Nikolay Galushkin

Nikolai Ivanovich Galushkin (Russian: Николай Иванович Галушкин; January 22, 1922 – May 18, 2007) was one of the top Soviet snipers during World War II. Despite tallying 418 fascists during the war and being nominated for the title Hero of the Soviet Union on two occasions, he did not receive the title, and was instead awarded the Order of Lenin for his achievements as a sniper until being awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation on June 21, 1995.

Childhood and youth

His parents presumably died during the civil war. He was brought up in an orphanage, from where he escaped in July 1926, then lived for some time with a lineman, and later in the family of rural teachers, the Smirnovs. In 1932, the Smirnovs took Nikolai to an orphanage in Armavir, from where he escaped back. In November of the same year, he was sent to an orphanage named after K. E. Voroshilov in the city of Vyatka (now Kirov). It was there that Galushkin’s date of birth was recorded as January 22, 1922, and his place of birth was the city of Taganrog in the Azov-Black Sea region (now the Rostov Region), from where he arrived at the institution. In 1977, a special commission that established Galushkin’s retirement period determined July 1, 1917, as his date of birth, which is the date given on the tombstone of Nikolai Ivanovich.

At the Voroshilov orphanage, Nikolai attended a shooting club, and even then he was distinguished by his marksmanship. Since 1936, he was brought up in the Kirovo-Chepetsk children's labor colony. At the end of the 1930s he completed courses for projectionists in the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). Before the war, he worked in his specialty in the city of Kirov, then in Nolinsk, demonstrating the first Soviet sound films.

Great Patriotic War

On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. In October 1941, Galushkin was drafted into the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army by the Omutninsky District military registration and enlistment office of the Kirov region.

He first took part in hostilities in January 1942 near Moscow, was soon wounded in the arm and sent to the rear for treatment. On April 26, while traveling to the front line during shelling from an airplane, Galushkin was slightly wounded in the “soft tissue below the elbow”. In May 1942, he returned to the front, was assigned as a sniper shooter to the 1st Battalion of the 49th Infantry Regiment of the 50th Infantry Division of the 33rd Army of The Western Front (later the division became part of the 5th Army). In June, Galushkin was wounded by a shrapnel in his right buttock.

By order of the troops of the 5th Army No. 583 of July 13, 1942, he was awarded the medal “For Courage”; in the presentation for the award it was noted that Galushkin “from morning until late at night is at his firing point and does not for a minute give up observing the battlefield”.

On October 30, 1942, Galushkin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The award sheet noted that by September 20, the sniper had brought the number of enemy soldiers killed to 115. In the battle on September 29, 1942, Galushkin wounded one and killed two enemy soldiers, and then, while trying to remove their bodies, killed eight more German infantrymen.

In 1942, he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and party cards were handed to him and other fighters directly at their combat positions. In January 1943, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Mongolian People's Republic; Among the 24 distinguished Red Army soldiers, Galushkin was invited to the front headquarters, located at the Balabanovo station near Maloyaroslavets, where a meeting was held with a delegation from Mongolia. In addition to Galushkin, orders were awarded to the front commander, Colonel General I. S. Konev and member of the front Military Council N. A. Bulganin. Subsequently, Nikolai Ivanovich recalled:

Konev asked me to stay. He asked where I was from, where I learned how to shoot like that. And he offers to send me to a military school – they say he showed leadership abilities. I answer: “Comrade General, excuse me, but I have already entered the academy.” – “Which academy?” – “Yes, to the one where our brothers and sisters fight, defending their homeland.” – "Well done!" – That’s all Konev said. And when I arrive at my unit, a dispatch follows: to assign Private Galushkin the rank of junior lieutenant.

In February 1943, he was one of the first to cross the Seversky Donets River with a group of fighters. On June 4, 1943, rifle platoon commander Galushkin organized a “group hunt” – 6 snipers actually defeated a unit of the 333rd German division in the village of Sidorovka. In his diary, he writes that in five hours of battle, 36 enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed (and he personally killed 14 of them), 3 ammunition warehouses, one stable and 3 officers’ houses. According to the sniper's records, in the battle on July 17, 1943, he killed 32 German soldiers, and with his colleagues, they managed to capture a German tank and drive it to the location of Soviet troops.

Soon, several newspapers repeatedly published notes and articles dedicated to him and other soldiers of the 49th Infantry Regiment. The German command appointed a reward for the sniper's integrity, Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were warned of increased danger in those areas where Galushkin and his fighters operated. Nikolai Ivanovich said, with announcer Yuri Levitan, during a personal meeting with him years after the end of the war, admitted that he remembered the sniper’s name for the "rest of his life", repeatedly repeating it on the radio in Sovinformburo reports.

