Biography

After the end of hostilities, he returned to study at the academy. Lived in the city Balashikha Moscow region.

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War he took part in battles.

On the Western Front he commanded a separate experimental battery of rocket artillery from installations BM-13(“Katyusha”). For the first time, BM-13 installations were tested in combat conditions at 10 a.m. on July 14, 1941, when shelling enemy troops and equipment in the city Rudnya, supporting the defending units of the Red Army. And on July 16 they showed high efficiency in destroying unevacuated Soviet trains at the city’s railway junction Orsha. October 7th 1941 Captain Flerov, being surrounded, died heroically.

Combat path during the Great Patriotic War

In the first days of the war, Captain Flerov, at the suggestion of the head of the academy, Major General Govorova was appointed commander of the Red Army's first separate First Experimental Battery of Rocket Artillery. 3 July battery armed with five experimental and two production combat vehicles M-13-16(later called "Katyusha") and one 122-mm howitzer, used as a sighting gun, was sent to the Western Front.

In addition, the battery included 44 trucks to transport 600 M-13 rockets, 100 howitzer shells, entrenching tools, three fuel and lubricant refills, seven daily food allowances and other equipment. The battery's personnel consisted of 160 people (46 people came out of the encirclement).

On the night of July 3 (4), 1941, from Moscow along the Mozhaisk Highway, the battery of Captain I. A. Flerov went to the front along the route: Moscow-Yartsevo-Smolensk-Orsha. Two days later (July 6), the battery arrived at the site and became part of the artillery 20 armies Western Front.

With the second salvo, the battery destroyed a pontoon bridge across the Orshitsa River on the Minsk-Moscow road, built by German sappers at the site of the Western Front blown up by the Foreign Detachment. The 17th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht came under attack. For 3 days, the 17th Panzer Division could not take part in hostilities. On July 15, with three salvos, she helped break the resistance of the German troops who occupied the city of Rudnya. The battery as part of the 42nd division took part in the Elnitsky counter-offensive.

On October 2, Flerov’s battery was surrounded in the Vyazemsky cauldron. The batteries covered more than 150 kilometers behind enemy lines. The captain did everything possible to save the battery and break through to his own. When the fuel ran out, he ordered the installations to be charged and the remaining missiles and most of the transport vehicles to be blown up.

On the night of October 7, a convoy of battery vehicles was ambushed near the village of Bogatyri (Znamensky district, Smolensk region). Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the battery personnel took up the fight. Under heavy fire they blew up the cars. Many of them died. Being seriously wounded, the commander blew himself up along with the main launcher. Buried in the Smolensk region, Ugransky district, no. Bogatyr.

• From the combat reports of the commander of the first Katyusha battery, Captain I. A. Flerov, July 14 - October 7, 1941:

July 14, 1941 They attacked fascist trains at the Orsha railway junction. The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​fire. 7.X.1941 21 hours. We were surrounded near the village of Bogatyr - 50 km from Vyazma. We will hold out until the end. No exit. We are preparing for self-explosion. Goodbye comrades.

Subdivision	Commander	notes
Battery commander	Captain Flerov Ivan Andreevich	being surrounded he died in battle on October 7, 1941.
deputy battery commander	Lieutenant Serikov Konstantin Konstantinovich	10/11/1941 near the city of Yukhnov was captured (of flag No. 57), released
Assistant Battery Commander for Technical Affairs	military technician 2nd rank I. N. Bobrov
Battery Commissioner	political instructor Zhuravlev Ivan Fedorovich
party organizer battery	Sergeant Nesterov Ivan Yakovlevich (driver of the M-13 installation)	(went out to his people)
Komsomol battery	Sergeant Zakharov Alexey Anisimovich (radio operator)	(went out to his people)
Park platoon commander	Senior Lieutenant A.V. Kuzmin	(went out to his people)
Automotive battery	military technician 2nd rank I. E. Skigin
Battery electrician	military technician 2nd rank A. K. Polyakov
representative of the research institute	military engineer 2nd rank Dmitry Shatov	left the battery after a week
representative of the research institute	design engineer Alexey Popov	left the battery a week later and subsequently trained the personnel of the 2nd battery of Lieutenant A.M. Kun
Platoon control	Lieutenant P.K. Vetryak
Sighting platoon	Lieutenant M. I. Naumenko
1 fire platoon	Lieutenant I. F. Kostyukov
2nd fire platoon	Lieutenant N. A. Malyshkin
3rd fire platoon	Lieutenant M. A. Podgorny
	Commanders/drivers of combat crews of launchers: Sergeant Ovsov Valentin Sergeant Gavrilov Ivan / Sergeant Nesterov I. Ya. (went to their own) Sergeant Yessenov Sergeant Konnov Ivan Nikolaevich (joined a partisan detachment) Sergeant Kurganov Alexander Sergeant Rushev Sergeant Nayaglov Konstantin
ammunition platoon	Lieutenant A.V. Kuzmin
economic department
department of fuels and lubricants
sanitary unit	military paramedic Avtonomova Yulia Vladimirovna	(went out to her team)

