Pyotr Klypa - young Brianets, defender of the Brest Fortress. Department of Children's Literature of the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I. Lenin - Klypa Pyotr Sergeevich

01.10.2019

Readers probably well remember the immortal image of the cheerful and brave Parisian boy Gavroche, who was so vividly described by Victor Hugo in the novel Les Misérables. Here in the same Gavrosh, as if his own brother, appeared before me the Red Army boy Petya Klypa.

Only it was ours, Soviet Gavroche, who had to operate in a much more terrible situation - in the Brest Fortress, surrounded by a strong and vicious enemy and boiling like a fiery cauldron.

It was Gavroche, who, with the same boyish prowess, with the same cheerful, perky smile, went through thousands of deaths in the hottest, most cruel battles.

Petya had already served in the army for several years as a pupil of the regiment and during this time he became a real military man. He was a diligent, disciplined fighter, and the commander's clothes, which were sewn for him on the orders of the regiment commander, Colonel Matveev, sat on him somehow especially well and neatly. He wore his uniform even with a certain panache and at the meeting famously greeted the commanders, clearly beating off the marching step.

And in the fortress everyone knew and loved this little smart soldier. Needless to say, Petya dreamed, when he grew up, to enter military school and become a commander of the Red Army. Petya was brought up by his older brother, Nikolai, a career military man. The musical platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa, was considered the best in the division.

Strict and demanding of his fighters, Lieutenant Klypa, perhaps, treated his brother with even greater severity. Petya knew that he did not have to count on any indulgence from Nikolai, and therefore he got used to fulfilling all the requirements military service and discipline on a par with their adult comrades.

But just on Saturday, June 21, 1941, it turned out that Petya was guilty. He had several hours of free time, and a musician friend from the city persuaded him to briefly go to the Brest stadium, where sports competitions were held that day, and play the trumpet in the orchestra there. Petya left without permission, hoping to return soon and thinking that his brother would not notice his absence.

He lived with his brother and his family in one of the houses of the command staff, located outside the fortress, not far from the main entrance gate. When the boy returned home from the city, it turned out that Lieutenant Klypa already knew about his unauthorized absence. I had to get a well-deserved penalty. The penalty was not particularly severe, but very unpleasant. On this Saturday evening, when all the soldiers were going to watch a movie in the fortress, and some even got a vacation in the city, Petya, as a punishment for his misconduct, was to sit in the barracks, in the musicians' room, and learn the trumpet part for the overture to the opera Carmen, which I was just preparing a regimental band.

"Until you know your party firmly, you have no right to leave the barracks," the lieutenant warned sternly.

And Petya knew: whatever one may say, he would have to work, because the next day his brother would definitely check whether he had completed the task.

Sighing, he went to the barracks and, taking his pipe, began to learn the ill-fated part. However, he had good musical abilities, excellent memory and he got the job done faster than he expected. Convinced that he had learned everything firmly and would not lose face tomorrow, Petya clear conscience put down the instrument and went to the courtyard of the fortress to look for his friend Kolya Novikov - a boy a year or a year and a half older than him, who was also a pupil here, in the music platoon.

That evening, the courtyard of the fortress was especially crowded and lively. Fighters, commanders with their wives, girls from the medical battalion and the hospital walked in groups along the paths. Somewhere beyond Mukhavets, apparently in one of the regimental clubs, music was playing. Here and there, right under the open sky in the courtyard, film shifters worked, and projectionists used a sheet instead of a screen, or even just a whitewashed wall. The audience watched the film standing up.

In one of these groups, gathered in front of an impromptu screen, Petya finally found Kolya Novikov. The boys finished watching the picture together, visited about two or three more shifts, and, as the time was approaching the "lights out", leisurely headed for the barracks.

"Let's go fishing on the Bug tomorrow morning!" Kolya suddenly suggested. "I made two fishing rods, I'll give you one. And the worms have already been dug up ..."

"Let's go!" - Petya was delighted. - We'll get up at four o'clock, when it's only light, and straight to the Bug. At dawn it bites great! "

And he immediately decided that he would not go home to sleep, but would spend the night with Kolya in the barracks. The friends lay down side by side on the bunk and before going to bed argued about who would wake up first: each assured the other that he would get up earlier. Half an hour later they were both fast asleep. Poor guys! They did not know what kind of awakening the people in green uniforms were preparing for them, feverishly swarming all that night there, abroad, on the left bank of the Bug. Petya Klypa told Sergeant Ignatyuk about all these events of Saturday evening later, when they met in the barracks during the fighting in the fortress, and now, many years later, Ignatyuk gave me his story.

Petya did not say at the same time what he experienced in the first minutes of the war, waking up amid thundering explosions, seeing blood and death around him, looking at his dead and wounded comrades. But the sergeant-major remembered that the boy, having jumped out of bed and had not yet had time to get dressed, was thrown aside by a nearby explosion and hit his head hard against the wall. For several minutes he lay unconscious, and then somehow got to his feet and gradually came to his senses. And then the first thing he rushed to the pyramids and grabbed a rifle.

Among the adult fighters, there were those who were confused, succumbed to panic at the first moment. The commander - a young lieutenant who soon appeared here - set them an example of this boy, who retained complete composure and, barely recovering from the shell shock, stunned and half deaf, immediately took up arms and prepared to meet the enemy. And his example helped the faint-hearted to pull themselves together and cope with fear.

The enemy fire intensified, the barracks building burned and collapsed, and the surviving soldiers, carrying the wounded with them, descended into the massive vaulted cellars that stretched under the whole house. There, at the basement windows, machine gunners and arrows were placed. But it was necessary that someone went upstairs to the second floor of the building - to observe from there and report in time about the appearance of the enemy. The observer was in danger top floor houses were especially severely shredded by enemy shells. The commander called for volunteers, and the same Petya Klypa was the first to respond to his call.

