This year, the next, already the 305th, anniversary will be celebrated by one of the most famous branches of the Russian Armed Forces - the marines. Epochs changed, the state system in the country changed, the colors of banners, uniforms and weapons changed. One thing remained unchanged - the high skill and high moral and psychological level of our marine, who was an image of a true hero, capable of breaking the will of the enemy with just a formidable look. For more than three centuries of existence, the marines, which covered themselves with unfading glory, took part in almost all major wars and armed conflicts that our state waged.
Marine Regiment
The first marine regiment in the history of our country, called the "Marine Regiment" and formed under the command of General-Admiral Franz Lefort during the famous Azov expedition conducted by Peter I in 1696, consisted of 28 companies and provided invaluable assistance during the siege of an enemy fortress. The tsar was listed only as the captain (commander) of the 3rd company of the same regiment. The "Marine Regiment" was not a regular formation, it was formed only on a temporary basis, but the experience gained prompted Peter I to make the final decision on the need to "officially" form the Marine Corps units as part of the Russian Navy. So, already in September-October 1704 in the "Discourse on the beginning fleet in the Baltic Sea" the Russian emperor pointed out: old soldiers for the sake of better training of order and order."
However, the course of the military actions of the summer campaign of 1705 that followed soon forced Peter I to change his mind and, instead of scattered teams, form a single naval regiment intended for service in boarding teams on the warships of the Russian fleet. Moreover, given the complex nature of the tasks assigned to the "sea soldiers", it was decided to staff the regiment not only with recruits, but at the expense of already trained soldiers from the army regiments. This case was entrusted to General-Admiral Count Fyodor Golovin, who on November 16, 1705 gave the command of the Fleet Commander in the Baltic Sea, Vice-Admiral Cornelius Cruis: “I must, by the decree of His Majesty, have one naval regiment, and I ask you, if you please, to compose this, so that he consisted of 1,200 soldiers, and what belongs to that, what kind of gun, and so on, if you please write off to me and you must not leave others; and how many of them are in number or a great decrease has been composed, then we will sweat to find recruits”. This date, November 16, old style, or November 27, new style, 1705, is considered the official birthday of the Russian marines.
Subsequently, taking into account the experience of the Northern War, the marines were reorganized: instead of the regiment, several sea battalions were created - the "vice admiral's battalion" (the tasks of serving as part of the boarding and landing teams on the ships of the vanguard of the squadron were assigned); "Battalion of the admiral" (the same, but for the ships of the center of the squadron); “Rear admiral's battalion” (ships of the squadron's rearguard); "Galley battalion" (for the galley fleet), as well as the "admiralty battalion" (for guard duty and other tasks in the interests of the fleet command). By the way, during the Northern War, for the first time in the world in Russia, a large airborne unit was formed - a corps numbering more than 20 thousand people. So in this we are ahead of even the Americans, who took similar steps only during the Second World War.
From Corfu to Borodino
Since then, our marines have taken part in many battles and wars that have become fateful for Russia. She fought in the Black and Baltic Seas, stormed the fortifications of Corfu that were considered impregnable, landed in Italy and the Balkans, fought even in battles for land areas hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from the sea coast. The commanders repeatedly used the Marine battalions, famous for their swift onslaught and powerful bayonet strike, as assault troops on the axes of the main attack in many battles.
Marines took part in the famous assault on Izmail - three of the nine assault columns advancing on the fortress were made up of personnel from naval battalions and coastal grenadier regiments. Alexander Suvorov noted that the marines "showed amazing courage and diligence," and in his report he noted among the most distinguished eight officers and one sergeant of the naval battalions and almost 70 officers and sergeants of the seaside grenadier regiments.
During the famous Mediterranean campaign of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, there were no field troops on his squadron at all - all the tasks of storming coastal structures were solved by the marines of the Black Sea Fleet. Including - she took by storm from the sea the previously considered impregnable fortress of Corfu. Having received the news of the capture of Corfu, Alexander Suvorov wrote the famous lines: "Why was I not at Corfu, although a midshipman!"
