07-06-2002, 06:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-06-2002, 01:33 PM by W. C. Stump.)
"Once I was summoned to the battalion commander", Mikhail Mikhaylovich recalled, "He said that the regimental commander ordered me to take the unnamed height. This dominant height was of great tactical importance securing the initial position for the oncoming advance of the division. So I rose my company and we started out. Under the cover of artillery fire we pressed the attack. we had just reached the height when the enemy opened up point blank fire. If we laid down, I thought, we'd be unable to rise to our feet afterwards. We must go forward. Finally we succeeded and took the height".
"We succeeded"! Again, how deceptively simple these words sound. The truth is, there were several attempts to seize the heights before. Sorokin's company was not the first to try, but it was the one to capture the heights. At the decisive moment of the attack when the enemy brought upon sudden fire and caused some of the fighters to waiver, Sorokin stood firm. He knew that in his company he was fighter number one and the others were following his example.
"If you saw it one just once, You will remember forever", goes a song. Sorokin not only "saw" it more than once, but played an active role in these events as a key person for his fellow-soldiers and was a principal target for the enemy. In the infantry it isn't considered an act of heroism. During the fight the company commander was simply in his proper place and performed as the situation required.
There is an order of Suvorov among our military awards. It was issued to decorate senior officers (regimental and divisional commanders, and supreme command of the armies, for displaying examples of military leadership).
Hardly the regimental school commander where Sorokin received his sergeant training in 1942 could conceive that this candidate for the officers classes was going to display such an outstanding leadership as to deserve an Order of Suvorov, 3rd Class. Marshall of the Soviet Union, Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian front, put high value on his achievements as a company commander and personally awarded him this decoration which was suitable for a high commander.
It was forty years ago and our units were preparing to cross the Vistula. "We weren't quite sue whether we managed to deceive the enemy or the latter found out about our intentions"..So we decided to conduct intensive reconnaissance-in-force", (from G. K. Zhukov "MEMORIRS AND REFLECTIONS, page 570). Sorokin's company was among the units selected for the reconnaissance-in-force. Supported by machine-guns and anti-tank rifles, the company went across the Vistula River covered with ice. Despite encountering the fire from the steep bank occupied by the fascists it broke into forefront enemy positions and owing to its resolute actions took a small bridgehead.
"Before the Operation", recalled the commander, "the first stage of the combat task, the capture of the enemy bank, seemed to be the most difficult. But further events overthrew this views. It occurred that holding the occupied position was the most difficult part."
In the course of two days, Sorokin, together with his fighters maneuvered skillfully with the available weapons and repelled seventeen enemy counterattacks while making not a step back. Although partly encircled Sorokin personally directed the fight and achieved victory.
According to its statute, the Order of Sovorov is given as a reward to skillful commanders for defeating a numerically superior enemy. The same words one can read in the award commendation of this first and only company commander, holder of an Order of Suvorov, whom I have ever met.
During the fight for the town of Torun, Mikhail Sorokin was wounded again. The bullet that went through a fighter's knee turned out to be the last one to hit him on the fields of war.
All unit servicemen put on allowance are usually referred to as "personnel". It is an official military term. There is also an unofficial one invented in wartime and it is "active bayonets". It applies to the persons whom the commander counts before an attack, the persons whose life is always hanging in the balance as long as the war goes on. During the war Mikhail Sorokin, a volunteer members of the people's militia, fought as an "active bayonet" throughout the entire war, from Leningrad to the German Border. Sometime he walked, sometimes he crawled. In 1941 he was a private, in 1945, a company commander. What difference does damn make? It is not necessary to examine his award book to evaluate his combat contribution, list in your mind military positions he occupied for you to understand.
This story tells of his life; and that of his wife which can make a separate story. For a quarter of a century Anna Ivanovna Sorokin taught young industrial workers of Leningrad. She has got her own bitter recollections, her own combat scars. here is a record from her document that speaks for itself "1941-1945+ Front-line, artillery regiment medical instructor".
There are four apartments on the floor where the Sorikins live, four quite identical doors differ only in apartment numbers and quantity of bells. When I left the apartment I turned to the doors and imagined a plate engraved with the well-known line from a post-war song. "Here lives the family of a Russian Hero.." This would be the right and just place to put it.
