Military conflict with China of the USSR. Damansky

46 years ago, in March 1969, the two most powerful socialist powers at that time — the USSR and the PRC — almost started a full-scale war over a piece of land called Damansky Island.

  1. Damansky island on the Ussuri River was part of the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai and had an area of \u200b\u200b0.74 km². It was located a little closer to the Chinese coast than to ours. However, the border did not extend along the middle of the river, but, in accordance with the Beijing Treaty of 1860, along the Chinese coast.
  Damansky - view from the Chinese coast


  2. The conflict in Damansky occurred 20 years after the formation of the People's Republic of China. Until the 1950s, China was a weak country with a poor population. With the help of the USSR, the Celestial Empire not only was able to unite, but began to develop rapidly, strengthening the army and creating the conditions necessary for the modernization of the economy. However, after Stalin's death, a period of cooling began in Sino-Soviet relations. Mao Zedong now claimed almost the role of the leading world leader of the communist movement, which Nikita Khrushchev could not agree with. At the same time, the policy of the Cultural Revolution pursued by Zedong constantly demanded to keep society in tension, to create more and more new images of the enemy both inside the country and outside it, and the process of “de-Stalinization” in the USSR generally threatened the cult of the “great Mao” himself, who gradually evolved in China. As a result, in 1960, the CCP officially announced the “wrong” course of the CPSU, relations between countries escalated to the limit, and conflicts often began to occur on borders of more than 7.5 thousand kilometers.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  3. On the night of March 2, 1969, about 300 Chinese soldiers crossed to Damansky. For several hours they went unnoticed, the Soviet border guards received a signal about an armed group of people up to 30 people only at 10:32 in the morning.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


4. 32 border guards under the command of the chief of the Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya outpost, senior lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, arrived at the scene. Approaching the Chinese military, Strelnikov demanded that they leave Soviet territory, but in response fire from small arms was opened. Senior lieutenant Strelnikov and the border guards following him died, only one soldier managed to survive.
  Thus began the famous Daman conflict, which had not been written about for a long time, but which everyone knew about.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  5. The shooting was heard at the neighboring outpost "Kulebyakiny hills." Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin went to the rescue with 20 border guards and one armored personnel carrier. The Chinese attacked aggressively, but retreated a few hours later. Residents of the neighboring village of Nizhnemikhailovka came to the aid of the wounded.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  6. That day, 31 Soviet border guards died, another 14 servicemen were injured. According to the KGB commission, the Chinese side’s losses amounted to 248 people.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  7. On March 3, a demonstration near the Soviet embassy took place in Beijing; on March 7, the Chinese embassy in Moscow was picketed.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  8. Weapons seized from the Chinese
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  9. On the morning of March 15, the Chinese again went on the offensive. They brought the strength of their forces to an infantry division, reinforced by reservists. Attacks using the "human wave" method lasted for an hour. After a fierce battle, the Chinese managed to oust the Soviet soldiers.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  10. Then, to support the defenders, a tank platoon headed by the head of the Iman border detachment, which included the outposts Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya and Kulebyakiny Sopki, Colonel Leonov, moved into a counterattack.


  11. But, as it turned out, the Chinese were prepared for this turn of events and had enough anti-tank weapons. Because of their dense fire, our counterattack failed.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  12. The failure of the counterattack and the loss of the latest T-62 combat vehicle with secret equipment finally convinced the Soviet command that the forces entered into the battle were not enough to defeat the Chinese side, which was prepared very seriously.
  Photo: archive of the magazine "Spark"


  13. Then the forces of the 135th motorized rifle division deployed along the river entered the business, whose command gave the order of their artillery, including the separate BM-21 Grad division, to open fire on the positions of the Chinese on the island. This was the first time Grad missile launchers were used in battle, the strike of which decided the outcome of the battle.


  14. The Soviet troops retreated to their shore, and the Chinese side did not take any more hostile actions.


15. In total, during the clashes, Soviet troops lost 58 soldiers and 4 officers, 94 soldiers and 9 officers, wounded and died from wounds. The losses of the Chinese side are still classified information and, according to various estimates, range from 100-150 to 800 and even 3000 people.


  16. For the heroism shown, four servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union: Colonel D. Leonov and Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov (posthumous), Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin and Junior Sergeant Y. Babansky.
  In the foreground photo: Colonel D. Leonov, lieutenants V. Bubenin, I. Strelnikov, V. Shorokhov; background: personnel of the first frontier post. 1968

Soviet-Chinese border conflict on Damansky Island  - armed clashes between the USSR and China and March 15, 1969 in the area of \u200b\u200bDamansky Island (Chinese к宝, Zhenbao  - “Precious”) on the Ussuri River, 230 km south of Khabarovsk and 35 km west of the district center Luchegorsk ( 46 ° 29′08 ″ s w. 133 ° 50′40 ″ in. d. HGIO) The largest Soviet-Chinese armed conflict in the modern history of Russia and China.

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Damansky Island. 1969 year

Border Conflict on Damansky Island (1969)

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Misconception Theory → Conflict on Damansky Island

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Background and causes of conflict

Damansky Island, which was part of the Pozharsky district of the Primorsky Territory, was located on the Chinese side of the main channel of Ussuri. Its dimensions are 1500-1800 m from north to south and 600-700 m from west to east (an area of \u200b\u200babout 0.74 km²). During floods, the island is completely hidden under water, and water meadows are a valuable natural resource .. However, there are several brick buildings on the island.

Since the beginning of the 1960s, the situation in the region of the island was heating up. According to the statements of the Soviet side, groups of civilians and military personnel began to systematically violate the border regime and enter Soviet territory, from where they were always expelled by border guards without the use of weapons. Initially, peasants entered the territory of the USSR on the instructions of the Chinese authorities and defiantly engaged in economic activities there: mowing and grazing, stating that they were in Chinese territory. The number of such provocations increased sharply: in 1960 there were 100, and in more than 5,000. Then, attacks began on the Hungweibins on border patrols. Thousands of events went through such events; up to several hundred people were involved in each of them. On January 4, 1969, a Chinese provocation was held on the island of Kirkinsky (Tsilitsindao) with the participation of 500 people. [ ]

According to the Chinese version of the events, the Soviet border guards themselves “organized” provocations and beat Chinese citizens who were engaged in economic activities where they always did. During the Kirkin incident, the Soviet border guards used armored personnel carriers to oust civilians, and on February 7, 1969, they fired several single machine-gun shots in the direction of the Chinese border detachment.

