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Chapter 11. Tula defense
Chapter 11. Tula defense

Tula defense

The decisive event of the first year of the Great Patriotic War was a historic battle of Moscow.
As a result of fierce defensive battles (September 30 to December 5, 1941) and then the advance (December 5, 1941 to April 20, 1942), Soviet troops stopped the enemy, defeated its strike troops and cast them away from Moscow.
The situation with the Tula infrastructure in October 1941 was very aggravating.
The evacuation of Tula defense plants and other industrial enterprises started on October 8.


The Tula Municipal Committee of Defense was organized on October 22 with Vasily Gavrilovich Zhavoronkov appointed as its Chairman.
Biography
On October 23, the Committee issued a Resolution on the establishment of the Tula workers regiment.

The regiment commander was Anatoly Petrovich Gorshkov, the commissar was Grigory Antonovich Ageev.
On October 27, the regiment occupied a defensive line. Meanwhile, the 50th army entered the Tula vicinities.
Our Museum keeps handwritten memories of one of Tula defenders — Suren Bagratovich Vardazaryan.
The Tula defensive operation
October 24 — December 5, 1941
OCTOBER 29

On October 29, the enemy occupied Yasnaya Polyana, Kosaya Gora and approached Tula. The 447th corps artillery regiment under the command of Colonel A.A. Mavrin arrived in Tula this day.

OCTOBER 30

On October 30, Commander A.N. Ermakov’s order approved the establishment of the Tula military area headed by Major General V.S. Popov to directly lead the forces defending the city from the South. In the morning of that day, Nazi troops initiated violent attacks on the city. Enemy tank attacks were repelled by anti-aircraft guns of Lieutenant G. M. Volnyansky, who died heroically in that battle.

On October 30, the enemy succeeded in pressing the Tula workers regiment and occupying the part of Rogozhinsky settlement.

OCTOBER 31

On October 31, the enemy undertook new attacks on the city, but they were all repulsed.

That day, the battle frontiers were occupied by the 154th infantry division, the 217th infantry division of Brigade Commander K.P. Trubnikov and part of the 50th army.

The 32nd tank brigade of Colonel I.I. Yushchuk and 34th guards mortar division arrived in Tula. Violent attacks of the enemy on the city continued until early November. The South-Eastern approaches to Tula were defended by the 413th infantry division headed by Major General A.D. Tereshkov.

NOVEMBER 8–10

On November 8–10, the Nazis were chucked out of Rogozhinsky settlement and from the brick factory land.

The 50th army became part of the Western battlefront in early November. The chief of the Tula military area became Major General Ya.S. Fokanov

DECEMBER 2

However, on December 2, the enemy broke through the defense troops of the 50th army to the North-East of Tula, occupied the Revyakino railroad station to cut off the rail- and motorways to Moscow. In the encirclement of Tula only a five kilometer isthmus remained. It was held by the 999th infantry regiment of the 258th infantry division and one tank company.

DECEMBER 4 and 5

On December 4 and 5, the 112th tank division of Colonel A.L. Hetman dealt a severe blow to the enemy tank grouping, freeing the Revyakino station to defeat the enemy who tried to encircle Tula.

DECEMBER 7

By nightfall on December 7, the enemy launched a human wave attack on the Western outskirts of Tula — Myasnovo suburban farm from the Maslovo village side. The Tula defenders having illuminated the road by spotlights destroyed the enemy’s battalion of the 521th infantry regiment.

It was enemy’s last attempt to break through Tula. Thus ended the Tula defensive operation.

DECEMBER 8

On December 8, 1941, troops of the 50th army headed by Lieutenant-General I.V. Boldin since November 22, went on the offensive.

Visitors to the exposition will learn about Tula’s heavy days of defense from the Nazis in October-November 1941 from the soulful and emotional narrations rendered by a “virtual teller” who participated in those events, Senior Lieutenant, Political Commissar of anti-aircraft artillery regiment Timofei Dmitrievich Dubinin.
The Tula’s offensive operation started.

The 2nd Panzer Army of Hitler’s experienced General Heinz Guderian was stopped and defeated near Tula.

The heroic defense of Tula lasted 45 days.

The enemy’s attempt to seize Tula and turn it into a bridgehead for a strike on Moscow failed.

Tula heroic defensive operation was an important link in the battle of Moscow in the difficult autumn and winter of 1941.
The feat of Tula’s defenders was highlighted in the Order of the People’s Commissar of USSR Defense Iosif Stalin on November 7, 1942:

“The heroic defenders of Moscow and Tula, Odessa and Sevastopol, Leningrad and Stalingrad showed examples of selfless courage, cast-iron discipline, steadfastness and ability to win. Every soldier of the Red Army looks up to these heroes”.
Tula and its inhabitants played an outstanding role in the defeat of German forces near Moscow
— said Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov