Ural Volunteer Tank Corps March 11th, 2015

On March 11, 1943, the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was created under the command of General Rodin.
History of creation:

The Ural Volunteer Tank Corps (UDTK) is a unique tank formation that was created by overtime work of Ural workers with voluntary contributions from residents of three regions - Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Molotov (now Perm Territory).

The idea of ​​creation tank corps arose in the Urals during the days of the completion of the defeat of Nazi troops at Stalingrad. In the newspaper "Ural Worker" January 16, 1943. a note “Tank Corps Beyond Plan” was published, which talked about the initiative of tank building teams: to produce in the first quarter of 1943. in excess of the plan, as many tanks and self-propelled guns as necessary to equip the tank corps; at the same time train combat vehicle drivers from among their own volunteer workers.

A letter was sent to the Chairman of the State Defense Committee in which the Ural workers asked permission to form a special volunteer Ural Tank Corps named after Comrade Stalin. February 24, 1943 A telegram in response came from Moscow: “We approve and welcome your proposal to form a special volunteer Ural Tank Corps. I. Stalin." February 26, 1943 Commander of the Ural Military District, Major General A.V. Katkov issued a directive on the formation of UDTK. 110 thousand applications were submitted voluntarily, which was 12 times more than was required to complete the corps, and 9,660 people were selected.

The UDTK's combat route was over 5,500 km, of which 2,000 km included combat, from Orel to Prague. During the two years of participation in the Great Patriotic War, the tank corps liberated hundreds of cities and thousands of settlements. For skillful military operations, heroism, courage and bravery of the Ural volunteers, Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin expressed gratitude to the corps and units 27 times. The corps was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov, II degree, and the Order of Kutuzov, II degree. During the Great Patriotic War 42,368 orders and medals were awarded to the corps soldiers, 27 soldiers and sergeants became complete gentlemen Orders of Glory, 38 guardsmen of the corps were awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union, and Colonel M.G. Fomichev was awarded this high title twice.

Since 1945 units of the division began planned combat training as part of a group Soviet troops in Germany (GSVG), carried out combat missions to support the activities of the Government of the GDR. Throughout its entire time on German soil, the division was considered one of the best tank formations of the GSVG.

Battle of Kursk.

The soldiers of the 4th Tank Army received their baptism of fire north of Orel in the summer of 1943, in the battle of the Kursk Bulge. The army arrived on the Bryansk Front on the eve of the fighting that began on July 5, 1943, and during the counter-offensive of Soviet troops it was brought into battle in the Oryol direction.

The Ural Volunteer Tank Corps had the task: advancing from the Seredichi area to the south, cut off the enemy’s Volkhov-Khotynets communications, reach the area of ​​​​the village of Zlyn, and then straddle the Orel-Bryansk railway and highway and cut off the retreat routes of the Oryol group of Nazis to the west. And the Urals completed their task.

The actions of the Ural Tank Corps, together with other front formations, created a threat of encirclement of the enemy’s Oryol group and forced it to retreat.

The first salute of the Motherland on August 5, 1943 - to the valiant troops who liberated Orel and Belgorod - was also in honor of the Ural volunteers.

Shakhovo-Bryansk forests - Unecha.

Due to the fact that the corps was tasked with capturing the Shakhovo station and, by cutting the Orel-Bryansk railway, cutting off the paths of the retreating enemy, it was transferred during August 5-6 to the area north of the village of Ilyinskoye. Once again the tankers came into combat contact with the enemy.

The order was carried out - the corps broke through the deeply layered defense of the Nazis, liberated dozens of settlements and cut the Orel-Bryansk railway.

The Sovinformburo report for August 9, 1943 reported: “West of Orel, our troops, continuing to advance forward, occupied the Shakhovo railway station (34 km west of Orel) and a number of settlements. In the battles in this area, the enemy suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment. Captured enemy soldiers and officers reported that their 253rd Infantry Division had lost up to half of its personnel in battle over the past three days."

The next day, parts of the corps crossed the Orel-Bryansk highway and continued the offensive to the southwest, contributing to the liberation of the city of Karachev.

On August 29, 1943, the corps was put into reserve to be replenished with personnel and equipment. Only the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, supplemented by men and the remaining combat vehicles of the Chelyabinsk and Perm brigades, received the task: supporting the actions of the 63rd Army to break through the enemy’s defenses, cut the Bryansk-Lgov, Bryansk-Kyiv railways, and, having made a roundabout maneuver behind enemy lines, assist liberation of Bryansk and Bezhitsa.

In September 1943, units of the corps participated in the liberation of a number of settlements in the Bryansk region. The 30th motorized rifle brigade of the corps, reinforced with tanks, came under the temporary command of the mobile group of troops of the Bryansk Front, which had the task of cutting off enemy communications Bryansk - Pochep, Unecha - Klintsy, Novozybkov - Gomel with a swift strike.

On September 23, together with other units, the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade stormed the city of Unecha. To commemorate this victory, the brigade was given the honorary name "Unechskaya". It became the first unit of the corps and the 4th Tank Army to receive such an honor.

Less than three months after the Ural volunteers entered their first battle People's Commissar Defense of the USSR, by order of October 26, 1943 No. 306, transformed the 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps into the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. All units of the corps were given the name Guards.

On November 18, 1943, units and formations of the corps were solemnly awarded the Guards Banners. Delegations from Ural workers took part in this event. The guardsmen reported to their fellow countrymen about their first military successes.

Volochysk - Kamenets-Podolsky.

In January 1944, Soviet troops completed preparations for the second stage of the battle for the liberation of Right Bank Ukraine from the Nazi invaders. The 1st Ukrainian Front, which included the 4th Tank Army, was given the task of defeating two enemy tank armies and building on success in the southwestern direction. Tank crews were called upon to play a responsible role in carrying out this task.

On the eve of the offensive, the Ural Tank Corps received an order: enter the breakthrough in the 60th Army zone, quickly straddle the Proskurov-Ternopil railway and highway in the Volochisk area and cut off the escape routes of the Proskurov enemy group to the west.

On March 4, the corps began carrying out a combat mission in the Yampol area. The Sverdlovsk tank brigade was moving in the vanguard. The offensive took place in harsh conditions spring thaw, which caused great difficulties in maneuvering artillery, led to a lag in the rear.

The enemy, with superior forces of tanks and infantry, launched continuous counterattacks on the tankers' positions. The Nazis managed to break through to the sugar factory and cut off the guards from the main forces of the corps. Volunteers from the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, the Unech Motorized Rifle Brigade, and two batteries of a self-propelled regiment repelled the onslaught of enemy tanks, self-propelled guns, and infantry for six days, destroying and knocking out 40 Tigers, Ferdinands, and many other equipment.

On March 10, Major General Evtikhiy Emelyanovich Belov, deputy commander of the 4th Tank Army, was appointed corps commander. He took over the formation from Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Georgy Semenovich Rodin. In the first days of the war, the new corps commander commanded a tank regiment and even then proved himself to be a courageous and skillful commander. General E.E. Belov first of all took all necessary measures to ensure that the corps held the line railway on the section Fridrikhovka - Voitovtsy. The enemy, who had previously pushed back parts of the corps, was driven back 15-17 kilometers.

The Chelyabinsk tank brigade, after stubborn fighting, reached the Romanovka area and, in cooperation with the soldiers of the 60th Army, repelled the fierce attacks of the Nazis from Ternopil. Thus ended the first stage of the operation.

On March 21, the Urals received an order to continue the offensive and capture the city of Kamenets-Podolsky. After a short artillery barrage and an air strike, units of the corps broke through the enemy’s defenses and, having repelled three counterattacks, captured a number of populated areas. The Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade especially distinguished itself in this battle.

The Sverdlovsk and Perm tank brigades liberated the city of Gusyatin, capturing three trains with tanks and artillery, warehouses with food, uniforms and ammunition.

On March 24, the Chelyabinsk tank brigade, in cooperation with the mechanized brigade of the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps, captured the town of Skala on the river. Zbruch, defeating several units and rear institutions of the enemy army group "South", capturing large trophies and cutting off the enemy's escape route from Kamenets-Podolsk in a southwestern direction.

Tanks of the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade at top speed, with headlights on, firing from cannons and machine guns, burst into the village of Zinkovtsy, on the outskirts of the city. The stunned enemy fled in disarray, leaving behind about 50 guns and mortars and other military equipment.

The Unecha motorized rifle brigade and the Guards mortar regiment on the morning of March 25 reached the northwestern outskirts of the city. Other units of the 4th Tank Army approached the city from the north and south.

On March 25 at 17.00, a simultaneous assault on the city from the north, south and west began with a salvo of guards mortars. The attack was so swift that the Nazis did not have time to blow up all the mined bridges, the power plant and a number of enterprises. Only the bridge connecting the Old and New Towns was blown up.

By the morning of March 26, the guardsmen of the Ural Tank and 6th Mechanized Corps completely cleared Kamenets-Podolsky of the enemy, but the fighting for it continued for another 6 days. The enemy group, surrounded northeast of the city, began to make its way to the west through the battle formations of the 4th Tank Army at the end of March. The enemy tried to drive the Soviet troops out of the city, but he failed, despite his superiority in manpower and equipment. The defenders of Kamenets-Podolsk fought to the death.

The enemy launched sixteen attacks in a week and retreated to their original positions sixteen times.

For these battles, the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. More than five thousand soldiers were awarded orders and medals.

Ural-Lvovsky.

In the summer of 1944, the Ural Tank Corps took part in the offensive operation in the Lvov direction.

On July 17, the commander of the 4th Tank Army assigned the corps the task of entering the breakthrough and advancing after the 3rd Guards Tank Army, destroying enemy reserves. Carrying out this task, the corps captured the town of Olshanitsy by July 18.

