Heroic breakthrough. The feat of Stepan Gorobets' crew will remain in history. The legendary tank crew of Stepan Gorobets: “Courage exceeds quantity” Numbered “03”

On October 17, 1941, the separate 21st Tank Brigade was given the task of carrying out a deep raid along the Bolshoye Selishche-Lebedevo route, defeating the enemy in Krivtsovo, Nikulino, Mamulino, and capturing the city of Kalinin (Tver), liberating it from the Germans. In short, conduct reconnaissance in force, break through the city and connect with the defense on the Moscow highway.

The tank battalion of Major Agibalov goes to the Volokolamsk highway. At the forefront of the column are T-34s: tanks of senior sergeant Gorobets and platoon commander Kireev with the task of identifying and suppressing enemy firing points. On the highway, tanks are catching up with a German column of armored vehicles and vehicles with infantry. The Germans notice the pursuit, deploy anti-tank guns and the battle begins. Kireev's tank is hit and slides into a ditch. Gorobets' tank rushes forward, destroys a German anti-tank battery, and then, without slowing down, breaks into the village of Efremovo, where it engages in battle with the rest of the German column. Having fired at German tanks at speed, crushed three trucks and thinned out the infantry with machine-gun fire, the 34th sergeant Stepan Gorobets with tail number “03” rushes through the village and jumps back onto the highway: The path to the city of Kalinin (Tver) is open...

At the same time, the tank battalion of Major Agibalov, following the vanguard of two T-34s, comes under an air raid by Junkers, several vehicles are hit and the commander stops the column. But after the attack on the Germans dug in in the village, Gorobets’ tank’s radio communication was damaged. The T-34 crew, separated from the main column by more than 500 meters, does not know that the column has stopped! Gorobets, not yet knowing that he was left alone, continues to fulfill the task of the vanguard: without reducing speed, to conduct reconnaissance in force and moves towards the city of Kalinin (Tver). Right on the highway he overtakes a column of German motorcyclists and destroys it...

Now imagine the situation: October 1941, the early snow is already falling, the Germans are advancing on Moscow. The main defensive battles for Kalinin (Tver) have already died down, the Germans occupied the city and fortified themselves in it, pushing back the Soviet troops and occupying defensive positions on the outskirts of the city. The task assigned to the tank brigade - reconnaissance in force - is actually a tank raid along the rear from the Volokolamsk highway to the Moscow highway: break through, make noise, try to recapture the city and connect with the front in another sector. But instead of a tank column, one tank breaks through to the city - the “troika” of Art. Sergeant Gorobets.

When leaving the village of Lebedevo, to the right of the highway, the tankers discover a German airfield with planes and gas tankers. 34 enters the battle, shells the airfield, destroys two Junkers Ju-87s and explodes a fuel tank. And when the German anti-aircraft guns turn around to fire direct fire at the impudent Soviet tank... At this moment, Senior Sergeant Gorobets realizes that his attack is not supported by the battalion’s tanks, which, in theory, should have already caught up with the vanguard that got involved in the battle, supporting them with fire and maneuver, and roll out this entire German airfield, anti-aircraft guns and other security like God is a turtle. The radio is silent, there is no connection. Nothing is known about the fate of the column, just as the distance separating Gorobets’ “troika” from the tank battalion is unknown...

And since the anti-aircraft guns are already starting to fire directly at the tank, Gorobets makes a bold and, in some way, arrogant decision: escaping from the fire, breaking through to Kalinin alone. From such military arrogance of the Russians, German soldiers and officers always tore the pattern into small pieces, so much so that even many years later they lamented in their memoirs that they could not understand how, for example, it was possible to attack an infantry battalion on the march from an ambush by the forces of five shooters?...

How can you attack an enemy who has taken up defensive positions in a city with one tank?

Here's how: leaving under anti-aircraft fire in the direction of Kalinin, Gorobets' car again encounters a German convoy, rams three cars and shoots infantry. Without slowing down, the tank rushes into the city, on Lermontov Street it turns left and rushes, whistling and whooping, roaring and shooting along Traktornaya Street, then along 1st Zalineinaya Street... In the area of ​​Tekstilshchikov Park, Gorobets' tank turns right under the viaduct and flies into the courtyard of the Proletarka ": the shops of the cotton mill and plant No. 510 are burning, workers were holding the defense here... The crew notices that a German anti-tank gun is being aimed at the tank. Gorobets aims at the enemy, but the German cannon fires first, and a fire starts in the tank when the shell hits...

Fyodor Litovchenko, the mechanic driver of the 34 Gorobets, leads the tank to ram and crushes the enemy with its tracks, while the remaining three crew members fight the fire using fire extinguishers, mats, quilted jackets, duffel bags... The fire is extinguished, the enemy’s firing position is destroyed, but from a direct hit The turret was jammed and firing was impossible. The only weapons that can be used now are machine guns.

Gorobets's car moves further along Bolshevikov Street, then along the right bank of the Tmaka River past a convent, then immediately crosses the river along a dilapidated bridge, risking collapsing a crossing not designed for the 30-ton weight of a tank, and flies out to the left bank of the Tmaka. The tank enters the target of Golovinsky Val, but when trying to go out onto Sofia Perovskaya Street, it encounters an unexpected obstacle: installed rails that are dug deep into the ground - another greeting from the factory workers who held the defense here. At the risk of being discovered, the tank crews use the tank as a tractor and loosen the rails dug into the ground, moving them to the side, thereby clearing the passage. Gorobets’ car goes onto the tram tracks along a wide street...

A black tank, smoked from a fire, is walking along a wide street in a city occupied by the Germans, kicking up fresh snow with its tracks. Neither the star nor the number on the side of the tank is simply visible. The Germans don’t react to him - I accept him as one of our own. Suddenly the crew notices a column of captured ZIS and GAZ cars with infantry moving towards them on the left side of the street: the cars have been repainted, and German soldiers are sitting in the backs. Remembering the inactive tank gun, Gorobets gives the order to the driver: “Fedya, go straight at them.” A sharp turn and the tank crashes into the convoy at full speed: there is a roar, a crash, the Germans jump off the vehicles in panic, radio operator gunner Ivan Pastushin begins to pour fire on them from a machine gun... The tank ironed the entire convoy, leaving not a single intact vehicle. The Germans begin to hastily broadcast that “Russian tanks are in the city,” not knowing that this is the only vehicle.

