This name is known only to historians of the Battle of Uman and search engines enthusiasts. Colonel Danilov Alexander Ivanovich, Chief of Staff of the 24th Mechanized Corps of the Kiev Special Military District (KOVO). He died in the area of the Green Brama forest in August 1941, where two battered Soviet armies were surrounded.
PETERSKY PORTNO
A request sent to the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on behalf of Sergei Goncharov, President of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Special Forces, as well as materials collected bit by bit, made it possible to obtain a copy of Colonel Danilov's personal file, as well as to recreate the short history of the 24th Mechanized Corps.
So, as reported on the Ukrainian portal Photofact: “Danilov Oleksandr Ivanovich. The chief of staff of the 24th mechanized corps, having gone to the Umansky cauldron in the serpentine of 1941."
Born in 1900 - a native of the remote village of Torkhovo, Troitskaya volost, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province. Sisters: Elena, Olga, Maria (Marya) and Evdokia. The baby was baptized in the majestic Church of the Resurrection of Christ in the village of Ogarkovo, on the Nakhta River, now partially destroyed, abandoned since the thirties.
The Order of the New Temple In the Church of the Ascension of Christ, Sasha Danilov was baptized, who later, like many others, took off his pectoral cross. The village of Ogarkovo, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl region. Nowadays…
“Before the October Revolution, my parents were engaged in arable farming, had two souls of an allotment of land,” says Major Danilov in his autobiography dated October 1938. “My parents had few livestock, namely: one cow (sometimes a heifer), one horse, but there was no more time.”
Sasha went to the zemstvo school in the village of Ogarkovo for only three months: “because of the lack of bread and clothes, I had to finish my studies.” At the age of nine, he was sent to his elder sister in St. Petersburg and sent by an apprentice to Vinogradov's tailoring workshop. He lived and worked "for bread."
We can only imagine the state of a little boy, torn from his usual rural environment and found himself in a huge imperial city on the banks of the full-flowing Neva, with strangers. In a similar way, then many children were taken "into the people", without being able to give them a decent, appropriate education.
The main rule in the life of the disciples was unquestioning obedience to the master. They carried firewood, washed the floors, lit a fire in the stove, made sure that the cast-iron irons did not cool down, and carried out various small errands. Craftsmen could force students to sit with children or load with a variety of chores
Although during the apprenticeship, the children had to master the basics of tailoring, most of them were not allowed to practice until the last year of study. Only then did the masters show how to sew different details of clothing. From scraps of fabric, they made sleeves, collars and lining.
Living conditions were often terrible: the children were poorly fed, and they were given almost no rest. Most of the students spent the night right in the workshops - on the floor, on benches - or shared a bed with other youngsters. Children often followed the bad example of their elders. Adult workers trained them to play cards, drink, blasphemy, and promiscuity in sexual relationships. Carrying out minor assignments of the master, the students got acquainted with the underworld and prostitution.
The main rule in the life of the tailor's apprentices was unquestioning obedience to the master. Painting by I. Bogdanov "Newbie", 1893
After completing a four-year apprenticeship, Alexander worked from 1914 as a tailor's apprentice in various St. Petersburg workshops: on Malaya Okhta (“near Sorokin”), on Suvorovsky Prospekt (“near Baturin”) and on Glazov Street. Now he wore "city clothes": trousers, a shirt made of factory fabric and shoes. However, despite the external changes, his life, like hundreds of other apprentices, was not much better than the life of his disciples.
There are countless stories of disrespectful treatment of workers by owners. Most of the young people ate only bread, cabbage soup and tea. Although they were legally allowed an hour for lunch and half an hour for breakfast and tea, the workers tried to eat as quickly as possible so as not to annoy the owners, who saw this as only a loss.
In large ateliers and clothing stores, the rooms where the owners received customers were clean and well appointed, but the workshops themselves were dirty and stuffy. Due to the constant stress, many tailors started drinking. They received their wages on Saturdays at the end of the day - and immediately went to the nearest pub.
For the apprentice, the only way out of this situation was to become a master tailor himself and, at the risk of starting his own business. But this path was long and did not guarantee success at all.
THE WAY TO THE GENERAL STAFF
Meanwhile, on February seventeenth, the long-awaited freedom was announced, but for some reason life became worse. By that time, Sasha Danilov was a member of the Petrograd Union of Needle Workers; he was interested in politics and shared the ideas of the Bolsheviks.
In September, Danilov, a tailor, enlisted in the Red Guard, composed of armed Red proletarians. During the October Revolution, he, as part of a detachment from the 1st urban district, guarded the Liteiny Bridge and participated in the seizure of a car garage on Troitskaya Street.
“After the October days, Baturin didn’t let me work in his workshop,” says Alexander Ivanovich in his autobiography, “and I had to look for a job elsewhere.”
Until the end of January 1918, Danilov was in a tailor's artel with the wonderful name "Labor and Art" and at the same time performed the duties of a Red Guard. Having fallen ill, in the winter he went to his parents in the village, where he helped them with the housework.
In the summer of the eighteenth, Alexander lost his father, who went to the Volga for bread. Ivan Ilyich, according to eyewitnesses, was killed near Kazan by white Czechs who seized a steamer with passengers.
This was Major Alexander Danilov during his service in the General Staff of the Red Army.
Already in September 1918, Danilov volunteered for the regular Red Army. He fought against Polish legionnaires near Pskov, units of General Yudenich and the Poles of Pilsudski (Western Front). He was seriously wounded. In the Bolshevik Party since July 1919. In the RCP (b), he was adopted by the party organization of the 49th regiment of the 6th rifle division, on the Western Front.
A Red Army soldier, political instructor of a company, battalion … As part of the 50th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Oryol Infantry Division, Alexander Danilov participated in the liquidation of the Kolesnikov uprising in the south of the Voronezh province. In 1920-1921, partisan actions covered several counties in the middle Don under the slogan "Soviets without Communists!" and "Against robbery and hunger!"