In connection with the changed situation, the front command set the 4th Army the task of “capturing the city of Lvov with a swift strike bypassing the city of Lvov from the south in cooperation with the 3rd Guards Tank Army.” This was a new task - not to bypass Lviv, but to storm it.

The offensive was planned for the morning of July 20. But the enemy transferred reinforcements and the stubborn resistance of the enemy troops did not allow our tankers to capture the city on the move. Only on July 23, the corps began fighting on the southern outskirts of Lvov.

Through the joint efforts of the 4th Panzer and the 60th Panzer, the city of Lvov was completely liberated.

On the same day, Moscow saluted the troops. The volunteer corps became the Ural-Lvov Corps. The Guards Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, the 72nd Heavy Tank Regiment, the 359th Anti-Aircraft Regiment and the 1689th Anti-Tank Fighter Regiment also received the name Lvovsky.

Continuing the offensive, the corps reached the Dniester River in the Rudka area, but here it met stubborn enemy resistance. For several days, the 4th Tank Army pinned down a large enemy group here, and on August 7 it struck in the direction of the city of Sanok, pushing the enemy to the Carpathians. This played a significant role in holding the Sandomierz bridgehead, captured on the left bank of the Vistula by the main forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

In the period from August 11 to 15, the corps, like other formations of the 4th Tank Army, was transferred to the Sandomierz bridgehead to strengthen its defense. Operating in the zone of the 5th Guards Army, the corps, together with combined arms formations, struck at enemy units that had launched a counteroffensive and thwarted their attempts to reach the Vistula. In September the defense became stable.

On October 21, 1944, Colonel N.D. Chuprov was appointed commander of the corps, and General E.E. Belov again returned to the post of deputy commander of the 4th Tank Army.

At the end of 1944, the 1222nd Novgorod Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, later renamed the 425th Guards Regiment, became part of the corps.

From Vistula to Oder.

On January 12, 1945, the Vistula-Oder operation began. The fascist command created a powerful defense across the Vistula and pulled reserves from the depths of Germany.

The 4th Tank Army received the task of building on the success of the 13th Army and, smashing the enemy’s reserves, entering the path of his Kielce-Radom group.

On January 12, the army commander ordered the commanders of the Ural Tank and 6th Mechanized Guards Corps to begin moving to break through the main forces. The forward detachment of the corps, consisting of the Chelyabinsk tank brigade with two companies of the 72nd heavy tank regiment, two batteries of the 426th light artillery regiment and an engineer company of the 131st separate engineer battalion, overtaking the infantry battle formations, came into contact with the enemy.

By the end of January 12, the enemy’s defenses were broken through and the Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade continued its successful offensive.

Despite numerous enemy counterattacks, parts of the corps continued to advance forward.

The soldiers of the Perm Tank Brigade under the command of SA Colonel Denisov made a great contribution to the destruction of the Kielce-Radom group of fascist troops. The brigade crossed the Czarna Nida River in the Moravipa area and contributed to the liberation of the city of Cologne, a major administrative and economic center of Poland.

In connection with the capture of the city of Kielce, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief announced on January 15, 1945, gratitude to the personnel of the corps; the Perm brigade received the name “Kelecka”.

On January 18, units of the corps crossed the river. Pilica and, together with units of the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps, captured the city of Piotrkow. The Chelyabinsk tank brigade, which took an active part in the liberation of the city, received the name "Petrokovskaya".

On January 19, the corps captured the cities of Belchatow and Werszow. The Sverdlovsk tank brigade quickly reached the Warta River near the city of Burzenin and captured it.

On January 24, all parts of the corps reached the Oder. Five hundred kilometers were left behind, covered from the Sandomierz bridgehead in 12 days.

The attempt to take the city of Steinau on the move failed. The command resorted to a workaround maneuver. January 26, south of the city, the Oder River was crossed by the Unecha motorized rifle brigade using improvised means under heavy enemy fire, seizing a bridgehead in the area of ​​​​the settlements of Tarksdorf and Diban.

For reliable support motorized rifle troops, an urgent transfer of tank units of the corps to the Keben area was organized. After the successful completion of the crossing, the corps struck from the west to the enemy's rear. On January 30, Steinau was taken and the tankers reached the bridgehead occupied by motorized riflemen.

In Silesia.

In February - March 1945, battles broke out in Lower and Upper Silesia. The 1st Ukrainian Front was given the task of defeating the enemy's Silesian group, reaching the Neisse River line and taking more advantageous starting positions for subsequent attacks in the Berlin and Dresden directions.

On February 8, front troops began the Lower Silesian operation from bridgeheads on the Oder. The Ural Tank Corps was ordered, together with formations of the 13th Army, to strike at Sorau, Forst.

After the capture of Sorau, parts of the corps continued their offensive and reached the Neisse River near the city of Forst. On February 21, the corps, like other formations and units of the 4th Tank Army, was withdrawn to the front reserve for replenishment with people and equipment.

For the successful completion of combat missions during the Lower Silesian operation, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief twice expressed gratitude to the corps personnel on February 14 and 15, 1945.

On March 15, 1945, the 1st Ukrainian Front began the Upper Silesian operation, the purpose of which was to defeat the Oppeln-Ratibor group of fascist German troops opposing the southern wing of the front. To accomplish this task, two strike groups were created: northern and southern. The northern group included the 4th Tank Army.

The army command assigned the Ural Tank Corps the task: together with the 117th Rifle Corps of the 21st Army, strike the enemy and reach the Neustadt-Sultz area.

On March 17, the corps crossed the river. Neisse. After completing the crossing, the corps moved to Neustadt and part of its forces to Sulz. By the evening of March 18, the Sverdlovsk tank brigade captured the city of Neustadt on the move. The main forces of the corps reached the Sülz area, where they linked up with units of the 7th Guards Mechanized Corps. The encirclement of the enemy Oppeln group was completed.

On the same day, March 18, a telegram was received from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief about the transformation of the 4th Tank Army into the 4th Guards Tank Army. This news was received by the tankers with great enthusiasm.

The surrounded Nazi formations and units made desperate attempts to escape from the cauldron. An order was received to destroy the enemy.

By the morning of March 22, the encircled enemy group was completely eliminated. Following the destruction of the enemy Oppeln group, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front were to capture Ratibor, a stronghold and industrial center Upper Silesia. The 4th Guards Tank Army took part in solving this combat mission together with the 60th Army. The Ural tank crews were ordered to concentrate in the Leobschütz area on the night of March 24-25. On March 25, the corps was brought into battle to build up the attack of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps.

Trying at all costs to retain the western part of the Upper Silesian basin, the only coal and metallurgical base, the Nazi command brought here several formations removed from other sectors of the front, including the 16th and 17th Panzer Divisions, the SS Panzer Division "Fuhrer's Guard".

Heavy fighting ensued. The SS division "Fuhrer's Guard" acted against the Urals,

which the German command had special hopes for. The Ural tank crews once again showed their ability to successfully fight with the best enemy formations. The enemy defenses began to fall apart.

Together with the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, volunteer tankers took part in the encirclement of two fascist divisions in the area of ​​​​the city of Biskau. The Sverdlovsk tank brigade - all the remaining tanks of other brigades of the corps were brought into it - went to the rear of the enemy's Ratibor group and captured the city of Reisnitz. Here, the tankmen of the guard battalion of Captain V.A. Markov, who were the first to break into the city, especially distinguished themselves.

On March 31, together with the 60th Army, our tankers began an assault on Ratibor and the enemy could not withstand the onslaught of Soviet troops. The enemy group ceased to exist.

On March 31, 1945, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief announced gratitude to the corps personnel, including the soldiers of the Guards Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, for excellent military operations during the capture of the cities of Ratibor and Biskau.

With the loss of the last operating arms forge - Upper Silesia - fascist Germany lost the ability to continue the fight for any length of time.

The Urals storm Berlin.

In the Berlin operation, which began on April 16, 1945, the 1st Ukrainian Front was given the task of defeating the enemy in the Cottbus area and south of Berlin, and with the right wing to assist the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front in capturing Berlin. In accordance with the instructions of the front commander to introduce forward detachments into the breakthrough to speed up the breach of the tactical depth of the enemy’s defense, the corps was given the task of assigning two brigades to the forward detachment and advancing in the direction of Beeskov. After crossing the river. Neisse infantry, immediately introduce an advanced detachment, break through the enemy’s defenses, bypass his battle formations and cross the river on the move. Spree.

Units of the corps defeated up to two regiments of the tank divisions "Fuhrer's Guard" and "Bohemia" and captured the headquarters of the SS division "Fuhrer's Guard". The enemy on this section of the front was defeated.

On the night of April 18, the 1st Ukrainian Front received instructions from the Supreme High Command to turn part of its forces in the direction of Berlin. The corps was ordered to develop an offensive in the direction of Potsdam, cross the Teltow Canal and capture the southwestern part of Berlin on the night of April 17.

On April 18, tankers of the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade crossed the river. Spree. The defense in the Neisse-Spree interfluve was broken through and the corps broke into operational space, striking the enemy day and night. In four days of fighting, the cities of Kalau, Luckau, Luckenwalde, and Sarmund were taken.

The Sverdlovsk tank brigade reached the Frankfurt-on-Oder-Hanover highway and, having overcome it, occupied the south-eastern part of Potsdam, linking up with units of the 1st Belorussian Front. The complete encirclement of Berlin was completed.

During these same days, the main forces of the corps began fighting on the southwestern outskirts of Berlin. On April 23, the Perm tank brigade broke into the village of Stansdorf, located on the immediate approaches to Berlin. Then the Chelyabinsk tank and Unecha motorized rifle brigades came here. Motorized riflemen attempted to force the Teltow Canal, which encircles almost the entire southern outskirts of Berlin. The corps' soldiers showed exceptional heroism, but met strong enemy resistance. Having broken through to the northern bank of the canal, they were unable to hold the captured bridgehead.