Flying out onto Sovetskaya Street, 34 comes across a German tank. Using the effect of surprise, Gorobets' tank bypasses the German and rams the enemy tank into the side, throwing it off the street onto the sidewalk and stalls. The atmosphere couldn’t be better: the Germans leaning out of the hatches shout “Rus, surrender”, the crew of the 34 is trying to start the engine... This is not possible on the first try and suddenly - good news: the loader Grigory Kolomiets was able to revive the gun!..

Leaving the rammed and knocked out German tank behind, Gorobets' car flies out onto Lenin Square. The crew sees a semicircular building on which huge flags with swastikas hang, and there are sentries at the entrance... How can one ignore this? Gorobets fires bombs at the building: the sentries are swept away like the wind, explosions are heard in the premises, and a fire starts. Gorobets' car moves on, bumping into an improvised barricade: grenades are flying at the tank from behind a tram turned on its side. 34 goes around the barricade over a pile of stones - a rubble from a destroyed house - hits the side of the tram and, throwing it and the Germans aside, moves further along Vagzhanov Street to the Moscow Highway. The tank commander discovers a camouflaged artillery battery, the guns of which are deployed towards Moscow. The tank smashes the guns with a ram, destroys dugouts, destroys German trenches and reaches the Moscow highway, breaking out of the city occupied by the Germans. A few kilometers later, near the burning elevator, a powerful shelling of the tank begins from almost all sides: these are already the positions of the 11th motorcycle regiment of the 5th Infantry Division - Gorobets’ tank is initially mistaken for attacking Germans, but fortunately they are identified in time as “their own” and are greeted with shouts of “Hurray” !”…

A little later, the commander of the 30th Army, Major General Khomenko, meets with the crew of the tank: without waiting for award documents, he takes off his own Order of the Red Banner from his jacket and hands it to Senior Sergeant Stepan Gorobets... Major General! Senior Sergeant!!! Presents his order!!!

Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets is an ordinary rural guy from a peasant family, before the war he worked as a gas-blowing turbine operator at a nitrogen fertilizer plant... An ordinary senior sergeant, just from training. In battles since September 1941: at the time of the tank raid in Kalinin (Tver) - he had been fighting for only a month. Senior Sergeant Gorobets is only 28 years old...

Crew members of the T-34 tank No. 03 Fedor Litovchenko (driver), Grigory Kolomiets (loader), Ivan Pastushin (radio operator gunner) went through the entire war with the tank, subsequently meeting at battle sites, including in the memorable city of Kalinin-Tver.

And tank commander Stepan Gorobets rose to the rank of junior lieutenant and was awarded the Order of Lenin. What is characteristic is that the Order of the Red Banner does not appear in award documents and official reports: after all, according to the documents and the number of the award badge, it officially goes to Major General Khomenko...

...And also, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 5, 1942, for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, junior lieutenant Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union... Posthumously.

During the offensive on February 8, 1942, near the village of Petelino, Rzhevsky district, Kalinin (now Tver) region, operating in battle formations of rifle units, the crew of the T-34 tank, junior lieutenant Stepan Gorobets, destroyed three guns, more than twenty machine-gun emplacements and twelve enemy mortars... " operating in combat formations of rifle units” - goes out on foot, already without armor. In this battle, the brave and courageous tank officer Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets died a heroic death. February 8…

On the day of his 29th birthday...

Eternal glory to the heroes!

P.S. Many years later it became known that in the last days of the war, the archives of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces were discovered in Potsdam. Among the documents, an order from the commander of the 9th Army, Colonel General Strauss, dated November 2, 1941, was found. On behalf of the Fuhrer, he awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, to Colonel von Kästner, the commandant of the occupied city of Kalinin. This was an award “for courage, valor and energetic leadership of the garrison during the liquidation of a Soviet tank detachment, which, taking advantage of heavy snowfall, broke directly into the city.”

Stepan Gorobets was buried in the village of Bratkovo, Staritsky district, Tver region.

“Courage exceeds quantity” - these words belong to the ancient Greek named Vegetius. But they did not lose their relevance even during tank battles.

Very often, stories about the exploits of Soviet tank heroes during the Great Patriotic War are associated with the KV vehicle. Especially when it comes to the first year of the war: the KV-1 tank, even without additional modifications, was superior to German military equipment in both firepower and armor. For example, the well-known feat of senior lieutenant, commander of a tank company Kolobanov, under whose command a KV-1 tank destroyed a German tank column (22 tanks) from an ambush during more than an hour-long “duel” with the enemy, fired more than 98 shots from a stationary position, and received more than 100 direct hits on the armor, but what is typical is not a single penetration. All damage to Kolobanov’s KV-1 was limited to a “broken” triplex and a jammed turret rotation mechanism. And there are quite a few similar stories, when tankers on KV tanks simply crushed the enemy with their might...

I want to talk about another legendary Soviet tank crew, which did not have record armor guaranteeing protection or superior firepower to the enemy, like the KV crews...

Only reckless courage, resourcefulness and healthy military arrogance.
On October 17, 1941, the separate 21st Tank Brigade was given the task of carrying out a deep raid along the Bolshoye Selishche-Lebedevo route, defeating the enemy in Krivtsovo, Nikulino, Mamulino, and capturing the city of Kalinin (Tver), liberating it from the Germans. In short, conduct reconnaissance in force, break through the city and connect with the defense on the Moscow highway.

The tank battalion of Major Agibalov goes to the Volokolamsk highway. At the forefront of the column are T-34s: tanks of senior sergeant Gorobets and platoon commander Kireev with the task of identifying and suppressing enemy firing points. On the highway, tanks are catching up with a German column of armored vehicles and vehicles with infantry. The Germans notice the pursuit, deploy anti-tank guns and the battle begins. Kireev's tank is hit and slides into a ditch. Gorobets' tank rushes forward, destroys a German anti-tank battery, and then, without slowing down, breaks into the village of Efremovo, where it engages in battle with the rest of the German column. Having fired at German tanks at speed, crushed three trucks and thinned out the infantry with machine-gun fire, the 34th sergeant Stepan Gorobets with tail number "03" rushes through the village and jumps back onto the highway: The path to the city of Kalinin (Tver) is open...

