Grigory Skiruta
Grigory Trofimovich Skiruta | |
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Order of the Patriotic War (1st Degree) (2)Order of the Red Star |
Grigory Trofimovich Skiruta (Russian: Григорий Трофимович Скирута; November 21 [O.S. December 4] 1912 – 9 September 1999, Solnechnogorsk) was a lieutenant colonel of the Red Army during the Second World War. He became a Hero of the Soviet Union during the fighting along the Dniepr River in 1943. He continued to serve well into the postwar era, and was promoted to colonel in 1961, when he went into the reserve.
Biography
Skiruta was born on December 4, 1912, in the village of Velikopolovetskoe in the
As the 422nd Rifle Division formed up in the Russian Far East in the spring of 1942, Skiruta was assigned to it, serving first as deputy commander and eventually as commander of its 1334th Rifle Regiment, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The division arrived at the front near Stalingrad on July 26, where Skiruta first saw combat. By September the bulk of the 422nd was in the 64th Army, on the Volga south of the German encirclement, but the 1334th was detached to a special task force in 57th Army further south. On the night of September 28–29 this force of two rifle regiments with tank and artillery support attacked positions held by the 1st Romanian Infantry Division south of Lake Sarpa, driving them back as much as 5 km and liberating the villages of Tsatsa and Simkin by October 1. This was an ominous foretaste of the weakness of the Romanian forces north and south of Stalingrad.[2]
When
Skiruta led his regiment during the
Following Kursk, Skiruta continued to lead his regiment, participating in the liberations of
To overcome the position, overnight on September 25–26 the 233rd and 235th Guards Regiments forced a crossing of the main channel of the Dniepr, occupying West Island. The following night the second channel was also crossed and a bridgehead was established on the west bank after heavy fighting for the large village of Borodaevka, which was about 6 km in length. On October 26, Guards Lieutenant Colonel G. T. Skiruta was recognized by the
Skiruta continued in command of his regiment through the battles for west bank Ukraine, participating in the liberation of
In his retirement Skiruta moved to the town of Solnechnogorsk northwest of Moscow, here he spent some of his time directing military-patriotic work among the young people of the area. In 1995 he was named an honorary citizen of Solnechnogorsk. He died on July 28, 1999, and was buried in the town's New Cemetery.[1]
References
- ^ a b c "Скирута Григорий Трофимович". www.warheroes.ru. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ^ David M. Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2009, pp. 342-46.
- ^ Valeriy Zamulin, The Forgotten Battle of the Kursk Salient, Helion & Co. Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2017, p. 158
- ^ Zamulin, Forgotten Battle, p. 466
- ^ Zamulin, Demolishing the Myth, Helion & Co. Ltd., Solihull, UK, 2011, pp. 425, 594
- ^ http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=3918 states that there were 500 officers and men. This appears to be a typo, since it's unlikely that the vehicles outnumbered the personnel by 50%