Forgotten commander
The general himself, who had gone through all the agony, trials and temptations of fascist captivity, even became a cripple, remained loyal to the oath. For his restoration in rank and service after the war, the most senior and illustrious marshals of the victorious army were busy. It was even made a collective petition of honored commanders for awarding the title Hero of the Soviet Union to the general.
He received the Golden Star, but posthumously, half a century after the Victory.
And today, one of a thousand knows about his feat ...
General "from the plow"
FUTURE Red Army General Mikhail Fedorovich Lukin was born on November 16 1892 in the village of Polukhino, Tver Province, in a peasant family. From the age of fourteen - “in people”, on earnings. From 1913 - in the army, from next year - in the trenches. In 1916, he graduated from the school of ensigns. And again to the front. He commanded a platoon, then a company in the Barclay de Tolly Xenumx Grenadier regiment of Nesvizh. For a year and a half, the officer service was awarded three military orders - St. Anne and St. Vladimir 4 degree, St. Stanislav 4 degree ... What else can be added to characterize the officer?
Then the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks, who came to power, are beginning to form a new army of new Russia. Lieutenant Lukin enters into it with the majority of the soldiers of his regiment, who trusted the commanding officer who came from the peasants without limit.
In the Red Army, Mikhail Fedorovich makes a dizzying career: in Civil, fighting against Denikin and the White Poles, he commanded a regiment and brigade, headed the division headquarters. In the year 1919 joins the party.
After the bloody feud had settled, he continued his military service. Before 1929, he was in military positions and in the Red Army command management. Then six years he commanded a division, and in 1935-m became the military commander of Moscow.
In the country and the army, the flywheel of repression gained momentum. In July, 1937, Mikhail Fedorovich was removed from office, and for six months he is at the disposal of the personnel department of the Red Army, languishing in obscurity regarding his future: among the colleagues and close friends of the division commander Lukin there were too many "enemies of the people" ...
However, Mikhail Fedorovich’s reputation was so flawless that, despite all the efforts of the investigating authorities, for him personally, the case ends with severe reprimands on the service and party lines “for blunting class vigilance”. That is - for misleading ...
In December, 1937-th Lukin is sent to Novosibirsk as deputy chief of staff of the Siberian military district. Soon he becomes chief of staff, and then deputy commander of the Siberian Military District.
At the end of 1939, Mikhail Fedorovich was given the rank of comcor, and in June 1940, after the re-evaluation of the top commanders of the Red Army, lieutenant-general, was appointed commander of the 16 army to the Trans-Baikal Military District.
In this rank and this position he met the Great Patriotic War. True, not in the Far East ...
Commander and without army commander
Just before the attack of Hitler's Germany, the command of the 16 Army received a directive on the transfer from Transbaikalia to the western borders of the Soviet Union. Commander Lukin left for Ukraine in advance to familiarize himself with the deployment areas of his regiments and divisions.
The news of the beginning of fascist aggression caught him in Vinnitsa. At this time, units of the 16 Army immersed in railway trains approached Berdichev, Proskurov, Staro-Konstantinov and Shepetovka by advanced forces, and the army’s rear forces had not yet crossed the Urals. That is, the commander met the war, in fact, without his army!
26 June Lukin received an order to reassign his troops from the Southwestern Western Front and to deploy an army in the Orsha and Smolensk areas. Therefore, I rushed to Shepetovka to stop unloading parts of my 5 mechanized corps there.
In this unimportant town of Podolia, where he turned out to be a senior military commander in terms of rank and position, the general found a flock of displaced units retreating from the border, hundreds of soldiers and commanders called up by local military enlistment offices. And a lot of representatives of the already fighting units that arrived for ammunition, weapons, fuel and food: in Shepetovka were warehouses of the Western Front.
What was the lieutenant general to do in this mess and confusion when the enemy’s reconnaissance units were already approaching the city, and he had an order in his pocket to urgently go down to Smolensk? You could just drop into the first eastbound train ...
But Mikhail Fedorovich, with a pistol in his hand, along with adjutant Lieutenant Sergey Prozorovsky, driver of the Red Army Nikolai Smurygin and two officers who joined him, he stood across the main city street and stopped the flow of military and non-military people.
