Rtishchevo during the Great Patriotic War

On July 9, 1941, the bureau of the Saratov Regional Party Committee adopted a resolution on the formation of a militia on the territory of the region. This decree provided, in particular, for the creation in Rtishchev of a regiment of national militia. In late July - early August, the formation of units and subunits of the militia basically ended. Rtishchev's regiment was a typical militia type formation, without a single organizational and staff structure. It consisted of 3.5 thousand people, reduced to 53 detachments. It included both women and civil war veterans. Militia fighters underwent military and political training.

The city had a school of air defense and chemical defense. Rtischevskaya school of PVCO was one of ten in the region. Here, trainers were trained to educate the population on self-defense techniques. Residents of the city mastered the methods of sealing residential buildings and industrial premises from the effects of toxic substances, learned to use a gas mask , provide first aid to victims, and fight fires. With the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad , and then on the Kursk Bulge, the practical need for the militia disappeared. Therefore, on October 13, 1943, the Saratov Regional Party Committee gave instructions on the disbandment of units of the people's militia.

By order of the State Defense Committee, at the beginning of November 1941, the 100th separate battalion of air surveillance, warning and communications (VNOS) was formed in the territory of Rtishchevsky district . The headquarters and all services were formed by the Rtishchevsky military registration and enlistment office, the commander, Major Berezan, and the chief of staff, captain Akimov, were sent from Saratov . Initially, the battalion consisted of men, but by the end of November 1941, almost all the male personnel had been sent to the front line. To replace the men began to call girls. The girls were natives of Rtishchev and the region, Saratov, as well as other regions and republics of the Volga region . Among them were many evacuated from the Baltic states , Belarus , Ukraine . April 8, 1942 is the second birth of the 100th battalion.

The headquarters of the battalion was initially located on state farm No. 40 Krasny ^[2] , and then in the building of the Rtishchev city post office along Pugachevskaya Street (not preserved). In the school building number 3 on the street Pugachevskaya was installed switch. Observation posts - at the city fire tower (not preserved) on Pochtovaya street (now A. Gromova), at the Vydvizhenets state farms ^[3] and No. 40 Krasny. Contact points were located near school number 1 and approximately in the area of ​​the current factory of absorbent cotton.

The 100th battalion finished its military career in 1945 in Lviv .

On April 27, 1942 ^[4] , the 243rd separate anti-aircraft artillery division was put on the air defense of Rtishchev. Anti-aircraft machine guns were installed on the roof of the railway station by fighters of an artillery battalion. Anti-aircraft guns were installed in the city and its environs.

At the end of June and during July - August 1942, the enemy launched a series of raids on Saratov and on peripheral cities, railway stations, marinas and ships, including on July 8 and 9 ^[5] on Rtishchevo and the adjacent Kistendeysky, Arkadaksky and Saltykovsky districts. In 1943, when the front moved west and the city became inaccessible to enemy bomber aircraft, the division was redeployed.

In addition to air defense, an unusual measure was taken to protect the Rtishchevsky railway junction and its enterprises: the construction of false objects. A few weeks away from Rtishchev, Grace and Dubasovsky’s drive in the fields in the direction of Ivano-Kulikov and Kurgan, a mound was erected, semaphores were installed along the canvas. Workers and employees of the site were involved in the construction of strictly classified defensive structures, collective farmers provided horse-drawn vehicles. According to the signals of the air surveillance services from Tambov , Povorino or Saratov about the departure of German bombers towards Rtishchev, the responsible employee of the road department A. I. Bogatyrev gave the command to turn off the single switch for the node and the city, which were plunged into darkness. At the same time, lights were lit on false objects, which were subjected to bombing. Thanks to this, Rtishchevo and the unit suffered minimal damage from enemy aircraft raids.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Rtishchevsky railway junction performed the most important connecting function of the rear with the front. The year 1942 turned out to be especially tense, when the Rtishchevsk branch of the railway became the main supply channel for the Stalingrad and Voronezh fronts . The sections of the Rtishchevsky branch of the road were in close proximity to the Stalingrad front. Rtishchevo - Balashov - Povorino and Rtishchevo - Saratov - Urbakh - Upper Baskunchak - Akhtuba - those were the routes for moving express trains to the front line at that time. In addition, the Rtishchevsky drivers drove military trains in the suburbs , to Voronezh , at the stations Filonovo , Arched and Kachalino of the Stalingrad front.

The importance of the Rtishchevsky railway junction was also understood by the German command. Its destruction was listed in the operational plans of the High Command of the Wehrmacht . In one of the notebooks of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus , a record was found:

In the year of the 30th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War on May 9, 1975, a twelve-meter Obelisk of Glory was inaugurated in the city on the square of the Palace of Culture. In the upper part of the fortified bronze bas-relief of a soldier clutching a machine gun in his hand. In the center of the stele that goes up, the words are written: "Nobody is forgotten, and nothing is forgotten." At the obelisk, the Eternal flame burns, lit from the fire on the Mamaev Hill in Volgograd . In 2000, the Obelisk was reconstructed. On the right and left, the “Wall of Remembrance” was attached to it with tablets inscribing the names of the Rtishchevites who died in the Great Patriotic War. In the same 2000, a memorial to the soldiers who fell during the war was created on the square.

In 1985, at the intersection of Levice and Krasnaya Streets, opposite the city park of culture and leisure, in honor of the 243rd separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion and 100 battalions of air surveillance, warning and communications, which protected the Rtishchev railway junction from German air raids during the Great Patriotic War, the monument "Defenders of the Rtischevsky sky 1941-1945" was unveiled. It is a 37 mm anti-aircraft gun mounted on an octagonal pedestal.

A memorial plaque dedicated to the 100th separate VNOS battalion and the 243rd OZAD was opened on the Rtishchevo-I station building.

In secondary school No. 6, a museum of the 100th VNOS battalion and the 243rd OZAD was created. May 7, 2010 he was transferred to secondary school No. 7.

On May 7, 2010, a memorial plaque dedicated to the 100th VNOS battalion was opened on the square of the Palace of Culture. ^[7]

• Rtishchevo
• Rtishchevo (airfield)

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