It happened on January 5, 1944, on the first day of the Kirovograd operation. Private Ivan Ishchenko was sent as part of a tank landing to liberate the village of Kazarka.
Ivan Ilyich Ishchenko was a native of almost the same places - he was born in the village of Vershino-Kamenka, now the Novgorodkovsky district of the Kirovograd region. His native village was liberated only a few months before the events described, and 18-year-old Ivan was immediately included in the 294th Guards Rifle Regiment.
Early in the morning, a tank with paratroopers on armor burst into the village. The entire rifle squad had already jumped off, and began to advance towards the village on foot, but the young soldier decided to drive a tank to the very Germans. Soon the German trenches appeared. The tank ran over the trench, and our hero jumped right into the trench. He immediately came across an officer. Taking a Walter out of his holster, he shot at our fighter, but missed from a three-meter distance. The bullet only scratched the butt of the rifle.
The Ishchenko rifle magazine was empty - he had fired all five cartridges while moving on the tank's armor, and he had no time to insert another clip. There was only one way left: to act with a bayonet. In bayonet training, the young soldier was taught to pierce the enemy only a couple of vershoks, but this was his first bayonet fight, and he drove the bayonet into the German up to the barrel, after which, in order to remove the body of the killed officer from the bayonet, he had to pretty much tinker. When the bayonet was free, three more Germans gathered at the scene, awaiting their turn. The passage of the trench was cramped, and the Germans could approach Ishchenko only one at a time. It is not known why none of them tried to shoot, without fail trying to stab our soldier with the bayonets of their carbines.
The feat of Ivan Ishchenko tried to portray a post-war artist, but he did not take into account that the event took place on January 5
However, our bayonet was elementarily longer, and our fighter managed to stab before the German could reach him. Ishchenko was surprised when he realized that the Germans were falling dead even before the bayonet was thrust into them, and when four more came to replace the three stabbed Fritz, he decided to try to just touch one of them with a bayonet. The German silently began to fall forward and his weight ran into the bayonet already dead. Pulling the rifle away from the falling German, Ishchenko immediately stabbed the next one with a bayonet. It is not known how many more Germans our soldier would have stabbed with a bayonet, but then his fellow soldiers jumped into the trench, finally reaching the trench, and the battle stopped in a few seconds. During the attack, none of our soldiers died - all the Germans were busy not shooting at the attackers, but trying to stab one Ishchenko.
By order of the 97th Guards Rifle Division (No. 58 / n) dated January 19, 1944, the Red Army soldier Ivan Ilyich Ishchenko was awarded the Order of Glory, 3rd degree. This was not Ivan Ischenko's last award. After this incident, he was transferred to the regimental intelligence, and by the end of the war he became a full Knight of the Order of Glory.
Fragment of the award sheet