Awards

• Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree (posthumous)
• Medal "Gold Star" Hero of the Russian Federation(posthumously)

Memory

in autumn 1995 a group of Vyazma search engines 250 meters west of the village Bogatyr found artillerymen who died along with the Katyushas. The remains of 7 rocket men were found. Among them, the remains of Captain Flerov were identified. On October 6, 1995, all the remains were reburied next to the obelisk near the village of Bogatyr, erected in memory of the feat of the rocket scientists.

B Battery Flerov and 2 panzer division

Since we are already talking about the October adventures of the German 2nd TD...

...it is quite appropriate to recall such an episode. The photo from the division's billboard is attributed as "This stalinorgel was captured near Vyazma." If the photo is not stray (this happens, the compilers are mistaken), then it shows a car from Captain Flerov’s battery.

The circumstances of the death of GSS Flerov from the point of view of Soviet history look like this:

"At the beginning of October, Flerov’s battery, along with other units, was surrounded in the Spas-Demensky cauldron. The batteries covered more than 150 kilometers behind enemy lines. The captain did everything possible to save the battery and break through to his own. When the fuel ran out, he ordered the installations to be charged and the remaining missiles and most of the transport vehicles to be blown up. On the night of October 7, a convoy of battery vehicles was ambushed near Bogatyr village(Znamensky district, Smolensk region). Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the battery personnel took up the fight. While some repelled enemy attacks, others rushed to the combat installations. Under heavy fire they blew up the cars. Many of them died. Being seriously wounded, the commander blew himself up along with the main launcher. The survivors fought away from the Nazis. Only 46 soldiers managed to escape from the encirclement."

More modern description:

"So Flerov’s battery left on the night of October 6-7, 1941 to the village of Bogatyr, located on the Vyazma-Yukhnov highway, in order to turn east after 3 km in the village of Dobroye. There were only 12 vehicles left in the convoy: combat units and 5 ZIS-5 onboard vehicles. Moved straight forest road Ridge - Bogatyr. They stopped not far from the edge of the forest and sent a lorry with reconnaissance officers along the route. An hour later the scouts returned. Lieutenant Naumenko reported that no Germans were found either in the village, or on the road, or in the forest through which the battalion commander intended to travel further to the east.

Unfortunately, the haste of the scouts cost the mortar men dearly. On this day, at four o'clock in the evening of the same day, tanks and a battalion of Nazi infantry began to occupy combat positions in the village of Bogatyr.

Having missed the ZIS-5 with several scouts, the Germans opened fire on the lead vehicles of the column that had left the forest. In the first minutes of the battle, Captain Flerov received a serious wound to the head. There was no chance to retreat into the forest or break forward. The commander gives the command: “Do as I do!” - and fires a salvo of rockets while on the installation. Then he turns on the self-detonation of the combat vehicle and dies with it. Following the head unit, a salvo was fired and the remaining Katyushas were blown up. The Nazis, angry at the death of the rocket launchers, did not take the mortarmen prisoner, but finished them off with bayonets. "

There are also variations on the theme (of varying degrees of detail). Some authors are emphasizing the ambush, saying there was a hunt for the batteries. But everyone agrees - the BM did not fall into the hands of the enemy.

Now let's look at the Germans. In ZhBD 2 td there is an entry:

"... enemy units are trying to break through in the dark, 2 missile launchers were captured in good condition, 2 were destroyed. On the following night of October 7/8, 3 more."

In the documents of the intelligence department of the division headquarters, two captured installations are also recorded:

I noted on the map the approximate position of the Germans and the battery on the night of October 6 to 7:

The bottom line is: Flerov led the battery to the highway, along which the Germans from 2 TD were already marching at full speed. Apparently his plan was to slip through in the dark. But the scouts made a mistake and the battery ran into a German military guard (what the hell is a hunt/ambush).