The iron grasp of the commander of the First World War has affected: the formation of fighter units and subunits began in the courtyards and alleys, their commanders were appointed immediately, lists of personnel were compiled, and places were determined for occupying positions on the western outskirts of Shepetovka. And all this shapeless mass of frightened and confused people in their eyes began to turn into an organized armed force.
Having equipped his command post at the Shepetovka railway station, Lukin reported on the situation and the measures he was taking to the first deputy commander of the South-Western Front, Lieutenant General Yakovlev. And received from him all the necessary powers. Acting legally, Mikhail Fyodorovich canceled the loading into echelons of the 109 motorized rifle division, the 5 mechanized corps and the 116 th tank regiment. All these regular parts of the general moved to protect the city.
But that was only half the battle: huge, dimensionless front stores should be evacuated from Shepetivka. And Lukin grudgingly gave the order to withdraw all the trucks from the refugees, load them with ammunition and other military property and send them to Kiev. How many curses did the general listen to then! ..
The war has been going on for a week, and through Shepetovka from the central regions of the country continued to follow to Western Ukraine, trains loaded with tractors, combines, seeders, grain — all Soviet people helped the newly affiliated Ukrainian regions to establish a peaceful life ... Lukin ordered to dump all this agricultural property directly to the ground, load wagons and platforms with military supplies and send to the east.
But still it was a drop in the ocean. And then Mikhail Fedorovich, at his own risk and risk, gave the following orders to the chiefs of warehouses: not to deny everyone arriving from the front for ammunition, fuel, food, equipment, even if they do not have documents for receiving cargoes - to drive every car to capacity . And he gave the commissaries a clean cardboard card with his signature, stamped ...
Equally decisively, Lukin acted on the front line, where the German units continued to frantically rush to Shepetovka. For example, when the commander of the 109 motorized rifle division, Colonel Nikolai Krasnoretsky, was seriously wounded, the general ordered the regiment commander, lieutenant colonel Alexander Podoprigora, to take command. But on the same day, the regiment of Alexander Ilyich, having beaten off eight attacks, suffered terrible losses - about 85 percent of the personnel! And the regimental commander, although this was not his personal guilt, shot himself out of desperation.
The command personnel and fighters of the compound were demoralized. Then, in order to return people to faith in their own forces, the commander ... personally joined the command of the division! And, repelling the attacks of the Nazis, commanded it until a new divisional commander was appointed.
In general, at the end of the first week of the war, Lieutenant-General Lukin himself arbitrarily became the commander of the military task force created by him. And soon about her actions flashed meritorious mention in the reports of the headquarters of the South-Western Front, and even the Headquarters of the High Command.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Fedorovich, with all the directness, reported to the front headquarters that the Shepetovka task force was melting every day and was no longer able to replenish at the expense of units retreating or arriving in the city. Already neither valor, nor courage, nor selflessness of fighters and commanders will not help to hold positions longer, if the necessary quantity of fresh connections is not brought into battle.
Soon the 7 th infantry corps of Major General Dobroserdov arrived in the area. And the commander hurried under Smolensk to re-head his 16 th army.
But the Shepetovka, while Lukin defended it, the Germans could not take it! ..
Defense of Smolensk
He arrived at SMOLENSK on the morning of July 8 of the year 1941. And he found there only two divisions of his 16 army. All the other units, as the chief of staff, Colonel Shalin, who barely restrained his tears, reported to the commander, were transferred to the 20 Army, leading heavy fighting in the Orsha region. Mikhail Fedorovich literally dropped his hands from this news: how will he protect the city? ..
Feeling shamelessly robbed, Lukin nevertheless vigorously took up the preparation of the defense of Smolensk. Two of his divisions took up positions in the north-west of the city, covering the roads leading to the east and the most dangerous directions. But after a few days, from these divisions, the commander, on the orders of the commander-in-chief of the Western direction, Marshal Tymoshenko, had to allocate reinforced battalions and throw them west and south-west of Smolensk - at the line of the Svinaia river, in order to defend the flanks of the 20 units fighting there with the Smolensk militia battalions Army
On July 14, by order of the front commander to General Lukin, the 17 th mechanized corps was reassigned, but none of its units appeared in the 16 th army. The next day, as if having come to his senses, Marshal Timoshenko issued an order to transfer two divisions to Lukin from General Konev’s army.
