in one of the pillboxes found on the floor strewn with shell casings, near a mangled machine gun, the bodies of two people.One of them, in the form of a junior political officer, had no documents with him.In the pocket of his friend's tunic, Komsomol ID No. 11183470 was preserved in the name of the Red Army soldier Kuzma Iosifovich Butenko. The Komsomol ID card found on the remains of the soldier is stored in the Central Migration Military Forces. It was not possible to establish the name of the junior political instructor. This fact was also confirmed in the political report of the head of the Political Directorate of the 1st Belorussian Front, Lieutenant-General S.F. Galadzhev on August 6, 1944. It says that from a survey of local residents, the following circumstances of the death of these two brave people became clear: The bunker garrison bravely staunched his positions, held out for seven days and repelled the German attacks until all the ammunition was used up. In an unequal struggle, he destroyed a large number of German soldiers and officers. The Germans spent a huge amount of shells to suppress the bunker, but the daredevils did not give up. They closed all the hatches of the bunker at the very last and died.)

For three days the bunker fought Svetlana under the command of junior lieutenants V.I. Kolocharova and Tenyaeva. According to Kolocharov, the machine gunner Kopeikin and the gunner Kazakh Khazambekov especially distinguished themselves in their bunker. Khazambekov, together with the gunners of a neighboring company, knocked out an enemy armored train in the first hours of the war, and then successfully hit the infantry moving along the railway bridge and pontoon ferry with fire.

The 2nd company of the battalion occupied positions near the village of Moshchona Krulevskaya. She was commanded by Lieutenant P.E. Nedolugov. The former commandants of the bunkers, now reserve officers A.A., write about how her soldiers fought. Mologin and I. F. Malusha, residents of the Semyatich Povet of Poland I. Vsrshievich, A. Gladysh, I. Mityuk and others. But the Russian soldiers did not give up. For more than seven days, the bunker fought on the northeastern outskirts of the village of Moshchona Krulevskaya. There were six soldiers and twelve young lieutenants in it, who only arrived in the battalion on June 21. Brave warriors responded to ultimatums and promises with fire, fought to the last bullet.

The 3rd company of the battalion fought near the village of Slokhi Annopolsky. Like other units, this company from the first day entered the fight against the enemy. (Former commandants of bunkers, reserve officers I.N. Shibakov, S.N. Zaitsev, A.D. Grishechkin, wives of officers and re-enlisted men M.V. Eskova, I. E. Lokteva, A.I. Gorelova, Polish citizens F. Bukhovets, P. Kuriga, A. Panasyuk, A. Semenyuk, M. Goponov and others reported some details of the fighting in the area of ​​this company.The defense was led by the deputy company commander V. K. Loktev and junior lieutenant I. I. Shevlyukov. All seven bunkers of the company participated in the fighting:

"Bee - junior lieutenant I.M. Sazonov, Kim - junior lieutenant N.V. Eliseenko, Fast - junior lieutenant I.N. Shibakov, Gorki - junior lieutenant I.I. Shevlyukov, Kholm - junior lieutenant S.N. Zaitsev (V.K. Loktev was also in it), the pillbox of junior lieutenant A.V. Eskov and the pillbox of Bezymyanny, the name of the commander could not be established). there were only two Maxim heavy machine guns each.) On June 22, her soldiers exchanged fire with enemy infantry advancing from railway station Semyatichi. By evening, the Nazis reached the pillboxes located on the right flank of the company, and launched an attack on the village of Slokhi from the west. The fire from the pillboxes Holm, Pchelka, Kim and Bezymyanny made the enemy chains lie down, and then move back. On the morning of the next day, the enemy resumed the offensive from all directions, especially from the south. On this day, the garrisons of the pillboxes Kholm, Bystry and junior lieutenant Eskov repulsed several attacks. On June 24, the enemy set fire to the village of Slokhi. Soon the Nazis cut off the pillboxes of junior lieutenants Sazonov, Eliseenko and Bezymyanny from the rest of the company's fortifications. But their defenders continued to fight. The soldiers and commanders of the 3rd company fought with exceptional heroism. The gunner of the 45-mm cannon, Private Skovorodko, acted skillfully. He fired even after the sight was damaged. When the German units, preparing for the march, began to stretch along the highway, the resourceful warrior, pointing the gun through the barrel, smashed several cars and destroyed a group of enemy soldiers.

During the defense, the soldiers of the bunkers widely used sorties in order to repel the attacks of the Nazis, clarify the situation, and replenish food and water supplies. During one of these sorties, Sergeant S. Gorelov and Senior Sergeant Zhir knocked out a staff car and delivered documents, a radio station and other trophies to the bunker. Junior Lieutenant A.V. From an ambush near the highway, Eskov killed a Nazi officer who was passing in a passenger car. At the same time, Eskov was wounded, but managed to hide in the bunker. (In subsequent battles, Junior Lieutenant A.V. Eskov was wounded for the second time, and received severe burns during a fire in the bunker.) All participants in the battles and local residents known to us wrote about his courageous act. Moreover, they claimed that Eskov had killed a high-ranking German officer or general, since after that the enemy attacked not only the pillboxes, but also the civilian population with particular fury. The Annopol punishers who arrived that day in the village of Slokhi shot all the men aged 16 to 60 years old, and burned the village.