And then the boy began to go on reconnaissance around the fortress, fulfilling the instructions of the commanders. There were no forbidden places for him - he bravely and deftly made his way to the most dangerous areas, climbed literally everywhere and brought valuable information about the enemy.

On the second day, the soldiers of the 333rd regiment ran out of ammunition. It seemed that resistance in this area would inevitably be broken. At this very time, Petya Klypa and Kolya Novikov, having gone on another reconnaissance mission, found in one of the barracks rooms a small ammunition depot not yet damaged by enemy bombs and shells. The boys reported this to the commanders and, together with other fighters, immediately, under enemy fire, began to carry cartridges and grenades to the building where their comrades were defending. Thanks to them, the defenders of the fortress, who fought in this area, were able to continue resistance for many more days, causing great damage to the enemy.

Petya Klypa showed himself to be such a brave, intelligent and resourceful fighter that the senior lieutenant, who took command of the soldiers of the 333rd regiment in the first hours of the war, soon made him his contact, and Petya rushed like a bullet through the basements and dilapidated stairs of the building, carrying out his instructions. However, this appointment had another meaning, unknown to him. The commander, having made the boy a liaison officer at the headquarters, hoped to distract him from direct participation in the battles and save his life.

But Petya managed to carry out the instructions of the commanders and fight along with the fighters. He shot accurately, and not one Nazi found his end there, in the fortress, from his bullets. He even went on bayonet charges with a rifle that was larger than him, or with a small pistol obtained from a warehouse he discovered. The fighters also took care of their young comrade and, noticing that he was going on the attack with them, drove him back to the barracks, but Petya, a little behind, immediately joined another group of attackers. And when he was reproached for being too bold, he said that he had to avenge his brother: someone mistakenly told him that the Nazis had killed Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa at the entrance gate of the fortress. And the boy fought side by side with adults, not inferior to them either in courage, or in perseverance, or in hatred of the enemy. .

There were no medicines, bandages, and there was nothing to bandage and treat the wounded. People began to die from their wounds. They were rescued by the same Petya Klypa. He went in search, found in one place a dilapidated warehouse of some kind of sanitary unit, and under enemy fire began to dig into these ruins. Having found bandages and some medicines under the stones, he brought them all to the cellars of the barracks. Thus, many wounded were saved from death. There was no water. Thirst tormented the wounded, children cried, asked to drink. Not many brave men dared to crawl under the crossfire of German machine guns with a bowler hat or a flask to the banks of the Bug. From there it was rarely possible to return. But they say that as soon as the wounded man groaned and asked for water, Petya turned to the commander: “May I go to the Bug?” Many times he went on these sorties for water. He knew how to find the least risky path to the shore, crawl like a snake between the stones to the river, and always returned safely - with a filled flask.

He took special care of the children. It happened that the last piece of cracker, the last sip of water left for himself, Petya gave to the exhausted kids. Once, when the children had absolutely nothing to eat, he found all sorts of food in the ruins of the food warehouse and dressed the hungry children with pieces of chocolate obtained there until he gave everything to the crumbs. They had nothing to wear, nothing to cover the nakedness of children. And again Petya Klypa came to their aid. He remembered where the Voentorg stall was located, already destroyed by bombs and shells of the enemy, and although this area was under very heavy fire, the boy made his way there. An hour later he returned to the cellars, dragging a whole piece of cloth behind him, and immediately divided it among the naked women and children.

Risking his life hourly, Petya performed difficult and dangerous missions, participated in battles and at the same time was always cheerful, cheerful, constantly sang some kind of song, and the mere sight of this daring, resilient boy raised the spirit of the fighters, added strength to them. Then the situation in the sector of the 333rd regiment became hopeless, and the defenders of the barracks realized that they could only die or fall into the hands of the enemy. And then the command decided to send the women and children who were in the cellars into captivity. Petya, as a teenager, was also offered to go into captivity with them. But the boy was deeply offended by this proposal. "Am I not a Red Army soldier?" he asked the commander indignantly.

He declared that he must stay and fight to the end with his comrades, whatever that end might be. And the senior lieutenant, touched and admired by the boy's courage, allowed him to stay. Petya took part in all further battles.

Ignatyuk said that after that they had to fight for a long time. In the first days of July, the ammunition was almost used up. Then the commanders decided to make a last desperate attempt to break through. We decided to break through not to the north, where the enemy expected attacks and kept large forces at the ready, but to the south, towards the Western Island, in order to then turn to the east, cross the Bug branch and past the hospital on south island get into the vicinity of Brest. This breakthrough ended in failure - most of its participants died or were captured. Mikhail Ignatyuk was among the prisoners. He was driven to the camp of Byala Podlyaska, and there he met again two days later with Petya Klypa, who walked all beaten up, bruised, but as before was cheerful and indefatigable.

The boy told the foreman that he swam across the arm of the Bug and, with several comrades, managed to break through the ring of Germans. All day and all night they wandered through the forest, making their way to the southern military town of Brest, and in the morning they were surrounded and taken prisoner by the Nazis. On the way towards the convoy came across a car in which German cameramen were driving with equipment. Apparently, they were shooting front-line newsreels and, seeing our prisoners, they began to turn their apparatus. The car slowly approached closer and closer. And suddenly, all black from dust and powder soot, a half-dressed and bloody boy, walking in the front row of the column, raised his fist and threatened directly into the lens of the movie camera. This boy was Petya Klypa.

