Gerasimenko, Ivan Savvich

In 1921 he went to school, graduated from six classes. Until 1936 he worked as a tractor driver on a local collective farm. His father - Savva Antonovich Gerasimenko - worked there as the chairman of the collective farm board. In addition to Ivan, the family had six more children - two of his brothers and four sisters.

He was a village Komsomol. Before leaving for the Red Army in 1936, he became a Voroshilov rifleman , an excellent student of the TRP , GSO ^[1] , and PVCO ^[2] . He served in the Krasnoyarsk Territory . Received the rank of sergeant.

After service on a Komsomol trip, he was sent to Norilsk , where he met his future wife. After working in Norilsk for four years, he went to the construction of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (KMK). He worked as a bricklayer in the workshop for the repair of metallurgical furnaces.

In 1941 , shortly after the start of World War II , he was mobilized and sent to the front. As part of the 229th Infantry Regiment of the 285th Division (52nd Army of the Volkhov Front ), he commanded the division of shooters.

The platoon in which sergeant I. Gerasimenko served was commanded by Lieutenant Polensky. Gerasimenko himself was the squad leader. In addition to him, Leonty Cheremnov and Alexander Krasilov, who were inviting with him from Novokuznetsk, served in the platoon. For five days at a meeting of the party bureau of the unit, I. Gerasimenko submitted an application to join the CPSU (b) : “I undertake to fulfill all the tasks assigned to me and I want to go to any operation as a member of the Bolshevik party. I ask you not to refuse my request. ”

On January 29, the commander decided to organize a sortie of a group of 20 of the most trained fighters on the left bank of Volkhov . Sergeant Gerasimenko was appointed senior. Purpose of the operation: reconnaissance with the identification and destruction of German firing points.

On a frozen river in the dark, the group went to German positions. They were located in the area of ​​the bridge embankment and the so-called “bulls” remaining from the unfinished in 1914 bridge. At one point, the Red Army was discovered. The battle began. During a fierce firefight, the soldiers managed to destroy part of the German soldiers and some firing points, but then they came under fire from two other masked bunkers . The life of the soldiers of the squad was saved by the selfless deed of the first private Cheremnov, who threw himself on an enemy machine gun, and after him, another bunker, A. Krasilov and I. Gerasimenko. The unprecedented feat of three soldiers at once allowed the rest of the fighters to escape from machine-gun fire and continue the battle from more advantageous positions. ^[3]

During the Nazi occupation of the Dnepropetrovsk region, father Savva Antonovich, older brothers and sisters went into the partisan detachment . Soon, his father became a squad leader. In the village there was a mother with two daughters. After some time, brother Vasily, the Komsomol of the partisan detachment, was captured and hanged. Soon the wife and daughter of Vasily, one of the sisters and three other relatives of the Gerasimenko family were shot. Father also died at the hands of the punishers. Sister Catherine, along with her mother, was driven into a German concentration camp , and from there to penal servitude. She managed to return alive and now she lives in the village of Znamenovka, in the house where Ivan Gerasimenko was born and raised.

• February 21, 1944 the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumous).
• Order of Lenin (posthumously).

• Already on February 6, 1942, a publication appeared in Frontovaya Gazeta (the newspaper of the Volkhov Front), telling about the massive feat of Soviet soldiers ^[4] .
• In the village of Znamenovka, where I.S. Gerasimenko studied, a room of military and labor glory is equipped in which a photograph of the Hero and his entire family hangs.
• At the place of death in the vicinity of Veliky Novgorod, a memorial was erected. Names, dates and dedication to three warriors are carved on a marble plaque. At the opening of the memorial, three birches were planted nearby.
• In Veliky Novgorod, at the Yaroslavl Yard, a monument to Cheremnov, Krasilov and Gerasimenko was erected.
• The streets in Novokuznetsk and Veliky Novgorod are named after I. Gerasimenko.
• In the city of Donetsk (Ukraine) there is also a street named after Sergeant Gerasimenko.
• In the village of Novotroitskoye, Novomoskovsky district, Dnipropetrovsk region, there is Gerasimenko street with a memorial plaque.
• The poet Nikolai Tikhonov wrote The Ballad of Three Communists, in which he praised the feat of Gerasimenko, Krasilov and Cheremnov ^[5] .
• Forever included in the list of fighters of the second company of the 299th Infantry Regiment. The 225th division itself was called Novgorod.

• Krasilov, Alexander Semenovich .
• Cheremnov, Leonty Arsentievich .
• List of soldiers who covered the embrasure with their bodies during the years of World War II

Gerasimenko, Ivan Savvich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".

• The ballad of the three heroes .
• The official website of the administration of the Kemerovo region (inaccessible link) .
• Three heroes: Gerasimenko, Krasilov, Cheremnov - Novgorod electronic library "Anthill".