The situation on the defense sector of the 3rd company worsened every day. As early as June 23, communication was lost by bunkers, which were located north of the village of Slokhi. On the night of June 28, Kim, a wounded soldier from the pillbox, made his way to the Gorki bunker. He said that all the people in those bunkers died: after refusing to surrender, they were poisoned with gas. (In addition to the participants in the battles, residents of the villages Slokhi and Anusin P. Kuriga, F. Bukhovets and others wrote about the use of gases by the Nazis.) The commandants of firing points Pchelka, Junior Lieutenant Sazonov, also died (Junior Lieutenant Eskova's wife, Maria Vasilievna, reports that the body of Junior Lieutenant I. M. Sazonov was identified by the inhabitants of the village of Slokhi, whom the Nazis forced to clear the bunkers after the fighting.), Bezymyanny and Kim - Junior Lieutenant Eliseenko. (In May 1964, I.N. Shibakov, while on vacation in Poland, under a concrete block of an exploded bunker, Kim discovered the remains of a junior lieutenant. They were buried with honors. The officer's tunic, along with insignia, was transferred to the Museum of the Heroic Defense of the Brest Fortress. So since, according to Shibakov, there were no other officers in Kim's bunker, it can be assumed that he found the remains of junior lieutenant I. V. Eliseenko.)

Participants and eyewitnesses of the battles report that the Nazis shot political instructor V.K. Lokteva right at the firing point Hill, in which he was located. Apparently, this was stated in the report of the command of the 293rd German infantry division: In one pillbox in the forest west of the Kamenka River, a political instructor was taken prisoner and, according to the order, was shot. This political instructor assumed command of the company, including the management of subordinate pillboxes ... It was established that the name of this political instructor was Gorichev. (Perhaps, this is how V.K. Loktev called himself when he was captured. None of the battalions of this section had an officer with such a surname. According to the participants in the battles, pillboxes of the 3rd company were in the woods west of the Kamenka River and political instructor V led their defense .K. Loktev.) He was the soul of the resistance of the enemy in this area ...
Until the last moment, the wife of foreman S. Gorelov, Anna Gorelova, was in the bunker Holm. A courageous woman helped the fighters, cared for the wounded. When a handful of warriors led by Loktev left the bunker for the last attack, Gorelova was with them. The Germans subsequently wrote about this fact: ... Together with the prisoners, the wife of one soldier also came out of the blown up bunker.

On the right flank of the fortified area, 100 kilometers northwest of Brest, in the area of ​​​​the town of Drokhichina, there were positions of the 16th artillery and machine-gun battalion, commanded by Captain A.V. Nazarov. The battalion had almost no ready-made bunkers. His headquarters was located in the village of Krupitsy, next to him were the firing points of the 1st company, commanded by Lieutenant Z.D. Falcon. The fighters of the company, having opened fire on the Nazis in the very first minutes of the war, thwarted their attempts to organize a crossing across the Bug in this area. However, by noon there were less than 20 soldiers left in the company. At this time, Captain A.V. Nazarov, the chief of staff of the battalion, senior lieutenant Taraskin, and a group of staff members, having taken the banner of the battalion, joined the company of Z.D. Sokol (no other information about the battles of the 1st company was found). This breaks off information about the battles near the village of Krupitsa.

Near the village of Minchovo, in four pillboxes and three tanks dug into the ground, the soldiers of the 2nd company, commanded by Lieutenant I.I., held the defense. Zmeykin. All day on June 22, German infantry and tanks stormed the positions of this company, but each time they rolled back under the fire of cannons and machine guns. Despite the losses, the enemy continued to attack. By nightfall the company was surrounded. Seriously wounded I.I. Zmeikin was captured by the Nazis. In these battles, the platoon commander senior sergeant Sinitsyn died in his tank.

Until June 26, the garrison of the bunker of the 2nd company fought under the leadership of ml. Lieutenant Antipov. It also included the deputy political officer of the company Kormich. A few days after the battle, the wounded Red Army soldier Gunko was picked up and sheltered by the local residents of the village of Minchovo. He said that the rest of the defenders of the bunker were killed, including Kormich.

On the left flank of the fortified area there were structures of the 18th artillery and machine-gun battalion. Here, the 3rd company under the command of Lieutenant S.I. fought especially staunchly. Veselov. Its fighters defended a site near the village of Orlya, deployed in five machine-gun double-seat bunkers and one bunker with two 76-mm guns. Initially, the enemy fired on bunkers from cannons, then, approaching closer, used flamethrowers and smoke shells. However, the defenders of the bunkers held out.

Selflessly fought the fighters of the unit, led by ml. Lieutenant A.K. Shankov. Even when the left caponier was pierced by a shell explosion, the shell-shocked and half-deafened soldiers did not lose their heads. They moved into the surviving compartments and continued to fire from there.

ml. Lieutenant I.T. Glinin

For two days the garrison of the bunker fought under the leadership of ml. Lieutenant I.T. Glinin. When the ammunition ran out, the Nazis grabbed the commander, Sergeant Wart, two soldiers and shot them. At the end of the second day of defense, the company commander, Lieutenant S.I., died. Veselov, but the company continued fighting the next day. Until the last bullet, pillboxes ml. lieutenants A.Ya. Orekhova, N.I. Mishurenkova, P.I. Moskvina, Sh.Ya. Levita.

Near the village of Rechitsa, near Brest, there was a bunker of the 1st company under the command of ml. lieutenants P.P. Selezneva, N.G. Zimin and foremen I.F. Rekhina. On the first day of the war, its garrison repulsed several attacks by the Nazis and until the evening did not allow them to organize a crossing across the Bug. The defenders of the bunker died in the flames of flamethrowers, honorably fulfilling their military duty.