At the same time, the tank battalion of Major Agibalov, following the vanguard of two T-34s, comes under an air raid by Junkers, several vehicles are hit and the commander stops the column. But after the attack on the Germans dug in in the village, Gorobets’ tank’s radio communication was damaged. The T-34 crew, separated from the main column by more than 500 meters, does not know that the column has stopped! Gorobets, not yet knowing that he was left alone, continues to fulfill the task of the vanguard: without reducing speed, to conduct reconnaissance in force and moves towards the city of Kalinin (Tver). Right on the highway he overtakes a column of German motorcyclists and destroys it...

Now imagine the situation: October 1941, the early snow is already falling, the Germans are advancing on Moscow. The main defensive battles for Kalinin (Tver) have already died down, the Germans occupied the city and fortified themselves in it, pushing back the Soviet troops and occupying defensive positions on the outskirts of the city. The task assigned to the tank brigade - reconnaissance in force - is actually a tank raid along the rear from the Volokolamsk highway to the Moscow highway: break through, make noise, try to recapture the city and connect with the front in another sector. But instead of a tank column, one tank breaks through to the city - the “troika” of Art. Sergeant Gorobets.

When leaving the village of Lebedevo, to the right of the highway, the tankers discover a German airfield with planes and gas tankers. 34 enters the battle, shells the airfield, destroys two Junkers Ju-87s and explodes a fuel tank. And when the German anti-aircraft guns turn around to fire direct fire at the impudent Soviet tank... At this moment, Senior Sergeant Gorobets realizes that his attack is not supported by the battalion’s tanks, which, in theory, should have already caught up with the vanguard that got involved in the battle, supporting them with fire and maneuver, and roll out this entire German airfield, anti-aircraft guns and other guards like God is a turtle. The radio is silent, there is no connection. Nothing is known about the fate of the column, just as the distance separating Gorobets’ “troika” from the tank battalion is unknown...

And since the anti-aircraft guns are already starting to fire directly at the tank, Gorobets makes a bold and, in some way, arrogant decision: escaping from the fire, breaking through to Kalinin alone. From such military arrogance of the Russians, German soldiers and officers always tore the pattern into small pieces, so much so that even many years later they lamented in their memoirs that they could not understand how, for example, it was possible to attack an infantry battalion on the march from an ambush by five archers?... (In the very first days of the war, after breaking through the border strip, the 3rd battalion of the 18th infantry regiment of Army Group Center, numbering 800 people, was fired upon by a unit of 5 Soviet soldiers. “ I didn't expect anything like this, - admitted the battalion commander, Major Neuhof, to his battalion doctor. - It’s pure suicide to attack the battalion’s forces with five fighters”)

How can you attack an enemy who has taken up defensive positions in a city with one tank?

Here's how: leaving under anti-aircraft fire in the direction of Kalinin, Gorobets' car again encounters a German convoy, rams three cars and shoots infantry. Without slowing down, the tank rushes into the city, on Lermontov Street it turns left and rushes, whistling and whooping, roaring and shooting along Traktornaya Street, then along 1st Zalineinaya Street... In the area of ​​Tekstilshchikov Park, Gorobets' tank turns right under the viaduct and flies into the courtyard “Proletarki”: the shops of the cotton mill and plant No. 510 are burning, the workers were holding the defense here... The crew notices that a German anti-tank gun is being aimed at the tank. Gorobets aims at the enemy, but the German cannon fires first, and a fire starts in the tank when the shell hits...

Fyodor Litovchenko, the mechanic driver of the 34 Gorobets, leads the tank to ram and crushes the enemy with its tracks, while the remaining three crew members fight the fire using fire extinguishers, mats, quilted jackets, duffel bags... The fire is extinguished, the enemy’s firing position is destroyed, but from direct When the turret was hit, the gun jammed: firing was impossible. The only weapons that can be used now are machine guns.

Gorobets's car moves further along Bolshevikov Street, then along the right bank of the Tmaka River past a convent, then immediately crosses the river along a dilapidated bridge, risking collapsing a crossing not designed for the 30-ton weight of a tank, and flies out to the left bank of the Tmaka. The tank enters the target of Golovinsky Val, but when trying to go out onto Sofia Perovskaya Street, it encounters an unexpected obstacle: installed rails that are dug deep into the ground - another greeting from the factory workers who held the defense here. At the risk of being discovered, the tank crews use the tank as a tractor and loosen the rails dug into the ground, moving them to the side, thereby clearing the passage. Gorobets' car goes onto the tram tracks along a wide street...

A black tank, smoked from a fire, is walking along a wide street in a city occupied by the Germans, kicking up fresh snow with its tracks. Neither the star nor the number on the side of the tank is simply visible. The Germans don’t react to him - I accept him as one of our own. Suddenly the crew notices a column of captured ZIS and GAZ cars with infantry moving towards them on the left side of the street: the cars have been repainted, and German soldiers are sitting in the backs. Remembering the inactive tank gun, Gorobets gives the order to the driver: “Fedya, go straight at them.” A sharp turn and the tank crashes into the convoy at full speed: there is a roar, a crash, the Germans jump off the vehicles in panic, radio operator gunner Ivan Pastushin begins to pour fire on them from a machine gun... The tank ironed the entire convoy, leaving not a single intact vehicle. The Germans begin to hastily broadcast that “Russian tanks are in the city,” not knowing that this is the only vehicle.

Flying out onto Sovetskaya Street, 34 comes across a German tank. Using the effect of surprise, Gorobets' tank bypasses the German and rams the enemy tank into the side, throwing it off the street onto the sidewalk and stalls. The atmosphere couldn’t be better: the Germans leaning out of the hatches shout “Rus, surrender”, the crew of the 34 is trying to start the engine... This is not possible on the first try and suddenly - good news: the loader Grigory Kolomiets was able to revive the gun!..

