He fled to the war at the age of 11, lay down on a machine gun with his chest, he was twice buried alive

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

His name was Petya. Petr Filonenko. The kid runs away from home to the front. He went through the whole War! But why did he run away? And he himself can answer:

- I was obviously going to my death. And he knew what I was going for. The Germans carved a star on my 18-year-old sister, pierced her chest with ramrods, she screamed - they knocked out her cheekbones. Mother rushed to protect her, and they and mother with a butt on the head, she fell. Then my younger sister was in her arms. There is something to hate the fascists and Bandera supporters for …

Shooting at age 11

In the fall of 1941, the Germans approached Lozova, Kharkov region. Petya was only 11 when he learned what bombing is. His father and older brothers had fought for a long time, and the boy decided that he himself was old enough to take up arms. Despite the pleas of his mother, he rushed after the retreating Red Army soldiers and clung to the cart with ammunition.

- To make it more convincing, I added myself two years - I lied that I was already 13 years old, - recalls Pyotr Alekseevich. - The soldiers did not want to take me, they joked that there was no semolina. But I asked very much, and I was allowed to stay.

The insolence and courage of the kid was appreciated by the commander of the reconnaissance group. Pulled up, taught a soldier's business. Well, soldiers are no longer divided into adults and children. While walking through the war, he was thrown to the rear of the Germans seven times. And every time I managed to return.

Fate saved the boy and when, on the Stalingrad direction near the village of Popovka, he was surrounded and captured. The enemy also did not divide the soldiers by age. When they were taken out to be shot, Peter was saved by an unknown Red Army soldier, who at the last moment covered him with himself.

- I was also hooked by a bullet, but I managed to get out. And a local resident, a kind woman, went out, - the veteran recalls.

Buried twice

It happened on July 16, 1943, when Pyotr Filonenko fought as part of a tank brigade. We got a terrible bombing! Rescuing the commander from the bomb, Peter pushed him into the trench and took upon himself a hail of fragments.

“It was later that I found out that seven of them entered me,” recalls Pyotr Alekseevich. - And then, I remember, the commander shouted: "Run to the paramedic!" And the paramedic is dead … And then I lost consciousness.

Friends said that then 14 people were put in a mass grave. And already they began to fall asleep with earth, when suddenly someone saw that a bloody bubble was inflating under Peter's nose. Dig it up! He's alive! In the medical unit, nurse Valya donated her blood for the boy. And he survived again!

The second click of death on the nose was given by Pyotr Filonenko in June 1944, when our troops were on the offensive.

There was a fight for the Gomel - Bobruisk track. The infantrymen could not get through the wall of fire that was poured over us from the enemy pillbox. I jumped off the armored personnel carrier, made my way through the bushes and with all my strength struck with my shoulder in the red-hot muzzle of the machine gun. 12 bullets through … Peter was then only 14 years old. They decided to bury the little hero, who repeated the feat of Alexander Matrosov, like an officer, in a coffin. They had already dug a hole, and they began to hammer nails into the lid, when faint wheezing was heard from the domino. Then - 12 operations and six months of rehabilitation in a hospital in Tskhaltubo.

“Because of these wounds, my comrades gave me the nickname Darning,” recalls Pyotr Filonenko. - Now from our tank brigade I am the only one left alive - the last soldier.

Simonov bequeathed to write a book

Rising to his feet, Peter decided to enter the Suvorov School. But they were rejected for health reasons. But the boy was again fit for the front. Now, with the communications regiment, he reached Berlin, leaving his signature on the Reichstag.

The war gave him many memorable meetings. The son of the regiment starred in the films of the famous military documentary filmmaker Roman Carmen. In the hospital he lay with Marshal Rokossovsky. But the most dear memory to his heart is friendship with Konstantin Simonov.

- We met at the front in 1941. Simonov bequeathed to me: “This damned war will end, and we must write from the book. I - about the living and the dead, and you - about the war through the eyes of a young soldier …

Cinema and police

Peter was demobilized on February 15, 1946. He was not even 16 years old. Returning to Ukraine, he graduated from a factory school, worked at factories in Kharkov and Zaporozhye. And then he went to the police. The character was too militant to live and work in peace. He began his service in Melitopol. On the first day of the patrol he caught two robbers.

“I also planted these bandits like potatoes in May,” the veteran boasts of his service.

In Kiev, where the young policeman was assigned to a cavalry squadron, his passion for cinema was unexpectedly revealed.

- It was in 1949. We rode horses down the street: stately, in uniform, singing songs. There the director Timofey Levchuk noticed us.

After Peter played the role of a standard bearer in Levchuk's film "300 years ago", he was invited to other films. Military bearing, horse riding and shooting skills were appreciated by the directors. There are episodes with his participation in "Reluctant Diplomats", "Bumbarash", "Bogdan Khmelnytsky", "The Kotsyubinsky Family", "Yaroslav the Wise" … When he retired with the rank of colonel, there were 130 feature films and 230 documentaries on his account.

When at the studio. Dovzhenko Viktor Ivanov began filming the immortal comedy "Chasing Two Hares", Pyotr Filonenko was involved in the film "British". Tall, thin, Ivanov liked him, and he decided to make a dandy out of him. The policeman was dressed in a checkered jacket, a vest - an invariable attribute of Golokhvastov's cronies, a yellow bow tie, a flat hat, and a mustache was glued on. It turned out to be a real dude.

After editing the film, only a few shots with Filonenko's participation survived, but there was an unforgettable friendship with Oleg Borisov and other members of the film group. And a photo for memory, where the son of the regiment is a real dandy. One cannot even guess that under the vest this dandy has scars from many wounds and that he is proud of his front-line nickname - Darning.

The last fight

Petr Alekseevich always believed that he had three homelands: Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. From now on, he has one less homeland …

In March 2014, five pravosek men knocked him down on the asphalt and began to beat him. They beat me on the arms and legs, and Pyotr Alekseevich managed to cover his head. The result of his "conversation" with grateful Ukrainian descendants were numerous bruises and two broken ribs.

Kiev doctors, having learned who beat the veteran, refused to treat him. And for the fact that the Veteran gave an interview to Russian journalists, nationalist militants staged a hunt for him: threats began to pour in on the phone, and a label of the right sector was pasted on the door.

Now Pyotr Alekseevich lives in Russia, where doctors performed a complex heart operation for him, and well-wishers provided an apartment for living.