Kotov, Ivan Ilyich

He was born in 1925 in the village of Raevskaya, Anapa District, Krasnodar Territory, in a peasant family. Russian. He graduated from a seven-year school. He worked on a collective farm .

From August 1942 to September 1943 he was in the territory occupied by the enemy. After the liberation of the region from the Nazis in the fall of 1943, he was drafted into the Navy.

In February 1944, after passing the training unit, the sailor Kotov was sent to the post of machine-gunner in the 384th separate battalion of the Marine Corps of the Black Sea Fleet. Participated in the liberation of the villages of the Kherson region, Aleksandrovka, Epiphany (now October) and the Wide Beam.

In the second half of March 1944, the troops of the 28th Army began fighting to liberate the city of Nikolaev. To facilitate the frontal strike of the advancing, it was decided to land an assault in the port of Nikolaev. A group of paratroopers under the command of senior lieutenant Konstantin Olshansky was allocated from the 384th separate battalion of the marine corps. It included 55 sailors, 2 signalmen from the army headquarters and 10 sappers. The conductor went to the local fisherman Andreev . One of the paratroopers was the sailor Kotov.

For two days, the detachment fought in bloody battles, repelled 18 fierce enemy attacks, destroying up to 700 enemy soldiers and officers. During the last attack, the Nazis used flamethrower tanks and toxic substances. But nothing could break the resistance of the paratroopers, force them to lay down their arms. They performed the combat mission with honor.

On March 28, 1944, Soviet troops liberated Nikolaev. When the attackers broke into the port, they got a picture of the battle that took place here: burnt buildings destroyed by shells, more than 700 corpses of fascist soldiers and officers were lying around, the fire was stinking. From the ruins of the port office there were 6 surviving paratroopers barely holding on their feet, another 2 were sent to the hospital. In the ruins of the office found four more living paratroopers who died of wounds on the same day. All officers, all foremen, sergeants and many Red Navy heroically fell. The sailor I.I. Kotov also died heroically.

He was buried in a mass grave in the city ​​of Nikolaev in the square of 68 paratroopers.

The news of their feat spread throughout the army, throughout the country. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief ordered all the participants in the landing to submit to the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 20, 1945, for the exemplary performance of command missions at the front of the battle against the German invaders and the courage and heroism shown to sailor Ivan Ilyich Kotov, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumous).

He was awarded the Order of Lenin .

The street of the city is named after them, the People’s Museum of the Military Glory of Marines-Marines is open. In Nikolaev in a square of a name of 68 paratroopers a monument is established. In the village of Oktyabrsky on the banks of the Bug estuary , from where the paratroopers left for the mission, a memorial granite block with a commemorative inscription was erected. In the village of Raevskaya near school number 24, Hero Kotov Ivan Ilyich installed a bust.

• Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Brief Biographical Dictionary / Prev. ed. collegium I. N. Shkadov . - M .: Military Publishing , 1987.- T. 1 / Abaev - Lyubichev /. - 911 p. - 100,000 copies. - ISBN comp., Reg. RCP No. 87-95382.
• Medvedev N. Ya. We were 68 / Literary record of Ivan Zhigalov. - Edition revised and supplemented. - M .: DOSAAF, 1966 .-- 50,000 copies.
• Bozhatkin M. I. Landing takes the battle. - Nikolaev: Possibilities of Cimmeria, 1998. - 379 p. - LBC ST 63.3 (4UKR-4MIK) .
• Marine prowess / compiled by Yu. I. Chernov, A. A. Voronin. - M .: Military Publishing , 1982. - 206 p. - 65,000 copies. - BBK 359.75 (09) + 3KSM .

• Kotov, Ivan Ilyich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".