Outraged by the heavy surplus appropriation, many peasants, even the poor, supported the rebels. According to the stories of Nikolai Berlev, a veteran of the first composition of Group A of the KGB, a participant in the storming of Amin's palace, a native of these places, one can judge the scale of violence perpetrated on both sides.
“The rector of the church in Nizhniye Gnilushi showed the White Guards in the floodplain of the Mamonka River the place where the retreating Red Army soldiers were hiding,” says Nikolai Vasilyevich. - The fugitives were captured and shot. In retaliation, the activist Alexander Obydennykh, in the street Tailors, grabbed the priest and his two teenage sons and drove them to the Bubnikh tract for reprisals.
When the priest, preparing for his inevitable death, began to read a prayer, Alexandra grabbed her saber and chopped off his head, and then overtook the fleeing children and hacked them to death. Later, when Kolesnikov's uprising broke out, Shura Portnykh was seized and executed, having driven a stake into her between her legs.
In our Lower Mamon, the bandits executed fifty men in one day. They were herded into an alley to our house. Then the corpses were transported by sleigh and thrown to the gate. In total, our village lost up to nine hundred people during that period.
Or such a case. In the summer of 1921, my grandmother Vasilisa rinsed linen in Mamonka. Suddenly he sees - a rider who turned out to be Zhilyakov from Upper Mamon. He drove a resident of Nizhny Mamon Sbitnev and immediately shot him. He took a glass out of his pocket, filled it with blood from the victim's wound and offered his grandmother: “Do you want a Rhine? She naturally recoiled … Then Zhilyakov said: "Well, we will be healthy!" I drank it in one gulp, washed my glass and rode off,”Nikolai Vasilyevich concludes his story.
A group of Red Guards. Petrograd, autumn 1917
Such atrocities are taking place throughout the rebellious and distraught country, which has lost its human form. The forces unleashed by February 1917 were reaping an abundant human harvest.
By the time the 50th Infantry Regiment appeared on the middle Don, the uprising began to decline, and its military leader Kolesnikov was killed by his own people. The rebels, as often happens, degenerated into ordinary criminals, sometimes massacring entire families, including brutally massacring the priest Aristarkh Nartsev and his wife in the village of Osetrovka.
The peasants, supporting the New Economic Policy announced by the authorities, betrayed the bandits and fought them themselves with arms in hand. Those who did not lay down their arms were liquidated by units of the Red Army.
For his participation in the elimination of banditry in the middle Don, the battalion's political instructor Danilov was awarded a silver watch. In 1922, having received a referral to Petrograd, he spent nine months studying at the preparatory department of the Military-Political Instructor Institute.
What else? Was married. However, the wife's name and surname are unknown. It is known that his wife is a dressmaker from Pushkino, the daughter of a brick factory worker who died in 1916 on the German front.
As the head of the economic team of the 60th rifle regiment of the 20th rifle division, paint Danilov was elected a deputy of the Detskoselsky (former Tsarkoselsky) city council (1927-1928). Member of the Party Bureau of the same military unit.
MOSCOW, ACADEMY
In the spring of 1930, Alexander Ivanovich was enrolled in the Red Banner Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze, which was then located in the Dolgoruky House on Prechistenka (Kropotkin Street) and a mansion on Vozdvizhenka - Comintern Street. A gloomy, austere building in the spirit of "red militarism", a visiting card of the Frunzensky district of the capital, will appear on Devichye Pole only by 1937.
Graduates and teachers of the KUVNS at the Frunze Military Academy, 1925. In the third row from right to left: G. K. Zhukov, in the red circle - V. I. Chistyakov, through one - K. K. Rokossovsky
Generations of commanders of different ages and positions remembered and loved this building on Prechistenka, where they studied, from where they entered the broad military road. Now it houses the museum and exhibition complex of the Russian Academy of Arts "Art Gallery of Zurab Tsereteli".
The exams were rigorous, according to an extensive program - from checking the knowledge of regulations and the ability to use weapons perfectly to tests in political disciplines, literature, military history from ancient times to the present day, in tactics. A large audience with dozens of officers at the tables … Complete silence, broken only by the rustle of cards, rustling of papers and occasionally anxious coughing.
The Dolgoruky House on Prechistenka originally housed the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. Now here is the "Art Gallery of Zurab Tsereteli"
The exams lasted for about a month. Finally, Alexander Ivanovich with excitement approached the bulletin board and read his last name on the list of enrolled. On the same day, he received a document addressed to the commander of the 20th Infantry Division on the secondment of the student AI Danilov to the disposal of the head of the Academy.
Danilov graduated from this main forge of personnel of the Red Army in 1933. He graduated with the first category and was sent to the Belarusian Military District (BVO) as an assistant to the chief of the 1st (operational) section of the headquarters of the 43rd rifle division. Being a gambling man, Alexander Ivanovich decided to test himself in the air, but in 1935, when making the sixth parachute jump, he landed unsuccessfully and broke his right leg.
We leaf through his personal file further. In 1935-1937. - Assistant to the head of the department of the 1st (operational) department of the headquarters of the Belarusian Military District (BVO). Then, in 1937, he was transferred to Moscow: assistant, then senior assistant to the head of the department of the 1st department (operational) of the General Staff of the Red Army.
Paints in front of the new building of the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze on the Devichye Pole. Cuba - a huge mock-up of a tank from the First World War
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Colonel Danilov is awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (1938) and the medal “XX Years of the Red Army” (1938). In 1939 he graduated in absentia from the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. Thus, his track record includes two higher military educations.
Together with Aleksandr Ivanovich, his mother, Daria Nikitichna Danilova, and his wife, who, as the autobiography says, “does not work because of a painful condition, does housekeeping,” lived in Moscow. The sisters had already settled in Leningrad long ago. Elena Kaurova, Olga Zernova and Maria Artemyeva worked at the Putilov factory, Evdokia Solovyova worked at the candy factory.