PS. For uv.

A. Milyutin
Revision dated June 3, 2019

Introduction
Changes in the composition of the Flerov battery and the 42nd separate artillery division (SAD) are reflected in the article “Katyushas (BM-13) in the Western direction at the beginning of Operation Typhoon”
Retrospectively: in the 42nd Airborne Division on 10.9.41 there were 12 BM-13s left, after the loss of one installation during an air raid. The division consisted of 3 batteries: Cherkasov, Shuktomov and Flerov. From September 1, Flerov’s battery had 4 serial installations, which replaced faulty experimental ones. Until September 27, the 42nd Division was in the 24th Army, and between September 27 and October 3, the division was transferred to the 43rd Army, which is confirmed by Battle Order No. 034/op of the Reserve Front Commander, Marshal Budyonny, dated 10/06/41
24 And composed of... the M-13 division...
43 And as part of ... 42 division M-13 ...
As of this date, the number of installations in the division has not been documented.

What Naumenko kept silent about
We begin the study with the memoirs of Lieutenant Naumenko, commander of the sighting platoon of the Flerov battery, published in the Observer magazine.
In his memoirs, Naumenko claims that on October 6, Flerov first sent him on reconnaissance, and after returning he sent him with a package to the division commander; on October 7, he met the division headquarters and Cherkasov’s battery, the installations of which were blown up on October 9. Let us take into account that errors in dating events in memoirs are common, and let us turn directly to the documents of the German 2nd TD, which operated in this area. Let's see when the BM-13s were actually captured and destroyed. Here is what is written in the log of the 2nd TD at 17:50 (18:50 Moscow time) on October 7:
“Combat groups Lübbe (BG 1) and Kölitsa (BG 2) received orders cut the roads to the west... (although 2 well-preserved rocket guns were captured, 2 were destroyed and 3 others were destroyed on the night of 7/8.10)»
Those. According to documents from the 2nd TD, 7 installations were destroyed or captured as early as October 7.
On October 7, the Lubbe combat group (BG 1), moving along the Yukhnov-Vyazma road, occupied the Blokhino-Losmino section (15-22 km south-south of Vyazma) by 9:40 (Moscow time) and was supposed to further clear the forest west of the road and then take a defensive line even closer to Vyazma: Krasnykh Kholm - Puzikova - Selivanova.
It follows that in this area it was not the installations of the Flerov battery, the remains of which were discovered in Bogatyry, that were captured or destroyed, but the installations of the Cherkasov and Shuktomov batteries (as of September 10, there were 8 installations in these batteries). Because According to Naumenko, the installations of Cherkasov’s battery were blown up, then the captured 2 installations with ammunition belonged to Shuktomov’s battery. Of the 7 indicated installations, 4 (including 2 intact ones) were captured on the evening of October 7, so they probably belonged to the Shuktomov battery, and the remaining 3 installations captured on the night of October 7/8 belonged to the Cherkasov battery.
On September 10, Flerov’s battery had 4 installations and the batteries destroyed them in Bogatyry.
However, no data on salvos of rocket artillery in the Bogatyri area or on the capture of installations was found in the documents of the 2nd TD, which means that Flerov’s battery did not use installations in its last battle.
Therefore, there was a last chance to find data on the installations of Flerov’s battery, at least among the documents on trophies when summing up the results of the operation.
And such a document was found, it shows the trophies of the division for October 8-13, among which 10 rocket guns are already indicated. Obviously, the additional 3 installations belonged to Flerov’s battery.
Why they ended up in trophies later than they were blown up is a separate question, the answer to which I will try to answer in a detailed study of the last day of Flerov’s battery.
Thus, the inaccuracy of dating in Naumenko’s memoirs is already obvious, but there remained hope that he reliably described at least the sequence of events in which he personally took part.
So, Naumenko says that in the evening he received an order to reconnoiter Bogatyri and the road 8-10 km further, and moved ahead of the battery at a distance of 5-10 km. Having found nothing, he returned back, reported the situation, then received a package with a report from Flerov and went forward again.
Fragment of a map with routes of movement of units on October 5-6

