Over the last ten days of June, the size of the Soviet air group at Khalkhin Gol decreased slightly (see table). This mainly happened due to “knocking out” in air battles obsolete I-15bis, which proved their inability to fight on equal terms with Japanese fighters. The low combat potential of the I-15bis was well understood by the Soviet command. In July, the encores were gradually withdrawn from the regiments, forming them into separate airfield cover squadrons.
NUMBER OF SOVIET AIR FORCE IN THE AREA OF CONFLICT AS OF 07/1/39*
|| I-16 | I-15bis | Sat | R-5Sh | TOTAL ||
70th IAP || 40 | 20 | – | – | 60 ||
22nd IAP || 53 | 25 | – | – | 78 ||
38th SBP || – | – | 59 | – | 59 ||
150th SBP || – | – | 73 | 10 | 83 ||
TOTAL || 93 | 45 | 132 | 10 | 280 ||
*Only combat-ready vehicles are shown.
In early July, Soviet aviation in Mongolia received the first samples of new equipment. A squadron of the latest I-153 Chaika fighters, consisting of 15 aircraft, flew from the Union to the Tamsag-Bulak airfield. True, they can be called the newest only by the years of development and production, but in fact they were another modification of the I-15 biplane with retractable landing gear, a more powerful engine and a number of other improvements. But in terms of speed and rate of climb, the Chaika was noticeably superior to its predecessor I-15bis, and this could not but affect the results of the battles.
The Chaika squadron was headed by Captain Sergei Gritsevets, and at first in staff documents it was called “Gritsevets Squadron” ‹8›.
Participants in the battles at Khalkhin Gol (from left to right): Gritsevets, Prachik, Kravchenko, Aorobov, Smirnov.
Subsequently, several dozen more “Seagulls” arrived. For some time they were considered strictly secret, and their pilots were strictly forbidden to fly behind the front line, but by the end of the month this ban was lifted.
Another Soviet novelty that arrived at the front in early July was a squadron of seven I-16P fighters, armed, in addition to two synchronized machine guns, with two wing-mounted 20-mm ShVAK cannons. They decided to use cannon fighters primarily as attack aircraft, for attacks against ground targets. The squadron was included in the 22nd IAP. Its first commander was Captain Evgeny Stepanov ‹23›, already familiar to us.
Colonel Alexander Gusev and commander of the 20th IAP, Major Grigory Kravchenko.
The strength of Japanese aviation at the beginning of July was estimated by our reconnaissance at 312 aircraft: 168 fighters and 144 ‹4› bombers. These figures, as before, were inflated almost three times. In fact, compared to mid-June, no new air units were added to the 2nd Hikoshidan, and taking into account losses, the number of combat-ready aircraft by the end of the month was no more than 100-110 units.
On July 2, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army began an operation codenamed “Second Period of the Nomonhan Incident.” During it, it was planned to cross Khalkhin Gol and, moving along the western bank of the river from north to south, capture crossings, encircle and destroy Soviet troops on the eastern bank.
On the night of July 3, units of the 7th and 23rd infantry divisions crossed the river using a pontoon bridge. Having gained a foothold on Mount Bain Tsagan, the Japanese installed artillery and began to quickly build defensive positions. At the same time, two regiments of the 23rd division, as envisaged by the plan, moved along Khalkhin Gol to the south, towards the Soviet crossings. Meanwhile, on the east bank, other Japanese units carried out a diversionary attack.
At dawn, aviation entered the battle. Bombers from the 10th, 15th and 61st Sentai attacked and scattered Mongol cavalry from the 6th MPRA Cavalry Division, thwarting the intended counterattack. Japanese pilots made several flights that day to support ground troops, losing four aircraft to anti-aircraft fire and fighter attacks: two Ki-15s, one Ki-30 and one Ki-21.
At 11.00, tanks from the 11th Tank Brigade, having just arrived at the front and immediately entered the battle, moved to Bayin-Tsagan. The famous “Bain-Tsagan massacre” began, in which Soviet tankers, at the cost of several dozen burned vehicles, broke into the hastily created Japanese defense. At the same time, 73 SB from the 150th and 38th regiments dropped bombs from a height of 3000 m on enemy positions at Khalkhin Gol, Khaylastyn Gol and Lake Yanhu. In the target area they were attacked by Japanese fighters and one plane was shot down.
In addition to the bombers, the Japanese on Bain-Tsagan were attacked several times during the day by I-15bis from the 22nd IAP. With machine-gun fire they shot the infantry in shallow, hastily dug trenches and dispersed the servants of the artillery guns.
At 16.45 the bombers of the 150th Rifle Regiment carried out a second raid. This time their target was the Japanese reserves at the Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo hill. One plane was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, killing the crew. On the way back, another car became a victim of fighters.
In the reports of Japanese pilots, the two SBs they shot down during the day turned into four. In addition, the Japanese said that they shot down six I-16s, but the Donkeys had no losses that day.
On July 4, Japanese troops, having been defeated in the “Bain-Tsagan massacre,” began to retreat to the eastern bank. Crowds of soldiers gathered at the crossing came under attack from Soviet artillery and aircraft, suffering heavy losses. The first raid by bombers of the 150th SBP under the cover of I-16 took place at 11.00, the second at approximately 15.40.
In both cases, the bombers were subjected to deadly attacks by the Ki-27. Our fighters entered the battle, but were unable to reliably cover their “clients,” although they declared the destruction of five enemy aircraft. In two battles, the Japanese shot down seven bombers and damaged two I-16s (the pilots were injured). 10 SB crew members were killed.
At 16.45 another air battle took place with the participation of 24 I-16s. According to Soviet pilots, in this battle they shot down 11 Japanese fighters. Our pilot Kochubey has gone missing.
The Japanese announced that on July 4 they did not lose a single aircraft, having shot down 10 Soviet bombers, 35 fighters and one P-Z.
On the same day, the first flight of seven I-16Ps to attack enemy positions took place. All vehicles returned to the airfield, but one cannon fighter (possibly damaged by anti-aircraft fire) crashed upon landing.
Airplanes of the 70th IAP at one of the Mongolian airfields.
On July 5, the bombers continued to “work” against enemy troops. They again had to endure a heavy battle with the fighters of the 1st Sentai, in which two SBs from the 38th regiment were shot down. Five crew members were killed.
According to the Japanese, they shot down five SBs and seven I-16s without losses, but Soviet documents say nothing about the participation of our fighters in the battles on July 5 and about any losses among them on that day.
Further, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army announced that on July 6, fighters of the 1st and 24th Sentai fought against 60 Russian fighters and bombers, shooting down 22 I-16s and four SBs. According to Soviet documents, 22 I-16 and 23 I-15bis from the 22nd IAP, flying on an attack mission, were attacked by about thirty I-97 fighters in the area of Lake Uzur-Nur. According to the flight crew, 21 Japanese aircraft were shot down in the battle. Our losses were two I-15bis and two pilots missing: Solyankin and Silin. They were later declared dead. In addition, 18 vehicles returned with holes, and two of them required major repairs.
The bombers lost one vehicle on July 6, but not in battle with the Japanese, but due to an error by the navigator and their own anti-aircraft gunners. The crew of pilot Krasikhin and navigator Panko (the radio operator's last name is not mentioned in the documents), returning from a mission at an altitude of 200 meters, lost their course and came under fire from an anti-aircraft machine gun installation. One of the engines caught fire. Krasikhin made an emergency landing without releasing the landing gear. The pilots were practically unharmed, but the plane burned down.
In total, according to official Japanese data, during the “Second Stage of the Nomonhan Incident,” that is, from July 2 to July 6, fighters of the 1st, 11th and 24th Sentai scored 94 aerial victories. Another five aircraft were assigned to anti-aircraft gunners. Real Soviet losses amounted to 16 vehicles. Over the same five days, our fighters were credited with 32 victories, however, the Japanese admitted the death of only four aircraft ‹33›.
Red Army soldiers watch the air battle.
On July 7, the first combat mission to intercept a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft that appeared over Tamsag-Bulak was made by four I-153s. The flight was unsuccessful: while the Seagulls were gaining altitude, the Japanese managed to disappear into the clouds. From July 8 to July 12, I-153 took off several more times on alert when enemy “photographers” appeared over their airfield, but none of the interceptions were successful. A much better chance was given by the constant duty of fighters in the air, but this would lead to rapid wear of the engines, and therefore was considered inappropriate.
Due to heavy losses in early July, Soviet bombers had to subsequently increase their operational ceiling from 2500-3000 meters to 6800-7500. At these heights they became invulnerable to both anti-aircraft guns and fighters for a long time. True, the accuracy of bombing naturally decreased. On July 8, 9, 13, 14 and 15, SB crews bombed Japanese troops on the front line and in the operational rear. All these raids took place without losses, and it is difficult to say how effective they turned out to be.
On the night of July 7-8, the first combat sorties on Khalkhin Gol were carried out by TB-3 heavy bombers. Three planes dropped 16 100-kilogram bombs on the city of Ganzhur. According to crew reports, as a result of the bombing, “the city center was covered in smoke.” A few days earlier, the “TB Third” squadron from the 4th heavy bomber regiment (4th heavy bomber regiment) of the Trans-Baikal Military District flew to the Mongolian Obo-Somon airfield. The squadron included six “warships,” as these huge machines were called in documents of that time. Later, several more squadrons were added to them, so that by the end of July, 23 four-engine giants were already operating in the Khalkingol theater of operations. The squadron, and subsequently the TB-3 group, was headed by Major Egorov.
Since low flight performance combined with its large size made the TB-3 too vulnerable to both anti-aircraft guns and fighters, these bombers were used only at night. Combat sorties were usually carried out by single vehicles, less often in pairs. As a rule, the crews started at 17-18 hours, that is, before darkness, and crossed the front line as night fell. The average duration of a combat mission was 7-8 hours.
Bombs were dropped from heights of no more than 2500 meters (usually 1000-1500 m). Mostly small-caliber ammunition was used (FAB-10, FAB-32, FAB-50 and illumination), less often FAB-100. They bombed the squares. The main task was to wear down the enemy, although sometimes there were successful hits, after which the Japanese collected the dead and put out the fires.
In case of emergency landings, an alternate airfield with a searchlight was equipped between Tamsag-Bulak and Mount Khamar-Daba, but it was not necessary to use it. Although in almost every raid the Japanese opened indiscriminate anti-aircraft fire and tried to catch the bombers with searchlight beams, during the entire battle they did not hit TB-3 even once. In this regard, our pilots noted the poor training of the Japanese anti-aircraft gunners and the inconsistency of actions between the anti-aircraft artillery and searchlight gunners ‹4›.
Japanese pilots from the 24th Fighter Sentai near the airfield autostarter. The starter rod is connected to the ratchet of the propeller hub of the Ki-27 fighter. The far left in the picture is Corporal Katsuki Kira, who, according to official Japanese data, won nine (according to another source - 24) air victories at Khalkhin Gol.
Only once on one vehicle was the engine damaged by a shell fragment. But the plane returned to Obo-Somon and landed normally on three engines.
The raids continued until 26 August every night when the weather permitted. During this time, TB-3s flew 160 combat missions, losing only one bomber, which crashed during landing on the night of July 28 due to the simultaneous failure of two engines. The commissar of the 100th air brigade, Kirillov, who was in the front cockpit, was killed; the remaining crew members were not injured ‹4›.
In addition to combat work, TB-3s were actively involved in transport operations. They transported the wounded from the combat area to Chita (up to 20 people could be accommodated in the fuselage and wings), and flew back with medicine, ammunition, correspondence and other urgent cargo.
Let us return, however, to the description of the combat work of fighters. On July 9, according to Soviet data, three I-97s and one I-16 were shot down in an air battle. Pilot Pashulin escaped by parachute. The Japanese report nothing about their losses that day.
On the morning of July 10, 40 I-16s and 26 I-15bis from the 22nd IAP took off to attack Japanese positions. At an altitude of 3000 m they met up to 40 Ki-27s and engaged them in battle. Soon reinforcements approached both sides - 37 I-16s from the 70th IAP and up to 20 Ki-27s that arrived from the Japanese side of Khalkhin Gol. The battle lasted approximately 20 minutes, after which the Japanese retreated to their territory. Ours announced the destruction of 11 enemy aircraft with the loss of three I-16s. Pilots of the 22nd IAP Spivak, Piskunov and Prilepsky went missing.
Four more, among them the assistant commander of the 22nd regiment, Captain Balashev, were wounded. Despite being fatally wounded in the head, Balashev managed to return to the airfield and land. On July 13, he died in hospital. On August 29, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.
The Japanese announced the destruction of 64 (!) Soviet fighters on July 10 and admitted the loss of one Ki-27.
The next major air battle took place on July 12. On the Soviet side, 39 I-16s from the 22nd IAP, as well as nine I-16s and 15 I-15bis from the 70th Regiment took part in it; from the Japanese, according to our pilots, “up to 50” I-97s. Soviet pilots claimed 16 aerial victories, Japanese pilots - 11.
In fact, ours lost one plane (the pilot escaped by parachute), and the Japanese lost three. In one of them, the Japanese ace Mamoru Hamada was killed. Hamada is the first of the imperial aces who met his death at Khalkhin Gol. By the time of his death, he had 17 victories in his combat account. Another Japanese, the commander of the 1st Sentai, Lieutenant Colonel Toshio Kato, parachuted out of a burning car over Mongolian territory, but was taken out by another Japanese pilot, Sergeant Toshio Matsumura, who landed his fighter near his landing site. The lieutenant colonel, who received severe burns, returned to flying work only in 1941.
Perhaps none of the events at Khalkhin Gol in May-September 1939 causes as much controversy as the battle for Mount Bayin-Tsagan on July 3-5. Then the 10,000-strong Japanese group managed to secretly cross Khalkhin Gol and begin moving towards the Soviet crossing, threatening to cut off Soviet troops on the eastern bank of the river from the main forces.
The enemy was accidentally discovered and, before reaching the Soviet crossing, was forced to take a defensive position on Mount Bayin-Tsagan. Having learned about what had happened, the commander of the 1st Army Group G.K. Zhukov ordered the 11th brigade of brigade commander Yakovlev and a number of other armored units immediately and without infantry support (Fedyuninsky’s motorized rifles got lost in the steppe and reached the battlefield later) to attack the Japanese positions.
Soviet tanks and armored vehicles launched several attacks, but, having suffered significant losses, were forced to retreat. The second day of the battle came down to constant shelling of Japanese positions by Soviet armored vehicles, and the failure of the Japanese offensive on the east bank forced the Japanese command to begin a retreat.
Historians still argue how justified the introduction of Yakovlev’s brigade into battle from the march was. Zhukov himself wrote that he deliberately did this. On the other hand, did the Soviet military leader have a different path? Continuing the Japanese movement towards the crossing promised disaster.
The Japanese retreat is still a controversial point in Bain-Tsagan. Was it a general flight or a systematic, organized retreat? The Soviet version depicted the defeat and death of Japanese troops who did not have time to complete the crossing. The Japanese side creates a picture of an organized retreat, pointing out that the bridge was blown up even when Soviet tanks drove onto it. By some miracle, under artillery fire and air strikes, the Japanese managed to cross to the opposite bank. But the regiment that remained in the cover was almost completely destroyed.
Bayin-Tsagan can hardly be called a decisive tactical victory for one of the sides. But in strategic terms, this is, of course, a victory for the Soviet-Mongolian troops.
Firstly, the Japanese were forced to begin a retreat, suffering losses and failing to complete their main task - the destruction of the Soviet crossing. Moreover, throughout the conflict, the enemy never again tried to force Khalkhin Gol, and it was no longer physically possible. The only set of bridge equipment in the entire Kwantung Army was destroyed by the Japanese themselves during the withdrawal of troops from Bain Tsagan.