The combat operations of the German troops against the Soviet bunkers near Brest are reflected in the reporting documentation of the headquarters of the Army Group Center. So, for example, in the entry dated June 28, 1941, it was said that units of the 293rd Infantry Division of the 35th Army Corps still continued to fight with Soviet soldiers in the Semyatichi area. The said division was able to complete the fighting in this area only by June 30, 1941.
The courage and steadfastness of the Soviet soldiers who defended the border battle lines were also recognized by the enemies. The reporting document of the 293rd German Infantry Division said this about the battles near Brest: At the head of the garrison there were always officers. Officers and soldiers defended themselves until the last minute. It happened that our soldiers, entering the destroyed pillboxes, were still under fire. The demand for surrender, transmitted through an interpreter before the bunkers were blown up, had no effect.

In these stubborn battles, which lasted more than a week, the Soviet soldiers were unable to detain the enemy on a wide sector of the front and inflict significant losses on him. But the defenders of the border fortifications, fighting selflessly and steadfastly, diverted an entire infantry division of the Nazi troops in the Semyatichi-Drohichin sector. In addition, units of the Nazi 167th Infantry Division were detained for three days, from June 22 to June 24, to combat Soviet bunkers in the Orel region. There is no need to say that even the delay in reaching the front of one or another enemy unit, and even more so formations, played an important role for us at that time.

Let's now consider another direction. If you look at the reporting maps of the main headquarters of the enemy ground forces (OKH), you can establish that in the space from Liepaja to Przemysl, up to 25 enemy divisions were suspended and pinned down for certain periods in the first battles. We will have the opportunity to name them with reference to the battlefields. And almost everywhere where the resistance was especially long and successful, it is easy to establish that the presence of fortifications contributed to the success of the defense of our units. In some cases, as in the fortress of Brest, these were fortifications of an earlier time, in others they were new ones, just built before the war.

Let's do short review the most outstanding examples of steadfastness, courage and heroism of the defenders of the Soviet border fortifications in the Southwestern Front in the early days of the Great Patriotic War. On the right wing of the front near Kovel (where the construction of pillboxes of the 9th fortified area was just planned), a small number of defensive structures - wood-and-earth firing points (DZOT) in the Lyuboml region were occupied by soldiers of the 201st opb of the future 9th Kovel fortified area. Here, the battle of the defenders of the Soviet fortifications repeatedly turned into hand-to-hand combat with the Nazis. In a counterattack on the attacking enemy led his soldiers ml. political instructor Shamrin, who was wounded in this battle. In the area of ​​the village Kusnishche bravely fought the soldiers of several bunkers 47 opb of the same fortified area. Platoon commander G.E. Blinov fought in the bunker for a long time, despite the threat of being “circled. When, finally, the enemy destroyed the bunker with artillery fire, Blinov, with the remnants of the platoon, took up position in the field and continued to destroy the enemy ... The same report of the Sovinformburo for July 11 speaks of the feat of soldier Gushchin. The young warrior was from the same battalion. Machine gunner Gushchin, - reported the Information Bureau, - with the fire of his heavy machine gun, for a long time held back the advancing divisions of motorcyclists. After some time, the enemy managed to damage the Gushchin machine gun. The shooting stopped. The motorcyclists went on the attack. But Gushchin, taking the light machine gun of the killed soldier, again opened sudden fire on the enemy. In this battle, many enemy motorcyclists were killed. The enemy attack was thwarted. The machine gunner Gushchin also died by the death of a hero.

political instructor
F.V. Danilchenko

A number of other heroes of these battles should also be named. During the attack, political instructor Dovner entered into hand-to-hand combat and personally stabbed an enemy officer with a bayonet. The Red Army soldier Belokobila was the first to shout For the Motherland! launched an attack on the Nazis. The rest of the fighters followed suit. Together with the attacking platoons, the battalion commander Art. lieutenant A. Duhota, his deputy senior political instructor F. Danilchenko, chief of staff A. Volokhov, secretary of the party bureau S. Kovalev. The company commander Celestial, wounded, after bandaging refused to be sent for treatment. He came to the headquarters of the fortified area and demanded to be sent into battle. A half-company was immediately formed, and the Heavenly Empire led it to the front line.

It was possible to find the retired lieutenant colonel S.A. mentioned in this document. Kovalev, to find the relatives of those who died in those battles F.V. Danilchenko, A.N. Dovner, G.E. Blinov, collect materials about these people.

So it was in the strip of the Kovel fortified area, which had only a small number of wood-and-earth firing points. However, these positions, with their brave defenders, significantly contributed to the stability of the defense of the 45th and 62nd rifle divisions on the outskirts of Kovel. Among the other participants in the intense battles in section 47 opb, one should mention the commander of the training company st. lieutenant I.I. Legaeva, ml. Lieutenant F.K. Salikov, company commander, retired major D.K. Maksimlyuk after the war, and a number of other combatants.

In the area from cape Ustilug to cape Sokal, there were positions of the 2nd Vladimir-Volynsky and partially 4th Kamenka-Strumilovsky fortified areas. On this section of the border in the zone of the Southwestern Front, where the blow of the enemy troops was especially strong, the soldiers of the 87th and 124th rifle divisions fought most staunchly. It is significant that here, too, their support was the positions of the fortified areas under construction. It was on the bunkers of the 2nd Vladimir-Volynsky fortified area that the 87th rifle division relied, waging difficult battles on the border in almost complete encirclement. The command of the 5th Army reported: Two regiments of the 87th Infantry Division are fighting in encirclement in the Ustiluga area, together with parts of the fortified area. During the counterattack of our units on June 23, 1941, when the 96th Infantry Regiment of this division recaptured Ustilug from the enemy, the fire of pillboxes 19 opb of the Vladimir-Volyn fortified area provided useful assistance to our attacking chains.

