How tanker Lavrinenko alone recaptured a small town from the Germans, and why all his battles were legendary

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Military historians call Dmitry Lavrinenko the most productive Red Army tanker of the Great Patriotic War. In a little over two months of fighting, he eliminated 52 fascist tanks. The war chronicles did not record any more such an example. Lavrinenko took part in the battles for Moscow, covered the legendary Panfilov division, and single-handedly recaptured a small town from the Germans. His high class and unique ability to competently improvise in the hottest battles turned into legends.

16 year old teacher and cavalry tanker

The pre-revolutionary prosperous Lavrinenko family owned their own threshing machine and a large farm. The head of the family, the Red Guard Fyodor Lavrinenko, died on the fronts of the Civil War, and Dmitry's mother Matryona Prokofievna led the canteen in the Kuban, and then took the chair of the chairman of the village council. She raised her son on her own. Already at the age of 16, after graduating from the Armavir Pedagogical College, he became a school teacher. Small in stature, very young, thick-browed, he was not much different from his students.

Demonstrating his thoroughness, erudition and enthusiasm for the teaching process in the classroom, during breaks he drove along the corridors along with the children in charge. On his personal initiative, a drama club, a small orchestra and several sports sections were formed at the school. In 1934, Dmitry Lavrinenko was drafted into the army. In the cavalry service, he decided to enter a tank school. Once during his visit, he told his mother that even in a tank he would be a cavalryman. And he kept his promise: the tank attacks of Lavrinenko carried out in the future were not inferior to the most inveterate equestrian aces in their daring.

Tank platoon command and competent attacks

Since the fall of 1941, Lavrinenko was in a tank brigade under the command of Colonel Katukov. During the first month of the front, he destroyed his first four tanks. Although the balance of power at that time was not conducive to success. When the Soviet positions were attacked by enemy tanks near Mtsensk on October 6, our infantry was stripped overnight. And a full-fledged tank column of Germans marched head-on. Katukov promptly sent four T-34s under the command of Lieutenant Lavrinenko to the breach. He was tasked with covering the retreating infantry and holding back the offensive until the main forces arrived. But it was not there.

As the driver-mechanic Ponomarenko later recalled, the commander gave instructions to save the mortar company even at the cost of his own lives. At the same time, he brought under control tanks to the nearest height and, with a sniper accuracy of 5 rounds, shot four enemy vehicles, four more tanks were destroyed by brothers in arms. The Germans turned to tracked flight, the mortar company was rescued, and Lavrinenko had not a single loss.

Transfer to Moscow and Serpukhov improvisations

After the Mtsensk operation, Lavrinenko's tank brigade was transferred to the Moscow region. Dmitry's tank was directly guarded by the army headquarters. On the way to the unit, he and his subordinates turned in Serpukhov to put himself in order in the local barber shop. The commandant Firsov received information that a fascist column was approaching the city. He pulled Lavrinenko out of the hairdresser's chair with a request to defend the territories entrusted to him, where there were no other military men besides the stray tankers. Starley Lavrinenko did not have to be persuaded for a long time, and in a matter of minutes his combat vehicle stood in ambush at the enemy's location. When the Germans were 150 meters from the commander's muzzle, he confidently shot the entire column point-blank.

The surviving Hitlerites tried to hide, but the part of the Red Army that arrived in time left them no chance of salvation. As trophies, the crew of Dmitry Lavrinenko handed over machine guns, mortars, motorcycles with sidecars and anti-tank guns with full ammunition to the Serpukhov commandant. The staff vehicle of the defeated Germans in the form of gratitude passed into the disposal of the brigade. And strategically valuable German documents and maps were immediately sent to Moscow.

Brilliant winter operations "thirty-four" and the last iron victim Lavrinenko

On November 13-14, 1941, Lavrinenko was involved in the operation to destroy the Nazi salient near Skirmanovo. And in the legendary Panfilov battles he played an important role in suppressing the superior forces of the Germans to break through to Moscow. At first, fighting as part of a group, he decided to go to the German column alone, seeing the plight of the Soviet units. In this unequal battle, Lavrinenko's crew knocked out six tanks, using the local landscape wisely. The T-34 was previously whitened, making it imperceptible to look at in the snowy expanses. And this time was not the last confirmation of the lieutenant's professional ingenuity. Seven more German vehicles were destroyed the next day, although this time Dmitry's thirty-four was also damaged. Attacked by ten tanks, the driver and radio operator of the crew Lavrinenko were killed.

On that day, a mine fragment killed Major General Panfilov himself. And the shocked Lavrinenko, who was nearby, undertook to take revenge on the murderers at all costs. Lavrinenko destroyed his last, 52nd German tank in the battle near the village of Goryuny on December 18, 1941. Immediately after the successful end of the battle, he hastened to report to the commander and, by an absurd accident, died from a fragment of a mine that exploded under his feet. Not getting a brilliant tanker in a working vehicle, the Germans killed him only defenseless in the open.

The number of enemy equipment destroyed by Lavrinenko in a matter of days is striking and gives the right to call him a tank ace of the USSR. One can only guess what results he would have achieved if not for that tragic accident. 49 years after his death, in 1990, Dmitry Fedorovich Lavrinenko was awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

It was not easy for women who dared to become a tanker. Some even had to for several years impersonate a man.