Born on July 26 of the year in the village of Goretovo, Lukhovitsky district, Ryazan province, in a peasant family. Together with his father, he was engaged in agriculture.
He served as a soldier in the army for a year. After the death of their father in the year, the brothers divided the property. Vasily Maksimovich worked on his farm for up to a year, and then joined the collective farm.
He naturally had a good voice and sang in the church choir. In the year, the rector of the temple invited him to officially take the position of psalm-reader in the Pyatnitskaya Church in his native village. With a note of guarantee, Vasily Maksimovich went to the Moscow Patriarchate for an appointment with the bishop to receive a blessing to take up the full-time position of psalm-reader. The Bishop listened to him, blessed him to work in the temple, promising through the dean to send a special order on his appointment. However, the wave of persecution that began prevented this from happening.
On February 26 of the year, authorities also arrested him and novice Olga Zhiltsova. Head Evdokia Arkhipova was arrested on February 16.
On the day of his arrest, Vasily Maksimovich was interrogated. The investigator, asking him about collecting money for the renovation of the church, said:
– You, as a psalm-reader, campaigned among the population for the involvement of collective farmers in the group of believers, and also told the collective farmers that Soviet power was given to us as punishment. They campaigned against the constitution, saying: there is a constitution, but in reality there is persecution of the Orthodox Church. Do you plead guilty to conducting anti-Soviet agitation?
– No, I was not involved in agitation, I did not agitate collective farmers to join the group of believers, I did not fight against the constitution, and I did not conduct agitation against the Soviet regime, I do not admit myself guilty of this.
After the interrogation, on the day of the arrest of the accused, the investigator completed the case and drew up an indictment.
On February 27, one of the bosses reviewed the case materials and wrote on the cover: “Further investigation. It is necessary for the investigation to establish the counter-revolutionary activities of each accused. It is not clear from the case what Zhiltsova’s anti-Soviet activities consist of. The accused were not interrogated on the issue of the illegal meeting. There is no need to sharpen the questions only to raise money for the renovation of the church. There was no doubt that this group had an organized activity." However, no other witnesses could be found.
On March 8 of the year, the NKVD troika in the Moscow region under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR sentenced them to death for “participation in a counter-revolutionary group.”
On March 14, the elder Evdokia (Arkhipova), Olga (Zhiltsova) and psalm-reader Vasily Arkhipov were shot at the Butovo training ground near Moscow and buried in an unknown common grave.
Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov(January 30 - August 19, Kupavna, Moscow Region) - Vice Admiral of the USSR Navy (). Participant in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Biography
Born into a peasant family in the village of Zvorkovo, Kurovsky district, Moscow region.
- Father - Alexander Nikolaevich Arkhipov (-); mother - Maria Nikolaevna, nee Kozyreva (-).
- Wife - Olga Grigorievna, teacher; married since 1952, in the same year their daughter Elena was born.
Education
USSR Navy officer
He served as an officer on submarines in the Black Sea, Northern, and Baltic fleets.
Accident on K-19
Captain 2nd Rank Arkhipov took part in a cruise on the B-59 submarine of Project 641 (“Foxtrot” according to NATO classification) with nuclear weapons on board, being the senior officer on board.
Claim [ Who?] that the commander of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky, was preparing to launch a retaliatory atomic torpedo. However, Arkhipov showed restraint, paid attention to the signals from the American ships and stopped Savitsky. As a result, the boat responded with the signal “Stop the provocation,” after which the plane was recalled and the situation was somewhat defused.
According to the memoirs of a participant in these events, retired captain of the second rank Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, events developed less dramatically - the commander lost his restraint, but two other officers, including Arkhipov, calmed him down; according to other sources, only Arkhipov was against it. In any case, Arkhipov's role as the senior on board was key in the decision.
During a conference in Havana on October 13, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert McNamara said that nuclear war was much closer to its beginning than previously thought. One of the conference organizers, Thomas Blanton of George Washington University, said that "a guy named Arkhipov saved the world."
Biography
Born into a peasant family in the village of Zvorkovo, Kirov district, Moscow region.
- Father - Alexander Nikolaevich Arkhipov (-); mother - Maria Nikolaevna, nee Kozyreva (-).
- Wife - Olga Grigorievna, teacher; married since 1952, in the same year their daughter Elena was born.
Education
USSR Navy officer
He served as an officer on submarines in the Black Sea, Northern and Baltic fleets.
Accident on K-19
Captain 2nd Rank Arkhipov took part in a cruise on the B-59 submarine of Project 641 (“Foxtrot” according to NATO classification) with nuclear weapons on board, being the senior officer on board.
Claim [ Who?] that the commander of the submarine, Captain 2nd Rank Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky, was preparing to fire an atomic torpedo in response. However, Arkhipov showed restraint, paid attention to the signals from the American ships and stopped the commander. As a result, the boat responded with the signal “Stop the provocation,” after which the plane was recalled and the situation was somewhat defused.
According to the memoirs of a participant in these events, captain 2nd rank Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, events developed less dramatically - the commander lost his restraint, but two other officers, including Arkhipov, calmed him down; according to other sources, only Arkhipov was against it. In any case, Arkhipov's role as the senior on board was key in the decision.
During a conference in Havana on October 13, 2002, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert McNamara stated that nuclear war was much closer to its beginning than previously thought. One of the conference organizers, Thomas Blanton of George Washington University, said that "a guy named Arkhipov saved the world."
Continued service in the Navy
After the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he continued to serve in his previous position. In November he was appointed commander of the 69th Submarine Brigade. Then he commanded the 37th submarine division.
In December, with the rank of rear admiral, he was appointed head of the Caspian Higher Naval School named after S. M. Kirov. He held this position until November. On February 10, 1981, he was awarded the military rank of vice admiral.
We have already written about the Russian Stanislav Petrov, who saved the world on September 26, 1983 by thinking about the situation again. His feat would have been impossible if 21 years earlier there had not been another Russian, Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, on board the Soviet submarine.
This is a story about a hero you may have never heard of. About the hero who, on October 27, 1962, probably saved the whole world. American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. called what happened that day the most dangerous moment in human history.
With your finger on the button
On October 27, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Crisis, the US Navy discovered a Soviet submarine near Cuba. The diesel submarine B-59 was in international waters. Eleven American destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph, having discovered the submarine, began dropping depth charges to force the submarine to surface for identification.
The B-59 was sent by the Soviet Union to protect Soviet ships carrying nuclear weapons heading to Cuba. The submarine itself had nuclear weapons on board, which the Americans did not know about. She had no contact with Moscow for several days. The only thing the submarine crew heard were American radio communications. These negotiations made it clear that the world was moving towards war.
B-59 communications chief Vadim Orlov later described the situation as follows: “Depth charges exploded right at the side of the submarine. It felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel being pounded with a sledgehammer. The situation for the crew was completely unusual, not to say shocking.”
The end of the crew
The captain of the submarine was Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky. The temperature on board soared, the ship lost light and power, and at the same time the level of carbon dioxide in the air rose to lethal levels. The sailors began to lose consciousness. And when the Americans began using even larger caliber bombs, the situation on board the B-59 became desperate: “We thought this was the end,” Orlov said later.
Complete panic
Panic began on board the submarine. Savitsky unsuccessfully tried to contact Moscow to find out if war had broken out between the United States and the Soviet Union. Having no contacts with the leadership, he gave the order to prepare atomic torpedoes for launch. As follows from Orlov’s testimony, he shouted: “Probably, a war has begun above. We must take the fight. We will die, but we will not disgrace the fleet!”
The Times 10/14/2002The captain of the Soviet submarine received compensation from Hollywood for the damage caused.
The Independent 09/01/2004 The National Interest 12/07/2016 To launch the torpedo, Savitsky had to obtain the consent of two of his officers. Ivan Semenovich Maslennikov was the so-called political officer, and Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov was the first mate.K-19
A year earlier, Arkhipov had encountered a similar situation on another Russian submarine, the K-19, in July 1961.
The incident with this submarine is a separate story, but on July 4 of the previous year, a radioactive leak occurred on board the submarine in the North Atlantic. In that situation, Arkhipov and the submarine captain managed to maintain composure and maintained contact with the American ships and with the crew, who were ready to mutiny. And, as Mikhail Gorbachev later said, they took fundamental steps to avoid war. The submarine captain was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Two against one
And a year later, in 1962, the submarine captain Savitsky and political officer Maslennikov wanted to launch an atomic torpedo, which, in all likelihood, would start a nuclear war between two great powers - the United States and the Soviet Union.
Arkhipov calmed the captain and political officer and persuaded them to wait for a message from the high command of the Soviet Union before using nuclear weapons.
5.5 thousand nuclear missiles ready to launch
If an atomic torpedo had been launched, the Soviet Union would have given the order to use Soviet nuclear weapons against London and Germany. The Pentagon plans in the United States were called SIOP - Single Integrated Operation Plan. 5.5 thousand nuclear missiles were to be launched at communist targets (including China and Albania).
The backup batteries and oxygen system no longer worked on board the B-59. After a loud argument, the submarine surfaced.
