Invaluable experience of a reconnaissance trooper

There are many people who know this man, but only few have if little idea of the events he participated in or was associated with. Today it is possible, and even necessary to tell the people about those events.
Borys Steklyar was born on January 29, 1923 in Novohrad-Volynsky (Zhytomy region) in the family of a military man.

He put on a uniform for the first time on June 26, 1941 – only a week after having received his secondary school certificate. Day after the school ball, Steklyar went to the military commissariat to volunteer for service. His bid was turned down as he was under 18 years of age. He then went to the 38th signal battalion, 12th Army, South-West Front stationed nearby. They knew his father there, so he was accepted and appointed motorcycle gunner.

He was twice heavily contused after the war began, but every time quickly returned to the ranks. After leaving hospital in October, 1941, undertook tank destroyers’ training.

In December, 1941 Borys Steklyar was assigned to the 908th infantry regiment, 246th infantry division, 29th Army of the Kalinin Front and sent to the town of Rzhev, where he was selected to regiment’s reconnaissance platoon. He successfully fought as a reconnaissance trooper until December 1942 when he suffered a severe leg injury while on the mission.
This is how Borys Steklyar describes those events: "On December 1942, my squad was ordered to cross the frontline and capture an artillery officer. We’ve run into a German reconnaissance party which was moving in our direction. We engaged and won, but one German soldier fired at me the same moment I fired at him during the fight. My shot turned out luckier, so the German fell dead while his bullet hit me in the left leg. Thank God, the guys did not leave me behind. On stretchers made of their cloaks they carried me for 12 kilometres, for which I’m still grateful."

After hospital, from December, 1942 till March, 1943, Borys Steklyar was a reconnaissance squad leader under 491st antitank artillery regiment which was fighting near Stalingrad at that time. He has been promoted to sergeant and awarded the Medal of Bravery for a number of successful reconnaissance missions.

From March, 1943 till March, 1944, Steklyar studied at the First Leningrad artillery school located in the town of Engels, Saratov region. Having graduated with distinction, Borys Steklyar was promoted to junior lieutenant.

Upon graduation, he was appointed reconnaissance platoon leader, 211th artillery regiment, 61st army, 1st Belarus Front. In this position he participated in the liberation of Belarus.

After the liberation of Belarus, Steklyar was assigned to 2nd Baltic Front, where he took part in the liberation of Riga and was decorated with the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree.

In November, 1944, Steklyar was sent to Poland. For his participation in the liberation of Warsaw he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

The Great Victory found him in Wittenberg, Germany. The war, however, did not end for Borys Steklyar. In May, 1945, he was appointed SMERSH company leader in Berlin.

In August, 1945, lieutenant Steklyar was sent to the Far East Front, but the train which his unit travelled by managed to get only to Novosibirsk before the fighting in the Far East ended with the defeat of Kwantung army and Japan’s capitulation.

This is what Colonel, ret. Borys Steklyar tells about the art of reconnaissance troopers during the war: "Once again we were ordered to take a prisoner. Our troops were just about to start the offensive, and we had catastrophically little information. This happened near Rzhev, in the vicinity of a small village of Hreydino, were fierce combats were fought at that time. We crossed the frontline, prepared an ambush and began surveillance. After two days a German captain escorted by a bodyguard soldier attracted our attention with his frequent visits to a house on the side of the village. We decided to wait until dark, because as reconnaissance men say, hurry must be slow. We designed a plan to capture this officer. We decided to take out the bodyguard first, not by killing but by knocking him out instead. This was planned so that we could take the bodyguard to the regimental HQ in case something went wrong with the officer. The boys played it by the numbers when evening came: we entered the house and found the officer with a woman. He definitely wasn’t expecting us. We knocked him out, put him in a cloak which we prepared in advance and quickly carried him to the regimental HQ. The German proved valuable, he was holding the post of regiment’s senior ordnance officer. I have been decorated with the Distinguished Service Medal for this successful mission."

The war was about to end; Steklyar was planning on enrolling into one of Leningrad’s technical universities, but his entire plans changed in just one day. Lieutenant Steklyar was summoned to the divisional HQ and proposed to undertake training at a specialized school where state security operatives were trained.

Upon his graduation, Steklyar was proposed position in the central staff of the USSR Ministry of State Security. He refused. He neither liked big cities nor crowded institutions, and still doesn’t. He asked to be sent to Rivne region.

That’s how it was. A lieutenant returned from war just to get to the frontline again. A thousand tricky cases waited to be solved by the veteran officer in those post-war years.