Leaving the rammed and knocked out German tank behind, Gorobets' car flies out onto Lenin Square. The crew sees a semicircular building on which huge flags with swastikas hang, and there are sentries at the entrance... How can one ignore this? Gorobets fires bombs at the building: the sentries are swept away like the wind, explosions are heard in the premises, and a fire starts. Gorobets' car moves on, bumping into an improvised barricade: grenades are flying at the tank from behind a tram turned on its side. 34 goes around the barricade over a pile of stones - a rubble from a destroyed house - hits the side of the tram and, throwing it and the Germans aside, moves further along Vagzhanov Street to the Moscow Highway. The tank commander discovers a camouflaged artillery battery, the guns of which are deployed towards Moscow. The tank smashes the guns with a ram, destroys dugouts, destroys German trenches and reaches the Moscow highway, breaking out of the city occupied by the Germans. A few kilometers later, near the burning elevator, a powerful shelling of the tank begins from almost all sides: these are already the positions of the 11th motorcycle regiment of the 5th Infantry Division - Gorobets’ tank is initially mistaken for attacking Germans, but fortunately they are identified in time as “their own” and are greeted with shouts of “Hurray” !"...

A little later, the commander of the 30th Army, Major General Khomenko, meets with the crew of the tank: without waiting for award documents, he takes off his own Order of the Red Banner from his jacket and hands it to Senior Sergeant Stepan Gorobets... Major General! Senior Sergeant!! Presents his order!!!

Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets is an ordinary rural guy from the Kirovograd region of Ukraine, from a peasant family, before the war he worked as a gas-blowing turbine operator at a nitrogen fertilizer plant... An ordinary senior sergeant, just from training. In battles since September 1941: at the time of the tank raid in Kalinin (Tver) - he had been fighting for only a month. Senior Sergeant Gorobets is only 28 years old...

Crew members of the T-34 tank No. 03 Fedor Litovchenko (driver), Grigory Kolomiets (loader), Ivan Pastushin (radio operator gunner) went through the entire war with the tank, subsequently meeting at battle sites, including in the memorable city of Kalinin-Tver.

And tank commander Stepan Gorobets rose to the rank of junior lieutenant and was awarded the Order of Lenin. What is characteristic is that the Order of the Red Banner does not appear in award documents and official reports: after all, according to the documents and the number of the award badge, it officially goes to Major General Khomenko...
...And also, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 5, 1942, for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, junior lieutenant Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union... Posthumously.

During the offensive on February 8, 1942, near the village of Petelino, Rzhevsky district, Kalinin (now Tver) region, operating in the battle formations of rifle units, the crew of the T-34 tank, junior lieutenant Stepan Gorobets, destroyed three guns, more than twenty machine-gun emplacements and twelve enemy mortars. "operating in combat formations of rifle units" - goes out on foot, already without armor. In this battle, the brave and courageous tank officer Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets died a heroic death. February 8...

On my 29th birthday...

Eternal glory to the heroes!

P.S. Many years later it became known that in the last days of the war, the archives of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces were discovered in Potsdam. Among the documents, an order from the commander of the 9th Army, Colonel General Strauss, dated November 2, 1941, was found. On behalf of the Fuhrer, he awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, to Colonel von Kästner, the commandant of the occupied city of Kalinin. It was a reward for courage, valor and energetic leadership of the garrison during the liquidation of a Soviet tank detachment, which, taking advantage of heavy snowfall, broke through directly into the city"(ts).

Stepan Gorodets was buried in the village of Bratkovo, Staritsky district, Tver region.

And in the city of Kalinin-Tver, with which the military destinies of the tankers were so closely linked, this monument was erected:

And one of the streets of Tver bears the name of the commander of 34 with tail number “03”.

The story will be about the legendary Soviet tank crew, which did not have record armor guaranteeing protection, nor superior firepower to the enemy, like the KV crews...
Only reckless courage, resourcefulness and healthy military arrogance.

On October 17, 1941, the separate 21st Tank Brigade was given the task of carrying out a deep raid along the Bolshoye Selishche-Lebedevo route, defeating the enemy in Krivtsovo, Nikulino, Mamulino, and capturing the city of Kalinin (Tver), liberating it from the Germans. In short, conduct reconnaissance in force, break through the city and connect with the defense on the Moscow highway.

The tank battalion of Major Agibalov goes to the Volokolamsk highway. At the forefront of the column are T-34s: tanks of senior sergeant Gorobets and platoon commander Kireev with the task of identifying and suppressing enemy firing points. On the highway, tanks are catching up with a German column of armored vehicles and vehicles with infantry. The Germans notice the pursuit, deploy anti-tank guns and the battle begins. Kireev's tank is hit and slides into a ditch. Gorobets' tank rushes forward, destroys a German anti-tank battery, and then, without slowing down, breaks into the village of Efremovo, where it engages in battle with the rest of the German column. Having fired at German tanks at speed, crushed three trucks and thinned out the infantry with machine-gun fire, the 34th sergeant Stepan Gorobets with tail number “03” rushes through the village and jumps back onto the highway: The path to the city of Kalinin (Tver) is open...

At the same time, the tank battalion of Major Agibalov, following the vanguard of two T-34s, comes under an air raid by Junkers, several vehicles are hit and the commander stops the column. But after the attack on the Germans dug in in the village, Gorobets’ tank’s radio communication was damaged. The T-34 crew, separated from the main column by more than 500 meters, does not know that the column has stopped! Gorobets, not yet knowing that he was left alone, continues to fulfill the task of the vanguard: without reducing speed, to conduct reconnaissance in force and moves towards the city of Kalinin (Tver). Right on the highway he overtakes a column of German motorcyclists and destroys it...

Now imagine the situation: October 1941, the early snow is already falling, the Germans are advancing on Moscow. The main defensive battles for Kalinin (Tver) have already died down, the Germans occupied the city and fortified themselves in it, pushing back the Soviet troops and occupying defensive positions on the outskirts of the city. The task assigned to the tank brigade - reconnaissance in force - is actually a tank raid along the rear from the Volokolamsk highway to the Moscow highway: break through, make noise, try to recapture the city and connect with the front in another sector. But instead of a tank column, one tank breaks through to the city - the “troika” of Art. Sergeant Gorobets.

When leaving the village of Lebedevo, to the right of the highway, the tankers discover a German airfield with planes and gas tankers. 34 enters the battle, shells the airfield, destroys two Junkers Ju-87s and explodes a fuel tank. And when the German anti-aircraft guns turn around to fire direct fire at the impudent Soviet tank... At this moment, Senior Sergeant Gorobets realizes that his attack is not supported by the battalion’s tanks, which, in theory, should have already caught up with the vanguard that got involved in the battle, supporting them with fire and maneuver, and roll out this entire German airfield, anti-aircraft guns and other security like God is a turtle. The radio is silent, there is no connection. Nothing is known about the fate of the column, just as the distance separating Gorobets’ “troika” from the tank battalion is unknown...

