Heroic Tula Tanker Vasily Ivanovich Zaitsev left stunning memories of his pre-war and military life. They have a lot that we are not enough now in the stories about that time - the absence of pathos and the feeling of confession. He seemed to retell all the events itself. Therefore, we now actually have a rare opportunity to talk with a person who stayed on that terrible war from the first to last days. He fought, looking for a family, was injured, made a feat - events for a lifetime, and this is just four years.
February 12 marks 110 years since the birth of the Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Zaitseva.
Failed wedding
Vasily Ivanovich Zaitsev was born on February 12, 1911 in the village of Caveryino of the current Yasnogorsk district. Father Ivan Matveyevich in the profession was a molding officer. Before the revolution, he worked in Moscow and Tula, after the civil war only in Tula, since 1926 - on the weapon. Mom Alexander Mikhailovna remained in the village all this time, led the farm with the help of children. And there are no more of them in the family, eight people. So lived. Father all the time on earnings, only occasionally visited home.
Alexandra Mikhailovna died in 1930. After that, the Father broke from the village, and the whole family moved to Tula. After the war, Ivan Matveyevich lived in the house 88 on Lenin Avenue. Two brothers and four sisters worked on a weapon factory. Brother Nicholas, 1924 born, died in battles for Vitebsk already in 1941.
Vasily Zaitsev, as the oldest, moved to the Father in Tula much earlier - back in 1926. Decided that he will work and learn. He graduated from the ten-year-old labor school of the second stage named after the Comintern, but it did not develop with work for a long time. At that time, there was still a high unemployment, and through the labor exchange was given directions only on one-time work. Finally, in 1929 it was possible to do the student first at first, then a mechanic to the Phoenix factory, subsequently "Tulasantehnika".
In 1932, called to the army, and on party mobilization sent a cadet of the Oryol armored school. Together with Zaitsev went twenty tula skills.
After graduation, I went to serve in Berdichev. He commanded the tank in the mechanized shelf of the 3rd Bessarabian Cavalry Division, since October 1935 - a tank platoon. She took part in Kiev maneuvers, which Vasily Ivanovich called in his memoirs "famous". And indeed - it was the most ambitious of all maneuvers,
held in the Soviet Union in pre-war years. After their end of the Zaitsev loss to the new place of service in Izyaslavl.
In early October 1937, the regiment raised anxiety, immersed on the platform and sent to the center of Russia. For a long time remained in the ignorance of the causes and the final point of this unexpected travel, while the platforms were subordinate to the unloading in Kaluga. The regiment was transformed into the 2nd tank battalion, which became part of the 13th tank brigade.
By the time in the spring of 1937, he met in Izyaslavl with his future wife Raisa Drabchuk.
In the summer of 1939, they were transferred to the Trans-Baikal Military District, with readiness at any time to speak to the area of battles on Chalchin-goal. However, the armed clash ended without their participation.
First deserters
On May 2, 1941, he left for admission to the Academy. Frunze.
Passing successfully exams, he was enrolled by the Academy's listener for the first course and began regular classes. In one stream, the famous flyer Marina Svalova, a participant in the record of the flight along with Valentina Grisodubova and Polina Osipenko. All of them became the first women who were awarded the title of heroes of the Soviet Union. In 1943, Marina Oblova tragically died in a plane crash.
(PHOTO: Marina Svalo)
In the Academy, life continued as usual. But soon I sent pilots, artillery players. Not taken only tankers and infantrymen. Historiers of the Academy for a long time standing for a long time with a setting on the fronts. It was bitter and offensive that the Red Army continues to retreat that she was not able to stop the enemy. Requests to send to the front command of the Academy strongly rejected. They said: the time will come, send there, where you need.
The daily enemy aviation raids began to Moscow. The cadets were duty at night in the calculations on the roofs, and during the day they were engaged.
Evacuation in Tashkent.
The students of the Academy listeners were transferred to the General Staff and were aimed at the construction of defensive borders on the path of the enemy. Vasily Ivanovich Zaitsev among thirty man traveled to Stalingrad for the construction of the turn on the Don River. In Kuibyshev, traveled by train. On the way bombed, shelled artillery. Fortunately, it cost without loss.
Finally got the news from his family. Wife with children were in the city of Bogotol Krasnoyarsk Territory.
In early January, Vasily Ivanovich arrived at the Academy to Tashkent. After a ten-day quarantine, he gladly returned to Moscow. On the way, he was still able to go to the family in Bogotol and transported it to the city of Plast under Chelyabinsk to the mother and sister, who after a long weary downtown here.
Wife had to survive a lot. On the way, she pulled out all the money, documents and things. Therefore, she could not get to the native husband in Tula. Staying with the families of other officers who contained it until the husband finally found and handed the money.