During the Great Patriotic War, the commander of the 69th Guards Tank Regiment, Ivan Nikiforovich Boyko, was twice awarded the highest Soviet award. The commander received the first star of the Hero of the Soviet Union in January 1944 on the Ukrainian front. The second award was given to the commander in April of the same year, when the unit entrusted to him reached the border with Romania.
Childhood and youth
Ivan Boyko is from the village of Zhorishche Vinnytsia region, where he was born in 1910. The peasant family was large, so the boy looked for a job every summer, and in winter he learned school diplomas. In 1927, in his native village, the young man graduated from the seven-year school and entered the medical college in Vinnitsa. After that he worked as a state farm accountant-bookkeeper.
30s
In 1930, Boyko volunteered for the Red Army. At first he headed the department of the art regiment of the cavalry division, and when he decided to connect his life with the service, he was enrolled in the 1st tank regiment, commanded the T-26 machine. From this moment, the military biography of the famous tanker began. Ivan received a military education in an armored school, and then in courses. In 1937, the senior lieutenant went to a duty station in Transbaikalia, fought on Khalkin-Gol.
During the war
Boyko came to the front in the early days of the war, commanded a battalion on the Central, and then on the Western Front. In a battle near Tula in 1942 he was wounded, and after a health amendment he returned from the hospital to the unit to the post of commander of a tank regiment. He fought near Rzhev, where there were daily grueling battles.
In the spring of 1943, the unit was near Kursk. Every minute the respite was used by the commander to train fighters. When the Kursk operation began, Boyko immediately felt its scope. This was later called historical, and in the summer of 1943 the regiment suffered heavy losses, but did not stop fighting. In those days, Ivan Nikiforovich personally destroyed 60 enemy vehicles and, despite his wound, continued to remain in combat positions. Together with the army he ended up in his native land, and then continued his victorious path.
Twice Hero
A milestone in the career of a military leader was the Zhytomyr-Berdychiv operation. At the very end of 1943, a unit led by Boyko occupied a large railway junction Kazatin. When the city was liberated, the commander showed courage and ingenuity. The convoy of tankers, having made a 35-kilometer spurt, unexpectedly for the enemy entered the city directly along the railway tracks - such a military history did not know yet. For this operation, the Guard, Lieutenant Colonel Boyko was awarded the Golden Star of the Hero.
Since February 1944, Ivan Nikiforovich led the 64th tank brigade on the Ukrainian front. The unit liberated Chernivtsi, the soldiers crossed the Dnieper and the Prut, and attacked the enemy’s fortified positions on the other side. With a powerful jerk, the brigade reached the borders of the USSR, and then reached Berlin. For his contribution to the Proskurovsky-Chernivtsi operation, the illustrious commander was awarded the highest USSR award for the second time.
