As a tanker, Fadin destroyed an unthinkable amount of German equipment. Walk of Fame During the Great Patriotic War

True, the Germans did not know that only an infantry battalion of machine gunners and one tank remained from the entire brigade at that time. Only one tank of Lieutenant Fadin per three-kilometer front section. It was this single tank that the command left to plug the gap. The task was set deadly and actually suicidal: to seize Dashukovka, reach its northern outskirts, hold out as long as possible until the corps reserves approached and prevent the enemy from breaking through the encirclement.

The thirty-four were loaded with a double ammunition load of shells, one hundred and fifty pieces instead of the regular seventy-seven. It was this number of shells that allowed the crew to withstand the German breakthrough in the future and enter the history of the Second World War. They began to enter History with the fact that in a night attack, with the support of an infantry company, they captured the village, while gun fire destroyed more than a dozen machine-gun points, dispersed the enemy and crushed a six-barreled mortar with caterpillars.

The strategic importance of the small village of Dashukovka was that the only road possible for a breakthrough passed through it, since the entire area in the district was pitted with deep ravines. And along this road, late at night, the Germans tried to get out of the encirclement. Fadin was surprised by the bright stream of headlights - a long column of motor vehicles with infantry moved along the road. Our tankers did not expect such a gift from the enemy! From the first projectile, the lead truck turned into a fireball. From the second landmine, the trailing car shattered into pieces. And then the nightmare began for the Germans. Like tin figures in the dash of the city park of culture and recreation, lieutenant Alexander Fadin shot enemy equipment - cars and armored personnel carriers. They, as then calculated, will be 11 units.

It got to the point that the driver Petr Doroshenko asked his commander: “Lieutenant, don’t shoot all the cars, we need to collect trophies” . The whole district was lit up by the bright light of fires. Running figures were clearly visible in the reflections of the flames, several more fragmentation shells were fired at them and the turret machine gun disk was completely discharged.

After that, until the morning, the enemy no longer tried to break through Dashukovka. The Germans simply did not know that their advance was holding back only one Russian tank. At dawn, two T-4 panzers crawled out for reconnaissance, received their portion of shells from our tankers, died out and stopped. Their unsuccessful sortie did not reveal Fadin's disguised thirty-four. He very successfully set up his car with the left side to a large hut on the outskirts of the village. In order to understand what Russian forces are preventing them from passing, German officers came out to a distant hillock and began to examine the village through binoculars. And that was their fatal mistake. Lieutenant Fadin, through his binoculars, saw that one of the officers had a greatcoat collar trimmed with red fox fur, and this, by the way, distinctive sign general. Looks like some very important bird with his staff retinue has climbed the hill. You understand, there was no way to ask the honored guests from Alexander Fadin, and therefore he, without any ceremonies and curtsies, so to speak, in a simple way, took and slammed a fragmentation shell in their direction. The mine hit exactly in the middle of a group of curious invaders. Panic and fuss arose on the other side, about fifty figures in white camouflage coats rushed to save their general and pull out his wounded staff officers from all sides. To calm this turmoil, Alexander Fadin fired fifteen more fragmentation shells. After that, the restless running of the enemy on that hillock stopped.

After the execution of the general with his staff officers, the Germans found out the location of our tank, and most likely guessed that it was the only one. The radio in the thirty-four was silent and did not answer call signs. Where help is, and how soon it will come - is unknown ... Only 14 shells remained in the ammunition load. Let me remind you that they are at the very beginning was 150. The crew of Fadin did not even guess what these remaining ammunition would be spent on.

On the morning of February 19, 1944, an Italian-made transport aircraft from Caproni flew to the aid of the hungry German encirclement. He flew low over the ground, threw some large box (most likely with provisions) on the ground, turned around and began to enter the second circle for the next drop. "Caproni" flew directly over the road, strictly along the telegraph line, and the distance between the telegraph poles - it's standard - as a rule, 50 meters. Knowing this interval, Lieutenant Alexander Fadin estimated the distance, calculated the speed of the aircraft, took lead, fired fragmentation ... and for the first time in the history of the Second World War shot down an aircraft from a tank gun!

The land mine hit the Caproni right in the engine, the plane broke in the air and crashed to the ground. What started here! Where did so many Germans come from! From all sides, the field was full of enemy figures coming to life in the snow! They rushed to the remains of the aircraft. Looks like superhumans were very hungry during the encirclement near Korsun. So they rushed to pick up the food scattered on the field. Forgetting that they had few shells, Fadin fired ten times with shrapnel at this running mass of Fritz.