Next, Japanese troops could only conduct operations against Soviet troops on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol, or wait for a political solution to the conflict. True, as you know, the enemy expected something completely different.
1No matter how deep the pre-dawn sleep was, the excited voice of the duty officer, heard in the yurt, awakened him instantly:
Get up!.. Everyone has been ordered to be at the airfield immediately. The Japanese have gone on the offensive!
What offensive? Where?.. - Trubachenko jumped out of bed.
After our successful air battles, we somehow didn’t want to believe that the enemy was advancing. I asked the duty officer who gave him the message. The answer left no room for any doubt.
How is the weather?
It has rained. It's cleared up now, but it's still damp.
When we were getting into the back of the semi, someone said, looking at the full moon, barely hanging above the horizon:
He leaves... He doesn’t want to show the samurai the way to Mongolia.
The luminary was created for lovers,” another noted philosophically. - Solyankyana and Galya loomed, and now to rest...
There were chuckles.
Warm up, warm up your tongue, it cooled down overnight,” Solyankin joked, shivering chillily.
From the command post, Trubachenko called the regiment. From there they reported that the Japanese were trying to break through to Khalkhin Gol. The fighting continued all night. Ours have been pushed back from the border, but further advance of the enemy is being held back. They were ordered to be on duty on airplanes from dawn.
Everyone left. While waiting for the next instructions from headquarters, the commander and I lay down on our earthen trestle beds, covering ourselves with raglans.
Vasily Petrovich, why do you think we weren’t informed about the attack last night?
“The devil knows,” Trubachenko replied. - We were poorly informed in May. - Getting irritated, he began to be ironic, finding many things to be unnecessary and unjustified.
Maybe the authorities wanted us to sleep peacefully...
But, perhaps, that’s true, Vasily Petrovich. If the attack had been announced to us in the evening, we would not have slept so peacefully...
Look at the subtleties... The roar of guns does not reach the airfield, but the pilots’ nerves are strong. We'd be asleep without hind legs, but they would know the situation on the ground.
Well, now we know,” I said as nonchalantly as possible. - Let's get some sleep, we have time...
Trubachenko lay with his hands behind his head, his face concentrated.
“I can’t,” he suddenly smiled and stood up, taking off his raglan. - Think.
What is Chapai thinking?
What does the coming day have in store for us... It’s not for nothing that the samurai took a break for themselves. We prepared, of course. Ours must not have yawned either. Yesterday I saw tanks massing near the airfield...
Dawn passed in anxious anticipation and conversations about front-line affairs. As the sun rose, a telephone call came from the regimental headquarters:
The Japanese cross Khalkhin Gol and occupy Mount Bayin-Tsagan. Urgently fly out for an attack.
Trubachenko pulled out a flight map from behind his boot and, finding the inscription “Mr. Bain-Tsagan,” began to make notes. Mount Bain-Tsagan was located about fifteen kilometers from the Manchurian border and dominated the area. The Mongolian plain was visible from it for many tens of kilometers.
Oh, damn it, where did they go! - Trubachenko was surprised.
In my opinion, there were no our troops in that area,” I said.
“And I didn’t see anything,” the commander confirmed, giving the order for the immediate gathering of flight commanders and immediately attacking the senior squadron technician Tabelov, who stuck his head into the tent:
When will you finally make me a table? Otherwise, there’s nothing to even plot a course on a map with!
Judging by how accusatory and menacing this question sounded, one might think that there was no point in it now. But the commander, not listening to the excuses and assurances of the senior technician, was already intently working on the map with a pencil, ruler and protractor, and it was clear that in fact he was absorbed in completely different concerns.
Tabelov's head prudently disappeared. The voices of the arriving flight commanders were heard.
We had no experience in combat against ground forces. Therefore, all our thoughts about the upcoming strike turned out to be less concrete. The pilots received only the most general instructions from Trubachenko.
When everyone had left and there was very little time left before departure, Trubachenko said:
Listen, commissar, you and I were thinking about the departure, but did not foresee what we would do if enemy fighters met us on the way.
Fight.
But we were ordered to strike at the crossing at all costs and delay the advance of the Japanese?!
Yes, exactly: a strike on the bridge built across Khalkhin Gol. Objective: Detain enemy infantry at any cost. But it is very possible that Japanese fighters will attack us. How to arrange forces to complete the task with the greatest success? We adopted the same battle formation as when the squadron flew into an air battle. It probably should have been changed somehow, but we did not do this - not only because of lack of time, but also for the simple reason that we did not really know what formation of the squadron would be best in this case.
2We flew at an altitude of two thousand meters.
When approaching the front line, it involuntarily caught my eye how sharply the river divided the steppe into two dissimilar sections: the western, which was a greenish-gray open plain, and the eastern, covered with golden sandy mounds... The eastern bank, dotted with pits and pits, created in itself natural camouflage, which made it difficult to detect troops from the air.
No matter how closely I looked, I could not notice a crossing anywhere: everything merged with the swampy banks of the river - both enemy troops and equipment. He looked around the sky - nothing dangerous, glanced along the river and stopped at a barely noticeable dark stripe, cutting through the wavy highlights in the distance. Crossing?
Yes, it was a crossing. From Manchuria, troops fanned out towards it. Never before had I seen so many troops and equipment from the air, and I was surprised: where did the Japanese come from so suddenly? As if they grew out of the ground.
On the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol, having absolute numerical superiority, the enemy pushed back our defending troops. The vast area was clearly visible from the air. The remains of burnt Japanese tanks and fresh enemy trenches indicated that the enemy’s offensive in the center had been suspended. The main mass of enemy forces, concentrated on the right flank, successfully crossed to the west bank, undertaking a roundabout maneuver to the south. Infantry and artillery gathered at the bridge, waiting for the crossing. More and more columns were approaching from Manchuria, and one could see how they supported the stopped troops, pouring in a thin trickle onto the western bank... On our side, Mongolian cavalry hurried to the left and right flanks, tanks and armored cars were moving.
Suddenly a fire flashed in the air, and a curtain of black smoke caps instantly appeared in front of us. It was anti-aircraft artillery hitting the crossing.
Trubachenko, avoiding artillery fire, abruptly put the plane into a dive, went below the gaps and opened fire. We followed him too. The black caps stayed behind and above, harming no one. A shower of bullets and shells from the squadron covered the enemy, who was hastening to cross the pontoon bridge in order to encircle the few defending Soviet units - a motorized armored brigade and about an infantry regiment.
Dense machine-gun and cannon fire from the I-16 pierced the crossing along its entire length, from bank to bank. People and cars went under water. The dead and wounded, falling, created traffic jams. Having lost control under fighter fire, the Japanese rushed away from the crossing. The Bargut cavalry (Barga is a province of North-East China. During the occupation, the Japanese forcibly formed military units from the local population) crushed the infantry in panic, artillery horses harnessed to the harness rushed along both banks, crushing the foot soldiers and increasing the disorder.
I managed to notice several loaded camels. An incendiary bullet hit one of his packs, which contained something flammable. Fireworks went off. The camel, making desperate leaps, threw itself into the river...
Trubachenko aimed at a large column of infantry moving towards the crossing; pouring fire on it, we descended to low level flight... The anti-aircraft gun fire became especially fierce when we began to climb to make the next approach. Now the black caps appeared in front of our formation, and, without having time to turn away, we immediately crashed into them. There was nothing dangerous about this, since the fragments had already scattered and the force of the blast wave had faded. A new salvo followed. Trubachenko hesitated with the turn, and his plane was thrown to the right, towards me, turned over like a piece of wood, and he, uncontrollable, fell down. To avoid colliding with him, I darted to the side. The third pilot of our flight, fortunately, fell behind. I looked in a daze at the falling Trubachenko. It seemed to me that he was shot down, and with bated breath I expected to hit the ground... But suddenly the commander turned around and soared steeply up...
The squadron, having closed a circle over the crossing, began its third approach. There were no enemy fighters. Before departure, we did not think that it would be necessary to allocate separate units to suppress anti-aircraft fire. Now Trubachenko, realizing this, directed his plane to the nearest battery. I followed his example and went to another one. Anti-aircraft fire weakened. Now the planes calmly approached a concentration of troops near the river and acted almost as if they were at a training ground.
Taking the plane out of the dive, I wanted to join Trubachenko, but then Japanese fighters appeared. There were about three dozen of them. In their haste, they had not yet had time to gather and flew not in a compact formation, but in small flocks, scattered. Hiding behind the blinding morning sun, the enemy hoped to strike quickly. Our leading link turned out to be closest to the Japanese - and the first three enemy fighters fell on Trubachenko from behind. But he, carried away by diving into anti-aircraft guns, did not notice the danger.
Being at the same height as the enemy, I was about to cross the enemy’s path, when suddenly I noticed another three Japanese below me, clinging to the ground. She clearly intended to waylay the Trubachenko couple as they pulled out of a dive - at the moment when our planes would be most vulnerable. There was no time to think. Trubachenko needs to be protected. The only remedy is to immediately attack the three sneaking below, strike them from a dive... But the other group will remain above me...
In an air battle, thought works in impulses, flashes, because the rapid change of events leaves no time for reasoning, but requires lightning-fast actions. One such flash captures the whole picture of the battle, another flash forces you to act with such haste that sometimes you don’t even have time to figure out all the consequences of the decision... Your hands in such cases are ahead of your thinking...
And I went down.
The whirlwind that burst into the cockpit took away the flight glasses somewhere, but I didn’t notice it: all my attention, all my strength was focused on not allowing the enemy to open fire on the squadron commander’s pair. For a moment, it even seemed to me as if my plane was going down incredibly slowly. In fact, this was not the case: it failed so quickly that, no matter how absorbed I was in the desire to attack the Japanese fighters, I suddenly noticed the terrible proximity of the ground - and barely managed to pull the control stick towards myself. The plane trembled from the violence committed upon it, began to thrash as if in a convulsion, and although it was already flying horizontally, it was still settling due to inertia... I was powerless to prevent this and with horror I felt the propeller cutting down the bushes... “That’s it!..” From The eyes closed in fear, the body prepared for the inevitable blow. But, to my happiness, the plane continued to rush without encountering an obstacle: it ended up over a deep floodplain of the river, which allowed it to lose the inertia of its descent.
As a result of this maneuver, I found myself at the tail and below the Japanese link, at a very close distance from them. He pressed the trigger and could only notice how the Japanese fighter that had been hit turned over. My plane rushed forward at high speed, and together with Trubachenko I hurried to the squadron.
The pilots had already noticed the enemy and, having stopped their attack on the crossing, turned around to meet the attackers. We were running out of fuel and we couldn’t get involved in a protracted battle. Fighting off the attacking Japanese, the squadron hurried home at low level. The commander and I found ourselves on the right flank.
For a split second I hesitated, considering how the situation had changed, and when I looked back, I saw that I-97 was overtaking me. The enemy, having a great advantage in height, dispersed higher speed, and I can’t get away from it in a straight line, and the maneuver won’t help: the I-97 is more resourceful than the I-16, there’s nowhere to go down - it’s land. Trubachenko could have repelled the Japanese, but, as luck would have it, he does not see the danger. A kind of apathy took possession of me for a moment. I flew as if paralyzed, afraid to even move. Another moment - and leaden rain will pour over me. To the left, our fighters are snapping furiously, and here only Trubachenko can help me. I look at him with hope. Will he really not look back?
This is my life or death!.. Without doing anything, I flew in a straight line at full throttle. Fortunately, Trubachenko looked back... A jerk - and the Japanese was knocked out. Immediately everything in front of me expanded, the shackles of fear burst. What could I do in such a situation to oppose an aircraft more maneuverable than the I-16? I didn't know what the solution might be.
The forces were unequal, and the enemy would certainly have been able to inflict damage on our group if our fighters, led by Major Kravchenko, had not rushed to help.
We returned safely to our airfield.
The task was completed: the enemy was missing hundreds of its soldiers and three aircraft. The crossing was delayed for some time. In the current situation this was of considerable importance.
After the May battles, the Japanese military became convinced that the Soviet government intended to seriously defend the Mongolian People's Republic. The enemy decided to prepare for a major offensive, hoping to destroy during it all the Soviet-Mongolian troops located in the Khalkhin Gol area, capture the eastern part of Mongolia and reach Soviet Transbaikalia.
To ensure success for the ground forces, the Japanese began an air battle on June 22, intending to defeat the air units located in the conflict area. Having failed to achieve success in air battles, on June 27 the Japanese attacked the airfield of the 70th Regiment with sixty fighters and tried to pin down our 22nd Regiment with approximately thirty aircraft. At the same time, a large bombing raid was carried out on Bayin Tumen, located three hundred kilometers from the combat area. On June 28, enemy aircraft again violated the borders of Mongolia, but suffered losses from our fighters. This ended the Japanese air operation of sorts to gain air supremacy. The enemy command decided to replenish its aircraft fleet and better prepare for a new offensive. (The Japanese losses were about a hundred aircraft, our damage was three times less.)
During a week of continuous air battles, we not only gained combat experience and became stronger organizationally, but also destroyed many experienced Japanese aces.
Despite major losses, the activity of Japanese pilots continued to remain very high. Maintaining the morale of its soldiers and officers, the command of the Kwantung Army trumpeted throughout the Japanese press that Soviet aviation in the conflict area had been destroyed. According to the Japanese, in just one day, June 27, 134 Soviet aircraft were shot down and destroyed on the ground (This, by the way, corresponded to the number of all our fighters concentrated on the border at Khalkhin Gol).
And so on the evening of July 2, having secretly grouped a 38,000-strong army forty kilometers from the border and brought up 250 aircraft, the Japanese went on the offensive.
They attacked the Soviet-Mongolian troops from the front, falsely demonstrating their main attack, and the main forces began to cross the river on the right flank in order to bypass our defending units from the rear, encircle them and destroy them.
Our reconnaissance did not detect the concentration of Japanese troops, but due to increased aviation flights, which intensified especially from June 22, the Soviet-Mongolian command determined that a new offensive was possible. Therefore, our tanks and armored cars were brought to the front line, which were entrusted with the task of quickly launching a counterattack in the event of an enemy attack. By the morning of July 3, it was unexpectedly discovered that the main Japanese group had begun crossing Khalkhin Gol. Then our armored units, intended for a counterattack from the front, were redirected to the flank.
In the battle, which began at night, the Japanese had more than three times more infantry and cavalry, but we had absolute superiority in tanks and armored cars. The tank crews and the pilots interacting with them had a particularly important task.
While our troops were approaching and turning around, aviation, being essentially the only force capable of delaying the Japanese crossing Khalkhin Gol, was supposed to carry out assault strikes. Our fighter squadron, the only one at that time equipped with cannon weapons, simultaneously became an assault squadron.
3Having made five sorties in a day to attack troops and two to intercept enemy aircraft, everyone felt extremely tired. The heat and combat stress completely killed my appetite. At lunch, almost none of the pilots touched food; only the compote was in demand. The tanned faces of the fighters were noticeably drawn, the reddened eyes of many were inflamed, but the determination to fight did not weaken.
When Trubachenko, who still didn’t know the pilots well, turned to Mikhail Kostyuchenko, the frailest looking one, with the question: “Will you be strong enough to fly again?” - the pilot said, looking at the sun: “It is tired, not us. See, he’s sitting down.”
The eighth combat mission did not take place. The new regiment commander, Grigory Panteleevich Kravchenko, who flew to us, gave the order to prepare to relocate the squadron to another airfield, closer to the front line. The technicians immediately got to work.
