To continue. The
way it was.
English
translation by the Bureau of translations “Prima Vista” (http://www.primasvista.ru)
I kept on conjuring up the event I have described.
It produced a damaging effect not only on my life as a soldier, but later
as well. I think back of all the microscopic details of that doomsday,
reliving them over again. Strange as it may sound my desire to visit those
memorable places was not stifled. Quite the opposite actually, in the
course of time it grew stronger upon me.
In mid -1970s in Moscow I managed to get in touch with veterans of the 2nd
Guards Cavalry Corps among whom I found some brother-soldiers from Signal
Squadron of the 4th Guards Cavalry Division and Communications
Platoon of the 11th Cavalry Regiment. It turned out that in
three Moscow schools they have War History museums featuring this Corps (in
school № 259 they have a small museum for the 3rd Cavalry
Division, Corps Headquarters and units, in school № 662 – for the 17th
Cavalry Division and in school № 618 in Zelenograd
– for the 4th Cavalry Division). It is impossible to express in
words the feelings that those exhibitions inspired, especially the one in Zelenograd. On its stands I saw familiar but by that
time almost forgotten names of Regiment and Squadron Commanders and their
pictures. Everything related to Signal Squadron of the 4th
Guards Cavalry Division and the 11th Cavalry Regiment jogged my
memory and brought back long-forgotten events and people…
It was only then that I found out that honorary
title “Mozyrsky” was bestowed upon the three
Divisions of the Corps. Obviously those events were pivotal for war
history, since their participants were awarded such prominent titles.
Nevertheless the memories of my brother-soldiers and mine were way too
scarce to get the whole picture of army group operation. Even Gudym, the former Corps Reconnaissance Officer, and Ignatyev, the 9th Cavalry Corps Commander,
both of whom deceased last decade, could not satisfy my curiosity. Probably
among Division and Regiment Commanders and Corps Headquarters officers
there were people who had firsthand insight into this operation, but by the
time I embarked on my “investigation” none of them was longer alive.
In 1986 I met by chance a resident of Mozyr and a professor of Mozyr
technical university Marat Moiseyevich
Pazovsky. His father was an active member of
guerrilla movement in Belarus -
to be more precise - he was in the guerrilla head post in former Polesskaya Oblast of Belarus. After he promised to help me with my investigations
I left for Mozyr.
The town stretched on the scenic hills to the
right bank of Pripyat’. Fine sandy beaches
occupied the left bank. In the center of the town on the top of the “Hill
of Glory” towered a monument to participants of battles for town liberation.
It was a tall stele with granite plates at its foot featuring the names of
forces and units honored with the title of “Mozyrsky”,
along with the names of their commanders. There I found mentioning of the
3rd, 4th, and 17th Cavalry Divisions and names of
their Commandants – Yagodin, Pankratov,
and Kursakov.
Together with Pazovsky
who displayed a keen interest in the history of town’s liberation, I
visited the town’s Veteran Committee, a museum of local lore and the school
№10 with its rich exposition presented in school war history museum. To my
amazement in all these places there were no records that the 2nd
Cavalry Corps fought for the town’s liberation as well. All data available
suggested that the town was liberated on January 13, 1944 by the joint effort of the 55th Rifle
Division, that got the title “Mozyrskaya”, and
the 7th Cavalry Corps commanded by General Konstantinov.
The museum of local lore had a section for the Great Patriotic War history.
They organized excursions to places were battles were fought, but none of
the guides specializing in this topic had any idea about the 2nd
Cavalry Corps’ contribution to the town’s liberation. I wondered why they
put granite plates on the “Hill of Glory” featuring names of three Corps
Divisions and their Commanders’ last names if they never fought for the
town’s liberation, why the honorary title was bestowed upon those divisions
and why one of the streets was named after Tikhonov,
the Commander of the 17th Division Regimen. But no one could
come up with an answer.
I clearly remember the picturesque scenery around
the broad valley of Pripyat’ river splitting into several branches. In an
attempt to find this place I walked about the riverside both within the
town territory and beyond it. But
even allowing for the fact that winter scenery of 1944 could have very
different from that of summer of 1986, I never
found anything at least distantly reminding me of the place I was looking
for. In Pazovsky’s Zhiguli
we visited every place
- be it very far from the town or not – connected with event
of the war. And finally in a small forest village of Malinovka,
40 km. away from Mozyr, in a museum for guerrilla
combat did I see a hand-drawn sketch featuring the way Corps Divisions
bypassed the town to its left and walked down the river near the villages
of Mikhnovichy and Besedky,
which is 40 or 50 km. to the west.
I still had some time to spend in Mozyr, so I took a train from the town of Kalinkovichi and went to Besedky (at
the station of Myshanka) and Mikhnovichy
(at the station of Katsury). I walked along the
riverside, saw many mass graves and talked to locals. In the village of Besedky in the yard of a village school they put up a
monument to soldiers whose lives were claimed by the war (see picture at
the top of the page). There are so many names etched in the gravestones
that it is impossible to get them all in one
snap shot. I saw more graves in Mikhnovichy and
in the area between the two villages. All of them used to be my
brother-soldiers, and it is only because of a whim of Fate that I was not
among them now…
Now I had it all clear. I recognized the valley of
Pripyat’, now rushy and
shrub-grown and looking quite different from what it looked like that
winter, and the village of Mikhnovichy where the
11th Regimen made an abortive attempt to cut off the railway,
the one that I just came by from Kalinkovichi.
That was where my life took its tragic turn.