KIEV, UKRAINE - THE LAST LOVE …
In October 1939, Colonel Danilov was sent to the Kiev Special Military District to the post of chief of the 1st (operational) department of the KOVO headquarters. In this capacity, he was in March 1941.
Alexander Ivanovich worked under the direct supervision of the future Marshal of the USSR I. Kh. Baghramyan, with whom they, in the literal sense, did not agree in character - they were too different in temperament, in style of work.
In this house No. 2 on Georgievsky Lane, built by Yu. I. Karakis for KOVO officers, Colonel Alexander Danilov lived before the war. October 2012
In I. Kh. Baghramyan's memoirs “This is how the war began” we read: “The first department, in charge of operational affairs, was headed by forty-year-old Colonel Alexander Ivanovich Danilov, my deputy, a knowledgeable and experienced commander. He served in the Red Army from the age of eighteen, graduated with honors from the MV Frunze Military Academy. In the Finnish campaign he was wounded in the leg and remained lame for life. Energetic, mobile, noisy, he did not like to sit still: he was always in a hurry somewhere, giving orders on the go. I can't stand the nervousness at work, and therefore from the very first days I had to restrain my overly hot deputy. But he reacted very painfully to my attempts to work in a more relaxed and businesslike atmosphere."
In the personal file of Colonel Danilov, nothing is said about his participation in the Finnish campaign - which, as the study of archival files shows, is not uncommon for a part of the military sent to the Soviet-Finnish front for a short period of time.
The building of the Kiev Special Military District on Bankova Street, 11. Currently, it houses the Administration of the President of Ukraine
Responsible for his area of work, Colonel Danilov pored over the Border Covering Plan on the eve of the War. In the second half of February 1941, an order followed: the chief of staff of KOVO M. A. Purkaev, together with a group of generals and officers who took part in the development of this important document, urgently arrive in Moscow.
Together with M. A. Purkaev, Chief of the Air Force Staff, Major General of Aviation N. A. Laskin, Chief of the 5th Division of the District Headquarters, Major General I. I., head of military communications, Colonel A. A. Korshunov, head of the operational department I. Kh. Baghramyan and, in fact, A. I. Danilov.
The sudden call to Moscow, on the one hand, alarmed: is the developed plan so bad that it will have to be redone? On the other hand, there was a meeting with his mother, Daria Nikitichnaya, and his wife … Upon arrival, however, everything became clear: the people of Kiev had to take part in the consideration of measures to further strengthen the state border.
When a suitable vacancy appeared, Alexander Ivanovich left the KOVO headquarters and on March 12, 1941 was appointed chief of staff of the 24th mechanized corps (military unit 7161). Its commander was Kotovsky's ally in the Civil War, Major General Vladimir Ivanovich Chistyakov.
The building was deployed on the territory of the Kamenets-Podolsk region: in the cities of Proskurov (now Khmelnitsky) and Starokonstantinov and the Yarmolintsy station. The body was formed practically from scratch. It consisted of two tank and one motorized divisions.
The 45th Panzer Division (commander - brigade commander Mikhail Solomatin) was stationed in the Kazimirka, Udarnik, Yankovtsy, Balamutovka area. Its headquarters was located on the Mikhalkovitsky farm. The division was armed with a small number of BT and T-26 tanks.
The 49th Panzer Division (commander - Colonel Konstantin Shvetsov) was stationed in the area of Giletintsy, Khmelevka, Nemechintsy. Its headquarters was located in the town of Felshtin.
The 216th Motorized Division (commander - Colonel Ashot Sargsyan) was stationed in the Krasilovskaya Sloboda, Pashutintsy, Skovarodki, Molchany areas. The headquarters was located in the village of Sushki.
The Soviet mechanized corps deployed in KOVO, due to the incompetent or treacherous command, could not play their role in the summer of 1941
From March to June 1941, the commanders of the 24th MK managed to put together a full-fledged corps, which, contrary to expectations, retained combat effectiveness, with the weakest base in the KOVO base (222 light tanks). and with the general collapse of the front (end of July 1941).
The actual feat of the commanders of the 24th MK is evidenced by the data on the state of the corps of Major General Chistyakov for March-April 1941.
Personnel data: out of 21,556 people, 238 people have higher education, 19 incomplete higher education, 1,947 secondary education, nine grades - 410, eight grades - 1.607, seven grades - 2.160, six grades - 1.046, five grades - 1.468, four grades - 4.040, three classes - 3.431, two classes - 2.281, one class - 2.468, illiterates - 441.
"There are absolutely no visual aids, educational devices, training weapons."
“The brake in the formation is a large shortage of command personnel, especially the technical and economic service, as well as junior. So, for example, in military unit 9250 (216th motorized division) in one unit for 1200 people there are only 15 command personnel, in military unit 1703 (45th tank division) for 100-120 people. there is one average commander for the Red Army."
Let us ponder this fact: the corps was staffed by 70% with recruits of the March 1941 draft. At the headquarters of KOVO, of course, they did not really count on him, but the war put everything in its place.
… Woe to the troops entrusted to him
The war that was so awaited, so prepared for it, turned into the Catastrophe of the summer of forty-first. With regard to the situation in Ukraine, the heavy blame lies with the commander of KOVO - Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel-General Mikhail Kirponos. It is about him that Marshal of the USSR Konstantin Rokossovsky will write bitter words about him in his memoirs: "… At these moments I finally came to the conclusion that such voluminous, complex and responsible duties are beyond the capacity of this person, and woe to the troops entrusted to him."
No later than June 24, the headquarters of the 24th mechanized corps received an order from the commander of the South-Western Front, General Kirponos, to move the compound to the Kremenets area. Perhaps in this area, the front command intended to create a counter-strike group at the forefront of the German offensive to turn the general situation in their favor.
