"In the ring of enemies, defying and captivity, and death ..."
The feat of military intelligence, past the difficult roads of World War II, immortalized in the monument, opened in KaliningradThe lines in the title of this material belong to the legendary front-line scout, the cavalier of many state awards lieutenant colonel Gennady Vladimirovich Yushkevich. Recently, in honor of thousands of scouts who passed the roads of the Great Patriotic War, and in memory of those who did not live up to the victorious salvoes, on the westernmost outskirts of our country - in Kaliningrad - the first monument in Russia was opened to memorials to intelligence soldiers.
The opening ceremony of the monument took place with a large gathering of people. For many citizens and guests who arrived in Kaliningrad, this was the brightest event on the background of the City Day celebration. For six long years there was a fundraising for this good cause, the project became truly nationwide. Veterans' organizations, labor collectives, business structures (for example, Sberbank of Russia), ordinary citizens made their contribution. The authorities of the Kaliningrad region allocated almost three million rubles: the decision was made by the head of the region Nikolay Tsukanov. “I believe that everyone who made even the smallest contribution to the creation of this monument became a participant in a meaningful, truly popular civil project,” said the governor at the opening ceremony of the monument. “As long as the memory lives, the country lives, and we will live under a peaceful sky.”It was not by chance that this Baltic city became the site for the construction of a monument in memory of the heroic feat of the reconnaissance soldiers. Since July 1944 of the year, and then during the offensive of 1945 in January-April, precisely the reconnaissance-sabotage units of the Red Army provided the preparation and conduct of the East Prussian offensive operation. The scouts worked in the area of operations of the troops of the 1 Baltic, 2 and 3 Belorussian fronts. At the cost of their lives, they supplied the command with the most important reliable information about the locations of the German units, about the composition of their forces and assets, about the location of airfields and command posts, about deployments on communications, which predetermined the success of this strategically significant operation. For many years, documents related to the actions of the intelligence officers were kept in strict secret. Even today, the fate of most of the heroes is unknown.
The sculptural composition, which became the basis of the memorial, was made in Smolensk. The monument, erected in Kaliningrad Victory Park, is a figure of an intelligence officer with PPSH at the ready, covering the radio operator’s tent during a radio communication session on the staffed Sever-bis radio station (or, as the intelligence officers of that time tenderly called it) "). The author of the work is the capital sculptor Igor Linevich-Yavorsky. During the preparation of the project, he became acquainted with the life and feat of army intelligence, he was struck by their unparalleled courage, courage, and courage. It is known that Anna Morozova, a radio operator with the call sign “Swan” from the legendary reconnaissance group “Jack”, became the prototype of the signalman girl immortalized in this sculptural ensemble. Speaking before being assigned to the Jack group as the leader of the international underground at the Sesche air base, she obtained information about the enemy, organized sabotage related to mining enemy planes and incapacitating other military equipment. The intelligence obtained by Anna then helped to completely defeat the garrison of the air base. Acting on the territory of East Prussia, the radio operator sergeant Morozova transmitted valuable information about the enemy, which allowed the Soviet aviation strike accurately. On the last day of 1944, the group was blocked by the SS. In an unequal battle, Anna shot back to the last bullet, after which she blew herself up with a grenade, destroying the secret radio codes that were with her. After the war, the brave scout was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The prototype of the image of the reconnaissance officer immortalized in sculpture was the commander of the reconnaissance group "Jack" captain Pavel Krylatykh.
- The last of the surviving members of the reconnaissance group "Jack" - Gennady Yushkevich. It so happened that he was enrolled in 15 years as a member of the reconnaissance team, having already had two years of experience in the Chaika reconnaissance group on the territory of occupied Belarus. The Jack group was abandoned to the rear of the enemy 27 on July 1944 of the year, a few days after Stalin signed the directive on strengthening in-depth reconnaissance in the Berlin strategic direction. The scouts lingered here, in the hostile territory of East Prussia, for almost half a year, gathering information necessary for the future offensive operation. Of the 11 fighters, "Jack" came back only three ...- In addition to the constant danger of running into the enemy, we had difficulties and purely domestic, - says a veteran intelligence officer. - Let's say we have not taken hot food for half a year. It was impossible to kindle a fire to cook food, we had millet briquettes, so we chewed them dry. I do not understand how they survived.
In general, Gennady Yushkevich is a man of amazing fate. And the thing is not only that he got to the front (or rather, for his line) as a boy. After the war, Gennady Vladimirovich as a law enforcement officer had to participate in the capture of nationalists who committed their bloody atrocities in post-war Belarus, to work as an investigator. Yushkevich retired as a lieutenant colonel to the reserve, and in October 2010, by an order of the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus, the brave scout was awarded the title “Honorary Soldier of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus” with admission to the lists of personnel of a special operations brigade.
Front-line soldiers from Belarus and Ukraine also arrived at the opening of the monument in Kaliningrad. Each of them during the ceremony was awarded the Medal of the Military Intelligence Veterans Council Honorary Badge. There were other honored guests at the ceremony. Among them are the former leaders of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, retired colonel generals Fedor Ladygin and Hero of the Russian Federation Nikolay Kostechko, president of the NP Union of Military Intelligence Veterans, retired Lieutenant General Yury Babayants, representatives of the Association of Special Forces Veterans and special units of Alfa Vympel-SBP ”, as well as current leaders and employees of the Main Department.