Major Kravchenko, having examined the plane riddled with Japanese bullets, gathered all the pilots near the car. His tired face was unhappy, his narrowed eyes glittered sternly.
Subordinates sometimes show amazing instincts, guessing the mood of the senior commander, but here absolutely no one knew what could have caused the displeasure of the combat commander.
Squat, tightly built Kravchenko stood leaning against the plane, deep in thought, and seemed not to notice anyone. Trubachenko, looking at the broad chest of the new commander with three orders, somewhat timidly, as if there was some kind of guilt behind him, reported on the gathering of pilots. Kravchenko suddenly smiled.
Are you depressed? - he turned to us. - Has anyone been shot down?
Well, it's over your head! I have come to you with good news. I ask everyone to sit closer.
And he was the first to land on the fragrant grass. He began calmly:
The Japanese advance along the entire front was stopped. The samurai who crossed Khalkhin Gol under the pressure of our tankers were forced to go on the defensive on Mount Bain-Tsagan. Brigade commander Yakovlev's tanks were the first to attack the Japanese after a 700-kilometer march, without waiting for the infantry to approach. Now the enemy is surrounded by a semi-ring, pressed against the river and will soon be defeated. Your squadron provided great assistance to the ground troops with its assault operations, and they thank you from the bottom of their hearts...
How nice to hear this!
Please convey our gratitude to them!.. We are always ready to help...
Kravchenko, waiting for everyone to be silent, stood up and looked at the riddled plane. His face became gloomy again, and dry lights flashed in his narrowed eyes.
Now admire it! - His voice rose menacingly. - 62 holes! And some are still proud of this. They consider holes to be proof of their bravery. This is a shame, not heroism! You'll look at the entry and exit holes made by bullets. What are they talking about? Here the Japanese fired two long bursts, both almost directly behind. This means that the pilot was gape and overlooked the enemy... And to die through stupidity, through one’s carelessness is not a great honor... 62 holes - 31 bullets. Yes, this is more than enough for the pilot to lie somewhere in the steppe under the wreckage of his plane!.. And for what, one wonders? Let's say you fly a lot, you get tired, this dulls your vigilance. But the owner of this aircraft only made three flights today, I specifically inquired. And in general, note: the analysis says that in most cases fighter pilots are killed by blunders... Pray to Polikarpov that he made such an airplane that, in fact, if you fight skillfully, Japanese bullets will not take! Look, two bullets hit the head of the armored back, but it didn’t matter to her! It didn't even crack. The planes and the fuselage are like a sieve, but as soon as all these holes are sealed, the airframe is ready for battle again. Is that what I'm saying? - Kravchenko turned to the technician who was sealing the holes.
That's right, comrade commander! “In a few minutes the machine can be launched into flight,” the technician reported, standing at attention on the wing.
“Don’t fall,” Kravchenko remarked to him, without changing his facial expression, but cooling down. - Continue your work.
After a pause, he addressed us again in a calm, persuasive tone:
Don't think that we suffer fewer losses than the Japanese just because of our courage or because of better organization. The Japanese cannot be denied this either. Our advantage is that domestic aircraft are faster than Japanese aircraft, and they are many times better in survivability and armament. If 31 bullets had hit the I-97, it would have left a wet spot!
Kravchenko was precisely the person whose advice we now especially needed. His remark about the non-survivability of the I-97 was immediately responded to by several approving voices:
Right! It would have shattered into pieces!..
“Don’t shout out here,” Kravchenko stopped the expression of our feelings. - This is not a rally, but an analysis of mistakes. I’m not asking your opinion yet, but I want to remind you and advise you of something.
In his voice, a little muffled, the strength of rightness and clarity that is characteristic of experienced and brave commanders sounded firmly. Kravchenko accompanied his speech with movements of his hands, one consonant wave of which sometimes said a hundred times more than the most detailed interpretation of some unexpected, sudden maneuver.
Some pilots do not have a very clear idea of what the features of air combat against maneuverable Japanese fighters at low altitudes, close to the ground, are, Kravchenko continued.
I had the feeling that he was addressing me directly and only for reasons of tact did not mention my last name. However, everyone else listened to him with the same keen interest as me. The conversation was really about painful issues.
With the powerful weapons that the I-16s have, your squadron will often have to fly out on attack missions, operate near the ground, and there is a lot to take into account. You know that the I-97, with better maneuverability, is inferior to the I-16 in speed by 10 - 20 kilometers. However, this advantage of our fighter does not make it possible at low altitude to quickly break away from the I-97 that has entered the tail, moving in a straight line. Why? The solution is simple. To get away from the enemy to a safe distance, i.e. 400 - 500 meters, it takes one and a half to two minutes. And this time is quite enough for the Japanese fighter to fire all its ammunition at the I-16 leaving without maneuver. The mistake of some pilots lies precisely in the fact that, having discovered the enemy behind them, they leave the Japanese only in a straight line, trying to break away as quickly as possible due to speed. This is wrong and very dangerous. What's the best way to proceed? The main condition for success in air combat is to try to decisively attack the enemy at greater speed and from a height, despite his numerical superiority. Then, using acceleration speed, break away from the enemy and again take up the starting position for a second attack. When a repeated attack is for some reason unprofitable, you need to wait, keeping enemy fighters at a distance that would provide you with a turn for the purpose of a frontal attack.
The constant desire to attack is a sure condition for victory. We must carry out offensive tactics in such a way that our aircraft, having an advantage in speed and firepower, always looks like a pike among roaches!..
Kravchenko, narrowing his eyes, flared up with that impetuous energy that occurs in people going on the attack; Apparently, for a moment he imagined himself in battle.
That's why we are called fighters, to destroy the enemy!
He paused again, finding inner peace.
But how should one act when, due to some circumstances, the enemy managed to get behind him and found himself at a distance of certain defeat?
This question interested us most. We looked for the answer to it in battles; everyone was inclined to draw their own conclusions, but no one was firmly convinced of them, because the form of the solution was varied and gave different results. Some believed that it was necessary to carefully monitor the enemy (always necessary!) and not allow him to be close to the tail. Others stated that it was all a matter of piloting technique: with excellent piloting technique, nothing is dangerous. Still others were of the opinion that since the speed of the I-16 does not allow for a quick exit from the battle, and maneuverability relative to the I-97 is worse, then if a comrade does not help out, the outcome of the battle is predetermined in favor of the enemy...
Generally speaking, the theoretical principles with which we were armed boiled down to the fact that at approximately equal speeds, victory in an air battle should belong to the one whose aircraft has the best maneuverability, because the main thing for victory, we were taught, is to take a convenient position for attack...
But in practice, everything often turned out the other way around: at low altitudes, our pilots not only found ways to effectively defend themselves, but also went on to attack Japanese fighters and achieved victory. Experience has shown that between the moment when an advantageous position for an attack is taken and the subsequent destruction of the aircraft lies a whole series of the most subtle jewelry movements of the control rudders and the use of mathematical calculations by the pilot in his mind. Shooting down a maneuvering fighter is as difficult as hitting a flying swallow with a pistol. Therefore, in air combat, the most difficult thing is not taking the starting position for attack, but the process of aiming and opening fire.
As often happens, the inconsistency or lack of clear theoretical provisions deprived people of confidence in practical actions. From here, in particular, came the opinion that if the enemy was behind at a distance of a valid shot, then victory was certainly guaranteed to him. In addition, the Japanese raids in May, which were predatory in their method of action, gave birth to a legend about the supposedly exceptionally high flight-tactical qualities of enemy fighters.
The June air battles, which served as a serious test for the warring parties, dispelled this artificially created, deceptive opinion about Japanese fighters and showed what advantages the Soviet I-16 aircraft had over them. But the question of methods of defense at low altitudes, if the enemy managed to take an advantageous position for an attack from the rear hemisphere, remained not entirely clear.
And so Kravchenko, relying on his own experience and the experience of other pilots, answered this question:
If you see a samurai, know him and use the qualities of your aircraft correctly, then an I-97 one on one should never shoot down an I-16. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to shoot down a fighter with a fighter when they both see each other. Here, look! - Taking a box of cigarettes out of his pocket, he remarked dissatisfied and sternly: “It’s bad that there isn’t a single aircraft mock-up at the entire airfield - this is the result of underestimating studies in wartime... Squadron commander!” We need to make a dozen models, both ours and Japanese...
I obey! - Trubachenko rapped.
Well at least you listen! - the regiment commander joked, and his face lit up with a smile. - In the meantime, there are no models, we will have to use the materials at hand.
Let’s say that this cigarette box is our fighter,” Kravchenko held the box in front of him at chest level, “and my right palm,” he made several light movements with his palm, imitating a plane shaking its wings, “is a Japanese I-97. The Japanese came behind our I-16. Now he starts to take aim... And our guy notices this and jerks aside. The Japanese, naturally, will be late to immediately repeat such an unexpected maneuver, therefore, the I-16 will be out of sight at this time. Then I-97 will hurry to turn around again. He can immediately open fire. But this will be fire not to kill, but to frighten. There is nothing to be afraid of such shooting. Let him shoot, the I-97 has little ammunition. Anyone who falters at this moment and starts running will doom himself to death. When you make several such twists - namely twists, with large overloads, which our plane tolerates perfectly, but the Japanese one is not designed for them - you will gradually increase the distance due to speed separation from I-97. And then decide what is best to do: either move away from him in a straight line from a safe distance, or turn one hundred and eighty degrees and attack the enemy head-on. The plane in the hands of the pilot must live in his thoughts, merge with him and be as obedient as your own hands are obedient to you...
Saying this, Kravchenko looked at us like a teacher explaining a lesson to his students.
Just look - you need to think! One rash movement - and maybe you will never leave the earth again...
How can this be reconciled with the maneuverability of Japanese fighters? - asked Solyankin. - After all, they have better horizontal maneuverability, and, therefore, they can turn around faster than we start the next maneuver.
“Don’t forget that air combat is fought by people, not machine guns,” Kravchenko addressed everyone. - With sudden, unexpected movements, you can jump some distance away from any aircraft, even if it is at least three times maneuverable; the shooter needs to aim, but you don’t, and due to this you gain time for maneuver. And finally, the last thing - any air battle consists of three components: caution, maneuver and fire. You need to master them perfectly. This will make it easier to assess the situation, allow you to plan the battle correctly, provide you not only with freedom of action, but also give you the opportunity to impose your will on the enemy, without which no victory is possible at all.
What if one is pinned down by two Japanese fighters? How then should we proceed? - the pilot quietly asked, near whose car the analysis was taking place.
Just not like you, but vice versa. And all will be well! - Kravchenko answered, causing smiles on the faces of the listeners. - Keep in mind that dogfights are as varied as the people involved. Therefore, tactical techniques in each individual case will not be similar to one another... Is this point clear to everyone? - Kravchenko looked around the parking lot, where the work of the technical staff to prepare the aircraft for the flight was in full swing, and looked at his watch. - There is still time... Then let's talk about anti-aircraft artillery. Now you have all seen how hard she hits, you cannot underestimate her.
Yes, I treated you strongly! - Trubachenko picked up. “I was so shaken this morning that I almost kissed the ground.”
This means that it needs to be suppressed by allocating special units for this. In your last flights, you did the right thing, I approve... Anti-aircraft guns are clearly visible from the air by the exhaust of fire at the moment of firing. As soon as a burst of flame is detected, immediately dive towards it, otherwise you will miss it, and then you will have to wait for a salvo again... Well, what other questions do you have for me?
Why are there almost always more Japanese in air battles than us?
Because they still have more fighters here than we do. But that will soon change.
Questions began to pour in about tactics, about aerial shooting, about battle management, battle formations... Kravchenko answered them slowly, confidently, willingly, like a person who is being asked about a matter that completely absorbed him. Reasonably and with noticeable enthusiasm, he explained the reason for the discrepancies between theory and practice. The trouble with theorists is that they compare aircraft only based on flight tactical data, without taking into account the subtlest features of piloting techniques in air combat, especially when shooting. The I-16 is superior to Japanese fighters not only in speed, but also in terms of safety margins, which makes it possible to create large overloads in battle and, thus, increase its maneuverability... The main thing, Kravchenko repeated, is to attack, not to defend, to engage not in “choices” comfortable position for attack,” but strive for a deep combination of caution, maneuver and fire.
At other moments of this analysis, when the subject of the presentation became extremely clear, it began to seem that from now on I would act in the air in exactly the same way as this strong, stocky man with his quick, tenacious gaze. Impatience rose within me: let I-97 pin me down on the ground, now I won’t behave the same way as I did this morning.
Yes, Kravchenko’s advice fell on fertile ground. And when the analysis was over, the regiment commander, with ease, unexpected for his heavy body, took his place in the cockpit of the I-16 and went into the sky in a beautiful, swift handwriting, I very keenly felt how great the distance was between the experience he had and that what I managed to learn.
4A new airfield always looks uninhabited, like an apartment you just moved into. You compare it with an abandoned field - everything here is wrong: the distant approaches, the nearby buildings, the appearance of the parking lot, and workplace technique.
The airfield to which the squadron flew, although no different from the previous one, was still the same - bare steppe, endless sky, but we felt somehow constrained and unusual in the new place...
Trubachenko, standing near his car and worrying about every landing, did not take his eyes off the fighters flying over the ground. The pilots, who had already taxied their planes, approached him.
Well, now we can make not three attacks during an attack, but five,” Arsenin noted, “the front line is very close.”
So the Japanese will let you hang over them! Yesterday they sat down almost to the very front line,” Krasnoyurchenko objected.
You don’t have to think about fuel in battle - that’s enough! - Solyankin inserted. - If only they didn’t spot us here...
Where are you going?! - the squadron commander shouted at the top of his voice, as if the pilot, who had leveled the plane high, could hear him. - Hold it! Hold it!!! - Apparently, in the approaching twilight the ground was poorly visible, the pilot continued to pull the handle “towards himself.” The plane found itself in a landing position high from the ground - it was about to fall onto its wing...
Everyone froze in alarm. It would be a shame, without losing a single aircraft in battles during the day, to lose a combat vehicle at your airfield. The danger was so great that the thought of a catastrophe flashed...
The pilot, fortunately, noticed his mistake and sharply stepped on the gas. The engine roared. A thousand horsepower picked up the plane, and it, swaying from wing to wing, as if reluctantly increasing speed, climbed up... went into the second circle.
There was a general sigh of relief.
Someone said:
We should get here earlier.
Risky! - Trubachenko snapped. - The Japanese could detect the landing and navigate in the morning.
We kept our eyes on the culprit of the incident. How will he sit down? After all, the twilight has become even thicker, darkness descends on the earth. Conversations stopped. Even the gas station drivers jumped out of their cars...
Yes, he decided to just joke! - Krasnoyurchenko exclaimed when the plane landed perfectly.
Right! - others supported.
Well, now for dinner. And sleep,” Trubachenko said.
The lorry started moving.
On the way, we captured a pilot who had just landed. Nobody said a word of reproach to him. Tired, he was discouraged by his mistake and remained silent. Eight missions a day is almost three times the workload a pilot is thought to be able to withstand. But none of us wanted to show that he was less resilient than his comrade.
The car took us straight to the water tank, which occupied the most prominent place among the yurts.
Brothers Slavs, attack! - Krasnoyurchenko thundered.
The body of the semi was empty all at once.
Commissioner! Come on with the hose! - said Trubachenko, throwing off his tunic.
I grabbed the hose.
Uh, good! - he grunted, slapping his untouched body with his palms.
Zhora, brothers, needs to be washed more thoroughly,” someone joked about Solyankin, who was doused with oil from head to toe in flight today because the engine was damaged.
The oily one will approach Gala even more freely. But will he be able to kiss without a stand?..