Of interest is an excerpt from the diary of a non-commissioned officer of the German army Hans Jurgen Simon, who participated in the battles near Vladimir-Volynsk. The entry for June 22 reads: The goal of this day's operation was not achieved due to strong resistance in the forest near Syatikhni, filled with pillboxes. A huge glow blazed in the sky. ( An obvious exaggeration. There were 7 bunkers on the site that Simon writes about. - A.K.) Entry for June 23: Lieutenant Lang orders me to go to the OP located in the Russian still operating bunker. One of my comrades was wounded in the stomach. The Russians in the bunker are offered to surrender, and one corporal serves as an interpreter. As an answer, the corporal falls, hit by a bullet from a pillbox. Hand grenades thrown at the bunker did not change the situation in any way, there were no flamethrowers. Finally, gasoline is poured into the bunker, then it is bombarded with hand grenades.

The search for the names of the heroes of these battles in the bunkers of the Vladimir-Volyn fortified area and the clarification of the circumstances of their protection of their battle lines led us to a number of discoveries, the results of which, as we are convinced, have every reason (as, indeed, many other facts from the data presented here) according to dignity to be reflected in the heroic annals of the Armed Forces of our Motherland.

Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant S.G. Gudenko

The garrisons of a number of bunkers in this area fought from several days to one and a half to two weeks. This is how one of the glorious and tragic stories was revealed - the heroism of the defense of the Kovel bunker, the dedication and resilience of its garrison, led by commander Lieutenant S.G. Gudenko. Only on the third day of the war did the shots from this bunker stop, which was furiously firing back from the enemy pressing from all sides. The warriors died along with their commander, a handsome and broad-shouldered fair-haired guy who arrived in Trostyanka a year before the war. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union for his heroic deeds in the battles on Khasan. A resident of Trostyanki G.I. Voitechuk said that the remains of six soldiers were found during burial in Gudenko's bunker. One soldier from his garrison was able to creep into the woods, take cover in the thickets, and then, when he was discovered, climbed onto one of the pillboxes and threw a bunch of grenades at the enemy soldiers. Six people of the Nazis were killed. And the last thing that the inhabitants of the village of Trostyanka told when we were standing near the destroyed bunker. The enemy commander, by definition of the inhabitants - a major, when they removed the remains of the dead from the bunker, removed the Hero's star from his chest and ordered the Soviet officer to be buried with military honors, which was done. Before that, I had heard something similar about the peculiar gentlemanship of the Nazis at the beginning of the war, but still it was hard to believe in it. And then I remembered: after all, it was 1941, there was absolute confidence in victory. So why not educate your soldiers on this example of heroism?

The defenders of the bunker Zhitomir, as well as a group of fighters led by ml. Lieutenant I.P. Kornienko and company commander Lieutenant Yemets. The latter fought for several days in an unfinished bunker.

Selflessly led the battle of his garrison for 2 days, Lieutenant A.Z. Liventsev. According to eyewitnesses, A.Z. Leventsev, wounded, was brutally tortured by the Nazis. He was buried in a mass grave in Ustilug. The battle continued for three days in the area of ​​the village of Sukhodoly near Yanuv. These examples can be continued. So at the turn of Litovezh-Gribovitsa-Lishnya, where the soldiers of the 146th brigade of the same fortified area fought, according to the memoirs of a participant in the battles of Art. Lieutenant I.D. Etkalo, under the leadership of the battalion commander Captain Bury, the garrisons of the Kulik, Grozny, Bezymyanny bunkers especially distinguished themselves. Here, in their positions, the 283rd Rifle Regiment of the 87th Rifle Division held the defense. Commandant of the bunker Kulik Jr. Lieutenant Kopachev bravely led the soldiers into the first counterattack, was wounded, but continued to lead the battle of the bunker garrison. On the third day he died of his wounds. The commander was replaced by Sergeant Ivan Golovashov. Heroes Jr. fought in the bunker for five days. Sergeant Began, Red Army soldiers Zhuravlev, Mokulevich, Sidorchuk, Kurlaev. Many of them died, the last defenders of the bunker held out for up to ten days. Together with the garrison of the bunker, Kulik bravely fought a rifle platoon of ml. Lieutenant Sanko. Nearby, soldiers of the bunkering station Grozny were engaged in a tense battle. People were dying. The dead were buried next to the pillbox. Attempts to block the bunkers, this group beat off with fire from the connecting trenches. The Nazis fired at them with smoke shells, hit the embrasures with direct fire, even tried to get closer to our positions in the Soviet military uniform. But all the tricks of the enemy were thwarted. When the enemy managed to block the Grozny bunker and climb on it, the commandant, Lieutenant Inozemtsev, blew up the remaining ammunition, destroying the structure. .Deputy Inozemtsev, Lieutenant Borovik, until his death, masterfully controlled the fire of the twin guns of the bunker, which did not allow the Nazis to use the airfield they had built between the villages of Gribovitsa and Novaya Lishnya.

One of the bunkers near the village of Morozovichi fought for three weeks, and the bunker near the village of Litovyagi resisted the onslaught of the enemy, according to local residents, for about a month.