But, of course, the main participants of this event were military intelligence veterans and, above all, the direct participants of those events. Konstantin Ivanovich Panasenko is one of two miracles who survived the battle of the Voskhod group after the battle with the punishers. Then there was an exit to his own, who considered him and several other scouts dead, returning to service, working in the interests of the intelligence department of the front headquarters. After the war, the soldier worked for many years at the carriage depot of the station Bryansk-Lgovsky, was awarded the title "Honorary Railwayman".Valentin Grigorievich Kalinin, who now lives in Moscow, during the war years was a radio operator as part of a special sabotage and reconnaissance group Vol. Not one dozen kilometers had to walk him through the enemy’s rear. For participation in the assignments of command, the Red Army man was awarded two military orders - World War II degree and the Red Star. In the postwar years, the front-line soldier graduated from the Leningrad Marine Engineering School, after which he worked as a radio communications specialist in the Arctic, and in recent years at the Moscow Research Institute of Communications.
... On the marble slabs of the memorial in Kaliningrad, the names of the 237 front and army intelligence groups operating in East Prussia are carved.
“It was on this line that military intelligence forces were massively used to ensure the successful offensive of our troops in the Berlin sector,” said Colonel Fedor Ladygin, a former head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, speaking at the opening ceremony of the monument in Kaliningrad. - In July 1944, Stalin signed a directive to strengthen all types of intelligence in this area. The general management of the actions of intelligence agencies and subunits was entrusted to the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army, and later the intelligence officers of the State Security Commissariat joined the military intelligence officers.
Unfortunately, the fate of many abandoned to the rear of the enemy was tragic. They had to act in unfamiliar territory, the unfavorable geographical conditions of which — the absence of large forests and the flat character of the terrain — complicated the secrecy of the actions of reconnaissance and sabotage groups. In addition, the Nazis used the opportunity not only weapons, but also its propaganda for creating an atmosphere of denunciation among the local population ... Only the courage and heroism of our soldiers and officers allowed us to accomplish all the tasks set before reconnaissance. In total, around 2.500 people were parachuted over the front line - fighters of reconnaissance and sabotage and reconnaissance groups, radio residencies, undercover reconnaissance groups, reconnaissance units and other formations. When performing tasks, commanders died or went missing over 90 percent of intelligence officers.
For the unparalleled courage and heroism during the Great Patriotic War, about six hundred fighters of the “invisible front” were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (the first woman to be awarded this high award was intelligence officer Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya). In the 1943-1945 period alone, over 200 thousands of military intelligence officers were awarded orders and medals.
“The scouts of the current General Directorate General Headquarters are keeping the watch of the older generation with honor, and at the present anxious time they ensure the security of our Motherland with their military labor,” Colonel-General Fedor Ladygin said at a rally in honor of the opening of the monument.
Note that the monument dedicated to the feat of Soviet intelligence, is also a tribute to those intelligence soldiers who died in the postwar period, in local wars and conflicts. “In fact, this is the only such memorial in Russia, and perhaps in the world,” stressed one of the initiators of the creation of the monument - retired colonel Anatoly Gribanov, head of the Kaliningrad branch of the Military Intelligence Veterans Union. He is sure: the feat of military intelligence in all respects deserves to be immortalized in such a magnificent monument.
“Unfortunately, not all the episodes from the frontline epic of our intelligence officers are made public, and even those that are known are not widely spread,” says Anatoly Yakovlevich. - Suffice it to recall the little-covered raid in the southern borders of East Prussia of the 1-th Ukrainian partisan division, headed by the representative of special units of operational intelligence of the Red Army General Staff Colonel Petr Petrovich Vershigora, who later became the Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General. Little is known about the reconnaissance mission of a unique compound, the Separate Special Purpose Detachment, as the International Detachment of Major Sergei Ivanovich Volokitin ("Major Sergo"). These and a number of other facts from the annals of the Great Patriotic War to this day remain poorly disclosed. And the opening of a unique monument to intelligence soldiers is another attempt to lift the veil of secrecy and obscurity over their unparalleled feat in the years of the Great Patriotic War.“It is pleasant to realize that today, as before, due attention is paid to our stories, the memory of the heroes who defeated fascism is revered, at the cost of tremendous efforts to preserve peace and freedom for us, ”noted the Defense Minister of the Russian Federation, Hero of Russia, Army General Sergei Shoigu, on the occasion of the opening of a monument to the heroes of military intelligence in Kaliningrad. “This memorial will be embodied in bronze as a reminder of the exploits of the reconnaissance soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their Motherland, a symbol of the continuity of the heroic traditions in our country.”
In the pictures: a monument to intelligence soldiers; one of the memorial plates;
veterans (from left to right) G.V. Yushkevich, V.G. Kalinin and K.I. PANASENKO;
Hero of Russia Colonel-General N.N. KOSTECHKO hands over
scout KI PANASENKO honorary badge "Order of the Carnation";
scout G.V. Yushkevich (left) and a veteran of the intelligence of the Navy
Captain 1 Rank Retired VS LARIN.
Photo from the archive of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
veterans (from left to right) G.V. Yushkevich, V.G. Kalinin and K.I. PANASENKO;
Hero of Russia Colonel-General N.N. KOSTECHKO hands over
scout KI PANASENKO honorary badge "Order of the Carnation";
scout G.V. Yushkevich (left) and a veteran of the intelligence of the Navy
Captain 1 Rank Retired VS LARIN.
Photo from the archive of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
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