A little mouse is always friends with a big mop!
And the mop with the mouse?
And there has never been a case in my life where it was crushed! - Krasnoyurchenko finished to approving laughter.
…Having been splashed with fresh water, it was as if we had washed away all the day’s fatigue and immediately felt a surge of fresh strength. The nerves calmed down, and everyone was glad to hear any cheerful word.
The morning depression was gone. We were not afraid of the difficulties of the upcoming struggle, and, satisfied with today's success, we now believed even more that we had enough strength to defeat the Japanese.
Diligently wiping his powerful chest with a towel, Arseny said:
Now I’d like to have a glass before dinner... I’m tired...
Yes, everyone began to eat poorly,” Krasnoyurchenko responded. - The heat and flights take their toll. And now all I want is some tea... If only I could drink and eat.
Poor Ivan Ivanovich, he is emaciated! I see that in the morning a new hole is punched in the belt - the old one no longer fits...
You, Solyankin, would be silent. No one is whetting our appetite.
5The earth, which had been calcined during the day, still breathed warmth, and there was complete calm. Without putting on our tunics, naked to the waist, we entered the yurt, illuminated by a small lamp powered by a battery. The prepared beds were neatly folded and lay against the wall. Dinner is laid out on white tablecloths stretched out in the middle of the nightmare, plates of appetizers are carefully placed, each person has a fork, knife and spoon covered with napkins.
Come eat! - a mustache cook in a starched, ironed white jacket, a friend from the previous airfield, invited.
Oh, yes, everything is prepared here, as if for a feast!
“We try our best,” the cook answered with dignity.
The view is good, let's see how the food is!
While they were choosing beds and packing their uniforms, two pots appeared on the tablecloths.
Here you are, fried lamb and rice as needed,” the cook announced. - The richer you are, the happier you are.
The ever-present Mongolian lamb! - Trubachenko stated with feigned enthusiasm, trying to maintain the mood. - Not a bad meal, for those who are used to it.
But his diplomacy failed.
The sheep have pinned us down and we can’t break away.
Rice all the way...
Oh, I'm tired of it, brothers...
Then I discovered the main surprise. Knowing that the senior technician of the squadron had pure alcohol for technical needs, the commander and I decided to give each pilot fifty grams for dinner (the front-line hundred grams had not yet been introduced, but life dictated their necessity).
At first, everyone doubted the seriousness of my words and took them for a joke.
Ivan Ivanovich, please be a toastmaster,” I said, turning to Krasnoyurchenko.
It made an impression.
Fourteen mugs lined up in a row. And the toastmaster, pouring out the contents of the flask, announced in a businesslike tone:
Everyone has forty-nine grams, and you,” he turned to the pilot who almost crashed on landing, “eighty, so that your nerves can calm down better.”
You didn’t bypass yourself either! - Solyankin looked into Krasnoyurchenko’s mug.
Zhora, shut up! - the toastmaster interrupted him. - It’s time for you, in the twenty-second year of Soviet power, to know that we don’t work for our uncle for free. And I measured out three and a half grams more for myself per bottle. In stores they charge more for this.
Then he turned to the cook:
Please explain to some youths how to properly, like a hunter, use this odorous liquid.
“What are you talking about,” the mustache guy was surprised. - Just born? Don't know how to use alcohol?..
“Daddy, we never drank it,” flight commander Misha Kostyuchenko answered for everyone with his usual seriousness. - For example, this is the first time I’ve seen him.
The cook twirled his black mustache in bewilderment and began to explain.
Trubachenko raised his mug and suggested:
Let's drink to the glory of Russian weapons!
Everyone liked the toast. Clink glasses.
Oh, how hot! “It even took my breath away,” Arsenin said, swallowing the sausage and pulling out a large piece of lamb from the pan.
Medicine never tastes good! - the toastmaster noted.
Medicine?.. - Solyankin was surprised.
Ivan Ivanovich, don’t invent! - Trubachenko interrupted him and explained in detail how the alcohol appeared.
Just a little more - and everything would be fine... - the pilot, who was leaving for the second circle, perked up.
Well, he has risen! - Arsenin was delighted.
It all turned out so stupid... - he continued, still under the impression of his mistake.
In aviation, anything happens. Such miracles happen that you can’t even imagine,” Solyankin responded sympathetically.
Ve-ve-es is a wonderland! - Krasnoyurchenko supported him. - I know a case when one plane, without a pilot, landed on its own. Moreover, he landed in such a way that the pilot could not always do it in such a place...
Pilots, like hunters, barely drink and immediately remember all sorts of unusual things! - Solyankin could not resist.
If you don’t want to listen and don’t believe, then don’t bother others,” Krasnoyurchenko snapped.
But Zhora didn’t say that he didn’t believe you. For some reason you began to admit...
Right! - Trubachenko picked up. “No one but you, Ivan Ivanovich, thought that you could tell tall tales.”
Everyone laughed. But Krasnoyurchenko, accusing us of disrespect for the toastmaster and unbridled ridicule, still told how the I-5 plane, abandoned by the pilot during a spin, landed on its own.
“Frankly speaking,” Trubachenko began in his patter, “today I thought about one I-97, that he, too, without a pilot, came out of a tailspin and sat down. And it was like this: in one junkyard there were probably fifty cars intertwined - both ours and the Japanese. I gave one I-97 from all points. He went up the hill, I followed him, I wanted to add, but the Japanese fell into a tailspin... A parachutist appeared. Well, I think he jumped out! Here I myself was attacked. I made a noise, and at the exit I glanced briefly at the parachutist - he was already running along the ground, and the I-97 was landing next to him. This, I think, is a miracle! The plane came out of the spin and landed on its own.
This may be,” Krasnoyurchenko confirmed. - Once the pilot jumped out, the alignment changed...
“I thought so too and reported to the regiment commander,” Trubachenko continued. - But Kravchenko called somewhere and it turns out that this is the story that came out: the pilot of the plane I shot down did not jump out with a parachute. Our infantrymen captured him when he was landing his car.
What about the parachutist?
He's from another plane, but from what plane, who the hell knows. There was a fight.
It turns out that the samurai spun on purpose so that you wouldn’t finish him off? - asked Krasnoyurchenko.
It turns out like this... They are being cunning.
In general, in such a dump it is impossible to monitor the results of your attack,” Solyankin said.
“That’s true,” I confirmed, remembering how rarely it was possible to find out what happened to the enemy after an attack. Sometimes moments arise that you simply cannot understand whether you need to pursue the enemy or defend yourself.
In battle, it is impossible to hold your attention on anything for a second. The jackals will immediately eat it up,” Solyankin continued. - Even in the formation of a unit, it’s difficult to hold on.
Well, that’s because none of you have yet learned how to work together as a group,” Trubachenko pointed out weightily. - You will fight more, you will stay in the group properly.
There was an awkward pause...
There was, of course, some truth in the words of the new commander. Pilot training is very important for maintaining order in battle, for maintaining formation... But the truth was also that everyone got away: both those who had little, only training experience in group flights, and those who participated in battles. The paradox was that young pilots were more likely to stay in the ranks. True, after landing they said that, apart from their leader, they saw nothing in the air... This means that the point here is not the pilots, but the very principle of the battle formation, which does not allow sudden evolutions, allows you to monitor only the leader’s wing, while how to conduct all-round visibility and group combat. All this suggested the thought: is it even possible in such large air battles, with dense formations, to maintain the battle order of a flight and a squadron? Many were inclined to think that a group could only hold out until the first attack; others came to the conclusion that battle formations needed to be built open.
But Trubachenko very categorically states that in battle it is necessary to maintain a strict, inviolable battle order. This cannot but cause surprise. And his remark about the fact that we don’t know how to stay in line because we haven’t fought much, sharply hurt everyone’s pride.
Trubachenko obviously noticed this and was the first to break the silence that reigned.
Don't you agree?
There are, of course, shortcomings in group cohesion,” Krasnoyurchenko answered, restraining himself, “but it’s not that bad... In the commotion of battle, the formation cannot be maintained: this is not a parade, you have to watch the air...
The presenter is responsible for the air! - Trubachenko cut off.
He's busy attacking! And if the wingmen do not see the enemy, they will be shot down immediately! - Arsenin objected. - And then they will finish off the leader himself. It is impossible to keep an eye on the air and the commander in a dense formation!
That’s what the presenter is for, to see everything,” Trubachenko stubbornly stood his ground. - Wingmen should only monitor the commander and cover him... Right, commissar?
I didn't agree with him either. In addition, I knew better the people who objected to him and the reasons why they did it. But it would be inappropriate to stir up this controversy here. I turned the conversation to another topic:
In terms of shooting, it’s really not very good for us. We didn't shoot much at the cone.
But this, as Major Gerasimov says, is fixable,” Krasnoyurchenko picked up, “just get closer to the enemy and hit him point-blank...
I remembered one attack by Ivan Ivanovich.
Today, during the catch-up, you almost stuck your guns into the I-97, and it, like a clay pot, crumbled. Clever! Gerasimov's advice was beneficial. But such a case may not always arise. We need to master shooting not only in a straight line, but also during any other maneuver.
Undoubtedly! - Krasnoyurchenko agreed. - We didn’t learn in peacetime, we’ll finish learning in battle.
Ivan Ivanovich’s broad, courageous face was illuminated with a proud, satisfied smile. He pushed the dishes away and, clearing his throat, said:
We've refueled well, now let's sing, brothers! And he started first:
... The attack thundered and the bullets rang,
And the machine gun was firing smoothly...
Everyone picked it up. The song sounded in full force, easily.
...Then Her blue eyes smiled at both of us through the smoke.
Arsenin glanced sideways at Solyankin.
Here they only smile at one.
Without interrupting the song, we also looked at George - without envy, without condemnation, but with that hidden, but always sincere kindness that is so dear in our military comradeship.
This reminded me of a recent incident that forced me to abandon the conversation with Galya.
One evening, when the pilots were getting into the car to go for the night, Solyankin came up to me and bluntly asked me to allow him to stay for an hour in the dining room.
“You see, in war you can’t even meet the girl you love without permission from your superiors,” I joked, noting with pleasure that in a combat situation people are not so embarrassed by their most tender, subtle, innermost feelings. - How will you get to the yurt later?
No! It won't work out that way...
Comrade commissar!.. - Solyankin begged.
Listen,” I interrupted softly. “It’s dangerous to walk alone at night in the steppe; you might run into Japanese saboteurs.”
Yes, I have a gun! - He patted the pistol holster.
I warned him that I would try to send the car.
Yes, war quickly brings people together, but even faster it can separate them forever...
Would you like me to read my creation? - Krasnoyurchenko suddenly bravely volunteered. He sold out more than others.
Let's! - they answered him in unison.
Ivan Ivanovich threw back his blond, thick hair with both hands and cleared his throat.
I love the Volga like my own mother,
The expanse of its wide banks
And on a calm day, and in a storm...
How they can excite the soul!
Sometimes you go out early in the morning
From the hut to the steep slope, into the open space.
Take a deep breath and straighten your shoulders -
And both strength and enthusiasm will boil in you.
You will catch the most delicious fish in a day,
You get tired and sit down by the fire.
The entire poem was written in this spirit, approaching the size of a small poem. We were attentive listeners and supportive critics.
Well done, Ivan Ivanovich, great! - we encouraged our poet.
“Perhaps it’s time to end this,” said the squadron commander; all that was left of the lamb were memories.
A few minutes later everyone was fast asleep.
6On July 3, attempts by Soviet-Mongolian troops to clear the western bank of Khalkhin Gol from the Japanese were unsuccessful. The next day, the enemy, with the support of large groups of bombers, tried to launch a counterattack, but this attempt was repulsed by our artillery fire and air strikes. Since dawn, aircraft from both sides hovered continuously over the battlefield. Up to 300 bombers and fighters simultaneously took part in fierce air battles.
By the evening, when the Soviet-Mongolian troops were preparing for a general attack along the entire front, bomber aviation was given the task of delivering a powerful blow to the enemy dug in on Mount Bain-Tsagan. Our squadron was entrusted with direct escort to cover the actions of the bombers.
While waiting for departure, I did not notice the soft afternoon sun, the endless expanses of the steppe, or the breeze lazily playing with the grass. I was suddenly overwhelmed by memories of home.
At first I simply counted the days that had passed since my departure. The period, it turned out, is not very long: it’s only the second month since I separated from my wife. But the abrupt change in the entire way of life and the thousands of kilometers that separated us created the impression that I had been in Mongolia since an infinitely long time ago. “I miss you,” I said to myself, surprised not by the feeling itself, but by that acute longing for my family, which I had never experienced before.
I wanted to know: what is the wife doing now? Right now, at that moment when I am standing near the wing of my plane, looking first at the command post, then in the direction from which the bombers should appear, but not really distinguishing either the command post or what is happening in the clear sky... And in general, where she? She probably didn’t stay in the military camp - she had nothing to do there. Most likely she went to see her mother, and then she will visit mine. Or maybe he’ll get a job as an agronomist again, and start living with my mother in the village... This option seemed to me the best, but I doubted it, firstly, because the position of an agronomist was probably already taken, and secondly, not knew whether Valya would want to work. After all, according to my certificate, she has enough money... Before leaving, we didn’t even have time to say a word about her work, about where and how she should live. And since the day the hostilities began, I have not written her a single letter. The last news left me was the day we arrived in Mongolia...
“How did this happen?” - I asked myself, extremely discouraged by this circumstance... The first flights, days of complete tension of all spiritual and physical strength... The severity of extraordinary impressions that captured me completely, the hard, dangerous work in which I lost myself. Then?.. Then I waited for the moment when not the words and feelings that were bubbling inside me would appear on paper, but others that could inspire calm, and I put everything off. Then once, and twice, and a third time I looked death in the face, heard its vile breath... and with renewed vigor, a hundred times more deeply, I realized how beautiful life is and how dear my closest, beloved person, Valya, is to me. I remember her eyes in the moments of departure, her words: “Go, dear. Duty is greater than anything else." The longer our separation, the stronger and stronger we will love each other - that’s what I’ll write to her today, as soon as I return from the battle. I will repeat this many times.
But the letter will not arrive earlier than in a month!
What are you thinking about? - Trubachenko asks, standing behind me.
I’m surprised, Vasily Petrovich, how poorly our mail works! We live in the age of aviation, and we carry letters on oxen. And when you think that you will write today, and you will receive an answer in two or three months, the desire to write disappears...
If the authorities had cared better, they could have allocated a plane... But the central newspapers arrive in three weeks, there is no radio... In general, we don’t know very well what is happening in the Union...
I reported to the regimental commissar Chernyshev. He promised to take action... What have you heard about the departure?
They postponed it for twenty minutes.
Okay, because not everyone has their guns loaded yet.
On our last flight we repelled a Japanese bomber raid. They met us with organized and strong defensive fire. I already knew from technician Vasiliev that one bullet hit the cockpit and passed right next to the commander’s head. We examined Trubachenko's plane with curiosity. A transparent plaster was glued to the front of the visor, exactly opposite the pilot’s face. I told the commander:
Although there are no miracles in the world, you miraculously survived this time!
Trubachenko muttered in a deep voice:
God knows, I didn’t control the bullet...
Even earlier, I noticed that he did not like to share his impressions of the fight. After that air battle, in which for the first time he had the opportunity to meet the pilots of the squadron and, so to speak, to show himself to his new subordinates, conducting an analysis, he gave only a general assessment of our actions and made several comments about the enemy’s tactics. Everyone was interested to hear, what did the commander himself experience in battle? What did you learn, what did you remember?.. It wasn’t like that! The liveliness, talkativeness, and meticulousness of Trubachenko that struck me when I first met was apparently caused by the significance of the moment itself: the lieutenant was taking command of the squadron. In general, he kept himself somewhat reserved. Conducting that first debriefing in a businesslike, dynamic style, he listened rather warily to the remarks exchanged between the pilots. “Do you want to know what they say about you?” - I asked when we were alone. He nodded his head. “Nothing bad so far,” I smiled. - “And that’s okay.”