Chistyakov's corps had to make a 100-kilometer march from Proskurov to Kremenets in an almost complete absence of vehicles, worn out equipment, with complete domination of enemy aviation.
When the enemy reached the close approaches to Kremenets on June 26, the 24th corps was still 60 kilometers from the city, marching on foot and under the influence of German aircraft.
The enemy went to Rovno and Ostrog. However, the commander of the South-Western Front, General Kirponos, still believed that the German panzer group would turn south to the rear of the 6th and 26th armies. Therefore, he gave the order to create a "cut-off line" on the line of Starokonstantinov, Kuzmin, Bazaliya, Novy Vishnevets.
“The commanders of the reserve formations were urgently summoned to the headquarters,” recalled Marshal I. Kh. Baghramyan. “Among them was my comrade Major General Vladimir Ivanovich Chistyakov, an old horseman, a comrade-in-arms of the legendary Kotovsky. We have known each other since 1924, from the time we studied at the Higher Cavalry School.
Now Chistyakov was in command of the 24th mechanized corps. Arriving in Tarnopol, he immediately sought me out and inquired about the latest data from the battlefields. When it came to the task of his corps, Chistyakov expressed concern for his right flank. I reassured my friend: I already knew that the 1st Airborne Brigade would be deployed to the right of Chistyakov's corps, to the Ostropol fortified area. She will cover his right flank.
“Eh, it's not just that,” Chistyakov sighed. - Our hull is far from what we would like to see it. After all, we have just turned around with its formation. We didn’t have time to get new tanks, there were no cars, the armament was bad … So, my friend, if you hear that we are not fighting so well, do not judge harshly. Know that we are doing everything in our power.
We had already said goodbye when I remembered that in the Chistyakov corps, the 216th motorized division was commanded by my former colleague in the Leninakan cavalry regiment Ashot Sargsyan. He asked how he was doing. Chistyakov spoke of Colonel Sargsyan with delight. An excellent commander, a favorite of the fighters.
It was nice to hear that the certifications I wrote for Ashot Sargsyan when he was still a squadron commander in my regiment were justified. A dashing horseman and a sincere person, he was distinguished by a lively and sharp mind. He grasped everything on the fly, perfectly mastered any weapon and was known as a great connoisseur of tactics. The soldiers clung to him, they were ready to listen to his conversations for hours - always deep, bright, passionate.
“Our Ashot knows how to kindle people with a word,” Chistyakov said. - And now it is especially necessary.
I really wanted to see Sargsyan. But it didn’t succeed. My brave friend died heroically in heavy July battles …
Chistyakov and the commanders of other formations nominated to the cut-off line, having received their tasks, left. But later it turned out that we hastened to move our last large reserve here. The fascist command in those days did not at all intend to turn its main strike group to the south. The enemy was rushing straight to Kiev,”concludes Marshal I. Kh. Baghramyan.
Exhausted by long, exhausting and treacherous, in fact, many kilometers of marches, which were carried out under the blows of enemy aircraft, the corps of Major General Chistyakov acted "essentially like a rifle corps with weak motorization and artillery equipment."In just one day, on June 30, he made a total of "a march of up to 150-200 km with the engines running for 20-25 hours" (from the report of the head of the Armored Directorate of the Southwestern Front).
On July 2, the enemy unexpectedly captured Tarnopol, outstripping the already rapidly retreating Soviet troops. A real threat arose of the unhindered advance of the Germans to Proskurov and the defeat of the rear of the two armies. In this situation, the front commander turned the 24th mechanized corps to the south to occupy the Proskurovsky fortified area. The task was set before him: while firmly taking up the defensive position, to ensure the withdrawal of the troops of the 6th and 26th armies.
Having completed a 50-kilometer passage from the Lanovets area, the main units of the 24th mechanized corps reached the indicated line only by the end of July 3 and by the beginning of the fighting did not have time to prepare defense in the long-term structures of the fortified area. The broken formations of the 6th Army followed through its battle formations. They were concentrated in his rear, where they were put in order at an accelerated pace. The departing units acted demoralizingly on the personnel, which had, at its core, non-fired recruits.
From the composition of the retreating small mobile detachments were allocated for a short time to contain the enemy on the approaches to the fortified area and strengthen the formations of the 24th mechanized corps. So, the 10th Panzer Division, due to the huge clogging of the Zbruch crossings with troops and equipment near Podvolochisk, fought all day on July 3 to contain the enemy on the approaches to the river.
The division withdrew only in the evening, destroying the crossing behind it. These actions allowed the 24th mechanized corps to enter the line of the fortified area along the Zbruch river in the Volochisk area in an organized manner.
On July 4, Chistyakov's corps, along with its defense sector, was transferred to the 26th Army. He covered her retreat, and then the retreat of the 12th army of General P. G. Ponedelin - the same one that would be in the "Uman cauldron" together with the 6th army of General I. N. Muzychenko.
Despite all the unfavorable factors, the mechanized corps of General Chistyakov, as far as possible, retained its few armored vehicles. So, on July 7, he "after stubborn battles in the Volochisk area …" withdraws from the battle for the Proskurovsky fortified area, having in its composition 100 combat vehicles "(from the report of the leadership of the Southwestern Front to the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army). According to the report of the assistant commander of the Southern Front for ABTV, on July 27-30, Chistyakov's corps still had 10 BT tanks, 64 T-26 tanks, two flamethrower tanks, as well as a number of armored vehicles.
And the fact that the 24th Mechanized Corps, which was created practically from scratch, in an extremely short time became a combat unit of KOVO, and in the fact that it managed to retain part of the equipment, there is an undoubted and significant merit of the Chief of Staff - Colonel Alexander Ivanovich Danilov.
By the night of August 1, 1941, the Nazis in Ukraine took the city of Uman by storm. Units and subunits of the 12th Army were withdrawn beyond the full-flowing Sinyukha River, where they took up defenses. The troops are deeply buried in the ground, fortifying and masking their positions, and putting up anti-tank barriers.