Postscript:
For a collector living so far from his beloved city of Leningrad, in 1999, when I acquired this brave man's medal, I wondered where he is now, if he is alive, and why he parted with his cherished award. I am now the custodian of an award that is a one of a kind for an officer of the rank of Sorokin held when he was awarded this medal of valor. I will proudly care for it as did Mikhail Sorokin did for so many years. I hope the next custodian of this medal will feel as equally proud to have it and tell the story of this brave warrior of yesteryear.
"We succeeded"! Again, how deceptively simple these words sound. The truth is, there were several attempts to seize the heights before. Sorokin's company was not the first to try, but it was the one to capture the heights. At the decisive moment of the attack when the enemy brought upon sudden fire and caused some of the fighters to waiver, Sorokin stood firm. He knew that in his company he was fighter number one and the others were following his example.
"If you saw it one just once, You will remember forever", goes a song. Sorokin not only "saw" it more than once, but played an active role in these events as a key person for his fellow-soldiers and was a principal target for the enemy. In the infantry it isn't considered an act of heroism. During the fight the company commander was simply in his proper place and performed as the situation required.
There is an order of Suvorov among our military awards. It was issued to decorate senior officers (regimental and divisional commanders, and supreme command of the armies, for displaying examples of military leadership).
Hardly the regimental school commander where Sorokin received his sergeant training in 1942 could conceive that this candidate for the officers classes was going to display such an outstanding leadership as to deserve an Order of Suvorov, 3rd Class. Marshall of the Soviet Union, Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian front, put high value on his achievements as a company commander and personally awarded him this decoration which was suitable for a high commander.
It was forty years ago and our units were preparing to cross the Vistula. "We weren't quite sue whether we managed to deceive the enemy or the latter found out about our intentions"..So we decided to conduct intensive reconnaissance-in-force", (from G. K. Zhukov "MEMORIRS AND REFLECTIONS, page 570). Sorokin's company was among the units selected for the reconnaissance-in-force. Supported by machine-guns and anti-tank rifles, the company went across the Vistula River covered with ice. Despite encountering the fire from the steep bank occupied by the fascists it broke into forefront enemy positions and owing to its resolute actions took a small bridgehead.
"Before the Operation", recalled the commander, "the first stage of the combat task, the capture of the enemy bank, seemed to be the most difficult. But further events overthrew this views. It occurred that holding the occupied position was the most difficult part."
In the course of two days, Sorokin, together with his fighters maneuvered skillfully with the available weapons and repelled seventeen enemy counterattacks while making not a step back. Although partly encircled Sorokin personally directed the fight and achieved victory.
According to its statute, the Order of Sovorov is given as a reward to skillful commanders for defeating a numerically superior enemy. The same words one can read in the award commendation of this first and only company commander, holder of an Order of Suvorov, whom I have ever met.
During the fight for the town of Torun, Mikhail Sorokin was wounded again. The bullet that went through a fighter's knee turned out to be the last one to hit him on the fields of war.
All unit servicemen put on allowance are usually referred to as "personnel". It is an official military term. There is also an unofficial one invented in wartime and it is "active bayonets". It applies to the persons whom the commander counts before an attack, the persons whose life is always hanging in the balance as long as the war goes on. During the war Mikhail Sorokin, a volunteer members of the people's militia, fought as an "active bayonet" throughout the entire war, from Leningrad to the German Border. Sometime he walked, sometimes he crawled. In 1941 he was a private, in 1945, a company commander. What difference does damn make? It is not necessary to examine his award book to evaluate his combat contribution, list in your mind military positions he occupied for you to understand.
This story tells of his life; and that of his wife which can make a separate story. For a quarter of a century Anna Ivanovna Sorokin taught young industrial workers of Leningrad. She has got her own bitter recollections, her own combat scars. here is a record from her document that speaks for itself "1941-1945+ Front-line, artillery regiment medical instructor".
There are four apartments on the floor where the Sorikins live, four quite identical doors differ only in apartment numbers and quantity of bells. When I left the apartment I turned to the doors and imagined a plate engraved with the well-known line from a post-war song. "Here lives the family of a Russian Hero.." This would be the right and just place to put it.
Postscript:
For a collector living so far from his beloved city of Leningrad, in 1999, when I acquired this brave man's medal, I wondered where he is now, if he is alive, and why he parted with his cherished award. I am now the custodian of an award that is a one of a kind for an officer of the rank of Sorokin held when he was awarded this medal of valor. I will proudly care for it as did Mikhail Sorokin did for so many years. I hope the next custodian of this medal will feel as equally proud to have it and tell the story of this brave warrior of yesteryear.