Even under the seemingly completely "land" village of Borodino, the marines managed to distinguish themselves and gain the glory of formidable warriors - persistent in defense and swift in the offensive. On the land fronts of the Patriotic War of 1812, two brigades formed from the naval regiments, which were incorporated into the 25th Infantry Division, fought. In the battle of Borodino, after Prince Bagration was wounded, the left flank of the Russian troops retreated to the village of Semenovskoye, the Life Guards Light Company No. 1 and the artillery team of the Guards Naval Crew moved here - for several hours the sailors with only two guns repelled powerful enemy attacks and fought a duel with the French artillerymen. For the battles at Borodino, the artillery sailors were awarded the Order of St. Anna, 3rd degree (Lieutenant A. I. List and Non-commissioned Lieutenant I. P. Kiselev) and insignia of the Military Order of St. George (six sailors).
Few people know that in the battle of Kulm in 1813, soldiers and officers of the Guards Naval Crew located in St. just a naval crew, but also an elite infantry battalion.
The marines did not stand aside in the Crimean War of 1854-1855, in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 and, naturally, in the First World War, during which a number of subunits and units of the Marine Corps that took part in operations for the defense of naval bases and islands and solved the tasks assigned to them as part of the landing troops. Based on the experience of military operations in 1916-1917 in the Black and Baltic Seas, the formation of two marine divisions began, which, however, for obvious reasons, they did not have time to implement.
At the same time, however, more than once, due to the short-sighted policy of the military-political leadership, especially the army command obsessed with the "land character of the country", the army command was subjected to destructive reorganization and even complete liquidation, with the transfer of its units to the ground forces. For example, despite the high efficiency of the combat use of the Marine Corps and the Guards Naval Crew during the wars with Napoleonic France, in 1813 the Marine Corps units were transferred to the army department and for the next almost 100 years the fleet did not have any large formations of the Marine Corps. … Even the Crimean War and the defense of Sevastopol failed to convince the Russian leadership of the need to recreate the marines as a separate branch of the military. It was only in 1911 that the Main Naval Headquarters developed a project for the creation of permanent "infantry units" at the disposal of the command of the main naval bases - a regiment in the Baltic Fleet and a battalion - in the Black Sea Fleet and in the Far East, in Vladivostok. Moreover, the units of the marines were divided into two types - for operations on land and for operations in the maritime theater of operations.
Soviet marines
And what about the events that we usually call the Kronstadt mutiny? There, the marines and gunners of the coastal batteries, constituting the backbone of those dissatisfied with the anti-revolutionary, in their opinion, policy of the then leadership of the Soviet Republic, showed considerable resilience and courage, for a long time repelling the numerous and powerful attacks of a huge mass of troops thrown to suppress the uprising. There is still no unequivocal assessment of those events: there are supporters of both. But no one doubts the fact that the sailors' detachments showed unbending will and did not show even a drop of cowardice and weakness even in the face of an enemy many times superior in strength.
The Armed Forces of the young Soviet Russia did not officially exist, although in 1920 the 1st Naval Expeditionary Division was formed on the Sea of Azov, solving tasks inherent in the Marine Corps, taking an active part in eliminating the threat from the landing of General Ulagai and helping to squeeze out White Guard troops from the regions of the Kuban. Then, for almost two decades, the Marine Corps was out of the question, only on January 15, 1940 (according to other sources, it happened on April 25, 1940), according to the order of the People's Commissar of the Navy, a separate special rifle brigade created a year earlier was reorganized into the 1st Special Marine Brigade infantry of the Baltic Fleet, which took an active part in the Soviet-Finnish war: its personnel participated in landings on the islands of Gogland, Seskar, etc.
