It was there, on the Rzhev ledge, somewhere in the forests near the village of Karmanovo, that the photo was taken, which we publish today – on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Rzhev, Gzhatsk and Vyazma.On the far left is loader Kostya Popov. And so strictly according to the documents of August 1942, when the photo was taken, the Red Army soldier Konstantin Martynovich Popov, born in 1912, from the village of Astrakhanka, Zaporizhzhia region, was the deputy commander of weapons at fire from the 120th Separate Tank Brigade. For distinction in recent battles, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. The brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bukov, and the senior commanders of the headquarters of the 5th Army of the Western Front approved of this idea.Beside Popov and following his example, he puts his hand on the side of his overalls and radio operator Alexander Kapustin smiles shyly at the camera. He is ten years younger, from Leningrad, tried on a military uniform in the 40th, at the front – from the first days of the war. In July of the 41, he was seriously wounded, but at the beginning of the offensive of our troops on Rzhev, Zubtsov, Karmanovo and Sychevka in August of the 42, he was again in the ranks. In these battles, the radio operator was lucky: fragments and bullets passed, and by order of the command on September 24, 1942, Sergeant Kapustin was awarded the medal “For Military Merit”.
It turned out differently with driver Ivan Lysenko – on the far right in the photo. He is the same age as Kapustin and Popov is a compatriot. Born in 1921 in the Poltava region – Lokhvitsky district, Bodakva village. Since 1940, he served in the Red Army, at the time of meeting with the front-line newspaper correspondent – Staff Sergeant. For participating in the summer battles of 1942, when their tank battalion, in cooperation with the infantry, eliminated the Germans from the villages on the border of the Moscow and Smolensk regions – Vetrovo, Bolshie and Malye Nosovye – the driver of the command tank Lyssenko Ivan Ustinovich was presented to the Order of the Red Banner.
It is not surprising that documents for such a high award for a tank sergeant circled the headquarters longer than others. And they turned into an order from the Commander and the Military Council of the 5th Army to award Staff Sergeant Lyssenko IU Order of the Diploma of the Second Patriotic War …
The fate of the battalion commander
But what about the one who is third from the left in the photo and half a step ahead of the crew? Which recognizable signature is first on the reward lists of his subordinates?
The commander of the 443rd tank battalion of the 120th brigade, Major Vladimir Goluzov, turned out to be a tanker for a very short time. He began his accounts with the enemy in the 41st, possibly got into trouble – he left the encirclement, at some point he was considered missing. In the first months of the 42nd – the Chief of Staff of the 133rd Separate Road Maintenance Battalion, Captain.The crew of battalion commander Goluzov – the 120th separate tank brigade, August 1942. Photo: My War. The Great Patriotic War in the photographs of VI ArkashevAnd in the summer of the same year he was a major, commander of the newly formed battalion of M3 medium tanks, which began to enter the USSR under Lend-Lease. On August 10, he led the battalion in the first attack, and already on the 15th he was wounded, but did not leave the battle, continued to control the actions of his crews …Laconic information from the presentation of Major Goluzov VT to the Order of the Red Banner and even more spared entries in the combat diary of the 120th tank brigade – that little that sheds light on the short-line fate of the battalion commander. He is recovering from a wound received in August and continues to command one of the two battalions of the 120th Battalion. A record was found in TsAMO documents that on December 6, 1942, a consolidated group of tanks (all that remained in the brigade) under the command of Major Goluzov carried out attack operations. “At the end of the preparation of the artillery, the tanks hit the wire obstacles of the enemy, began to destroy them and fired from one place,” the combat diary says about this that day. “The enemy machine gun and mortar fire was so dense that the infantry, again suffering losses, could not move behind the tanks. The tanks, having reached the 1st line of trenches, were met with fire fed from the enemy’s dagger-type anti-tank guns. The knocked-out tanks continued to fire from their places. As night fell, an order was received to withdraw serviceable tanks to their original position.”
