Sergei Grishin

Born Mar. 18. 1917. in the village of Fomino, in present-day Smolensk Oblast. Partisan leader in the struggle in the area around Smolensk and Byelorussia during the Great Patriotic War. Colonel (1949); Hero of the Soviet Union (Mar. 7, 1943). Member of the CPSU since 1943. Born into the family of a peasant.

Grishin worked as a teacher and a school principal. He has been in the Soviet Army since 1939. He began the war as a lieutenant in command of a tank platoon. Having been encircled, he made his way to his native village, where he organized an underground group that in November 1941 he reorganized into what became known as the partisan Detachment of the Thirteen. In February 1942 he and other partisans participated in the liberation of Dorogobuzh. In March 1942, having expanded in June 1942 into the special partisan Regiment of the Thirteen. Grishin’s group began a raid on the territory around Smolensk and from May 1943 carried this raid into Byelorussia, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy; in 1943 the regiment traveled more than 1,500 km and killed more than 5,000 Hitlerites. In April 1944 the regiment was reorganized into the special partisan unit called the Thirteen, which, working with the regular forces, in July joined with units of the Fifth Army of the Third Byelorussian Front. All in all Grishin’s partisans blew up 333 special troop trains, two armored trains, and more than 1,000 motor vehicles; they destroyed 97 bridges and two railway stations. In 1947, Grishin graduated from the Frunze Military Academy and in 1955, from the General Staff Military Academy. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals.