Mamkin, Alexander Petrovich

Alexander Mamkin was born into a peasant family. Since 1931 he worked on a collective farm . In 1934 he entered the Oryol Financial and Economic College . In 1936 he entered the Balashov School of Civil Air Fleet as part of the 9th set of cadets.

After graduating with honors, he was sent to the Tajik Civil Air Fleet. Since 1938 he was a candidate member of the CPSU (b) .

Since 1942, he served in the army in the ranks of the 105th Guards Separate Aviation Regiment (OGAP) of the civil air fleet . During the service he made at least 70 night sorties to the rear of the enemy to the location of partisan units on the R-5 aircraft.

In the fall of 1943, in one of the raids of the partisan reconnaissance group of the Shchors detachment of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone of Belarus in the village of Belchitsa near Polotsk, which housed a large German occupying garrison, partisans discovered a large number of children.

Scouts, stealthily penetrating the village at night, found that they were pupils of the Polotsk orphanage No. 1, which was displaced by the Nazis.

Orphanage No. 1 in Polotsk was opened before the war. And when at the end of June 1941, fighting broke out on the outskirts of the city, workers of the orphanage tried to evacuate the children to the East. However, the rapid advance of German troops, cutting all roads to the Soviet rear, did not allow this, and the orphanage was forced to return back to the city. During the war, the orphanage was constantly replenished with the children of executed underground workers and residents. As a result, the total number of Soviet people, children, and educators working there was about 200 people.

In the autumn of 1943, not wanting to feed the children in the city, the Nazis moved the orphanage to the village of Belchitsa near Polotsk, where they had to get their own food. The houses in that part of the village located near the forest, where the orphanage was located, were not specially guarded by the fascists, but the village was provided with general security by the numerous garrison stationed in it.

In the village, partisan scouts met with the teachers of the orphanage, who said that due to a lack of food in the city, the children were starving, often sick, and there were outbreaks of typhus. They lacked clothes. Teachers heard that the Germans could take their children to Germany for "Germanization" or make them donors for their wounded soldiers. But after the emergence of numerous diseases of children, the Nazis, angered by defeats at the fronts, could simply destroy them. In addition, many children went to the orphanage after the Nazis shot their parents for participating in the resistance movement.

In general, it was clear that the lives of Soviet children were in danger. The information received was reported to the commands of the Shchors detachment and the Chapaev partisan brigade, and then entered the headquarters and command of the Polotsk-Lepelsky partisan formation. The command of the compound instructed the Chapaev brigade, based on the forces and means available to it, to decide on the possibility of releasing the children and to develop an appropriate plan of operation.

The command of the brigade, in order to decide on the possible release of the children and their removal to the partisan-controlled area, instructed the Shchors detachment to conduct detailed and lengthy reconnaissance in Belchitsa, which was located on a large territory and consisted of four neighboring settlements and the surrounding area.

Based on the intelligence collected by the brigade command, it was then decided to conduct a military operation, which was called the Zvezdochka in the partisan documentation. The preparation and conduct of Operation Zvezdochka was entrusted to the Shchors unit.

From the memoirs of the former deputy commissar of the partisan detachment named after Schors Barminsky Vasily Vasilyevich, one of the direct developers and participants of the operation: “But it was not so simple to implement the plan. Firstly, the garrison in Belchitsy was greatly strengthened. Secondly, in the orphanage there were many young children who could not independently reach the forest on deep snow. We understood that if you openly start a fight, then the children may die. Therefore, they decided to carry out the operation, if possible, without a fight, secretly bring the children. ^[2]

The detachment carried out lengthy and painstaking preparations for the operation. The partisans made direct contact with the orphanage, the director of the orphanage and teachers agreed to assist the partisans in the release of children. Partisan intelligence obtained comprehensive information on the number, armament, deployment of firing points and posts of the German garrison. The partisan detachment was reinforced with weapons, and to transport a large number of children a luge train was formed from about fifty carts.

In accordance with the plan of the operation, on the evening of February 18, 1944, under cover of darkness, the Shchors detachment in almost full force made a difficult winter march of more than 20 kilometers from the place of deployment to the place of children in the village of Belchitsa near Polotsk.