But most fully all the spiritual strength and military skill of our marines were revealed, of course, during the bloodiest war in the history of mankind - World War II. On its fronts, 105 formations of the Marine Corps (hereinafter referred to as the MP) fought: one MP division, 19 MP brigades, 14 MP regiments and 36 separate MP battalions, as well as 35 naval rifle brigades. It was then that our marines earned the enemy the nickname "black death", although in the first weeks of the war German soldiers, faced with fearless Russian soldiers rushing into the attack in only vests, gave the marines the nickname "striped death". During the years of the war, which was predominantly overland for the USSR, the Soviet marines and naval rifle brigades landed 125 times as part of various assault forces, the total number of units taking part in which reached 240 thousand people. Acting independently, the marines - on a smaller scale - landed 159 times in the rear of the enemy during the war. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the landing forces landed at night, so that by the onset of dawn, all the subunits of the landing detachments would be disembarked and take up their assigned positions.
People's war
Already at the very beginning of the war, in the most difficult and difficult year for the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviet Navy allocated 146,899 people for operations on land, many of whom were qualified specialists in the fourth and fifth years of service, which, of course, damaged the combat readiness of the fleet itself. but such was the dire necessity. In November - December of the same year, the formation of separate naval rifle brigades began, which then formed 25 with a total strength of 39,052 people. The main difference between the naval rifle brigade and the marine brigade was that the former was intended for combat operations as part of land fronts, and the latter was intended for combat operations in coastal areas, mainly for the defense of naval bases, the solution of amphibious and anti-amphibious missions, etc. In addition, there were also formations and units of the ground forces, the names of which did not contain the word "sea", but which were staffed mainly by sailors. Such units can also, without any reservations, be attributed to the Marine Corps: during the war years, on the basis of units and formations of the Marine Corps, a total of six Guards rifle and 15 rifle divisions, two Guards rifle divisions, two rifle and four mountain rifle brigades were formed, and a significant number of sailors also fought in the 19 Guards Rifle and 41 Rifle Divisions.
In total, during 1941-1945, the command of the Soviet Navy formed and sent units and formations totaling 335,875 people (including 16,645 officers) to various sectors of the Soviet-German front, which amounted to almost 36 divisions in the army states of that time. In addition, units of the marines, numbering up to 100 thousand people, operated as part of the fleets and flotillas. Thus, on the shore alone, almost half a million sailors fought shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. And how they fought! According to the recollections of many military leaders, the command always sought to use naval rifle brigades in the most critical sectors of the front, knowing that the sailors would steadfastly hold their positions, inflicting great damage on the enemy with fire and counterattacks. The attack of the sailors was always swift, they "literally rammed the German troops."
During the defense of Tallinn, units of the marines with a total number of more than 16 thousand people fought on the coast, which was more than half of the entire Tallinn group of Soviet troops, numbering 27 thousand people. In total, the Baltic Fleet formed during the Second World War one division, nine brigades, four regiments and nine battalions of marines with a total strength of more than 120 thousand people. During the same period of time, the Northern Fleet formed and dispatched to various sectors of the Soviet-German front three brigades, two regiments and seven battalions of 33,480 marines. The Black Sea Fleet had about 70 thousand marines - six brigades, eight regiments and 22 separate battalions. One brigade and two battalions of the marines, formed in the Pacific Fleet and taking part in the defeat of militaristic Japan, were transformed into guards.
It was the Marine Corps units that thwarted the attempt by the 11th Army of Colonel-General Manstein and the mechanized group of the 54th Army Corps to seize Sevastopol on the move at the end of October 1941 - by the time the German troops were under the city of Russian naval glory, the troops were retreating through the Crimean the mountains of the Primorsky army have not yet approached the naval base. At the same time, the formations of the Soviet marines often experienced a serious shortage of small arms and other weapons, ammunition and communications. So, the 8th Marine Brigade that took part in the defense of Sevastopol at the very beginning of that illustrious defense for 3,744 personnel consisted of 3,252 rifles, 16 easel and 20 light machine guns, as well as 42 mortars, and the newly formed and arrived at the front, the 1st Baltic The MP brigade was provided with small arms only 50% of the supply required according to the norms, having no artillery at all, no cartridges, no grenades, or even sapper blades!
