If you want to establish the fate of your relative who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War, then get ready for long and labor-intensive work. Don’t expect that all you have to do is ask a question and someone will tell you in detail about your relative. And there is no magic key to the secret door behind which there is a box with the inscription “The most detailed information about Sergeant Ivanov I.I. for his great-grandson Edik.” Information about a person, if preserved, is scattered across dozens of archives in tiny, often unrelated, fragments. It may turn out that after spending several years searching, you will not learn anything new about your relative. But it is possible that a lucky chance will reward you after just a few months of searching.
Below is a simplified search algorithm. It may seem complicated. In reality, everything is much more complicated. Here are ways to find information if it is preserved somewhere. But the information you need might not have been preserved at all: the hardest of all wars was going on, not only individual military personnel were dying - regiments, divisions, armies were dying, documents disappeared, reports were lost, archives were burned... It is especially difficult (and sometimes impossible) to find out the fate of military personnel , killed or missing in action in encirclement in 1941 and the summer of 1942.
Total irrecoverable losses armed forces USSR (Red Army, Navy, NKVD) in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11.944 thousand people. It should be noted right away that these are not dead, but various reasons excluded from parts lists. According to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense N 023 dated February 4, 1944, irretrievable losses include “those killed in battle, missing at the front, those who died from wounds on the battlefield and in medical institutions, those who died from diseases received at the front, or those who died at the front.” from other reasons and captured by the enemy." Of this number, 5,059 thousand people were missing. In turn, of those missing in action, most ended up in German captivity (and only less than a third of them lived to see liberation), many died on the battlefield, and many of those who ended up in occupied territory were subsequently re-drafted into the army. The distribution of irretrievable losses and missing persons by year of war (let me remind you that the second number is part of the first) is shown in the table:
|
Year |
Irrevocable losses (thousand people) |
Killed and died from wounds (thousand people) |
|
|
Total |
Missing |
||
|
1941 |
3.137 |
2.335 |
|
|
1942 |
3.258 |
1.515 |
|
|
1943 |
2.312 |
||
|
1944 |
1.763 |
||
|
1945 |
|||
|
Total |
11.944 |
5.059 |
9.168 |
In total, 9,168 thousand military personnel were killed or died from wounds in the Great Patriotic War, and the total direct human losses of the Soviet Union for all years of the Great Patriotic War are estimated at 26.6 million people. (Numerical data on losses are taken from the works of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, 1998-2002, which seem to us the most reliable and least politicized of all known estimates of USSR losses in the Great Patriotic War.)
1. First steps
1.1. Searching for a home
First of all, you need to know exactly your last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and place of birth. Without this information it will be very difficult to search.
The place of birth must be indicated in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the pre-war years. The correspondence between pre-revolutionary, pre-war and modern administrative-territorial divisions can be found on the Internet. (Directory administrative division USSR in 1939-1945 on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
It is usually not difficult to find out the time of conscription and the place of residence of the conscript. Based on his place of residence, one can determine which District Military Commissariat (RMC) he was called up to.
Ranks can be determined by insignia in surviving photographs. If the rank is unknown, then affiliation with the rank and file, command and political personnel can be very approximately determined by the education and pre-war biography of the serviceman.
If a medal or order that a serviceman was awarded during the war has been preserved, then by the award number you can determine the number of the military unit and even find out a description of the feat or military merits of the recipient.
It is imperative to interview the relatives of the serviceman. Much time has passed since the end of the war, and the soldier’s parents are no longer alive, and his wife, brothers and sisters are very old, much has been forgotten. But when talking with them, some minor detail may emerge: the name of the area, the presence of letters from the front, words from a long-lost “funeral”... Write everything down and for each individual fact be sure to indicate the source: “story by S.I. Smirnova 10.05 .2008". It is necessary to write down the source because contradictory information may appear (the grandmother said one thing, but the certificate states something else), and you will have to choose a more plausible source. It should be taken into account that family legends sometimes convey some events with distortions (something was forgotten, something was confused, something was “improved” by the narrator...).
It is very important at this stage to determine in the troops of which People's Commissariats (People's Commissariat, or in modern terms - ministries) your relative served: People's Commissariat of Defense ( ground troops and aviation), Navy(including coastal units and naval aviation), People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD troops, border units). The files of different departments are stored in different archives. (Addresses of departmental archives on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
The main task at the first stage should be to find out the date of death and the number of the military unit in which the serviceman was a member for at least some time.
