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| June 22nd, 1941: Memories of the beginning of the War |
| 2024-06-22 |
| Text taken from the Russian ministry of defense website. See the material at the link. More and related from V Kontakte page of THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR from Sergey Veter [CHERNARUSIANNARCOWARS] Przemysl: In memory of those who took on the first blow At 3:30 on June 22, 1941, units of two Wehrmacht divisions with a total of 12 thousand people, with artillery support, attacked the Soviet part of Przemysl. However, in a very real sense, from the first minutes the offensivechoked. A unit of five border guards under the command of junior lieutenant Nechaev, with the support of the NKVD railway troops, prevented the Germans from capturing the strategically important bridge and held it for several hours. Crossing the San came under direct fire from Soviet pillboxes of the 8th fortified area on the banks of the San. By 10 a.m. on June 22, the border guard unit defending the bridge was completely destroyed. Lieutenant Nechaev blew himself up with the last grenade, along with the Germans surrounding him. Under fire from bunkers, the Germans nevertheless began to cross the San and by noon occupied almost the entire center of the city. However, focal defenses and fighting on the outskirts of the city continued: border guards and bunker garrisons fought. The resistance of detachments of NKVD troops and Red Army soldiers allowed the Soviet command to redeploy troops. A combined battalion of border guards and Red Army soldiers was formed under the command of senior lieutenant of the border troops Grigory Polivoda. By the middle of the day on June 23, the Soviet part of the city was completely cleared of the Germans, and Polivoda’s battalion broke into the German part of Przemysl - into the city of Premzel across the San River, that is, into the territory of the Reich itself. Thus, the city of Przemysl became the first Soviet city recaptured from the Germans on June 23, 1941! Przemysl was held until June 27, 1941. Only because of the general deterioration of the situation at the front (the German breakthrough to Lvov) did Soviet troops and border guards leave Przemysl. The garrison of the bunker on the banks of the San near Castle Hill under the command of Junior Lieutenant Chaplin held out until June 30 and was completely destroyed...... During the period from June 22 to June 30, 1941, the detachments fought stubborn battles on the state border near Przemysl, Medyk, in areas of Luben Wielki, Komarno, Legezino. In these battles, the enemy lost about 5 thousand soldiers and officers killed and wounded. The detachment's losses in killed, wounded and missing were 706 people (including members of the 1st Commandant's Office)... |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 Konstantin Simonov Wait for me and I’ll return, only wait very hard... Wait for me and I’ll return, only wait very hard. Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain. Wait when the wind sweeps the snowdrifts. Wait in the sweltering heat. Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays. Wait even when from afar no letters come for you. Wait even when others are tired of waiting. Wait for me and I’ll return, but wait patiently. Wait even when you are told that you should forget. Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more. And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory Wait and do not hurry to drink to my memory too. Wait for me and I’ll return, defying every death. And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky. They will never understand that in the midst of death You with your waiting saved me. Only you and I will know how I survived: It was because you waited as no one else did. |
| Posted by: badanov 2024-06-22 13:28 |