Landing in Zdudichi

From the first day of the Belarussian operation, the boats of the Dnieper military flotilla (commander of the 1st rank captain V.V. Grigoriev ) supported the troops of the 65th army (commander of the Lieutenant General P.I. Batov ) of the 1st Belorussian Front (commander of the Army General K. K. Rokossovsky ), which advanced along the Berezina river valley.

In order to destroy a large group of the German 9th Army (commander of the infantry general Hans Jordan ) of the Army Group Center in the area of Zdudichi - Parichi villages ^[1] , it was decided to land a river landing on the outskirts of Zdudichi village in order to quickly liberate this village turned into a powerful node defense and maintaining a high rate of advance of the army. A rifle company was assigned to the landing force, 4 armored boats to the landing detachment, another 8 boats made up an artillery support detachment, and 2 minesweeper boats provided for the march. Captain 3rd rank A. I. Peskov was appointed commander of the landing.

With the onset of darkness on June 25, the boats hit the road. After secretly crossing the front line, a German floating and mined barrier was discovered that blocked the river, which the miners of the flotilla managed to secretly dissolve. They managed to approach the landing site quietly, but when approaching the shore, boats were found. In addition to artillery and mortar shelling, a German battery placed on the shore in case of the appearance of Soviet boats opened fire on them. Thanks to a powerful detachment of artillery support (some armored boats, in addition to artillery weapons, had Katyusha mortar rocket launchers ), this battery was quickly suppressed, not having time to get into ships.

With the support of armored fire, a landed company of paratroopers captured three lines of trenches on the shore and entrenched in them. In a very short time, the landing detachment made another flight and delivered the second company there. After a three-hour battle at about 4:00 a.m. on June 26, the village of Zdudichi was liberated, significant trophies were captured. A quick capture of the village ensured the successful operations of the Soviet troops and had a positive effect on the course of the operation to defeat the Bobruisk enemy grouping .

Several boats received fragmentation damage, there were no dead in the crews, several people, including the commander of the detachment, Senior Lieutenant B. I. Tseitlin, were injured.

• Grigoryev V.V. And the ships stormed Berlin. - M .: Military Publishing, 1984.
• The article "Sailors in Operation Bagration in the journal Union State, 2009, No. 3.
• The story of the landing party (inaccessible link)
• S. Domoshenkin, A. Verbovoy. Landing operations of the Dnieper flotilla in Pripyat / “Marine Collection”, 2015, No. 5 (2018). - S.80-91.