In the footsteps of award documents

What was he like, border guard Borodenko?

Most likely, we will never know this. But now we at least know about what a feat he accomplished.

This text may seem too short to some. But it is well known who is related to brevity. Nevertheless, the authors cannot but admit that they simply have nothing more to add to what was written in the old documents. But hopefully that's just for now...

And maybe, at the moment, this is for the best, since you will achieve little by repeating what has been written about the Battle of Kursk many times. Let's add only a very short note about those who signed award documents for our hero. Once - unknown, and it is good that now it is no longer so.

***
The 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk is approaching and the Organizing Committee for the perpetuation of the feat of the platoon of the border guard Lieutenant Romanovsky joined the action "My family's contribution to the Victory on the Kursk Bulge". The collected works will be transferred to the museum of the Northern Arc Memorial Complex under construction. Its opening is scheduled for August 2023.

Looking through the materials on the Shchigrovites who went to the front and died in the summer of 1943 on the Kursk Bulge, the researchers found an award sheet for a border guard, senior sergeant Dmitry Efimovich Borodenko, born in 1917, squad leader of the 4th company, 2nd rifle battalion of the 11th border regiment of the NKVD troops.

Borodenko was drafted in 1938 by the Shchigrovsky military registration and enlistment office of the Kursk region. He participated in the battles: near the village of Ilomlya, Novgorod Region, from October 27 to October 29, 1941, near the village of Otensky from November 2 to November 15, 1941, near the village of Vysochek from January 17 to January 23, 1942.

Has numerous injuries.

Description of the feat of senior sergeant Dmitry Borodenko from the submission for the award of the Order of the Red Banner.

“On October 27, 1941, acting as part of a fighter battalion behind enemy lines near the village of Ilomlya, he threw grenades at several houses with German soldiers stationed in them.

Returning from a mission with senior sergeant Makarenko, the soldiers met with a group of 12 German soldiers. Thanks to energetic actions and open active automatic fire, a group of enemy soldiers was completely destroyed.

On November 15, 1941, in a battle near the village of Otensky, Comrade Borodenko discovered an enemy crew with an easel machine gun. Having approached a short distance, the border guard destroyed the enemy’s calculation with an anti-tank grenade, simultaneously shooting 15 soldiers from the Blue Division from a machine gun. Among them, as you know, were Spanish volunteers.

When trying to destroy the second machine gun, Comrade Borodenko was wounded in his left arm and right leg.

On January 23, 1942, in a battle near the village of Vysochek, the division commander, Colonel Shitov, ordered Comrade Borodenko to lead a battalion into battle and capture eight enemy bunkers.

Inspiring by personal example, under strong flamethrower and machine-gun fire, the battalion broke into the location of the bunkers and destroyed all the German soldiers and officers who were in them with grenades. In this battle, Borodenko was wounded in the left hand.

The award list was signed by Colonel Golovko, head of the NKVD Troops for the Protection of the Rear of the North-Western Front.

From the dossier of "Military Review"

Andrey Sidorovich Golovko - Colonel, at the end of the war - Major General, who served in the Red Army since 1923, where he volunteered. He graduated from the school of junior command staff, and later the Kyiv Infantry School and the Frunze Military Academy of the Red Army. He passed all command posts, including in the 25th Moldavian border detachment of the OGPU troops.

He was chief of staff and regiment commander in the famous Dzerzhinsky division, met the war at the head of the 5th Don motorized rifle regiment of the NKVD troops and almost immediately was appointed commander of the 22nd NKVD motorized rifle division on the North-Western Front. In 1943, he became the head of the Department of Internal Troops, first of the North Caucasian, and then of the Baltic military districts.

It was on his shoulders that the burden of fighting the unfinished traitors in the Caucasus and the notorious "forest brothers" fell. After the war, General Golovko became the head of the combat training department of the Main Directorate of Internal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

***
Colonel Golovko was supported by Brigadier Commissar N. N. Potekhin in an order dated April 26, 1942.

Potekhin Nikolai Nikolaevich - Brigadier Commissar, ended the war as a major general. The same age as A. S. Golovko, also born in 1903, in 1923-1924. cadet of the infantry school of the Red Army in Leningrad. Political worker from the first years of service, graduated from the District School of Border Troops in Tbilisi, courses for political workers of the OGPU in Smolensk, the School for the Improvement of the Command and Commanding Staff of the NKVD Troops at the Political Department of the NKVD Troops of the North Caucasus District in Rostov-on-Don.