And on December 7, 1942, as appears from the loss report, Major Goluzov VT died. There are no details, only the place of burial: the Smolensk region, the village of Dvoeshki.How is it, I doubted it: December 1942 – and death in Dvoeshki? The fighting in these places (the disappeared villages of Shtanino, Ryabinki, Krivtsy, Sukholetovo, Dvoeshki and the rest Yelnia, Saburovo, Lebedki) took place in August-September, when two neighboring regional centers, Zubtsov and Karmanovo, were liberated. And then the front line moved west.”In December 1942, the 120th Brigade fought for Bugrovo,” Ruslan Lukashov, commander of the Raid search group, writes to me by text message.I look at the map of the war years: Bugrovo is north of Dvoeshki, but not that far.”From there they brought to Sukholetovo and buried two tankers – Morgun and Shiyan, they died on December 5. So, most likely, he died of his injuries,” concludes Ruslan.It turns out that a native of the Smolensk village of Besishchevo (this is Pochinkovsky district, south of the regional center), military man Vladimir Timofeevich Goluzov, at the age of 31, laid his head in battles for the same village in the east of the Smolensk region. Only Bugrovo, like Dvoeshki, unlike Besishchevo, has not survived to this day …
survived and won
And Popov, Kapustin and Lysenko – three of this crew – had an extremely happy fate on the front line. Passed the 41st with honor. They survived in the meat grinders of the 42nd, including the battles on the Rzhev ledge. They increased combat experience and were rewarded in the 43rd and 44th, reached the victorious day in the 45th.Lyssenko – the Order of the Red Star on the 44th and two medals “For Courage”, on the 43rd and 45th. Kapustin has the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War (both in 1943) and the Order of Glory in 1944. All three, including Popov, have a medal “For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War”. So we survived, defeated the enemy…I would like to believe that the memory of those who defeated fascism and rid their land of the enemy has not been betrayed in their familiesFinding someone among loved ones is not an easy task, especially now. But maybe we can solve it. It is known that Goluzov’s brother, AT, who then lived in Pskov, on Sportivnaya Street, in house No. 3, was interested in the fate of Goluzov, perpetuating his memory in 1984. A note about this is kept in the army file. registration and enrollment office. Information about Alexander Kapustin as a native of the city on the Neva is published on the Internet portal “Siege Leningrad”.
There is evidence that in the year of the 40th anniversary of Victory – November 6, 1985 – the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree was received by KM Popov. And in May 2005, UWC Zaporizhzhya moved the veteran to the “dropped out” category. Deceased? Did you leave the region or Ukraine? Both are possible.
There was no post-war information about the second Ukrainian in the crew – pilot Ivan Lysenko. But it is almost certain that the other tankers who returned home had and have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews. We won’t guess which side they are on today. But I really want to believe that the memory of those who defeated fascism and rid their land of the enemy has not been betrayed in these families.
In August 1942, when they all posed together for a reporter, their fate, no matter how you looked through the viewfinder, could not be predicted. And now, as 80 years have passed and it has all become our shared history, you look at the same faces and think of something else.
The wartime snapshot, so unexpectedly revealed now, indicates a very rare and therefore doubly valuable quality of a professional photographer. In this case, frontline correspondent Vasily Arkashev, who lived in Belarus before and after the war. Now, when VI Arkashev is gone, employees of the Belarusian National Archive of Film and Photographic Documents are working with his photographic heritage.
And with them, we never cease to marvel.With all the costs of the war, the correspondent Vasily Arkashev recorded and kept, and recorded with absolute accuracy, the names, initials, military ranks and positions of the four heroes of the picture. Had he not done so with meticulous precision, his image would not have spoken as it does now, but would remain another nameless illustration of a war that ended many years ago.The example given to us today is extremely instructive, both for professionals and for amateurs. We won’t be lazy and be precise when attributing the photos and videos we’ve taken. Even when we shoot for ourselves. We may be filming for the story.For helping me prepare this publication, I thank the Reid Research Group, personally Andrey Arsentiev and Oleg Shevtsov.Medium Tanks, GeneralsThe M3 tanks in the liberated Vyazma were captured by another war correspondent, Yevgeny Khaldei. Photo: Photo from the archives of VI Arkasheva
On March 12, 1943, one of the tank brigades of the Western Front entered the liberated Vyazma, where the M3 General Lee tanks arrived under Lend-Lease. A total of 1400 armored vehicles of this class were delivered to the Soviet Union during the war. They were classified as medium tanks and were mainly used as commanders – to control the battle during the offensive and fire from closed positions during the defense. Well equipped and spacious inside (for 6 crew members, with leather seats!), “General Lee” was distinguished by reliable radio communications and good visibility from a raised commander’s tower on a swivel base with a 37 mm cannon and coaxial submachine gun.But the same circumstance – an extremely high profile – turned the M3 into a high-profile target for enemy anti-tank weapons. Its other two disadvantages are the fixed turret of the main gun in the side godfather (caliber – 75 mm, aiming at the target by turning the whole tank), the general risk of fire (9-cylinder carburetor engine of aviation origin) and the rubber-metal tracks.During the movement, they did not vibrate, like our T-34s, but still a small projectile hit, when the metal resisted, the rubber burned, and the caterpillar collapsed: the tank became a target fixed.