1.2. If letters from the front have been preserved
All letters from the front were reviewed by military censorship, servicemen were warned about this, therefore, letters usually did not indicate names and numbers military units, names of settlements, etc.
The first thing you need to determine is the number of the Field Postal Station (PPS or “field mail”). By the teaching staff number it is often possible to determine number military unit. (“Directory of field post stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945”, “Directory of military units - field posts of the Red Army in 1943-1945” on the website SOLDIAT.ru. ) It should be borne in mind that it is not always possible to determine a specific unit (regiment, battalion, company) within a military unit. ("Recommendations" on the website SOLDAT.ru. )
Before September 5, 1942, the address of a military unit usually consisted of the PPS number and the numbers of specific military units served by this PPS (regiment, battalion, company, platoon). After September 5, 1942, the actual numbers of military units were not indicated in the address, and instead of them, within each specific PPS, conditional addressee numbers were entered. Such conditional numbers could include from two to five to six characters (letters and numbers). It is impossible to determine the actual number of the military unit by the conventional number of the addressee. In this case, by the PPS number, only the number of the division or army can be determined, and the number of the regiment, battalion, company will remain unknown, because Each army had its own unit coding system.
In addition to the teaching staff number, the stamp (in the center) contains the date of registration of the letter on the teaching staff (in fact, the date the letter was sent) - it will also be useful in further searches. The text of the letter may contain information about the rank of the serviceman, his military specialty, about awards, about belonging to a private, junior command (sergeant), command (officer) or political structure, etc.
2. Internet search
2.1. United Data Bank "Memorial"
2.1.1. The largest resource on the Internet is the official website of the Ministry of Defense “Joint Data Bank “Memorial””. The data bank was created on the basis of documents stored in TsAMO: reports of irretrievable losses, journals of those who died in hospitals, alphabetical lists burials, German personal cards for prisoners of war, post-war lists of those who did not return from the war, etc. Currently (2008) the site is operating in test mode. The site allows you to search by last name, place of conscription, year of birth and some other keywords. It is possible to view scanographs of source documents that mention the found person.
When searching, you should also check for consonant surnames and first names, especially if the surname is difficult to perceive by ear - with repeated rewriting, the surname could be distorted. An error could also have been made by the operator when entering handwritten information into the computer.
In some cases, there are several documents for one serviceman, for example: a report on irretrievable losses, a personal list of those who died from wounds, an alphabetical list of those who died in the hospital, a military burial registration card, etc. And of course, very often there are no documents for a serviceman - this mainly applies to those who went missing in the initial period of the war.
2.2.1. In addition to the Memorial OBD website, there are several accessible databases on the Internet with a search by surname (Links page on the SOLDIER website.ru).
2.2.2. Regardless of the search results on the OBD Memorial website and in databases, it is necessary to search in several search engines on the Internet, using known information about the relative as the search string. Even search system will tell you something interesting based on your request, you should repeat the search for various combinations of words, check synonyms and possible abbreviations of terms, titles, names.
2.2.3. You should definitely visit genealogical and military history sites and forums, look through the catalogs of military literature sections on the sites electronic libraries. Read the memoirs of soldiers and officers found on the Internet who served in the same sector of the front as your relative, as well as descriptions of the combat operations of the front, army, division in which he served. This will help you a lot in your future work. . And it’s simply useful to know about the everyday life of that great war.
2.2.4. You should not completely trust information received from the Internet - often no one is responsible for its reliability, so always try to check the facts obtained from other sources. If you cannot check, then make a note or simply remember which of the information was obtained from an unverified source. In the future, you will often come across information that is unlikely, unreliable, doubtful, or even, most likely, false. For example, very soon you will have a list of namesakes, a wanted relative, whose biographical facts coincide with the ones you need. There is no need to throw anything away, but be sure to indicate for each new fact the source from which you received it - maybe in a year you will have new information that will force you to re-evaluate the information you collected.