On July 19, during the next “hunt,” two German machine gunners stunned and subdued a sniper; in the same battle, Galushkin’s partner, Sergeant Taras Sadzhaya, was also wounded. The submachine gunners searched Galushkin, and did not notice that a grenade and a pistol were hidden under his camouflage robe. Later, the lieutenant took out a grenade and threw it at the German soldier walking behind him, and fired a pistol at the one walking in front. Galushkin began to search the machine gunners, at that moment one of them woke up and shot the sniper in the stomach with a machine gun. “As I held the gun, I fired all the bullets at him. I got up and fell. I can't crawl either. Fainting,” Nikolai Ivanovich later recalled. Galushkin lay unconscious for several hours until his body was discovered by Soviet soldiers.

Soon, the commander of the Southwestern Front, R. Ya. Malinovsky, ordered Galushkin to be nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In a submission dated June 26, 1943, signed by the commander of the 49th Infantry Regiment on June 26, 1943, it was noted that he had killed 225 enemy soldiers and officers in his combat account, and also trained 38 snipers who “have dozens of destroyed Germans". By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 26, 1943, Nikolai Ivanovich was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Lieutenant Galushkin is famous at the front as a master of accurate fire. In all types of combat he exhibits high activity as a sniper. [...] Lieutenant Galushkin is a skilled teacher of snipers. The other day, the sniper training camp he led ended. 50 precision shooting masters were trained at the training camp.

— Newspaper “Red Star”, No. 305 dated December 27, 1944

After an operation, Galushkin was evacuated to the rear and was treated at a military hospital in Balashov. In his diary, Nikolai Ivanovich notes that until October 1, 1943, he was treated by Olga Petrovna Kotovskaya, the wife of the Civil War military leader G.I. Kotovsky, who at that time served in the hospital with the rank of major in the medical service. Already on October 1, Galushkin left for the front; by October 20, he caught up with his unit near Krivoy Rog.

Many soldiers of the 49th Infantry Regiment died, including Sergeant Sajaya. On October 26, 1943, Nikolai Ivanovich wrote in his diary: “I learned that my best comrades were killed”.

After returning to the active army, Galushkin took part in battles in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, including the liberation of Kirovograd and the capture of the city of Iași, and was wounded three times. In his diary, he writes that in the period from April 12 to July 15, 1944, he managed to train 72 snipers.

By May 1945, Lieutenant Galushkin was the commander of a platoon of 50-mm mortars of the 49th Infantry Regiment. As noted in the award documents, during the battles from April 16 to 21, 1945, during the crossing of the Neisse River and breaking through German defenses in the area of the village of Zentendorf, as well as in the final battles from May 5 to 7, 1945. While feeling unwell after being wounded, he led the unit's snipers and, while in combat formations, destroyed important enemy targets. By order of the 73rd Silesian Rifle Corps No. 76/n dated May 23, 1945, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

Nikolai Ivanovich Galushkin ended the war with his regiment in Prague.

After the war

After demobilization in 1946, Galushkin returned to the Kirov region. Over the years, he worked in film production, was a dispatcher at a construction site, and was also a photographer at the Borovitsa holiday home in Kirovo-Chepetsk. He took part in the work of the first council of party and Komsomol veterans, worked in the local branch of DOSAAF, and conducted patriotic work among schoolchildren in the Kirov region. For his active personal participation in military patronage work, he was awarded a diploma from the Ural Military District.

After celebrating the 20th anniversary of victory in the war, the former commander of the 49th Infantry Regiment, Colonel N. I. Kharlamov, who left the unit in the fall of 1943 due to injury, sent a letter personally to the USSR Minister of Defense, R. Ya. Malinovsky, but in 1967 the marshal died, and the letter remained unanswered. A lawyer, Colonel of Justice L.L. Fedorov, became involved in resolving Galushkin’s issue, who repeatedly sent requests to the awards department of the Main Personnel Directorate of the USSR with a request to properly evaluate the activities of Nikolai Ivanovich during the war years. Petitions of this kind were also submitted by the commander of the 50th Infantry Division of the Guard, Colonel N.A. Ruban, and the commander of the 49th Infantry Regiment at the final stage of the war, Colonel A.M. Chuyas. In 1995, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, B.N. Yeltsin, Galushkin was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The award was solemnly presented to Nikolai Ivanovich on February 23, 1996, in the city of Kirov.

Nikolai Ivanovich Galushkin died on May 18, 2007. He was buried in Kirovo-Chepetsk.

He was married to Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Galushkina for 55 years; she died in 1995. Together, the couple raised two sons – Valery and Alexander.