He served in the border detachments in Nakhichevan and Batumi, in the Leningrad, North-Western and Baltic districts. Since the beginning of the war with Germany - the military commissar of the Defense of the military rear of the North-Western Front.

***

In the summer of 1943, Senior Sergeant Borodenko died on the Kursk land, where he was from.

How many of these soldiers are left lying on the battlefield? They have all gone into immortality. And only thanks to award lists can we now speak in full voice about the exploits of Soviet fighters.

By the way, in the database "Book of Memory of the dead border guards 1941-1945". For some reason, Senior Sergeant Dmitry Efimovich Borodenko is not listed.

So there is still a lot of work to fill in all the lost gaps.

Comments

[Vladimir_2U]

Strong flamethrower - how is it? Although even if at least one torch was somewhere, you would already think very hard - whether to run there ... In general, there is enough strong machine-gun fire to make it clear who is a hero and who is like that.
Eternal memory to our heroes. And past wars, and the current ...

[Kojote21]

Good afternoon!
I want to say that the Germans in the Second World War still used flamethrowers, like other countries. And they apparently had Fiedler flamethrowers.
They were used both offensively and defensively. And if a fire hit someone, then terrible torments ...
Eternal memory and glory to our defenders!!!

[Vladimir_2U]

Quote from Kojote21

Good afternoon!
I want to say that the Germans in the Second World War still used flamethrowers, like other countries. And they apparently had Fiedler flamethrowers.

And good to you. Of course, the Germans, one might say the inventors of the knapsack flamethrower, used this weapon. I mean, only courageous people can act, knowing that the enemy definitely has flamethrowers.

[dmi.pris1]

We must not forget the feat of our grandfathers. Tell the generations coming to replace us. Forgotten history is doomed to repeat. What we see

[kor1vet1974]

What was he, the border guard Borodenko?

Judging by the award list, really "bloody, KGB"

[Grancer81]

He let in so much blood to the "poor German soldiers" and their allies from the "blue" Spaniards ....

[Grancer81]

And how much we will never know, if only because there was no one to write award lists ...

[Gomunkul]

About border guards:

On June 22, 1941, 85 thousand border guards took the blow. There were 660 frontier posts on the western borders of the USSR, and according to the Barbarossa plan, it took from half an hour to 60 minutes to take them.

In fact:

So up to 24 hours 250 outposts lasted, more than a day of Nazi attacks withstood 20 strongholds of border guards. Two days defended 16, three - 20, and up to five days - 43 outposts. From one to two weeks, 67 frontier outposts held back the enemy, and for more than two weeks - 51. Remaining behind enemy lines, almost 50 outposts fought back for two months.

[Andrey Moskvin]

I read that somewhere in the Baltics, not only did the border guards survive, but they also drove the Germans abroad.

[Alex013]

You can also recall the Danube landing and the battles for Przemysl, when in the first days of the war the attackers were driven out of the border

[Lewww]

Regardless of this case, I can say from my own experience that what is written in awards should be treated with caution and, if possible, double-checked.
Very often, the events described there, to put it mildly, are a little untrue.
As an advice to those who are engaged in historical research: you can’t build final reconstructions based only on information from the award list

[Andrey Moskvin]

So many new things have recently been learned about the Panfilovites alone. Again it is not clear what is where when.

[Lewww]

Panfilov’s men are the most striking example: if we count by awards, then on 16.11.41/30/XNUMX in the Dubosekovo-Petelino-Morozovo region, the Red Army soldiers knocked out about XNUMX tanks, and the Germans report only two, and even those were blown up by mines.
Restoring the history of the Second World War along the award path is the easiest and therefore most tempting.
But, as everyone knows in life, when something is done easily, it does not always result in a good result.

[zenion]

This was written only because there is a fight with the Ukrainians, otherwise we would never have known about them.