2.2.5. If you have a desire to ask your question at a military-historical forum right now, don’t rush. First, read the posts on this forum over the past weeks. It may turn out that similar questions have already been asked more than once, and regular forum visitors have already answered them in detail - in this case, your question will cause irritation. In addition, each forum has its own rules and traditions, and if you want to receive a friendly response, then try not to violate the norms of behavior accepted on the forum. Typically, when writing your first message to a forum, you should introduce yourself. And don't forget to include your address Email for those who want to respond to you by letter.
2.3. Books of Memory
2.3.1. In many regions of the country, Books of Memory have been published, which contain alphabetical lists of residents of the region who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Books of Memory are multi-volume publications; they can be found in the regional library and in the military registration and enlistment offices of the region, but they are difficult to find outside the region. In some regions of the country, in addition to the regional Book of Memory, Books of Memory of individual districts have been published. Some Books are available in electronic versions on the Internet. Since publications from different territories, regions, republics and districts were prepared by different editorial teams, the set personal information and the design of different editions is different. As a rule, the Books of Memory of regions indicate military personnel who were born or drafted into the army in this region. Both Books of Memory should be checked: the one published at the place of birth and the one published at the place where the serviceman was recruited. (Links to electronic versions of the Books of Memory on the Internet on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
The Books of Memory of some regions on the territory of which hostilities took place contain information about military personnel who died and were buried in the region. If you know in which region a serviceman died, you need to check the Book of Memory of the corresponding region.
2.3.2. A large database of fallen military personnel is available in the museum at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, and museum employees provide certificates both in person and by telephone, but the database installed in the museum is abbreviated (contains only the last name, first name, patronymic and year of birth), and the full database, created with public money, is now is private property and practically inaccessible. In addition, with the advent of the OBD Memorial website on the Internet, both databases can be considered outdated.
2.3.3. If you are unable to access your the necessary Books In memory, you can ask to check the book of the desired area on an online forum with military-historical or genealogical topics. In addition, many cities have their own websites on the Internet, and most of these websites have their own regional forums. You can ask a question or make a request on just such a forum, and you will most likely be given advice or a hint, and, if the locality is small, then you can find out some question at the military registration and enlistment office or museum.
It should be borne in mind that there are also errors in the Books of Memory, their number depends on the conscientiousness of the editorial team.
3. Obtaining information from the archive
3.1. On personal registration of dead and missing military personnel
3.1.1. This subsection provides brief information about the personal records of military personnel killed and missing during the Great Patriotic War. Knowledge of the basic features of record keeping is necessary for further work with archival documents.
3.1.2. It should be noted that during the war, the registration of dead military personnel was organized quite clearly (as far as possible under war conditions). At intervals of 10 days (sometimes less often), each military unit of the Active Army sent to the higher headquarters a named list of irretrievable losses - “Report on irretrievable losses...”. This report for each deceased serviceman indicated: last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, rank, position, date and place of death, place of burial, military registration and enlistment office, residential address and the names of parents or wife. Reports from different parts gathered at the Troop Recruitment Directorate General Staff Red Army (later - in the Central Bureau of Losses of the Red Army). Similar reports were submitted by hospitals about military personnel who died from wounds and illnesses.
After the war, these reports were transferred to TsAMO, and on their basis a card file of irretrievable losses was compiled. Information from the report of the military unit was transferred to the serviceman’s personal card; the card indicated the number of the military unit and the number under which this report was recorded.
3.1.3. Notification of the death of a serviceman was sent by the headquarters of the unit in which the deceased served, as a rule, to the military registration and enlistment office. A duplicate notice was issued at the military registration and enlistment office, which was sent to relatives, and on its basis a pension was subsequently issued. The original notices remained in storage at the military registration and enlistment office. The original notice had a round seal and a corner stamp with the name of the military unit or its conventional five-digit number. Some of the notices were sent by the headquarters of military units directly to relatives, bypassing the military registration and enlistment office, which was a violation of the established procedure. Some of the post-war issuance notices were issued by district military registration and enlistment offices on the proposal of the Central Bureau of Losses. All notices issued by military registration and enlistment offices bore the seal and details of the military registration and enlistment office, and the number of the military unit, as a rule, was not given.
The notification of the death of a serviceman indicated: the name of the unit, rank, position, date and place of death of the serviceman and place of burial. (Image of the notice of death of a serviceman on the SOLDIER website.ru.)