At the direction of the front commander, in order to avoid unnecessary losses, the motorized rifle brigade, having advanced eastward to the city of Teltow, crossed the canal along pontoon sites placed by units of the 3rd Guards Tank Army. Following the motorized rifles, tankers of the Perm Tank Brigade burst into Berlin.

After crossing the Teltow Canal, units of the corps crushed the Nazis in the Berlin Steglitz area, and by the end of the day on April 25, they almost completely captured the Zehlendorf area. For several days, tankers of the Perm brigade and motorized riflemen, together with soldiers of the 359th Infantry Division of the 13th Army, fought fierce battles with a twenty-thousand-strong enemy group in the western part of the Zehlendorf region, which offered stubborn resistance.

The Chelyabinsk tank brigade captured the city of Babelsberg on April 26, where it liberated 7 thousand concentration camp prisoners. On the same day, it was sent to help the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, which was engaged in prolonged battles with Wenck’s 12th Army at the Beelitz-Treienbritzen line and with the remnants of the enemy group encircled southeast of Berlin breaking through to the west. The Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade and a number of other formations of the 4th Guards Tank Army were also urgently sent here. Fierce fighting ended in the complete defeat of the enemy. During these same days, the remaining units of the corps continued to conduct combat operations in Berlin and the success they achieved was highly appreciated by the command.

During the Berlin operation, Ural volunteers were noted four times in the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The corps and all its brigades were awarded military orders.

Just as quickly, the tankers drove the enemy out of the town of Zarmund, broke into the southern part of Potsdam, throwing the enemy behind the Havel River. A week later, in the town of Beelitz, they demonstrated the highest heroism and resilience, repelling the attacks of the remnants of the German group encircled southeast of Berlin, desperately rushing to the west.

Convinced of the futility of attempts to break through, the Nazis began to surrender. The vast field of eastern Beelitza was densely littered with the corpses of Nazis, destroyed by German vehicles.

March-maneuver to Prague.

After the end of the Battle of Berlin, the corps was withdrawn to the Dame area. On the night of May 6, 1945, it became known that the corps, among other units of the 1st Ukrainian Front, would take part in the liberation of Czechoslovakia and its capital, Prague.

The Chelyabinsk tank brigade, reinforced by the 72nd separate heavy tank regiment of Major A. A. Dementyev and the motorized rifles of the Unecha motorized rifle brigade, was assigned to the forward detachment of the 4th Tank Army.

Having secretly completed a night march, parts of the corps concentrated in the Oschatz-Riesa area, northwest of Dresden, on the morning of May 6, and began an offensive in the afternoon. Breaking the enemy's resistance, by the evening the Urals reached the area of ​​Neukirchen, Tanneberg, Sendischbor, Starbach, and the advance detachment - to the area of ​​​​the city of Nossen, 35 kilometers west of Dresden.

On the second day of the offensive, having defeated the Nazi group in the Freiberg area, the Urals advanced 45 kilometers in rugged mountainous terrain. Overcoming the low but steep slopes of the forested Ore Mountains, moving along narrow roads and over cliffs was fraught with great difficulties. But the offensive impulse of the guards was high. Everyone understood: the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the fate of Prague depended on the swiftness and skill of each unit, each warrior.

By the end of May 8, parts of the corps reached the line Most - Teplice - Shanov. Prague is 80 kilometers away. On the night of May 8-9, the Urals crossed the mountain range and poured into the plain in an avalanche. The main forces, led by the Chelyabinsk brigade, rush to Louni and Slani. On the left, along its own route, the Sverdlovsk tank brigade was advancing.

At 3 o'clock on May 9, 1945, tanks of the Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade burst into Prague. At 4 o'clock the main forces of the corps entered the city, and soon other formations of the 4th Tank Army. From the northwest and north, formations of the 3rd Guards Tank Army entered Prague in the morning, and formations of the 13th and 3rd Guards Armies in the afternoon. The first to rush into Prague were the crew of the T-34 tank of the Chelyabinsk tank brigade under the command of Lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko from the platoon of Lieutenant L. E. Burakov.

Soon after the Ural Volunteer Corps was in the capital of Czechoslovakia, the first military commandant of the Prague garrison, corps commander E. E. Belov, gave the first peace order to the troops in the first hour of peace.

Monuments to the Ural tank crews were erected in Berlin and Prague, in Kamenets-Podolsky and Lvov, in Sverdlovsk and Perm, Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil, in many settlements that were liberated by volunteers.

History of the creation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.

The idea of ​​​​creating a tank corps arose in the Urals during the days of the completion of the defeat of Nazi troops at Stalingrad. In the newspaper "Ural Worker" on January 16, 1943, the article "Tank Corps Above Plan" was published, which talked about the initiative of tank building teams: to produce in the first quarter of 1943, above plan, as many tanks and self-propelled guns as necessary to equip the tank corps ; at the same time train combat vehicle drivers from among their own volunteer workers. A letter was sent to the Chairman of the State Defense Committee in which the Ural workers asked permission to form a special volunteer Ural Tank Corps named after Comrade Stalin. On February 24, 1943, a response telegram arrived from Moscow: “We approve and welcome your proposal to form a special volunteer Ural Tank Corps. I. Stalin."

February 26, 1943 Commander of the Ural Military District, Major General A.V. Katkov issued a directive on the formation of a tank corps.

110 thousand applications were submitted voluntarily, which is 12 times more than was required to complete the corps, of which 9,660 people were selected. Among the volunteers there were many skilled workers, specialists, production commanders, active communists and Komsomol members. It was impossible to let everyone go to the front, as this would harm the fulfillment of front orders. Special commissions selected worthy candidates with the condition that the team would replace those leaving for the front. Selected candidates under the age of 40 were considered and approved at working meetings. The party stratum made up 50 percent of total number all soldiers and commanders of tank brigades. Selection for the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was carried out very strictly. At Uralmash, out of 2,250 who wished to join the tank corps, only 200 volunteers were selected, in Nizhny Tagil, out of 10,500 who applied, 544 people were selected, in Verkhnyaya Salda, out of 437, 38 people were selected, etc.

Based on local conditions and resources of the regions, formations and corps units were formed in Sverdlovsk, Molotov, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Alapaevsk, Degtyarsk, Troitsk, Miass, Zlatoust, Kus and Kyshtym.

On the territory of the Sverdlovsk region the following were formed: in the city of Sverdlovsk - the corps headquarters, the 197th tank brigade, the 88th separate reconnaissance motorcycle battalion, the 565th medical platoon; in Nizhny Tagil - 1621st self-propelled artillery regiment, 248th rocket mortar division ("Katyusha"); in Alapaevsk - the 390th communications battalion. The city of Degtyarsk became the site of the formation of the 30th motorized rifle brigade (brigade control, 1st motorcycle battalion, reconnaissance company, control company, mortar platoon, medical platoon).

On the territory of the Molotov region the following were formed: in the city of Molotov (now Perm) - the 299th mortar regiment, the 3rd battalion of the 30th motorized rifle brigade, the 267th repair base; in Kungur - 243rd Tank Brigade.

On the territory of the Chelyabinsk region the following were formed: in Chelyabinsk - the 244th tank brigade, the 266th repair base, an engineering mortar company and a vehicle company of the 30th motorized rifle brigade; in the city of Zlatoust - the 2nd battalion of the 30th motorized rifle brigade; in the city of Kyshtym - the 36th fuel and lubricants delivery company, an anti-tank rifle company and a technical support company of the 30th motorized rifle brigade. The place where the 743rd engineer battalion was formed was the city of Troitsk, and the 64th separate armored battalion was formed in the city of Miass.

At the same time, voluntary fundraising for the fund for the creation of the corps continued throughout the Urals; over 70 million rubles were collected. This money was used to buy back from the state military equipment, weapons and uniforms. A huge contribution to the common cause was made by the Komsomol youth front-line brigades born at the Uralmashplant: teams of electric welders Alexandra Rogozhkina, Polina Pavlova, Felixa Grzhibovskaya, Polina Stepchenko, machine operators Anna Lopatinskaya, revolver workers Mikhail Popov, “five-hundred-man” and “thousand-man” Anatoly Chugunov, Vasily Pakhnev , Dmitry Sidorovsky, Grigory Kovalenko, Ivan Litvinov, Timofey Oleinikov, Alexandra Podberezina.

At Uralelectrotyazhmash, the teams of Maria Prusakova, Anna Lagunova, Valentina Boyarintseva, Taisya Arzamastseva, Leonid Vavilov, Mikhail Laryushkin were famous for their work performance.

The teams of Maria Zhlobich and Vera Ilyina worked at the turbo engine plant. Automatic machine mechanic Fyodor Kosmynin, turners Nikolai Petrov and Konstantin Orlov, Klara Verzilova, Lyudmila Kucherova, driller Evgenia Zemskova, and assembly mechanic Andrey Shevtsov worked without regard for time.

At the machine-building plant named after. In Kalinin, mechanics Alexander Ushakov and Pyotr Ivanov, turners-borers Vladimir Tarpenko and Vasily Andryunin, milling machine operator Alexey Kuznetsov, and turner Boris Ryabchikov worked selflessly.

In workshop No. 125 of Uralvagonzavod worked revolver Klara Pechenitsyna and turner Pyotr Katkov. At military plant No. 50, turner Olga Konyaeva, grinder Emilia Chubykina, and mechanic Sergei Nikitin showed labor heroism. Claudia Shanenkov sewed soldiers' caps, Vera Samokhina made overcoats, Tamara Vasilyeva prepared crackers for the soldiers.

Ore was mined on Mount Vysokaya and Mount Grace. The metal for the tanks was smelted and rolled by steelmakers and blast furnace workers from Sverdlovsk, Nizhny Tagil, Serov, Pervouralsk, Alapaevsk, and Kushva. Rare Ural metals made the armor invulnerable. The workers of Krasnouralsk, Kirovgrad, Revda, Kamensk-Uralsky were supplied with copper and aluminum. From other factories in the Urals, tank builders received engines, guns, instruments, units, radio transmitters, and ammunition. They loaded the finished tanks onto railway platforms made in Tagil, and poured coal mined by Yegorshinsky and Theological miners into the furnaces of the locomotives. The Ural tank boys were dressed in uniforms made of Aramil cloth, and were wearing boots from the Uralobuv factory.

