Mikhail Ivanovich Bondarenko

Mikhail Ivanovich Bondarenko was born on 10 December 1901 in the village of Pogromets in Voronezh province, now Volokonovsky district of Belgorod region, into a peasant family. He had a primary education and worked on a collective farm. He was called up in February 1942, at the age of forty, and reached the front in February 1943: the battle of Kursk, the liberation of Belgorod and of left-bank Ukraine. By September 1943 Red Army Soldier Bondarenko was a gun number in the 981st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment of the 9th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division, 40th Army. He served in the gun crew of Junior Sergeant Alexander Asmanov — and his record is inseparable from that crew's. On 28 September 1943 the regiment's 4th battery, under Lieutenant Konstantin Aksyonov, was ordered to cross the Dnieper. On the night of 29 September, under massed fire, Asmanov's crew was the first in the battery to cross to the west bank near the village of Zarubentsy. The enemy counter-attacked with air support the same day, and the crew shot down one aircraft. On 12 October an offensive began to widen the bridgehead, and on 21 October the battery moved to the edge of the village of Khodorov in Myronivka district of Kyiv region. At dawn on 22 October the positions were attacked by bombers and artillery. The crews went on firing at the aircraft, and Asmanov's crew brought down another — the fifth to its name. One of the bombs fell directly into the trench where the crew was, and the whole crew was killed. Bondarenko is buried with his comrades in the village of Khodorov. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 24 December 1943, Red Army Soldier Mikhail Bondarenko was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union for the courage shown in the fighting on the right bank of the Dnieper. The title was conferred on every member of Asmanov's gun crew. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin and the medals For Courage and For Battle Merit.