3.1.4. It is necessary to distinguish between two ways of indicating the names of military units in open (unclassified) correspondence:
a) in the period 1941-42. the documents indicated the actual name of the unit - for example, 1254th Infantry Regiment (sometimes indicating the division number);
b) in the period 1943-45. the conventional name of the military unit was indicated - for example, “military unit 57950”, which corresponded to the same 1254 sp. Five-digit numbers were assigned to NPO units, and four-digit numbers to NKVD units.
3.1.5. A serviceman who was absent from his unit for an unknown reason was considered missing, and the search for him for 15 days did not yield any results. Information about missing persons was also transmitted to higher headquarters, and notification of the missing person was sent to relatives. In this case, the notice of a missing serviceman indicated the name of the military unit, the date and place of the disappearance of the serviceman.
Most of the military personnel listed as missing died during the retreat, or during reconnaissance in force, or while surrounded, i.e. in cases where the battlefield remained with the enemy. It was difficult to witness their deaths for various reasons. The missing persons also included:
- military personnel who were captured,
- deserters,
- business travelers who did not arrive at their destination,
- scouts who did not return from a mission,
- the personnel of entire units and subunits in the event that they were defeated and there were no commanders left who could reliably report up the chain of command about specific types of losses.
However, the reason for the soldier’s absence could not only be his death. For example, a warrior who fell behind a unit on the march could be included in another military unit, in which he then continued to fight. A wounded person from the battlefield could be evacuated by soldiers of another unit and sent directly to the hospital. There are known cases when relatives received several notices (“funerals”) during the war, but the person turned out to be alive.
3.1.6. In cases where no information about irretrievable losses was received from a military unit to a higher headquarters (for example, in the case of the death of a unit or its headquarters while surrounded, loss of documents), notification to relatives could not be sent, because lists of the unit's military personnel were among the lost staff documents.
3.1.7. After the end of the war, district military registration and enlistment offices carried out work to collect information about military personnel who did not return from the war (door-to-door survey). In addition, the relatives of a serviceman who did not return from the war could, on their own initiative, draw up a “Questionnaire for a person who did not return from the war” at the military registration and enlistment office.
Based on information from the military registration and enlistment offices, the file of losses was replenished with cards compiled based on the results of a survey of relatives. Such cards could contain the entry “correspondence was interrupted in December 1942,” and the number of the military unit was usually missing. If the card drawn up on the basis of a report from the military registration and enlistment office indicates the number of the military unit, then it should be treated as probable, conjectural. The date of the disappearance of the serviceman in this case was established by the military commissar, usually by adding three to six months to the date of the last letter. The directive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR recommended that district military commissars set a date for missing persons according to the following rules:
1) if the relatives of a serviceman who did not return from the war lived in unoccupied territory, then three months should be added to the date of the last letter received,
2) if the relatives of a serviceman who did not return from the war remained in the occupied territory during the war, then three months should have been added to the date of liberation of the territory.
Door-to-door survey sheets and questionnaires are also stored in TsAMO (department 9), and they may contain information that is not on the card. When filling out the card, not all the information given in the house-to-house survey sheet was usually entered into it. or questionnaire, since there was no way to verify the information recorded from the words of relatives. Therefore, if it is known that the family of a serviceman received letters from him from the front, but these letters were subsequently lost, then some information from these letters (teaching staff number, date of the letter) may appear in the house-to-house survey reports. When responding to a request about the fate of a serviceman, archive workers do not have the opportunity to find records of a door-to-door survey. You will have to look for them yourself, but, most likely, during a personal visit to the archive. The RVC report number indicating the year is stamped on the back of the personal card. After the appearance of the Memorial OBD website on the Internet, it became possible to conduct an independent search for source documents.
3.2. Brief information about archives
Most of the documents relating to the period of the Great Patriotic War are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Below we will mainly describe the search for military personnel of the People's Commissariat of Defense (NKO) and, accordingly, links will be made to the TsAMO archive, since it is in it that the archives of the People's Commissariat of Defense (and then the Ministry of Defense) are stored from June 22, 1941 to the eighties. (Addresses of departmental archives on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
The file of dead and missing NGO servicemen during the Great Patriotic War is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Similar loss files are available in:
a) Central Naval Archive in the city of Gatchina - according to the personnel of the fleet, coastal service and naval aviation,
b) Russian State Military Archive in Moscow - for persons who served in the bodies, formations and units of the NKVD,
c) archive of the Federal border service FSB of the Russian Federation in the city of Pushkino, Moscow region - for border guards.
