Many heroes can be remembered when speaking of the Great Patriotic War. One of these people is Alexander Marchenko, whose biography is extremely entertaining. He was during the battles in the number of the sixty-third tank brigade, which advanced to the front from Chelyabinsk.
Biography
Alexander Porfirievich was born in the family of an ordinary mason in a small town called Glukhov. He graduated from seven classes of the school, and then became a student at the Cherkasy College of Road Construction. Then he worked in the specialty, the army, from where he was transferred to the reserve and again carried out labor for the good of the country. When the war was declared, Alexander Marchenko was in Lviv and was engaged in an inventory of local railways.
Immediately, when it came to the realization that the homeland was in danger, Alexander expressed a desire to fight, but the military enlistment office rejected the statement. The reason was simple: specialists in his profile were needed to work in the rear. Marchenko was evacuated to the territory of the Southern Urals, to a city called Magnitogorsk, where he had to design strategically important railways for transporting equipment and specialists from major enterprises from Central Russia into the interior of the country. It was during this period that Alexander Marchenko carried out his first feat: together with a friend, he saved a small child who fell through the ice.
Military career
All this time, Alexander Porfiryevich was not left with the idea that he was obliged to be on the battlefields at that time, and not calmly sit in his office and work with drawings. Just in nineteen forty-third, the Thirtieth Volunteer Corps, consisting of Chelyabinsk workers, began to exist. In order to get into his ranks, Marchenko specially studied the specialty of a radio telegraph operator-machine gunner. And this time, the military registration and enlistment office simply could not refuse, and the front needed soldiers. Alexander Marchenko falls into the sixty-third tank brigade.
There was an interesting tradition among fighters in it: to give cars patriotic names. For example, the tanks were called Avenger, Volunteer, For Homeland, and so on. Marchenko had the opportunity to serve on the tank crew under the name "Merciless". For the first time on it, he fought in a terrible battle near the Kursk, and then he defended the borders near the Dnieper, Zhytomyr, Kamenetz-Podolsky. A lot of victories were won by the tank with the sonorous name of “Merciless”.
About feats
One day, one of Marchenko’s comrades by the name of Mordvintsev, who served as a sergeant, was wounded in battle and, accordingly, was dismissed from service. Having recovered a little, Mordvintsev entered the university in Kiev. The city was already liberated at that time, but life was still very difficult, the war did not abate. We must pay tribute to the sergeant, he never complained about his being in the letters to his comrades. But, all the same, realizing how hard it was for him, Marchenko knocked out his colleagues in order to collect the feasible amount and send it to Mordvintsev. He was extremely grateful, and after the war he successfully graduated from the university and even received a degree.
All the memories of Alexander Porfirevich that have survived from wartime are entirely positive. Even the command was amazed at how authoritative we were, loved by our fellow soldiers Alexander Marchenko, a tanker by vocation. His appearance was courageous, he always knew how to maintain a calm expression, even in very difficult times.
There was another interesting case in the biography of this man. Near Lviv, he was able to penetrate directly into the burning Soviet tank, deal with the fire, take the car out of the shelling, save the crew, and then drag a few more on his shoulders from the battlefield to the medical unit. It is not at all surprising that this person had many awards, for example, the medal “For Courage”, and Marchenko is also a holder of the Order of the Red Star.
The capture of Lviv
The most difficult operation in the life of Alexander Marchenko was the capture of Lviv. The difficulty was that there simply could not be air support, the command strictly forbade to destroy and spoil the old unique architecture of the city. And the tankers needed the most experienced, knowledgeable city. Alexander Marchenko (photo - below) was suitable in all respects, besides, at that time he already had an officer rank and established himself among his colleagues as a very responsible person.
Last Stand
The crew of the Guards tank, which included Alexander Marchenko, was given the task of reaching the city center, and it was Marchenko who was to hoist the red Soviet flag over the Lviv town hall.
The task was clearly formulated, but only to achieve it, it seemed, was not possible. Several tanks that went ahead, already failed, and the crews of these vehicles were delivered to headquarters with serious injuries.
For two whole days, the "Guard" was approaching the town hall, being in a shootout with German cars. Exhausted, realizing that they were constantly in danger, Marchenko and his colleagues reached the goal. Two versions of what happened are known below.
According to the first assumption, Marchenko was mortally wounded when he hoisted a red flag over the square. The second version is written directly in the hero’s award sheet and says that Alexander Marchenko took command of the tank after the death of the commander, having entered into an unequal battle with the enemy. And when absolutely all of his comrades fell beside him, he continued the battle alone. It is hard to believe, but he destroyed more than fifty experienced German soldiers who were instructed to take him alive. But still, when Marchenko tried to cross the open space of the square and get to help, he was shot down by an automatic fire burst, and Alexander died on the spot from his wounds.
Regalia
Alexander Marchenko was never presented among the Heroes of the Soviet Union, for lack of good reason, because exact evidence of what this person did was not preserved. But descendants remember the exploits of this man, Chelyabinsk residents are proud of his name. The city has a street Marchenko. And in Ukraine, every schoolchild knows who Marchenko Alexander Porfiryevich is, since this worthy person is included in the list of honorary citizens of the city of Lviv.