However, it was repeatedly noted that not one of these clashes, through whose fault it occurred, could result in a serious armed conflict without the approval of the authorities. The assertion that the events around Damansky Island on March 2 and 15 were the result of a carefully planned action by the Chinese side is now the most widespread; including directly or indirectly recognized by many Chinese historians. For example, Li Danhui writes that in 1968-1969 the response to the “Soviet provocations” was limited by the directives of the CPC Central Committee, only on January 25, 1969, it was allowed to plan “retaliatory military actions” on Damansky Island using three companies. On February 19, the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC agreed to this. There is a version according to which the leadership of the USSR was previously informed through Marshal Lin Biao of the upcoming Chinese action, which resulted in a conflict.

In a U.S. Department of State intelligence bulletin dated July 13, 1969: “Chinese propaganda emphasized the need for internal unity and encouraged people to prepare for war. It can be considered that the incidents were rigged solely to strengthen domestic policy. ”

Timeline

Events March 1-2 and the following week

Junior sergeant Yuri Babansky took over command of the surviving border guards, whose squad managed to secretly disperse off the island due to a delay in the advance from the outpost and, together with the armored personnel carrier, took fire.

Around 13:00, the Chinese began a retreat.

In the battle on March 2, 31 Soviet border guards died, 14 were injured. The losses of the Chinese side (according to the assessment of the KGB Commission of the USSR under the chairmanship of Colonel General N. S. Zakharov) amounted to 39 people killed.

Around 13:20, a helicopter arrived at Damansky with the command of the Imansky border detachment and its chief Colonel D.V. Leonov and reinforcements from neighboring outposts, the reserves of the Pacific and Far Eastern border districts were involved. Reinforced guards of the border guards came to Damansky, and the 135th motorized rifle division of the Soviet Army was deployed in the rear with artillery and BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket launchers. On the Chinese side, the 24th infantry regiment of 5 thousand people was preparing for hostilities.

For their heroism, five servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union: Colonel D.V. Leonov I. Strelnikov (posthumously), Junior Sergeant V. Orekhov (posthumous), Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin, Junior Sergeant Yu. Babansky. Many border guards and military personnel of the Soviet Army were awarded state awards: 3 - Orders of Lenin, 10 - Orders of the Red Banner, 31 - Orders of the Red Star, 10 - Orders of Glory of the III degree, 63 - medals "For Courage", 31 - medals "For Military Merit" .

The Soviet soldiers were unable to return the crashed T-62 onboard number 545 due to the constant Chinese shelling. An attempt to destroy it from mortars was unsuccessful, and the tank failed under the ice. Subsequently, the Chinese were able to pull him to their shore, and now he stands in the Beijing Military Museum.

After the ice melted, the exit of the Soviet border guards to Damansky proved to be difficult, and sniper and machine-gun fire had to impede the Chinese attempts to capture it. September 10, 1969 was ordered to cease fire, apparently, to create a favorable background for the negotiations that began the next day at the Beijing airport. Immediately, the Damansky and Kirkinsky Islands occupied the Chinese armed forces.

On September 11, in Beijing, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin, who was returning from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, and Prime Minister of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai agreed to stop hostile actions and that the troops remain in their occupied positions. In fact, this meant the transfer of Daman to China.

On October 20, 1969, new negotiations between the heads of the governments of the USSR and the PRC took place; an agreement was reached on the need to revise the Soviet-Chinese border. Then a number of negotiations were held in Beijing and Moscow, and in 1991 Damansky Island finally became part of the PRC (de facto it was transferred to China at the end of 1969).

In 2001, photographs of the discovered bodies of Soviet soldiers from the archives of the KGB of the USSR, indicating the facts of abuse by the Chinese side, were declassified, the materials were transferred to the museum of the city of Dalnerechensk.

In the early spring of 1969, a conflict began on the Sino-Soviet border. During the clashes, 58 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. However, at the cost of their lives, they managed to stop the great war.

0.74 square km

The two most powerful socialist powers at that time — the USSR and the PRC — almost started a full-scale war over a piece of land called Damansky Island. Its area is only 0.74 square kilometers. Moreover, during the flood on the Ussuri River, he was completely hiding under the water.
There is a version that Damansky became an island only in 1915, when the current eroded part of the spit on the Chinese coast. Whatever the island, which in Chinese was called Zhenbao, was closer to the coast of China. According to the international regulation adopted at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the borders between states must pass in the middle of the main channel of the river. This agreement provided for exceptions: if the border had developed historically along one of the coasts, with the consent of the parties, it could be left unchanged. In order not to aggravate relations with a neighbor gaining international influence, the leadership of the USSR allowed the transfer of a number of islands on the Soviet-Chinese border. On this occasion, 5 years before the conflict on Damansky Island, negotiations took place, which, however, ended in nothing because of the political ambitions of the head of the PRC Mao Zedong, and because of the inconsistency of the USSR Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev.

Five thousand provocations

For the USSR, which, by and large, has not yet recovered demographically or economically after a series of wars and revolutions of the first half of the twentieth century and especially after the Second World War, armed conflict, and even more so full-scale military operations with a nuclear power, in which but at that moment every fifth inhabitant of the planet lived, they were not needed and extremely dangerous. Only this can explain the amazing patience with which the Soviet border guards suffered constant provocations from the "Chinese comrades" in the border territories.
  In 1962 alone, more than 5 thousand (!) Various violations of the border regime by Chinese citizens occurred.

Original Chinese territories

Gradually, Mao Zedong convinced himself and the entire population of the Middle Kingdom that the USSR illegally owns vast territories of 1.5 million square kilometers, which, supposedly, should belong to China. Such sentiments were actively inflated in the Western press - the capitalist world, during the period of the Sino-Soviet friendship, strong, frightened by the red-yellow threat, now rubbed its hands in anticipation of a clash of two socialist "monsters".
  In such a situation, only an excuse was needed for the outbreak of hostilities. And the disputed island on the Ussuri River became such an occasion.

"Put them as much as possible ..."