Now, examining the trajectory of the bullet, I climbed onto the plane of his plane.
But you didn’t hide your head in your pocket, Vasily Petrovich? A very mysterious case.
What's so mysterious about this? It flew by and that's it.
Vasily Petrovich! I seriously ask you: explain how this could happen... You don’t have a steel skull, so that lead would bounce off it? - I insisted, seeing that the bullet should not have missed his head. - Or does this not concern you? It turns out like that person who was walking and heard that someone was being beaten from behind, turned around and saw that he himself was being beaten.
Just wait and pick! - and reluctantly throwing his body over the side of the cockpit, he sat down as if he were flying and, having approximately determined the direction of entry of the bullet, pointing with his hands, explained: “It entered slightly from above, shuffled against the headrest of the armored back and flew inside the fuselage. If I had been sitting upright, my forehead would have She didn’t miss mine.
It turns out that your head didn’t want to meet her and turned away on its own. She's cunning!
The head turned out to be more dexterous. I wouldn't have been able to do this myself.
They say that a smart head will never expose himself to a bullet in vain. What do you think? Where is the best place to attack Japanese bombers to avoid the kind of fire we ran into?
You need to take the regimental intelligence officer by the bootstraps, that’s his business.
While he is swinging, someone’s head will probably not have time to turn away from the bullet. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to think about it yourself.
In my opinion, there is nothing to be afraid of bombers,” Trubachenko said, “attack quickly from any direction, they won’t hit you.” And what they hit me with was the only hole in the entire squadron. It’s my own fault: I took too long to aim. At this time they drove in. Accidental hit!
Why random? They fired at you from every plane, and from no less than one or two machine guns! It is not easy to approach such a large, dense formation of bombers: there is fire all around.
But no one was shot down?!
What about other squadrons? After all, our squadron was the last to attack; the enemy’s formation was already broken. It was more convenient for us than the first! Maybe there are losses in other squadrons.
But you must admit that it is much safer to fight with bombers than with fighters.
Of course, you're right... But not entirely. Bombers do not fly without cover. You have to fight both them and the covering fighters at the same time.
That's the whole difficulty! - Trubachenko picked up. - If they flew without cover, we would beat them like partridges! But the fighters don't allow it. We need to somehow divert cover from the bombers.
But as? Tricky business! If during the last flight we had been distracted by enemy fighters even for a couple of seconds, we would not have been able to prevent the bombers from bombing. You see how it turns out... I, however, noticed the I-97 when they were already going after the bombers...
“I missed them too,” Trubachenko admitted and looked at his watch: “Ten minutes left... Listen, you did a bad thing yesterday by not supporting me.” We won't achieve order in the squadron like that.
It happens that newly appointed commanders, especially when their predecessors are dismissed as having failed, try to portray the order in the accepted units or units as much worse than it actually is. This is usually done in order to later highlight one’s work more clearly, and in case of any troubles or failures, to shift the blame onto the predecessor: the order, they say, was bad here, I have not yet had time to rectify the situation.
Trubachenko had just such habits.
Things in the squadron are not as bad as you imagine...
I am not an artist and I have no idea! - he seethed. - And as a commander, I make a remark!.. The pilots show indiscipline, break away from their leaders, and you protect them!
Well, you know, you do it like the good soldier Schweik: the whole company is out of step, one warrant officer is out of step.
But I am a commander, and you are obliged to support me,” he continued more calmly.
In everything reasonable... And yesterday at dinner you not only offended the pilots, Vasily Petrovich. As a commander, you incorrectly assessed the squadron’s preparation and made an erroneous conclusion about why our formations crumble in battle.
Why is it wrong?
But because Kravchenko says, and we ourselves began to understand that fighters cannot fight in such dense formations as we adhere to. The larger and denser the formation, the more finely it fragments at the first attack. Is it possible for a squadron, when attacked from behind by the Japanese, to simultaneously turn 180 degrees while maintaining formation? Of course not! And then you say: “wingmen should only monitor the commander and cover him.” And again I’m wrong: to cover means to see everything that is happening around, and not just the commander...
In five minutes? - Trubachenko cried. - What are they there?! Everything in the world has been mixed up again!.. I rushed to my plane.
7Our bombers appeared from the southwest, staying in a column of nines. The heat of the day had already subsided, the air was clear and calm. The planes flew without experiencing the jolts and shakes that were common on a hot afternoon. Waiting for us, the twin-engine vehicles made a circle over the airfield and, when we, eleven fighters, took our places at the back of the column, we headed for Khalkhin Gol. Along the route, the nines, closed inwardly, lined up in a line, as if in a parade, and floated smoothly, their wings glistening. We also closed in close, forming, as it were, the closing group of the entire column. None of us then thought that such a battle formation was very unfortunate for cover.
This was the first time I saw my bombers so close. In peacetime, we never had to fly with them and practice interaction training tasks. I carefully examined their light fuselages, the riflemen, ready at any moment to open fire on the enemy. With surprise and concern, I suddenly noticed that they could not defend themselves from below with their machine guns - from here the enemy had the opportunity to attack them without hindrance and hit them for sure. The Japanese from below must also be defenseless - the silhouettes of the enemy bombers, which we attacked “blindly” today, not knowing the layout of their on-board weapons, resembled the outlines of our SB...
My attention, as in previous flights, was not directed to closely monitoring the air and being the first to notice everything, but mainly to maintaining my place in the ranks. True, the experience of the battles was not in vain: busy with the formation, I still managed to glance around, looking at the upper and lower hemispheres. The composure and beauty of the formation was naturally disrupted, but is battle formation an end in itself? To get a better look at the bombers, I slightly increased the interval, moved away from Trubachenko to the side along the front - and how much easier and freer it became for me to observe the air! But maintaining my place in the ranks is a statutory requirement, and I again clung to the commander. Trubachenko suddenly turned his head sharply. I followed his movement and realized what was happening: a large group of Japanese fighters was looming on the side of the sun. The squadron's formation immediately opened wide, apparently everyone noticed the enemy. Before I could even turn my head completely, the group of Japanese began to grow in size. Descending, the enemy fighters walked straight towards the middle of our column. The squadron commander, protecting the bombers, turned to meet the I-97 attackers, dragging all the other pilots with him.
No matter how difficult it was to distinguish the enemy planes, covered by the sun, it was still possible to notice that not all Japanese fighters went over to attack our bombers - at least a dozen of them continued to remain at altitude. Meanwhile, the entire squadron, following the commander, had already clashed with a group of attacking Japanese.
I clearly saw how enemy fighters, lingering at altitude, rushed towards the column of our bombers, which were now left without cover.
Bound by battle, we fell into a trap skillfully placed by an experienced enemy. A few seconds - and the bombers will suffer a crushing blow. I tried to escape from the tangle of battle, but I couldn’t: there was a Japanese in my tail. Suddenly one of our “hawks,” like a fish, slipped out of the net and rushed to the defense of the bombers. One against ten? The Japanese, who had settled in the tail, burst into flames from someone’s saving burst, and I rushed after the lone man. It was Krasnoyurchenko. Three flights of Japanese fighters hung above us from behind. The two of us had to block their path...
This is how the second group appeared - a group of direct cover for the bombers, while the commander and the rest of the squadron pilots formed the strike group. This was the embryo of a new combat formation for fighters in joint operations with bomber aircraft.
The three units left by the Japanese for a decisive blow did not hesitate to attack.
“They’ll take us down, then the reprisal against the SB will begin,” this sharp, merciless thought pierced me as soon as I saw with what agility and inflexibility the I-97s, having superiority in altitude, rushed towards us. Should we turn around and expose the foreheads of our planes? It won't do anything. They will still break through. “What to do, what?” To continue flying in the tail of the bombers, snarling whenever possible, meant exposing yourself to being shot and achieving absolutely nothing: the enemy would hit the bombers before they were able to hit targets on Mount Bain-Tsagan, and the support so necessary for our ground troops would not will be provided...
No one has ever tried to explain to me what the intuition of an air fighter is; yes, I probably wouldn’t have listened very much to reasoning on such a vaguely specific topic. And in battle, an instant reaction, ahead of thought, entails an unexpected, sharp evolution of the machine. In the next moment, consciousness seems to be illuminated by a decision that perfectly corresponds to the entire logic of the development of the battle. Only after this I was able to appreciate the role of intuition in an air battle. This is exactly what happened in those seconds. Both of us, Krasnoyurchenko and I, had been fighting for the thirteenth day, which, of course, served as the decisive reason and explanation for our sudden and simultaneous rush in one direction - up into the sun. Abruptly, quickly falling away, we created the impression that we could not withstand the enemy’s onslaught and were fleeing. I had not yet completed the maneuver and was holding the car in a turn with a climb, when the clear thought of our next action, sudden and precise, inspired me, giving all movements some kind of cold calculation.
And everything was confirmed.
Of course, the Japanese fighters did not pursue us. And why? They understood perfectly well that if we, having a headroom, wanted to leave the battle, then they would not be able to catch up with us. But the main thing was something else: the most important goal was revealed to the Japanese - a column of Soviet bombers was marching ahead without any cover, on the tail of which, having broken up into links, they went without delay.
“They do it right!” - I thought, not without admiration, involuntarily appreciating the maturity of their tactical approach, which also indicates, among other things, that the armament scheme of our SB bombers is much better known to enemy fighters than we are to the location of firing points on Japanese aircraft. Now one link of enemy fighters, attacking from above, intended to attract fire from our shooters and thereby give the other two links the opportunity to approach the SB formation and shoot them from below, from the rear lower hemisphere, where the bombers are least protected. Finding ourselves to the side and above the enemy fighters, we understood that the Japanese, carried away by the pursuit of what they probably thought were defenseless bombers, did not see us and, true to their rule, would shoot for sure, only from a short distance. We must, we also had to strike for sure in order to get ahead of the insidious blow. And, hiding behind the sun, we went to the two lower links of the enemy.
Having dived sharply, we found ourselves behind the Japanese at firing range, as if at a shooting range, we took careful aim... And almost simultaneously, two Japanese fighters, not having time to open fire at close range, fell down, leaving behind a dirty trail of soot; the other four, stunned by the sudden death of their comrades, turned around abruptly...
At the same time, three I-97s above us continued to fire at the bombers, despite the powerful return fire from the turret machine guns. The enemy was so close above my head that for a split second I did not know what to do; Driven by the desire to quickly repel the attack, he rashly grabbed the control stick “towards himself” so much that he slipped into the interval between two enemy aircraft, forcing them to rush in different directions. This involuntary risky maneuver, which threatened a collision, finally repulsed the attack of Japanese fighters. “Here’s a stray ram for you, and no one would know how it happened,” I assessed my impulsive decision with cold sobriety.
Flakes of black anti-aircraft artillery explosions that grew in front forced me to pull to the right, to where the commander and the rest of the squadron pilots were fighting. It was not possible to complete this maneuver: an enemy flight fell on Krasnoyurchenko, and a couple fell on me. It seemed impossible to escape the attack by turning to the side - the enemy was so close to us; he will definitely take aim. There was only one thing left to do - fall down, abandon, leave the bombers without cover. We couldn't do this. At the risk of being shot down, they turned away, dragging the enemy fighters with them and hoping to delay their attack on the SB, which had already embarked on a combat course, at least for a few seconds.
The bombers were now surrounded by anti-aircraft artillery explosions from all sides, but they advanced through the fire without veering off course; It seemed to me that the entire column, disregarding the danger, out of spite to the enemy, seemed to slow down its movement, froze, so that the fearlessness and unyielding will of the Soviet fighters to victory became more evident.
It was impossible not to admire the amazing calm and confidence of the crews of our security forces in the midst of this seething hell. The fire on the planes was so strong that the sun seemed to darken... “Will this end soon? How slow they move!
And the bombers still walked smoothly and calmly: they were on a combat course, and in those moments the success of the entire flight was decided. How nice it would be if fighters not only escorted bombers, but also suppressed enemy anti-aircraft guns during bombing!
The Japanese fighters, fearing the fire of their own anti-aircraft guns, weakened the pressure and moved aside to take a convenient position for attacks. As soon as the tops of the explosions moved to the head of the column, they fiercely attacked both me and Krasnoyurchenko at the same time. Maneuvering sharply, creating inhuman overloads, we evaded Japanese fire for a few more seconds, delayed them... When I saw that our SB were throwing bombs, it seemed that my plane had become lighter and more mannered - as if it, too, had been freed from bombs...
The goals are covered, the task is completed. Now - home.
The Japanese fighters, unable to prevent the bomb attack, continued the battle with some kind of fury; Ivan Ivanovich Krasnoyurchenko and I were separated, and I lost sight of him.
Either hit by anti-aircraft guns, or damaged by fire from enemy fighters, one SB, which had just dropped bombs, suddenly fell out of formation and, smoking from the right engine, began to descend, unsteadily turning back. A flight of Japanese instantly rushed after him. I was fighting off two fighters when several of our I-16s arrived. It was Trubachenko who rushed to protect the bombers. Now they are safe! I rushed to rescue the stricken SB crew. A flight of Japanese were already catching up with him. He swooped down on them and sharply “broke” the car. My vision darkened. I let go of the handle a little and, seeing nothing, flew in a straight line for several seconds.
Then the silhouette of the enemy appeared again. Kissing...
There was no need to start shooting: fire flashed before my eyes, sparks flew, fragments rang... It seemed to me that the plane was falling apart from the fractional strikes. “Shot down! I didn’t look back…” I thought with bitter disappointment and without any energy. Instead of falling down like a stone, for some reason I looked back... And again the Japanese, sitting almost at the back of my head, doused me with lead... Smoke and gasoline filled the cabin, the engine stalled, and something burned my shoulder. I didn’t feel any fear: mechanically, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, I gave the control stick away from me. The flames hit my face.
“I’m burning. We need to jump!” While bringing the plane out of the dive, I simultaneously created a slide with my foot to disrupt the fire. Hastily unfastening his seat belts, he prepared to leave the plane by parachute.
What about the height? A look at the device - there is no height. You can't jump. Something changed before my eyes, it became quiet. Look: the fire in the cabin is gone. Obviously, he broke the flame by sliding. Engine, help out!.. The gas sector goes forward - the engine is silent... We must sit down... I lowered the landing gear.
My broad-browed handsome man, who had just been obedient and menacing, became helpless. A thousand horsepower died in it. The earth was inexorably approaching...
The steppe ahead was smooth and green, nothing interfered with the normal landing. Busy fighting the flames and preparing to jump, I forgot about the enemy. Now, in the ensuing silence, I remembered him again and looked around. Three Japanese fighters were hanging over the back of my head. Oh, how sinister they seemed!
The plane was descending quickly, and the low altitude did not allow me the slightest maneuver or parachute jump. In order to somehow interfere with the enemy, to bring down aimed fire, I was landing, carefully “slipping.” I no longer reacted to the small, dry crack of the machine gun, to the acrid smoke clouding the cabin. all attention was turned to the ground, to the landing. The only thing I can do is to land the plane; getting rid of the enemy is no longer in my power.
Relying on the armored back as a fortress, I pressed myself against it. He narrowed his shoulders, lowered his head and waited for the speed to die down. As soon as the plane touches the ground, you need to jump out of the cockpit, otherwise they will shoot you on the run...