Operators shouted indignantly. The fascist guards unanimously attacked the boy, showering him with blows. He fell on the road and lost consciousness. He, of course, would have been shot if not for some doctor - the captain of the medical service, who was walking in the next line of prisoners. Exhausted himself to the limit, he picked up the insensible boy and carried him to the camp. The very next day, Petya again busily snooped among the captured fighters, looking for his comrades in the fortress.

With tears in his eyes, Ignatyuk told me how there, in the camp, Petya saved him from starvation. In Biala Podlaska, prisoners were fed once a day with some kind of dirty gruel, to which a small portion of ersatz bread was supposed to be served. But even this gruel was not easy to get - the camp guards arranged crowds and riots near the kitchen, in order to later disperse the hungry prisoners with shots. People were losing their last strength, and many were dying. Ignatyuk, a heavy, corpulent man, found it especially difficult to get by with his miserable portion of food. In addition, he rarely managed to get to the kitchen - the Nazis guarding it could not believe that this full bald man was just a foreman, and considered him a commissar in disguise.

If not for Petya, Ignatyuk would hardly have survived. Every day the boy tried to get him something to eat, and although he himself was starving, he steadily brought everything he got to the foreman. "Uncle Misha, here I brought you! .. - he joyfully reported, running with a bowler hat, where a portion of gruel was splashing, or taking out a piece of hard bread with sawdust from his bosom. - You eat, I have already had dinner."

I know that he sometimes ate his own, but brought it to me, - said Ignatyuk. This guy had a golden soul.

There, in the camp, Petya met his friend Kolya Novikov and three more boys like him - pupils from other regiments. Almost all of these guys were older than him, but Petya showed himself to be the most courageous, dexterous and resolute. The boys began to prepare an escape and soon disappeared from the camp. Since then, Ignatyuk knew nothing about Petya Klyp.

But on the other hand, Valentina Sachkovskaya could supplement his story. After the fall of the fortress, she lived in Brest with her mother and other wives and children of the commanders and remembered well how one late summer a familiar small and fast figure appeared in their yard. Petya Klypa with his four friends, having successfully escaped from Byala Podlaska, again came to Brest. The boys lived in the city for more than a month, and Petya, just as active and energetic, constantly went to scout for something and look out for the Germans. Somehow he could not stand it and secretly told Valya that they were preparing to blow up the German ammunition depot. But these days, the Brest Gestapo began a raid, looking for former Soviet soldiers, and Petya had to leave the city, where many knew him well. He left with the same boys, and Valya remembered that later someone told her that these guys were seen in the village of Saki near the town of Zhabinki, where they lived and worked for the peasants. She never heard from Pete again.

I went to the village of Saki, located 30 kilometers from Brest, and there I found the collective farmer Matryona Zagulichnaya, with whom Petya Klypa lived and worked in 1941. Zagulichnaya remembered the boy and his friends well. She said that Petya all the time persuaded his comrades to go east, to the front line. He dreamed of crossing the front and joining the Red Army again. Finally, one of the boys, Volodya Kazmin, agreed to go with Petya. They left already in the autumn on a long journey, stretching for hundreds of kilometers through the forests and swamps of Belarus. In parting, thanking Matryona Zagulichnaya, Petya left her a whole pack of God knows how the photographs he had preserved, promising to return for them after the war. Unfortunately, these photos did not survive. Zagulichnaya, without waiting for the boy's return, destroyed the photographs two or three years before my arrival. It was not known whether this Gavroche of the Brest Fortress managed to reach the front or whether he died during his difficult journey.

For the search for Petya Klypa, I had only one thread left - his brother Nikolai Klypa, who, according to rumors, was now a major. And I, having returned to Moscow from this trip, decided to look for Major Nikolai Klypa. I called the same "almighty" Colonel I. M. Konopikhin at the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Defense. Unfortunately, this time I could only give him very scant information about the person I was interested in, which, of course, made his search difficult. But I counted on the fact that the surname Klypa is not very common, and, perhaps, thanks to this, it will be possible to find Major Nikolai Klypa in the lists of officers.

Indeed, the very next day, when I called Ivan Mikhailovich, he told me: - Take a pencil and write it down! Major Nikolai Sergeevich Klypa, born in 1915; currently he is the military commissar of the Maslyansky district of the Tyumen region in Siberia.

Delighted by this success, I immediately wrote to Major Nikolai Klypa (however, it turned out that not so long ago he had already become a lieutenant colonel) and soon received an answer from him. N. S. Klypa wrote to me that his younger brother was indeed a participant in the defense of the Brest Fortress, after the war he returned home alive and well, but, unfortunately, in last years The connection between the brothers was cut off, and now he does not know Peter's address. However, he immediately reported that their sister lives in Moscow, from whom I can find out the current whereabouts of Pyotr Klypa.

I went to Dmitrovskoye Highway at the address indicated to me, found my sister's husband at home, and from him I unexpectedly learned that Pyotr Klypa was serving a sentence in the Magadan Region, convicted of complicity in a criminal offense.

From the letters of Pyotr Klypa, I learned many new details of those events that I had already heard about from Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya. For example, he described to me in detail how a warehouse with ammunition and weapons was discovered.

This happened, as I said, on the second day of the defense, when Potapov's fighters already felt a lack of ammunition. Specifying where the enemy was, the senior lieutenant instructed Petya and Kolya Novikov to get to the Terespol gates of the citadel and find out if the dilapidated tower above the gate was occupied by the Germans. At first glance, the task seemed very simple: the Terespol gates were very close to the premises of the 333rd regiment.

The boys went through the cellars along the entire building and stopped at a small window in the southern end wall of the house. Ahead, just a few tens of meters away, one could see the red walls of the ring barracks, and a little to the left, the tunnel of the Terespol Gates darkened. The space between this basement window and the ring barracks was dotted with blocks of uprooted earth, stones, punched, mangled sheets of iron torn from the roofs. Here and there there were wide craters.

