80 years ago General Vatutin passed away
On the night of April 15, 1944, Army General Nikolai Vatutin, who commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front, died in a Kiev military hospital. He was only 42 years old.
An obituary was published in the newspapers, in which it was said that the state had lost one of its best young commanders in the person of Comrade Vatutin.
Initially, the wound from a bullet in the leg received in battle did not seem dangerous to the doctors, and the patient was not transported to Moscow for treatment, leaving him in Kyiv. Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov took temporary command of the troops he led.
Vatutin actively monitored the progress of the hostilities and on March 19 sent Zhukov a telegram congratulating him on his successes. Zhukov thanked and telegraphed in response: “From the bottom of my heart, dear Nikolai Fedorovich, I wish you a speedy recovery and return at the head of your troops. We will take all measures.”. Vatutin’s treatment progressed successfully, and a day for discharge was even set. However, on March 23, he developed a fever and felt unwell.
The chief surgeon of the Red Army, Colonel General Nikolai Burdenko, urgently arrived in Kyiv to conduct a consultation of doctors. They diagnosed Nikolai Vatutin with gas gangrene and decided to urgently amputate his leg. Perhaps penicillin could have saved the patient, but in 1943 this antibiotic was only undergoing clinical trials in the USSR, and they did not turn to the Americans for help. In his memoirs, Khrushchev wrote that Stalin rejected the medicine because it was American and could be contaminated. On April 5, Vatutin underwent a high hip amputation, but his health did not improve. He died 10 days later.
On April 17, the commander’s funeral took place in Kyiv. Colonel General Philip Golikov spoke on behalf of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. The funeral meeting was attended by the family of the deceased and Vatutin’s mother. On the same day, Stalin issued an order: “I order: at the hour of General Vatutin’s burial, to give the deceased the last military honor and to fire a salute of 24 artillery salvoes from 24 guns in Moscow.”
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The future commander Nikolai Vatutin was born into a poor family in the Voronezh province. He graduated from a two-year zemstvo school in his native village and a commercial school in the village of Urazovo. In 1920 he was drafted into the Red Army and quickly advanced through the ranks.
In 1937, Vatutin graduated from the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army and was sent to staff work in the Kiev Special Military District. He participated in the planning of two military operations: the Polish Campaign of 1939 and the liberation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940.
In January 1941, Vatutin was appointed first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Zhukov. Unlike Vatutin, who had solid practical and theoretical training, Zhukov never served on the staff. Vatutin was distinguished by his diligence and breadth of thinking.
The beginning of the war was extremely unsuccessful for the Red Army: the Germans concentrated a mass tanks and motorized troops. From June 22 to June 26, 1941, Zhukov organized a counterattack on the Southwestern Front, and Vatutin led the work of the General Staff. On June 30, Vatutin took up the post of chief of staff of the North-Western Front.
Together with commander P. Kurochkin, General Vatutin developed a counterattack plan, but the aggravation of the situation in the Moscow direction forced Headquarters to withdraw troops. During the victory near Moscow and the general counteroffensive, the troops of the North-Western Front carried out a number of operations, achieving the separation of the Demyansk and Old Russian enemy groups.
In May 1942, after the reorganization of the work of the General Staff, Vatutin was returned to Moscow, where he did not like desk work. In the summer of 1942, the Wehrmacht again had the strategic initiative.
In his new post, Vatutin made every effort to defend Voronezh. Despite the fact that Soviet troops failed to liberate the city, the Wehrmacht did not advance further east, concentrating its efforts on the Stalingrad direction.
On October 25, 1942, Nikolai Vatutin became commander of the Southwestern Front. Later he was appointed commander of the Voronezh Front, where serious events were brewing.
In the summer of 1943, one of the largest battles in the Voronezh Front took place. stories, which involved about 4 million soldiers and more than 6 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns. The battle began on July 5, when two German strike groups attacked Vatutin's troops. The headquarters expected the main attack in the Central Front, so it was provided with more artillery.
On July 12, a counter battle took place near Prokhorovka, in which almost a thousand Soviet and German tanks took part. On this day, the counter-offensive of the troops of the Western, Bryansk and Central Fronts began.
On August 3, Vatutin’s troops began the Belgorod-Kharkov offensive operation “Rumyantsev”, liberating Belgorod on August 5 and Kharkov on August 11. On the same day Oryol was liberated. For the first time during the war, Moscow saluted the double victory with 12 salvoes from 124 guns.
The German command tried to stop the advance of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts. In the Bogodukhov area, from August 11 to 17, strong counterattacks by German tank formations were repelled. On August 18-20, the Wehrmacht launched a second counterattack - north of Okhtyrka.
On August 23, Soviet troops liberated Kharkov, ending the Battle of Kursk and securing the strategic initiative in the Great Patriotic War.
At the end of September 1943, the armies of the Central, Voronezh, Steppe and Southwestern Fronts crossed the Dnieper and captured several bridgeheads on the right bank.
On November 6, Vatutin’s troops liberated Kyiv, and on November 13, Chernigov.
In November and December 1943, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front repelled Wehrmacht attacks on Kyiv. In January 1944, the Korsun-Shevchenko operation began.
On February 12, Stalin decided to transfer command of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which offended Vatutin, who was the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
On February 18, the operation to encircle the German corps was completed. On February 20, Konev was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, while Vatutin remained with the rank of army general.
On February 29, Vatutin and Major General Krainyukov went to Rovno, to the headquarters of the 13th Army. There, the commander of the front troops and his entourage went to the headquarters of the 60th Army. Unfortunately, on the outskirts of the village of Milyatin they had to face a UPA ambush. Vatutin was seriously wounded, and Major General Krainyukov was slightly wounded.
On the morning of March 1, Major General Krainyukov wrote an explanatory note addressed to Stalin. In it, he said that Vatutin’s condition was serious and would require long-term treatment for 2 months.
However, on March 2, Vatutin was taken by train to a Kiev hospital, where he died on the night of April 15, 1944.
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