And on the night of July 16, the Germans broke into Smolensk, on the move, taking possession of the southern part of the city. Do not blow Colonel Malyshev on the orders of Lukin Smolensk bridges, the Nazis could easily fly over the river - almost the entire garrison of the city fell in a night street battle ...
The road to Moscow was, in fact, open to the Nazis. But the seemingly doomed Smolensk Lukin held for two weeks, pulling everything he could to the city. It was rescued by the fact that some units promised by the front command began to arrive at his disposal. Plus, Lukin, using Shepetov's experience, reassigned himself to the remnants of all the regiments and battalions that had retreated east in the area of his army.
Still, Smolensk, for whose defense Mikhail Fedorovich, by the way, was awarded the third order of the Red Banner, had to be left: by the end of July, the enemy managed to seize the ferry across the Dnieper east of the city, and Lukin’s army was threatened. The commander received an order to withdraw his troops to the new frontier.
He brilliantly carried out this maneuver, withdrawing regiments and divisions from enemy ticks with minimal losses. But he didn’t save himself: on August 2, at the crossing over the Dnieper, during a raid, a truck with a driver frantic for fear knocked the commander, smashing his left foot. From that day, Mikhail Fedorovich with great difficulty could move on his own, but refused to evacuate to the rear, taking the 19 army from General Konev, appointed commander of the Western Front ...
In the Vyazma pot
EARLY in the morning of October 2 1941, the Germans launched Operation Typhoon, the result of which was to be the seizure of the Soviet capital. And on October 9, Reichspress Attache Dietrich told reporters about the defeat of the main forces of the Western Russian Front. And he had all the reasons for this: in the Vyazma region, 19, 20, 24, 32-I armies and the group of General Boldin's troops were surrounded - in total more than half a million people with equipment, weapons and ammunition.
The day before, the military council of the Western Front, with its decision, put the commander of the 19 Army, Lieutenant-General Lukin, at the head of a blocked grouping, obliging him to organize a breakthrough from the environment by any means. This decision was approved by the Supreme Command. The telegram signed by Stalin, which was handed over to Mikhail Fedorovich, ended with the words: “If you don’t break through, there will be no one to defend Moscow and nothing. I repeat: there is nothing and nothing. ”
Lukin understood that the task before him was almost impossible. Unlike Smolensk, where its subordinate units were concentrated in one place, under Vyazma the surrounded armies were divided. Attempts to contact the commander-20, Lieutenant-General Ershakov and the commander-24, Major General Rakutin, were not crowned with success. There was also no connection with the operational group of Lieutenant General Boldin. And Mikhail Fedorovich made the optimal decision in that situation: to regroup and break through to the east north of Vyazma, in the direction of Gzhatsk.
It was possible to break the encirclement ring south of Bogoroditsky. As soon as the commander of the 91 Infantry Division, Colonel Volkov, reported to Lieutenant-General Lukin about the breakthrough of the encirclement ring, he immediately ordered to start the movement of rear units, hospitals and headquarters.
But it was impossible to fully ensure the exit of troops: the enemy quickly figured out the situation, lit up the breakthrough section with hundreds of missiles and opened hurricane fire at the columns of our formations. Everything was mixed, the control of the troops was completely lost.
On October 12, Lukin radioed General of the Army Zhukov, who had just assumed command of the Western Front: “The ring of encirclement closed again. All attempts to contact Ershakov and Rakutin do not have success, where and what they do, we do not know. The shells are running out. There is no fuel. On the same day, the commander was seriously wounded in his right hand: a bullet cut through two tendons, and the general's hand completely immobilized.
On the night of October 13, Mikhail Fedorovich convened a military council. After a detailed discussion of the current situation, it was decided to blow up all the artillery, machine to burn, ammunition, food to be distributed in parts and make way in the south direction in two groups, one of which was to be headed by Lieutenant General Lukin, the second by Lieutenant General Boldin.