The fact that the conflict in Damanski was carefully planned was even indirectly recognized by Chinese historians themselves. For example, Li Danhui notes that in response to "Soviet provocations" it was decided to conduct a military operation with the help of three companies. There is a version that the Soviet leadership was aware in advance through Marshal Lin Biao of the upcoming Chinese action.
  On the night of March 2, about 300 Chinese troops crossed the ice to the island. Thanks to the fact that it was snowing, they managed to go unnoticed until 10 in the morning. When the Chinese were discovered, the Soviet border guards for several hours did not have an adequate idea of \u200b\u200btheir numbers. According to a report received at the 2nd Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost of the 57th Iman border detachment, the number of armed Chinese was 30 people. 32 Soviet border guards left for the scene. Near the island they were divided into two groups. The first group, under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, went straight to the Chinese, who stood on ice southwest of the island. The second group, under the command of Sergeant Vladimir Rabovich, was supposed to cover Strelnikov's group from the south coast of the island. As soon as Strelnikov’s detachment approached the Chinese, hurricane fire was opened on him. Rabovich’s group was also ambushed. Almost all border guards were killed on the spot. Corporal Pavel Akulov was captured in an unconscious state. His body with traces of torture was later extradited to the Soviet side. The detachment of Junior Sergeant Yuri Babansky entered the battle, which was somewhat delayed, moving out of the outpost and therefore the Chinese could not destroy it using the surprise factor. It was this unit, together with the 24-hour border guards who arrived in time, from the neighboring Kulebyakiny Sopa outpost that showed the Chinese how high the morale of their opponents was in a fierce battle. “Of course, it was still possible to retreat, return to the outpost, wait for reinforcements from the detachment. But we were seized with such fierce anger at these bastards that in those minutes I wanted only one thing - to put them as much as possible. For the guys, for themselves, for this span of land that nobody needs, but still our land, ”recalled Yuri Babansky, who later was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his heroism.
  As a result of the battle, which lasted about 5 hours, 31 Soviet border guards were killed. The irretrievable losses of the Chinese, according to the Soviet side, amounted to 248 people.
The surviving Chinese were forced to retreat. But on the border territory, the 24th Chinese infantry regiment of 5 thousand people was already preparing for hostilities. The Soviet side pulled up the 135th motorized rifle division to Damansky, which was given the installation of the then Grad multiple-launch rocket systems.

Preventive Grad

If officers and soldiers of the Soviet army showed decisiveness and heroism, this cannot be said about the highest leadership of the USSR. In the following days of the conflict, border guards received very conflicting orders. For example, at 15-00 on March 14 they were ordered to leave Damansky. But after the Chinese immediately occupied the island, 8 of our armored personnel carriers advanced in battle order from the side of the Soviet border guard. The Chinese retreated, and the Soviet border guards at 20-00 the same day ordered to return to Damansky.
  On March 15, about 500 Chinese attacked the island again. They were supported by 30 to 60 artillery pieces and mortars. On our side, about 60 border guards on 4 armored personnel carriers entered the battle. At the decisive moment of the battle, they were supported by 4 T-62 tanks. However, after several hours of battle, it became clear that the forces were too unequal. The Soviet border guards, having shot all the ammunition, were forced to retreat to their shore.
  The situation was critical - the Chinese could launch an attack on the frontier post, and according to the instructions of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, in no case could Soviet troops be brought into conflict. That is, the border guards remained face to face with many times more numerous divisions of the Chinese army. And then the commander of the troops of the Far Eastern Military District, Colonel-General Oleg Losik, at his own peril and risk, gives an order that greatly sober up the Chinese militancy, and possibly forced them to abandon full-scale armed aggression against the USSR. The Grad multiple launch rocket systems were introduced into the battle. Their fire almost swept away all the Chinese units concentrated in the Damansky area. Already 10 minutes after the shelling of the Grad, there was no question of organized resistance by the Chinese. Those who survived began to depart from Damansky. True, two hours later, the approaching Chinese units unsuccessfully tried to attack the island again. However, the lesson "Chinese comrades" learned. After March 15, they no longer made serious attempts to master Damansky.

March 2, 1969 on the island of Damansky, located in the middle reaches of the Ussuri River, there was a battle between the Soviet border guards and the Chinese detachment, which included border guards and military personnel of the People's Liberation Army of China.

March 2, 1969 on the island of Damansky, located in the middle reaches of the Ussuri River, there was a battle between the Soviet border guards and the Chinese detachment, which included border guards and military personnel of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). To date, there are a variety of versions of the causes, course and outcome of this collision. This situation is partly due to the fact that all the Soviet border guards who were in the first detachment that entered the battle died, only one seriously wounded was left alive from the second detachment. Other participants in the events could not see the start of the battle. The main reasons are probably the disinterest of both parties in an objective investigation of the conflict, the lack of mutual understanding and cooperation in this matter.

A group of Soviet border guards fights for Damansky Island on March 2, 1969
  (artist N. N. Semenov, Central Frontier Museum of the FSB of the Russian Federation)

Today, there is, in principle, a unified position on the number of dead Soviet border guards among the Russian and Chinese sides. On March 2, in a battle that lasted about two hours, 31 or 32 Soviet border guards were killed on the island of Damansky and on the ice of the Ussuri River. The first were killed the chief of outpost No. 2 of the Iman border detachment, senior lieutenant I. I. Strelnikov, the detective of the special department of the detachment, senior lieutenant N. M. Buinevich and the five border guards who followed them. Almost simultaneously, a battle ensued in which 12 people of the detachment of Sergeant V.N. Rabovich died (a seriously wounded private G.A.Serebrov survived). Then most of the detachment of Junior Sergeant Yu. V. Babansky died. After some time, border guards of Outpost No. 1 of Senior Lieutenant V.D. Bubenin entered the battle. From this outpost on March 2, 8 border guards were killed in battle, and 14 were wounded. Almost generally accepted data on the losses of the Soviet side on March 2 are as follows: of the 66 border guards participating in the battle, 31 died, one seriously wounded border guard died in Chinese captivity, 14 were wounded.