In the Ustiluga area, the enemy's 99th light infantry division fought until the end of June 1941.

To the south, groups of bunkers and strongholds of defense centers of the 4th Kamenka-Strumilovsky fortified area contributed to stability in the first days of the fighting of the units of the 124th Infantry Division in the Tartakov-Sokal-Gorokhov area. Positions 42 and 35 of this fortified area were located here. And in the area of ​​​​m. Parhach, with the support of the fortifications of 140 opb, on the first day of the war, the 3rd cavalry division delivered a successful blow to the enemy. At the same time, the enemy was pushed back.

About the exploits of the soldiers of the 140th opb of the Kamenka-Strumilovsky fortified area, commanded by Captain I.E. Kiparenko, should also be told. In many bunkers, the garrisons fought in enemy encirclement for 3 to 5 days, most of them died a heroic death, but did not surrender to the enemy, writes war veteran G.F. Sidorenko. - DOT under the command of Art. Lieutenant Mikhail Efimovich Kostyukov fought for 9 days at the railway bridge across the Rata River, and only when his defenders ran out of ammunition, after failed attempt to break out of the encirclement, the defenders of the bunker died in their fortress from enemy flamethrowers and asphyxiating gases. In the artillery pillbox near mine No. 4, the Velikomostskaya garrison led by Dmitry Yakovlevich Rogachenko, when the Nazis damaged a gun in one of the embrasures and rolled a tank in reverse to poison the soldiers of the garrison with exhaust gases, the defenders of the pillbox blew themselves up with surviving shells and this explosion was destroyed an enemy tank and a lot of soldiers surrounding the bunker, waiting for our soldiers to come out of it with their hands up.

In the Bendyukhi-Korchin area, where the positions of 35th Opb were located, the enemy managed to push our field units, however, some pillboxes in the strongholds of the fortified area for a long time, being surrounded, continued to fight. In one of the first leaflets about the mass heroism of soldiers, issued by the political department of the Southwestern Front, the heroism of a group of 20 soldiers of the 35th brigade and 40 construction workers of the 81st uns, who fought under the command of ml. Lieutenant P.P. Dzyaruk. It said that for several hours, intensively fighting, the Soviet soldiers held Cape Korchin in their hands until the field troops approached. Failing to occupy them on June 22, the Nazis abandoned the 51st assault engineer battalion on June 23-24, supported by motorized infantry of the reinforced 179th and 199th infantry regiments of the 57th Infantry Division, against the Soviet fortifications in the 42nd opb sector.

Only after several days of fighting in this area, the enemies were able to capture the ruins of pillboxes, blown up along with their garrisons. In the strong point of the 1st company 42 opb near the village. Tartakov had four pillboxes: one with two 45-mm cannons and a heavy machine gun, two had one 45-mm cannon and two heavy machine guns each, and one had no guns, but had two heavy machine guns. But the bunkers were not yet camouflaged, the sectors of fire from their embrasures were not cleared. And yet for each of these fortifications there was a fierce battle. Especially a lot of trouble brought the enemy a pillbox with two cannons and a heavy machine gun, its number 1352, located directly near Tartakov. With his fire, he blocked the road from Cape Sokal to the northeast. Opening fire suddenly for the enemy, he caused the enemy big losses. The Nazis wrote about the battle for this fortification: To destroy the structure north of Tartakov, the 1st company of the 51st assault battalion was put into action. In front of this long-term fortification, units of a reinforced rifle regiment, artillerymen and anti-aircraft gunners lay down, who had already suffered heavy losses here, having failed to suppress the structures. Only during a fierce battle on June 23, 1941, when specially allocated batteries of mortars and howitzers fired at the bunker, and assault platoons, using impenetrable spaces, got close to the bunker, blocked and blew it up, this brave little garrison stopped resisting. All the defenders of the bunker were killed.

It should be noted the exceptionally high morale and fighting spirit of the defenders of the bunkers. We saw this from the example just given, when people fought to the end, despising death. Communists and non-Party people, says one of the documents, did not have the slightest hesitation in battle, even before death. When the Nazis managed to block one of the bunkers of the battalion and they were preparing to blow it up, the soldiers of the garrison of the neighboring bunker came to the rescue. They were led into the attack by political instructor P. Fedenko. The fighting in this area was long and extremely fierce. The enemy, in his reporting documents, scrupulously described all the methods of dealing with the besieged garrisons of Soviet pillboxes, ranging from shelling with heavy high-explosive shells, direct fire at embrasures and ending with attempts to block the pillboxes, undermine them with large quantities of explosives, and suffocate their garrisons with smoke and gas. Flamethrowers, smoke and gas bombs were used during the siege of pillboxes almost everywhere. On June 25, 1941, the command of the enemy army group South reported about the battles for pillboxes in this sector: Fights for pillboxes in the Sokal region resumed. The Russians, fighting to the last, resumed the fight out of about twenty bunkers. It was. Ten bunkers 35 opb in the area with. Korchin and fifteen pillboxes 42 opb near Sokal resumed the battle. The warriors decided to fight to the end. Conducting a fierce fire on the approaching enemy, they themselves suffocated in smoke, burned out from powder gases, and died under the rubble of fortifications undermined by the enemy. In the command bunker Taras of one of the strongholds of the 42nd brigade east of Sokal, the battle was led by the battalion commander, Captain V.N. Pavlov. For several days the heroes fought selflessly in it and died from explosions under the ruins of their bunker. Commander of the 35th opb captain S.S. Mishkorudny also directly led the battle. In the area of ​​​​the village of Tadani, by personal example, he led the soldiers of his battalion and sappers into a successful counterattack, as a result of which many Nazis were exterminated and trophies were captured.