But the shooting stopped, and the enemy fighter, almost touching my head with its wheels, rushed forward. “Yeah, we couldn’t resist! You’re slipping through!” - I rejoiced, noticing that the second Japanese plane was overtaking me, and the third would not be able to stay in the rear. I decided that now it’s not worth risking my bones and throwing myself out of the cabin during the run. It will be possible to wait for the plane to stop: the enemy will not have time to make another approach, turn around and fire at me... Suddenly the Japanese, who appeared on the left in such close proximity that I saw dark patches on the light fuselage, roared with his engine, blowing his jet under the wing of my plane. I didn’t have time to think whether it was an accident or a deliberate trick. I was thrown to the right, the earth and sky flashed, everything rumbled with a crash, began to squeeze, turn over all my insides, break bones... At that moment of emergency acrobatics, I could not figure out anything, as if all this was not happening in reality, but in a dream.
On the border the clouds move gloomily, The harsh edge is enveloped in silence. The Clock Homelands stand on the high banks of the Amur. There, a strong barrier has been put up for the enemy, There stands, brave and strong, At the edge of the Far Eastern land, the Armored Shock Battalion. They live there, and the song is a guarantee, An unbreakable friendly family, Three tank crews, three cheerful friends, The crew of a combat vehicle. The dew lay thick on the grass, and the fogs lay wide. That night the samurai decided to cross the border by the river. But reconnaissance reported accurately, And the team went and swept across the native land of the Far Eastern Armored Shock Battalion. Tanks rushed, raising the wind, Formidable armor was advancing. And the samurai flew to the ground under the pressure of steel and fire. And they defeated, the song is a guarantee, All enemies in a fire attack Three tankers, three cheerful friends, The crew of a combat vehicle.
Have you heard this song? Did you sing this song? Do you know what it all looked like in practice?.. *** The summer of 1989 has passed the mid-point. The sun of the heroic era was setting. For the half-century anniversary of the battles near the Khalkhin Gol River, the BT-5RT standing on a granite pedestal was painted with fresh green paint, and the sign “To the tankmen of the Red Army Yakovlevites - winners over the Japanese in the Battle of Bain-Tsagan on July 3-5, 1939” was updated. A veteran of the USSR tank forces, who arrived as part of the Soviet delegation to the friendly Mongolian People's Republic, came closer to him, squinted his blind eyes, as if trying to find out - was it mine or just the same? "Do you remember, brother?" – the tanker mentally asked. “Of course,” the tank responded, “How can you forget this?” *** Waterless, bare Mongolian steppe, not a single bird, no animals. There are no roads - only directions. They are unmasked by the track knurled by wheels and tracks - even, except for the occasional salt marshes crossed. Cars go, moving from track to track, and there is an infinite number of them, because the steppe is as smooth as a table. Completing a grueling eight-hundred-kilometer march, BT-5 and BT-7 tanks from the 11th Tank Brigade M.P. are rolling along. Yakovleva. A motley company of armored vehicles - FAI, BA-20, BA-3, BA-6 and BA-10 - have already settled down at the concentration point. A lively conversation immediately ensues between representatives of related branches of the military. Armored cars are old-timers of these places. The Special Motorized Armored Brigade and the Special Motorized Armored Regiment were created in the Trans-Baikal Military District back in February 1936. In August, in the Ural Military District, the 2nd Separate Territorial Rifle Regiment was reorganized into the 7th Motorized Armored Brigade (in other districts, armored cars were used mainly in reconnaissance units). In June 1937, the Special Motorized Armored Brigade and the Motorized Armored Regiment were transferred under their own power to the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic. In August, the 7th Brigade approached them, its commander N.V. Feklenko became commander of the 57th Special Corps. In 1938, the Special Motorized Armored Brigade became known as the 9th, and the Special Motorized Armored Regiment became the 8th Motorized Armored Brigade. Three motorized armored brigades constituted the main striking force of the Red Army in Mongolia - 3 months before the start of the fighting in the 57th Special Corps, there were almost twice as many armored cars as tanks (537 versus 284). *** Brothers in arms get to know each other and exchange experiences. They speak briefly but succinctly about themselves and the opposing enemy. And without embellishment. You can’t underestimate the enemy, but you definitely shouldn’t overestimate either. As well as your strengths. The armored vehicles showed good maneuverability and endurance in the desert. Light armored cars are held in high esteem because of their mobility. They are used by the command, communications delegates, orderlies, and intelligence officers. Fast armored cars are used to deliver hot food and ammunition to forward positions under fire, and so on. The armor of the BA-20 and FAI is easily pierced by a large-caliber machine gun, but cannot be penetrated by a machine-gun armor-piercing bullet. Alas, the BA-20 and FAI are best as communication vehicles, but are weak for combat. The armor of the BA-3 and BA-6 cannon armored cars is also susceptible to the armor-piercing bullet of a 13.2 mm machine gun. The newest BA-10 cannot be penetrated by a heavy machine gun. The BA-10 is the best of the armored cars, but the engine is weak and the clutch is not always reliable; when pushed, the spring brackets burst. But the powerful weapons - a 45-mm cannon and two machine guns - could be the envy of even Japanese tanks. In addition, two spare wheels mounted vertically on rotating supports help the BeAshkas overcome uneven surfaces. As in the BA-6, in the “ten”, in addition to the main 42-liter gas tank installed behind the engine, the unfortunate designers placed an additional 52-liter tank on the left in the upper part of the body. The gas tank hangs above the heads of the commander and driver and when a shell hits them, it spills onto their heads. The crew always jumps out with their clothes on fire. But rifle and machine gun fire does not harm the wheels. Even a hit from a 37-mm shell does not disable the gun, but makes a neat hole and the machine continues to work. Armored vehicles are often used for active reconnaissance of heavily fortified Japanese defense units, identifying strong points, bunkers and bunkers - in fact, this was reconnaissance in force: the vehicles were deliberately exposed to fire in order to expose enemy firing points. *** This war was strange: to the right and left were endless, unprotected steppes, and only here, on an area of 50-60 kilometers, were light field fortifications erected along the ridge of hills. Cavalry or tanks could bypass all this through the steppes, going a hundred kilometers to the side. But it was in this area that the bloodiest battles took place for four months. And while maneuvering within this strip, the opponents never pushed it aside by more than 5-10 kilometers. In 1932, the occupation of Manchuria by Japanese troops ended. The puppet state of Manchukuo was created on the occupied territory. The conflict began with the demands of the Japanese side to recognize the Khalkhin Gol River as the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia (the old border ran 20-25 km to the east). About fifteen kilometers from the border between Mongolia and Manchuria, the first spurs of the Khingan Range began. The Japanese built the Kholun-Arshan railway along these spurs from the southeast to the northwest in such a way as to bring it to our border, as close as possible to Chita. In the Khalkhin-Gol section, the Mongolian border jutted out towards Manchuria, and the Japanese had to either build a road here through the spurs of the Khingan, or build it within gun range of a potential enemy. Try to negotiate? Exchange of territories, monetary compensation? What for? “I’ll buy everything,” said the gold. “I’ll take everything,” said the damask steel. And the capture of the Khalkhin Gol River strip and the adjacent heights was supposed to ensure the construction of a strategic railway line, which stopped just before the Tamtsag-Bulak ledge. *** On May 11, 1939, a detachment of Japanese cavalry numbering up to 300 people attacked the Mongolian border outpost at the height of Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo. On May 14, as a result of a similar attack with air support, the Dungur-Obo heights were occupied. Therefore, on the Japanese side, the Khalkingol events are usually called the “Nomonhan Border Incident.” Mongolia responded by requesting support from its ally, the USSR. Soviet armored vehicles received their baptism of fire on the Khalkhin Gol River on May 20, when the Bashki of the 9th Motorized Armored Brigade attacked a Manchurian cavalry detachment that had crossed the border. The infantry fell behind, and the armored vehicles acted independently, knocked out the cavalry from the sandy hills and pursued them to the border, defeating the cavalry regiment headquarters. Four BA-6s, stuck in sandy soil, were shot by Japanese artillery and burned along with their crews. Therefore, in the battles of May 28-29, armored vehicles went on the attack with Overall track chains mounted on the wheels of the rear axles. Thanks to this, the armored cars did not get stuck in the sand and could maneuver, making it difficult for enemy artillerymen to conduct aimed fire at them. On June 20-25, a company of armored cars of the 234th armored battalion of the 8th motorized armored brigade, having gone behind enemy lines, took part in a raid on a Japanese military town in the Debden-Sume area, losing 2 BA-10 and 1 BA-3, moreover, trying to evacuate a stuck in the swamp and the BA-3 was knocked out, the BT-5 tank also got stuck in the swamp and was burned. *** Tanks are mostly praised. The BT-5 is good - fast, powerful, reliable, although the gas tanks are poorly located, with a large side area, and are vulnerable to armor-piercing incendiary shells. The armor is also insufficient: the Japanese 37-mm anti-tank gun, even from medium distances, took the BT head-on. But, although 37-mm blanks penetrate the armor of our tanks even from a kilometer distance, their effectiveness is not high: it happened that our BT and T-26 returned from battle with several holes, but under their own power and without losses in crews. BT-7 is even better. Armed with a 45 mm cannon and three DT machine guns. Aviation engine running on gasoline with water cooling. On hard ground or a good road it can walk on wheels, developing high speed, although the main type of propulsion is a caterpillar drive. *** The Japanese do not have such tanks. Samurai have even thinner armor, a weak gun, poor visibility, lack of viewing devices, instead of which there are wide slits, poor placement of weapons with large “dead zones”. Our tower “forty-five” BeAshek and BeTushek punches right through them. Soviet vehicles boldly enter into single combat with Japanese tanks, emerging victorious each time. There is no need to be seriously afraid of Japanese tanks, they are real coffins. Just like aviation, horizontal bombers operate aimlessly, focusing more on areas, so the likelihood of a Japanese bomb directly hitting a tank is close to zero. But shrapnel may be enough for a light tank... We suffered heavy losses from Molotov cocktails. The Japanese dug narrow slits, lay down in them, let the tank pass above them, and threw a bottle into the stern. Many of our people were burned like this. Japanese suicide bombers also use mines on long bamboo poles. With such poles they rushed at the tanks and blew them up along with themselves. But after we introduced a checkerboard battle formation for a tank platoon during an attack and established interaction with the infantry, losses from miners and “bottle makers” began to noticeably decline. *** But the T-37A received a low rating: unsuitable for attack and defense. They are slow-moving, their caterpillars fly off, and they cannot walk on sand. Due to weak armament (one disc-fed rifle-caliber machine gun), wedges were used only to support infantry. T-26s were discredited in the summer of 1938 in the battles near Lake Khasan, where a third of the 257 vehicles of the 2nd separate mechanized brigade A.P. were lost. Panfilov, as well as the 32nd and 40th tank battalions. Moreover, command tanks with handrail antennas visible from afar were almost completely knocked out on the first day of fighting. A separate discussion is about “chemical” T-26s. The Japanese are afraid of them like fire. Why? Yes, because they just spit fire. Flamethrower tanks, yeah. When they approached the strongest centers of enemy resistance, military equipment was on fire, engineering structures, the ground and everything around were on fire, ammunition depots exploded, enemy soldiers jumped out of holes and crevices, throwing everything and running away wherever they could. Throwing bottles of gasoline set tanks and armored cars on fire, and when hit by anti-tank shells, almost all tanks and armored cars also burn and cannot be restored. Setting vehicles on fire by the enemy has a very bad effect on the morale of the crews. The fire breaks out in 15-30 seconds, producing intense flames and black smoke, visible from a distance of 5-6 kilometers. After 15 minutes, the ammunition begins to explode, after which the tank can only be used as scrap metal. *** The moral and volitional qualities of the enemy are discussed separately. The rank and file are well trained, especially for close combat, fighting hand-to-hand to the last man. Disciplined, efficient and tenacious in battle, especially in defensive combat. The junior command staff is very well prepared and fights with fanatical tenacity. The officer corps is poorly trained, has little initiative and is inclined to act according to a template. In general, the samurai fought angrily, clinging to every hill. We had to literally chew through their defenses. And yet we defeated them. The Japanese cannot be denied either courage or perseverance. They fought desperately and inflicted significant losses on us. They had to be knocked out, burned out from literally every trench, dugout, and every crevice. There were no defectors from the Japanese side. And the Barguts who fled to us know nothing about the location and number of Japanese units. The difficulty of obtaining information about the enemy was aggravated by the absence of civilians in the area of operations. We received the best data from reconnaissance in force. However, this data only covered the front line and nearby firing positions. Reconnaissance aircraft provided good images of the depth of the defense, but given that the enemy widely uses dummies and other deceptive actions, we must be very careful and establish through repeated checks what is real and what is false. Counterintelligence is easier in this regard. At first, the Japanese tried to send plainclothes spies from Outer Mongolia who posed as locals. And then, when the real Arats, at the call of the Mongolian government, migrated deeper into the country, every civilian encountered in the zone of hostilities was already under suspicion. The Mongolian troops, having received experience, hardening and support from units of the Red Army, also fought well, especially their armored division. Tactically and technical equipment Our troops are significantly higher than the Japanese. Japanese aviation beat ours until we received an improved Chaika and I-16, moved airfields closer to the front line and completed the squadrons with experienced pilots. Our artillery has so far been superior to the Japanese in all respects, especially in shooting. But what will happen next?.. Having finished talking, the armored units began to crawl along the caponiers, loudly clanging their tracks in the night silence of the steppe. Tomorrow morning we will get up early, and what the coming day has in store for us is unknown to any mortal. *** Meanwhile, at the headquarters of General Komatsubara's 6th Army Group, two determined Japanese commanders were assigned a combat mission under a plan entitled “Second Period of the Nomonhan Incident.” The Japanese brought up all three regiments of the 23rd Infantry Division, two regiments of the 7th Infantry Division, the cavalry division of their puppet state of Manchukuo, two tank regiments and an artillery regiment. In total, the command of the Japanese army concentrated up to 38 thousand soldiers and officers for the new border operation, supported by 310 guns, 135 tanks and 225 aircraft against 12.5 thousand soldiers, 109 guns, 266 armored vehicles, 186 tanks and 280 aircraft of the Red Army and Mongolia. - So, there will be two blows in total - the main one and the restraining one. The first is carried out by Major General Kobayashi with three infantry and one cavalry regiments. He will have to cross the Khalkhin Gol River and reach the crossings behind the Soviet troops on the eastern bank of the river. Lieutenant General Yasuoka strikes the second blow against Soviet troops directly on the bridgehead with the forces of two infantry and two tank regiments. Thus, the round-eyed gaijin will find themselves caught on a tiny spot, like a louse between their nails. And we will get even with the long-nosed, yellow-haired barbarians for last year’s defeat at Lake Khasan. Let's show the damned fighters that their vaunted technique is worth nothing against the unbending fighting spirit of the sons of Amaterasu! Forward, for the glory of the divine tenno! Ten thousand years to the Emperor! *** The Yasuoka group's attack lasted from the morning of July 2 until the night of July 3. Of the 73 tanks, 41 were lost. On the night of July 3, Soviet troops retreated to the river, reducing the size of their eastern bridgehead. From July 1, the defense on the bridgehead was occupied by the 9th motorized armored brigade, which had 4 rifle companies of incomplete strength and 35 BA-6 and BA-10. In the night battle, the armored battalion, at the cost of the death of three vehicles, held its position, repelling three attacks by Japanese infantry armed with bottles of gasoline. On the night of July 2-3, Kobayashi’s group crossed the Khalkhin Gol River, capturing Mount Bain-Tsagan on its western bank, located 40 kilometers from the Manchurian border. The Japanese concentrated their main forces here and began to intensively build fortifications and build layered