And since the anti-aircraft guns are already starting to fire directly at the tank, Gorobets makes a bold and, in some way, arrogant decision: escaping from the fire, breaking through to Kalinin alone. From such military arrogance of the Russians, German soldiers and officers always tore the pattern into small pieces, so much so that even many years later they lamented in their memoirs that they could not understand how, for example, it was possible to attack an infantry battalion on the march from an ambush by the forces of five shooters?...

How can you attack an enemy who has taken up defensive positions in a city with one tank?

Here's how: leaving under anti-aircraft fire in the direction of Kalinin, Gorobets' car again encounters a German convoy, rams three cars and shoots infantry. Without slowing down, the tank rushes into the city, on Lermontov Street it turns left and rushes, whistling and whooping, roaring and shooting along Traktornaya Street, then along 1st Zalineinaya Street... In the area of ​​Tekstilshchikov Park, Gorobets' tank turns right under the viaduct and flies into the courtyard of the Proletarka ": the shops of the cotton mill and plant No. 510 are burning, workers were holding the defense here... The crew notices that a German anti-tank gun is being aimed at the tank. Gorobets aims at the enemy, but the German cannon fires first, and a fire starts in the tank when the shell hits...

Fyodor Litovchenko, the mechanic driver of the 34 Gorobets, leads the tank to ram and crushes the enemy with its tracks, while the remaining three crew members fight the fire using fire extinguishers, mats, quilted jackets, duffel bags... The fire is extinguished, the enemy’s firing position is destroyed, but from a direct hit The turret was jammed and firing was impossible. The only weapons that can be used now are machine guns.

Gorobets's car moves further along Bolshevikov Street, then along the right bank of the Tmaka River past a convent, then immediately crosses the river along a dilapidated bridge, risking collapsing a crossing not designed for the 30-ton weight of a tank, and flies out to the left bank of the Tmaka. The tank enters the target of Golovinsky Val, but when trying to go out onto Sofia Perovskaya Street, it encounters an unexpected obstacle: installed rails that are dug deep into the ground - another greeting from the factory workers who held the defense here. At the risk of being discovered, the tank crews use the tank as a tractor and loosen the rails dug into the ground, moving them to the side, thereby clearing the passage. Gorobets’ car goes onto the tram tracks along a wide street...

A black tank, smoked from a fire, is walking along a wide street in a city occupied by the Germans, kicking up fresh snow with its tracks. Neither the star nor the number on the side of the tank is simply visible. The Germans don’t react to him - I accept him as one of our own. Suddenly the crew notices a column of captured ZIS and GAZ cars with infantry moving towards them on the left side of the street: the cars have been repainted, and German soldiers are sitting in the backs. Remembering the inactive tank gun, Gorobets gives the order to the driver: “Fedya, go straight at them.” A sharp turn and the tank crashes into the convoy at full speed: there is a roar, a crash, the Germans jump off the vehicles in panic, radio operator gunner Ivan Pastushin begins to pour fire on them from a machine gun... The tank ironed the entire convoy, leaving not a single intact vehicle. The Germans begin to hastily broadcast that “Russian tanks are in the city,” not knowing that this is the only vehicle.

Flying out onto Sovetskaya Street, 34 comes across a German tank. Using the effect of surprise, Gorobets' tank bypasses the German and rams the enemy tank into the side, throwing it off the street onto the sidewalk and stalls. The atmosphere couldn’t be better: the Germans leaning out of the hatches shout “Rus, surrender”, the crew of the 34 is trying to start the engine... This is not possible on the first try and suddenly - good news: the loader Grigory Kolomiets was able to revive the gun!..

Leaving the rammed and knocked out German tank behind, Gorobets' car flies out onto Lenin Square. The crew sees a semicircular building on which huge flags with swastikas hang, and there are sentries at the entrance... How can one ignore this? Gorobets fires bombs at the building: the sentries are swept away like the wind, explosions are heard in the premises, and a fire starts. Gorobets' car moves on, bumping into an improvised barricade: grenades are flying at the tank from behind a tram turned on its side. 34 goes around the barricade over a pile of stones - a rubble from a destroyed house - hits the side of the tram and, throwing it and the Germans aside, moves further along Vagzhanov Street to the Moscow Highway. The tank commander discovers a camouflaged artillery battery, the guns of which are deployed towards Moscow. The tank smashes the guns with a ram, destroys dugouts, destroys German trenches and reaches the Moscow highway, breaking out of the city occupied by the Germans. A few kilometers later, near the burning elevator, a powerful shelling of the tank begins from almost all sides: these are already the positions of the 11th motorcycle regiment of the 5th Infantry Division - Gorobets’ tank is initially mistaken for attacking Germans, but fortunately they are identified in time as “their own” and are greeted with shouts of “Hurray” !”…

A little later, the commander of the 30th Army, Major General Khomenko, meets with the crew of the tank: without waiting for award documents, he takes off his own Order of the Red Banner from his jacket and hands it to Senior Sergeant Stepan Gorobets... Major General! Senior Sergeant!!! Presents his order!!!

Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets is an ordinary rural guy from a peasant family, before the war he worked as a gas-blowing turbine operator at a nitrogen fertilizer plant... An ordinary senior sergeant, just from training. In battles since September 1941: at the time of the tank raid in Kalinin (Tver) - he had been fighting for only a month. Senior Sergeant Gorobets is only 28 years old...

Crew members of the T-34 tank No. 03 Fedor Litovchenko (driver), Grigory Kolomiets (loader), Ivan Pastushin (radio operator gunner) went through the entire war with the tank, subsequently meeting at battle sites, including in the memorable city of Kalinin-Tver.

And tank commander Stepan Gorobets rose to the rank of junior lieutenant and was awarded the Order of Lenin. What is characteristic is that the Order of the Red Banner does not appear in award documents and official reports: after all, according to the documents and the number of the award badge, it officially goes to Major General Khomenko...

...And also, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 5, 1942, for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, junior lieutenant Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union... Posthumously.