Before going out into the yard, Petya and Kolya looked around and listened. To the left, in the eastern part of the citadel, shots crackled and shouts of "Hurrah!" - it can be seen that another German attack was repulsed there because of Mukhavets. But there was a calm here, and everything seemed calm. Petya carefully climbed out of the window, lay down on the ground for a minute, looking around, and, rising to his feet, quickly went to the Terespol gates. After a pause, Kolya came out. And suddenly a short, sharp burst of machine-gun fire crackled from the window of the Terespol tower. Bullets clicked on the rocks around the boys. Kolya rolled head over heels through the window back into the basement, and Petya, who had already gone half way, rushed headlong forward and ran through the open door of the stable, a little to the right of the Terespol Gate.

Recovering his breath, he looked out the door. The German fired no more. In any case, now Petya could confidently report to the senior lieutenant that an enemy machine gunner was in the Terespol tower.

It was impossible to get back now: the German, of course, was alert and lay in wait for the boys. Petya decided to wait a bit and for the time being began to inspect the stable. It turned out to be empty. To the right under the ceiling gaped a large hole pierced by a heavy projectile. And not far from her, the boy noticed a window through which it was possible to crawl into an adjacent room.

Once there, he saw that it was the same empty stable. But even there, in the right wall, there was a window leading further. So, climbing from one stable to another, Petya got to the turn of the building. It was the extreme southwestern corner of the ring barracks, towering directly above the Bug. The last room also had a window, but of a smaller size. Petya somehow crawled into it and suddenly found himself in a completely untouched ammunition depot. Thickly oiled rifles, brand new machine guns, revolvers and TT pistols were neatly stacked on planed plank racks. There were stacks of wooden boxes with cartridges, grenades, mines. Immediately he saw several mortars.

At the sight of all this wealth, so needed now by his comrades who fought in the barracks of the 333rd regiment, the boy was breathless. His eyes widened, and he greedily touched first one weapon, then another. Finally, noticing on the shelf a shiny small gun some foreign brand and near him a box of cartridges, he decided that this weapon suits him best, and put it in his pocket. Then he armed himself with a machine gun.

It was not clear how miraculously this warehouse, located in the part of the citadel closest to the enemy, had survived. Even in its walls there was not a single hole, and only pieces of plaster from the ceiling lay here and there on the floor and on the shelves. The boy happily thought about how enthusiastically the commanders and fighters would receive the news of this warehouse.

But before going back, he decided to see what was being done in the enemy's disposition. Under the ceiling of the warehouse there was a small window overlooking the Bug. Having climbed up, Petya looked out from there.

Below, under the sun, the Bug shone brightly. Directly opposite the window, on the other side, the dense bushes of West Island rose like a green wall. Nothing could be seen in this thicket of bushes. But on the other hand, downstream of the river, Petya saw quite close the pontoon bridge built by the Germans right behind the fortress. Cars with soldiers walked along the bridge at regular intervals, one after another, and on the sandy shore, waiting for their turn, horse teams with guns stood and ranks of lined up infantry moved. . He managed to run unnoticed to the basement window, where Kolya Novikov was waiting for him, and only when he jumped down from the window sill did he hear the line crackling in the yard. The German machine gunner was late.

Worried, Petya reported everything to Potapov. The news of the warehouse discovered by the boy immediately spread through the cellars. Our machine guns immediately took under fire the windows of the Terespol tower, from where the Nazis fired, and forced him to shut up. And then, together with Petya, the soldiers hurried to the warehouse. Weapons and ammunition were dragged into the cellars of the regimental barracks.

In one of his letters, Klypa told me that he saw and experienced the moment of the last attempt to break through, when Potapov's surviving soldiers tried to escape from the enemy ring through the Western Island. Together with everyone, the boy with a pistol in his hand, at the signal of the senior lieutenant, rushed to run over the crest of the stone dam , blocking the Bug near the bridge. Rapidly fast, he, deftly jumping from stone to stone, pulled ahead, overtaking his comrades. And suddenly, in the middle of the road, he stopped. Leaning against a large stone and dangling his legs down, on the edge of the dam sat the commander with two "sleepers" in his buttonholes. Petya decided that he was wounded. "Comrade major, come with us," he called, leaning over the commander.

He did not answer, and Petya shook him by the shoulder. And then, from a slight push of the boy's hand, the major fell on his side in the same bent position. He was long dead. And the fighters were already running up behind, and someone, pulling the hand of the boy, petrified from surprise, dragged him along. It was impossible to hesitate - the enemy was about to discover the fugitives. And indeed, as soon as the first groups of fighters, among whom was Petya, jumped onto the shore of the Western Island and ran into the saving bushes, German machine guns hit the dam and the bushes. Bullets whistled over their heads, showering people with plucked leaves, branches whipped in the face, but Petya and his comrades furiously forced their way through the thicket of bushes. A few minutes later they came to the bank of the canal that separates the South and West islands of the fortress. This branch of the Bug was almost as wide as the main channel. But the thick bushes of the opposite bank hanging over the water seemed so safe, so beckoned to them that no one stopped for a moment.