Let me remind you that Fadin's tank was covered by the wall of the house, he stood with the left side to him. The commander's decision was immediate. He told the driver, Petro Doroshenko: “Petya, start the engine and don’t turn it off, we let the Tiger come closer, we jump out from behind the hut and at the count of four, without waiting for my command, turn back.”

And so they did. They jumped out from behind the house, Fadin fired an armor-piercing Tiger in the forehead right on the move, and the driver immediately switched on the reverse gear and hid the car in a shelter. For everything - about everything - a few seconds. Shooting on the move in the forehead of a heavy tank - a chance for success mi-ni-mal-nei-shey! However, the "Tiger" caught fire and exploded. A few seconds later, the last fragmentation projectile was sent to the German machine gunners, and only one charge remained in the tank's ammunition - sub-caliber.

The heat of battle and numerous successes turned Lieutenant Fadin's head, and when the Ferdinand self-propelled gun came out against him, he climbed on the rampage. Alexander decided to duel with this monster. And absolutely in vain. The armor of this German beast is painfully thick.

Let's sum up this heroic battle. The crew of only one tank, the only one thrown to hold the village of Dashukovka, destroyed in half a day: 18 machine-gun points, two mortars with crews, one of which was a six-barreled mortar, a column of vehicles of 11 vehicles and armored personnel carriers, two medium T-4 tanks, the heavy tank "Tiger", and what is most incredible and surprising - the transport aircraft "Caproni". Think about it! Shooting down a plane from a tank gun is like hitting an apple on your head with an arrow, and shooting on the run with your eyes closed! A lot of enemy infantry forces were destroyed by high-explosive shells and machine-gun fire. The entire field on the outskirts of the village was strewn with the bodies of enemies. The number of confirmed enemy losses was then entered into the award list - 50 soldiers and officers.

Video about Fadina - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttaWhox6GNY

Video about the Korsun-Shevchenko operation No. 1- (reconstruction) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jzv_qND6og

Video about the Korsun-Shevchenko operation No. 2 (chronicle in color) -

During the battle in February 1944, during the capture of the village of Dashukovka, the tank crew under the command of Alexander Fadin single-handedly destroyed three tanks, an armored personnel carrier, two mortars with crews, 16 machine-gun points of the enemy, and shot down a German aircraft with a shot from the main gun.

Alexander Mikhailovich Fadin was born in 1924 into a simple peasant family. At the time of the outbreak of the war, he was only 16 years old, and he did not belong to the draft, but he wanted to fight passionately, therefore, like many teenagers, he added two years to himself. He was enrolled in the 2nd Gorky Automobile and Motorcycle School, where he soon became one of the best. In August 1942, the school was retrained as a tank school. Naturally, the cadets greeted this change with jubilation - the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks made a rustle at the front, and it was a tempting offer to fight on them.
Fadin himself recalled: “We, the youth, shout:“ Hooray! ”And those who are older, who fought at Khalkhin Gol and in Finland, liberated Western Ukraine, Belarus say:“ Why are you happy? You will burn in these iron boxes.”
The time has come to take exams, the theoretical part and fire training were the most important and decisive among them. You pass both for "good" and here you are - a junior lieutenant, for "excellent" - a whole lieutenant. Alexander passed the theory with "5", but the main difficulties were associated with shooting. The tests took place at the test site. During the exam, a tractor moved a target on a cable - a wooden model of a tank, and the cadets had to hit it from 1500 meters. At the same time, the T-34 with the examinees goes to a certain point, stops for a few seconds and fires a shot, and the fewer seconds the student spent aiming, the better.
During the shooting, Fadin decided not to slow down at all and make a shot right away - an unprecedented thing at that time, especially from such a distance.
“I was allowed to shoot on the move, but the examiner warned: “Keep in mind, if you don’t hit with all three shells, then you won’t get a junior lieutenant, but you’ll get a senior sergeant” ... As soon as they approached the firing line, the mechanic says: “Wait, wait, now there will be a “track” (a place to stop and shoot - ed.). And I caught a target, a shot - there is no stern! It was a blast! We returned to the starting point, the colonel runs up, shakes hands, takes off and gives me his watch, ”he recalled.
Baptism of fire had to wait until June 1943. During the debut, Fadin knocked out the first German Pz-4, and a couple of minutes later a truck with retreating enemy infantry took off. Fadin's crew showed itself brightly towards the end of 43, liberating Kyiv. Two T-34s and an ISU-152 self-propelled gun were blocking a strategically important clearing in the forest, when a German Tiger unexpectedly stepped on them. A couple of seconds passed, and, flashing, he lit up the moonless night like a hundred torches. A few moments, and the flames cover the next tank with a cross on its side. Both tanks were personally shot down by Fadin. When his car moved forward, it discovered the third victim - a self-propelled artillery mount from the StuG III assault gun class, lurking in the bushes and left without support.

