Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko

Sniper of the 1122nd Rifle Regiment, 334th Rifle Division, Hero of the Soviet Union (4 June 1944), Major, and one of the highest-scoring snipers of the Great Patriotic War. Born on 12 September 1919 in the village of Chantsovo, Smolensk province. Before the army he studied at an art school in Penza and had nothing to do with weapons. He was called up in 1939. He began the war as a mortar platoon commander on the Kalinin Front. He took up sniping on his own initiative: he put together a rifle with a telescopic sight, started going out to firing positions in his own time and kept a tally. His superiors noticed the results and transferred him to sniper duties. His score is usually given as about five hundred enemy soldiers and officers killed. His principal contribution is generally held to be instruction rather than his own tally: he trained more than 250 snipers, and their combined results far exceed his own. He worked out a method — choosing and changing position, operating in pairs, concealment, patience — and passed it on in numbers rather than to a handful of men. He was wounded three times, once severely. He served until 1946 and left the service as a Major. He died on 19 February 1994.