Some of the participants in the fighting in this area managed to break out of the bunkers blocked by the enemy, to go to their own through the front line. Thus, the remnants of the garrisons of two pillboxes in the amount of 22 people came out of 35 opb. In the battle on the site of this battalion on June 22-25, the deputy distinguished himself. battalion commander senior political instructor M.A. Zyuzin. Being in the pillboxes and moving from one structure to another, he raised the spirit of the soldiers, encouraged the fighters and commanders. I personally led the seven remaining fighters out of the encirclement - the last defenders of one of the pillboxes. The chief of staff of this battalion, Captain P.A. Zavorotny fought for five days in a pillbox near the village. Korchin. When the crews fell from the frenzy of machine guns and guns, he replaced one or the other gunner, exterminating a significant number of the Nazis and putting out of action several enemy guns. Captain P.A. Zavorotny withdrew ten soldiers from the garrison of his bunker from the encirclement.

By the actions of our units in this area, until June 27, the 262nd infantry division of the enemy was pinned down, and until July 1-2, units of the 79th and 113th infantry divisions of the enemy were located here.

Combat fortifications 140 and 44 opb of the 4th Kamenka-Strumilovsky fortified area covered the direction to Lviv from the northeast through Parkhach (now Shevchenko) and Big Bridges. The stronghold of 140 opb in the Parkhach area had 6 bunkers and near Neporotov - 5 bunkers. Three strongholds of 44 opb had 14 bunkers. They were located in the area of ​​​​the villages of Sekernya, Big Bridges, Terpentinofen and Butynya. As you can see, there were very few ready-made bunkers in these units.

The bunkers of the 140th separate machine-gun battalion especially helped the fighting of the 3rd Cavalry Division in the Parkhach area.

The report of the South-Western Front gives an example of the heroic actions of one of the companies of the 140th brigade: The commander of the machine-gun company of the 140th brigade, being surrounded for more than 8 hours, continuously fights with the enemy, repelling blocking groups, again and again restoring communication between pillboxes. His deputy ml. political instructor Kolesnikov.

The newspaper of the South-Western Front of the Red Army in the issue of 06/29/1941. she gave the name of the commander of this company, gave some details of the battle: the N-sky machine-gun battalion was located on the front line of the western border. The Nazis tried to surround the entire battalion, but they were rebuffed. Then the enemy began to surround in parts. Rota Jr. Lieutenant Petrovsky, being on the left flank, occupied 4 bunkers. But by fire brought to higher voltage, Petrovsky eliminated the intentions of the enemy. Note that by 16.00 on June 22, communication with pillboxes of the 2nd company ml. Lieutenant N.G. Petrovsky was restored. The same combat episode was reported in the report of the Sovinform Bureau for 06/25/1941/60/ Lieutenant D.E. Kulish. THEM. Bagramyan in his book gives an example of the heroic struggle of his small garrison: In the very first hours of the war, the pillbox was surrounded by the enemy and subjected to a methodical siege. The Nazis shot him point-blank with powerful guns, poured flaming streams from flamethrowers. The fighters suffocated in poisonous smoke, but fought back with unflagging courage. Desperate to force the Soviet soldiers to lay down their arms, the Nazis dragged explosives to the bunker. Then a handful of heroes made a sudden sortie and in a furious hand-to-hand fight destroyed the enemy sappers. The battle flared up with renewed vigor.

An illustrative example of the joint actions of the state border cover unit, parts of the fortified area and border troops is the defense of the Rava-Russian fortified area. The 41st Rifle Division, which made up its field filling, was located in a camp near Rava-Russkaya. Ahead, 4-8 km from the camp towards the border, were the positions of the fortified area, its 21st, 36th and 141st separate machine-gun battalions located in the newly built pillboxes. They covered Rava-Russkaya and the highway going through this city to Lvov from the northeast, north and northwest. As part of the fortified area on June 7, 1941, 91 bunkers were on alert, the garrisons of which were 639 people. The pillboxes were armed with 8 76-mm guns, 52 45-mm cannons, 181 heavy machine guns and more than 100 light machine guns. Field fortifications were built inside and between the battalion defense units and strongholds of the companies: trenches, trenches, bunkers and dugouts. On alert, they were to be occupied by units of the 41st Infantry Division. With the beginning of the war, units and subunits of the 41st Infantry Division were able to occupy their defensive line and fully armed to meet the enemy, soldiers-border guards of the 91st Border Detachment, defenders of the pillboxes of the fortified area were on their battle lines. All this predetermined the success of the defense. Suffice it to say that the 41st Rifle Division, together with parts of the fortified area and the border detachment, successfully held back the onslaught of five divisions of the Nazi troops for five days. The actions of the soldiers of this division, commanded by Major General N.G. Mikushev, and fighters of the border guards of the 91st border detachment under the leadership of Major Ya.D. Maly are covered in a number of works, including articles published in the Military History Journal.