At the edge of the forest in front of the village, the detachment organized a defensive line right in the snow, on which machine-gun units were stationed with the task of being ready to join the battle at any moment and providing cover for the detachment to leave with the children in case they were discovered by the Nazis. Then the detachment reconnaissance group that entered the village secretly led the children and employees of the orphanage to a designated place on the edge of the village. The main group of partisans, dressed in protective white camouflage robes, advanced to the edge of the village and, as soon as the children appeared, the partisans ensured the rapid movement of all of them through an open snowy field, the partisans in their arms were transferred by hand in deep snow to the forest. The whole operation was carried out by the partisans swiftly and without clash with the German garrison.

The children were seated on carts, and at night the sleigh train delivered them to the liberated partisan zone, to the location of the Shchors detachment. Children were housed in the homes of residents of the village of Emelyaniki. They were warmed, fed, washed in a bathhouse, dressed (the locals brought clothes) and provided first aid. Later, for greater safety, the rescued were transported to the deep partisan rear, the village of Slovenia.

In the spring of 1944, the German command decided to launch an intensified struggle against the partisan detachments of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone, their ultimate goal being their complete destruction. Why began to pull together additional forces around the partisan zone, in particular, units withdrawn from the front. Finding children in partisan territories became unsafe, at any time heavy battles with fascist German invaders could begin. Children must have been transported over the front line to the mainland.

The headquarters of the partisan formation decided to conduct the second phase of Operation Zvezdochka in late March - early April - by agreement with the command of the 1st Baltic Front, to evacuate children by air to the Soviet rear.

I. Kh. Baghramyan , commander of the 1st Baltic Front , in whose area this area was located, ordered the forces of the 3rd Air Army to take the children out. During the multi-day second phase of the operation, about 200 children were evacuated to the Soviet rear by air, with most teachers and several dozen wounded partisans.

In late March - early April 1944, the evacuation was carried out by pilots of the 105th separate guards air regiment of the Civil Air Fleet (this civil air fleet regiment was included in the army), based then at the village of Voilovo, located 30 kilometers north of the city of Velizh, Smolensk Region .

On the partisan airfield, organized on the ice-covered Lake Vechelye near the village of Kovalevshchina south of Ushachi, pilots Nikolai Zhukov and Dmitry Kuznetsov on Po-2 planes, Alexander Mamkin for more spacious R-5 aircraft specially prepared for cargo operations and other pilots.

Pilots had to operate in difficult conditions, when the Nazis began to pull the front units to the surrounded partisan zone, all flights took place at night and with the front line crossing, where usually there is a significant amount of air defense equipment, and required great experience in such special operations, great courage and self-control .

The main moments of the second stage of the operation were captured by special groups of Moscow cameraman delivered by air to the partisans, some films have been preserved and are in Moscow at the State Historical Museum.

Lake Vechele was used as a temporary airfield; in early April, spring ice on it became less and less strong every day, and the evacuation had to be accelerated. On April 10, 28 children remained behind enemy lines in the territory liberated by partisans.

Alexander Mamkin on April 10 made eight successful night flights each time in a plane overloaded with children.

In the ninth flight on the night of April 11, 1944, Mamkin was to evacuate 13 people to the mainland on a P-5 airplane: 7 children in the navigator’s cabin, 3 more children in a special cargo container under the fuselage and Valentina Latko, a teacher, in two removable streamlined containers suspended under lower wings, two adult seriously wounded partisans.

However, this time, when approaching the front line, the plane was first hit by anti-aircraft artillery fire, but the fire went out, and then attacked by a German night fighter, and was hit again. The front line of the pilot, already seriously wounded in the eye, crossed on a burning plane. According to the instructions, he had to gain altitude and jump with a parachute, but, having living people on board, he did not.

From the ignited engine, the flame reached the cockpit. Clothes burned, a headset burned, flight glasses melted. Alexander's legs were charred to the bone, but he continued to fly until he found a suitable platform on the lake near the location of the Soviet units. By that time, even the partition separating the cockpit from the passengers had burned out, and some children began to smolder clothes.