Knowing the location of our units and the enemy’s units, let’s see if such a sequence of events as Naumenko outlined it was possible?
In the evening of October 6 and beyond it is impossible, because Bogatyri and the road to Znamenka were already occupied by the enemy from noon on October 6th.
On the evening of October 5 is also impossible, because the headquarters of the 43rd Army was located in Bogatyry and probably the headquarters of the 42nd Regiment was also located there. Let us remember that from the beginning of hostilities, rocket artillery units were parts of the army subordination and, after completing specific combat missions, returned to the location of the army or front headquarters.
Confirmation of the above is the entry in the army combat log: “...At 19:00 5.10. The headquarters moves to a new place - Bogatyri"
If we assume that Naumenko went on reconnaissance earlier than the battery stopped for the night, and during the reconnaissance it was necessary to walk 5-10 km to Bogatyry and 8-10 km north of Bogatyry and back, then the battery itself should have already entered Bogatyry and meet the army and division headquarters there, which, as we know, did not happen.
Thus, it has been established that the sequence of events outlined by Naumenko is unreliable.
What sequence of events does not contradict known facts?
Naumenko probably went on reconnaissance at dusk on October 5 (about 7 p.m.), when the battery was already up or was preparing to set up for the night, at a distance of 5-10 km southwest or south of Bogatyri.
Naumenko arrived in Bogatyri, met the headquarters of the 42nd Regiment, received information about the location of the enemy and... did not return, citing in his memoirs the words of the division commander: “...And (the division commander) added: “It’s pointless to send you back, lieutenant, to look for your battery...”
Here Naumenko contradicts himself. After all, he claimed that he was returning to the battery after reconnaissance, and the second time, for some unknown reason, it turned out to be pointless to look for the battery.
I admit that at night there really could have been problems with the search, but on the morning of October 6 he was obliged to return and report the results of the reconnaissance to Flerov, knowing that the battery would reach the road along which the Germans were walking. However, he did not return, thus violating the order of the battery commander and having some more compelling reasons for this than those that he described in his memoirs.
Further developments.
Let's see where the 2nd TD was on the evening of October 5th. The division was divided into 3 battle groups: Lubbe (BG 1), Kölitsa (BG 2) and Decker (BG 3). The main one was BG 1, it moved along the Yukhnov - Vyazma road and included the main forces, including the division's tank regiment and all headquarters. BG 2 moved to the west and overcame severe off-road conditions. BG 3 was in reserve. The advance detachment of BG Lubbe consisted of the 2nd motorcycle battalion, which occupied Yakimtsevo by 24:00 (Moscow time) on October 5:
The morning of October 6 had not yet arrived, and the advanced patrol of BG 1 discovered our column (probably part of the headquarters of the 33rd or 43rd Army), which had reached the Yukhnov-Vyazma road in the Dobraya area and moved to Yakimtsevo. In battle at 6.25 (Moscow time) they were destroyed “5 passenger cars and 2 trucks. 7 Russians were killed, among them: 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant, 1 commissar"
The sounds of close combat (4-5 km east of Bogatyri) forced the headquarters of the 43rd Army at dusk to continue the retreat to Vyazma:
“On the morning of 6.10, about half of the headquarters vehicles arrived in Bogatyri. At this time, the enemy occupied Dobraya and Shumikhino. As a result, the army headquarters, without delay, began to retreat through Znamenka and along the roads to the south to the Losmino region.”
Since the headquarters left Bogatyri at dusk, its departure was not detected by enemy aerial reconnaissance. Only the last cars were recorded. It must be admitted that the army headquarters left Bogatyri on time, because already at 8:00 the first scouts of the 2nd TD appeared there, as follows from a report from enemy aviation:
"1. at 7:00 (8:00 Moscow time) head 2 TD Bogatyri 8 km south-east of Znamenka (clarification: Bogatyry 6 km south-east Znamenka, A.M.)
2. at 7:10 (8:10 Moscow time) about 20 enemy trucks on the road south of Znamenka [in the direction of] Znamenka"
The location of our vehicles was clarified in the report of the reconnaissance pilot:
“7:15 3 km south of Znamenka 3 enemy buses are moving in the direction of Znamenka.
7:25 in the same area there are 20 enemy trucks, direction of movement Znamenka"