Petya threw himself into the water as he was - in boots, trousers and a T-shirt, clutching his pistol in his teeth. He swam well, and the wide river did not frighten him. Nearby, breathing heavily and snorting, comrades were swimming, and loud splashes were heard behind them every now and then - other fighters, having reached the river, rushed to swim. They had already reached the middle, when suddenly from those same bushes that a minute ago seemed so reliable and safe, machine guns crackled at once. The water of the Bug seemed to boil. And then the wounded, drowning people screamed terribly, groaned. It was so unexpected that everything somehow immediately mixed up in the boy's thoughts. Now he acted more on the instinct of self-preservation, not having time to think about anything. He dived deep and felt that his wet clothes and boots were in his way. Swimming upstairs, he quickly kicked off his boots and, floundering, managed to free himself from his trousers. Now, when he was left only in shorts and a T-shirt, it became easier to swim.

Petya dived, clenching his pistol in his teeth, and each time he surfaced again, looking back, he saw that there were fewer and fewer heads left on the surface, boiling with bullets. Grass floating down the river kept stuffing into his mouth, and the boy, having snatched a pistol out of his teeth for a moment, spat out this grass and again went under the water, moving closer and closer to the coast of the South Island. Finally, he reached the bushes and, grabbing the hanging branches, took a breath and looked around. He was swept away by the current, and he could not see from behind the bushes what was happening at the place of their crossing. But, apparently, most of his comrades died - machine guns in last time choked with an evil chirp and fell silent. There were no more splashes on the river. But somewhere further along the shore, in the bushes, the cries of the Germans and the sonorous barking of the shepherd dogs were heard.

Petya hurriedly got ashore and rushed through the bushes into the depths of the island. To the right there was a clatter of feet, a crackling of branches - and he saw five more running wet fighters. He ran along with them, and from behind came the barking of dogs and the exclamations of the Germans.

They rushed through the bushes, climbed over some ditches with muddy water, crawled under the barbed wire. Somehow they managed to get away from the persecution, and two hours later they sat down to rest in a small forest clearing. Here, in this dense forest, a few kilometers from the fortress, they wandered day and part of the night, and fell asleep before dawn. sound sleep deadly tired people and, waking up, saw the machine guns of the Nazis pointed at them. I already heard something about further events from Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya. But I was interested in whether Petya managed to get to the front line after he left the village of Saki together with Volodya Kazmin in the autumn of 1941. I asked this question to Peter in one of my letters.

It turned out that the guys failed. They had already gone east for several hundred kilometers, but in one of the villages where they stopped for the night, they were seized by policemen. A few days later, both boys were sent separately to work in Germany, along with parties of youth from neighboring villages. Petya lost sight of his comrade and soon found himself far from his homeland - in Alsace, where he had to work as a laborer for one of the peasants.

Released in 1945, he returned to his homeland in Bryansk and worked and lived there with his mother until he was convicted in 1949. So, having started a war in 1941 on the western edge of our country, in Brest, and then having reluctantly traveled half of Europe, eight years later he reluctantly found himself on the other, eastern edge of the Soviet Union - not far from Magadan.

About the feat accomplished Soviet soldiers in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, it first became known only in 1942 from captured German documents. However, this information was fragmentary and incomplete. Even after the liberation of Brest by Soviet troops in 1944, the defense of the fortress in June 1941 remained a blank spot in the history of the war. Only years later, during the analysis of the rubble, they began to find documentary evidence of the heroism of the defenders of the fortress.

The names of the heroes became known largely thanks to the writer and historian Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, the author of the book "Brest Fortress", who found many of the surviving participants in the defense and, based on their testimonies, restored the tragic events of June 1941.

Among those whom Sergey Smirnov found and wrote about was Petya Klypa, one of the first young heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

Pupil of the music platoon

Petya Klypa was born on September 23, 1926 in Bryansk in the family of a railway worker. He lost his father early, and the elder brother Nikolai Klypa, an officer of the Red Army, took the boy to raise him.

At the age of 11, Petya Klypa became a pupil of the musician platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. The platoon was commanded by his brother, Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa.

In 1939, the 333rd Rifle Regiment participated in the liberation campaign of the Red Army in Western Belarus, after which the Brest Fortress became its place of deployment.

Petya dreamed of a military career and preferred school drill and rehearsals in the musician's platoon. However, both the brother and the command made sure that the boy did not shirk his studies.

On June 21, 1941, a pupil of the music platoon Klyp was guilty. A familiar musician from Brest persuaded Petya that day to play in the orchestra at the stadium during sports competitions. Petya hoped to return to the unit before they noticed his absence, but it did not work out. By the time he returned, Lieutenant Klypa had already been informed of his subordinate's "AWOL", and instead of the evening film show, Peter was sent to learn the trumpet part from the overture to the opera Carmen, which was just being rehearsed by the regimental orchestra.

Having finished the lesson, Petya met with another pupil of the music platoon, Kolya Novikov, who was a year older than him. The boys agreed to go fishing the next morning.

little soldier

However, these plans were not destined to come true. Peter was awakened by the sound of explosions. The barracks collapsed under enemy fire, wounded and dead soldiers lay around. Despite the shell shock, the teenager grabbed a rifle and, together with other fighters, was preparing to meet the enemy.

In other circumstances, Petya, like other pupils of the units that were in the fortress, would have been evacuated to the rear. But the fortress entered the battle, and Peter Klypa became a full participant in its defense.

He was entrusted with what only he could handle - small, nimble, nimble, less noticeable to enemies. He went to reconnaissance, was a liaison between the scattered units of the defenders of the fortress.

On the second day of the defense, Petya, together with his bosom friend Kolya Novikov, discovered a miraculously surviving ammunition depot and reported it to the commander. This was a truly precious find - the soldiers were running out of ammunition, and the discovered warehouse allowed them to continue resistance.

The fighters tried to take care of the brave boy, but he rushed into the thick of it, participated in bayonet attacks, fired at the Nazis with a pistol that Petya took from the very warehouse he discovered.

Sometimes Peter Klypa did the impossible. When the bandages for the wounded ran out, he found a broken warehouse of the medical unit in the ruins and managed to pull out the dressings and deliver them to the doctors.

The defenders of the fortress were thirsty, and the adults could not get to the Bug because of the crossfire of the enemy. Desperate Petka repeatedly broke through to the water and brought life-giving moisture in a flask. In the ruins, he found food for refugees hiding in the cellars of the fortress. Peter even managed to get to the broken warehouse of the Voentorg and brought a roll of cloth for scantily clad women and children who were taken by surprise by the Nazi attack.

When the position of the 333rd Rifle Regiment became hopeless, the commander, saving the lives of women and children, ordered them to surrender. The same was suggested to Pete. But the boy was indignant - he is a pupil of a musician platoon, a soldier of the Red Army, he will not go anywhere and will fight to the end.

Odyssey of Brest Gavrosh

In the first days of July, the defenders of the fortress were running out of ammunition, and the command decided to make a desperate attempt to break through towards the Western Island in order to then turn east, cross the Bug branch and get past the hospital on the South Island in the vicinity of Brest.

The breakthrough ended in failure, most of its participants died, but Petya was among the few who managed to get to the outskirts of Brest. But here, in the forest, he and several comrades were taken prisoner.

He was herded into a column of prisoners of war, which was taken away beyond the Bug. After some time, a car with German newsreel operators appeared next to the column. They were filming downcast, wounded captured soldiers, and suddenly a boy walking in a column shook his fist right at the camera lens.

This infuriated the Chroniclers - still, the little villain spoils a great plot. Petya Klypa (namely, he was this daredevil) was beaten to a pulp by the guards. The captives carried the unconscious boy in their arms.

So Petya Klypa ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish town of Byala Podlaska. Having come to his senses, he found there his bosom friend Kolya Novikov and other boys from the Brest Fortress. Some time later, they fled the camp.

Tell friends:

The history of the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress, which millions know today, was literally restored bit by bit after the war. The names of the heroes became known largely thanks to the writer and historian Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, the author of the book "Brest Fortress", who found many of the surviving participants in the defense and, based on their testimonies, restored the tragic events of June 1941.

Among those whom Sergey Smirnov found and wrote about was Petya Klypa, one of the first young heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

Pupil of the music platoon

Petya Klypa lost his father early, and the elder brother Nikolai, an officer of the Red Army, took the boy to raise him. At the age of 11, Petya Klypa became a pupil of the musician platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. His brother commanded the platoon. The location of the regiment was the Brest Fortress. And when at dawn on June 22, 1941, the Brest Fortress entered the battle, Petr Klypa became a full participant in its defense.

He went to reconnaissance, was a liaison between the scattered units of the defenders of the fortress. He rushed into the thick of it, participated in bayonet attacks ... Sometimes the boy did the impossible. When the bandages for the wounded ran out, he found a broken warehouse of the medical unit in the ruins and managed to pull out the dressings and deliver them to the doctors.

The defenders of the fortress were thirsty, and the adults could not get to the Bug because of the crossfire of the enemy. Desperate Petka repeatedly broke through to the river and brought water in a flask.

The escape

In the first days of July, the defenders of the fortress were running out of ammunition, and the command decided to make a desperate attempt to break through towards the Western Island, in order to then turn east, cross the Bug branch and get past the hospital on the South Island in the vicinity of Brest.

The breakthrough ended in failure, most of its participants died, but Petya was among the few who managed to get to the outskirts of Brest. But here, in the forest, he was taken prisoner with several comrades and ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish town of Byala Podlaska. Soon he found his bosom friend Kolya Novikov and other boys from the Brest Fortress there. Some time later, they escaped from the camp: they walked several hundred kilometers through the territory occupied by the Germans, but while spending the night in one of the villages, they were seized by policemen and sent to forced labor in Germany. So Petya Klypa became a farmhand for a German peasant in Alsace. He was released from captivity in 1945.

Partner in crime

The released Petr Klypa returned to his native Bryansk. By the time the writer Sergei Smirnov, who learned about Petya Klyp from the stories of the participants in the defense, began to look for the "Soviet Gavrosh", he was already serving time in a camp near Magadan. The speculator and robber Lyova Stotik was a school friend of Peter Klypa, and they became close friends after the war. Peter did not interfere with his comrade ... In the spring of 1949, Peter Sergeevich Klypa, as an accomplice of Stotik, received 25 years in the camps for speculation and banditry.

Memory

The life of Peter Klypa was changed by the writer Sergei Smirnov, who managed to achieve a mitigation of the harsh sentence. After seven years in prison, Peter arrived in Bryansk, got a job at a factory, and started a family. Thanks to the book by Sergei Smirnov "The Brest Fortress", the name of Peter Klypa became known to everyone Soviet Union, pioneer squads were named after him, the young hero of the Brest Fortress was invited to solemn events. For courage and heroism in battles with the Nazi invaders, Petr Klypa was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree.

Andrey SIDORENYA

Pyotr Sergeevich Klypa (1926-1983) - an active participant in the defense of the Brest Fortress during the Great Patriotic War

Born September 23, 1926 in Bryansk in the family of a railway worker (according to other sources, he was born in 1927). Lost his father early. Until 1939 he lived with his mother in Bryansk.

In 1939, Petya was taken in by his elder brother Nikolai Klypa, the commander of the Red Army. Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa commanded a musician platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment of the 6th rifle division. Peter became a pupil of this platoon.

Since October 1939, after the completion of the campaign Soviet troops to Poland, units of the 6th Infantry Division were deployed in the area of the city of Brest-Litovsk and adjacent areas north of the river Mukhavets, accepting garrison service in Brest and guarding the state border along the Western Bug River in the Brest region. The barracks of the 333rd Infantry Regiment were located directly in the citadel of the Brest Fortress.