• tanks T-34 - 202, T-70 - 7;
• BA-64 armored vehicles - 68;
• self-propelled 122-mm guns – 16;
• 85 mm guns – 12;
• M-13 installations – 8;
• >76 mm guns – 24;
• 45 mm guns – 32;
• 37 mm guns – 16;
• 120 mm mortars – 42;
• 82 mm mortars - 52.

Zlatoust gunsmiths made a unique gift to the tank crews: for each volunteer, a steel knife was made at the Zlatoust Tool Plant, which received unofficial name"black knife" For these knives, the UDTK received the name “Schwarzmesser Panzer-Division” from the enemy (German - “tank division of black knives”).

By order of the People's Commissar of Defense dated March 11, 1943, the corps was given the name - 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. Since then, March 11 has been considered the birthday of UDTK. On March 18, 1943, Lieutenant General of Tank Forces Georgy Semenovich Rodin was appointed to command the corps, and B.F. was appointed chief of staff. Eremeev, head of the political department - Colonel S.M. Kuranov.

The first secretaries of the Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Perm regional party committees, on behalf of the working people of the Urals, read out an order to the volunteers. In Sverdlovsk, the order was announced at the Opera and Ballet Theater on May 9, 1943:

“Our dear sons and brothers, fathers and husbands!.. As we accompany you to battle with the fierce enemy of our Motherland, we want to admonish you with our instructions. Accept it as a battle banner and carry it with honor through the fire of harsh battles, as the will of the people of your native Urals... We equipped a volunteer tank corps with our own funds, with our own hands we lovingly and carefully forged weapons for you. We worked on it day and night. In this weapon are our cherished and ardent thoughts about the bright hour of our complete victory, in it is our will, as firm as the Ural stone: to crush and exterminate the fascist beast. Carry this will of ours with you into hot battles. Remember our order. It contains our parental love and a stern order, marital parting words and our oath... We are waiting for you with victory!”

The volunteers vowed to fulfill the order of the Urals people.

Trains with personnel and military equipment arrived in the Moscow region on June 10, 1943. Here the corps included the 359th anti-aircraft artillery regiment, other units and subunits.

The 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps became part of the 4th Tank Army, commanded by Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov.

Creating a Corpus

During the Great Patriotic War, the Urals were the main supplier of tanks and other armored vehicles to the front. Women and children, working 16-18 hours, constantly forged weapons of victory. And even in such conditions, the workers of the Ural factories took upon themselves the obligation to assemble and equip an entire tank corps on their own, with personal money and outside of working hours. People sacrificed their last for the benefit of this endeavor; tens of thousands of volunteers were instantly found who wanted to serve in this formation.

As a result, on February 24, 1943, the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was ready for war. The tanks were ready, the service was ready, but most importantly, 9,660 men were ready who wanted to defend their homeland. On May 1, 1943, the new tank army took the oath.

Combat history

The soldiers of the 4th Tank Army received their baptism of fire north of Orel in the summer of 1943, in the battle of the Kursk Bulge. The army arrived on the Bryansk Front on the eve of the fighting that began on July 5, 1943, and during the counter-offensive of Soviet troops it was brought into battle in the Oryol direction.
The Ural Volunteer Tank Corps had the task: advancing from the Seredichi area to the south, cut off the enemy’s Volkhov-Khotynets communications, reach the area of ​​​​the village of Zlyn, and then straddle the Orel-Bryansk railway and highway and cut off the retreat routes of the Oryol group of Nazis to the west. And the Urals completed their task.

The actions of the Ural Tank Corps, together with other front formations, created a threat of encirclement of the enemy’s Oryol group and forced it to retreat. The first salute of the Motherland on August 5, 1943 - to the valiant troops who liberated Orel and Belgorod - was also in honor of the Ural volunteers.

Many more victories remain for our tankers. They ended the war on May 9, 1945 in Prague. At 4 o'clock the main forces of the corps entered the city, and soon other formations of the 4th Tank Army. From the northwest and north, formations of the 3rd Guards Tank Army entered Prague in the morning, and formations of the 13th and 3rd Guards Armies in the afternoon. The first to rush into Prague were the crew of the T-34 tank of the Chelyabinsk tank brigade under the command of Lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko from the platoon of Lieutenant L. E. Burakov.

After the war

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the 10th UDTK, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 0013 of June 10, 1945 and on the basis of the Directive of the General Staff of the Red Army No. ORG/1/143 of June 15, 1945, was renamed the 10th Guards Tank Ural-Lvov Volunteer Red Banner Order of Suvorov and Kutuzov Division .

Since 1945, units of the division began planned combat training as part of the GSVG. From June 17 to 23, 1953 and from August 12 to 13, 1961, units of the division carried out combat missions to support the activities of the Government of the GDR. Throughout its entire time on German soil, the division was considered one of the best tank formations of the GSVG.

Throughout the Great Patriotic War, 38 soldiers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Koptev Ivan, Sabirov Maxim

The pride and brainchild of the Urals is the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. This is the only tank formation in world history that was created with voluntary contributions from residents of 3 regions - Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Molotov (Perm Territory), with overtime work during non-working hours everything that was needed to equip and form the Corps was produced, from needles to T tanks -34. In the extreme conditions generated by the enemy invasion, the entire huge industrial complex of the capital of the Middle Urals was quickly transferred to wartime mode and fully utilized in the interests of strengthening the country's defense capability. The “War of Motors” required the unprecedented power of armored forces, so a number of factories in the Sverdlovsk region began producing armored vehicles. The combat route of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps from Orel to Prague was over 5,500 kilometers.

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Ministry of General and Vocational Education

Sverdlovsk region.

MKU "Education Management Bogdanovich"

Municipal autonomous educational institution-

Average secondary school № 2

Direction: Jubilee.

Subject: The combat path of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.

student of grade 9 "B"

MAOU-secondary school No. 2 Bogdanovich

Sabirov Maxim Rafailovich

student of grade 9 "B"

MAOU-secondary school No. 2 Bogdanovich

Head: Zueva

Svetlana Vasilievna

history teacher, MAOU-secondary school No. 2

2013

Introduction.

During the long 1418 days and nights of the Great Patriotic War, the Urals did not take into account either time or health; they tirelessly forged the sword of Victory. The Urals truly became the stronghold of the state, a forge of weapons.

The pride and brainchild of the Urals is the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. This is the only tank formation in world history that was created with voluntary contributions from residents of 3 regions - Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Molotov (Perm Territory), with overtime work during non-working hours everything that was needed to equip and form the Corps was produced, from needles to T tanks -34.

From January to March 1943, the formation of a special Ural Volunteer Tank Corps took place. On March 11, 1943, the People's Commissar of Defense issued an Order and assigned the name - 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. This day is the Corps' birthday.

The Corps traveled a glorious battle path: Oryol – Lvov – Berlin – Prague. This is 5 thousand kilometers, 2 thousand of which involve fighting. The homeland appreciated the exploits of the Urals people; there were 54 military orders on 15 banners of military units.

Suffice it to say that most of the tanks were made at Ural factories: Uralmash, Uralvagonzavod, Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, which was called “Tankograd” during the war. The enterprises of the Urals sent mortars, mines, grenades, shells, and aerial bombs to the front in an endless stream.

In the extreme conditions generated by the enemy invasion, the entire huge industrial complex of the capital of the Middle Urals was quickly transferred to wartime mode and fully utilized in the interests of strengthening the country's defense capability. The “War of Motors” required the unprecedented power of armored forces, so a number of factories in the Sverdlovsk region began producing armored vehicles. The combat path of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps fromOrla to Prague amounted to over 5500 kilometers. The corps participated inOrlovskaya , Bryansk , Proskurivsko-Chernivtsi , Lviv-Sandomierz , Sandomierz-Silesian , Lower Silesian , Upper Silesian , Berlin And Prague offensive operations. At the decisive moment of the Great Patriotic War, the Urals took the initiative to create a volunteer tank corps and equip it with their savings.

This year the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps (UDTK) celebrates its 70th anniversary.

We were given the following goal:

Get acquainted with the history of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, which was created with the personal savings of the Ural residents, learn about their patriotism, amazing fortitude, and courage;

The purpose defines the research objectives:

Analysis of literature on this topic;

Get acquainted with the history of the formation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps;

Trace the combat path of the UDTK;

Get acquainted with the biography of residents of our area who took part in the military operations of the UDTK;

Chapter I. Ural industry during the war.

The largest point of industrial evacuation was the Ural region, which by the fall of 1942 placed equipment and labor more than 830 enterprises, 212 of which were accepted by the Sverdlovsk region. The plants and factories that arrived in the Urals used three main options for their arrangement: some occupied the premises of related enterprises; others were forced to develop areas poorly suited for industrial production; still others were located in empty spaces and erected workshops and administrative buildings themselves.

In the Sverdlovsk region, factories that arrived for evacuation either completely merged with single-profile ones, significantly strengthening them production capacity, or began independent activities, becoming the founders of new branches of Ural industry. Uralmash, having located the Izhora plant and several other defense enterprises on its premises, turned into a colossal workshop for the production of armored vehicles. The company also organized the production of self-propelled artillery mounts and components for the T-34 tank. On the territory of Uralvagonzavod the Kharkov plant named after. Comintern and the Mariupol plant, forming the Ural Tank Plant. Serial production of the famous T-34 tank was launched.

Designers M.I. Koshkin, A.A. Morozov, N.A. Kucherenko created a medium tank - the famous “Thirty-four”. This tank became the main type of tank weapon during the war. Front-line soldiers gave him high praise. German officers also had to admit this.

As a result of experience mass production Uralians and first-class vehicles from Leningraders, the necessary prerequisites for the rapid production of tanks began to be created. In total, during the war years, scientists and designers developed about a hundred new combat vehicles. Most of them were produced by conveyor production. The Urals were the first in the world to start producing tanks.

In Chelyabinsk, at the plant named after. Kolyushchenko, produced the legendary "Katyusha" and at the former tobacco factory - shells for them and torpedoes for submarines.

The Serov Metallurgical Plant accepted the main equipment of the Kramatorsk and Stalin Metallurgical Plants, and the Kirovgrad Copper Smelter accepted the equipment of the Nevsky Chemical Plant. The production of rocket mortars has noticeably increased as a result of combining the production and technical potentials of the Uralelectroapparat and the Voronezh Komintern plant. The Ural Turbo Engine Plant, having merged with 5 evacuated factories, became the country's largest manufacturer of diesel engines.

There were no types of military products that were not manufactured in the Urals. Before the war, armor steel was not produced in the Urals. To meet the needs of the front for special grades of ferrous metals, metallurgists at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works had to quickly master the technology of smelting armor steel in large open-hearth furnaces. For the first time in history, blooming was used to produce tank armor, making a technical revolution in the metallurgical business.

The Kiev plant "Bolshevik", which arrived in Sverdlovsk in August 1941 and was initially located in the premises of a garage and production team, became the beginning of the future giant of chemical engineering - Uralkhimmash. Based on the equipment of the Okhtinsky Chemical Plant, the Sverdlovsk Plastics Plant was created, which was used during the war sole supplier resins used to make delta wood, aircraft plywood and bakelite plywood for pontoons. Kiev "Red Rubber" and Moscow "Kauchuk" formed the basis of the Sverdlovsk tire plant and rubber products plant, which began producing all types of rubber parts for combat

technology. In particular, both enterprises produced 223 thousand rubber-coated rollers for 11 thousand tanks during the war years.

The evacuated production facilities of the Moscow Motorcycle Plant, the mechanical assembly shop of ZIL engines and the gearbox shop of the Moscow Automobile Assembly Plant named after KIM formed a strong foundation for the construction of the motorcycle plant in Irbit. Created by the merger of these industries, the Irbit Motor Plant became the main supplier to the front of heavy military motorcycles M-72, the use of which in a combat situation completely deprived the motorized German infantry, which had an advantage at the beginning of the war.

Chapter II. History of the formation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.

The formation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps is a special page in the annals of the Great Patriotic War, in the history of the Urals. The idea of ​​​​creating a large tank formation of volunteers arose in the work collectives of the Ural factories in the days when the country was under the impression of the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad. The Urals, who at that time produced the bulk of tanks and self-propelled guns for the front, were rightfully proud of the successes of our troops on the Volga, where armored forces showed their striking power.

The workers of the “supporting edge of the state” decided to give the front-line soldiers a unique gift - to form a tank corps from volunteers, providing it with everything necessary at the expense of their personal savings and unpaid work outside of school hours. And this despite the fact that mostly women and teenagers worked at the enterprises, and for 12-18 hours a day.

Everyone who was involved in the great feat worked intensely, sometimes without leaving the workshops for several days. This was truly massive labor heroism of the working people of the Urals. A huge contribution to the common cause was made by the Komsomol youth front-line brigades born at the Uralmashplant at the end of 1941: teams of electric welders Alexandra Rogozhkina, Polina Pavlova, Felixa Grzhibovskaya, Polina Stepchenko, machine operators Anna Lopatinskaya, “five-hundred-strong” and “thousand-strong” Anatoly Chugunov, Vasily Pakhnev .

Schoolchildren made their contribution to the common cause - they collected and handed over scrap metal. It is almost impossible to list everyone who was involved in this massive national feat.

In addition to unpaid labor, many contributed their personal savings, which was also a feat, since in conditions when people were malnourished, everyone needed money. The blacksmiths of Uralmash collected 52 thousand rubles, technologist L. Koneva contributed 500 rubles in cash. She wrote in those days: “I have no savings, but I give everything I can to you, my warrior.” A tank was purchased with funds contributed by artists of the Musical Comedy Theater Polina Emelyanova and Anatoly Marenich. In total, residents of the Sverdlovsk region contributed 58 million rubles to the formation of the corps.

Volunteers represented the best part of the work collectives, among them there were many qualified specialists, active communists and Komsomol members. Special commissions selected one of 10-15 worthy candidates, with the condition that the team recommend who would replace the employee leaving for the front. Candidates were approved at work meetings, meetings of party and Komsomol committees. As a result of careful selection, 9,660 people were included in the lists of corps personnel - the best of the best.

A large tank formation was formed in a surprisingly short time. By order of the People's Commissar of Defense of March 11, 1943, it was given the name - 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. Major General of Tank Forces G.S. Rodin, who returned to duty after being seriously wounded, was appointed corps commander, Colonel B.F. Eremeev was appointed chief of staff, Colonel S.M. Kuranov was appointed head of the political department, who was soon replaced by Colonel V.M. Shalunov.

In a solemn atmosphere, volunteers received weapons and military equipment, continuing to fully prepare for the upcoming tests. On the holiday of May 1, 1943, the soldiers of the corps took the oath of allegiance to the Fatherland, and soon an order was received to go to the front.

The people of the Urals solemnly saw off their best sons and daughters, presented their patron’s banners and their orders. Here are just some lines from the order of the working people of the Urals to the volunteer tank crews: “Our dear sons and brothers, fathers and husbands! We equipped a volunteer tank corps with our own funds. With our own hands we lovingly and carefully forged weapons for you. We worked on it day and night. In this weapon are our cherished and ardent thoughts about the bright hour of our Victory; in it is our will, as firm as the Ural stone: to crush and exterminate the fascist beast. Carry this will with you into hot battles. Remember our order. It contains our parental love and a stern order, marital parting words and our oath. Don’t forget: you and your cars are a part of us, this is our blood, our good old Ural glory, our fiery anger towards the enemy. Feats and glory await you.

We are waiting for you with victory! And then the Urals will hug you tightly and lovingly and glorify their heroic sons throughout the centuries. Our land, free and proud, will compose songs about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.” In front of the Battle Banners of their units, in front of their fellow countrymen, the volunteer soldiers took an oath: to fulfill the order and return to their native Urals only with Victory.

Trains with personnel and military equipment arrived in the Moscow region on June 10, 1943. Here the corps was supplemented by the 359th anti-aircraft artillery regiment, other units and subunits, and itself became part of the 4th Tank Army.

2.1 Birth of the corps.

Major General of Tank Forces G.S. was appointed commander of the corps. Rodin, an experienced tankman who had previously commanded tank units, returned to duty after being seriously wounded, was led by Colonel B.F. as chief of staff. Eremeev, head of the political department - Colonel S.M. Kuranov, who was soon replaced by Colonel V.M. Shalunov.

On March 11, 1943, the People's Commissar of Defense assigned the name to the corps - the 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. In a solemn atmosphere, the volunteers were presented with weapons and military equipment. Combat and political preparation began, the corps personnel comprehensively prepared themselves for the upcoming battles with the Nazi invaders. This date is the birthday of the corps.

At the ceremonial farewell to the front, on bended kneein front of the banners of their units, the volunteers took an oath -fulfill the order and return to his native Urals only with Victory.

The middle level of command was staffed through tank schools and advanced training courses for command personnel. Junior commanders and rank and file are Ural volunteers. Out of 8206 people. The corps personnel are only 536 people. had military experience.

On July 17, 1943, the material part of the corps consisted of: T-34 tanks - 202, T-70 - 7, BA-64 armored vehicles - 68, self-propelled 122 mm guns - 16, 85 mm guns - 12, M-13 guns – 8, 76 mm guns – 24, 45 mm guns – 32, 37 mm guns – 16, 120 mm mortars – 42, 82 mm mortars – 52 units.

By order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps became part of the 4th Tank Army of Lieutenant General of Tank Forces Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov.

2.2. Tank division "Black Knives".

A distinctive feature of the equipment of the corps personnel were army knives of the 1940 model, made for each soldier from private to general by workers of the Zlatoust tool factory. The unit received the unofficial name from the enemy “Schwarzmesser Panzern-Division” (tank division “Black Knives”).
During the Great Patriotic War, 9,356 Finnish knives were produced specifically for the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. These short blades with black handles, which were in service with our tank crews, inspired fear and respect in the enemies. Black knife - popular name an army knife of the 1941 model, produced by the Zlatoust Tool Factory during the Great Patriotic War. In shape, the “black knife” was a Finnish-style knife with a straight single-edged blade, a wooden handle with a small flat iron guard and a wooden sheath. The handle and scabbard were covered with black varnish, and the iron fittings of the scabbard and guard were blued - hence the name. The knives were valued for their great strength and sharpness of the blade and were intended to equip scouts and paratroopers. In some intelligence units, "black knives" were awarded to recruits only after taking several "tongues" or other combat tests. During the formation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps in 1943, each soldier and commander received a “black knife” as a gift from the Zlatoust gunsmiths. This feature in the equipment of the Ural tank crews was immediately noticed by German intelligence, which gave the corps its name - "Schwarzmesser Panzern Division" - the "Black Knife" tank division. The amateur jazz orchestra of the corps often performed for the soldiers the “Song about the “black knives,” the music for which was written by Ivan Ovchinin, who later died in the battles for the liberation of Hungary. The “black knife” is also mentioned in the “March of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.” Small batches by the plant An officer’s version of the “black knife” was also produced, intended mainly for awards and gifts and distinguished by chrome-plated details of the handle and scabbard. Decorated knives along with swords were presented during the Great Patriotic War to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin and Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov. Immediately after the first battles of the corps, the fascists will feel that a special formation has appeared at the front, they will call us a “division of black knives” (black knives are a gift to the volunteer tankers from the workers of the city of Zlatoust).