Only after I came back to Moscow did I read a book by former Chief of the 17th
Cavalry Division Staff S.N. Sevryugov entitled
“The Way it Was – Memoirs of a Cavalryman” (published by VoyenIzdat in Moscow, 1957). I
believe it is possible that the things happened the way I am going to
describe them now. Unfortunately it cannot be proved or disproved by
existing literature on war. In the three-volume edition of The Great
Patriotic War History the period of time between the assault crossing of Dnieper near Loyev (referred to
as “to the south of Rechitsa” in official
notices) and the beginning of Bagration operation
with regards to events in the south of Belarus, is basically omitted.
In the first Belarus front line commanded by Rokossovsky
near the fourth Ukrainian front there was a big German bulge near the town
of Mozyr and the union station of Kalinkovichi.
The German troops occupying this area had the only thruway connecting them
to their rear, which was railroad going from Kalinkovichi
westward.
On one hand the German bulge was an obstacle for
the assaulting operation “Bagration” that was
being schemed and might thwart the advance of the southern flank. On the
other hand it seemed quite feasible to encircle the German troops by
cutting off the railway.
The commandment decided to take advantage of the
fact that the front line was not continuous, and so our corps was sent
forward across swamps in a deep raid into the rear of German troops in
order to cut off the railway near the villages of Mikhnovichy
and Besedky. But somehow they oversaw the fact
that before German troops invaded Polish territory
there was a fortified area here, at the place of former border, strong with
underground structures, machine-gun nests fortified with reinforced
concrete, and railway lines leading to underground premises. One can see
the debris of these constructions even today, though most part of them was
blown up earlier. Shortly before the
Patriotic War broke out, People's Commissariat for Defense issued an order
to disarm the fortified area. After the war was over its underground
structures were blown up. Locals told me that before demolition children
walked around the underground passages, often finding mines and shells,
blowing them up and often killing themselves in so doing.
Being aware of the fact that behind the river
there were impassable forests, full of guerrillas, and swamps the Germans
fortified the whole railway, having added a number of works to their
defense zone and held here its strongest garrisons.
Even these days one can see the debris of these
fortifications, now half covered with earth and shrub-grown. On the map
that can be found on this site the defense zone where the 11th
Cavalry Regimen planned to carry out its assault is marked by a toothed
line.
In the nearby lying town of Petrikov a Schutzstaffel Mountain (Chasseur) Division that had armored
troop-carriers, tanks, artillery, and mortars in its arsenal was being
reorganized.
And so after the regimen crossed the river and
found itself on its left bank, the Germans who were lying in ambush in
defensive fortifications and enjoying great offensive superiority attacked
it. We engaged in unequal and predictably losing battle. In fact my last
battle.
After ensuring that our offensive potential was
exhausted, the German troops launched a counterattack putting into use
strong supporting fire, forcing what little remained of our regimen to
retreat to the right bank of the river.
The other two Regimens of the 4th
Division and the whole 17th Division attacked Germans three km.
to the east, near Besedky. They managed to occupy
the village (that had quite favorable position because it was lying on the
hill), improvised a defense and then several times attempted to cut off the
railway. But squadron carbines and rifle attacks on fortifications prepared
in advance and defended by superior enemy forces armed with artillery and
mortars was doomed to failure.
And so it happened. The Germans committed to
action the SS division, and the raging battles near Besedky
started.
Already for three days defending the railway the
German troops began to hastily evacuate themselves from Mozyr
and Kalinkovichi. At that point our division and
at the same time (January 13 1944) the 55th Rifle Division and the 7th
Cavalry Corps commanded by General Konstantinov
assumed the offensive. Having suffered almost no casualties they occupied Mozyr. On the contrary the 4th and 7th
Divisions of our Corps incurred heavy casualties: the 11th
Regimen had only 15 soldiers remained in the ranks, in the 15th
and 16th
- no more than twenty in each.
In 1989 Mozyr celebrated
the 45th anniversary of its liberation, and town authorities
invited all the veterans who participated in it. But before I managed to
get in touch with the command of another large unit (Missile Arms Division)
located in the settlement of Myshanka. This is
exactly where we tried in vain to cut off the railway. We were welcomed as
honorary guests of the division, and shared some memories with its
personnel. We also visited the places of mass burials of our
brother-soldiers, where the military and residents of Mikhnovichy
and Besedky held a rally. Then traditionally a
salute was fired.
I clarified many things by conversing with corps
veterans. Among them was A.N. Flenov. In January
1944 he was an Intelligence Support Platoon Lieutenant – Commander of the
17th Division. He controlled the group that carried out
preparatory covert terrain reconnaissance. Using to the data obtained the
Division managed to consolidate the defense near Besedky
to such an extent that despite the enemy’s numerical superiority, fire
ascendancy, and massive counterattacks, they did not manage to wrest ground
away from cavalrymen. Still our attempts to cut off the railway proved
unsuccessful as well.
Unfortunately Flenov is
no longer alive.
Many years later I walked along the railway
between the stations of Katsury and Myshanka: along the whole length of it stood the
remains of defensive fortifications, now grown with young pine forest. It
was possible to imagine the events that took place here.
I still had some time before my train
to Mozyr. I came up to what remained of a
machine-gun nest. Its concrete top with artillery embrasure had many shell
dents. And around that stood a young pine forest. I lay down the carpet of
pine needles bathed in August sun. And inevitably I could almost feel the atmosphere
of the front line in those bygone years of war, I could still hear bullets
whizzing through the air (how can you forget that?), mines howling and
deafening claps of shells bursting.
|