So Naumenko correctly pointed out that a reconnaissance plane was constantly hovering over them.
If Naumenko had returned to the battery and reported the situation, then Flerov could have made a completely different decision, for example, to destroy the installations in the forest, and lead the battery personnel along forest roads, bypassing Bogatyri. In this situation, the battery moved blindly on the evening of October 5 and turned east in the Petrishchevo district, before reaching Bogatyri. Continuing to move at night, probably in the Gubino-Mitkovo region, I came across units of the 2nd TD, which spent the night on this road. The battery managed to turn around and retreat to the west, but it returned along a different route. The withdrawal took place along the Kostinka, Zherdovka, Trofimovo roads, where the battery rested after clearing the swamp all night. In the morning they heard fighting in the Yakimtsevo district and therefore stood the whole day in Trofimov, hoping to cross the road at night. However, at about 8-9 pm on October 6, already in the dark, the battery came across the same 2nd tank division, part of which spent the night in Bogatyry. In this battle, Captain Flerov died, as evidenced by both the batteries and local residents (Kashcheev I.S. and evacuated Bazulkin V.A.)
The tank regiment of the 2nd TD waited until the evening of October 6 for the tankers to approach Khvoshchevataya.
Data on the further movement of the 43rd Army headquarters column were confirmed by an aerial reconnaissance report:
“11:10 (12:10 Moscow time) on the Znamenka – Losmino road, columns of cars and vehicles with traction (80 pcs) are traveling in a north-west direction, occupying the entire road”
At 12:15, the vanguard of Lubbe’s group began a battle already at the crossing of the Ugra near Znamenka.
Now I’ll try to explain why the installations of Flerov’s battery were not included in the daily reports of the 2nd TD, but appeared only in the final documents.
The battle in Bogatyry took place exclusively with small arms, because... The BM-13 is not suitable for direct fire. The minimum elevation angle of the guides is 7 degrees, and in order to fire at a target directly, it was necessary to lower the front wheels below ground level, which seems unrealistic in close combat conditions. When it became obvious that the battery was doomed, Flerov ordered the installations to be destroyed. But for the Germans, the burnt installations were of no interest; on the contrary, it was dangerous to approach them, because ammunition explosions could follow. The burnt installations were probably examined later by the captured team, and therefore ended up only in the final documents.
It seems to me that it would be appropriate here to highlight another episode from the life of Lieutenant Naumenko. This is how he described it himself:
“I had the opportunity to re-create the Flerov battery, the backbone of which were my comrades in arms, and command it for several months.”
After leaving the encirclement and undergoing filtering, some of Flerov’s batteries entered the 36th Separate Guards Mortar Division (OGMD).
From the description of the feat of awarding the Order of the Red Star to Mikhail Ivanovich Naumenko, born in 1919, Art. lieutenant, chief of staff of the 36th MGD:
"Since the beginning of hostilities commanded the 1st separate mortar battery, participated in the battles of Orsha, Rudnya, Smolensk, Yartsev, Yelnya, Spas-Demensk, Yukhnov ... "

Who was Captain Flerov then?

Epilogue
When you come across a description of the last battle, which indicates that the seventh installation went into the forest, know that since September 1 there were only 4 installations in the battery, and in the last battle there were probably 3.

Sources
1 A. Milyutin Katyusha (BM-13) in the Western direction at the beginning of Operation Typhoon

The article is based on memories that the author recorded from Flerov soldiers in the 60s of the twentieth century.

Ivan Andreevich Flerov was born in April 1905 in the village of Dvurechki, Gryazinsky district, Lipetsk region, into the family of an employee. After graduating from the zemstvo school, he began working under Soviet rule and was an apprentice mechanic at the Borino plant. In 1926 he graduated from the factory training school (FZO) in Lipetsk. As the best student, he was retained to work as a master of industrial training and a mathematics teacher. In 1927-1928 he served in the Red Army in an artillery unit.

In 1933 he was called up for short-term courses for reserve officers, and after completing them he remained in the army. Participated in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, commanded a howitzer battery. He distinguished himself in battles during the breakthrough of the Mannerheim line. He showed himself to be a brave, knowledgeable officer, capable of rallying his personnel and operating in difficult situations. His battery was surrounded near Lake Saunayarvi. We ran out of shells and food. For about two weeks the battery was defended only by small arms. Each fighter was given the task of breaking through. But soon the war ended, and the need for a breakthrough disappeared by itself.

His wife Valentina accidentally found out about what happened and about the actions in the encirclement when she found notes and a letter in his tunic in case of death during a breakout from the encirclement.

In 1940, Captain I.A. Flerov was awarded the Order of the Red Star and sent to study at the F.E. Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky. Lived with his family in the city of Balashikha, Moscow region.