Chapter III. Combat path.

3.1. Baptism.

The 4th Tank Army arrived on the Bryansk Front and, during the counter-offensive of the Soviet troops, was brought into battle in the Oryol direction. The 30th Tank Corps was given the task of cutting off the enemy’s communications Bolkhov-Khotynets and subsequently, by occupying the Orel-Bryansk railway and highway, cutting off the retreat routes of the Nazi group to the west.

The 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps received its baptism of fire north of Orel on July 27, 1943, in the Battle of Kursk. Taking advantage of the highly rugged terrain, the enemy created a deeply layered defense and powerful centers of resistance on the Oryol salient. By the end of the day on July 27, parts of the corps had made their way to the Ors River. Here the enemy blew up bridges. The floodplain, flooded as a result of the previous rains, the muddy bottom, and the steep southern shore were difficult to pass for tanks. But, overcoming all obstacles, the 243rd Molotov Tank Brigade with a self-propelled artillery regiment attacked the enemy. The tank battalions of Captain Andreev and Major Chizhov crossed the Ors River on the move in the area of ​​the villages of Rylovo and Konoplyanka.
The next morning, after additional artillery and aviation preparation and a volley of guards mortars, fighters of the 30th motorized rifle and 197th Sverdlovsk tank brigades, supported by fire from self-propelled guns, went on the attack. On July 28, the Nazis were thrown back across the Ors River, and the corps soldiers entrenched themselves on the northwestern outskirts of the village of Dulebino.

It was the third day of battle. The Uralmash tank was the first to break through the river. The rest of the battalion's vehicles rushed behind him to attack. Continuing to advance on the enemy before he had time to gain a foothold on the next line, the crew became far away from their unit. The enemy took advantage of this and concentrated fire on one tank. The tank crew died, but did not surrender to the enemy.

On the morning of July 30, the 197th Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel N.G. Zhukova, together with a self-propelled artillery regiment, crossed the Nugr River and captured the village of Borilovo. Here the corps commander brought the 244th Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade into battle. On August 2, the corps captured the village of Zlyn and reached the enemy line in the Massalskaya area.

The actions of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps and other front formations created a threat of encirclement of the enemy’s Oryol group and forced it to retreat.

3.2. Shakhovo – Bryansk forests – Unecha

The corps was given a new task - to capture the Shakhovo station and, by cutting the Orel-Bryansk railway, cut off the paths of the retreating enemy. During August 5–6, the corps was transferred to the area north of the village of Ilyinskoye. The order was carried out - the corps broke through the enemy’s deeply layered defenses, liberated dozens of settlements and on August 9 cut the Orel-Bryansk railway in the Shakhovo region. The Sovinformburo report for August 9, 1943 reported: “West of Orel, our troops, continuing to advance forward, occupied the Shakhovo railway station (34 km west of Orel) and a number of settlements. In battles in this sector, the enemy suffers heavy losses in manpower and equipment, as evidenced by the following facts. In the area of ​​the Shakhovo railway station, in only one settlement, our units discovered dozens of German tanks, knocked out by Soviet artillery fire in the last battles.

Enemy soldiers and officers captured in this area reported that their 253rd Infantry Division had lost up to half of its personnel in battles over the past three days.” Captured Germans feared the corps fighters as a selected army, which was distinguished by “black knives”. Every member of the corps, from private to general, had with him a “Schwarzmesser” - a “black knife” - a personal weapon, it was exactly like that: long, with a blade made of hardened steel, with a black wooden handle in a black sheath.The next day, moving south, parts of the corps cut the Orel-Bryansk highway and continued the offensive to the southwest, contributing to the liberation of the city of Karachay. From July 27 to August 17, 1943, during the Oryol operation, corps soldiers destroyed 7,033 enemy soldiers and officers, 50 tanks, 133 guns, 132 mortars, captured 40 guns, 41 machine guns, 346 rifles. Over 15 thousand Soviet people who were under the armed guard of Nazi troops were released.

In September 1943, units of the corps took part in the battles to liberate a number of settlements in the Bryansk region. The 197th Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, supporting the actions of the 63rd Army, in early September occupied the city of Lokot, the Brasovo station, cut the Bryansk-Lvov, Bryansk-Kyiv railways and went through the Bryansk forests to the Desna River. The 30th motorized rifle brigade of the corps, reinforced with tanks, on September 20 came under temporary subordination to the command of the mobile group of the Bryansk Front, which had the task of cutting off enemy communications Bryansk - Pochep, Unecha - Klintsy, Novozybkov - Gomel with a swift strike.

On September 23, together with other units, the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade stormed the city of Unecha. To commemorate this victory, the brigade was given an honorary name - Unechskaya. It became the first unit of the corps and the 4th Tank Army to receive such an honor.

During the liberation of Unecha, the scouts of Captain G.F. especially distinguished themselves. Mokrushin, sappers of Senior Lieutenant Kirsanov and machine gunners of Senior Lieutenant V.V. Purvinsky.

Less than three months after the Ural volunteers entered their first battle, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, by order No. 306 of October 26, 1943, transformed the 30th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps into the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.

All units of the corps were given the name Guards. The 197th brigade became the 61st Guards Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, the 243rd became the 62nd Guards Perm Tank Brigade, the 244th became the 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade, the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade became the 29th Guards Unechskaya Motorized Rifle Brigade. 1,579 soldiers, sergeants and officers were awarded orders and medals of the Soviet Union.

3.3. Volochysk – Kamenets-Podolsky

In January 1944, the 4th Tank Army became part of the 1st Ukrainian Front. At this time, the troops of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Ukrainian Fronts completed preparations for the second stage of the battle to liberate Right Bank Ukraine from the Nazi invaders.

The 1st Ukrainian Front was tasked with defeating the enemy's 4th and 1st tank armies and building on their success in the southwestern direction. Our 3rd, 4th and 1st tank armies were called upon to play a responsible role in fulfilling this task.

On March 10, Evtikhiy Emelyanovich Belov, deputy commander of the 4th Tank Army, was appointed corps commander. He took over the formation from Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Georgy Semenovich Rodin.

General E.E. Belov first of all took all the necessary measures to ensure that the corps reliably held the railway line on the Fridrikhovka-Voitovtsy section. The enemy, who temporarily pushed back the corps units at the Volochisk station and in the village of Fridrikhovka, was driven back 15–17 km to the south.

The 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade, after stubborn battles for Staromeshchizna and Podvolochisk, reached the Romanovka area by March 11 and, in cooperation with the 118th rifle division The 60th Army repelled the fierce attacks of the Nazis from Ternopil. This is how the first one ended

stage of this operation.

On March 21, the Urals received orders to continue the offensive and capture regional center Kamenets-Podolsky.

After a short artillery barrage and an air strike, units of the corps broke through the enemy’s defenses and, having repelled three counterattacks, captured the settlements of Grimailov and Skalat by the end of the day on March 22. In this battle, the 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade M.G. especially distinguished itself. Fomicheva.

The defenders of Kamenets-Podolsk, including the 61st and 63rd tank, 29th motorized rifle brigade of the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, fought to the death. Appointed shortly before the battles for Kamenets-Podolsky, an experienced political worker, former secretary of the party committee of the Moscow automobile plant, Colonel I.F., was appointed head of the political department of the corps. Zakharchenko became one of the organizers of the city’s defense. At the most dangerous moment, when the “tigers” broke through to the positions of the mortar men of the Unech brigade, the former blacksmith of the Degtyarsky mine of the guard, private Ivan Nikolaevich Dolgov, fastened an anti-tank mine with his belt on his chest, took a bunch of grenades in each hand and, rising to his full height, shouted: “For the Motherland ! At the cost of the volunteer’s life, the “tiger” was destroyed. Inspired by the feat of I.N. Dolgov, the mortars drove the enemy back.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief expressed gratitude for the capture of the city of Kamenets-Podolsk to the troops of Major General Tank Troops Belov, Colonels Smirnov, Zhukov, Denisov, Fomichev, who distinguished themselves in battle, and more than five thousand soldiers of the corps were awarded orders and medals for the heroism shown during the liberation of the city. The 61st Guards Tank Brigade was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

3.4. Lviv-Sandomierz offensive operation.

In the summer of 1944, the Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps took part in the offensive operation of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Lvov direction.

On July 17, the commander of the 4th Tank Army, General D.D. Lelyushenko set the task for the corps: to enter the breakthrough in the area of ​​​​the village of Koltuv and advance after the 3rd Guards Tank Army in the general direction of the village of Trostyanets-Maly. From the area of ​​Zlochev, turn in a southwestern direction, bypassing Lviv from the south, destroy enemy reserves and by July 18 capture the town of Gorodok, 30 km west of Lviv. Carrying out this task, the corps captured the town of Olshanitsy by July 18.

On July 19, due to the changed situation and the lack of enemy reserves in the Lvov region, the command of the 1st Ukrainian Front set the 4th Tank Army the task of “with a swift strike bypassing the city of Lvov from the south, in cooperation with the 3rd Guards Tank Army, to capture the city of Lvov " This was a new task - not to bypass Lviv, but to take it.

The commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S., highly appreciated the actions of the corps in Lvov. Konev. In his book “Notes of the Front Commander. 1943–1944” he wrote: “The corps fought well, but the Nazis managed to cut it off from the rest of the army... The 10th Guards Tank Corps (Ural Volunteer) can generally be called one of the best in all respects, including in matters organization of marches, discipline and combat"

On July 27, Moscow saluted the troops for the liberation of Lvov.The volunteer corps became the Ural-Lvov Corps. The Sverdlovsk Guards Brigade, the 72nd Heavy Tank Regiment, the 359th Anti-Aircraft Regiment and the 1689th Anti-Tank Fighter Regiment also began to be called Lvov.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to five fearless soldiers of the corps who distinguished themselves in the battles for the liberation of the city. Among them are the commander of the Chelyabinsk Guards Tank Brigade, Mikhail Georgievich Fomichev, the tankers of this brigade - driver Fyodor Pavlovich Surkov, tank commander Pavel Pavlovich Kuleshov and commander of the motorized rifle battalion of the Unech brigade Akhmadulla Khozeevich Ashmukhametov.

