Alexander Ivanovich Minin - participant of the Great Patriotic War. Commander of the mortar crew of the 7th Guards Airborne Regiment. Full Cavalier of the Order of Glory.
Biography
The future military man was born in November 1923 on the thirteenth in the small village of Rymniksky in the Chelyabinsk province. Alexander, like most of the village children of that time, attended an incomplete seven-year school. As a child, he loved to play sports and play team games. After receiving secondary education, he moved to the urban-type settlement of Breda, where he got a job at a local grain bin. There he worked until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
Military career
Minin was drafted into the army in the second year of the war, in the spring of 1942. The first months he served in a reserve regiment, where he mastered the specialization of a mortarman. After completing the educational process, in October of the same year he was sent to the front. He was assigned to the famous 7th Guards Airborne Regiment, where he began his service as a gunner for a mortar crew. Later he was promoted to the commander of the crew.
He took part in battles on the central and northwestern fronts. Later, his regiment was transferred to the first and fourth Ukrainian fronts. During this period, Minin made a huge contribution to the fulfillment of combat missions and was first nominated for an honorary award - the medal "For Courage". During the Battle of Kursk, he fired desperately at the positions of the Nazis, thereby preventing them from redeploying or responding. Soviet troops successfully completed combat missions, and the commander of the mortar crew was awarded an honorary medal.
In the early spring of 1944, Minin, with his own crew, took part in the liberation operation of the city of Proskurov. In the period from 23 to 28 March, Minin's mortars, taking an active part in the offensive, destroyed several dozen Nazi soldiers, and three fortified machine-gun points were also destroyed. All this allowed the rest of the troops to move freely deep into the enemy positions. For his heroism in the Proskurov area in June 1944, Alexander Ivanovich was presented to the Order of Glory of the third degree.
Since April 1944, the division in which Minin fought was attached to the 18th Army. During this period of the war, the 18th Army was faced with the task of overcoming the Carpathian Mountains. The task was complicated by the fact that the fortified positions of the enemy were located on the dominant heights. Nevertheless, the army coped with the task. In one of the battles, Minin personally hit one of the enemy points with hand grenades. For this he was mistakenly again awarded the Order of Glory of the third degree.
Post-war life and death
In October of the same year, he was awarded the Order of Glory, second degree. After the war he served in the army for two more years, after which he was demobilized with the rank of sergeant in the Soviet army. The mistake with the re-presentation of the order of the third degree was corrected only in 1968 and Minin was awarded the Order of the first degree, thereby making the former mortarman a full holder of the Order of Glory. After leaving the army, the fighter returned to his native village, where he worked as a foreman, and later as an instructor. He died in March 1998 at the age of 74.