In addition to the archives listed, the necessary documentation may be in state regional archives and departmental archives.
Some information can be obtained on the OBD Memorial website
To obtain information about the fate of a serviceman, you must send a request to TsAMO (or to the other archives mentioned above), in which you must briefly indicate the known information about the serviceman. It is also recommended to include a stamped envelope with your home address in the envelope to speed up the response. (TsAMO postal address and sample application on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
If military rank serviceman is unknown or there is reason to believe that he could have been awarded an officer rank, then in the application to TsAMO you should write “Please check the personal files and loss records of the 6th, 9th, 11th departments of TsAMO” (in departments 6, 9, 11 card indexes, respectively, for political, private and sergeant, officer corps).
It is recommended that at the same time, in the same letter, you send an application with a request to “Clarify awards” and indicate the last name, first name, patronymic, year and place of birth of the serviceman. TsAMO has a card index of all decorated servicemen of the Red Army, and it may turn out that the serviceman you are looking for was awarded a medal or order. (Image of the “Registration Card of the Awarded Person” and the request form on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
Due to insufficient funding for the archive, a response from it may take 6-12 months to arrive by mail, so if possible, it is better to visit the archive in person. (Address of TsAMO on the website SOLDAT.ru.) You can also fill out a request at the military registration and enlistment office, in this case the request to the archive will be issued on the letterhead of the military registration and enlistment office with the signature of the military registration and enlistment office and a seal.
Since 2007, only citizens of the Russian Federation have been allowed into TsAMO - this is the instruction of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which, apparently, has forgotten that natives of all republics of the USSR fought and died in the war.
3.4. A response has been received from TsAMO. Response Analysis
Thus, a letter from TsAMO (or the result of an independent search in the Memorial ODB) may contain 4 answer options:
1) A message about the death of a serviceman, indicating the number of the military unit, date and place of death, rank and place of burial.
2) A message about a missing serviceman indicating the number of the military unit, the date and place of the loss.
3) A report about a missing serviceman, compiled on the basis of a survey of relatives, with incomplete, unverified or unreliable information.
4) A message about the absence of information about the serviceman in the casualty file.
If you are lucky and the response from TsAMO contains the name of the military unit, then you can proceed to clarify battle path military personnel (see below)
If you are VERY lucky, and in the TsAMO’s card index of awardees there was a registration card for your relative, and an extract from it was sent to you in the archive’s response, then you should familiarize yourself with the award sheet in the same TsAMO, which contains short description feat or merit of the recipient. A description of the job at TsAMO is given below, and you can skip the description of the search at the military registration and enlistment office.
If it was not possible to establish the number of the military unit in which your relative served, then you will have to continue the search in the military registration and enlistment office and in other departmental archives. More on this below.
4. Search for information at the place of recruitment
4.1. Brief information about the organization of work in the RVC to staff the Active Army
4.1.1. In order to correctly submit a request to the district military registration and enlistment office (RMC), you should familiarize yourself with the organization of the RMC’s work on staffing the Active Army (DA).
4.1.2. The RVC carried out the conscription and mobilization of citizens, as well as their distribution to places of service.
Citizens conscripted into the army (i.e., who had not previously served) could be sent
- to a reserve or training regiment or brigade stationed at that time near the place of conscription,
- to a military unit formed in this area.
Citizens mobilized from the reserve (i.e., who had already served in the army) could be sent directly to the front as part of marching companies or battalions.
4.1.3. Marching companies (battalions) were usually not sent directly to a combat unit, but first arrived at an army or front-line transit point (PP) or to an army or front-line reserve rifle regiment (or reserve rifle brigade).
4.1.4. Newly formed, reformed or understaffed military units were sent to the front and participated in hostilities under their numbers.
4.1.5. Reserve regiments and brigades received unprepared military contingents, carried out initial military training and sent military personnel to the front or to educational establishments. Sending to the front was usually carried out as part of marching companies or battalions. It is necessary to distinguish between permanent and variable composition of reserve military units. The permanent composition included military personnel who ensured the functioning of the military unit: regimental headquarters, management, battalion, company and platoon commanders, medical unit employees, a separate communications company, etc. The variable composition included military personnel enrolled in the reserve unit for military training. The period of stay in spare parts of variable composition ranged from several weeks to several months.