Over six thousand soldiers of the corps were awarded orders and medals.

On October 21, 1944, Colonel N.D. was appointed commander of the corps. Chuprov, and General E.E. Belov returned to the post of deputy commander of the 4th Tank Army.

At the end of 1944, the 1222nd Novgorod Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, later renamed the 425th Guards Regiment, became part of the corps.

3.5. In Silesia.

In February–March 1945, battles broke out in Lower and Upper Silesia.

The 1st Ukrainian Front was given the task of defeating the Silesian enemy group, reaching the Neisse River line and taking more advantageous starting positions for subsequent attacks in the Berlin and Dresden directions.

On February 8, front troops began the Lower Silesian operation from bridgeheads on the Oder. The 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was ordered, together with formations of the 13th Army, to strike in the direction of the cities of Sorau and Forst. On the very first day of the offensive, the corps managed to break through the enemy’s defenses and successfully build on its success. By February 11, the dam on the Bober River near the city of Zagan was captured. The 29th Guards Unechskaya Motorized Rifle Brigade, reinforced by tanks from the 62nd Guards Perm-Keletskaya Tank Brigade, occupied a working hydroelectric power station.

On February 13, units of the corps broke into the city of Sorau. During fierce street battles, tank crews and motorized riflemen, supported by the fire of mortarmen of a mortar regiment, overcoming Nazi ambushes in basements and attics, destroyed enemy tanks and firing points and on the same day completely cleared the city of Nazi troops. Here a tank division and other enemy units were defeated, rich trophies were captured, including more than 200 serviceable aircraft stored in secret warehouses.

For the successful completion of combat missions during the Lower Silesian operation, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, with his orders of February 14 and 15, 1945, twice declared gratitude to the corps personnel.

The army command assigned the 10th Tank Corps the task with the 117th Rifle Corps of the 21st Army to strike the enemy in the direction of the city of Neisse and reach the area of ​​​​the cities of Neustadt and Sultz. By the end of the first day of the offensive, overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, repelling his continuous counterattacks, the tank crews of the corps broke through the German defenses and advanced 8 kilometers. Then the offensive developed more successfully. On March 17, the corps crossed the Neisse (South) River at Rothaus. The encirclement of the Oppel group was completed. Thanks to the efforts of our troops, the encircled group was separated from the main enemy forces by a twenty-kilometer strip.

On the same day, a telegram was received from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief about the transformation of the 4th Tank Army into the 4th Guards Tank Army, which was received by the tankers with great enthusiasm.

The surrounded Nazi formations and units made desperate attempts to escape from the cauldron. I.S. Konev ordered: “Destroy the enemy groups leaving, capture them... do not let the enemy out of the encirclement.”

The 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps made a significant contribution to the implementation of this order. In his book “Forty-fifth” I.S. Konev noted: “The Nazis launched the first powerful counterattack with outside encirclement by the forces of the Hermann Goering tank division that had just appeared here. However, our 10th Guards Tank Corps under the command of E.E. Belova stood firm and repulsed this onslaught.”

By the morning of March 22, the encircled enemy group was completely eliminated.

Following the destruction of the enemy Oppel group, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front were to capture Ratibor, a stronghold and industrial center of Upper Silesia. The 4th Guards Tank Army took part in solving this combat mission together with the 60th Army. The 10th Guards Tank Corps was ordered to concentrate in the Leobschütz area on the night of March 24-25 and be ready to develop an attack in the direction of Troppau. Heavy fighting ensued. The Fuhrer's Guard division, on which the German command placed special hopes, acted against the 10th Panzer Corps. The Ural tank crews once again showed their ability to successfully fight with the best enemy formations. The enemy defenses began to fall apart.

On March 31, together with the corps of the 60th Army, our tankers began an assault on Ratibor, and the enemy could not withstand the onslaught of Soviet troops. The Ratibor group ceased to exist.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in an order dated March 31, expressed gratitude to the corps, including the 61st Guards Sverdlovsk-Lvov Tank Brigade, for excellent military operations during the capture of the cities of Ratibor and Biskau.

3.6. Storm of Berlin

In the Berlin operation, which began on April 16, 1945, the 1st Ukrainian Front was tasked with defeating the enemy in the area of ​​Cottbus and south of Berlin, and with the right wing assisting the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front in capturing Berlin. The 4th Guards Tank Army was to enter a breakthrough in the 5th Guards Army zone.

Army commander General D.D. To speed up the breach of the tactical depth of the enemy’s defense, Lelyushenko assigned the task to the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps to allocate two brigades to the forward detachment and advance in the sector of the 95th Guards Rifle Division in the direction of the city of Beskov.

On April 16 at 13.00 the forward detachment of the corps set out as part of the 62nd Guards Perm-Keletsk Tank Brigade I.I. Proshina, reinforced by heavy tanks, anti-tank artillery and part of the forces of the 29th Guards Unechskaya Motorized Rifle Brigade A.I. Efimova.

Units of the corps defeated up to two regiments of the enemy tank divisions “Fuhrer’s Guard” and “Bohemia” and captured the headquarters of the “Fuhrer’s Guard” division. The enemy in this sector was defeated on April 17.

On the night of April 18, the 1st Ukrainian Front received instructions from the Supreme High Command to turn part of its forces in the direction of Berlin. The 10th Panzer Corps was ordered to develop an offensive in the direction of Luckau, Dame, Luckenwalde, Potsdam, cross the Teltow Canal and capture the southwestern part of Berlin on the night of April 21. On April 18, tankers of the 61st Tank Brigade crossed the Spree River. The defense in the Neisse-Spree interfluve was broken through, the corps broke into operational space and rushed at a fast pace in the north-west direction, striking the enemy both day and night.

In four days the cities of Kalau, Luckau, Luckenwalde, and Sarmund were taken.The 61st Tank Brigade reached the Frankfurt- n a-Odere - Hanover and, having overcome it, on April 23 captured the village of Bergholz-Rebrücke near Potsdam. At the direction of the front commander, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the 29th Motorized Rifle Brigade, having advanced in the easterndirection to the city of Teltow, crossed the canal along the pontoon places directed by units of the 3rd Guards Tankarmy. Following the colonel's motorized riflesA.I. Efimova tankers burst into Berlin62nd Tank Brigade Colonel I.I. Proshina.During these same days, the rest of the corps continued to conductmilitary operations in Berlin, and the success they achieved was highly appreciated by the command. In his book “Moscow – Stalingrad – Berlin – Prague” Army Commander GeneralD.D. Lelyushenko wrote:

“On the same May Day, when we fought with superior enemy forces on two fronts... Belov’s 10th Guards Tank Corps, together with the 350th Wekhin Rifle Division attached to it and other army formations, continued to persistently storm the southwestern part of Berlin, pressing the enemy to the Brandenburg Gate."

During the Berlin operation, the corps was noted four times in the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The corps and all its brigades were awarded military orders.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to the commander of the motorized rifle brigade, Colonel Andrei Illarionovich Efimov, and the commander of the anti-tank artillery regiment, Colonel Nikolai Semenovich.

Shulzhenko and the battalion commander of the Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade, Captain Vladimir Aleksandrovich Markov.

On the night of May 6, 1945, it became known that the corps, along with other units of the 1st Ukrainian Front, would take part in the liberation of Czechoslovakia and its capital, Prague. Having secretly completed a night march, parts of the corps concentrated in the Oschatz-Riesa area, northwest of Dresden, on the morning of May 6, and began an offensive in the afternoon. Breaking the enemy's resistance, by the evening the Urals reached the area of ​​Neukirchen, Tannenberg, Sendischbor, Starbach, and the 63rd Tank Brigade - to the area of ​​​​the city of Nossen - 35 kilometers west of Dresden.

By the end of May 8, parts of the corps reached the line Most – Dukhtsev – Teplice – Shanov. Prague is 80 kilometers away. On the night of May 8-9, the Urals crossed the Mittel mountain range and poured into the plain in an avalanche. The main forces, led by the Chelyabinsk Guards Tank Brigade, rushed to Louni and Slani. On the left, along its own route, the Sverdlovsk tank brigade was advancing.

At 3 o'clock on May 9, tanks of the 63rd Tank Brigade burst into the capital of Czechoslovakia. At 4 o'clock the main forces of the corps entered the city, and soon other formations of the 4th Tank Army.

The first to rush into Prague was the crew of the T-34 tank No. 23 of the Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade under the command of Lieutenant I.G. Goncharenko from the platoon of Lieutenant L.E. Burakova. When approaching the bridge over the Vltava River, during the ensuing artillery duel, the brave commander Ivan Grigorievich Goncharenko was killed. For many years in Prague there was a square of Soviet tankmen with a Soviet tank number 23 on a pedestal.

At 4 o'clock in the morning, the Guards Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was in the capital of Czechoslovakia, and soon after that, the first commandant of the Prague military garrison, corps commander E.E. Belov gave the first peace order to the troops.

Tank crew I.G. Goncharenko

For the heroism shown during the liberation of Prague, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief expressed gratitude to the corps personnel.

Corps commander, Lieutenant General of Tank Forces E.E. Belov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Commander of the 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk-Petrakovsk Tank Brigade, Colonel M.G. Fomichev became twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

Chapter IV. Fellow Uralians who fought in the UDTK.