During the offensive on February 8, 1942, near the village of Petelino, Rzhevsky district, Kalinin (now Tver) region, operating in battle formations of rifle units, the crew of the T-34 tank, junior lieutenant Stepan Gorobets, destroyed three guns, more than twenty machine-gun emplacements and twelve enemy mortars... " operating in combat formations of rifle units” - goes out on foot, already without armor. In this battle, the brave and courageous tank officer Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets died a heroic death. February 8…

On the day of his 29th birthday...

Eternal glory to the heroes!

P.S. Many years later it became known that in the last days of the war, the archives of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces were discovered in Potsdam. Among the documents, an order from the commander of the 9th Army, Colonel General Strauss, dated November 2, 1941, was found. On behalf of the Fuhrer, he awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, to Colonel von Kästner, the commandant of the occupied city of Kalinin. This was an award “for courage, valor and energetic leadership of the garrison during the liquidation of a Soviet tank detachment, which, taking advantage of heavy snowfall, broke directly into the city.”

Stepan Gorobets was buried in the village of Bratkovo, Staritsky district, Tver region.

Even the most terrible first months of the Great Patriotic War for the Red Army showed us a large number of exploits of Soviet soldiers and officers. These feats will forever be inscribed in the history of our country. If we talk about tankers, then a considerable share of the credit for their exploits was contained in their combat vehicles. For example, the famous battle of the tank company commander, Senior Lieutenant Kolobanov, ended with the destruction of a German tank column of 22 enemy vehicles, not only because of the professional choice of the ambush site and the well-coordinated work of the entire tank crew, but also due to the outstanding characteristics of the KV-1 heavy tank, who did not let his crew down in that battle. All the Germans could do to him was to break the surveillance devices and jam the turret rotation mechanism. But not all battles were decided solely by the superior firepower and record armor of Soviet tanks of those years. As the Polish writer Stanislaw Jerzy Lec rightly noted: “Often courage alone is not enough, you also need arrogance.” During the war years, this aphorism justified itself more than once. Due to the military arrogance of Russian soldiers and the atypicality of their actions and behavior in combat conditions, Wehrmacht soldiers and officers often experienced, as they would say now, a “break in the pattern.” After the war, in their memoirs, many officers lamented that they could not understand how the enemy could attack an infantry battalion on the march from an ambush with just five soldiers, or how it was possible to attack the enemy in a city with just one tank. It was the latter that was accomplished in October 1941 by the crew of the T-34 tank Stepan Gorobets, who alone broke into Kalinin (now Tver). The life of Hero of the Soviet Union Stepan Gorobets turned out to be inextricably linked with the Tver region; it was here, during the defense of Kalinin, that a tank crew under his leadership made a successful single tank breakthrough through the entire city. Here on this land, during the offensive battles near Rzhev, this tanker laid down his head in 1942. Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets was born in the small village of Dolinskoye on February 8, 1913. He grew up in the Kirovograd region and was Ukrainian by nationality. Before the war, an ordinary Soviet guy from a peasant family worked as a gas turbine operator at a nitrogen fertilizer plant. He met the war as an ordinary senior sergeant, a tank driver who had just graduated from training. He took part in battles from September 1941. By the time of the tank raid that made his name immortal, Gorobets’ entire combat experience was only one month. The battle, which took place on October 17, 1941, would later be called an example of true courage, military arrogance and resourcefulness.

On October 17, 1941, the 21st separate tank brigade was given a difficult task: to carry out a deep raid behind enemy lines along the Bolshoye Selishche - Lebedevo route, defeating the German forces in Krivtsevo, Nikulino, Mamulino, and also to capture the city of Kalinin, freeing it from the invaders. The brigade needed to carry out reconnaissance in force, breaking through the city and joining forces with the units taking up defensive positions on the Moscow Highway. The tank battalion of the brigade under the command of Major Agibalov reaches the Volokolamsk highway. At the forefront of the battalion are two T-34 medium tanks: the tank of senior sergeant Gorobets and his platoon commander Kireev. Their task is to identify and suppress detected Nazi firing points. On the highway, two of our tanks overtake a German column of vehicles with infantry and armored vehicles. The Germans, noticing Soviet tanks, manage to deploy anti-tank guns and start a battle. During the battle, Kireev's T-34 tank was hit and slid off the highway into a ditch, and Gorobets' tank managed to slip forward and crush the positions of the German guns, after which, without slowing down, it entered the village of Efremovo, where it entered into battle with the retreating column. Having fired at German tanks on the move, crushing three trucks, tank number “03” flew through the village and again reached the highway, the path to Kalinin was open. However, at the same time, Agibalov’s tank battalion, following the vanguard of two T-34s, comes under an airstrike by enemy Junkers, several tanks are knocked out and the commander stops the advance of the column. At the same time, the radio on Senior Sergeant Gorobets’ tank went out of order after a battle in the village, and there was no connection with him. Having become more than 500 meters away from the main battalion column, the tank crew does not know that the column has already stopped. Not knowing that he was left alone, the senior sergeant continues to carry out the assigned task and continues reconnaissance in force in the direction of Kalinin. On the highway to the city, the T-34 catches up with a column of German motorcyclists and destroys it. Just imagine the situation: the defensive battles for Kalinin had already been completed by that time, the Germans were able to occupy the city and entrenched themselves in it. They pushed back the Soviet troops and took up defenses around the city. The task assigned to the Soviet tank brigade - conducting reconnaissance in force - is actually a tank raid in the German rear from Volokolamsk to Moscow highway. Break through to the rear, make some noise there, try to recapture Kalinin from the enemy and connect with other Soviet units on another sector of the front. However, instead of a tank column, a single tank is heading towards the city - the “troika” of senior sergeant Stepan Gorobets. Having left the village of Lebedevo, on the right side of the highway, the tank crew identified a German airfield where aircraft and gas tankers were stationed. Gorobets' tank entered the battle here, destroying two Ju-87 aircraft with fire and blowing up a fuel tank. After some time, the Germans came to their senses and began to deploy anti-aircraft guns in order to open fire on the tank with direct fire. At the same time, the senior sergeant, realizing that his attack was not supported by other tanks of his battalion, which should have already caught up with the detached vanguard and simply swept away the discovered airfield, makes an unconventional, bold and to some extent arrogant decision. The radio station on the tank is silent, Gorobets knows nothing about the fate of the battalion column, just as he does not know how far he has separated from the main forces. Under these conditions, when the Germans are already firing at the tank with anti-aircraft guns, the commander of the vehicle decides to leave the battle and break through to Kalinin alone. Having escaped from the shelling of German anti-aircraft guns, our tank, on the way to Kalinin, again encounters a column of German troops. The Thirty-Four rams three German vehicles and shoots the fleeing infantry. Without slowing down, a medium tank breaks into a city occupied by the enemy. In Kalinin, on Lermontov Street, the tank turns left and shoots along Traktornaya Street, and then along 1st Zalineinaya Street. In the area of ​​Tekstilshchikov Park, the T-34 makes a right turn under the viaduct and enters the Proletarka courtyard: the workshops of plant No. 510 and the cotton mill are on fire, local workers held the defense here. At this moment, Gorobets notices that a German anti-tank gun is being aimed at his combat vehicle, but does not have time to react. The Germans shoot first and a fire starts in the tank. Despite the flames, the mechanic-driver of the T-34 tank, Fyodor Litovchenko, drives the vehicle to ram and crushes the anti-tank gun with its tracks, while three other crew members fight the fire, using fire extinguishers, quilted jackets, duffel bags and other improvised means. Thanks to their coordinated actions, the fire was extinguished and the enemy’s firing position was destroyed. However, a direct hit on the tank's turret jammed the gun, leaving only machine guns in the formidable vehicle. Next, Gorobets' tank follows Bolshevikov Street, then drives along the right bank of the Tmaka River past the convent located here. The tankers immediately cross the river along a dilapidated bridge, risking collapsing the 30-ton vehicle into the river, but everything worked out and they reached the left bank of the river. A tank with the number three on its armor enters the target of Golovinsky Val, from where it tries to reach Sofia Perovskaya Street, but encounters an unexpected obstacle. There are rails dug deep into the ground here, greetings from the workers who defended the city. At the risk of being detected by the enemy, tankers have to use their combat vehicle as a tractor, loosening the installed rails. As a result, they were able to be moved to the side, freeing up the passage. After this, the tank goes out onto the tram tracks running along a wide street. The tank continues its journey through the city occupied by the enemy, but now it is black, smoked from a recent fire. Neither the star nor the tank number are visible on it anymore. The Germans don’t even react to the tank, mistaking it for their own. At this moment, on the left side of the street, the tank crew sees a column of captured trucks, GAZ and ZIS cars with infantry, the vehicles have been repainted, and there are Germans sitting in them. Remembering that firing a gun is impossible, Stepan Gorobets orders the driver to push the convoy. Having made a sharp turn, the tank crashes into trucks, and radio operator gunner Ivan Pastushin sprays the Germans with a machine gun. Then the Germans begin to hastily radio about Soviet tanks breaking into the city, not knowing that only one thirty-four entered the city.

