Many people, once in a war, become extremely superstitious. A former atheist hides a cross under his tunic, someone keeps letters from loved ones in his breast pocket, sincerely believing that they are warding off a bullet, another soldier basically does not shave during a military campaign.
And stories are passed from mouth to mouth about invulnerable fighters who inevitably had to die - and yet somehow miraculously survived. We will tell you about several such "supermen" of the Great Patriotic War.
Bullet shield
In February 1945, Soviet troops launched an assault on the German city of Breslau (Breslavl). The garrison, although outnumbered by the attackers, successfully defended. The Red Army suffered heavy losses. The command decided: in order to adjust the artillery fire, it was necessary to capture the city church and place an observer in its tower.
The area on which the church was located was shot by the Germans from almost all directions. But under the cover of a smoke screen, a group of machine gunners, accompanied by several signalmen, made their way to the building. Kirch managed to take after a fleeting battle.
Alas, this success turned out to be useless. An enemy bullet interrupted the telephone wire extended by the signalmen, and the fire spotter, who had already climbed onto the tower of the church, could not give signals to the gunners. It was necessary to restore the connection. The place of the rupture was 50 meters from the church - in the area under fire. The commander of the group gave the order: "To restore the connection!"
The first signalman who attempted to complete the mission was killed as soon as he crawled out into the square. Private Antonov, a native of the city of Tikhvin, followed him to the place of the gap. As eyewitnesses of that battle recalled, the paving stones around him literally boiled from hundreds of bullets. But he safely crawled fifty meters, connected the broken wire and came back.
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All this time, the Germans fired at him not only from machine guns, but also from sniper weapons. However, the private completed the task and returned to the church without receiving a scratch! Only when he was protected by the walls, he lost consciousness from a nervous strain.
Many years later, veteran Antonov said that it seemed to him that at that moment he was covered with an invisible cap that protected him from bullets.
The sub is served
Senior Sergeant Nikolai Averkin, who served in fighter aircraft, seemed to be doomed to die. In January 1943, in broad daylight, his plane was shot down by an enemy ace over the Black Sea, about 40 kilometers from the coast. Nikolay jumped with a parachute, splashed down successfully, but … the water temperature at this time of the year did not exceed 10 degrees. This means that the pilot will live for about ten minutes, after which he will either die of hypothermia or drown - the senior sergeant did not even have a life jacket.
The deadly cold was already shackling his arms and legs, when literally a dozen meters from the pilot surfaced … a Soviet submarine. It is worth noting that at that time the Germans had a total advantage in the air. Therefore, Soviet submarines, when they needed to recharge their batteries, surfaced only at night, and then for the shortest possible time. Even for the sake of saving the pilot, the submarine commander would not endanger her.
Later it turned out that the submarine had to surface urgently for technical reasons. Nikolai Averkin was dragged aboard. The submariners quickly made the necessary repairs, and the boat went deep again. After a while Nikolai returned to his regiment and safely continued his service.
Extracted tooth
In the same 1943, an amazing incident occurred on the Voronezh front. The commander of the infantry platoon, Lieutenant Lapshin, had a toothache. Since the fighting at that time was very intense, the officer did not have the opportunity to go to the first-aid post - every person was counted.
There was no paramedic in the heavily thinned platoon, who could remove the commander's tooth or at least give anesthetic medicine. Vadim Lapshin was exhausted to such an extent that he was even delighted when he learned that tomorrow his platoon would attack the German positions. Although a frontal attack across the field is almost certain death.
And then the morning came. After artillery barrage, a signal rocket soared into the air. Lapshin jumped out of the trench and shouted to raise the soldiers. The German positions were very close - and it was not surprising that at the same moment the lieutenant collapsed back into the hands of the soldiers, bleeding.
The attack drowned. But the most surprising thing came to light a little later. A bullet, probably fired by a German sniper, passed through Lieutenant Lapshin's open mouth screaming, simultaneously "removing" his aching tooth and not hitting either his tongue or other teeth. Only a small neat hole remained on the officer's cheek, which soon overgrown.
Lieutenant Fire
Alexey Ochkin cannot be called the favorite of fate. But for his incredible vitality, he received the nickname Lieutenant Fire from his colleagues, and towards the end of the war, after he was written about in the newspapers, he became a living legend.
In the very first battle, a bullet from a German sniper hit 19-year-old Alexei in the head. Contrary to the forecasts of doctors, the lieutenant not only survived, but also quickly recovered from his injury, after which he returned to the front.
Another fight. A German large-caliber machine gun was scribbling from a concrete pillbox, pressing the Soviet infantry to the ground. Lieutenant Ochkin crawled under fire to the embrasure. On the way, he received a bullet in the thigh, but nevertheless got closer to the pillbox and threw a grenade. However, the fragments did not touch the fascist: the machine gun continued to scribble.
And then Alexey repeated the feat of Alexander Matrosov, covering the embrasure with his body. Bullets pierced him through and through, but these moments were enough for the fighters to get to the bunker and capture it. The "killed" commander on a raincoat was carried to our trenches. After the battle, they began to dig his grave with sapper shovels.
At that moment, the lieutenant came to his senses and, deciding that he was captured, pulled out a grenade, pulled out the pin … A soldier standing next to him managed to snatch a grenade from him and toss it aside. The hero-lieutenant was again in the hospital.
At Stalingrad, Ochkin held a defense of a small height. The Germans unleashed a barrage of artillery fire on her. Of almost a hundred, only six fighters survived, including the commander, who, however, was again seriously wounded.
During the crossing of the Dnieper in 1943, Alexei Ochkin was concussed, so much so that when the body was washed ashore by waves, he was mistaken for a dead man and was taken to the tent where the corpses were put. Here the officer came to his senses, half to death scaring the nurse who happened to be nearby.
The hero, by that time the captain of the guard, received the last serious injury during the storming of Prague. After the war, Alexey Ochkin became a film director, wrote books. He died in 2003 at the age of 81.
Fallen from heaven
Of course, miraculous rescues happened not only in the ranks of the Soviet army, but also among the allies. The real lucky one can be called 21-year-old British sergeant Nicholas Alkemeid, the gunner of a heavy bomber. In March 1944, Nicholas and his comrades set off for another raid on the enemy's rear. Having dropped the bombs, the British plane was attacked by German fighters, caught fire and began to fall.
Six crew members were killed by bullets and shrapnel, leaving only Nicholas alive. However, his parachute was damaged by fire. Deciding that it was better to crash than to burn alive, the gunner jumped out of the falling plane at an altitude of about five and a half thousand meters. He seemed to have no chance of surviving. However, first Nicholas fell on the branches of pine trees, and then on a thick layer of melted snow. Surprisingly, the gunner didn't even get a bruise!
Soon the enemy's search party captured him. The Germans were so amazed that, after carefully examining the crash site of the bomber and establishing all the circumstances of the incident, they officially presented Nicholas with a "certificate of miraculous salvation", which outlined his details.
This is a unique document, one of a kind. However, this did not save Nicholas from captivity, he was liberated by the Allied forces in May 1945. A similar incident occurred in January 1942 near Vyazma. The navigator of the downed Soviet bomber, Ivan Chissov, jumped out of the plane at an altitude of more than seven thousand meters.
However, the Germans shot the pilots in the air, and Ivan resorted to a long jump. When it came time to open the parachute, the injured navigator lost consciousness.
Ivan woke up on our territory in a deep ravine, on the snow-covered slope of which he rolled. True, unlike the British, the Soviet pilot received several serious fractures. He could not return to the front, and after his recovery he became a teacher at the Navigation School.