IT IS FIRM TO RETAIN THE CUTTING Frontier …
In those fateful days and weeks, two armies were surrounded - without reserves, ammunition supplies, and fuel. No air cover. Without knowledge of the operational environment. The situation is critical and desperate. However, on the received radiograms, the commander of the Southern Front, General Tyulenev, mercilessly radioed: "To firmly hold the occupied lines …" When it was too late, he ordered a breakthrough.
In general, there are many reasons for what happened near Uman, but one of them is the position of the commander of the Southern Front. As the former commander of the 141st Infantry Division, Major General Yakov Tonkonogov, said sternly in 1983: “Tyulenev acted unworthily, giving information to the Headquarters about Ponedelin's“slowness and indecision”with the exit from the encirclement to the East.
Soviet light wheeled-tracked tank BT-7 on the march
While the 6th and 12th armies were carrying out Tyulenev's order on actions in the North-East, on holding the Khristinovka - Potash - Zvenigorodka front, the 18th Army exposed the left flank of the 6th Army, quickly leaving through Golovanevsk to Pervomaisk, facilitated the 49th GSK Germans coverage from the south of groups of 6 and 12 armies. Ponedelin was shot in 1950.
Tyulenev saved the Southern Front and the 18th Army, and 40 thousand soldiers of the 6th and 12th armies died through his fault."
Obviously, General Tyulenev sought to relieve himself of responsibility for the fate of the Ponedelin group. At the same time, he did not hesitate to accuse the commander himself of sins unacceptable for any military leader, and this justified his unwillingness to help those surrounded.
What were the last days of the life of Colonel Alexander Danilov and his colleagues in the 24th Mechanized Corps? This can be judged only by the surviving fragmentary information. After all, most of the participants in those events died a heroic death or surrendered, and then accepted a painful death in the Uman Yama concentration camp.
The land of Green Brahma is rich in such finds
… On the second of August, the rain poured in a continuous stream, as if the whole world fell to the ground with tears, on each of the soldiers and officers. The captured Nazis stated bluntly: “You cannot leave these places. Our command took all measures to completely destroy the encircled Soviet troops …”The double ring around Ponedelin's group, which included the 24th Mechanized Corps, was closed.
On August 2, the remnants of the troops of the 6th and 12th armies continue to be drawn into the Green Brama oak forest, where they occupy a perimeter defense and begin to violently, almost on the verge of despair, counterattack the enemy. During the night, trenches were dug, mine and non-explosive barriers were installed.
On August 3, enemy aircraft constantly bombed. It seems that there was no such piece of land where bombs and shells would not explode. Our artillery responded weakly: they were saving ammunition for a decisive battle. There are no anti-aircraft shells to combat aviation. Molotov cocktails are also running out, so there is almost nothing to fight with tanks.
German mountain rangers shot wounded Red Army soldiers, including women. The German command issued an order the day before: women in military uniform should be treated like soldiers, and armed women in civilian clothes should be treated like partisans.
Realizing the futility of the attacks of the Ponedelin group in the eastern and northeastern directions and the impossibility of restoring the defense front in this way, the Command of the Southwestern Direction ordered General Tyulenev to withdraw the 6th and 12th armies to the south, to join the 18th army.
And what? He, in violation of the order received, did not bring it to the attention of the commanders of the 6th and 12th armies, and on August 4 repeated his order: Ponedelin's group - to break through to the east, to the line of the Sinyukha River. Cause? Apparently, General Tyulenev was still counting on the success of his plan, despite the significant deterioration of the situation in the front zone.
The most active actions during the day took place in the southern and southeastern sectors of the encirclement front. The strike group of the 24th MK continued its offensive in the eastern and northeastern directions.
By 17.00, the 49th Panzer Division, supported by the 211st Airborne Brigade, was already fighting three kilometers from the village of Tishkovka. The 16th Motorcycle Regiment and the 44th Mountain Rifle Division again attacked Novo-Arkhangelsk, taking it into a semicircle. In the Ternovka area, the 58th State Motor Rifle Division, transferred from under the village of Kopenkovatoe, was deployed. But Chistyakov's corps failed to break through to Yampol, as planned by the command of the 12th Army.
The enemy regarded the actions of the 24th MK on the eastern bank of the Sinyukha River as creating a bridgehead for the withdrawal of the entire grouping from the encirclement. Therefore, the enemy planned an operation to destroy the Soviet troops that had broken through to the Novo-Arkhangelsk-Ternovka-Tishkovka area. It was planned to cut off the grouping of Soviet troops from the river, cut it into pieces and destroy.
The enemy's offensive began at 9.00. The units, which were highly stretched along the front, could not hold the lines of defense and began to quickly roll back to the river. In the afternoon, the Nazis, with the support of artillery and aviation, attacked Tishkovka and Ternovka. As AL Lukyanov recalled: the enemy attacked "simultaneously from the north, east and south, compressing our defenses into a ring."
By noon, the enemy approached Ternovka, where the artillery positions of the 58th Guards Rifle Division were located. At the same time along the western bank of Sinyukha, a group "Lang" of the 1st mountaineger division came out to the village. The rear of the 58th Guards Rifle Division and the 24th MK, located in the Pansky Forest, were destroyed.
“We directed our binoculars there,” wrote SI Gerzhov many years later, “and saw how German tanks and submachine gunners were advancing towards the forest from all sides. There were many of our troops in the big forest. All our artillery remained there … It was easy to imagine the tragedy of the soldiers of our batteries, who did not have fuel and ammunition."
By evening, virtually all Soviet troops that had crossed the river were destroyed. The 49th Panzer, 44th and 58th Mountain Rifle Divisions, the 211st Airborne Brigade and the 2nd Ptarb were defeated.