Defense of the Brest Fortress

Petya, along with his brother's family, lived in one of the houses of the command staff outside the fortress, but just on the eve of the start of the war, on Saturday, June 21, 1941, for unauthorized absence to Brest (a familiar musician from the city persuaded him to briefly go to the Brest stadium, where that day, sports competitions, and play the trumpet in the orchestra there) received a penalty from his brother and stayed overnight in the barracks with another pupil of the music platoon, Kolya Novikov. Friends woke up already from the explosions of shells that shook the fortress.

Here, in the barracks, from the first minutes of the war, Pyotr Klypa joined a group of soldiers of the 333rd Infantry Regiment, who put up organized resistance to the Germans who began to storm the fortress. The boy began to go on reconnaissance around the fortress, carrying out the instructions of the commanders. On the second day of the war, Petya Klypa and Kolya Novikov, having gone on another reconnaissance, found in one of the premises of the neighboring ring barracks, located on the other side of the Terespol Gate, an ammunition depot not yet damaged by enemy bombs and shells. Thanks to this find, the defenders of the fortress, who fought in this area, were able to continue the resistance for many more days.

Senior Lieutenant A.E. Potapov, who took command of the soldiers of the 333rd regiment in the first hours of the war, made Klypa his contact, and Petya rushed through the basements and dilapidated stairs of the building, carrying out his instructions. Also, a nimble and energetic boy made trips to the territory of the fortress more than once. Once he found a dilapidated medical warehouse in one place and brought dressings and some medicines to the cellars of the barracks, which greatly helped many of the wounded. More than once, Petya Klypa, risking his life, made sorties to the banks of the Bug for water so necessary for the defenders of the fortress.

When the position of the defenders of the barracks deteriorated completely, the command decided to send the women and children who were in the cellars into captivity. Petya, as a teenager, was also offered to go into captivity with them. But the boy categorically refused this offer. Klypa took part in all further battles of the Potapov group.

In the first days of July, the ammunition was almost used up. Then it was decided to make a last desperate attempt to break through. It was supposed to break through not to the north, where the enemy expected attacks and kept large forces at the ready, but to the south, towards the Western Island, in order to then turn to the east, cross the Bug branch and get past the hospital on the South Island in the vicinity of Brest. This breakthrough ended in failure - most of its participants died or were captured. But Petr Klypa managed to swim across the Bug arm and with several comrades to break through the ring of Germans. For several days they wandered through the forest, making their way to the Southern military town of Brest. On one of the nights, exhausted to the limit, literally falling down from fatigue, the fighters settled down for the night in a forest clearing, and in the morning the Nazis surrounded them and captured them.

Stay in captivity and in the occupied territory

Kotelnikov Petr Pavlovich, who before the war was a pupil of the musical platoon of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, also stationed in the Brest Fortress, recalled further events:

“We, five boys from the regiments of the Brest Fortress, ended up in a camp in Byala Podlaska. Volodya Izmailov, with whom we went to the fifth grade together, and Volodya Kazmin, a seventh grader, were on the staff of the 44th Infantry Regiment, Petya Klypa and Kolya Novikov - the guys from the musician platoon of the 333rd rifle regiment. Kazmin and Klypa were fifteen years old, Izmailov and I were twelve. There were also Vlas Dontsov and Stepan Aksenov - they graduated from school and a year later they were supposed to serve in the real one, but in the Vlas camp, who was a member of the Komsomol, asked us not to turn him in. Boys of our age would probably have been released, as women were released captive in the fortress, but we were in the uniform that we were so proud of, only without buttonholes.
The camp was a large area in a field on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a high barbed wire fence; a hundred or two hundred meters away there were towers with machine guns. In the dark, the area was illuminated by searchlights. It was forbidden to approach the wire fence even during the day. On those who approached the wire or tried to dig, the guards opened fire without warning. Thousands of prisoners of war arrived here, and they continued to be led by column after column. It was probably some sort of transit point. There were also criminals, former prisoners, in the camp. They gathered in groups and, it happened, mocked the prisoners. Barbed wire divided the camp into sectors, it was impossible to move from one to another ...
We noticed that daily small groups of prisoners from those who are stronger, 10-15 people each, are taken to work. We tried to join them, but at the checkpoint they chased us away. Once we found out that the Germans were going to lead a large column somewhere ... The selected prisoners were concentrated near the checkpoint. The Germans read the lists of surnames, re-sorted several times, people moved from group to group, until, finally, 100-150 people were decided, who were built in a column. Many in this column were dressed in civilian clothes. No one knew where they would take us - they could go to Germany, they could also be shot, but we decided, come what may, and joined the group. They wouldn’t last long in the camp: I don’t know how later, but then they gave a 200-gram jar of unsalted barley porridge, and that was not enough for everyone. In the thirty-degree heat, thirst was tormented. Every morning the dead were collected on a wagon. The column was led towards Brest. It turned out that they were prisoners of the Brest prison, whom the Germans had initially sent to the camp.
We were not alone in the group. Disguised in civilian clothes, the foreman of our platoon, Krivonosov or Krivonogov, took the opportunity to call out to us and asked not to extradite us. According to our plan with the guys, we calculated by going through some locality, get behind the column and hide. But we were quickly taken from the country roads to the direct Brest road paved with cobblestones and escorted to the prison without stopping. No one was driven into the cells, all the doors remained open, and movement inside the building and in the yard was free. In the gaps between flights of stairs metal nets remained stretched - some settled down to sleep on them. There was a column in the prison yard, we covered it and could not get drunk. Kolya Novikov became ill, his arms, legs and face were swollen. The elders advised me to drink less, but how could I resist? They approached the fence locals who were looking for relatives to donate food and clothes. Even if they did not find their own, they still gave what they brought over the fence. We spent four days in prison. During this time I managed to change clothes. Patched pants and oversized shirts turned us into village ragamuffins. Unlike the camp, there was no food at all in the prison. Dirty, emaciated, we could hardly move our legs. On the second or third day people began to let out. According to the list, they were called to the checkpoint, given a few crackers and released on all four sides. When it was our turn, there were very few people left in the prison. We began to lie to the officer examining the cells that we were from a neighboring village, brought bread to the prisoners and for this we ourselves went to jail. The German believed and led to the checkpoint. It seemed that there was no strength, but they rushed outside the gate as they had never run in life - until the Germans changed their minds.
They gathered behind the cathedral and began to decide what to do next. Petya Klypa offered to go to the address of his brother Nikolai, the regimental conductor, whose wife Anya, most likely, remained in the city. Anya and several other commander's wives were found on Kuibyshev Street. We recuperated here for a couple of days and thought about how to get to the front line. We heard that on Pushkinskaya, towards the crossing, the Germans opened an orphanage. Anya herself had nothing to eat, where to feed our horde, and we decided to register in a government institution. The administration at the shelter was Russian. They wrote down the names, showed the beds and put them on allowance - that's what we need. Stayed here for ten days. The Jewish children were then sewn yellow armor, but for us the regime was free, the whole day was left to our own devices. They hung out around the city, they only came to eat (potatoes with sprats) and spend the night. In the attic they found sports equipment, a lot of different junk and, most importantly, boxes of soap - an extreme shortage. They dragged this soap to Anya Klypa. There was a rumor that the older children would be taken to Germany, and the rest would be improved nutrition in order to take blood. We decided it was time to leave.
The highways were clogged, and we were on country roads, heading east. It was August, and in the roadside field, women were reaping corn with sickles. They called one and asked for a drink. She gave some water and sour milk, asked who they were. We told the truth: we were in the fortress, then in the camp, and now we are going to the front line. The woman suggested: “It's about evening, let's go to Saki, it's only a kilometer or two. Her name was Matrena Galetskaya, she lived with her husband, children and an old mother on the very outskirts of the village. We helped to dig up potatoes, ate dinner with pleasure and lay down in the hayloft. In the morning the hostess fed again. The neighbors also brought some of the products, we pushed what was in our bosom, what was in the bag and continued on our way. Aunt Matrena said goodbye: “It will be hard, come back.” And so it happened: on the way I fell ill and returned to the village. And the boys returned, everyone was sorted into families as labor force. Petya was taken by Matryona herself, Kolya Novikov was taken by neighbors, Izmailov was taken by Matryona's relatives from the farm. And I was small, a useless worker - no one took it. For a couple of weeks he lived with Petya at Matrena's. Then the neighbor Nastasya Zaulichnaya came: “Okay, we’ll have geese to graze and look after the children when I’m in the field,” she moved me to her place. In the autumn of 1942, Petya Klypa and Volodya Kazmin went to look for partisans, reached Nesvizh, where they were rounded up and sent to farm in Germany. Kolya Novikov was also taken out as an "arbeiter". And I stayed in Saki ... "

In Germany, Piotr Klypa became a farmhand for a German peasant in the village of Hohenbach in Alsace. He was released from captivity by American troops in 1945.

In the summer of 1945, Peter was transferred to the side of the Soviet troops, after which he was taken to the city of Dessau. Then to the city of Lukenwald, where he passed the filtration and was mobilized into the Red Army. In November 1945 he was transferred to the reserve and returned to his native Bryansk.

Biography

He lost his father early, and the older brother Nikolai Klypa, an officer in the Red Army, took the boy to raise. Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa commanded a musician platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment, of which Klypa became a pupil. In 1939, this regiment participated in the partition of Poland, after which the Brest Fortress became its place of deployment.

With the outbreak of the war, Petya, like other pupils of the units that were in the fortress, would have been evacuated to the rear, but he remained and became a full participant in its defense. When the position of the 333rd Rifle Regiment became hopeless, the commander, saving the lives of women and children, ordered them to surrender. The boy was indignant and did not agree, preferring to fight to the end. When in early July the defenders of the fortress were running out of ammunition, the command decided to make an attempt to break through and cross the tributary of the Bug, thereby making their way to the vicinity of Brest. The breakthrough ended in failure, most of its participants died, but Petya was among those who managed to get to the outskirts of Brest. However, in the forest with several comrades, he was taken prisoner. Klypa got into a column of prisoners of war, which was taken away beyond the Bug.

So Peter ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish city of Biala Podlaska, from which, through a short time fled with Volodya Kazmin. The guys entered Brest, where they lived for about a month. Then, when leaving the encirclement, they were seized by the policemen. A few days later, the boys were loaded into wagons and sent to forced labor in Germany. So Klypa became a farmhand for a German peasant in the village of Hohenbach in Alsace. He was released from captivity by American troops in 1945.

In the same year, he returned to his native Bryansk, where he met with his pre-war friend Lyova Stotik, who traded in speculation and robbery, having managed to draw Klypa into this business. In the spring of 1949, Klypa and Stotik were arrested. On May 11, 1949, the military tribunal of the Bryansk garrison, having considered in a closed court session the case on charges of Stotik and Klypa, sentenced: Klypa Pyotr Sergeevich should be imprisoned in the correctional labor camp under Art. 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (speculation) for a period of 10 years and under Art. 50-3 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (banditry) for a period of 25 years, without loss of rights, with confiscation of all property.

Memory

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