The following record of the report of one of the defenders of Gogland Island, dated March 1942, has survived: “The enemy stubbornly climbs into our points in columns, they have filled a lot of his soldiers and officers, and they all climb … There are still many enemies on the ice. Our machine gun had two cartridges left. We have a machine gun (in the bunker. - Author) there were three people left, the rest were killed. What would you like to do? " The order of the garrison commander to defend to the last was followed by a laconic answer: "Yes, we do not even think to retreat - the Balts do not retreat, but destroy the enemy to the last." People stood to death.
In the initial period of the battle for Moscow, the Germans managed to approach the Moscow-Volga canal and even force it north of the city. The 64th and 71st naval rifle brigades from the reserve were sent to the canal area, dropping the Germans into the water. Moreover, the first unit consisted mainly of Pacific sailors, who, like the Siberians of General Panfilov, helped to defend the capital of the country. In the vicinity of the village of Ivanovskoye, the Germans tried several times to undertake “psychic” attacks against the sailors of the 71st naval brigade of Colonel Y. Bezverkhov. The marines calmly let the Hitlerites who were walking at full height in dense chains and then almost point-blank shot them, finishing off those who did not have time to escape in hand-to-hand combat.
About 100 thousand sailors took part in the grandiose Battle of Stalingrad, of which only the 2nd Guards Army had up to 20 thousand sailors from the Pacific Fleet and the Amur Flotilla - that is, every fifth soldier in the army of Lieutenant General Rodion Malinovsky (the latter later recalled: “Sailors "The Pacific fought great. The army was fighting! Sailors - brave warriors, heroes!").
Self-sacrifice is the highest degree of heroism
"When the tank approached it, freely and prudently lay under the track" - these are lines from the work of Andrei Platonov, and they are dedicated to one of those marines who stopped a column of German tanks near Sevastopol - a historical fact that formed the basis of the feature film.
The sailors stopped the German tanks with their bodies and grenades, of which there were exactly one per brother, and therefore each grenade had to hit a German tank. But how to achieve 100% efficiency at the same time? A simple solution does not come from the mind, but from the heart, overflowing with love for your homeland and hatred for the enemy: you need to tie a grenade to your body and just lie under the track of a tank. An explosion - and the tank stood up. And after the commander of that battle screen, political instructor Nikolai Filchenko, the second rushed under the tanks, and after him the third. And suddenly the unimaginable happens - the surviving Nazi tanks stood up and backed away. The German tank crews simply could not stand their nerves - they gave up in the face of such terrible and incomprehensible heroism for them! It turned out that the armor is not the high-quality steel of German tanks, the armor is Soviet sailors dressed in thin vests. Therefore, I would like to recommend to those of our compatriots who worship the traditions and valor of the Japanese samurai to look at the history of their army and navy - there he can easily find all the qualities of professional fearless warriors in those officers, soldiers and sailors who for centuries have protected against various foes of our country. These, our own, traditions must be maintained and developed, and not bowed down to a life alien to us.
By order of the People's Commissar of the USSR Navy on July 25, 1942, the Northern Defense Region of 32 thousand people was formed in the Soviet Arctic, the core of which was made up of three Marine brigades and three separate machine-gun battalions of the Marine Corps and which for more than two years ensured the stability of the right flank of the Soviet German front. Moreover, in complete isolation from the main forces, the supply was carried out only by air and sea. Not to mention that a war in the harsh conditions of the Far North, when it is impossible to dig a trench in the rocks, or hide from aircraft or artillery fire, is a very difficult ordeal. It is not for nothing that a saying was born in the North: "Where the reindeer will pass, the Marine will pass, but where the reindeer will not pass, the Marine will pass anyway". The first Hero of the Soviet Union in the Northern Fleet was Senior Sergeant of the Marine Corps V. P. Kislyakov, who remained alone at an important altitude and held back the enemy's onslaught of more than a company for more than an hour.
