Remember Ovcharenko who took on 50 Germans with an axe? This guy trumps even that kind of Hollywood level badassery.
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"Award order
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"Award order
- Name: Ogurtsov, Vasiliy Vasilyevich
- Rank: Guards Senior Sergeant
- Position and unit: squad commander, 1st platoon, 4th squardon, 45th Guards Don Cossack Order of the Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitskiy 12th Cavalry Regiment
- Is nominated for the state award of Hero of the Soviet Union
- Year of birth: 1917
- Nationality: Russian
- Party affiliation: none
- Participation in the Civil War, subsequent combat action in defense of the USSR, and the Patriotic War: Patriotic War since July 11th, 1941
- Wounds and concussions: wounded on September 25th, 1941, November 17th, 1942, April 16th, 1943
- In the Patriotic War since: July 11th, 1941
- Previously awarded: For Courage medal on September 26th, 1943, Order of the Red Star on February 24th, 1944
Brief and specific description of heroism: on October 12th, 1944, standing guard on the Inets-Shushtorokh-Sishterya route, Senior Sergeant Ogurtsov with two cossacks saw an enemy column near height 286: 30 submachinegunners and three SPGs. The cossacks suddenly opened a hurricane of fire on the SPG crews and enemy cars. The infantry turned to run, but the SPG crews decided to fight the three courageous Guardsmen. The cossacks threw grenades and knocked out two of the SPGs, then engaged in hand to hand combat. In this uneven battle, Ogurtsov personally killed 8 enemy soldiers and smashed an officer's head in with his submachinegun stock. Three more German soldiers attacked with knives. Ogurtsov knocked down one with his broken submachinegun, pushed another to the ground, and chewed through his throat with his teeth. An enemy tanks suddenly appeared, but Ogurtsov hid in an enemy SPG and threw a grenade, disabling the tank. The crew was killed by cossacks. Total trophies consisted of 30 vehicles with cargo, 2 SPGs, 1 tank, 8 motorcycles, 3 cannons, over 2000 shells, and various other supplies and military equipment."
An interesting thing about this award order is that the typewriter that it was written on is damaged. Periodically, I see documents typed up that are missing one letter, later written in with a pencil. This one, however, uses an even better solution: the "k" key from presumably a German typewriter was used to replace a broken Cyrillic "к" key.
As for Ogurtsov, he wasn't quite done yet.
"On December 26th, 1944, s a part of his squadron during the offensive at Kechked, Guards Senior Sergeant Ogurtsov and his squad were one of the first to enter the city, where they captured an APC full of Germans and entered in hand to hand combat with German and Hungarian fascists. With fire from his SMG he killed four enemy soldiers and killed a German officer with his shovel. Even when German tanks came to the enemy's aid, comrade Ogurtsov continued to destroy the Germans until his last minute, when he died fighting the tanks.
He is worthy of the state award Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class."