Driving onto Sovetskaya Street, the T-34 encounters a German tank. Taking advantage of the effect of surprise, Gorobets bypasses the enemy and rams the German into the side, throwing him off the street onto the sidewalk. After the impact, the thirty-four stalled. The Germans, leaning out of the hatches of their vehicle, are shouting “Russian, surrender,” and the crew of the Soviet tank is trying to start the engine. This was not successful the first time, but at that moment very good news appeared: loader Grigory Kolomiets was able to revive the gun. Leaving the rammed enemy tank behind, the T-34 jumps out onto Lenin Square. Here, the tank crews see a semicircular building on which huge fascist flags are installed, and sentries are stationed at the entrance. The building was not left unattended, the tank fired high-explosive shells at it, and a fire started in the building. Having completed the next task, the tank moves on and encounters an improvised barricade. On the street, the Germans overturned a tram, causing grenades to fly into the tank. The Thirty-Four managed to get around this obstacle along a pile of stones (a rubble from a collapsed residential building), pushing away the tram with the Germans entrenched behind it, and continued moving further along Vagzhanov Street to the Moscow Highway. Here Stepan Gorobets discovered a disguised German artillery battery, the guns of which were deployed towards Moscow. The tank breaks into positions from the rear, destroys guns and dugouts with a ram, irons the trenches and goes out onto the Moscow highway, escaping from the city. A few kilometers later, near the burning elevator, the tank begins to be heavily shelled from almost all sides. Here were the positions of one of the regiments of the 5th Infantry Division. Gorobets’ car was first mistaken for Germans, but they figured out the identity in time and stopped firing at the tank, greeting the tankers with shouts of “Hurray!” Later, Major General Khomenko, commander of the 30th Army, personally met with the T-34 crew. Without waiting for the award documents, he took off the Order of the Red Banner from his jacket and presented it to senior sergeant Stepan Gorobets. Later, Gorobets was able to rise to the rank of junior lieutenant and was awarded the Order of Lenin. Tellingly, the Order of the Red Banner did not officially appear in the award documents, as it went to General Khomenko. Later, on May 5, 1942, for the courage and heroism shown in battle, junior lieutenant Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but posthumously. During the offensive on February 8, 1942, in a battle near the village of Petelino in the Rzhevsky district of the Kalinin (now Tver) region, operating in the battle formations of the advancing infantry, the crew of the T-34 tank, junior lieutenant Stepan Gorobets, managed to destroy 3 enemy guns and suppress more than 20 machine gun points and 12 enemy mortars, destroy up to 70 enemy soldiers and officers. In this battle, on the day of his 29th birthday, Stepan Gorobets was killed. He was buried in the village of Bratkovo, Staritsky district, Tver region, in a mass grave near the church, 10 meters from the Staritsa-Bernovo highway, on the Pushkin ring. In total, during the entire battle, the crew of Stepan Gorobets’ tank accounted for 7 knocked out and destroyed German tanks.