Nuclear war was avoided thanks to a Soviet officer who kept his cool.
Arkhipov died in 1998 at the age of 72. The cause of death was the consequences of radiation exposure to which he was exposed while serving on the K-19 submarine. His story was published only after his death.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Vasily Sergeevich Arkhipov was born on December 16 (29), 1906 in the village of Tyutnyary, Chelyabinsk district, Orenburg province (now Kuznetskoye rural settlement, Argayash district, Chelyabinsk region) into a large (8 children) poor peasant family. Russian.
In 1915-1921 was a shepherd. In 1921 he graduated from the 5th grade of school in the village of Gubernskoye (now Argayash district). In 1921-1924. worked as an apprentice in a harness shop and as a laborer at a mill in Chelyabinsk. In 1924-1927 - a laborer at the Verkhneklimsky coal furnaces near the city of Zlatoust (now the Chelyabinsk region), in 1927-1928 - a loader at a power plant in Chelyabinsk. In 1930 he graduated from the Moscow Automobile College in absentia.
Member of the CPSU(b) since 1931 (p/b No. 0264805, 01224093). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (03/21/1940, 09/23/1944).
Education. He completed courses at the Odessa Infantry School (1931), Zhitomir KUKS retraining (1932), Leningrad BT KUKS (1938), AKTUS at the VA BTiMV (1943), VVA named after. Voroshilov (1950).
Military service. He was drafted into the Red Army on October 10, 1928 by the Kyshtym RVC of the Chelyabinsk region.
Participation in wars and military conflicts. Soviet-Finnish war. The Great Patriotic War.
Service in the Red Army. Since November 1928 - cadet of the regimental school of the 70th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division. Since November 1929 - squad commander of the 70th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division. From November 1930 - assistant platoon commander of the 70th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division (Ukrainian Military District; city of Vinnitsa).
From April to August 1931 - student in the training of platoon commanders at the Odessa Infantry School.
Since August 1931 - commander of a machine gun platoon of the 70th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division.
From April to October 1932 - student of district retraining courses for command personnel (Ukrainian Military District, Zhitomir).
Since October 1932 - commander of a tank platoon of a separate tank battalion of the 24th Infantry Division (Vinnitsa). From December 1934 - Secretary of the Party Bureau of a separate tank battalion of the 24th Infantry Division. From February 1937 - assistant to the head of the school for the combat unit of the 24th Infantry Division.
From December 1937 to September 5, 1938 - Leningrad armored training courses for the command staff of the Red Army
From September 5, 1938 - commander of a tank company of the training tank battalion of the 11th light tank brigade of the Leningrad Military District (Peterhof). From November 1939 - commander of a tank company of the 112th division. tank battalion of the 35th light tank brigade. He distinguished himself during the capture of Tala station and during the breakthrough of the enemy’s fortified zone. In these battles, Captain V.S. Arkhipov showed courage and high military skill and personally destroyed 4 tanks. His company destroyed 10 tanks, two artillery batteries, two separate guns and several Finnish fortified points.
For exemplary performance of command tasks on the front of the fight against the Finnish White Guard, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 21, 1940, Captain Vasily Sergeevich Arkhipov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 483).
In 1940 - deputy commander of the 115th department. training tank battalion of the 35th tank brigade of the Leningrad Military District
By order of NKO No. 04475 of October 5, 1940, he was appointed commander of the 108th tank battalion of the 35th light tank brigade. In April 1941, the brigade was transferred to the Kyiv Special Military District (Berdichev), and reorganized into the 43rd Tank Division, and Arkhipov was appointed commander of a separate reconnaissance battalion. From June 4, 1941 - commander of the 43rd department. reconnaissance battalion of the 43rd tank division of the 19th mechanized corps.
In the battles of the Great Patriotic War - from June 1941. Participated in the border tank battle near Rovno, in the Kyiv defensive operation in the Novgorod-Volyn and Korosten directions as part of the troops of the Southwestern Front. From September 1941 - commander of the 10th tank regiment of the 10th tank brigade, participated in defensive battles near Poltava and Kharkov.
From December 25, 1941 - deputy commander of the 10th Tank Brigade. On the Southwestern Front, he took part in defensive battles near Volchansk. From April 7, 1942 - commander of the 109th Tank Brigade of the 16th Tank Corps. By order of NKO No. 01138 dated February 16, 1943, he was confirmed in his position. From December 1942, the brigade fought on the Stalingrad and Don fronts, and from January 1943 - on the Central Front. Participant in the Battle of Stalingrad and the Sevsk offensive operation.