Alexander Mikhailovich accomplished the most important feat in February 1944. Only his tank, with the support of infantry, held back the many times superior enemy forces. However, the word "restrained" does not show how bold and bright that battle was. The order of the authorities almost single-handedly to hold the approaches to the village caught Fadin by surprise. But there was nowhere to wait for help, and since only his tank was on the move, it means that he had to go on a suicide mission. We loaded two ammunition into the car and set off.


Fadin: “Having approached the bend of the ravine, from where it was closest to the village of Dashukovka, we began to slowly descend its slope. There was only one way out: to overcome the ravine and launch an attack on the southern outskirts of Dashukovka. ”The first problems appeared even before the start of the battle. Before the village, which was to be captured, there was a deep ravine, the ramp into which gave the tank crazy acceleration. However, this speed was not enough to overcome the obstacle. Several times the T-34 limply rolled back, and then the commander, together with the crew, came up with a solution: firstly, use special attachments for the tracks, and secondly, the movement should go in reverse. Succeeded!
At night, tired and exhausted tankers climbed to the other side of the ravine and found help - 45-50 infantry. Having rested a little, the Red Army went on the attack. They immediately heard the chirping of enemy machine-gun emplacements, and the tank only had time to turn its turret, extinguishing the fascist points fortified in the village with high-explosive shells on the move.
When the first part of the night battle came to an end, Alexander Fadin's T-34 had 16 such points. But out of 50 infantrymen, no more than 20 survived, and German trucks and armored personnel carriers appeared on the road. The situation seemed catastrophic, only luck and the excellent eye of the tank commander radically changed the course of the battle.

At night, fascist cars always moved with their headlights on. So they revealed themselves, but at the same time minimized the loss of cars on the roads broken by slush. This was taken advantage of by a lone Soviet tank. "Splinter, fire!" - and the first truck shattered to smithereens, another shot - the last one blazed.
The mechanic says to Fadin:
- Lieutenant, do not shoot all the cars, you need to collect trophies.
- Okay.
The area was lit up like daylight. In the reflections of the flames, the running figures of the Nazis were visible, at which I fired a few more fragmentation shells and completely discharged the disc from the Degtyarev tank machine gun coaxial with the cannon, "said the tank hero.
We had barely dealt with this problem, as two German Pz IVs sneaking around in a neighboring field noticed. Once again - shots at the enemy, and once again - the cars were hit. True, there were just no shells left - about 15 out of 150. A few minutes passed, and a German plane flew over the road with wrecked vans, right above the telegraph poles.
Alexander Mikhailovich recalled: “The plane cruised along this line and, knowing approximately the distance between the pillars, I calculated its speed. It was small, about 50-60 kilometers per hour. When the plane dropped its cargo and flew past us, I decided that if it turned around, I would try to shoot it down. I give the command to Fetisov to unscrew the cap and load it with shrapnel. The plane turns around, I take a lead - a shot. The shell hit him right in the engine, and the plane broke.
This doesn’t happen every day on the battlefield, machine-gun emplacements and armored personnel carriers are commonplace, but to shoot down a plane from a tank?! But that was not all. As if the charmed T-34 notices movement 100 meters away, and randomly fires the last shell in that direction. And now German machine gunners, engulfed in flames, run out from behind a smoke screen, and a terrible explosion rumbles behind them - Fadin's shell set fire to the Tiger, and the fire blew up the tank's ammunition.

The battle lasted over five hours. At its very end, an enemy shell hit the T-34 hull, killing the loader. The rest of the crew was injured, but held out until help and main forces arrived.
For that battle, the entire crew was presented for awards, and Commander Fadin himself - for the title of Hero Soviet Union. True, he was not awarded for unknown reasons, and only in 1996 received the title of Hero Russian Federation.