On June 22, 1941, instead of passing the first exam at the Academy, I.A. Flerov wrote to the head of the academy, Major General L.A. Govorov received a report with a request to send him to the front. Six days later he was unexpectedly invited to the Kremlin. The conversation was short. Flerov was given the task: “Comrade Flerov, the Motherland entrusts you with a powerful secret weapon that no army in the world has. If it falls into the hands of the enemy, then neither your life nor the life of your close relatives will be enough to atone for this guilt.” . There he was introduced to the commissioner of the future unit.

A man in civilian clothes approached Flerov, said hello, and identified himself. “Now you will go to the station and from the arriving trains you will form your battery.” Drivers, artillerymen, signalmen, everything needed for a mobile, independent unit were selected. A couple of days later, Flerov, the commissar and 10 people who were appointed to the positions of vehicle commanders (fire platoons) arrived on the outskirts of Moscow to get acquainted with the new equipment.

In the hangar there were cars (covered) that looked like pontoons. When they removed the cover from one, they saw a lattice structure based on a three-axle ZiS truck. A whisper was heard: “But we are artillerymen...” Engineers Dmitry Shitov and Alexey Popov approached. “You can’t write anything down, listen. This is a BM-13/16 132-mm rocket launcher for 16 missiles, the launch of which is carried out in 7-8 seconds, the missile weight is 40 kg, the combat charge is 1.5 kg, the flight speed is about 320 m/s, the firing range is from 300 meters to five kilometers. The missile’s flight path is close to the flight path of a 122-mm howitzer.”

On the night of July 3, 1941, a column of 44 vehicles left the Moscow region back to Smolensk, trailed by a single 120-mm howitzer on a trailer. The column included: seven BM-13/16, ten salvoes of missiles, one hundred howitzer charges. All the necessary services for autonomous actions, personnel - 160 soldiers and commanders, a small NKVD detachment to guard the column along the route and unhindered movement to the front line.

During the daytime, the column was driven into the forest, guards were set up, and engineers conducted classes to study the material, trained in mastering equipment, and preparing combat positions. In the evening we moved on. Arrived near Orsha. Maintaining strict secrecy, neither the army commander nor the front commander was notified of the battery's arrival.

This is how the surviving batteries recalled the first salvo after the war (before that, no one, not even Flerov, had seen or heard firing from the BM-13/16). Here are the memories recorded by the author in the 60s of the last century:

“July 14, 1941, 3 p.m. Sultry cloudless sky. The abundance of bright colors hurts the eyes. Our troops are not visible (our artillery was not there, and the soldiers took refuge in individual trenches for one person). Through binoculars, the clogged railway junction of Orsha station is clearly visible. A few years later it will become known that on that day the new 17th Panzer Division arrived at the station, which the German command intended to introduce into the breakthrough east of Orsha, so the troops were not unloaded. Afternoon nap. The sentries walk lazily between the echelons.

...The calculations have been checked, commands have been transmitted via radio using a conventional code. Seven dark green trucks drove out of the forest into the ravine to the firing positions prepared during the night.

Next to the platoon commanders are engineers Popov and Shitov. All is ready. Soldiers run from the vehicles into open trenches. 15 hours 15 minutes. Captain Flerov, located at the observation post, takes the radio microphone, the radio operator on the battery repeats the command: “Battery salvo against the fascist invaders!” A grinding sound and an incomparable roar are heard. There are clouds of smoke and dust at the parking lot. 112 bright lightning bolts shot into the sky, leaving a muffled roar, and then silence again. In seconds, the cars are covered and take off. A group of fascist bombers turns around, passes over the cars and begins to bomb the place from which the salvo was just fired. When an unusual roar was heard, the Red Army soldiers, tired from retreats and the heat, anxiously looked out of the trenches, trying to understand what had happened. And the lightning that disappeared from the eyes continued to fly towards the enemy. A few moments later, a fiery avalanche hit the railway junction. The ground shook. Jumped up and down. Cars with ammunition and tanks with gasoline exploded. Everything was mixed up. In the sea of ​​fire, explosions could be seen tearing the rails away from the gasoline-soaked sleepers. The earth was burning. The carriages turned into shapeless piles of metal. The encryption went to Moscow: “7/14/41 We attacked fascist trains at the Orsha railway junction. The results are excellent. A continuous sea of ​​fire."

