Hero of the Soviet Union Asanov Dair
Dair Asanov was born in 1922 in the village of Bash-Kaindy, At-Bashinsky District, Naryn Region of the Kyrgyz SSR, into a peasant family. He was Kyrgyz. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the age of nineteen, he was drafted into the Soviet Army. He served as a sergeant and gunner.
He began his combat path on the Stalingrad front, participating in battles on the Don and Southwestern fronts. His military feats were recognized with the Orders of the Patriotic War I class, the Red Star, and the Medal for Military Merit.
On October 26, 1943, for his courage and heroism displayed in fierce battles with the enemy near Kharkov, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In 1945, he graduated from the First Guards Tank School named after V.I. Lenin, which had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner twice and the Order of the Red Star. In 1956, he graduated from the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin. For several years, he served as the military commissar of the Lenin District of Frunze.
ONE AGAINST TANKS
I want to tell you about the brave son of the Kyrgyz people, Hero of the Soviet Union, Dair Asanov, who multiplied the glory of Soviet arms during the Great Patriotic War.
In 1942, after special training, Dair Asanov arrived at the 81st Artillery Regiment on the Stalingrad front. From the very first battles, the young warrior demonstrated remarkable training, courage, and bravery.
In the fierce January battles, Dair knocked out a tank, suppressed a machine-gun position, and destroyed several vehicles with ammunition, for which he was awarded the Medal for Military Merit. After some time, during the battles for Stalingrad, Dair Asanov was awarded the Order of the Red Star. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War I class for his heroic feat near Kharkov.
In the spring of 1943, fierce battles were taking place on the 1st Ukrainian front. On the morning of March 23, during a break between battles, the artillery crew of sergeant-gunner Dair Asanov was having breakfast in a trench — they were sipping hot, fragrant soup from their mess kits. In the distance, a dark forest was visible, and in front of it lay a marshy lowland overgrown with reeds.
Having finished breakfast, the slender Dair, with large sharp eyes over which thick black brows were spread like the wings of a falcon, stood up to rinse his mess kit. At that moment, a scout ran in, breathless, and shouted that two kilometers away, under the cover of tanks, the fascists were breaking through the forest and would be here any minute.
The news was so unexpected that some artillerymen, continuing to sip their soup, wondered if the scout had perhaps had too much trophy rum that morning. But the scout was as clean as a whistle and insisted that he had seen the tanks with his own eyes. The commander, they say, ran to the headquarters to report, and he — hurried here...
There was no time to delay. Without waiting for orders from above, the battery commander ordered:
— Sergeant Asanov! Move the gun over there, to that haystack. Dig in and camouflage properly. Not a step back!
— I understand, comrade commander, not a step back! — Asanov replied cheerfully, with youthful enthusiasm.
Not far from the village, in a field softened by the spring thaw, stood a small haystack that smelled of rot.
Asanov camouflaged the gun in it. They dug a small trench for shells, openings for the crew, and hid.
At 11 a.m., the Germans, under the cover of tanks, moved towards the firing position of Asanov's artillery crew. The roar of engines grew louder and louder. The artillerymen tensed in their positions. Finally, eight tanks rolled out of the forest onto the open field. Following the tanks, the Germans advanced in a chain. Sergeant Asanov ordered the artillery crew to die but not let the enemy through. When the lead tank was about three hundred meters away, he gave the command:
— Full caliber! Fire at the lead tank! The breech clicked sharply as it closed on the yellow shell casing. The gunner turned the handwheel, leaning close to the sight.
The enemy tanks approached without opening fire. When the lead vehicle reached the line marked by Dair, he commanded:
— Fire!
The first shell hit the target. The tank shuddered, spun like a top in place, then froze. Thick black smoke poured from the cracks and hatches. But other tanks crawled out from behind the burning one and stubbornly moved forward...
Asanov's gun did not fall silent. And although the enemy bombarded the firing position with a hail of shells and bullets, the crew fought calmly and coolly. Dair was an experienced artilleryman and knew the enemy's psychology well: if you hit the tanks with the first shots — they cannot withstand it and flee. It was the same this time.
After the third vehicle was knocked out, the others quickly turned around and retreated, leaving behind three smoking tanks in the marshy lowland beyond the shaky bridge. The gun fell silent. The soldiers wiped large drops of sweat from their faces, but their foreheads were soon covered with perspiration again.
The lull did not last long. All the fighters in his crew knew that after a pleasant silence, a storm was about to break.
They awaited the enemy, and he launched a second attack. The Germans launched a new assault with eleven tanks, accompanied by aircraft. Enemy bombers swooped down on Asanov's firing position, and the tanks opened continuous fire. Everything around boiled, and the battle took on a fierce character. The Germans evidently thought that there was not just one gun in the hastily dug trenches but at least an entire battery. From the planes, bombs rained down like fruit from a tree.
The ground shook and erupted in black fountains. The air was filled with the sound of explosions, and thousands of fragments whistled through the earth.
Dair and his fighting comrades did not retreat. The explosions made his head throb, and it was hard to grasp the constantly changing situation. But the commander kept a close eye on the battlefield and directed the fire, while the crew, without losing a second, followed his commands — fetching shells, loading, aiming the gun.