4.1.6. At the military registration and enlistment office, a “Conscription Card” was issued for each conscript (that is, those drafted for the first time and who had not previously served in the army). It contained information about the conscript, the results of a medical examination and information about parents. On its reverse side, the penultimate item contains the number of the draft team and the date the team was sent. (Image of the draft card on the SOLDIER website.ru.)
4.1.7. A reserve conscript is a person who has completed active military service. military service in the Red Army and the RKVMF, and in reserve of category 1 or 2. Upon arrival at the RVK at the place of residence from service (or for other circumstances), a “Registration card of the person liable for military service” was created, in which there was no information about relatives, medical data was briefly given, the dates of issuance of the mobilization order and the place of registration, the conditional number of the conscription team were indicated. , to which the person liable for military service was assigned when mobilization was announced. Also, information about the issue of a military ID, place of work, position, and home address was entered into the registration card. The second copy of the registration card was located at the headquarters of the unit to which the citizen was assigned. (Image of a military service member’s registration card on the SOLDIER website.ru.)
Under the numbers of conscription teams, pre-existing personnel formations and their units were specially encrypted, which, upon mobilization, were supposed to expand to the number of wartime personnel due to the call-up of reserve personnel assigned to them. Accordingly, the RVC may retain lists of such conscription teams, and in different RVCs for the same personnel military unit the number of the conscription team was the same, because The personnel military unit to which specific conscripts were sent was the same.
4.1.8. In addition to the above documents, each RVC kept the following logs:
- Alphabet books conscripted into the Soviet Army during the Great Patriotic War...,
- Alphabet books for registering the dead...,
- Name lists of privates and sergeants registered as dead and missing...
The above-mentioned “Alphabetical books of those drafted into the Soviet Army...” were compiled on the basis of Conscription Cards and Registration Cards of those liable for military service, but have a significantly smaller set of information compared to the original documents. In many military registration and enlistment offices, conscription cards and registration cards were destroyed after the expiration of the storage period. Some military registration and enlistment offices still keep these documents.
4.1.9. When sending a conscription team, a “Name list for the conscription team” was compiled at the military registration and enlistment office. In addition to the nominal list of military personnel, it contains the number of the military unit (conditional - “military unit N 1234”, or actual - “333 s.d.”) and the address of this unit. (Image of the name list for the team on the SOLDIER website.ru.) In many military registration and enlistment offices, "Name lists..." were destroyed after the expiration of the storage period. They are still kept in some military registration and enlistment offices.
4.2. Searching for information at the military registration and enlistment office
4.2.1. If the response from the archive does not indicate the number of the military unit or if there is no information about the serviceman in the archive, then you will have to continue the search at the military registration and enlistment office at the place of conscription. You can send an application to the military registration and enlistment office by mail or appear in person. The latter is, of course, preferable. If the exact address of the military registration and enlistment office is unknown, then you can write only the name of the city on the envelope (without indicating the street and house), and in the “To” column write: “District military registration and enlistment office” - the letter will arrive. The application must indicate all known information about the serviceman. (Sample application to RVC and postal codes on the SOLDIER website.ru.)
Since registration documents with different names were drawn up for conscripts and mobilized persons, and it is not always known whether the wanted person served in the army before the war, in an application to the RVC it is recommended to ask for copies of both documents: the Conscription Card and the Military Personnel Registration Card.
4.2.2. If the response received from RVC indicates the conditional number of the military unit, then you need to determine the actual number. ("Directory of the conventional names of military units (institutions) in 1939 - 1943" and "Directory of military units - field posts of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
4.2.3. It should be recalled that the archives of military registration and enlistment offices located in the temporarily occupied territories in the western regions and republics of the Soviet Union could have been lost.
4.2.4. Searching for information about the personnel and direction of marching companies and battalions is very difficult, because in the process of moving to the front line, marching units could be redirected to transit points (PPs) located along the route, or re-equipped in reserve rifle regiments and brigades of armies and fronts. Marching companies that arrived at a combat unit were sometimes, due to circumstances, immediately brought into battle without being properly enrolled in the unit's staff.
4.3. Spare parts and military units of local formation
4.3.1. If it is not possible to find out at the military registration and enlistment office where the conscript was sent, then the search should be continued in the funds spare and educational units, stationed at that time near settlement call. Usually, previously unserved conscripts were sent to them for training. Further searches for information should be made in the documents of these parts at TsAMO. (Directory "Deployment of spare and training units" on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)
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Thanks for the answers, especially about decoding orders.Yes, Pavlushkina later became a captain - this was her post-war rank. Then she had just graduated from the Military Medical Academy in Leningrad, if I’m not confused. It was truly a military wedding. Otherwise, there are many more questions in this story than answers - there are almost no witnesses who saw the battle on the 1st gun and the death of everyone. The documentary base is small - it is a pity that at one time our predecessors paid very little attention to the detailed collection of evidence. That the reasons for the death of sailors is a difficult topic: in the photographs where the sailors are visible quite well (these pictures are not on the Internet, I looked at them in the archives of a private collector) There is definitely no barbed wire; they were not tied to the trunk. The tarpaulin disguise above them did not burn, but the bodies really burned half in a lying position. The fire was small, judging by the burnt-out boards, at most 2 m2, but very strong - in the fireplace the head of one of the victims was burned out to the point of indistinguishability and the hands were burned out, while the chest and stomach were scorched, and below the waist the pants were not burned at all. Two more were burned to the waist, and were clearly still crawling about a meter after their burns. One was completely burned, only his boots remained. The three initially lay, apparently, together, in a row, under the barrel of a cannon. One stood on his feet until he died. Total - 4 people. One of them died, apparently with a rifle in his hands, two dropped their rifles when receiving fatal injuries, the central (whose head is burned out) perhaps he was already dead. The nurse was not tormented, as according to legend. She died, possibly with a weapon in her hands.
Why the sailors lay under the cannon and the nature of the injuries: there are many assumptions, including that the Nazis attacked the cannon from the mountain and from the field, preventing the sailors from evacuating from the artillery yard (essentially a room around a gun with an area of ~ 20 m2, a depth of 1 m.p., lined with wood). To hide from the shelling from the mountain, the wounded crawled under the cover of the armored tower. Next, the Nazis could bypass the cannon from the field and throw an incendiary mixture in a bottle at the sailors or use a flamethrower (but at the same time, the Germans would have to stand up to their full height in front of the lying but armed sailors in order to shoot fire into the artillery courtyard). Whose crew died - Smaglia or Shvaiko (which remained until the arrival of Smagliya),- alas, it is not yet clear. There were only “two” witnesses of that battle alive. On one side are two Red Navy men from the Smaglia group. With him they walked to Voronya Mountain, saw a mortal battle, saw how Smagliy hit tanks with a cannon, saw how they were surrounded by the Nazis, but they were wounded (there was brutal bombing and shelling) and they left the battle - they went back. This is indirectly confirmed by the reconnaissance group of the 2nd gun. On the other hand, there is a certain female trench doctor (I don’t write the name because they are real people), working near battery "A". This woman in the 60s, after the first talk in the media about Aurora, appeared in Leningrad and at private meetings with fellow battery soldiers and some military officials, among other things, stated that Smaglia was actually captured along with her and the others sailors. She allegedly saw him in the camp, what happened next is not known. The woman had in her hands the documents of the wounded battalion commander, which she had kept for 20 years, and photographs of commander Skoromnikov. She handed them over to the Central Military Museum of Leningrad. One thing is strange from her testimony - she nowhere mentions the fierce battle on the mountain that the Red Navy saw. Allegedly, all the sailors were captured in the dugout, and that’s all. During the occupation, she herself lived in Duderhof, as she said - not bad. When Duderhof was released (heroic battle for the Voronya Mountains in January 1944, a poem by M. Dudin is dedicated to it)- this woman, along with the Germans and local Finns, was evacuated to Estonia, where she met the Victory. Subsequently, she was not repressed; she worked as the chief physician in a province in the central part of the USSR. After her statements in the 60s, apparently, she was well “checked”, but was not touched, and she lived out her life calmly. But the “secret heritage” remains a noble one, which is well known behind the scenes, and which has to be dealt with, because there are some indirect similar indications other persons
From various documents of the “N” parties it follows that behind the “not very high military scenes” they knew about all this since approximately 1965, but the case was not given any progress due to the already created politically verified version. Now I’m working with the origins. The legend of “barbed wire” was known among locals already in the fall of 1941. Subsequently, they started talking about it only in the 60s, when war correspondent K.K. Grishchinsky. one of his cadets told a version about the death of Smagliy, which he heard in Duderhof. Grishchinsky found it in two years most surviving batteries - it’s true, they are all documented and verified. Incl. he found Pavlushkina and wrote the first story. I found Grishchinsky's meager notes - he worked quite honestly, apparently, and did not try to lie. But he was the first to mention execution by burning in the media, relying only on a letter from a witness to the execution, Alexandra M., who lived in Poland at that time. Otherwise, with the exception of the testimony of his cadet, he has no accurate evidence. Alexandra herself, when analyzing her letter and her other testimony, writes everything the words local residents. Pavlushkina, in Grishchinsky’s article, allegedly also already knew about Alexei’s death.
