“Remember Badanov!”
“Remember Badanov, do not forget Badanov, help him out at any cost!” Military historians are probably well aware of this phrase, which the Supreme Commander I. Stalin said on December days 1942 of the year. And he didn’t scatter with these words, but who remembers Badanov now? Almost no one heard anything today about the feat of the 24 tank corps commanded by General Badanov (in the photo). But it was his tank crews who played an exceptionally important role in the battle of Stalingrad. As a result of the victory at Stalingrad, conditions arose for the Soviet troops to launch a general offensive and liberate the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. But that was later.
And at the end of July 1942, the 4th tank the army of Colonel-General Friedrich von Goth left the Caucasian Front and moved from the south through the Kalmyk steppe to the bend of the Volga south of Stalingrad. The Soviet command understood that the offensive of Goth entails the greatest threat to the city. After all, his tanks were already beyond the Don, while the 6th army of Paulus fought west of the river. If Goth, advancing from the Kalmyk steppe, were able to take control of the bend of the Volga with dominant heights in the area of Krasnoarmeysk and Beketovka, the fate of Stalingrad could be resolved, and the Volga is the main supply artery, along which not only American aid flowed from the Persian Gulf, but also food and military contingents from the south - would be cut.
On July 17, the vanguard of the 6 of the German army met with our advanced units of the 62 and 64 armies advanced to the distant approaches to Stalingrad. Division A.I. Rodimtseva, the former 3 airborne corps, was the first to arrive in Stalingrad. By the end of the defensive period, the troops of the 62 Army held a bridgehead in areas north of the Tractor Plant (the Gorokhov group), the Barricades plant (“Lyudnikova Island”) and in the north-eastern part of Stalingrad. To the south, the 64 army of Lieutenant-General M.S. Shumilova, and further 57-th and 51-th armies.
On the morning of November 19 in the morning of 8.50 after 1 hours of 20 minutes of artillery preparation, the Soviet forces of the South-Western and Don fronts launched an offensive. In the evening east of Kalach, in the rear of the two German armies of Paulus and Goth, a meeting of advanced Soviet tank units marching from the south and north. As a result, between the Don and Volga rivers, the 330-thousandth German group was surrounded.
The entourage of the Stalingrad group of Germans was completed within a hundred hours. The Russians, at last, felt the taste of the long-awaited “lightning war” themselves.
Prior to this, the German leadership with lust looked in the direction of the Baku oil and passages in the Transcaucasus, on the Great Silk Road intercontinental route. Coming to Alexandria, Colonel-General Erich Rommel, the “desert fox”, was already exploding along the coast of the Mediterranean in Africa towards the Middle East and Iranian oil. His African corps (from 21 February 1942 tank army "Africa") captured a number of strategic cities, and then rushed deep into Egypt, to the Nile. In those days, the British retreated with such speed that the German advanced motorized units did not have time to pursue them. Russians fought to the last ...
On November 21, the headquarters of von Manstein’s 11 Army was ordered to take command of the 4 Tank Army, the 6 Army, and the remnants of the 3 Romanian Army. It was in Starobelsk, where the headquarters of Army Group “B” was, that on November X E. Manstein arrived to discuss the situation with the group commander, Colonel-General von Weichs, and his head of staff, General von Sodenstern.
The choice of Starobelsk’s German leadership for the sake of better providing communications for an offensive in the Caucasus led to the headquarters being at an excessive distance from the front, largely suspended from directing the actions of Paul’s 6 army.
It is not by chance that the capture of Starobelsk by Soviet troops 23 on January 1943 of the year, the first Ukrainian city liberated from the invaders and acting as the capital of Ukraine until the liberation of Kiev, is considered the end of hostilities in the Stalingrad operation.
Manstein wrote later: “The 57 tank corps stubbornly made its way to the army of Paulus. By December 24, the entire 33 kilometer remained until the army of Paulus. The advanced units of the 57 TK could already see the glow of the Stalingrad front on the horizon ... On December 23, in the afternoon, the command of the army group was finally forced, with a heavy heart, to straighten out more than a precarious position on its left flank by transferring there necessary forces. ... We lost the airfield at Tatsinskaya and thus lost the opportunity to supply the 6 army. ” What happened?