Less is known about the resilience and heroism of the defenders of a number of pillboxes in the fortified area. Its commandant Colonel F.S. Sysoev, the officers of the headquarters and the political department did everything possible to meet the enemy fully armed. The first enemy attacks on the positions of the Soviet troops ended in shameful failure. On June 23, a report from the Southwestern Front said: All strongholds of the 6th fortified area are firing intensely. In this area, the enemy retreated. The command of the fortified area especially strengthened the garrisons of pillboxes 1 and 2 of machine-gun companies of the 36th opb, as well as 25 sapper companies, covering the highway to Rava-Russkaya from Lyubichi Krulevskaya near the villages of Grebenne and Teniatiska. It was the commander of one of the bunkers who fought at the indicated line who owned the report, the words from which are included in the epigraph of this article. Here, the garrisons of the bunkers of Komsomolets, Medved, Nezabudka, who, in cooperation with the 244th Infantry Regiment, of the 41st Rifle Regiment, of the highway to Rava-Russkaya, especially distinguished themselves. Coordinated fire in this area destroyed 10 enemy tanks and many soldiers.

For five days, the garrison of the bunker fought, led by ml. Lieutenant Movchan. Until the end of June, the defenders of the bunker fought, commanded by Art. Lieutenant I.T. Martynchik. Enemies surrounded the bunker, offered its defenders to surrender, but the soldiers decided to fight to the end. There were many such examples. Here is the testimony of the commander of one of the regiments of the German army: With endurance and amazing heroism Soviet soldiers I encountered in the June days of 1941. We, advancing forward between Rava-Russkaya and Lvov, came across a chain of concrete, small fortifications equipped with guns, which stubbornly resisted. When the Soviet soldiers had no way to hold the fortified point, they undermined it and perished in it. This voluntary death of an entire squad demonstrated the moral strength of our adversary.

In the sector of Brusno-Podemshchizm to the west of Rava-Russkaya, the 139th Rifle Division of the 41st Rifle Division was defending on the positions of the 141st Rifle Brigade with the support of the artillery of the field troops. At a difficult moment in the battle, when the infantry chains were pushed back, bunkers stood in the way of the enemy's advance. DOT ml. Lieutenant S.A. Sanzharevsky and G.L. Salara was subjected to exceptionally fierce bombardment by aviation and artillery for several hours in a row. The Nazis, confident that the bunker had been destroyed, moved towards it. Having allowed the German infantry as close as possible, the bunker garrison again opened heavy fire. Hundreds of dead and wounded were left by the enemy on the battlefield. Not only fascist soldiers took off into the air, but also motorcycles, machine guns, cannons. /66/ But the situation became more complicated. In one of the sections of the 141st brigade on the Malaya hill to the north of the Gorinets cape, the enemy blocked the pillbox. Artillerymen come to the rescue. Commander of the 1st division of the 209th ap st. Lieutenant V.V. Ershov, under heavy enemy machine-gun and artillery fire, made his way into the blocked bunker and controlled the fire of the division from the bunker. The blocking group and artillery battery of the enemy to the north of Cape Brusno were destroyed by artillery fire, the accumulation of enemy tanks was dispersed and the attack of the fortified area was thwarted.

A study of the TASS message of July 9 made it possible to establish that the garrison of the pillbox, which covered an important direction on the path of the enemy’s advance, apparently died. His commanders ml. lieutenants S.A. Sanzharevsky and G.L. Shalar in the Main Directorate of Personnel are listed as missing. We managed to find photographs of soldiers, biographical information about them. Sergei Afanasyevich Sanzharevsky ( in the message of the Sovinformburo, it passes as Anzharevsky. Obviously distortion on the phone - A.K.) is a Ukrainian, a native of the village of Spassko-Mikhailovka, Kramatorsk district, Donetsk region. Grigory Lukich Shalar is a Moldavian, originally from the village of Lozovata, Grushkovsky district, Odessa region. His wife Yulia Ivanovna Shalar lived before the war in Chernigov. The wife of Sanzharevsky S.A. Kozhukhar Natalia Pavlovna lived with her daughter Rita in the Dubossary region of Moldova. Unfortunately, the family could not be found.

Here are a few examples of the heroic actions of the garrisons of Soviet pillboxes in the battles on the outskirts of Rava-Russkaya, but this was also the case in dozens of other places.

The bunkers of the 8th Przemysl fortified area, its 52nd and 150th separate machine-gun battalions of the 6th, 12th and 21st separate machine-gun companies took an active part in the hostilities near Przemysl. On 06/08/1941, 52 opb in the Medyka-Sedliska area had 20 bunkers, 150 opb in the Przemysl-Melnuv area had 22 bunkers, the 6th opr in Olkhovnitsy - 6 bunkers, 12 opr in Zaluzha - 7 bunkers and 21 opr in the Lisno area occupied 6 bunkers.

As with other fortified areas, of course, it is impossible to collect complete information about the heroism and stamina of the garrison of each pillbox, because they fought in encirclement, separated from our troops. But even on the positions of the Przemysl fortified area, Soviet soldiers, as evidenced by documents, showed selfless heroism.

The city of Przemysl was the object of fierce fighting on the border line. Until the end of June, battles raged on Sana, and the Red Army troops withdrew from its line only on orders. The feat of the fighters and commanders of the 99th Infantry Division, Colonel N.N. Dementieva, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for distinction in the battles near Przemysl. The combat affairs of the border guards of the 92nd border detachment are known, incl. and a combined battalion under the command of senior lieutenant G.S Polivod. But less well known is the role of the fortifications of the 8th Przemysl fortified area in these battles, the commandant of which before the war was Colonel D.M. Maslyuk.

The defenders of his bunkers made their contribution to covering the border, and we owe their feat, among other things, to the fact that near Przemysl, 100 and 101 light infantry divisions of the enemy were stopped and until June 27 were pinned down in fierce battles.

