KIRILL NIKIFOROVICH OSIPOV
1907 – 1975
Hero of the Soviet Union
He was born in the village of Zborov in the Rogachevsky district of the Gomel region in a peasant family. Childhood and youth were in difficult revolutionary years. In 1918, he graduated from a three-grade parish school and in the same year he with his fellow villagers survived the Kaiser's occupation. In 1920, he organized a Komsomol cell in his native village, became its first secretary. He joined the Soviet Army in 1929, taking part in the Soviet-Finnish war. In 1935, he graduated from the artillery School.
He participated in the Great Patriotic War from June 1941. Osipov was the secretary of the party bureau of an artillery regiment when, as a senior political officer, he found himself surrounded. Osipov, as part of a group of troops of Lieutenant General I. V. Boldin, tried to get out of the encirclement with battles. In August 1941, after crossing the front line, he was able to establish communication with Konev I. S. With his participation, a plan was developed and implemented to connect the group with the troops of the Red Army. On August 15, 1941, K. N. Osipov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1942-1943, he worked at the headquarters of the partisan movement at the military Council of the Western Front, until in 1944 he was again at the front, taking part in the liberation of Belarus, the battles in East Prussia and against Japan.
After continuing his service in the army after the war, K. N. Osipov graduated from the Higher Artillery Officer School in 1947 and went into the reserve with the rank of colonel in 1955. He lived in Gomel.
Awards: the Order of Lenin, 2 Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star.