The fact is that I6 December in the middle reaches of the Don began a counterattack of the Soviet troops. Two days of fierce fighting - and the front of the enemy is broken. Four tank corps (17, 18, 24, 25) rushed into the resulting gap. The key role fell to the 24 tank corps of Major General V.M. Badanova. His tank crews fought on December 19 after breaking through the Italian line of defense. For six days, the corps passed 240 kilometers into combat. Further, under the protection of the Tatsinska garrison, there was the largest Hitler air base and warehouses, a railway line, on which the supply of German troops on the external front of the encirclement near Stalingrad was based, took the beginning of a powerful “air bridge” to Paulus's army.
The fascists were busy with the festive Christmas hassles. The “gift” for them was very unexpected. Here is what the Hitlerite pilot Kurt Streit wrote in 1952 in the West German newspaper Deutsche zoldaten Zeitung in the article “On those who broke from the underworld or the Blood Bath in Tatsinskaya”: “December 24 morning of 1942.
In the east, a weak dawn illuminates the gray horizon. At this point, the Soviet tanks, firing, suddenly rush into the village and the airfield. Airplanes immediately flash like torches. Flames raging everywhere.
Projectiles are torn, ammunition soars into the air. Trucks are rushing around, and desperate people are running between them.
Who will give the order, where to go to the pilots? Starting in the direction of Novocherkassk is all that the general managed to order.
Madness begins. From all sides go to the runway and start the aircraft. All this happens under fire and in the light of fires. The sky spread a scarlet bell over the thousands who perish, whose faces express insanity. Here one Yu-52, not having time to rise, crashes into a tank and explodes with a terrible roar. Already in the air, the "Junkers" are confronted with the "Heinkel" and fly apart into small pieces along with their passengers. The roar of tanks and aircraft engines is mixed with explosions, gunfire and machine-gun fires in a monstrous symphony. All this creates a complete picture of the real underworld. ”
Can you imagine how dozens of transport aircraft are burning, a significant part of the weight of which is fuel ?! It was as if in the east the Sun had risen before the time! As if a miracle happened on the longest night of the year among the unjustly celebrating invaders! The movement of the entire mass of the warring forces moved in the opposite direction - to Berlin!
Few of the invaders managed to escape that morning. At 17.00 pm on December 25, 1942 Badanov reported to the front headquarters about the capture of the village of Tatsinskaya. At two airfields adjacent to each other, there were more than 300 combat and transport aircraft. Tankers destroyed them from guns and machine guns, smashed their tails, immediately throwing a multi-ton colossus at them. A fuel train and a train in which 50 more new aircraft were disassembled on open platforms were destroyed on the railroad tracks. German in one day aviation suffered such damage that she had never experienced in all the years of the war.
E. Manstein: “Hitler ordered to provide Paulus with the necessary army, but there was nothing to provide, since the airfields of Morozovsky and Tatsinsky were severely defeated, as a result of which the material and fuel were destroyed, the personnel half were killed, and the other half ran away unknown where. We lost the airfield at Tatsinskaya and thus lost the opportunity to supply the 6 Army. ” Colonel-General Paulus then denounced: “A breakthrough in the army is not feasible unless the corridor is broken through and the army personnel and reserves are not replenished ....” Badanov’s order to keep Tatsinskaya was justified, the airfield was of paramount importance as to supply Stalingrad by air , and for the delivery of goods to the troops on the external front of the environment. That is why the Germans made every effort to repel the city back.
The corps of General V. Badanov, who has 58 tanks left in the ranks: the 39 T-34, the 19 T-70, which had almost no fuel, took all-round defense. The tanks were dug into the ground as fixed firing points.
The battles for Tatsinskaya finally degraded the 6 Tank Division into the category of the average battered tank division of the Eastern Front. On January 8 it contained the entire 32 tank. From 143 machines, with which she began fighting at Stalingrad, were left alone memories. As a result of the battle in the Middle Don region, the enemy was deprived of the opportunity to assist the grouping surrounded at Stalingrad from the west, and its attack from the south, from the Kotelnikovo area, was weakened. In addition, the prerequisites for the development of the Soviet offensive in Voroshilovgrad and Voronezh directions arose.