Thus began the glorious battle path of Soviet rocket artillery and the Nazis’ hunt for the battery, commanded by Captain I.A. Flerov.

On July 15, 1941, battery reconnaissance reported that the Germans were establishing a pontoon crossing across the Orshitsa River, and German units of at least an infantry regiment were marching along the highway to the crossing, singing in columns. The vehicles entered the line of fire and a volley was fired across the crossing towards the approaching column. The column and crossing were completely destroyed. Several surviving fascists from the crossing fled to our shore to surrender.

That same evening, during a halt, the conversation turned to the fact that each branch of the military has equipment that is called by the affectionate names “Seagull”, “Snub-nosed”... “What will we call our “Masha””? Someone suggested “Katyusha”. - “Why?..” - “Katyusha came ashore, sang a song and there was no fascist regiment. And how these wet ones ran from the crossing with their hands raised to declare their love to her..."

One day, Captain Flerov was at a battalion observation post, when suddenly the enemy launched an attack with forces several times larger than our battalion, which had been drained of blood in previous battles. The Germans began to surround the battalion's command and observation post. In order not to be surrounded and captured, Flerov called fire on himself. The observation post was destroyed. Flerov was found unconscious in a dilapidated dugout with severe concussion.

Every day the battery struck the enemy, participating in the counter-offensive near Vyazma. The howitzer was used to destroy individual, small targets. If Flerov gave target designation, then the target was hit the first time.

During his three months at the front, Captain Flerov's battery inflicted enormous damage on the Nazis. The Nazis began hunting for the battery after the first salvo and did not stop for a single hour. Using military cunning, the art of maneuver and camouflage, the battery delivered powerful blows and escaped from the enemy.

On October 7, 1941, the battery was surrounded and ambushed in the village of Bogatyr. It’s night, it’s quiet, the dogs don’t bark, the shutters are closed, the lights aren’t on, they started getting out of the cars. And suddenly there was dagger rifle and machine gun fire from both sides. Realizing that there was no way out, they fired the last salvo so that not a single missile would fall to the enemy. Being wounded in the throat and unable to blow up the car remotely, I.A. Flerov rushed to the lead vehicle and blew it up from the cabin (each vehicle had 40 kg of dynamite for self-destruction).

The personnel, faithful to their military duty and inspired by the example of their commander, destroyed the rest. Less than fifty people from the battery survived after the war. Some managed to cross the front line, some ended up among the partisans, and some survived captivity. Other batteries appeared (by the way, at the end of July a battery of nine BM-13/16 Katyushas arrived at this section of the front), divisions, regiments, divisions of rocket artillery, but all that happened later.”

The glory of the feat of Captain Ivan Andreevich Flerov and his first rocket battery will survive centuries, like the glory of the feat of the battery of Colonel Raevsky, the hero of the War of 1812.

Valentin Ageev

← Return to list

Igor
24.10.2015 22:52

And everyone would be great and fight well. But they couldn’t really blow up the installations. The Germans captured three of them almost intact.
Although, it wouldn't change anything.
The first two Katyushas were captured in Ukraine a month earlier.
--
And yet -07/14/41 there were no Germans in Orsha yet.