Alexander Mamkin climbed out of the cab himself, but could no longer move. Before losing consciousness, he asked the only question: "Are the children alive?" The soldiers arrived in time immediately sent Alexander to the hospital, but the burns were too extensive and severe. Six days later, on April 17, 1944 , he died.

All passengers on this last flight, 13 people, were left alive. In total, during the multi-day second stage of Operation Zvezdochka, Alexander Mamkin evacuated more than 90 people - children, teachers and wounded partisans.

The article “The Feat of Alexander Mamkin”, written by Lyudmila Zhukova, daughter of fellow soldier Alexander Petrovich Mamkin, contains the following lines:

Doctors could not explain how a seriously injured man in a flaming cockpit could control flight and landing, with “canned” glasses melted into his face. How miraculously got out of the cab and stepped to the passenger - on his charred legs?

Alexander Petrovich Mamkin was buried in the village of Maklok near the city of Velizh, Smolensk region . In the 1970s, he was solemnly reburied at the Lidova Gora military memorial cemetery.

Alexander Mamkin went to the front as a volunteer. He made more than 70 night flights to the rear of the enemy to the partisans. Delivered more than 20,000 kg of ammunition and transported 280 wounded.

For the shown courage and heroism was awarded:

• Medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 1 degree
• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of World War 1 degree

For an unprecedented feat was posthumously presented to the title of Hero of the USSR. For unknown reasons, neither the title nor the award for the last feat was awarded.

• Newsreels with the pilot Mamkin and children were included in the films “ People’s Avengers ”, “ The Road Without Halt ”, the fourth episode of the epic “The Great Patriotic War ”, as well as in the seventh film of the Belarusian documentary series “The War. Known and unknown. ”
• In the 227th school of Moscow there is a museum of military glory of the 105th air regiment of the Civil Air Fleet.
• In school No. 1 Velizh , the museum of Alexander Mamkin was created.
• At a school in the Repyevsky district of the Voronezh region , where Alexander studied, a memorial plaque was installed.
• The streets in Polotsk and the town of Pp are named after A.P. Mamkin Ushachi.
• A monument to A.P. Mamkin was erected near the village of Selyavshchina, Rossony district, Vitebsk region, on the site of the partisan airfield.
• Not far from the probable place of the last landing of A.P. Mamkin’s plane in the village of Trudy in the Polotsk region, an obelisk was installed ^[3] .
• In Samara , A.P. Mamkin is devoted to murals at the end of a 10-storey residential building at the address: Moscow Highway, 124

• Countdown. Operation Asterisk. Twice Saved
• Special edition of the program “Place of Meeting” dated May 5, 2017. Eyewitness accounts (55th minute)
• "Operation" Asterisk ". Audio recording of an article in the newspaper" Soviet Russia "
• TV channel "Star". The series of programs "Secret Folder" with D. Dibrov. "Children's blood for the Wehrmacht." October 17, 2018

• Barminsky V.V. "Operation" Asterisk " // Soviet Belarus : newspaper. - 1967-06-20, 1967-06-21.
• Barminsky V.V. “Aperatsiya Zorochka” // Zvyazda : newspaper. - 1982-05-7.
• Barminsky V.V. “Aperatsiya Zorochka” // Zvyazda : newspaper. - 1987-05-9.
• Barminsky V.V. Essay "Husbands in battles. Operation" Asterisk " // Minsk -" Unity " : Collection" Years of the Komsomol ". - 1988.
• Operation Asterisk (unspecified) . Date of treatment April 21, 2010. Archived April 23, 2012.
• Maria Gadetskaya. Flight to immortality // Commune. - Voronezh region, 2010-02-16. - Vol. 22 (25453) .
• Lyudmila Zhukova. What is his name! // Literary newspaper : newspaper. - 2009-08-03.
• Olga Zhukova. Feat of the Pilot Mamkin // Red Star . - 2010-04-17.
• Lyudmila Zhukova. The feat of Alexander Mamkin (neopr.) . Velizh Administration (April 2006). Date of treatment April 21, 2010. Archived April 23, 2012.
• O.G. Artyushenko. "The personal feat of Alexander Petrovich Mamkin" // Information and analytical site about human society.
• Vladimir Barminsky. "Operation" Asterisk " // Soviet Russia : newspaper. - 2018-07-26.