A few days before the death of Gorobets, tower sergeant Grigory Kolomiets was wounded, his further fate is unknown. And the mechanic-driver of the tank, senior sergeant Fyodor Litovchenko, and the gunner-radio operator, Red Army soldier Ivan Pastushin, went through the entire war and lived to see victory. Subsequently, they met each other at the sites of past battles, including in the memorable city of Kalinin. Later it became known that in the last days of the war, the archive of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces was found near Berlin in Potsdam. In this archive, among other documents, an order from the commander of the 9th German Army, Colonel General Strauss, dated November 2, 1941, was discovered. On behalf of the Fuhrer, according to this order, Colonel von Kestner, the commandant of occupied Kalinin, was awarded the Iron Cross of the first degree. The award was presented “for valor, courage and energetic leadership of the garrison during the liquidation of a Soviet tank detachment, which, taking advantage of the snowfall, was able to break into the city.” In fairness, it is worth noting that 8 tanks of the 21st brigade were able to break through to Kalinin, which slipped through to the city under constant bombing. However, having reached the southern outskirts of the city, the surviving vehicles moved to Pokrovskoye along the Turginovskoye Highway, the tank of Senior Sergeant Gorobets was the only one that fought through the entire city. After the war, the memory of Gorobets and his tank crews was immortalized. One of the streets of Tver currently bears the name of the commander of the legendary thirty-four with tail number “03”. At house No. 54 on Sovetskaya Street in Tver, a memorial plaque was installed in memory of the legendary tank crew. And 70 years after the events described, in November 2011, a monument was unveiled in the city in memory of the feat of the crew of the T-34 medium tank from the 1st separate tank battalion of the 21st tank brigade of the 30th Army of the Kalinin Front. Here, at the monument to tank heroes, a memorial meeting was organized on the 100th anniversary of Stepan Gorobets. Also, one of the streets in his native village was named after the tank hero. Based on materials from open sources Author Yuferev Sergey

The feat of Stepan Gorobets On August 22, Krasnoyarsk Time reported on the feat of Soviet tank crews under the command of Senior Lieutenant Zinovy ​​Kolobanov, who in August 1941, at the line near the city of Gatchina, destroyed 22 tanks of the German Wehrmacht, rushing to Leningrad. This unique record has remained unsurpassed by anyone. Somewhat later, on October 17 of the same year, the crew of the T-34 tank, commanded by senior sergeant Stepan Gorobets, performed an unprecedented feat. It happened in the city of Kalinin (Tver), already occupied by German troops. Then the battalion of the separate 21st Tank Brigade, stationed in the Bolshoi Selishche area, which included Gorobets’ vehicle (tail number “03”), was given the task of moving along the Volokolamsk Highway, breaking into the city, conducting reconnaissance in force and reaching the line our defense on the Moscow highway. Even in the suburbs, the vanguard of the battalion is catching up with a German column with armored vehicles and soldiers. Seeing the tanks pursuing them (paired with Gorobets was a tank from Kireyev’s platoon commander), the Germans deployed their guns and hit them with direct fire. The Kireevsky tank was soon knocked out, and Gorobets in his car, crushing batteries and vehicles, escaped from the line of fire and continued moving along the highway straight into the city. And since “03”’s radio communications were damaged as a result of being hit by a German anti-tank shell, Gorobets was forced to act further at his own discretion, without being distracted from completing the assigned task. And he decided to continue moving to the city occupied by the enemy. Hoping that the lagging tanks of the battalion would follow him. Along the way, destroying the enemy's military equipment and manpower. While still moving along the Volokolamsk highway, Gorobets' tank catches up and destroys a column of motorcyclists, and when leaving the village of Lebedevo, to the right of the highway, the tankers discover an airfield - and with well-aimed gun fire they destroy two Junkers-87s and a fuel tank. Only now, while maneuvering, Gorobets discovers that there is only one tank. There is no one from the battalion following him... But you can’t stop - the airfield anti-aircraft guns are already starting to shoot to kill, and it’s most likely to save the tank and crew by moving forward, straight into the city. The risk was great and obvious. But it is known that the city takes courage! I will briefly list the episodes of our 34’s raid through German-occupied Kalinin. Escaping from enemy anti-aircraft fire, Gorobets discovers a convoy moving towards him, rams three vehicles at full speed and shoots the infantry. In the area of ​​the Proletarka factory, the Germans, ahead of our crew, shot at the tank almost point-blank. A direct hit on the turret jams the gun. In addition, a fire breaks out, but the crew skillfully puts it out. Now Gorobets' crew has only machine guns at their disposal. Having crossed the dangerous line, Gorobets' tank moves along the right bank of the Tmaka River towards the city center. When crossing the river, we had to take risks again - the wooden bridge across the Tmaka could not withstand such weight. But the crew was lucky again. Having driven out onto Sofia Perovskaya Street, the crew crushes and throws aside the anti-tank hedgehogs and drives out onto a wide street with tram tracks laid along it. And since the tank is blackened by fire, smoke and dirt, oncoming Germans cannot immediately determine its identity. But a column of vehicles with infantry appeared ahead. Gorobets orders the driver-mechanic Fyodor Litovchenko to crush the column, and Ivan Pastushin, the gunner-radio operator, to shoot it with a machine gun. As a result, not a single vehicle remained intact, and the losses in manpower were at least a hundred. Then the Germans announced on the radio: “Attention! Russian tanks are in the city! Soon, on Sovetskaya Street, Gorobets sees a German tank nearby and rams it. However, upon impact, the engine of the 34 stalls... The Germans, who have come to their senses, are already running towards the tank and shouting “Rus, surrender!” But the crew still starts the engine and even restores the gun. Then Gorobets’ tank, moving through Lenin Square, where the headquarters and government offices were located, delivered targeted artillery strikes on the buildings, from which the surviving sentries fled in panic and numerous fires broke out. Having left Vagzhanova Street for us, Gorobets’ crew bypasses the barricades just erected by the Germans, destroying enemy equipment and manpower, including a camouflaged battery, the guns of which are aimed at Moscow. And when Gorobets’ tank finally crossed the front line, it was hit... by our artillery. True, everything soon becomes clear, and the heroes are greeted with a cry of “Hurray!” The commander of the 30th Army, Major General Khomenko, immediately took off the Order of the Red Star and presented it to Senior Sergeant Stepan Gorobets. Soon the brave tankman becomes a junior lieutenant and in this rank continues to command his 34th - already in the battles for the liberation of Rzhev (Kalinin was liberated on December 16, 1941). In one of the battles in February 1942 - near the village of Petelino, Rzhev region - the crew destroys three guns, more than twenty machine-gun emplacements and twelve enemy mortars. Later, participating in the offensive - without a tank, on foot - Stepan Khristoforovich Gorobets died the death of the brave. He was buried in the village of Bratkovo, Staritsky district, Kalinin (Tver) region. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to him on February 8, 1942, posthumously, on the 29th anniversary of his birth.