From May 17 to September 14, 1943, student of the Academic Courses of Tactical and Technical Improvement at the Military Academy of BTiMV of the Red Army named after. I.V. Stalin.
From September 14, 1943, commander of the 53rd Guards. tank brigade of the 6th Guards. Tank Corps 3rd Guards. tank army. By order of NKO No. 03552 dated November 4, 1943, he was confirmed in his position. At the head of the brigade he participated in the battle for the Dnieper, Kyiv, Zhitomir-Berdichev, Proskurov-Chernivtsi, Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operations on the 1st Ukrainian Front.
In the last of these operations, brigade commander Arkhipov distinguished himself during the capture of the city of Przemysl and the further breakthrough to the Vistula. He organized a crossing of the Vistula River in the area of the settlements of Staszow and Shchedlow, then skillfully held the extremely important Sandomierz bridgehead, repelling powerful counterattacks of the enemy. In these battles, the brigade first encountered the enemy's newest King Tiger tanks and destroyed several of them. At the same time, the first tank in the brigade’s account was destroyed personally by the brigade commander, who shot it from the side. He himself was shell-shocked and burning in the tank; after leaving the vehicle, he fought surrounded by the crew until reinforcements arrived.
For skillful leadership of the combat operations of a tank brigade and personal courage shown in the battles for the liberation of the city of Przemysl (Przemysl, Poland), during the crossing of the Vistula River and maintaining a bridgehead on its western bank, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 23, 1944, commander 53- th Guards Guard tank brigade Colonel Vasily Sergeevich Arkhipov was awarded the second Gold Star medal (No. 4642).
Then he took part in the Vistula-Oder, Upper Silesian and Lower Silesian, Berlin and Prague offensive operations.
From August 6, 1945 - deputy commander, and from May 12, 1946 - commander of the 6th Guards. tank division of the 3rd Guards. mechanized army (Group of Soviet occupation forces in Germany). Since November 1946 - commander of the 6th Guards. cropped regiment of the 3rd department. Guards framed tank division of the GSOVG.
From June 15, 1948 to December 29, 1950 - student at the Higher Military Academy named after. K. E. Voroshilova.
Since November 20, 1950 - commander of the BTiMV of the Turkestan Military District. January 9, 1954 - admitted to serve as assistant commander of the Turkestan Military District for tank armament, also head of the tank armament department. By order of the USSR Ministry of Defense No. 0344 dated January 18, 1954, he was confirmed in his position. Since July 27, 1954, head of the combat training department of the Turkestan Military District. From March 15, 1957 - Deputy Commander of the Turkestan Military District for combat training, also head of the combat training department.
From April 17, 1958 - commander of the 1st Division. army in Romania (since August 1958 - 1st Guards Army of the Kiev Military District). Since May 23, 1960 - First Deputy Commander of the Siberian Military District. Since September 21, 1961 - senior military adviser to the commander of the military district of the National People's Army of the German Democratic Republic. Since August 24, 1970 - at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces.
By order of the USSR Ministry of Defense No. 0970 dated July 15, 1971, he was transferred to the reserve under Art. 59b with the right to wear military uniform. Lived in Moscow.
Military ranks: political instructor (NKO Order No. 0323 dated January 24, 1936), captain (NKO Order No. 0686 dated March 28, 1939), major (08/26/1941), lieutenant colonel (NKO Order No. 01213 dated February 20, 1942), colonel (NKO Order No. 05723 dated 07/23/1942), major general of the military unit (Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars No. 813 of April 20, 1945), lieutenant general of the military unit (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1090 of May 31, 1954), colonel general of the military unit ( Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 215 dated February 22, 1963).
Awards: three Orders of Lenin (21.03.1940; 30.12.1956; 31.10.1967), Order of the October Revolution (28.12.1976), five Orders of the Red Banner (15.01.1940, 07.12.1941, 17.01.1945, 06.09.1945, 20. 06.1949 ), Order of Kutuzov, II degree (01/10/1944), Order of the Patriotic War, I degree (03/11/1985), Order of the Red Star (11/03/1944).
foreign orders “For Merit to the Fatherland” in silver (GDR), “Defense of the Fatherland” II degree (Apărarea Patriei, Romania), “Grunwald Cross” III degree (Poland), “Military Cross 1939” (Czechoslovakia) and other foreign awards .
In the village of Gubernskoye, Chelyabinsk region, a bust of the Hero was installed in Victory Square. The streets of Moscow, Chelyabinsk, Saratov, Przemysl (Poland) are named after him.
Essay: Time of tank attacks. - M.: Voenizdat, 1981.