Youth and war interlaced
Mykola Fedirko, Colonel (Ret.), 34 years with the Armed Forces.
When Germans invaded Berezhivka, a hamlet in Chernihiv region, Mykola Fedirko was 14. His father was fighting on the front line, and his mother was taking care of three children by herself. German rule in Mykola’s village is carved in memory forever: only by miracle his family avoided daily groundless arrests, executions.
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Fierce hatred and desire to take his vengeance on the tormentors was constantly growing deep in his heart, so he enlisted into the Red Army when he barely turned 17.
“They put me and the rest of young conscripts into a freight car ant took us on a 17-day-long journey to the Krasnoyarsk Territory where 37 Siberia training facility was located. Its function was training soldiers for the front line. Since I’ve spent 7 years at school, I was assigned to a separate battalion which trained sergeants. After studying for two months and passing the exams, I was sent to 2 Belarus Front commanded by Marshall Rokossovski”.
“That was the time when fierce battles were burning on the Belarus, Polish soil. Germans were staging a furious holdout”.
“I was appointed deputy sub-machine gunner platoon leader. Once we had to carry out an attack without tank support, following just a light shelling of German positions. Only 16 men from the platoon’s 42 survived in that fight”.
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Це були бої за визволення Білорусії, і під час вирішальної операції, після якої Білорусія була “Our unit lost a reconnaissance party during the final operation of the liberation of Belarus. For such a tragic reason I became a reconnaissance trooper: a fresh reconnaissance unit was urgently needed, so it was formed from the soldiers of my division”.
“Everybody liked the scouts on the front line. The service was much harder but also a lot more interesting than in the rest of units. Reconnaissance is an art. Rain or shine, you have to be able to survey your target and defenses (sometimes it could last for weeks), to be sturdy, brave (although the bravery should be reasonable). Needless to say, you even have to move on all fours in a proper manner”.
“When packing up for a mission, we had to make sure that nothing from our gear could squeak, jingle, or rustle. It had to allow free movement, though. It was easy enough to check whether we’ve done everything right by simply hopping in one place.”
“A pioneer spade covering your heart instead of hanging from the belt could save you from a stray bullet”.
“We fell under fierce mortar fire while conducting reconnaissance in force one day. I’ve caught three shell splinters. I fell unconscious and was losing blood. I woke up in a nurse’s lap. She was treating my wounds and whispered “hold on, sarge; hold on, honey”. The nurse attempted to remove one of the splinters stuck in my flesh and I began screaming. That’s when she kissed me, right in the heat of battle. She kept pulling on the splinter, but I stopped screaming, of course”.
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It’s been 65 years since that day, but Mylola Fedirko still thinks that it was that kiss that made him recover after all. “It was my first kiss ever,” the retired Colonel says. “I tried to find the girl after the war to thank her for saving my life but unfortunately I didn’t manage to learn anything about her except that her name was Masha and that she was from Leningrad… ”.
Eighteen-year-old Sergeant Fedirko carried out numerous successful missions on taking of enemy “speakers”. There were times when they brought 5 to 7 prisoners in one batch.
When the war ended, he travelled over 25 kilometers by foot because he was too eager to get home to wait for a more than rare ride.
“I served in Germany for two years after the war before being sent to Irkutsk. One day, a man from one of the Krasnoyarsk-based units came over to recruit scouts. He turned out to be one of my brothers-in-arms, a master sergeant of reconnaissance”. That’s how Mykola Fedirko came to Krasnoyarsk and was promoted to Junior Lieutenant after seven years of service by conscription.
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Mykola Fedirko has been an intelligence officer throughout his entire military career, although he retired as chief of the operations department within the former 30 Tank Army.
Colonel (Ret.) Mykola Fedirko currently lives in the small town of Novohrad-Volynski, Zhytomyr region. He lives an active life: he’s a frequent guest at 30 mechanized brigade (separate); he often meets the town’s veterans and young people.