At dawn 14 October, the commander gave the order to start the movement - the remnants of the 19 army went on their last breakthrough campaign.
And the evening of October 17, Mikhail Fedorovich, met on a soldier's bed in a German field hospital: he, who had barely regained consciousness after multiple shrapnel and bullet wounds, was being prepared for an amputation operation ...
“They took not my body, but my corpse!”
In 1943 of the YEAR, the Nazis, who had already begun to recruit the crippled general, allowed the captive commander to send a letter to his sister, who was then in occupied Kharkov. In it, Mikhail Fedorovich described in some detail the circumstances of his capture. Here are some excerpts from that letter.
“The Germans wrote in their newspapers that I, the commander of the 19 Army, Lieutenant General Lukin, was taken prisoner, but they did not write in what condition. They took not me, but my dead body! And since they have written in their newspapers, it means that they know ours too, and this can be the basis for the repression of my family. But I am clean before the Motherland and my people, I fought to the last possible opportunity, and did not surrender to captivity, but they took me barely alive.
... The enemy never broke through the front of my army. My army was surrounded. I did not have a single projectile, there was no fuel in the cars, we with some machine guns and rifles tried to break through. I and the commanders of my headquarters all the time were in the chain, along with the Red Army men. I could leave, as some parts of my army managed to do, but I could not leave to the mercy, without command, a large part of the army. The interests of the common cause were dear to me, not personal life. When I failed to break through, I, having blown up all the artillery and destroying all the machines, decided to leave the encirclement in small groups.
... After another wound, blood is flowing in a stream, they can't stop it, and the Germans are taking steps in 200. The first thought is to run. I got up, took a few steps, fell because of weakness: I lost a lot of blood, my left leg started to hurt from a long walk, had not healed properly, and had not slept at all for several days. The thought of captivity flashes, but I am horrified by it. I am trying to get a revolver from my holster with my left hand - I will not give up alive, the last bullet to myself.
All attempts to remove the revolver fail. The right hand hangs like a whip. Two nurses came up, took off their overcoat, cut the sleeve of the tunic, cut off a rag from the shirt and bandaged it, took me by the arms and led me away. 5 steps were not passed, as I was wounded by shell fragments again: in the right leg, above the knee and in the calf. I cannot go further, I ask them to get me a revolver in order to end my own life. But it turned out that he was lost in the confusion at the place where they tied me up.
... wandered for two more days. I feel that I am becoming a burden to others. The idea of suicide does not leave, I think, sooner or later I will have to do it.
... Shooting is very close, the Germans appeared in the steps of 50. Shot, and again I was wounded in the right leg, in the knee of a bursting bullet. Fell My boot was quickly filled with blood. I feel, I start to lose consciousness. Forces leave.
I ask the Red Army men who were nearby to shoot me before the Germans approached, saying that I am still not a tenant, and that they should relieve me of the shame. No one dared.
... I remember how the Germans approached and began fumbling through their pockets. Lost consciousness. I came to myself - I do not understand where I am. No pain, anesthesia works. The doctor enters, throws off the blanket. I see no right foot. Everything is clear: I am a prisoner in a German hospital. The brain starts to work feverishly: captive, no legs, my right arm is killed, my army is dead. A shame! I don't want to live. There are terrible physical pains. Temperature over forty. I do not sleep for several days. Nayavu hallucinate ... ".
The fate of Mikhail Fedorovich could have been different. But the Wehrmacht high command already after a few hours became aware of the capture of the Soviet lieutenant general. And his fate was taken under the personal control of Field Marshal von Bock.
It is not every day that war commanders are captured in war, even if they are dying ...
Commander and captive commander
AFTER the German field hospital near Vyazma, General Lukin was transferred to the hospital for especially valuable captured Red Army commanders in Smolensk.
However, this institution could only be called a hospital conditionally. The wounded were handed over to the prisoners by the Nazis. The medicines were mined independently, on the bases of the former Soviet medical battalions. During one of the dressings, Lukin witnessed how the injured colonel Myagkov amputated his shin — not just without anesthesia: the colonel himself assisted the surgeon and held his leg during the operation ...