defenses. At 12 noon on July 3, the Soviet positions on the east bank of the river were attacked by more than 70 tanks of the 3rd and 4th Japanese tank regiments. Up to 40 Japanese tanks took positions against 12 BA-10s of the 9th motorized armored brigade, which began to slowly retreat. The brigade commander, Colonel Oleinikov, stopped the company and placed it behind a dune with an extended turret. When the Japanese tanks were less than a kilometer away, the armored vehicles opened fire. As a result of the two-hour battle, 9 tanks were knocked out and destroyed, while 6 BA-10s were damaged, but remained in service. In the neighboring area, which was occupied by the 149th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by armored cars of the 9th Motorized Armored Brigade and a BT-5 company, another 10 Japanese tanks were knocked out, of which 4 destroyed armored vehicles. As practice has shown, cannon armored cars are an excellent anti-tank weapon in defense in the presence of semi-closed positions (behind a dune or in a trench). An attack by Japanese tanks without infantry and artillery preparation does not bring any results other than losses in tanks. The basis of the Japanese 3rd Tank Regiment was 26 Type 89 Otsu medium tanks, which did not have an armor-piercing projectile for their 57-mm cannon. Their fragmentation grenades did not cause significant damage to our armored cars. The majority of the 4th Tank Regiment's vehicles were 35 Type 95 (or Ha-Go) light tanks with 37 mm cannons. However, the low anti-tank qualities of Japanese tank guns allowed the more powerful and long-range 20K guns to shoot the Japanese from long distances. By the end of the fighting, the Japanese had lost almost all of their armored vehicles. *** Meanwhile, Divisional Commander Zhukov, who replaced Feklenko as commander of the Special Corps, began preparing a flank attack on the Japanese troops attacking the bridgehead. To do this, on the night of July 2-3, units of the 11th Tank and 7th Motorized Armored Brigades, as well as the armored division of the 8th Mongolian Cavalry Division and the 24th Motorized Rifle Regiment began to concentrate. Soviet units were scattered at a distance of 120-150 km from Khalkhin Gol. According to the original plan, in the middle of the day on July 3, they were supposed to cross to the eastern bank of the river north of the point where the Japanese began crossing at night, with the task of pushing the Japanese back from our bridgehead. By 6 am, two Japanese battalions crossed the river and immediately moved south. At 7 a.m., advanced armored units moving toward their initial positions for a counterattack encountered the Japanese. This is how information was received about the Japanese crossing and the direction of their attack. *** Zhukov’s assistant in command of the Mongolian cavalry, Corps Commissar Lkhagvasuren, was gloomier than a cloud. The senior adviser to the Mongolian army, Colonel Afonin, brought bad news: units of the 6th and 8th Mongolian cavalry divisions could not prevent the Japanese from crossing the river and gaining a foothold at Mount Bain Tsagan. When attempting to counterattack, the cavalry division was scattered by Japanese planes. Moreover, no one told him about this. -Yes, I am ashamed now for my compatriots. They fled in panic and did not dare to show their shame. But you should have already noticed that the Mongol cavalry is sensitive to air raids and artillery fire and suffers heavy losses from them. We are ready to fight an enemy that is known and understandable to us - be it Bargut horsemen or Japanese infantry. But how to fight the winged demons falling on you from the very sky? Remember, you yourself mentioned in the order how well the driver of the armored vehicle Hayankhirva performed in battle. And he is just as Mongolian as we are. So, not all Mongols are cowards? This means that we can fight valiantly when we are equal to the enemy by the powerful equipment you have entrusted?.. So, maybe it’s worth learning how to better manage the troops that you have, taking into account both their advantages and disadvantages? *** Zhukov makes a risky decision to attack a Japanese group of unknown composition and number with all the mobile reserves advancing from the rear. As the participating forces approach, the three tank battalions of the 11th Tank Brigade and the 247th Armored Battalion of the 7th Motorized Armored Brigade launch four uncoordinated attacks. The armored battalion attacked on the move after a 150-kilometer march, while the tank battalion attacked on the move after a 120-kilometer march. Later they were joined by the 24th motorized rifle regiment of Colonel Fedyuninsky. Air strikes were also carried out on the Japanese who had crossed. SB bombers and I-15bis fighters of the 22nd Fighter Aviation Regiment operated. With the fire of their machine guns, they shot the infantry in shallow trenches and the servants of the artillery guns. The heavy artillery division of the 185th artillery regiment was ordered to send reconnaissance to Bayin-Tsagan and open fire on the Japanese group. At the same time, an order was given to the artillery located across the Khalkhin Gol River and supporting the 9th Motorized Armored Brigade to fire at the enemy on the mountain. In this situation, Zhukov violated the requirements of the Battle Regulations of the Red Army, and his own order: “I forbid introducing tank and armored units into battle against an enemy who has gained a foothold and has prepared a defense without serious artillery preparation. Upon entry into battle, these units must be reliably covered by artillery fire in order to avoid unnecessary losses." The division commander acted at his own peril and risk, but in that situation the decision made turned out to be correct - at any cost the Japanese could not be allowed to cut off our group on the bridgehead from crossings. * ** At three in the morning the tank company of the 11th Tank Brigade was ordered to rise. Then exercise, wash and prepare for breakfast. But there was no need to have breakfast - the order came at 7:20 to move to the area of ruins, where the enemy is trying to cross the Khalkhin Gol River. Time limit - four hours. Take the starting position by 11:20. By the end of the sixth hour, instructions and formation of vehicles in marching order were completed. At the beginning of the seventh, we began to pull out the columns. We arrived at the indicated line ahead of schedule. The Japanese began continuous bombing of our units. In 10:45 received an order: remove everything unnecessary from the tanks and prepare weapons for battle. Explosions of shells were heard all around - both ours and the enemy's. There was a smoke screen on the horizon. *** The preparation was short-lived. The company commander's BT-5 rolled up to the battalion commander's BT-7. - Be a friend, explain this moment to me. If after Spain someone misunderstood something, then last year’s meat grinder on Khasan should have proved to everyone three simple truths. Tanks don't move forward without reconnaissance - that's it. Tanks do not move forward without infantry - that's two. Tanks don't move forward without artillery - that's three. And then suddenly “hello, I’m your aunt” - be gentle, immediately attack the unidentified enemy with “naked” tanks. And how should we understand this? - Vasya, don’t freak out, the personnel will hear. Did you receive the order? Is the combat mission clear? - That's right, comrade commander. Clear as day. But it’s incomprehensible to my humble mind who this Zhukov is and where did he come from on our heads? Feklenko, by the way, completed advanced training courses for command personnel at the Academy of Motorization and Mechanization, has been sitting in Mongolia for almost two years, and then it suddenly turns out that he does not know the specifics of using tanks in desert areas. But the deputy commander of the Belarusian Military District for cavalry knows, who would doubt it. And at the same time they exchanged the chief of staff of the corps, Kushchev, for Bogdanov. Of the old guard, only divisional commissar Nikishev was left; the rest, in fact, were Varangians. And now we alone, with a dashing Horse Guards attack, must disperse the entire Japanese army - is this how it works? - It turns out, Vasily, that I am now obliged to remove you from the car. Hand over the company to your political instructor, and then write a report on why you refuse to carry out orders in a combat situation. - Yes, I don’t refuse! I just can’t understand why we’re going to bang our heads against the wall now... - Still, you lack the breadth of thinking. Have you already forgotten how in school we solved tactical problems on fir cones in Chapaev’s style? Look at the map, from Mount Bain-Tsagan to the confluence of the Khaylastyn-Gol river into Khalkhin-Gol, no more than twelve kilometers. If the Japanese get through them, then between our headquarters in Hamar-Dab and the guys on the bridgehead there will already be two water obstacles and not a single crossing. And this means that the samurai must one way or another be pushed back to their shores. At any cost and as quickly as possible, before they bite into the ground head over heels. What is the price - no need to explain? - No need. Forgive the fool. But Suvorov also said: “Every soldier must understand his maneuver.” *** Standing on the narrow nose of the "Bete Fifth", the company commander held with one hand the barrel of the "forty-five" slightly turned towards the side, while the other waved in the air, as if slashing Kolchak, Yudenich, Denikin and Wrangel with an invisible saber at once: - Go boldly! Full throttle! Don't be afraid of anyone! A Soviet tank will go everywhere! He'll run over everyone! Cannon, machine gun, tracks - our weapons! Speed, pressure and maneuver are our defense! Whoever is scared, brothers, is half beaten! Whoever flinches first will miss the shot! There won't be a second one! Let the sand fly into the cracks, let the thirst torment you, and to hell with it, the heat. Don't lose your head, guys! Act as in the exercises - and victory will be ours! *** At the signal from the battalion commander, the advance began. At 11:20 there was a stop, then a turn “all around” and the cars went along the shore of Khalkhin Gol. All with open hatches. At least grab a breath of fresh air on the march, sticking your head in a leather helmet out of a hot tin can. And the review will be much better this way. Unexpected shell explosions around the tanks forced the hatches to be closed and work began in combat mode. The entire surrounding world narrowed to a cramped fighting compartment with countless hard corners. Of all the feelings and perceptions, the most important remains what can be seen through observation devices - a blurred, smoke-filled, jumping piece of reality the size of a palm. The tanks moved to attack. Bullets hit the armor. As we moved forward, enemy fire intensified. Close explosions of shells burst into the monotonous roar and roar of the tank. At high speed, the armored vehicles slipped through the barrage of artillery fire and reached the positions occupied by the Japanese. Close combat began. The Japanese fired from all sides, trying to destroy the tanks. Grenades and fuel bottles were thrown at the armor. The slightest stop - the tank died. A detachment of enemy cavalry appeared ahead. A cannon shot and two long bursts from a machine gun. The cavalrymen scattered in different directions. The infantrymen were hiding in the grass, but as soon as the tank passed, they got up and tried to catch up with the car. The company commander's BT-5 was the first to reach Mount Bayin-Tsagan, losing sight of his tanks. It is useless to go deeper alone. U-turn. Once again the Japanese shied away and at the same time fired at the tank. And then the car received a strong blow to the rear - the engine stalled. The immobilized tank began to rotate its turret 360 degrees, firing from a cannon and a machine gun. Finally the engine started, but the gears did not turn on. A few more jerks of the gear shift lever - and the tank was in motion again. Endurance and self-control won. Suddenly, half a dozen burning tanks were in sight, surrounded on all sides by the Japanese. A volley into an enemy concentration. Is there any of our people still alive there?.. *** Intuitively taking the direction to the west, the company's BT-5 came out a kilometer and a half from the enemy. Soon several more tanks from different companies approached the improvised “assembly point”. In total, the tankers spent five hours in continuous combat that day. Outerwear was wet with sweat. The tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth. The tank's armor, cannon and machine gun were heating up. I absolutely didn’t feel like eating. The heat is terrible. Drink, just drink, but there was no water - the flasks had long since shown the bottom. Therefore, they drank water from the radiators, without discerning what its taste and color were. The nearest drinking water was in Khalkhin Gol with its tributary Khaylastyn-Gol and in Lake Buir-Nur. And further to the rear for many kilometers there are only white salt marsh lakes, from which you cannot drink. Water was transported from afar and saved. *** The captain, who arrived in a light armored car, conveyed the brigade commander’s order to support the attack of the 6th Mongolian Cavalry Division. But the tanks had no ammunition and were almost running out of gas. Only two BTs were able to go on the attack. The company commander decided to place the vehicles on a ledge. - I'm going ahead. Stay a little behind and to the right. If they knock me down, you come forward. Behind us is an armored car. His task is to evacuate the wounded and not to engage in battle. Any questions? No questions. Crews, get to your cars! *** In a tank with the hatches closed, you see almost nothing around - only in front of you. The battle is practically not remembered, only the brightest pieces of fragmentary memories later appear before my eyes. How the Bargut horses rushed behind the cracked triplex... How a suicide bomber with a long pole ran towards the tank and fell, cut off by a machine-gun burst... How, fifteen meters away from the tank, a Japanese soldier quickly rushed across the tank, quickly bent down and planted a mine... How the driver sharply pulled the lever, the car was thrown to the right, a blow to the forehead, softened by a cotton with the roller of a tank helmet - the danger has passed. And the ringing blow of a blank in the front part of the native BTshka. The death rattle of a mechanic driver throwing a tank onto a squat gun with a wooden shield with his last effort. And his own voice, barely recognizable: “Leave the car! With weapons!” And the loader, jumping out onto the wing with a revolver in his hand. And someone else’s guttural cry: “Tenno heiko banzai!” as soon as my feet touched the ground. And a revolver shot, synchronized with the blow of the sword. And your own shot at the already falling Japanese officer. And the bottomless blue sky in the forever-frozen eyes of the boy whom you just recently scolded for being slow in feeding discs to the diesel engine and loading shots from the ammunition rack. And then you’re already sitting in the stuffy, cramped BA-20, with someone’s legs in front of your face, your shoulder painfully pressed against the side, a machine gun firing above your head. And you fall asleep on the move... And in the evening, at the unit’s headquarters, you listen with dull bewilderment that all the company commanders and political instructors in the battalion have been eliminated. Except for you, gloomily drowning out the nausea rising in your throat with weakly diluted alcohol. And you are now in command of all the remaining tanks brought into your company. So now you are almost a battalion commander. “Well, lucky guy, congratulations! Prepare a hole for the order, Vaska! Hey, what are you doing?.. Don’t fall!.. Help, I’m holding him! Doctor, quickly!” *** While the advanced units of the 11th Tank Brigade fought from 8:45 a.m., the 247th armored vehicle battalion of the 7th motorized armored brigade began its attack only at 15:00. The armored cars were given the task, operating on the enemy’s left flank along the shore of Khalkhin Gol, to destroy the Japanese group in the area of three lakes, 10 km northwest of Mount Khamar-Daba. No reconnaissance was carried out before the attack. The battalion went on the attack in two echelons: the 1st and 2nd companies were in front, the 3rd was behind the 2nd. Each company marching in the first echelon allocated three vehicles for reconnaissance at a distance of 300-500 m. When passing the front edge of the enemy’s defense, the armored vehicles in reconnaissance were allowed through by the Japanese without opening fire. The enemy did not reveal himself until the main forces of the battalion arrived. When the first echelon appeared at the front line, it was shot at point-blank range by 37-mm shells. Artillery fire was directed mainly at command vehicles equipped with radio installations. *** The captain, commander of the armored battalion, read out the combat order in the presence of the brigade commander. The engines of the armored cars did not have time to cool down after the march; a number of vehicles were still being pulled up and refueled. - At the line of burning tanks there are enemy infantry and cavalry. Moving along a combat course towards burning tanks, attack and destroy the enemy at this line. This is the first task, you will receive the next task later. Do not bring vehicles close to the trenches - the enemy throws bottles of gasoline. For combat readiness, remove everything on the armor - mask nets, tarpaulins, and so on. Questions? There were no questions. More precisely, there was one, but you can’t ask it out loud. The attack line is burning tanks. These are the same tanks with which last night we sang to the accordion, “The order was given for him to go to the west,” “There lights were lighting up in the distance across the river,” “In the distant Tsushima Strait,” “The Dream of Stepan Razin,” “Poviy, vitre, na Ukraine"? Of course, the same ones. What else? This means there is no need to think about it now. This is simply an attack line. Just. Frontier. Attacks. *** When approaching a given line, all vehicles moved with open hatches. When the shots rang out, the commander gave the signal: “Enemy, platoon turn around and close the hatches!” Two hundred meters before the front edge, the armored cars came under hurricane machine-gun and cannon fire. As the battalion approached the burning vehicles on Mount Bain-Tsagan, 4-5 armored cars of the 1st and 2nd companies immediately caught fire. There were 150 meters left to the defending enemy; he was firing from