With his offensive, the enemy outstripped the actions of the Soviet troops to break through from the encirclement, since on August 4 at 15:00 the command of the Southern Front nevertheless authorized an exit from the encirclement, but not in the southern, but in the eastern direction. By this time, the advantageous foothold behind Sinyukha had already been lost, and it was necessary to re-form the strike group.
On the night of August 4, the planes of the Southern Front for the last time dropped 60 tons of cargo (ammunition and gasoline) at the location of Ponedelin's group.
The ring of enemy encirclement shrank to the limit, and the front of the 18th Army withdrew to the south of Pervomaisk. The bridgehead, on which the encircled troops (about 65 thousand people) were huddled together that day, did not exceed 10 by 10 kilometers.
IA Khizenko, a direct participant in the events, writes in his book "Pages Revived": "All day - in continuous attacks: the Germans attack, we defend ourselves and we rush forward; we attack - goes on the defensive and the enemy tightens the ring.
The Nazis, through amplifiers, offer to surrender. Provide time for reflection. It is strange how they know the names of the commanders and even the names of their children? Here they call the surname of the staff commander, the names of his children. We discuss, make different assumptions. Remembered. Last winter, a girl with a Red Cross bandage on her sleeve went to our apartments in Proskurov. She offered children's first-aid kits, wrote down who needed and how much …"
ENCOUNTER BATTLE ON BLUE
So, the last fierce battles took place between the Sinyukha and Yatran rivers - in the dense oak forest "Green Brama", which gave the remnants of the 6th and 12th armies, huddled near the villages of Podvysokoe and Kopenkovatoe, the last support and protection from endless attacks from the ground and air.
It must have been Colonel Danilov who took over command of the remnants of the 24th Mechanized Corps at the end of June after General Chistyakov was seriously wounded. But this is only a guess. As already mentioned, nothing is known about his last days and weeks. The feat of those who are the real heroes of the Green Brahma was devoted to oblivion for many decades.
The command of the Ponedelin group developed a new breakthrough plan for August 5. The 12th Army formed a shock group consisting of the 8th cavalry and the remnants of the 13th cc and 24th cc. The general goal of the operation was to organize an organized exit with the maximum preservation of manpower and materiel in the direction of Pervomaisk. There it was supposed to join the 18th Army. The 24th MK was tasked with advancing along the Sinyukha channel to the south.
By August 5, a crisis with the supply of ammunition was also brewing in the enemy troops. As a result, the German command decided to launch a decisive offensive for the final defeat of the Ponedelin group. As stated in the order: "the battle of today must end with the final destruction of the enemy, there is no ammunition for a second offensive."
The start of the general offensive was scheduled for 10.00. The events of August 5 turned into a virtual oncoming battle. The fight lasted until the evening, but without much result.
Then the enemy, with the aim of disorganizing control and disrupting further attempts to break through from the encirclement, at 12.00 began a massive artillery bombardment of the entire encirclement space. It turned out to be especially powerful and effective in the area of the southern outskirts of the Zelenaya Brama forest and the village of Kopenkovatoe. Here, in particular, the chief of artillery of the 6th army, General G. I. Fyodorov, and the commander of the 37th squadron brigade commander S. P.
Search teams work every year in Zelena Brama and its environs.
As a result of the oncoming battle on August 5, the plan for the final elimination of the encircled grouping of the 6th and 12th armies was thwarted. But the troops of Ponedelin's group did not fulfill the task, they could not break through and themselves suffered heavy losses. A number of important strongholds were lost, the encirclement front was significantly narrowed, and the Soviet troops found themselves in an area completely covered by artillery and small arms.
While the remnants of the 6th and 12th armies were bleeding on August 5, trying to break out of the encirclement on their own, the headquarters of the Southern Front once again reported to Moscow that it had ordered General Ponedelin direction.
The order was delivered to Zelena Brama by an air ambulance plane, which landed with difficulty on a narrow strip of still Soviet land, which was already being shot through by enemy artillery. Behind the backs of the troops is the Sinyukha River, up to 80 meters wide and three meters deep, all crossings through which have been destroyed, and the Germans are already on its opposite bank.
General Ponedelin, having read the order of the front commander, only smiled bitterly and asked the pilot to pick up several bags of mail. The plane was shot down on takeoff, and the last letters never made it to the mainland.
Much later, in his memoirs "Through Three Wars", published in 1972, General Tyulenev stated with cynical calm: already completely surrounded by Uman."
BLUE BLUE TURNING RED
And the troops continued to fight! The command of the Ponedelin group did not abandon the plan for breaking through from the encirclement, the dates of which were postponed to the night of 5-6 August.
In a radiogram to the front headquarters on August 5, Major General Ponedelin reported: “The fight is going on within a radius of 3 kilometers, the center is Podvysokoe, everything is in the battle. "Piglet" is being shot from all sides. The enemy is bombing continuously, 4 planes were shot down. Artillery and mortars are hitting, we expect tanks to attack. The task is to hold out until the evening, at night we go to the assault. The troops are behaving heroically. Please help - hit us halfway."
The German historian Hans Shteets, a participant in those events, writes in his book “Mountain Rangers near Uman” (“Gebirgsjagder bei Uman):“The corps commander was convinced that the enemy captured in the cauldron was very strong. He quickly consolidated orders in a confined space. With perseverance and fanatical self-control, the enemy still hoped for good luck that he could break through the ring on his own. Therefore, the corps commander decided on August 5 to advance simultaneously with all the forces of the corps and deliver the last blow to the enemy.
From 10 o'clock in the morning of that day, the area of Torgovitsa - Nebelivka - the forest to the west of Podvyshkoye was bombarded. By that time, the 1st Mountain Rifle Division had already captured 2,500 prisoners, 23 guns of all types, 3 tanks, 200 carts, a lot of weapons and ammunition. But the success, which they hoped for and which required so much endurance, courage and inhuman in terms of force, the efforts of the troops, was not achieved again on 5 August. The enemy attacked without interruption, always … fought with his last heroic struggle, incomparably firm and fanatically decisive. In his hopeless position, urged on by the commissars, he did not give up in any way and still hoped to break through to the south and southeast.
