by Ivan Markov
[REGNUM] Eighty-one years after Guards Senior Lieutenant Parfeny Varygin was shot down while assaulting German positions near the German village of Kalholz in what is now the Kaliningrad region, two of his military orders will return to the hero's family.
A unique discovery by Kaliningrad searchers, made last November, revealed the story of a pilot who served throughout the war, flew a total of 526 combat missions, was shot down on March 26, 1945, endured a brief period of captivity, and then returned to his own people.
Until the end of his life, Parfeny Ivanovich had two gaps in his "iconostasis"—the Orders of the Patriotic War and the Red Star, which the Germans took from him and he was unable to restore. Now his descendants will have a complete set—in memory of their grandfather.
A FIND IN A GERMAN TRENCH
On the shore of the Kaliningrad Gulf (formerly Frisches Haff), north of the ruins of the Teutonic castle of Balga, Vladimir Chugunov, a member of the Kaliningrad search squad "Sovest," discovered two Soviet awards in the sandy soil. The find was made in a location that the experienced searcher identified as a former solitary cell of a German rifleman.
The trench was partially dug by the "diggers," but they didn't get to the awards. They were likely confused by the abundance of false alarms, as a scattering of shell casings from a German Mauser carbine was also discovered at the bottom of the hole.
Naturally, the question immediately arose as to where the Germans had acquired such unusual items. The theory that the awards had been accidentally lost was dubious: both were on screw fastenings, and the nuts on the medals remained in place.
After some time, the owner's identity was established using the medal numbers. He turned out to be Guards Senior Lieutenant Parfeny Varygin, a pilot of the 75th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the 1st Guards Assault Aviation Division, who had been drafted into the army in 1939 from Krasnoyarsk.
According to documents, his Il-2 aircraft failed to return from a combat mission on March 26, 1945. His air gunner/radio operator, Guards Sergeant Andrei Mishin, also went missing.
The entry about his departure from the military service record on Varygin's "Memory of the People" portal gave hope—a note from December 14, 1945, hinted that he had survived, might have been in captivity, and was undergoing a special check.
That's how it turned out in the end.
BATTLE RECONSTRUCTION AND DOUBLE RESCUE
A search and rescue researcher from Pyatigorsk, Gennady Polubedov, with whom the Sovest searchers collaborate, after studying archival data, established that on March 26, 1945, Varygin's crew took part in an assault on the encircled German group in the area of Cape Kalholz.
According to the combat log of the 1st Guards Assault Air Division, the aircraft caught fire over the target, the crew parachuted out, and "landed in enemy territory." The operational summary of the 1st Air Army headquarters clarified: the Il-2 was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery, and the crew "bailed out."
Further details were reconstructed thanks to recovered memoirs and documents. In the Penza newspaper "Moskovskaya Street," local historian Pavel Arzamastsev, a former student of Varygin's (after the war, he worked as a military instructor at a technical school), wrote down his account in detail.
"I flew an Il-2 attack aircraft, completing 46 combat sorties in total. On March 26, 1945, I was shot down over East Prussia and parachuted out. Immediately after landing, I was captured, but managed to tear off my Order of the Red Banner and medal and hide it in my boot. I didn't have time to remove my Order of the Patriotic War and the Order of the Red Star, which were attached to the screws, and the Germans, of course, took them," Arzamastsev quotes the pilot's recollections from memory.
During the jump, the parachute canopy was damaged by shrapnel, causing the pilot to twist his ankle upon impact. His pistol holster snagged and came off, saving his life. In a note written by the senior lieutenant on July 2, 1945, to the commander of the 75th Guards ShAP, which remains in the family archive, he recounts how a gunner who attempted to fight off the Germans was immediately shot.
The pilot was dragged to his position, and it was there, in a German trench, that the medals he hadn't had time to remove were likely torn off his captive. He was then transported, with stops, to Pillau, from there to the port of Swinemünde, and then on to Berlin, Dresden, and south to Karlsbad.
Thanks to Arzamastsev's good memory, we learned of another important episode. As it turns out, it was the Germans who rescued Varygin the second time. And from the Germans, no less.
"I arrived in Berlin before the Red Army even entered, " the military commander recalled with a smile. " I and several other prisoners were being transported through the city in an open truck. Enraged German women attacked. If the guards hadn't fought them off with rifle butts, we would have been torn to shreds."
Varygin remembered those German guards by name and spoke very highly of them. Although it wasn't entirely clear what was more important: "Was it the absolute fulfillment of the order to deliver the prisoners where they needed to be, or the premonition of the end of the war and the faint hope that it would somehow be credited to them," Arzamastsev wrote.
On May 1, 1945, Varygin was liberated by American troops. On May 2, from the city of Weiden, which served as a collection point for Soviet prisoners of war, he and other officers set off in a captured German vehicle to Leipzig, from where they crossed over to their own people on May 9, 1945.
There, however, he had to wait a bit—it took a couple of weeks to clarify the circumstances of his capture and prepare the documents. Then came his return to his native regiment at the request of the legendary pilot Valentina Grizodubova. Next came a special background check, which lasted for about six months (until December 1945), but Varygin passed it successfully.
POST-WAR FATE AND UNFINISHED HISTORY
After the war, the pilot was reinstated in his rank, but was soon dismissed from the army—the armed forces were significantly reduced.
He was not issued duplicates of the medals he lost during his brief captivity, although they remained listed in his award documents. Parfeny Ivanovich chose Penza as his new place of residence because he had already served in the Volga region before the war, and it was in this city that he underwent his military inspection in 1945. He worked as a military instructor at a mechanical engineering technical school.
The pilot's son, Alexei Parfenievich, and his grandchildren now live in Penza. They know the family history well and eagerly await their grandfather's award—a number of formalities must be completed before it can be sent. Unfortunately, many years ago, after the hero's death in 1982, the family moved from one apartment to another, and the documents for the orders and medals were somehow lost.
But what remained were “Memories of Childhood, for the Memory of Children and Grandchildren, as a Lesson to Appreciate Life,” which Parfeniy Ivanovich himself typed on a typewriter in 1977, when he retired.
"Of course, we were delighted that it all happened this way, " his grandson, Andrei Varygin, told Regnum News Agency. "We knew the whole story very well, but we never imagined it would happen, or that we'd get any rewards."
Andrei said he'd long considered replenishing his grandfather's collection of medals. For example, he once noticed that the "Guard" badge was postwar, so he bought a military version, without the fringe, at a flea market. "I never even dreamed of replenishing the medals. They're numbered. Buying someone else's would have been wrong, dishonest, and even illegal. But this time, it just so happened that it couldn't have been better!" says Varygin.
The pilot's grandchildren plan to come and collect their medals and visit sites of military glory in the spring. They've already begun planning their vacation and saving for the trip.
The story that began with the discovery in the trench has been almost completely reconstructed. However, it remains unfinished: radio operator Andrei Mishin remains missing in action. The Varygins hope that the remains of their grandfather's comrade will also be found. They hope to one day meet his descendants.
Searchers intend to continue their work at the crash site to find its possible burial site and put an end to the story of the crew, who did not return from a combat mission just over a month before the Great Victory.