Later, Manstein recalled: “Air Bridge” to supply the army of F. Paulus was the last major operation of the Luftwaffe transport aircraft. Between 24 in November and 31 in January 1943, at least 490 aircraft were lost (including 266 U-52 and more 165 Xe-111) involved in supplying the 6 army. It was no longer possible for Germany to restore its transport aviation forces. The time when transport aviation nullified all the efforts of the Soviet troops in surrounding the large and small groups of German troops irretrievably a thing of the past ... the 6-I army was heading towards its death. ”
Breaking through the German defense in the northeastern part of the ring at night on December 28, the 24 tank corps left the encirclement. In the morning, he connected with the advanced units of the 1 Guards Army in Ilinka. 927 people came out of the environment. During the raid, the corps destroyed more than 11 thousands of enemy soldiers and officers, captured the 4769 man, knocked out the 84 tank and 106 guns, only in the Tatsinskaya area destroyed the 10 batteries and 431 aircraft. 27 December I942 g. The newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda" spoke about the heroes - tank crews throughout the country. The Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on assigning Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov the title of Lieutenant-General and the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on awarding him with the Order of Suvorov II degree were published. The 24 tank corps was renamed the 2 Guards. By the way, by and large, the battles for the village of Tatsinskaya prepared a further capture of Starobelsk by the Soviet troops.
But today, almost no one knows about the feat of the tank corps, including the military. In general, back in Soviet times, as my study showed, the problems of preparing conscript contingents carried out by order of the Directorate of Vnevoyuskovoy training of the General Staff and Glavpur of the USSR Armed Forces when they worked at the Institute of Sociology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, besides the names of Alexander Matrosov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Nikolai Gastello, selflessly killed with the invaders, the youth did not know many bright feats with a tremendous impact effect, such as the Tatsinsky raid of tank-Badanovtsy. And this influenced the prestige of the military profession.
... From Manstein's memoirs: “What happened in the boiler near Stalingrad after the attack of the 4 tank army with a view to release was stalled, it was in fact the agony of the 6 army. The group of armies could only at the last stage of this struggle, taking into account the other side of its task - to prevent the destruction of the entire southern wing of the Eastern Front, to take responsibility for making an attempt to reduce the losses and suffering of the army to shorten this agony.
The collapse of German communications with the capture of Starobelsk was not only a tragic ending for Paulus' army surrounded in Stalingrad, but in the context of all events and the loss of hopes of reaching the oil-bearing regions through the North Caucasus.
Manstein: “By the losses of the troops, it is necessary to add the capture of Russians by the whole territory captured by us as a result of the summer offensive of 1942 with its resources. We did not succeed in capturing Caucasian oil, which was one of the main goals of our offensive ... Having chased this territorial goal, we forgot that every achievement and retention of such a goal should be preceded by a rout of the main enemy forces. ”
“How was Starobelsk taken?” - under the title 27 in January 1943 of the year in the newspaper of the Southwestern Front, under the heading “Science to win”, an article appeared on her guard guard senior lieutenant K. Voinov about the liberation of 23 in January 1943, the first city in Ukraine. “Capturing corporal Ernst Tsesvi during interrogation showed that the soldiers were ordered to die, but not to surrender the city. It is understandable, therefore, that the Germans so stubbornly clung to this important point tactically. The 8 road and dirt roads converge here. Starobelsk is a railway junction. “On this highway, the Germans threw ammunition and reinforcements,” wrote a military journalist. - Tankmen comrade struck a decisive blow to the city’s garrison. Andryushchenko together with the infantry comrade. Karuna. On the east side of the city, the enemy had the most powerful fortifications. From here it was extremely difficult to take the city. Therefore, it was decided from here to make a false attack, and to send the main blow through the forest at the northern outskirts. The demonstrative attack was conducted by Comrade. Kovalenko. At his disposal were 7 tanks. Machines appeared and disappeared around the suburbs. The tanks were in motion all the time, and this created the impression that there were many of them, that the main forces were coming. Maneuvering in this way, Comrade Kovalenko attracted all the attention of the enemy. Meanwhile, the tanks of Comrade Biryukov, accompanied by machine gunners of Com. Krasnov, with a battle broke into the northern outskirts, cut the road and moved along the canvas to the station, dividing the enemy’s defenses into two parts. Having reached the station, Comrade Krasnov sent a part of his submachine gunners to the intersection of roads and thereby cut off the enemy’s escape routes.