The crew was thinning out. Brave soldiers fell one by one, as if carried away by an unseen hand.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to fight... Nevertheless, they managed to knock out two more enemy vehicles.
Angered by the steadfastness of the Soviet fighters, the fascist command sent reinforcements — six armored vehicles filled with machine gunners.
It was already the third hour of the day. Only two remained with Dair: Starovoytov and Akhmatov. Three men, three soldiers! The others were killed. There they lay side by side, as if asleep, but could no longer help...
Dair aimed himself, while the other two brought shells. The gun fired accurately. The armored vehicles caught fire one after another, like dry firewood in an oven. The surviving vehicles and machine gunners, confused, rushed to the edge of the forest. The attack faltered.
And once again, the lull was short-lived. A hurricane of automatic and artillery fire erupted in the meadow: the fascists, under the cover of tanks, launched a third attack. This time they advanced with particular ferocity.
Meanwhile, the situation was becoming complicated. Dair Asanov soon found himself alone... But he did not falter. He carried shells himself, loaded the gun, aimed, and fired. He had never experienced such inhuman tension of muscles and nerves. The native land, like a heroic hero, gave him strength in this unequal battle. Hatred for the enemy boiled in his chest.
The attackers drew closer and closer — their faces could already be distinguished — crimson from strain. The submachine guns, pressed against their bellies, trembled, rattled, and unleashed long bursts.
— Let them come, — Asanov muttered hoarsely to himself. — If... if they really want to die — let them come!
— Aha, this time there are nine tanks, — he noted. — Well, let them come!
All the mechanisms of the gun worked flawlessly. With accurate shots, Dair stopped two more tanks that were heading straight for him. But then something unexpected and terrible happened: an enemy shell fired from a tank hit Dair's gun directly. The ground seemed to split open, and he fell into this gaping abyss...
When Dair opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the smoldering rubber wheels of the gun. The soldier was buried under the earth. He heard nothing: his ears felt as if they were filled with lead. Despite the incredible pain and heaviness, Dair managed to get up. The Germans, seeing that the gun, hit by a shell, was smoking, apparently decided that the crew was destroyed.
Now they approached calmly, without firing their submachine guns. They were almost right next to him — within arm's reach. Suddenly, from the pile of charred, twisted metal and torn earth, hand grenades flew at them. The advancing line thinned out. The surviving soldiers ran back — fear drove them. Others remained lying on the damp, marshy ground.
The enemy, having suffered heavy losses, still did not want to retreat. The machine gunners launched another attack, numbering no less than two hundred. But now Soviet warriors came to Dair's aid. The enemy was defeated. Dair survived. He stood before the commander and reported on the steadfast heroism of his fighting friends, who had fallen in an unknown glade but had not yielded an inch of their native land to the enemy. Dair was covered in mud, his clothes hung in tatters, and he smelled of burnt and smoke. In this pale soldier, it was hard to recognize the former dark-eyed, handsome jigit. His eyes had dulled, and he could barely stand on his feet. The division commander asked where he was from, what his nationality was, wrote everything down, and then warmly, like a father, added:
— You kept the oath given to the Motherland! Well done, brave son of the Kyrgyz people! You deserve a good rest!
— I serve the Soviet Union! — Dair said excitedly.
It turned out that Dair Asanov's crew had destroyed eight fascist tanks, six armored vehicles, and over forty machine gunners in just one battle that day.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Dair Asanov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A little later, in the same year of 1943, the hero-soldier was accepted into the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The glorious feat of the son of the Kyrgyz people soon became known throughout the country. The workers of the Naryn region spoke with pride about their fellow countryman, a former member of the "Kyzyl-Oktyabr" collective farm in the At-Bashinsky district, Dair Asanov. In response to the hero's feat, the collective farmers of the region took on increased obligations, forging victory over the enemy with selfless labor in the rear.
In March 1944, Dair returned to Kyrgyzstan on leave. Along with him came Hero of the Soviet Union Tashmamat Jumabaev. The villagers greeted the brave compatriots with joy and celebration. At a rally in Frunze dedicated to the meeting with the celebrated warriors, Dair Asanov spoke with a welcoming word on behalf of the front-line soldiers:
— For three years now, the Red Army has been fighting a bloody battle for the freedom of our Motherland. Hand in hand with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people are also fighting. Wherever we are, we always remember that we are defending our beloved, invincible Motherland, which has given my Kyrgyz people the right to freedom and happiness.
In the same year, Dair Asanov participated in the Iași–Chișinău operation and then liberated Romania and Bulgaria from the Hitlerites. He completed the Great Patriotic War on May 9, 1945, in the capital of Czechoslovakia, Prague.
In 1945, the celebrated warrior graduated from the First Guards Tank School named after V.I. Lenin with the rank of junior lieutenant.
In 1956, Dair Asanov completed his studies at the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin, then served in the ranks of the Soviet Army with the rank of major and actively participated in public and political life.
Dair Asanovich has gone through a glorious combat and labor path. He is now a deserving veteran of war and labor. He raised worthy sons and daughters in the name of his father. Grandchildren are growing up.
The heroic feat in the fight against fascist invaders of Hero of the Soviet Union, communist Dair Asanovich Asanov — is a vivid example of faithful service to the socialist Motherland.
S. Sasykbaev