IN postwar period Alexander Mikhailovich served at the Military Academy of Armored Forces, then he trained tankers in Syria. Since 1998 he served in the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He has been the author and co-author of over 40 scientific works. The tank hero died on November 10, 2011.
Based on an interview with Artem Drabkin

During the battle in February 1944, during the capture of the village of Dashukovka, the tank crew under the command of Alexander Fadin single-handedly destroyed three tanks, an armored personnel carrier, two mortars with crews, 16 machine-gun points of the enemy, and shot down a German aircraft with a shot from the main gun. About the hero and his feat - our material.

Colonel's watch

Alexander Mikhailovich Fadin was born in 1924 into a simple peasant family. At the time of the outbreak of the war, he was only 16 years old, and he did not belong to the draft, but he wanted to fight passionately, therefore, like many teenagers, he added two years to himself. He was enrolled in the 2nd Gorky Automobile and Motorcycle School, where he soon became one of the best. In August 1942, the school was retrained as a tank school. Naturally, the cadets greeted this change with jubilation - the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks made a rustle at the front, and it was a tempting offer to fight on them.

Fadin himself recalled: "We, the youth, shout:" Hurrah! You will burn in these iron boxes."
The time has come to take exams, the theoretical part and fire training were the most important and decisive among them. You pass both with "good" and here you are - a junior lieutenant, with "excellent" - a whole lieutenant. Alexander passed the theory with "5", but the main difficulties were associated with shooting. The tests took place at the test site. During the exam, a tractor moved a target on a cable - a wooden model of a tank, and the cadets had to hit it from 1500 meters. At the same time, the T-34 with the examinees goes to a certain point, stops for a few seconds and fires a shot, and the fewer seconds the student spent aiming, the better.

During the shooting, Fadin decided not to slow down at all and make a shot right away - an unprecedented thing at that time, especially from such a distance.

“I was allowed to shoot on the move, but the examiner warned: “Keep in mind, if you don’t hit with all three shells, then you won’t get a junior lieutenant, but you will get a senior sergeant” ... As soon as they approached the firing line, the mechanic says: “ Wait, wait, now there will be a "path" (a place to stop and shoot - ed.). And I caught a target, a shot - there is no stern! It was a blast! We returned to the starting point, the colonel runs up, shakes hands, takes off and gives me his watch," he recalled.

Baptism of fire had to wait until June 1943. During the debut, Fadin knocked out the first German Pz-4, and a couple of minutes later a truck with retreating enemy infantry took off.

Fadin's crew brightly showed itself towards the end of the 43rd year, liberating Kyiv. Two T-34s and an ISU-152 self-propelled gun were blocking a strategically important clearing in the forest, when a German "Tiger" unexpectedly stepped on them. A couple of seconds passed, and, flashing, he lit up the moonless night like a hundred torches. A few moments, and the flames cover the next tank with a cross on its side. Both tanks were personally shot down by Fadin. When his car moved forward, it discovered the third victim - a self-propelled artillery mount from the StuG III assault gun class, lurking in the bushes and left without support.

No man is an island

A source:

Alexander Mikhailovich accomplished the most important feat in February 1944. Only his tank, with the support of infantry, held back the many times superior enemy forces. However, the word "restrained" does not show how bold and bright that battle was.

The order from the authorities almost single-handedly to hold the approaches to the village caught Fadin by surprise. But there was nowhere to wait for help, and since only his tank was on the move, it means that he had to go on a suicide mission. We loaded two ammunition into the car and set off.

The first problems appeared even before the start of the battle. Before the village, which was to be captured, there was a deep ravine, the ramp into which gave the tank crazy acceleration. However, this speed was not enough to overcome the obstacle. Several times the T-34 limply rolled back, and then the commander, together with the crew, came up with a solution: firstly, use special attachments for the tracks, and secondly, the movement should go in reverse. Succeeded!

At night, tired and exhausted tankers climbed to the other side of the ravine and found help - 45-50 infantry. Having rested a little, the Red Army went on the attack. They immediately heard the chirping of enemy machine-gun emplacements, and the tank only had time to turn its turret, extinguishing the fascist points fortified in the village with high-explosive shells on the move.

When the first part of the night battle came to an end, Alexander Fadin's T-34 had 16 such points. But out of 50 infantrymen, no more than 20 survived, and German trucks and armored personnel carriers appeared on the road. The situation seemed catastrophic, only luck and the excellent eye of the tank commander radically changed the course of the battle.

At night, fascist cars always moved with their headlights on. So they revealed themselves, but at the same time minimized the loss of cars on the roads broken by slush. This was taken advantage of by a lone Soviet tank. "Splinter, fire!" - and the first truck shattered to smithereens, another shot - the last one blazed.