There are dozens of testimonies about the courage and steadfastness of the defenders of the pillboxes of this fortified area. Here are some of them.

Company commander 150 opb st. Lieutenant I.E. Kovshar presented for awarding the Order of the Red Star. A stronghold at the Seletsky houses, led by Art. Lieutenant I.E. Kovshar, - it is said in the presentation to the award, - for 6 days heroically held back the enemy with his fire. The enemy repeatedly blocked pillboxes, offering to surrender. The enemy artillery subjected the strongholds to heavy fire, but each time the Nazis received a crushing rebuff.

The platoon commander of the 52nd opb Dmitriev was presented for awarding the Order of the Red Banner: Being the head of the bunker garrison, the submission says, for 6 days he repelled all enemy attacks with powerful fire from his bunker. Despite repeated blocking of the bunker by the enemy and offers to surrender, the garrison, led by comrade Dmitriev, heroically resisted and destroyed the enemy's manpower. Organized by order, the garrison left the bunker and joined the 99th Infantry Division, continuing to inflict blow after blow on the enemy all the time.

The report of the Southwestern Front dated 06/27/1941 tells about the feat of another garrison of the bunker of the 8th Przemysl fortified area: Junior Lieutenant Danin, being in the bunker with his garrison, for two days repelled the onslaught of many times superior enemy forces. His building was surrounded. When the ammunition ran out, ml. Lieutenant Danin and Jr. Sergeant Merkulov opened a bunker and rushed into a hand-to-hand attack on the enemy. Taking advantage of his confusion, Danin and Merkulov left the encirclement and began to retreat to the main line of defense. At the same time, Merkulov was killed, and junior lieutenant Danin safely reached the next structure and continues to fight as part of his garrison to this day.

The nature of the struggle for literally every fortification, which the Soviet soldiers courageously defended, is evidenced by an excerpt from one of the enemy documents: they still held out, while the upper ones were already occupied by the advancing ones.

The commandant of the construction of the 8th fortified area in Przemysl ml. Lieutenant Chaplin

The story about the feat of the bunker garrisons in the defense of the city of Przemysl is delightful. Here is an excerpt from the report of the Southwestern Front: The commandant of the construction of the 8th fortified area in Przemysl ml. Lieutenant Chaplin, while in the building, delivered a tangible blow to the enemy forces with well-aimed fire from a 76-mm cannon. Tov. Chaplin blew up a large oil storage facility with direct fire, and then destroyed the rolling stock of a freight train. The enemy tried several times to cross the railway bridge over the San River, but Chaplin held back his onslaught for a long time. The construction of Comrade. Chaplin was subjected to intense shelling, about 500 shells exploded at the bunker and near it, but the firing point turned out to be unharmed. With the occupation of Przemysl by the 99th Infantry Division Comrade. Chaplin replenished the structure with ammunition and continued to destroy the enemy until he received an order to withdraw to new positions.

This article presents only a brief overview, which names the individual strongholds and defense centers of the fortified areas along the western border from the Baltic to the Carpathians, on the positions of which a fierce struggle with the enemy unfolded literally from the first hour of the war. There were other knots of defense, about the fate of the defenders of which no information has been preserved. In the zone of these fortified areas, their defenders - fighters and commanders of machine-gun and artillery-machine-gun battalions, as well as soldiers of rifle units who fought next to them for several days, and sometimes one and a half to two weeks, pinned down significant enemy forces.

An analysis of OKH reporting maps allows us to conclude that on the state border of the USSR, mainly along the line of fortified areas, in the strip from the Baltic to the Carpathians, in the first battles lasting from several days to 7-10 days, 25 enemy divisions were pinned down, including 100 and 101 lpd until 06/27/1941 near Przemysl; 262, 24, 295, 71 and 296 pd until 27.6.1941. under Rava-Russkaya; 57 pd until 25.6.1941, 262 pd until 27.6.1941 and 79 and 113 pd until 1-2.7.1941. under Juice; 99 lpd until 30.6.1941 under Ustilug; 4 td, 1 pd and 255 pd until 27.6.1941. and 267 pd until 1.7.1941. under Malorita; 45 pd until the first days of July in the fortress of Brest; 167 pd until 24.6.1941 near Orly; 252 pd until 26.6.1941. and 293 pd until 30.6.1941. near Drokhichin-Semyatichi, 7th division until 24.6.1941. near Shulbozh and Chizhov, 87 pd until 27.6.1941. near Osovets, 28 pd until 25.6.1941. near Sopotskino, 267 pd until 1.7.1941. near Liepaja. The soldiers of the fortified areas and the infantry units that relied on them, the border guards, contributed to the fight against the enemy on the border lines.

Where the fortified areas were in a state of greater readiness and the troops covering the border managed to take positions on them, they, as the former chief of staff of the 41st rifle division, Major General N.V. Eremin - justified their appointment. At the beginning of the article, a review was given on this score by the commander of the 293rd German infantry division.

The delay in reaching the front of 25 enemy divisions of the first attacking echelon of the Wehrmacht as a result of the selfless defense on the border of the soldiers of a number of rifle formations and border guards, who relied on the amazing heroism and stamina of the defenders of the bunkers of the fortified areas - the contribution of the heroes of the first battles on the border line to the cause of our great victory in that huge and difficult war.

a source

from the book
A.A. Krupennikov -- IN THE FIRST BATTLE, a collection of articles and essays on the initial period of the Great Patriotic War - Krasnogorsk, 1998