In 1961, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR received a petition to assign Captain Flerov I.A. title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but the request was not granted. Only in 1963 was a Decree issued to award him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. At the same time, the state allocated funds for the production of a granite monument and its installation at the mass grave of the fallen mortarmen near the village of Bogatyr.
The battle between Flerov’s battery and the Germans took place on the southern outskirts of the village. It was decided to erect the granite monument 2 kilometers from the main place where the battery died - at the entrance to the village from the village of Znamenka.
In 1964, the granite monument was inaugurated, and the surrounding area was landscaped. At the end of the 70s, an asphalt road Vyazma - Yukhnov ran next to the memorial. Dozens of cars stop here every day so that people can pay tribute to the memory and respect of the fallen heroes. In the 80s, in the village of Znamenka, at the crossroads of roads, in order to perpetuate the feat of the first battery of rocket mortars, a Katyusha combat vehicle was installed on a high pedestal.
On June 21, 1995, by Decree of the President of Russia, Flerov I.A. awarded the title of Hero of Russia. For a long time, the details of the tragic death of the battery were not known. Its commander, Ivan Andreevich Flerov, was considered missing, and the family knew nothing about him. Journalist N.M. Afanasyev put a lot of work into restoring the history of the famous battery. He wrote the book “The First Salvos,” for which all the mortar guards are grateful to him.
One of the surviving participants in the events, every year on May 9, came to the grave of his fellow soldiers and looked after it together with local residents. After 1984, apparently with his death, the trips stopped, the local residents grew older, and many passed away. The fence enclosing the grave rotted and fell, after which the place was plowed, along with the road that led through the field to the village. The burial was lost.
With the awarding of the title “Hero of Russia” to Captain Flerov, a dilemma arose before the leadership of the Ugransky district of the Smolensk region: “There is a monument (a memorial plate at the beginning of the village of Bogatyr), but the remains are not buried and are located somewhere in the middle of the field.” Vyazma search engines were invited. They went to the site of Flerov’s death, listened to the local residents, and walked along the road along which the Katyushas reached the village of Bogatyr. One elderly woman not only told the story of what happened here in 1941, but also brought a photograph showing a burial with a wooden fence. Based on photos and stories, we narrowed the search area to a minimum rectangle of 100 by 200 meters. Armed with probes, they examined every suspicious hole or bump, centimeter by centimeter. The large field adjacent to the village is closely approached by small forests. And here, in the young growth of trees, there was a mass grave. Lyuba, the wife of the search party commander Gorshkov, helped find her when the search engines had already despaired of finding her. Indeed, seventeen people were dug up. The captain's insignia has been preserved. In 1941 there were no shoulder straps yet. But the patches with the captain’s insignia have not faded. They also found stripes with the insignia of a senior political instructor, a notebook, several gas masks, anti-personnel grenades and ammunition. These finds became museum exhibits. Artillery emblems (two crossed cannons) were also clearly visible on the buttonholes of the dead.
On October 6, 1995, on the anniversary of the death of the battery, the reburial ceremony began with a rally in the regional center of Ugra, and then a column with coffins on an artillery carriage and a guard of honor went to the village of Znamenka, where Grad rocket launchers - modern Katyushas - were fired. The remains of the fighters and their commander were solemnly reburied near the almost extinct village of Bogatyr, near the Vyazma-Yukhnov highway.
However, much remains unexplored in the death of the first experimental mortar battery. Thus, according to the recollections of the former commissar of the battery, their equipment, military contingent and activities were strictly classified. When leaving the encirclement, no one had the right to say that they served in this battery. This is how the commissar fought the entire war after leaving the encirclement, without telling anyone the details of the death of the battery and its commander.
Another example: it is known that Flerov’s column I.A. when breaking through the highway, it consisted of 12 vehicles (5 onboard ZIS-5 and 7 BM-13 units). Directly at the site of the battle with Nazi soldiers, 4 installations were blown up. It is unknown where the others were blown up. At the same time, on the edge of the forest, next to the Kornyushkovo-Sinyakovo road in the Dobrinsky village council, since the war, the mangled remains of two BM-13s lay, and nearby - several intact rockets. It was clear that the combat installations were destroyed by self-detonation. It is likely that these two vehicles were part of an experimental battery. During the battle, they were at the end of the column and did not have time to come under fire. But the Nazis did not dare to pursue the remnants of the column at night. The commanders of the remaining installations continued to carry out the order of Captain I.A. Flerov. to remove secret weapons from encirclement. During the night, moving along forest roads, we went around the village of Dobroye from the west (along the route: Podpory - Zherdovka - Kornyushkovo) and decided to cross the Yukhnov - Vyazma highway a little south of it to move to the Ugra River. However, morning came, and it became clearly visible that Hitler’s troops were marching along the highway in a continuous stream. How could two cars get through the avalanche of moving fascist troops? Of course, it was possible to fire a volley at the advancing troops and die, but the mortar men made a different decision - to blow up the installations and continue their journey to the east on foot. On the frames of the exploded cars, the mark of the Voronezh plant and car numbers were clearly visible.
In the early 80s, the State Museum on Poklonnaya Hill was created in Moscow. It was decided to deliver an exhibit from the site of the death of Flerov’s battery to the newly created museum. At the end of April 1984, a representative of the museum visited the village of Gryada and the place where our soldiers blew up a convoy. Attention was drawn to the aspen tree, into which a piece of the frame of the guide installation was pierced during the car explosion. Over the course of 40 years, all the wounds on the tree healed. In late autumn of the same year, a piece of aspen along with fragments of the installation frame was delivered to the State Museum on Poklonnaya Hill.