the right and from the front. The armored vehicles responded with cannons, and during loading, with machine guns. The first shots were fired on the move, then the armored vehicles, knocked out one after another, began to fire from the spot. And a stationary target is a gift for an artilleryman. Japanese shells smashed engines, jammed turrets, made holes in gas tanks, and pierced the fighting compartment when someone tried to fire a frontal machine gun. There were more and more burning cars; the armored cars behind us turned back and went to the rear. The 3rd company almost did not enter the battle, and only one of its vehicles was disabled. The rest, seeing the burning armored cars, did not go further. The crews jumped out of the shot armored vehicles. Some frightenedly pulled on gas masks, having swallowed smoke from a burning car. Some crawled back, some were picked up by their comrades who remained on the move, some brave souls managed to start their damaged heads and, continuously maneuvering, pull the car back. The attacking armored battalion choked on its own blood. In forward companies, materiel losses reached 90%. Battlefield, deathfield, glory field - one field... *** And yet the Japanese wavered. Bombarded by continuous attacks from armored units, the Yamato warriors experienced terrible confusion. They could not have foreseen a tank attack of such a scale. The horses ran away, the cars sped off in all directions, and the personnel lost heart. Without waiting for the attacks to continue, at 20:20 on July 3, the commander gave the order to withdraw troops from the bridgehead captured in the morning. As of July 4, the group of Japanese troops on Mount Bayin-Tsagan found itself semi-encircled. By evening, Japanese troops held only the top of the mountain - a narrow strip five kilometers long and two kilometers wide. The crossing lasted all day and ended only at six in the morning on July 5. All this time, the Japanese crossing were subjected to artillery fire and air attacks. SB bombers carried out two sorties a day, but were unable to bomb the Japanese crossing. I-16 fighters with 20-mm cannons were also involved in air attacks. The Bain-Tsagan massacre became mutual. The Japanese will no longer dare to cross Khalkhin Gol. And at the foot of Mount Bain-Tsagan, behind the retreating descendants of the samurai, the souls of the dead tanks, who paid their price for our victory, went into the sky in black columns of smoke. And for the not devoid of poetry Japanese officer, the funeral pyres of burning Russian tanks were like the smoke of the steel mills in Osaka. Of the 133 tanks participating in the attack, 77 vehicles were lost, and of 59 armored cars - 37. *** The Japanese would launch two more attacks on the bridgehead on July 8-11 and July 24-25. They will also be repulsed at the cost of very painful losses. In the night battle on July 8, the commander of the 149th Infantry Regiment, Major I.M., died heroically. Remizov. One of the hills recaptured from the Japanese will be named after him. In one of the counterattacks on July 11, the commander of the 11th Tank Brigade, M. Yakovlev, died, raising the lying infantry, which did not want to follow the tanks. This disease of “lying tightly” will haunt the Soviet infantry for a long time - from the Finnish forests to the Stalingrad steppes. In the battles of late July - early August 1939, parts of the motorized armored brigades would support their infantry, operating in their battle formations, while the tank brigades would remain in the rear, licking their wounds. And on August 20, the freshly appointed corps commander G.K. Zhukov will repeat his “sickle strike”, stopped by the Japanese at Bayin-Tsagan. Alekseenko's 11th Tank Brigade, replenished with new vehicles and revived old ones (as of July 20, the brigade already had 125 tanks), will bypass the Japanese group from the north. The newly arrived 6th Tank Brigade is from the south. The next day they would be joined by the 8th motorized armored brigade, and on the second day of the offensive by the 9th. The armored cars will penetrate the Japanese rear and there, at a depth of up to 20 kilometers, they will form barriers against retreating Japanese units and incoming reserves. By the end of the day on August 23, the main forces of the 6th Army would be surrounded on Mongolian territory, unable to retreat towards China, which they occupied. On August 24, four regiments of the Japanese army went on the offensive from the territory of Manchuria, but were driven back by the 80th Infantry Regiment covering the border. Breakout attempts on August 25-28 will be successfully repelled with the active support of armored vehicles. The resistance of the remnants of the 6th Army will be suppressed by the morning of August 31. Of the twenty thousand caught in the ring, about two hundred people will be captured. From these figures it is not difficult to guess the degree of fierceness of the fighting. *** General Michitaro Komatsubara the next day after the ring of our troops closes around his units, he will fly to Manchuria. After the quick defeat at Khalkhin Gol, the Japanese army would have no reserves left either in the battle area or on the approach. The Soviet-Mongolian troops will have a tempting opportunity to march one hundred kilometers to the Hailar railway junction in 2-3 days and occupy it without much resistance. And while our units, having reached the state border of Mongolia with the strictest orders to remain on it, will dig in and erect barbed wire barriers, Komatsubara will launch feverish activities to imitate heroic defense. Having gathered together a couple of railway battalions, a little Bargut cavalry, the remnants of some infantry regiment that had escaped the encirclement and a combined police regiment, he will begin to send victory reports to Tokyo about how valiantly he is “holding back the onslaught of Soviet troops and not letting them into Manchurian territory.” . But the unlucky general, who abandoned his two divisions to certain death, will not wash away the shame of unconditional defeat even by organizing the “successful defense” of the Manchurian border and, having received a far from honorable discharge, in 1940 he will commit seppuku, like many officers from his formations who do not want to tarnish their honor . *** The fighting will end only on September 16, 1939. Japanese losses in 4 months will exceed 60 thousand people (of which about 25 thousand are irrevocable). Ours are about 20 thousand (including 6831 people killed and 1143 missing). And 120 tanks were broken and 127 burned out. True, some were evacuated and restored, since the battlefield was ultimately ours. As well as 129 armored cars destroyed and 270 damaged. And the new crews, who received a tank from repair with welded holes and dents from bullets and shells, will at first find it a little scary to settle into someone else’s crypt. And then gradually they will get used to their car, starting to consider it their home. *** As Georgy Zhukov later wrote: “The experience of the battle in the Bayin-Tsagan area showed that in the form of tank and mechanized troops, skillfully interacting with aviation and mobile artillery, we have a decisive means for carrying out rapid operations with a decisive goal.” Marshal of the Soviet Union Kulik assessed the actions of the motorized armored brigades: “Armored brigades are essentially armored cavalry, more suitable for protecting borders and internal order, they are not able to conduct infantry combat. However, they played a big role in the first period of hostilities, but suffered heavy losses.” . And one destroyed tank, as you know, is an unkilled infantry platoon. We could afford to sacrifice technology instead of people. The Japanese are not. *** It was a good lesson. And the samurai learned it. After Japan's defeat in the border conflict, Prince Konoe admitted to the German Ambassador Ott: "I understand that it will take another two years to achieve the level of technology, weapons and mechanization that the Red Army showed in the battles in the Khalkhin Gol region." At the negotiations that took place after the end of the fighting, the representative of the Japanese command, General Fujimoto, told the chairman of the Soviet commission, Zhukov’s deputy, brigade commander Mikhail Potapov: “Yes, you put us very low...” Even when the Germans stood near Moscow, Japan did not dare to come to the rescue to his ally Hitler - the memories of the Khalkingol defeat were still too fresh. The successful completion of military operations at Lake Khasan and on the Khalkhin Gol River saved the USSR from the serious threat of a war on two fronts.
The fight was fading. Machine gun and rifle shots were heard in the distance. Somewhere on small hills and hills and just in the fields the last groups of Japanese were wandering. They were finished off in minor skirmishes, but the war was already ending. War correspondents - the poet Konstantin Simonov and the writer Vladimir Stavsky - were returning from the front line to the waiting headquarters "emka". We had to go through a small hollow—about two hundred meters long. Here and there, on the slopes of hills and mounds, the blackened skeletons of our burnt tanks and armored vehicles were visible. Near one of them, a light, connected armored car froze, its front wheels buried in a Japanese trench and its machine-gun barrel buried in the ground. Next to him, boots were sticking straight out of the ground. Apparently, the dead crew lay here, somehow covered with sand. “I got it, little one,” Stavsky said tenderly. When they got into the car, Simonov came up with the idea: “It would be nice to erect, instead of any ordinary monuments, in the steppe on a high place one of the tanks that died here, battered by shell fragments, torn apart, but victorious.” Stavsky sharply argued: “Why put up rusty, broken, that is, defeated, iron as a monument to victory! Since the tank was one way or another broken or damaged, it is not suitable for a monument.” Volodya Stavsky will die in 1943, never having seen how many such monuments now stand after the war. And just such a monument-tank was erected on Mount Bain-Tsagan.
This is where he walked. There are three rows of trenches. A chain of wolf pits with oak bristles. Here is the trail where he backed away when his tracks were blown up by a mine. But there was no doctor at hand, and he stood up, suffering from lameness, dragging the broken iron, and falling on his wounded leg. Here he was, breaking everything like a battering ram, crawling in circles in his own wake, and collapsed, exhausted from his wounds, having bought the infantry a difficult victory. By dawn, in soot and dust, more smoking tanks arrived and together they decided to bury his iron remains deep into the earth. It was as if he asked not to bury him, Even in a dream he saw yesterday’s battle, He resisted, he was still threatening with his broken tower. So that the surrounding area could be seen far away, We built a burial mound above it, Nailing a plywood star onto a pole - A feasible monument over the battlefield. If they told me to erect a monument to all those who died here in the desert, I would put a tank with empty eye sockets on a granite hewn wall; I would dig it up as it is, In the holes, in the torn sheets of iron, - Unfading military honor Is in these scars, in the burnt wounds. Having climbed high onto the pedestal, Let him rightfully confirm as a witness: Yes, victory was not easy for us. Yes, the enemy was brave. The greater our glory.
Konstantin Simonov, "Tank", Khalkhin Gol, 1939.
On May 11, 1939, an undeclared war began on Khalkhin Gol, which in its intensity and the amount of equipment thrown into battle was not inferior to many events of the Great Patriotic War.
Bayin-Tsagan
Perhaps none of the events at Khalkhin Gol in May-September 1939 causes as much controversy as the battle for Mount Bain-Tsagan on July 3-5. Then the 10,000-strong Japanese group managed to secretly cross Khalkhin Gol and begin moving towards the Soviet crossing, threatening to cut off the Soviet troops on the eastern bank of the river from the main forces.
The enemy was accidentally discovered and, before reaching the Soviet crossing, was forced to take a defensive position on Mount Bayin-Tsagan. Having learned about what had happened, the commander of the 1st Army Group G.K. Zhukov ordered the 11th brigade of brigade commander Yakovlev and a number of other armored units immediately and without infantry support (Fedyuninsky’s motorized rifles got lost in the steppe and reached the battlefield later) to attack the Japanese positions.
Soviet tanks and armored vehicles launched several attacks, but, having suffered significant losses, were forced to retreat. The second day of the battle came down to constant shelling of Japanese positions by Soviet armored vehicles, and the failure of the Japanese offensive on the east bank forced the Japanese command to begin a retreat.
Historians still argue how justified the introduction of Yakovlev’s brigade into battle from the march was. Zhukov himself wrote that he deliberately did this. On the other hand, did the Soviet military leader have a different path? Continuing the Japanese movement towards the crossing promised disaster.
The Japanese retreat is still a controversial point in Bain-Tsagan. Was it a general flight or a systematic, organized retreat? The Soviet version depicted the defeat and death of Japanese troops who did not have time to complete the crossing. The Japanese side creates a picture of an organized retreat, pointing out that the bridge was blown up even when Soviet tanks drove onto it. By some miracle, under artillery fire and air strikes, the Japanese managed to cross to the opposite bank. But the regiment that remained in the cover was almost completely destroyed.
Bayin-Tsagan can hardly be called a decisive tactical victory for one of the sides. But in strategic terms, this is, of course, a victory for the Soviet-Mongolian troops.
Firstly, the Japanese were forced to begin a retreat, suffering losses and failing to complete their main task - the destruction of the Soviet crossing. Moreover, throughout the conflict, the enemy never again tried to force Khalkhin Gol, and it was no longer physically possible. The only set of bridge equipment in the entire Kwantung Army was destroyed by the Japanese themselves during the withdrawal of troops from Bain Tsagan.
Next, Japanese troops could only conduct operations against Soviet troops on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol, or wait for a political solution to the conflict. True, as you know, the enemy expected something completely different.
Among the Soviet commanders who distinguished themselves at Khalkhin Gol, an exceptional place is occupied by Mikhail Pavlovich Yakovlev, the commander of the 11th Tank Brigade, which bore the brunt of the fighting at Khalkhin Gol.
Participating in hostilities for only 10 days, Yakovlev carried out a number of operations that largely predetermined the turning point in the entire conflict.
Having been defeated in the battle of Bayin-Tsagan, the Japanese command concentrated its main efforts on actions against the Soviet-Mongolian troops on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol. Several large-scale attacks were carried out on the position of the 149th Infantry Regiment, and on July 12, a group of three hundred Japanese with heavy machine guns managed to get to the Soviet crossing.
Zhukov instructed Yakovlev to eliminate the threat on his own responsibility. The outcome of the battle was decided by the Soviet chemical tank, sending a stream of fire into the center of the enemy position. Steadfastly withstanding artillery fire, tank and air attacks, the Japanese always retreated before flamethrower tanks.
Japanese soldiers tried to escape at the bottom of a huge basin several tens of meters in diameter, where they were surrounded and destroyed. There were no prisoners in this battle. The basin, where several hundred Japanese soldiers met their death, received the gloomy name “grave of the samurai.”
However, this battle was the last for brigade commander Yakovlev. It is often said that he died in a damaged tank - the commander’s wristwatch is kept in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces, with the glass knocked out by the force of the explosion.
According to another version, Yakovlev died from a bullet from a Japanese shooter while raising infantry to attack. Posthumously, Yakovlev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The name of the brigade commander was given to the 11th brigade, which he led, and later to the tank regiment of the MPR army.
The brigade commander’s grave in Chita, unfortunately, was abandoned and forgotten, and during the construction of a health and entertainment complex on the site of the old Chita cemetery in 2009-2011, it was completely lost.
"Cannes on the steppe"
On August 20, 1939, Soviet troops launched a powerful offensive, fighting to encircle the Japanese group. The main attack was planned to be delivered from the north, however, due to inconsistency of actions, the first attacks were not successful.
Having decided that the main blow would be delivered in the southern sector, the Japanese command sent the main reserves there. Meanwhile, the Soviet troops concentrated on the northern front delivered a new powerful blow, which turned out to be fatal for the enemy. The ring has closed around the Japanese group. The battles for destruction began.
How many Japanese soldiers were surrounded? How many managed to break through? - this question still remains open. The number of people surrounded and destroyed inside the ring was often estimated at 25-30 thousand people. The Japanese themselves were very evasive about their losses. When they were allowed to take away the bodies of the dead, they did not specify how many bodies they needed to find.
In total, 6281 bodies were handed over to the Japanese, and it is no longer possible to say how many enemy soldiers remained in the sands of Mongolia. Officially, the Japanese side recognized the loss of 8,632 people killed and 9,087 wounded during the entire conflict (excluding the losses of the Barguds). Most of them fell on the 7th (a third of the personnel were lost) and 23rd divisions (more than two-thirds of the personnel were lost).
On August 28, 1939, Zhukov sent a victorious report to Moscow about the complete destruction of a large enemy group, which Voroshilov and Shaposhnikov treated very carefully, pointing out: “As expected, there were no divisions surrounded, the enemy either managed to withdraw the main forces, or, what or rather, there have been no large forces in this area for a long time, but there was a specially trained garrison, which has now been completely destroyed.”