Your own book of memories (the whole war is there, 2 volumes, not just the battery) Pavlushkina wanted to publish it in 1980, but the manuscript lay in Lenizdat until perestroika, and then it was completely abandoned. But in the same 1980, the book “The High Fate of Aurora” by M.Yu. Chernov was published, where in the chapter “Oranienbaum-Voronya Gora” the final, “politically verified” version appeared, based largely on Grishchinsky’s first work and Pavlushkina’s memoirs themselves . The fate of Antoina Grigorievna herself is actually difficult (I read not only her memoirs, but also personal archives some)- since 1963, she kept trying to open a memorial to the Aurors, but time after time it was “wrapped up” for various reasons. Finally, in 1984, she was able to obtain the right to build, found an architect (Levenkov A.D., author of memorials on the “Road of Life”) and volunteers/sponsors. During the year's construction, volunteers (military, cadets, pioneers, Komsomol members, athletes, tourists, sympathizers) manually processed 9,000 tons of rocky soil while planning only one memorial to the Aurors. The construction reports are colossal - almost 2,500 people went to work over these months. Everything was built on public principles from March to September 1984. In general, a 15-kilometer memorial complex was supposed to be built on the sites of all the guns, all projects were approved, but it didn’t work out. Against Palushkina in 1986-1989. known or unknown persons launched a behind-the-scenes campaign, using “alternative” versions of Smagliy’s death, involving the media, and passing off Pavlushkina as a liar. As a result of persecution, she retired from work and was unable to complete what she started (all her assistants simply stopped the construction project, completing only what they had received social obligations for). It’s not worth talking about the “campaign” in detail, because... it's "dirty laundry" and vile, and people are still alive. One thing is a pity - because of all these squabbles, the memory Heroes remained not immortalized completely. But to this day there are frames in the fields, standing... one was plundered for scrap 2 years ago. Below the frame of the 6th gun under Mount Kirchhoff, in the summer it was cleared of debris by caring people - just in the year of the 75th anniversary of the death of the battery, someone filled the frame with rotten hay and logs - actually desecrated it. Then I ordered and hung a porcelain memorial plaque on it. I then finished painting the frame, it’s an unfinished job. The numbers about the number of dead are controversial, in fact. This is “official data” from a long-standing version, and according to the documents of the artillery division, about 90 people left the battle from battery “A”. But the losses are still large - initially the battery had a strength of about 150 people. Many died in the almost continuous airstrikes and shelling of the battery on September 9-11, 1941 and earlier. Well, during the storming of the battery by the Nazis. It was a terrible battle - but people fought to the death for their Motherland. At the end - a photograph of probably the last living commander of battery "A" - A.I. Dotsenko. He died on January 13, 2014 in Sevastopol.
I wrote the Wikipedia article and filled it in with the work of friends and mine. But everything there is basically based on a politically verified version, and streamlined - otherwise it would have been cleaned out like a legend. And it’s very difficult to write about battery “A” publicly and objectively, so as not to slander the Heroes, and not make an unforgivable mistake. P.e. This is basically work in a narrow circle for more than one year, with careful collection of materials.
P.S. based on the division commander’s reports, the fate of battery “B” was no less cruel and tragic (batteries “A” and “B” were part of the same artillery division), but very little information has been preserved about it.