Real heroes of WW2: Tankman Semyon Konovalov
Tankman Semyon Konovalov several times was a tiny step away from death. On one KV-1 tank, he managed to destroy 19 enemy machines, capture a German tank and return to the the Russian lines.
That battle on July 13, 1942 went down in history. The 21-year-old commander Konovalov and his crew were to divert the attention of the approaching enemy column so that our tanks could move further from the village of Nizhne-Mityatinsky in the ...Rostov region. The sacrifice was forced - the KV had broken fuel supply system, and therefore couldn't move until repaired. Six more crew members remained with the commander. The situation was chosen advantageously - the Soviet KV-1 was hidden in the hollow, so that it was not visible. But just waiting there and letting the enemy to the village, would have been incorrect. To lure the enemy, the tankmen fired a red rocket into the air - a signal that the enemy expected from their scouts. When the German column came closer, the KV hit it with direct fire. The burning head tank forced the column to retreat, but soon 75 (!) German tanks came out one by one to the dell. The Fascists were sure that several Soviet tanks were hiding in the ravine, but there was only one KV-1 of Semyon Konovalov, which was repaired accurately and right on time - to the beginning of the battle.
The commander let the enemy to get as close as 500 meters, shot accurately and changed position, "dancing" from one shelter to another. So he destroyed four more enemy tanks. Three times one KV forced the Germans to retreat. The second, the third attack - and each time the enemy lost tanks. The Russian tankmen fought to the last projectile - from dawn to dusk, destroying 19 tanks, two armored cars and six motorcycles with machine gunners. Only after the KV completely ran out of ammunition, the NAZIs got as close as 75 meters and blew up this solitary fortress.
Semyon Konovalov survived in this unequal battle in the Rostov ravines. In addition to Konovalov, only two crew members escaped through the lower hatch - Lieutenant-Technician Serebryakov and gunner Dementiev. Another week they made their way to the front line through the German lines.
They moved at night until they saw a lone German tank by the river. When the Germans were distracted, the Russian tankmen attacked, seized the tanks, and for conspiracy put an enemy uniform over their own.
On a captured German PzKpfw III at night the three tankmen quietly got attached to the tail of the enemy convoy and soon opened fire, crushed the cars and this way managed to break through the front line. The brave then fell under two-way shelling - shells flew both from ours and from the enemy lines. Of course, they did. Try, proving that you are Russian, when you are in a German tank, and even wearing fascist uniform!
Semyon Konovalov went though the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, he ended the war in Germany as the commander of a tank battalion.