Only in February 1942 of the year did Mikhail Fedorovich feel more or less tolerable. He was transported to Germany, to the camp of Luckenwald, which was located fifty kilometers south of Berlin. And immediately over it "took the patronage" of the special services of the Third Reich. SS Standards Zorn and Erzhman, Colonel of the Army General Staff Kremer, constantly worked with him. All in vain.
Then compatriots were admitted to Lukin: the commander of the army tried to persuade the former officer of the special department of his own 19 army Ivakin, the chief of staff of the 19 army kombrig Malyshkin to betrayal. I met with Lukin and lieutenant-general Vlasov who had surrendered to captivity, who offered Mikhail Fedorovich to head the military leadership of the Russian liberation army and insisted that he was ready to retain only political leadership in the "struggle with the Stalinist regime."
All were refused - the commander remained loyal to the Motherland and the oath ...
It is noteworthy that all this time the wife of General Nadezhda Methodius Lukina continued to work in the People's Commissariat of Defense. In November, 1943, she was summoned to the Lubyanka and officially announced that her husband, who was missing, was in captivity. Then ... let go in peace, not even dismissing from service! The case is almost the only history War.
In winter, 1944, Lukin was transferred to the fortress of Wulzburg, where he was held with several more “obstinate” generals of the Red Army and seamen of Soviet merchant ships captured by the Germans on June 22 and 1941 in the ports of Stettin and Danzig.
In this fortress, Mikhail Fedorovich and other prisoners saw for the first time a new Soviet military uniform - they were thrown into the cell by a shot down pilot Nikolai Vlasov, a Hero of the Soviet Union, shot down in battle. It was Lukin Vlasov who, a few days before the execution, handed over his Golden Star No. 756. Her commander subsequently handed over to representatives of the Soviet command, which to a large extent contributed to the preservation of the honest name of the executed officer. You can bow your head before this general ...
With the approach of American troops, the Germans decided to take the prisoners from Wuerzburg to the camp of Mossburg. There their 8 May 1945, and the Allied forces liberated. And in June, General Lukin and several other prisoners were transferred to the Soviet consulate in Paris.
Forgiven and forgotten
It is well known that after the war in our country the attitude towards those who had been in captivity for many years was, to put it mildly, not unambiguous. But commander Lukin, this bowl at first seemed to have passed.
Mikhail Fedorovich was placed in the special camp of the NKVD. The process of his rehabilitation was accelerated by Marshal Konev, commander in chief of the Central Group of Occupation Forces. At the end of September 1945, he flew to Moscow on official business and, being at Stalin's reception, raised the question of Lukin. The Generalissimo requested the personal affairs of the commander and the test results, on which 3 of October was inscribed with his own hand: “A dedicated man. In the rank to restore, the service is not infringed. If you wish, send to study. ”
Everything seemed to be getting better in the fate of the commander. But it was only after the loss of the party membership card that Lukin was considered automatically dismissed from the Communist Party. Now not everyone is able to understand what it meant.
In the People's Commissariat of Defense, Mikhail Fedorovich was offered the posts of head of advanced training courses for the commanders of Vystrel and the head of the Main Directorate of military schools. But in the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), despite the fact that all pre-war and military awards were returned to General Lukin, and in 1946, he was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner, none of the appointments was approved - non-partisan! And in October, 1947 was quietly dismissed for health reasons ...
In 1966, the marshals of Tymoshenko, Zhukov, Konev and Yeremenko, together with Army General Kurochkin, applied to the government with a petition for conferring the title Hero of the Soviet Union to Lukin. It was not supported: Lukin all the time commanded the defending armies, and it was not accepted to hand the Golden Star to the military leaders for operations that did not end in victory.
6 of May 1970 of the year in the Literary Gazette published an article by Georgy Zhukov, in which Marshal of Victory wrote about Lukin: “I felt and feel a sense of admiration for the man’s resilience and courage. He suffered a heavy military hard times, painful physical suffering and remained the same as he was always - a modest, laconic, true hero of World War II.
And on May 25, the heart of the commander stopped beating ...
The title of Hero of the Russian Federation to Lieutenant General MF Lukin was awarded only in October 1993 of the year. Posthumously.
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