They fought for the Motherland

The attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR put an end to peaceful life. However, despite the day-by-day increasing intensity of the bombing of the city, classes at the Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Institute were held regularly until August 10, 1941, although they took place in a different building adapted for this purpose, since the Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Institute had to cede its educational building to a military hospital.

In the first days of the war, more than 600 students and teachers were mobilized to the army. Many of them were enrolled in military academies, schools, officer training schools, and became officers of the Soviet Army. Tomorrow’s graduates already knew the technology well, were ideologically and morally prepared. It was necessary to study at an accelerated pace in accordance with the requirements of wartime.

52 students of the third and fourth years became students of the Artillery Academy named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky About 30 senior students were enrolled in the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization named after Y.V. Stalin 32 students became cadets of the 2nd Rostov Artillery School, many students studied at Smolensk, Tomsk Artillery, Poltava Tank, Moscow Mortar Artillery, Omsk and Tyumen Military Infantry, Stalingrad Aviation and other schools. Junior year students were drafted into the Red Army.

You could meet students of our educational institution in almost all branches of the military – artillery and tank units, aviation and communications, cavalry, navy.

Colonels Oleksiy Paramonov and Oleksiy Kozlykin went from private to regimental commander, and to chiefs of staff – Major Vasyl Trifonov, Captains Volodymyr Konstantinov and Andriy Kachurovskyi.

More than 400 former students, teachers, and employees of the educational institution were awarded orders and medals for their heroism and courage in the fight against fascism.

Boris Harbarets, a freshman at the mechanical and technological faculty, went to the front as a volunteer. In the first days of the war, Boris and his fellow students appeared at the District Military Committee. As a minor, he was not accepted into the army, but sent to a military school. In July 1941, B. Harbarets with a group of volunteers arrived at the Sevastopol Naval School of Coastal Defense. An incredible pace and intensity of training began. However, Boris did not become an officer. The enemy stubbornly rushed to Sevastopol. On an October night in 1941, under heavy rain, the cadet companies made a 35-kilometer march to Bakhchisaray and took up defenses in the morning. The cadets firmly held their position, often launched counterattacks, and crowded the enemy. On December 17, a new massive fascist offensive began. The forces were clearly unequal. Fighters died, groaned from their wounds, but held on with their last strength. The fan of enemy metal did not bypass Boris Harbarets. In this battle, he was seriously wounded, placed in a field hospital, and became disabled. For his demonstrated heroism and bravery, B. Harbarets was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree and the medal «For the Defense of Sevastopol».

Mykola Hornostaev was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, Patriotic War I and II degrees. When the war began, he, having successfully completed the first year of the same faculty as B. Harbarets, voluntarily joined the army. At his request, he was sent to an aviation school. He was not even 18 years old, and two years later he was a fighter pilot, junior lieutenant, participating in combat operations on the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts as part of the 694th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 3rd Air Army. 112 sorties were made by M. Hornostaev on the American Aerocobra aircraft. He flew accompanied by IL-2 attack aircraft, PE-2, TU-2 bombers, flew to scout enemy troops, to cover his ground troops over the battlefield, to attack enemy manpower and equipment. He shot down four enemy planes in dogfights. Only from April 1 to May 8, 1945, he conducted 44 successful sorties, bombed 6 trucks with cargo, 7 tanks with ammunition, set fire to two warehouses with ammunition and destroyed up to 40 enemy soldiers and officers. M. Hornostaev is a participant in the battles with Japan. After the war, he graduated from the navigator faculty of the Red Banner Air Force Academy and continued to work in aviation.

A student of group No. 2, a knight of two orders of the Patriotic War, two orders of the Red Star, many medals, engineer-captain, head of a mobile artillery repair workshop, Ivan Yermak – a highly qualified, technically literate commander – began his combat journey from Stalingrad. Carrying out the task of repairing artillery weapons in the field, under the fire of enemy artillery, he performed the work in a short time, with an «excellent» rating. In four months of 1945, the workshop repaired 150 artillery systems of various calibers from 76 mm to 203 mm, 380 optical devices, 120 mortars, 97 radio sets, and 187 telephone sets. Yermak fought until Victory Day, later became an engineer-colonel.

However, not everyone returned home from the front. War is always a tragedy. According to incomplete data, 53 students of the institute died in battles with fascism and went missing. These are students: Lieutenant Mykola Ivakhnenko, Lieutenant Yosyp Zeltser, Lieutenant Aron Lamedman, Lieutenant Andriy Itsenko, Junior Lieutenant Oleksiy Kozachkov, Sergeant Tikhon Telegin, Sergeant Boleslav Yankovsky, Private Demyan Buvaylo, Private Ivan Kolomoets and others.

It is our duty to remember those who died in the battles against Nazism. We are responsible for the memory of the past.

Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of ZNTU M.V. Dedkov