Gostry, Alexander Vasilievich

Born November 21, 1912 in the city of Nikopol, Dnepropetrovsk region , in the family of a railway worker. Ukrainian. The family was a large family, his father died early and he had to labore at the rural rich. I went to school for only four years. At the age of seventeen, he went to work as an apprentice blacksmith in an artel, and in 1930, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he joined the locomotive depot at Nikopol station.

In 1934 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent by special recruitment to the armored forces. First he served in Kiev, and then the tank battalion was transferred to the Far East, to the city of Nikolsk-Ussuriysky. He served in a tank repair workshop and became a drummer in a military unit.

After demobilization in 1937 in Nikopol. He left for the Crimea, passed exams for locomotive control rights and became a train driver at the Dzhankoy depot. But here he studied, mastering the method of Papavin to extend the operation of units and parts of a steam locomotive, and traveled with his brigade in Krivonosovskiy.

From the first days of World War II, the engineer Gostry drove military trains, often under enemy bombs. At the end of October 1941, when opponents broke into the Crimea, he was sent to Perekop to the rescue of the Voykovets armored train. The locomotive was bombed three times, but the mission was completed. Returning to the depot, Gostry brewed holes and the very next day led a train with explosives. October 30 brought the last train with evacuated railway workers node. The train went to Feodosia, and from there to Kerch, further, under enemy fire, they were evacuated through the strait.

In the Kuban, railway workers from the Crimea were immediately sent to the construction of the Kizlyar-Astrakhan road. In 1942, Gostry was enlisted in the locomotive convoy of special reserve No. 12. He worked first as an ordinary and then as a senior engineer, serving the main sections of the near front, and from July - Stalingradsky.

The Gostroi brigade had to be delivered to the front line, and then to remove empty trains and separate groups of cars from the bombing and shelling zone, to unhook and pull out cars in burning trains, and often to restore railway tracks damaged by bombs. In one of the flights, he was shell-shocked, but continued to work.

At the Kastornaya station, Gostroy’s steam train was defeated, but after repairs continued to carry everything necessary during the fighting on the Kursk Bulge. With the liberation of Kharkov, the team delivered to Darnitsa sappers and the necessary building materials for the revival of Kiev bridges across the Dnieper. Gostryi handed over his steam locomotive only at the Polish border when he was seconded to him at the Dzhankoy depot.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 5, 1943 "for special merits in providing transportation for the front and the national economy and outstanding achievements in restoring the railway industry in difficult wartime conditions," Gostrom Alexander Vasilievich was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and a gold medal "Hammer and sickle".

At the end of May 1944 he arrived in Dzhankoy and was appointed engineer-instructor. There was not a whole steam locomotive in the depot, like the depot building. Participated in the restoration of the destroyed economy, steam locomotives. Then she continued to work in her specialty - he took trains on the roads of Crimea.

After graduating from a technical school in Belgorod in 1962, he worked on diesel locomotives. Twice elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR . In 1968 he retired. But he also worked in retirement until 1982, and carried on a huge public work.

He lived in Dzhankoy, then in Simferopol. He died on April 8, 1992.

He was awarded the Order of Lenin , medals.

Alexander Vasilyevich Gostry (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ". Date of treatment August 22, 2014.

• Heroes of steel highways. Prince 2.M. 2003
• Heroes of labor of the war years 19411945. M. 2001