With the onset of darkness, the enemy resumed attempts to break through, but he failed to break through. But the units of the 4th Mountain Rifle Division did not have the strength to pursue the Russians, and remained in their positions … The assessment of the situation by the evening of August 5 showed that the enemy was now trapped in a narrow space. A large forest near Podvyskoye, about 12 kilometers long, became a point of concentration and shelter for the remnants of the defeated enemy."
On the night of August 6, a new breakthrough was planned in Ponedelin's group, which was to begin at 1 am. A convoy is under construction, the last drops of gasoline are decanted for the cars. Artillery tractors and tractors are ahead, trucks are behind them. There are also two miraculously survived tanks and several armored cars. Three breakthrough support detachments and a strong rearguard detachment of rear protection are created with the order to stand up to a special command.
At the appointed time, the command "Forward!" At dawn, the enemy came to his senses. Enemy artillery began to work, aviation appeared in the sky. General Muzychenko's tank was hit, and he himself was wounded. The column, which stretched for tens of kilometers, was split into several parts. Each unit or squad lives and perishes already one by one.
With astonishing speed, rumors began to spread about the capture of the commanders of Ponedelin and Muzychenko, the corps commanders of Generals Snegov and Kirillov. Leaflets immediately rained down from the air, in which Ponedelin allegedly offered the soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender. On the leaflet, he himself was depicted surrounded by German officers with a glass of champagne in his hand …
THE UNWRITTEN LAW OF WAR: DYING - KILL
Throughout the first half of August, Green Brama remained a fortress without walls, towers and ditches. The Nazis were afraid to enter the forest, they decided to take it by siege.
August 7. By this time, practically abandoned by the command of the Southwestern and Southern fronts, having lost many of their commanders, the remnants of the 6th and 12th armies in the Uman region could rely only on their own forces, which were already running out.
Despite this, attempts to break out of the encirclement continue. And only in the second half of the day, the chief of staff of the 12th Army, General BI Arushanyan, sends the penultimate radiogram to the headquarters of the Southern Front: “The attempt to break out of the encirclement failed. I ask you to bomb methodically with aviation during the day and night 6 by 7.8 …"
His last radiogram (in a distorted version) reads: “The 6th and 12th armies are surrounded … There is no ammunition, no fuel. The ring shrinks. The environment is firing. I have 20,000 bayonets. Rearguards from the north … an attack on Pervomaisk to join the 18th Army …"
Breakthroughs to the south, towards Pervomaisk, on the night of August 6 and to the east on August 7, failed. The forces melted away in counterattacks, repelled by German artillery and tank barriers from the south, and by the Sinyukha River - with tanks and machine guns on the east bank.
After the unsuccessful attempt of the last breakthrough, the remnants of the units in small groups began to return to Green Brama in search of rescue. By the evening of that day, the troops encircled in the Podvysoky region, which had recently formed the group of General Ponedelin, lost control, but even then they did not stop their resistance.
The already mentioned Hans Steets reports: “The situation in the area of operations of the 1st Mountain Rifle Division has remained unclear for the corps commander for a long time. The telephone connection is broken. The defeated enemy again created a serious situation. At 16.00 Colonel Picker launched an offensive on Podvyskoye. His huntsmen moved to the village from the east and southeast and, in a fierce street battle, captured the eastern outskirts of Podvyskoye. At 18.30, the northern flank of Lang's group took up a height of 185 and a bridge two kilometers from the church in Podvyskoye. But by nightfall, all our battalions again went on the defensive, ready to repel the night breakthrough of the Russians.
On the night of August 8, another attempt was made by the Russians to break through the northern flank of the 1st Mountain Rifle Division. In several waves the Russians stormed with shouts of "Hurray!", Urged on by their commissars. A hand-to-hand fight went on for about an hour. Our losses multiplied. Several company commanders were killed … The mountain huntsmen stood in their positions, but they still could not prevent the crowds of Russians from breaking through. Through the passages that arose, some of them moved southeast to Vladimirovka, others went south to Rossokhovatka. True, near Vladimirovka and Rossokhovatka, already 10 kilometers from the breakthrough site, all these groups were overtaken and destroyed. This was the last time the defeated enemy reared up. His resistance was finally broken."
On the morning of August 8, it started raining again. On that day, the Nazis began to identify and destroy individual detachments of the 6th and 12th armies, which were hiding in the forest and ravines. It was then that the last battle of the combined detachment, led by General S. Ya. Ogurtsov, took place in the field of sunflowers, which was noted by many German witnesses, but could not influence the general situation in any way.
Spot fighting in the Green Brama area continued for several more days. Some units perish under the blows of the enemy, others break out of the encirclement and go into obscurity, often towards their death or captivity. The remaining equipment and military equipment are burned with straw. Banners and documents are being buried.
Mikhail Solomatin, the commander of the 45th Panzer Division, which was part of the 24th MK, managed to break through to his own. Poet and front-line soldier Yevgeny Dolmatovsky writes: “In August 1941, he had just received the rank of major general, and his subordinates, out of habit, often called him colonel. Solomatin gathered a detachment of up to 200 people in Zelyonaya Brama. All these were crews without tanks.
The age of the division commander Solomatin was already approaching fifty. He had a chance to participate in the First World War and in the Civil War. He knew how to operate with a bayonet, and having hastily taught this to the tankers, he led his detachment in the southwest direction."
A detachment with heavy fighting made its way to Dnepropetrovsk.
Subsequently, Mikhail Dmitrievich commanded a tank brigade, was seriously wounded; headed the Gorky armored center, then, returning to the front, led the tank corps and the army. He finished his military service in 1959 as a colonel-general. He died in 1986.