"The mechanic says to me:" Lieutenant, do not shoot all the cars, you need to collect trophies. discharged a disk from a Degtyarev tank machine gun coaxial with a cannon," the tank hero said.

We had barely dealt with this problem, as two German Pz IVs sneaking around in a neighboring field noticed. Once again - shots at the enemy, and once again - the cars were hit. True, there were just no shells left - about 15 out of 150. A few minutes passed, and a German plane flew over the road with wrecked vans, right above the telegraph poles.

Alexander Mikhailovich recalled: “The plane was cruising along this line and, knowing approximately the distance between the pillars, I calculated its speed. It was small, about 50-60 kilometers per hour. When the plane dropped the load and flew past us, I decided that if he will turn around, I will try to shoot him down. I give the command to Fetisov to unscrew the cap and load it with fragmentation. The plane turns around, I take a lead - a shot. The shell hit him right in the engine, and the plane broke."

This does not happen every day on the battlefield, machine-gun emplacements and armored personnel carriers are commonplace, but to shoot down a plane from a tank?! But that was not all. As if charmed, the T-34 notices movement 100 meters away from itself, and randomly fires the last shell in that direction. And now German machine gunners, engulfed in flames, run out from behind a smoke screen, and a terrible explosion rumbles behind them - Fadin's shell set fire to the "Tiger", and the fire blew up the tank's ammunition.

The battle lasted over five hours. At its very end, an enemy shell hit the T-34 hull, killing the loader. The rest of the crew was injured, but held out until help and main forces arrived. For that battle, the entire crew was presented for awards, and Commander Fadin himself - for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. True, he was not awarded for unknown reasons, and only in 1996 he received the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

The heroism of Alexander Fadin was shown in the resistance German troops in February 1944. His crew single-handedly dealt with enemy equipment near the village of Dashukovka. It is about his feat that will be discussed.

Colonel's watch

Alexander Mikhailovich Fadin was born in 1924 into a family of simple peasants. When the war began, he was only 16 years old, so he decided to give himself an extra two years to go to fight at the front. The initial place of his service was the 2nd Gorky auto-motorcycle school, but later it changed to a tank school, which the cadets were unheard of happy about. Since it was the Soviet tanks that offered serious resistance to the Nazis.

The youth only rejoiced in the service in tank troops, but older people did not understand their glee at all and said that they would burn in these iron boxes.

Now everything depended on passing the exams. It was necessary to pass not only theory, but also fire training. At the same time, both standards passed well gave the right to receive the rank of junior lieutenant, and excellent results - lieutenant. Alexander had no problems with theory, but fire training presented minor difficulties, which he coped with in the best possible way. He decided to act in a non-standard way and shot at a moving target on the move, which caused a storm of emotions and delight from the colonel. For excellent results, he received a watch from him.

but fighting for Fadin began only in June 1943. His debut was marked by a downed German Pz-4 and an enemy truck.

No man is an island

But the main feat of Alexander Mikhailovich was yet to come. February 1944 - there are many enemy power units around Fadin's tank. But even here he did not hesitate.

Fadin was dumbfounded by the order from above to contain the approaches to the village. But he understood that his life was only in his hands, so he and his crew loaded up with two ammunition and went into battle.

But not everything was so simple in this task. The first obstacle was a huge ravine, but due to the use of the tank's reverse gear, it was overcome.

Then, when the tank entered the village, the crew found many fascist points. But due to the eye of the tank commander and favorable circumstances, they managed to cope with them. Due to accurate fragmentation fires, a column of German trucks was broken.

But perhaps Fadin's most unusual military achievement was the downed plane. This happened very rarely, but Alexander Mikhailovich managed to calculate the approximate speed of the aircraft, and he knocked it out with fragmentation fire.

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Fadin Alexander Mikhailovich

What did you think?! If in the guards corps, then immediately a guardsman ?! Not!

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, I woke up late, around ten o'clock in the morning. After washing my face and having a lazy breakfast of black bread, washing it down with a mug of tea, I decided to go to my aunt. When I arrived, I saw her crying. After inquiring, he learned that the war had begun and her husband Pavel went to the military enlistment office to sign up as a volunteer in the Red Army. Having hastily said goodbye, I decided not to linger and went to the hostel of Gorky river school where I studied at the time. On the way in the tram, the conversation was about the war, that it would not last long... This text is an introductory piece.