Major Caesar Kunikov, known at the front, in January 1943 became the commander of the combined amphibious assault detachment. He wrote to his sister about his subordinates: “I am in command of the sailors, if only you could see what kind of people they are! I know that the rear sometimes doubts the accuracy of newspaper colors, but these colors are too pale to describe our people. " A detachment of only 277 people, having landed in the Stanichka area (the future Malaya Zemlya), frightened the German command so much (especially when Kunikov transmitted in plain text a false radiogram: "The regiment has landed successfully. We are moving forward. Waiting for reinforcements") that it hastily transferred units there. two divisions!
In March 1944, a detachment under the command of Senior Lieutenant Konstantin Olshansky distinguished himself, consisting of 55 marines from the 384th Marine battalion and 12 soldiers from one of the neighboring units. For two days this "landing into immortality", as it was called later, chained the enemy in the port of Nikolaev with distracting actions, repelled 18 attacks of the enemy combat group of three infantry battalions supported by half a company of tanks and a gun battery, destroying up to 700 soldiers and officers, as well as two tanks and the entire artillery battery. Only 12 people survived. All 67 soldiers of the detachment were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - a unique case even for the Great Patriotic War!
During the period of the Soviet offensive in Hungary, the boats of the Danube Flotilla constantly provided fire support to the advancing troops, landed troops, including as part of the units and units of the marines. So, for example, the Marine Corps battalion, which landed on March 19, 1945 in the Tata region, distinguished itself and cut off the enemy's escape routes along the right bank of the Danube. Realizing this, the Germans threw large forces against a not very large landing, but the enemy did not manage to throw the paratroopers into the Danube.
For their heroism and courage, 200 marines were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the famous scout Viktor Leonov, who fought in the Northern Fleet and then stood at the origins of the creation of the naval reconnaissance and sabotage units of the Pacific Fleet, was awarded this award twice. And, for example, the personnel of the landing force of Senior Lieutenant Konstantin Olshansky, whose name is today named one of the large landing ships of the Russian Navy, who landed in the port of Nikolaev in March 1944 and fulfilled the task assigned to him at the cost of his life, was awarded this high award in full. It is less known that of the full holders of the Order of Glory - and there are only 2,562 of them, there are also four Heroes of the Soviet Union, and one of these four is Marine Sergeant Major P. Kh. Dubinda, who fought in the 8th Marine Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet …
Individual parts and connections were also noted. Thus, the 13th, 66th, 71st, 75th and 154th Marine Brigades and Marine Rifle Brigades, as well as the 355th and 365th Marine battalions were transformed into Guards units, many units and formations became Red Banner, and the 83rd and the 255th brigade - even twice with the Red Banner. The great contribution of the marines to the achievement of a common victory over the enemy was reflected in the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 371 of July 22, 1945: fleet and shipping of the enemy and ensured the uninterrupted operation of their communications. The combat activity of Soviet sailors was distinguished by selfless staunchness and courage, high combat activity and military skill."
It remains to be noted that many famous heroes of the Great Patriotic War and future commanders fought in the marines and naval rifle brigades. So, the creator of the airborne troops, Hero of the Soviet Union, General of the Army V. F. Margelov during the war years was one of the best commanders of the marine regiments - he commanded the 1st Special Ski Regiment of the Marine Corps of the Leningrad Front. The commander of the 7th Airborne Division, Major General T. M. Parafilo, who at one time commanded the 1st Special (separate) Marine Corps Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, also left the Marine Corps. At different times, such famous military leaders as Marshal of the Soviet Union N. V. Ogarkov (in 1942 - brigadier engineer of the 61st separate naval rifle brigade of the Karelian Front), Marshal of the Soviet Union S. F. Akhromeev (in 1941 - a first-year cadet of the MV Frunze Military Medical University - a soldier of the 3rd Separate Marine Brigade), General of the Army N. G. Lyashchenko (in 1943 - Commander of the 73rd Separate Marine Rifle Brigade Volkhov Front), Colonel General I. M. Chistyakov (in 1941-1942 - commander of the 64th Marine Rifle Brigade).
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