   The memorial at the city cemetery of Dalnerechensk, where the remains are buried
  dead Soviet border guards of the Iman border detachment (photo by Sergey Gorbachev)

As for the losses from the Chinese side (according to Soviet data, about 30 border guards and up to 300 PLA \u200b\u200bsoldiers participated in the battle), even in modern Russian publications there are different numbers - from 17 dead Chinese soldiers to 300. The published Soviet documents and scientific publications do not It was said about the number of Chinese who died in Daman. Only in the 2000s. with the submission of General V.D. Bubenin, a figure of 248 killed Chinese appeared in historical literature. After the Chinese retreated from the island, the Soviet border guards found the corpse of one Chinese there, the rest killed and wounded were probably evacuated by the enemy at the end of the battle.

It's been 44 years since the day of the bloody battles on Damansky Island. This epoch-making event of the 20th century, which put the world on the brink of war, an inimitable standard of the highest patriotism, courage, heroism, unparalleled courage, selfless love and devotion to one’s homeland, and professional military prowess is hardly mentioned in official state media. As if he had never been. As if, while defending our homeland, on our own, I emphasize, on our territory, we were doing something shameful, which is embarrassing to mention.

Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich  Born on November 12, 1947 in the city of Kuibyshev, Novosibirsk Region. Russian. He was called up on July 3, 1966 by the Kuibyshev RVC of the Novosibirsk Region. Private, shooter of the 2nd border post of the 57th border detachment of the Pacific border district. He died in battle on about. Damansky March 2, 1969. He was buried on March 6, 1969, in a mass grave on the territory of the 2nd frontier post "Nizhne-Mikhailovka", Pozharsky district of Primorsky Territory. He was reburied on May 30, 1980 at the military site of the city cemetery in Dalnerechensk, Primorsky Territory, the memorial “Glory to the Fallen Heroes”. He was awarded the medal “For Courage” and the Honorary Badge of the Komsomol Central Committee “For Military Valor” (posthumously).

“... Hello mom, dad, Sasha and Seryozha! Sorry that I didn’t write for a long time, I really don’t like to write letters, and there’s nothing to write about. Alive, healthy, do not worry about me ... There is nothing new, I still go to the service, draw, wait for demobilization. The weather is warm, it is thawing during the day, spring is coming, here it starts early ... Lyudmila writes often, in general I have done well.

How are you, my “old men”! How are the bros doing! Serezha the big one, probably, has become. And you, Sasha, how are you doing in sports? Do not be offended that rarely deprive. “Do not think that I am forgetting you, if you only knew how I missed you all!”

Vladimir Shusharin wrote this letter to his parents on February 27, 1969. And on March 2, when the letter had not yet reached the addressee, a monstrous tragedy broke out on the border where Vladimir served, which every person now knows about and which causes everyone pain and indignation ...

On the night of March 2, about three hundred armed Chinese soldiers, having violated the Soviet state border, crossed the channel of the Ussuri River to the Soviet island of Damansky. Dressed in white camouflage robes, they spread out on the island in the forest and shrubs, behind the natural elevation of the area, lay in ambush. On the Chinese coast of Ussuri, military units and firearms were concentrated - mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

In the morning, another 30 armed Chinese intruders went from the Chinese coast through the USSR state border to Damansky Island.

The commander of the N-outpost, senior lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, along with senior lieutenant Nikolai Buinevich, took six border guards with him, including our Kuibyshev fellow countryman Vladimir Shusharin, went out to meet the violators, intending to protest the Chinese and demand that they leave Soviet land . So border guards acted repeatedly when the Chinese offenders appeared in these places. The provocateurs approached Strelnikov’s group and suddenly fired at her point blank ...

  ... A large two-story house on the main street of the city seemed to grow dark and quiet. Near the gate there are three old women, secretly talking:

What a guy he was! He will not offend anyone, he will manage everything ...

This is about him, about Vladimir. In this house, he lived before being drafted into the army, walked along these alleys of the kindergarten, climbed these steps to the eleventh apartment, in which a large, unbearable grief settled now. A thin woman, exhausted from tears, leaned over the photographs laid out on a table. Who does not understand the mother's heart! It is not easy, oh, how difficult it is for Anastasia Zinovievna to reconcile herself with a bereavement.

Killed the eldest son. The mother is crying, but with tears in her heart, a harsh condemnation of arrogant provocateurs boils, one can hear pride in the son who heroically sacrificed his life for the inviolability of the sacred borders of our Motherland. The same sense of pride lives in the father of Vladimir - Isaia Pavlovich. I heard him say at a meeting of power engineers at the Baraba State District Power Plant:

Our son died at the hands of gangsters, protecting the borders of the Motherland. It's hard for us parents. But we know that he did not flinch in difficult times, to the end he fulfilled his soldierly duty. Vladimir grew up in a good family. They brought him up in a good way, and managed to instill in him high moral qualities. Parents, the school, the team in which he worked before leaving for the army should be given credit for the fact that a real hero grew out of a former boy naughty boy.

Vladimir Shusharin enjoyed special love among the border guards. He was considered in the unit as his artist. While still at school, Vladimir was fond of painting, engaged in a circle of fine art. After school, this hobby did not leave him. In the Palace of Culture named after V.V. Kuybyshev, a circle of drawing enthusiasts worked. Its constant participant was the mechanic of the car depot No. 8 Vladimir Shusharin. In the army, in his spare time, he usually took a pencil or a brush and, drawing up somewhere in the recreation room or on the street, near the outpost, painted. The Leninist room of the outpost is decorated and framed by his hands.

Vladimir began his military service in the most “prosaic” way. While still at home, he received the profession of a locksmith. Therefore, he was sent to a unit where people who needed equipment were needed. But after a few months, the guy asked to go to the border, and his request was granted.

That fateful morning on March 2, Vladimir Shusharin, together with his friends, was the first to meet the violators. He, like the head of the outpost I. Strelnikov, like all his comrades, did not want blood to spill on the ice of Ussuri. They asked the provocateurs to get out of foreign territory. Eight Soviet border guards stopped against thirty Chinese bandits. They were asked to change their minds, and they went on a malicious provocation, opened fire on the border guards. Vladimir Shusharin fell one of the first. Two automatic bursts pierced the soldier’s chest ...

They were many times smaller than the Chinese bandits. Taking advantage of this, the provocateurs scoffed at the wounded and killed. As if afraid that the dead would rise, they continued to barbarously crack down on the corpses. But the provocateurs paid dearly for the lives of the dead Soviet soldiers. Despite the incomparable superiority in power, they suffered heavy losses and were thrown from Soviet soil.

... Once upon a time in a civil war there, in the East, Vladimir's great-grandfather died from a bullet from a White Guard. After that, in the east, he guarded the borders of the Motherland, and subsequently his grandfather Zinovy \u200b\u200bNikitich Kuzmin, who now lives in our city, fought heroically in the west with the Nazis. Wounded, an elderly man, he has many government awards. Vladimir Shusharin did not shame the honor of the older generation. He courageously accepted death, defending the impregnability of the borders of his beloved Motherland.

  “Dear Anastasia Zinovievna and Isai Pavlovich! Your son, Private Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich, March 2, 1969, died the death of the brave while guarding and protecting the state border of the USSR. The command and the Political Directorate of the Frontier Forces of the Soviet Union express deep condolences to you. The feat of your son is a vivid example of selfless service to our great Soviet Motherland, the cause of communism. The bright memory of your son, the faithful and courageous defender of the socialist Fatherland, will forever remain in the hearts of his fighting friends, border guards and the entire Soviet people. ”

Such a letter was received by Vladimir's parents from the command and political administration of the border troops of the USSR. All Soviet people add their voice to the words of this letter. We will always be proud of the feat of our fellow countryman. There, at Strelnikov's outpost, soldiers still carry out their difficult service. And, each time, going on patrol, they come to the mass grave to take an oath of allegiance to the fallen comrades. And we know that the border is once again locked, that the business of Vladimir Shusharin and his friends is safely continued by other Soviet soldiers.

March 2, 1969. Chronicle of events

At 11:10, Gas-69 and BTR-60 arrived at the southern tip of the island.

An alarming group of the 2nd border post at about. Damansky. Shot of an unknown Chinese war photographer
Arriving at the place of border violation, the border guards were divided into two groups. The first, of 7 people under the command of Strelnikov, went to the Chinese military, who stood on the ice of the river southwest of the island. The second group of 13 border guards, led by Sergeant Vladimir Rabovich, was supposed to cover Strelnikov's group, moving along the south coast of the island.

The military photographer was able to capture the beginning of the armed provocation by private Nikolai Petrov, who was photographing and filming events, recording the fact of violation of the border and the procedure for expelling violators. The Chinese soldiers took the movie camera with them, but did not notice the camera, which Petrov, taking the last shot, put a short fur coat in the lapel ...

In the first photo of Petrov, taken from a distance of 300-350 m - Chinese soldiers who violated the state border.

In the second picture, the Chinese chain and three border guards walking towards them are clearly visible. To the right, the shore of Damansky Island: somewhere there, among the trees and thickets of shrubs, a Chinese ambush lurks.

Approaching the Chinese, I. Strelnikov expressed his protest over the violation of the border and demanded that Chinese troops leave the territory of the USSR. One of the Chinese shouted something to his soldiers, after which the men in front parted, and the rear opened automatic fire on our border guards. The last shot was made by Petrov a few moments before the death: the nearest Chinese soldier raised his hand - most likely, this is a signal to open fire.

Strelnikov, Buinevich and the border guards accompanying them died immediately. An ambush in Damansky opened fire on a group of Rabovich. Several border guards were killed, the survivors lay down and opened fire on the Chinese who rushed to attack. They fought to the last bullet ...

The only one who miraculously survived from the group of Sergeant Rabovich was Private Gennady Serebrov. Having regained consciousness in the hospital, he spoke about the last moments of the life of his friends:

  - Our chain stretched along the coast of the island. Ahead ran Pasha Akulov, followed by Kolya Kolodkin, then the rest. Egupov ran before me, and then Shusharin. We chased after the Chinese, who went along the shaft towards the shrubbery. There was an ambush. As soon as they jumped out onto the shaft, they saw three Chinese soldiers in camouflage robes below. They lay three meters from the rampart. At this time, shots rang out at Strelnikov's group. We opened fire in response. Several Chinese ambushed were killed. Shot long bursts ...

March 2, 1969. 11-25

Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin commanded the Kulebyakiny Sopka outpost, located about a dozen kilometers north of Damansky. After receiving a telephone message about what was happening on the island, he and twenty-two border guards hurried to the BTR-60 to help neighbors ...

March 2, 1969 Damansky island. Report of the chief of the 1st frontier post, Lieutenant Bubenin, on the communication line to Major V. Bazhenov, operational duty officer of the 57th border detachment:

I am reporting on the situation: there is a battle on the island ... on the Damansky island, a battle has been going on for about an hour. Strelnikov? Apparently, his outpost and he died ... Yes, with my personnel of 21 people I’m fighting ... Yes, a lot ... heavy mortar, artillery fire ... machine-gun and machine-gun fire. Everything is burning, my armored personnel carrier is destroyed, there are killed and wounded ... I can’t hear you, ... I can’t hear ...

The receiver is picked up by BTR driver corporal A. Shamov.

Comrade Major, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin, is losing consciousness ... yes, he was seriously injured, covered in blood, burned ... No, it seems alive ... he regains consciousness.

Yes, I’m Bubinin, I’m listening to you ... Bring people out? No I can not. An open place, they’ll put everyone, I’ll lose everyone. My reserve came up, I’m going to battle again. No, I can’t, Major ... I can’t leave, I’m going to battle, that's all ... Goodbye ...

At that moment, help came in time - from the 1st outpost, a group of sergeant Sikushenko arrived, and Bubenin, after reseeding with seven border guards in Strelnikov’s armored personnel carrier, continued the attack ...

From the memoirs of Vitaliy Bubenin: “I fought the whole subsequent battle in the subconscious, while in some other world. Having got ashore and landing in an APC, the fighters and I went to the enemy in the rear. In front of the car, dumbfounded Chinese got out from under the snow one after another. Only then did we understand how many of them came to our hearts ... For more than two hours, we circled their positions, crushing and shooting. When, after the next round, we got to the other side, it turned out that four of the outposts remained on their feet. We sent the dead and wounded to the outpost, hugged silently, stood for a while and went back towards the island. Everyone understood that he would not return from this battle. ”

In the last attack, Bubenin managed to destroy the command post of the Chinese battalion on the island. This decided the outcome of the battle. Chinese soldiers began to withdraw to their territory, taking with them the wounded and killed ...

Vladimir Grechukhin, a photographer for the regional newspaper Border Guard in the Pacific Ocean, appeared on the island an hour and a half after the end of the battle. It smelled of gunpowder, blood, death ...

Burnt GAZ-69 of the 2nd frontier post. Damansky Island. March 2, 1969

The hole from the shell in the starboard side of the BTR-60 No. 04 of the 2nd border post

At the position of the Chinese battalion


Chinese Communist Party destroyed by tambourine group
  On March 2, 1969, up to 250 Chinese soldiers and 31 Soviet border guards were killed and 14 were injured in a battle near Damansky Island. Komsomol outpost "Nizhne-Mikhailovka" Corporal Akulov went missing ...

March 2, 1969. 12-00

From the memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel Konstantinov:

Everything was burning around: bushes, trees, two cars. We flew over our territory, watching Damansky. We saw our soldiers at a tree, landed. I began to send groups of soldiers in search of the wounded, the road was every minute. Babansky said they found Strelnikov and his group. We crawled there in a plastubansky way. They are so close and lay. First, I checked the documents. Buinevich’s place. Strelnikov’s disappeared. Private Petrov, who was sent to the outpost by the political department for film and photo documentation, disappeared from the camera. But under a short fur coat we found a camera with which he shot his last three shots, which went around the whole world.

They broke the branches, laid the bodies and, rising to their full height, went to their own. The soldiers dragged the bodies, and the officers and I fell behind a little - with machine guns and machine guns, we covered the retreat. And so it came out. The Chinese did not open fire ...

Recalls Junior Sergeant Alexander Skornyak:

  - We went out onto the ice, where the guys were killed, drove the GAZ-69 cars and started two by three, three to load the bodies. Some were still warm, you see, only recently had died from their wounds. You start to raise a guy, and his blood from his mouth beats a fountain. I still remember the smell of blood in the cold, the smell of death. The Chinese even mocked the dead - pricked with bayonets. Especially went to officers Buinevich and Strelnikov. The snow was red with blood. The Chinese carried away with the retreat of their slain. But we found one of their soldiers. He was dressed warmly, an AK-47 assault rifle was lying nearby and a field telephone ...

  - Ours were tortured by the living, and after death. They cut, broke their heads ... - said Vladimir Grechukhin. - The Chinese dragged the seriously wounded Komsomol of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost, Corporal Pavel Akulov. I was transferring his body to relatives - the remains of his hair are gray. The corpse of Paul was disfigured beyond recognition. And only the mother managed to identify her son by a mole on her index finger ...

Chinese soldiers killed the wounded Soviet border guards with point-blank shots and knives. This shameful fact for the People's Liberation Army of China is evidenced by the documents of the Soviet medical commission.

From the report of the head of the medical service of the 57th border detachment of the major of the medical service V. I. Kvitko: “The medical commission, which, in addition to me, included military doctors, senior lieutenants of the medical service B. Fotavenko and N. Kostyuchenko, carefully examined all the dead on the island of Damansky border guards and found that 19 wounded would survive, because during the battle they received non-fatal wounds. But then, in a fascist way, they were finished off with knives, bayonets and butts. This is incontrovertibly evidenced by cut, stabbed bayonet and gunshot wounds. They shot at point blank range from one to two meters. From such a distance Strelnikov and Buynevich were finished. ”

On March 5 and 6, border guards were buried at the outposts. In the pictures of Grechukhin there are rows of coffins. Strict faces of the dead. Many have their heads hidden under white gauze bandages ...

The funeral of the dead at the outpost "Nizhne-Mikhailovka." March 6, 1969
  Says Junior Sergeant Alexander Skornyak:

Our guys were buried on the third day. Generals arrived from the district. The parents of the dead arrived. The political department had campaigned for everyone to be buried in Nizhne-Mikhailovka, at the border post. Immediately posthumously awarded all the fallen: officers were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, sergeants and soldiers were awarded orders. But close to this did not become easier. And no one could have imagined that soon the dead border guards and soldiers would be put nearby again ...

Background to the conflict

After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, a provision appeared that borders between states should, as a rule, (but not necessarily) extend in the middle of the main channel of the river. But it also provided for exceptions, such as drawing a border along one of the coasts, when such a border formed historically - under a treaty or if one side colonized the second coast before the other began to colonize it. In addition, international treaties and agreements are not retroactive.

Despite the fact that according to previously concluded agreements, the entire Ussuri River and the islands located on it turned out to be Russian, this did not have any effect on Sino-Soviet relations. Only in the late 1950s, when the PRC, seeking to increase its international influence, came into conflict with Taiwan (1958) and participated in the border war with India (1962), did the Chinese use the new border provisions as an excuse for revising the Soviet-Chinese borders.

The Soviet leadership was sympathetic to the desire of the Chinese to draw a new border along the rivers and was even ready to transfer a number of lands to the PRC. However, this readiness disappeared as soon as the ideological and then interstate conflict broke out. A further deterioration in relations between the two countries led, in the end, to an open armed confrontation on Damansky Island.

The events of March 2 and 15, 1969 on Damansky Island, starting in 1965, were preceded by numerous provocations by the Chinese to arbitrarily seize the Soviet islands on the Ussuri River. At the same time, the Soviet border guards always strictly adhered to the established line of behavior: provocateurs were expelled from Soviet territory, weapons were not used by the border guards.

Historical reference.
Damansky Island in the late 60s territorially belonged to the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Territory, bordering the Chinese province of Heilongjiang. The distance of the island from the Soviet coast was about 500 m, from the Chinese - about 300 m. From the south to the north, Damansky stretches for 1500-1800 m, and its width reaches 600-700 m. The actual size of the island depends heavily on the time of year and the level of flood waters . It has no economic or military strategic value.

• Art. Lieutenant Nikolay Mikhailovich Buinevich, operative officer of the special department of the 57th border detachment.