In the midst Battle of Stalingrad The Urals teams worked to the limit of their capabilities, providing the front with equipment and weapons. However, Sverdlovsk, Perm and Chelyabinsk residents decided to make another contribution to the cause of the Victory of the Motherland. On January 16, 1943, the newspaper “Uralsky Rabochiy” published the article “Tank Corps Beyond Plan.” It reported on the obligations of the largest teams of tank builders in the Urals: to produce in the first quarter, in addition to the intense tasks of the State Defense Committee (State Defense Committee), as many tank and self-propelled equipment as required for a tank corps, at the same time to train vehicle drivers from among their workers. On February 26, 1943, the formation of the corps began. The news of this spread throughout the Urals, and a flood of applications poured in - over one hundred thousand, and about ten thousand volunteers were required to form the corps. Among the volunteers of the Sukholozhsky district, which included Bogdanovich, were Yakov Aleksandrovich Plakushin, Vasily Semyonovich Trubin, Dmitry Nikolaevich Smetanin.

Many of the veterans still remember that time.

Astrakhantsev Ivan Ivanovich volunteered on a Komsomol ticket at the age of less than eighteen years from the city of Sosva. He was young, strong and energetic, and most importantly, by that time he had completed tractor driving courses and knew how to drive a car, this determined his future military specialty - driver of the T-34 tank. After the war, even foreign experts will call this vehicle the best tank of the Second World War. In mid-March 1943, along with other volunteers in Nizhny Tagil, he began studying materiel, combat tactics and other military disciplines necessary in a combat situation. On May 1, a train with tanks and wagons for personnel stood on the sidings of the Sverdlovsk railway station, and on the station square the soldiers took the oath, swore an oath to their fellow countrymen - the Urals, and received personal weapons. The Sverdlovsk tank brigade arrived in the front line in July and unloaded at the railway station in the city of Kozelsk, Oryol region. The first battle was fought near Khatynych, where they cut off the retreat path of the Germans, who were defeated in the Oryol-Kursk Bulge. Here the Ural tank crews won their first victory over the Nazis. “There was a hot battle near the city of Unecha, we fought in continuous battles for more than a week, we beat the Germans badly, but many of ours also died,” says Ivan Ivanovich. There, Ivan Astrakhantsev received his first wounds in the arm and head from shrapnel from an exploding shell. After two months of treatment in the hospital, he returned to his battalion. The battle lasted for several days near Kamenets-Podolsk. Near the sugar factory, for the first time, our T-34s entered into a duel with the German “tigers”; there were nine of them in this area. Our tank's chassis was knocked out, we took the machine gun and left. Soon Ivan was put on a lorry to transport shells and mines to the front line.

Once I was returning from the front line, suddenly there was a strong explosion near the car, and I only remember how I was flying through the air, the blast wave threw me out of the cabin. The orderlies picked me up, I became deaf, there was blood coming from my throat, and I was wounded in the right thigh, the hospital determined two bone fractures. He was treated in hospitals in Zhitomir, Novgorod-Volynsky, Kyiv and in the Urals, in Kyshtym. He received a second group disability and was dismissed out of hand. The wound turned out to be severe and protracted; I have undergone twenty operations in my life. For participation in battles he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Medal “For Courage”. Military rank had a senior sergeant driver of a T-34 tank. In 1960 he came to Nizhnyaya Tura and worked as a first-class driver in the fire department and medical unit. In March 2003, I went to Yekaterinburg for a meeting of veterans. Out of a team of thousands, only a few remained alive; only fifty people were present at the meeting. Remembering his service in the tank corps, Ivan Ivanovich says: “We all went to the front voluntarily, the people we selected were mostly competent, brave and morally resilient. Many of us died, but the mood was always good and patriotic. We knew what we were fighting for. There were no whiners or cowards. The Germans were afraid of us. Not so long ago, his comrade in arms lived here.

Many people know Artemy Vasilievich Kazantsev, a resident of our city.

In 1925 he was drafted into the ranks Soviet army. In February 1943 he was sent to the 56th training anti-tank regiment, then in September 1943 to the 61st Sverdlovsk Tank Brigade. From February 1943 to May 9, 1945, he fought as part of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps of the 4th Tank Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front. He took part in the liberation of the city of Lvov, the capture of Berlin, and the liberation of Prague. Military rank - guard sergeant. Demobilized in July 1950. Returned home. In 1951 he got married. They live happily with Serafima Arestovna, his wife, to this day; with pride, Artemy Vasilyevich recalls how the Volunteer Tank Corps was equipped and honorably carried out the orders of his fellow countrymen.

Artemy Vasilyevich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, 2 Orders of the Red Star, medals: “For Military Merit”, “For the Capture of Berlin”, “For Victory over Germany”, “For the Liberation of Prague” and many anniversary medals.

The title of Honorary Citizen of the city was awarded by decision of the Executive Committee No. 302 of April 17, 1995.

In March 2013, Artemy Vasilyevich was invited to an anniversary celebration in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, which will be held in Yekaterinburg.

Today, Artemy Vasilyevich is the only survivor of the UDTK veterans in our region. Despite his age (87 years), he is young at heart, a cheerful, active person.

Conclusion.
During the two years of participation in the Great Patriotic War, the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps traveled from Orel to Prague over 5,500 kilometers, including more than 2,000 kilometers with battles. The corps liberated hundreds of cities and thousands of settlements from the Nazi invaders, and rescued tens of thousands of people from Hitler’s slavery. Ural tank crews inflicted enormous damage on the Nazi army alive strength and technique.

In the course of work, we got acquainted with the history of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, which was created with the personal savings of the Urals residents, learned about their patriotism, amazing fortitude, and courage

We analyzed the literature on this topic;

We traced the combat path of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps;

Get acquainted with materials about UDTK veterans who fought in the tank corps

We met a resident of our district, Artemy Vasilyevich Kazantsev, who walked all the way to Berlin.

For excellent military operations, heroism, courage and bravery of the Ural volunteers, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief expressed gratitude to the corps and its units 27 times. The corps was awarded the Order of the Red Name, Suvorov II degree and Kutuzov II degree. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, in the Armed Forces of the USSR there were 29 formations and units awarded five or more orders. And among them, five formations and units were part of the 10th Guards Ural-Lvov Volunteer Tank Corps.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the 10th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps was renamed on June 15, 1945 into the 10th Guards Tank Ural-Lvov Volunteer Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov division.

THE MEMORY OF THE CORPS WILL LIVE FOR CENTURIES!

References.

1. Antufiev A. A. Industry of the Urals on the eve and during the Second World War. M. 1992.
2. Bubnov V.I. On sources on the history of plants and factories during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) // From the history of plants and factories: Sat art. Vol. 1. - Sverdlovsk: Book. publishing house, 1960. - pp. 113-118.
3. Vasiliev A.F. Industry of the Urals during the Second World War 1941-1945. M.1982.
4. Kazantsev A.V. People's word // We fulfilled the orders of the Ural residents! – Bogdanovich, March 23, 2003.
5. Kornilov G.E. Ural village during the Second World War. Sverdlovsk, 1990.
6. The feat of the laboring Urals. Sverdlovsk, 1965.
7. Enterprises [of the Urals] born in 1942 // Ural Monthly: Calendar-reference. 1992. - Chelyabinsk, 1991. - P. 333-335.
8. Serazetdinov B.U. On the historiography of the issue of placing evacuated enterprises in the Urals during the Great Patriotic War // Ural and Western Siberia during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: (The rear of the Second World War): Scientific materials. conf. - Surgut, 1996. - pp. 59-62.
9. Soboleva S.V. People's word// A name woven into the biography of the city. - Bogdanovich, November 29, 2005.
10. Urals volunteers - Ekaterinburg: Lyceum No. 130, USTU.
    http://www.pobeda.nexcom.ru/is.htm
    

    Application.

    Basic combat operations.

    operation.

    operation.

    Song about black knives
    Words by R. Notik
    Music by N. Komm and I. Ovchinin
    The fascists whisper to each other in fear,
    Hiding in the darkness of the dugouts:
    Tankers appeared from the Urals -
    Black Knife Division.

    Squads of selfless fighters,
    Nothing can kill their courage.
    Oh, they don’t like fascist bastards
    

    How the machine gunners will jump from the armor,
    You can't take them with any fire.
    Volunteers cannot be crushed by an avalanche,
    After all, everyone has a black knife.

    Huge masses of Ural tanks are rushing,
    Making the enemy's power tremble,
    Oh, they don’t like fascist bastards
    Our Ural steel black knife!

    We will write to the gray Ural:
    "Be confident in your sons,
    It was not for nothing that they gave us daggers,
    So that the fascists would be afraid of them.”

    We will write: “We fight as we should,
    And the Ural gift is good!”
    Oh, they don’t like fascist bastards
    Our Ural steel black knife!

    March of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps.

    The song was written in 1943 before the corps was sent from the Urals to the front.

    Words by N. Tikhomirov

    Music by K. Katsman

    The Fatherland has called us to arms
    Defend life, liberty and honor.
    And the volunteers of the Urals went
    In a formidable corps, bringing death to the enemy

    Chorus:

    For the Fatherland, for the Motherland,
    For our Soviet system,
    Volunteer formidable
    Ural Tank Corps, into battle!

    How our relatives gathered us on a hike,
    People bought guns and tanks,
    Good quality equipment given -
    The mighty Ural provided us with everything.

    Chorus:

    For the Fatherland, for the Motherland,
    For our Soviet system,
    Volunteer formidable
    Ural Tank Corps, into battle!

    MILITARY LOSSES (THOUSANDS)

    • Killed and died from wounds during the sanitary evacuation stages - 5226,800 people
    • 1,102,800 people died from wounds in hospitals
    • Died from disease, died as a result of incidents and accidents, sentenced to death - 555,500 people
    • 3396.4 people were missing or captured
    • Unaccounted losses in the first months 1162.6 people
    • Total (killed?) 11 million 444.1 thousand people

    1836.0 thousand people returned from captivity after the end of the war.

    The population before the war (in 1941) was 194 million people.