Hero of the Soviet Union Alexey Alexandrovich Krivoshchekov
Alexey Alexandrovich Krivoshchekov was born in 1907 in the city of Novosibirsk. Russian. Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1936, he came to Kyrgyzstan to work on the construction of the Ak-Tyuz mine, where he worked as a foreman. He was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1924. Junior lieutenant. Commander of a platoon in the engineering and sapper company.
He participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the Steppe and 2nd Ukrainian fronts. He demonstrated combat skill and bravery in battles on the Oryol-Kursk bulge and during the crossing of the Dnieper. The platoon commanded by A. A. Krivoshchekov removed and neutralized 2,315 enemy mines and constructed dozens of crossings over water obstacles. For his courage and bravery, he was awarded two Orders of the Red Star and the Order of the Red Banner.
On December 20, 1943, for exemplary execution of a combat mission to establish a crossing over the Dnieper, and for the courage and bravery displayed during this operation, he was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
On February 21, 1945, he fell in battle. He was buried on Hungarian soil.
THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY
They decided to approach the road through a ravine, shallow but overgrown with grass and, in places, small bushes. For the steppe Belgorod region, where battles were currently taking place, this was a find. Alexey Krivoshchekov's platoon, like the entire engineering and sapper company, moved ahead of the advancing units, clearing a path through minefields, mined roads, and bridges. Now they received the task of neutralizing mines in one of the sectors of the offensive and, first of all, checking the roads along which the troops of the Steppe Front were expected to move, north of Belgorod. Krivoshchekov crawled ahead of the other sappers. With him were two scouts who had surveyed the approach to the road earlier in the day and were now acting as guides.
The night was warm, even stuffy, and starry. A typical August night for these parts. Every fifteen minutes, flares would light up somewhere ahead of the sappers, tearing through the night cover and revealing parts of the ravine like photographic paper. From time to time, they had to press themselves into the diverse grass, scorched by the summer heat and barely concealing human figures.
"And for them, the war is nothing," Alexey Krivoshchekov thought about the chirping grasshoppers in the ravine, "look how they are 'shooting back'." His thoughts were interrupted by the scouts: they stumbled upon barbed wire obstacles. Krivoshchekov gave the command, and two soldiers crawled forward to secure a passage to the road. Their sergeant advised them, "Guys, just be careful, the fascists are crafty." The battles for Belgorod were taking place in the main direction of the enemy's defense, where the Germans had mined a large part of the territory. The entire company, where Krivoshchekov served, from the 19th mechanized brigade of Colonel Ershov, was making passages through minefields and engineering obstacles of the enemy troops. The work was painstaking, tense, requiring considerable strength, skill, and strong nerves. Over the course of a year of frontline battles, Krivoshchekov had to go on many similar night sorties. He constructed crossings, blew them up, mined roads and houses, and defused them. And today's task was to check and, if necessary, defuse the roadway.
In the dark, he heard: "Comrade junior lieutenant, over here." He crawled over to the sappers. They had discovered a mine. Together they quietly began to clear it of dirt. Dried out from the heat, it slipped right through their fingers. He stopped with a soldier's signal and began to extract the detonator himself. "Be careful, be careful, Alyosha," Krivoshchekov whispered, as if controlling himself. His fingers touched the bottom. After the warm, crumbling earth, the metallic cold seemed to prick the soldier. "Indeed, they placed a second detonator, which means there’s another mine nearby. There should be a wire somewhere." He stretched out his palm, trying to feel in the darkness. A flare lit up, and Krivoshchekov pulled back his hand. He managed to notice a thin wire stretching through the grass. After resting for a moment, he resumed his work.
Somewhere nearby, his comrades were working silently and focused...
At dawn, upon returning to the unit's position, Krivoshchekov reported that the platoon had completed the task: the road was clear of mines. The next day, on August 4, 1943, the troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts launched an offensive along the entire front. In the morning of August 5, Soviet troops entered Belgorod. That evening, Moscow saluted the glorious liberators of Oryol and Belgorod.
After heavy battles, soldiers usually think that it will be easier ahead. But ahead of Krivoshchekov was the Dnieper. At the end of September 1943, their unit was approaching the majestic Dnieper, celebrated in songs. In the Kremenchug area, Krivoshchekov's platoon was ordered to establish a crossing as quickly as possible. For this task, a reconnaissance team was immediately dispatched, tasked with finding a location for the crossing as well as the necessary materials and supplies to construct it.
The scouts set out at night. The journey was not short, almost a hundred kilometers to the Dnieper's surface, and it was not possible to go straight through, as the bridgehead was literally packed with enemy troops. Somewhere near dawn, when the first flashes of light appeared on the horizon, a cool breeze began to blow. "The water is close!"— they communicated through the chain. And so it turned out: after an eighty-kilometer march, the engineering reconnaissance reached the Dnieper.
Dispersing, the scouts began to observe the enemy's actions. "It will be difficult to step onto that shore," Krivoshchekov thought, "look how the fascists cling to the bridgehead." His gaze discerned trenches surrounded by several rows of barbed wire.
He was called over by the scouts who had gone to the shore at night. Sergeant Kirichenko reported that while observing small islands on the river, he noticed that the fascists were cutting down bushes there. For what purpose? It was decided to hide and wait for darkness, and then send a reconnaissance team to the islands. They found a boat, and several people were dispatched for inspection. The sappers returned joyful. It turned out that the Germans had concentrated heavy ferries and boats on the islands, camouflaging them with cut branches.
The scouts reported everything to the brigade command, and it was decided to use the enemy's watercraft to establish the crossing.
Krivoshchekov's platoon, despite the heavy artillery and mortar fire from the enemy, was building the crossing. They used tarpaulins, tents, bushes, and tree trunks. The sappers' work was not interrupted even by enemy aircraft attacks. The platoon commander himself did not leave the crossing for a moment. Risking his life under enemy fire, he displayed calculation and composure in the most difficult situations. The soldiers trusted their junior lieutenant and followed all his orders precisely. Krivoshchekov remained at the crossing until all personnel of the brigade had crossed to the opposite bank. The Dnieper was successfully crossed, and the fascists failed to halt the advance of our troops at this line.
By order of December 20, 1943, for exemplary execution of the command's combat mission to establish a crossing over the Dnieper, and for the courage and bravery displayed during this operation, Alexey Alexandrovich Krivoshchekov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The military roads called them further, and Krivoshchekov's sappers moved forward, clearing the path for our combat units. A total of 2,315 mines were removed and neutralized as part of their combat record.
The victorious year of 1945 arrived. The war was nearing its end. In the winter of 1945, the unit in which Hero of the Soviet Union Krivoshchekov fought participated in combat operations to cross the Dniester in Romania, and then the sappers established crossings and cleared the path for tanks and infantry on Hungarian soil.
On February 21, 1945, in one of the battles, during the encirclement of the Hungarian enemy grouping, Alexey Krivoshchekov fell in battle.
The old-timers of Ak-Tyuz remember the literate, energetic, and resourceful foreman Alexey Krivoshchekov, who played a direct role in the construction of a beneficiation plant, a diesel power station, and residential houses for workers. A street in the workers' settlement of Kyrgyz metallurgists now bears the name of the Hero. The memory of the warrior, who fulfilled his filial duty to the end and did not spare his life for the sake of Victory, is alive and eternal. It lives on in the labor of those who live and work on the land protected from invaders by Alexey Krivoshchekov, who walk along the street bearing his name. And this relay of memory will not be interrupted or fade away through the ages.
A. SHEPELENKO