• Sergeant Ermolyuk Viktor Mikhailovich
• Corporal Korzhukov Viktor Kharitonovich
• Private Vetrich Ivan Romanovich
• Private Gavrilov Victor Illarionovich
• Private Zmeev Alexey Petrovich
• Private Izotov Vladimir Alekseevich
• Private Ionin Alexander Filimonovich
• Private Syrtsev Alexey Nikolaevich
• Private Nasretdinov Islamgali Sultangaleevich

• Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov Ivan Ivanovich
• Sergeant Dergach Nikolay Timofeevich
• Sergeant Rabovich Vladimir Nikitich
• Junior Sergeant Kolodkin Nikolai Ivanovich
• Junior Sergeant Loboda Mikhail Andreevich
• Corporal Akulov Pavel Andreevich (died captive from wounds)
• Corporal Davydenko Gennady Mikhailovich
• Corporal Mikhailov Evgeny Konstantinovich
• Private Danilin Vladimir Nikolaevich
• Private Denisenko Anatoly Grigorievich
• Private Egupov Victor Ivanovich
• Private Zolotarev Valentin Grigorievich
• Private Isakov Vyacheslav Petrovich
• Private Kamenchuk Grigory Alexandrovich
• Private Kiselev Gavriil Georgievich
• Private Kuznetsov Alexey Nifantievich
• Private Nechay Sergey Alekseevich
• Private Ovchinnikov Gennady Sergeevich
• Private Pasyuta Alexander Ivanovich
• Private Petrov Nikolay Nikolaevich
• Private Shestakov Alexander Fedorovich
• Private Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich

TASS message

At 4 hours 10 minutes Moscow time, another 30 armed intruders went to the Damansky Island from the Chinese coast through the USSR state border. A group of Soviet border guards led by the head of the outpost Strelnikov came to the place of border violation on Ussuri ice.
  As before, border guards had the intention of protesting the Chinese over border violations and expelling them from the territory of the Soviet Union. Fire was fired at the Soviet border guards, and they were literally shot at point blank range. Artillery and mortar fire was opened on another group of border guards from the Chinese coast.

Together with reinforcements arrived from a neighboring outpost, Soviet border guards expelled the offenders.
TASS, March 9, 1969

In March-April 1969, protest rallies against the Chinese provocation on the Soviet border and meetings with border guards participating in battles near Damansky Island took place in the city and the district.

From the newspaper "Labor Life". Kuibyshev NSO

Feat on Damansky Island

1
  We are on a high, snowy bank of the Ussuri River, at the border outpost Nizhne-Mikhailovka.

Ussuri is a dazzlingly white, tightly curved horseshoe, covered in ice and snow. On our side, hills in unopened oaks roll, wave after wave, to a distant cape. And on the other side there is a lowland, red grass, bushes ... There is China! Dry crowns of trees, fanza under red tiles, smoke are visible from the border tower into the eyepieces of the rangefinder pipe ... Between these shores lies Soviet land - Damansky Island, that small island two kilometers long, where the snow is now spread by mines, strewn with spent cartridges, watered with blood .

Ten days ago, on March 2, as it was already reported in the press, here on Damansky Island, a small detachment of Soviet border guards accepted an unequal oh with the Chinese battalion specially prepared for sabotage, meanly, violating the Soviet border under cover of night. A gang of violators was supported from the Chinese coast by an anti-tank battery, heavy mortars, grenade launchers ...

Maoist bandits were defeated and expelled from Soviet soil. But 29 Soviet soldiers and 2 officers died the death of the brave in the battle for their homeland.

2
  A border guard officer leads us to a pile of equipment thrown by the Chinese. Here are the tin jars with the remains of a hypocrite - they drank it all night before the provocation. Here are the shabby mats - the Chinese lay on them after at night, thieves made their way to the island and hid. Here is a telephone cable, telephones in red plastic cases, on which a command was sent from the island to the firing positions of guns and mortars to open fire at Soviet border guards. And from all this - a stupefying, sickening smell of spilled goodies.

We were shown the helmets of our fallen fighters, the new green helmets, shot through, with petals of torn metal. The straps baked blood. It can be seen that the bullet went from top to bottom: they shot at the wounded, lying on the snow border guards from the closest distance.

Major of the medical service Vyacheslav Ivanovich Vitko made the following statement to us:

  - A special medical examination found that 19 of our border guards, who first received non-fatal injuries in the leg, arm, shoulder, were then brutally, meanly finished off. This is incontrovertibly evidenced by cut, bayonet and gunshot wounds. They shot from a distance of one or two meters. So the Maoist bandits finished off with a shot at point blank range the wounded senior lieutenant Strelnikov. Military doctors - medical service lieutenants B.Potavenko, N.Kostyuchenko and I drew up an act about these atrocities. 19 wounded Soviet border guards would be alive if the killers had not finished off with knives, bayonets, bullets.

3
  Helicopters descended one by one at the hills. From them, from the vehicles approaching, the mothers and fathers of the fallen soldiers came out and fled along the snowy slope, flooded with a dazzlingly bright sun, to where one could hear the fading sounds of the funeral march ...

Tightly stretched tent. Honor guard with machine guns. It beats red in the eyes: coffins upholstered by kumach stand in a row. And in them are frozen, beautiful, in spite of terrible wounds, faces of our soldiers.

Mother run in. Fall to one, to another. Not that, not that ... There he is! And he falls dead on the filial body, kisses his wounds, grabs his hands, sobs inconsolably. And next - another, third ... We stand right there and, unable to hold back tears, listen, record everything, as it was said here, how it broke out of the mother’s heart.

- My son, my hope ... What the hell did they do to you ... Yes, they excised you, pricked you ... You wrote to me that your forehead was growing, and they broke your whole head ...

  ... The young widow grabbed the stake of the tent: looks, looks at the one in the coffin, bandaged ...

  ... The gray-haired father is crying, the soldiers standing in the guard of honor are wiping their tears. A reporter writes something in a notebook, sobbing ...

They carried them on their shoulders and set them carefully under the sun. Scarlet Kumach and the green line of the border caps. They lay young, surrounded by a dense crowd. The sky above them is high, and spring clouds are floating in it. And in these white flying clouds, there seemed to be still the echo of a recent victorious battle. And there, on the island, their blood burns ...

Fallen soldiers lie, and workers from Iman, peasants from neighboring villages, friends, border service comrades, officers, generals say goodbye to them, smoke from the fireworks flowed over the river. A wide mass grave, native land takes them. The first handfuls hit the coffin lids. And Ussuri, white, bright, spread the wings of her sleeves over this sacred grave.