SHIELD COVERING KIEV
The command of the Southern Front until August 8 did not know what was happening to the encircled armies. Worse, it didn’t even process the data that had already arrived at its headquarters. Meanwhile, stubborn focal battles continued along the entire perimeter of the Green Brahma - no longer for getting out of the encirclement, but for giving their lives at a higher price.
August 13. This date is recorded in history as the end of the Battle of the Underdog. But the Green Brahma did not submit. In the depths of it, small groups of soldiers from different units, armed with captured weapons, still held out. They were exhausted from thirst and hunger, ate grass. There was not a stream in the besieged forest, but heavy rains saturated the land, and the water remained in small gullies.
The desperate battles fought by the 6th and 12th armies, first in operational and then in tactical encirclement from the end of July to almost mid-August, were historically a contribution to the downfall of the fascist "blitzkrieg". According to German historians, in the Uman, Podvyskoye area and around the Green Brama oak forest, our troops for half a month pinned down twenty-two German divisions and almost all the satellites.
The remnants of the 6th and 12th armies breast-covered Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Donbass, ensuring the evacuation of factory equipment, valuables, and the population. 99 thousand cars with equipment were sent from Dnepropetrovsk. Ponedelin's group was a shield covering Kiev from the south.
By August 5, 85,295 wagons of various cargoes were evacuated from the capital of Ukraine. The warriors who fought in Green Brama ensured the mobilization of fresh forces in the Right-Bank Ukraine. It was a significant but dramatic contribution to the distant Victory!
Local residents buried the fallen on the battlefield - in trenches, silos. Most of them are still listed as “missing”. About 18, 5 thousand of our soldiers died in the "Uman cauldron", from 50 to 74 thousand (according to the enemy) became prisoners of the death camp, the notorious "Uman pit".
Those who did not find the strength to fight had no idea what awaited them: “During the evening of August 27, several thousand Soviet prisoners of war were pushed into a camp near Uman. The camp was designed to accommodate from 500 to 800 people, but 2-3 thousand arrived every hour. No provisions were provided. The heat was terrible.
By evening, there were already 8 thousand people in the camp. Oberfeldwebel Leo Mellart, a guard with the 101st Infantry Division, heard "shouts and gunfire" out of the darkness. Moreover, they fired clearly from large-caliber weapons. It turned out that three 85-mm anti-aircraft guns fired point-blank at the territory fenced with barbed wire, allegedly because "the prisoners attempted a mass escape."
According to Mellart, about 1,500 prisoners of war died and were seriously wounded then. The disgusting organization led to a terrible overcrowding, but the commandant of Gysin did not want to go into conflict with the authorities "(Robert Kershaw" 1941 through the eyes of the Germans: birch crosses instead of Iron ", M.," Yauza ", 2010).
Military journalist and future famous poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky in defeated Berlin. May 1945. In 1985, his book "Green Brama" will see the light
According to the Southern Front (operational report No. 098), in the period from 1 to 8 August alone, up to 11,000 people and 1,015 vehicles with military equipment left the encirclement in its zone. Also 3.620 people. the wounded were evacuated. Some of the soldiers and officers were sheltered by local residents.
The burial place of Komkor-24 is unknown. “The wounded corps commander, General Vladimir Ivanovich Chistyakov, was carried on their shoulders. He died in the arms of his comrades at the last frontier. But the detachment with heavy fighting made its way to Dnepropetrovsk, "wrote the war correspondent and editor of the 12th Army newspaper" Star of the Soviets "Yevgeny Dolmatovsky in the book" Green Brama "(1989). According to other sources, General Chistyakov died in a military hospital in the city of Pervomaisk from heart failure no later than August 18, 1941, where he was buried.
Near Uman, the deputy for the political part of the 24th MK, brigade commissar Pyotr Silvestrov, the head of the operational department, Major Ivan Astakhov, the head of the communications department, Colonel Nikolai Fedorov, and the head of the motor transport service, Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Vasilyev, were killed.
The commander of the 49th tank division, Konstantin Shvetsov, the commander of the 216th motorized division, Ashot Sargsyan, and many, many other soldiers and officers of the 24th mechanized division, "whose names you know," died the death of the brave.
Colonel Danilov did not leave the battle with them. It happened, it is possible, directly on the Sinyukha River, which, according to eyewitnesses, was brown with blood for several days. It was not possible for him, with a crippled leg, and perhaps even a wounded one, to swim to the other shore. Surrender to the enemy? This was out of the question.
According to official data, Colonel Alexander Danilov is missing. At the time of 1943, according to TsAMO documents, his family was on the territory of the South Ural Military District (must be in evacuation).
Presumably, the sisters of Colonel Danilov, Olga Ivanovna Zernova, Maria Ivanovna Artemyeva and Evdokia Ivanovna Solovyova, did not survive the blockade of Leningrad.
… Having visited the Prokhorovskoye field on the Kursk Bulge in the summer of 2013, President Putin spoke of the need to reveal the names of forgotten heroes for the future. With the publication dedicated to Colonel Danilov, as well as to all the heroes of the Green Brahma, we are making our contribution to this cause.
Paraphrasing the author of the trilogy "The Living and the Dead" Konstantin Simonov, who created one of the best novels about the Great War, we can say about Colonel Danilov with words addressed to the brigade commander Serpilin …
He did not know and could not know in those terrible, incinerating days, the full cost of everything already accomplished by the people of their 24th mechanized corps, soldiers and officers of the 6th and 12th armies. And, like him and his subordinates, the full value of their deeds was not yet known by thousands of other people who fought to the death in thousands of other places with unplanned stubbornness by the Germans.
They did not know and could not know that the generals of the German army still victoriously advancing on Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, fifteen years later, would call this summer of 1941 a time of deceived expectations, successes that did not become a victory.
They could not foresee these future bitter confessions of the enemy, but almost each of them then, in the summer of forty-first, had a hand in ensuring that all this happened just like that.