While the battle was on in the city, a group of tanks, comrade Kovalenko, in turn, began to attack the eastern suburbs. 10 hours lasted a continuous battle for the city. Our warriors utterly defeated the 91 battalion of the Berlin training regiment, the 64 battalion of the motorized regiment and the remnants of the 73 and 74 of the 208 motorized regiments of the German rifle division. The liberation of Donbass and Ukraine began. ”
And this is how Lieutenant-General Ivan Magonov recalled the events of those days, then deputy chief of staff for 183 reconnaissance and the first commandant of Starobelsk, and he was only 22 of the year: “Starobelsk was turned by the enemy into a strong center of resistance ... In the battle for g Starobelsk from our side participated a significant number of troops. But these were units of Colonel Karun’s 195 rifle division, exhausted by previous intense battles, which had suffered casualties in men, equipment, and weapons.
The brigade was led into battle personally by Colonel G.Ya. Andryushchenko. We were proud of our commander, ready to go after him into fire and water. For us, he was the standard of courage, sensitivity to people.
And it was not at all accidental that the news of his death on the right bank of the Dnieper in the area of the Bukrinsky bridgehead fell heavily on the shoulders of the personnel of the I83 tank brigade, it painfully and bitterly echoed in the heart of each soldier, sergeant and officer.
And if we go back to events of a much larger scale, then, of course, it should be noted that just one of such battles was the victory of the Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. This gigantic battle made a decisive contribution to the fundamental change in the Great Patriotic War and the entire Second World War. In the Battle of Stalingrad, the art of defense and offensive of the Soviet troops was further developed.
The Patriotic War with the strict necessity of putting new people in the leadership of the army. It required professionals who could fight, not only using the willingness of people to sacrifice themselves. By 1943, journalists began to contribute to this process, becoming propagandists of new technologies in the fight against the enemy. The same note from the front not only, encouraging the people, reported on the liberation of the city, but also explained how this was achieved.
Pay attention to how battle management is organized, the whole situation, even the enemy’s “brains”! Tankers cut communications and "hint" well-barricaded "Fritz" that they risk staying here for a long time or forever, if they do not immediately drape. How do professional tankers act in 1943 in the well-fortified Starobelsk? Are they, as Yeltsin's appointees in Grozny, crawling to storm at home? Not. The enemy is disoriented. They take control of the communication, tear the joints of the units, enter the enemy from the rear. It goes beyond that attack on the psyche of the enemy. Succinctly and succinctly, like Suvorov sayings from “Science to win”. "Not a number, but a decrease." “Who surprised - he won!” Assess how the war correspondent correctly described the fight, although he, presumably, was not a professional military man.
In the first years of the war, even the smallest victories were rarely achieved with great blood. The war demanded new cadres. They appeared very soon.
And our story is only about two episodes of the Great Patriotic War, in which our commanders utterly defeated the most experienced German commanders. By the way, the former lieutenant of the tsarist army, Lieutenant-General Badanov Vasily Mikhailovich from July 1943 to the severely wounded in March 1944, commanded the 4-th tank army, in 1950-1953. headed the management of military educational institutions of armored and mechanized forces of the Soviet army. In the postwar period, Magonov Ivan Afanasyevich commanded, among other things, the Higher Military School named after the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, trained and trained officers for our army. Colonel Andryuschenko Grigory Yakovlevich of the Guard was the deputy commander of the 6 Guards Tank Corps, when on October 14 of the year 1943 was killed in a battle on the famous Bukrinsky springboard. He was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Today, in the name of the Hero of the Soviet Union G.Ya. Andryushchenko is named a street in the center of Kiev, a street in Starobelsk, a square in the center of the city of Krasnoarmeysk, Donetsk region, a street in Pereyaslavl – Khmelnitsky, the place where Ukraine is reunited with Russia.
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