4
  Military hospital. Here are the wounded heroes of Damansky Island. Twenty-year-old guys, but already scorched by the fire of their first fierce battle. Here, along with them, is their combat commander, senior lieutenant Vitaly Dmitrievich Bubenin. He is thirty years old. He was born in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, in the family of a party worker. After graduating from a technical school, he worked as a mechanic. Then - the army, the border school and, finally, the outpost. He served as the political outpost of Nizhne-Mikhailovka, with senior lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Strelnikov. Peers, young officers, they became friends. Then Bubenin was appointed chief of a neighboring outpost. Tambourine in battle fought heroically, captivating all the fighters.

He talks about what remains in the memory and in the heart for life.

Senior Lieutenant Vitaliy Bubenin:

  - Exactly at eleven o'clock on the second of March the duty officer from the outpost of my friend, senior lieutenant Strelnikov, called us. In Daman, the battle was already in full swing. On alarm we went there. They jumped to the island, and here we were met from three sides by Chinese guns, mortars, and grenade launchers. Density of fire was high. It hurt me. For a minute I lost consciousness ... When the Chinese knocked out an armored personnel carrier - we switched to another car. And again - bypassing the island ... And I tell you in honor, the guys fought for their native Soviet land, like lions. Every single one, not sparing life. As a commander, I can only be proud of them.

Private Mikhail Putilov:

- During the battle, we see - two of our wounded are crawling in the snow. We are immediately to them. They began to pick them up, and in our armor the conveyor, the Chinese hit from guns. They struck the “poop” - it hurt us. And the commander too. But we gave them as well ... I lie by the tree, wounded, and I see the Chinese taking the dead and wounded from the island, fleeing to their side ...

Private Gennady Serebrov:

  - My right arm and leg were interrupted by bullets. I lay and saw how they were brutalizing over my wounded comrades - Shusharin and Yegupov. Finished them bastards ...

We also spoke with Colonel D.V. Leonov, the military commander of the border guards.

  - Young guys are coming to serve us. A young man puts on a soldier’s overcoat, and you think: will he turn out to be a real warrior, a combat protector of the Motherland? In the battle on Damansky Island, ours were true heroes. And there is nothing surprising in this. After all, the guy was raised by his father and mother, school, Komsomol, Soviet power, our party. A wonderful Russian woman - Agniya Andreevna Strelnikova raised ten children. The oldest lieutenant Strelnikov was a talented commander. On May 9, on Victory Day, he would have turned thirty years old ... Strelnikov was going to the island with fighters to enlighten border violators, to demand that our Soviet land be cleared, as has happened more than once before. And they?! .. They shot Strelnikov point blank.

Strelnikov's friend, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin, who is now in the hospital, was especially distinguished in battle. I drove up to the scene of the battle and I see - our friends, the local fishermen of the Avdeevs, carry the wounded Tambourine in their arms. His face is covered in blood. We put the senior lieutenant under the tree. I order the doctor to evacuate him immediately.

  “I won’t go, Comrade Colonel,” objected Bubenin. “There, on fire, are my soldiers, and I should be with them to the end.”

He stood up and did not hold his legs: apparently, he lost a lot of blood ... Together with the doctor, we nevertheless put him in a car and sent him to the hospital. What else can I say? .. On the island of Damansky, real heroes fought, faithful soldiers of our socialist Fatherland!

5
  When the March clear day faded away, the relatives and friends of the fallen comrades gathered for a feast. The father of senior lieutenant Strelnikov, Ivan Matveevich, stands up. In the Patriotic War he was a soldier, received 12 wounds.

  “Only now we have buried our children,” he said. “I have more sons, and each of them would do the same as Ivan.” I can’t say anything else.

The father of the border guard Nikitin rose:
- All of us, fathers, went through the Patriotic War ... Today we have lost sons, but the people will not forget them. I curse Mao and his accomplices, this is their dirty work.

Says the father of sergeant Nikolai Dergach - Timothy Nikitich.

  “I'm fifty years old tomorrow.” That's how it turned out ... Mao killed my only son ... Kolya was only twenty years old, he was just starting to live ... Now, in peacetime, I am a state farm worker. And in the Patriotic War I was an artilleryman. And, by the way, in the forty-fifth year he came to China with his regiment to drive the Japanese out of Chinese land. What is this getting? We defeated the Kwantung army of the Japanese imperialists to help the Chinese people. After 1949, factories, factories helped China build. But Mao will execute real communists at home and will creep into our Soviet land ... Evidently, his deeds are bad, the Chinese people do not believe him, and therefore he seeks salvation in black robbery.

* * *
  ... We left the border in the evening. The sun was ending its way, having beaten up the purplish forests, the white hills, the quiet Ussuri and our Damansky Island, which fell to her bosom.

The first stars are about to flash in the sky. They will shine over the mass grave. A little time will pass - the obelisk will rise here. And he, as an eternal sentinel, will guard the dream of the heroes of Daman.

Private Vladimir Shusharin

Memorial “Glory to the Fallen Heroes”

Across the border

  “On March 2, 1969, a group of Soviet border troops of 70 people with two armored personnel carriers, one truck and one passenger car invaded our island Zhengbaodao, Hulin County, Heilongjiang Province, destroyed our patrol and then destroyed many of our border guards with fire. This forced our soldiers to take self-defense measures.

On March 15, the Soviet Union, not paying attention to the numerous warnings of the Chinese government, launched an offensive against us with 20 tanks, 30 armored personnel carriers and 200 infantry, supported by air from its aircraft.

For 9 hours, courageously defending the island, fighters and people's militias withstood three enemy attacks. On March 17, the enemy tried to pull out a tank that had been previously hit by our forces using several tanks, tractors and infantry. "Hurricane retaliatory artillery fire of our artillery destroyed part of the enemy’s forces, the survivors retreated."

A memorable bas-relief depicting the feat of soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) in March 1969

The book "Myths of Daman"

The book uses extensive documentary and literary material, eyewitness accounts. The text is accompanied by illustrations, documentary and reference applications.

Designed for a wide range of readers interested in military history. Published in 2004 with a circulation of only 3,000 copies.

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