My Hunch Proves Right About Grandpa Боровик
Another piece of the puzzle of the curious life of Michael Borovik I had put up my search on the shelf concerning the two grandfathers of my wife who served in WW2, as I figured I had gotten as far as I practically could. As you might remember, if you've been following my clips on this issue, I had to make a guess or two about Michael Borovik. He served under the 1st Ukrainian Front under General Konev and participated in the capture of Berlin. In fact, Michael is listed on the document as having fought in the Kursk Bulge as well. At that time of the Kursk fighting, it was called the Voronezh Front under General Vatutin. And he was listed as being in the 8 Zap, and I thought this was Zapodnye, meaning western, but when I was chatting with a student who is also researching his great-grandfather's history in WW2, he saw my web page before the auto-translator worked and explained that it wasn't Zapodnye but 8 запасной артиллерийский полк Воронежского фронта, 1 Украинского фронта. Now, I had searched the 1st Ukrainian Front units, and the only 8th was an artillery unit; however, my wife did not recall her grandfather ever talking about artillery, rather that he laid wires to the forward trenches. And that's correct, but he was laying wires to the scout trenches, who called fire down from the artillery units. So Michael's unit had to crawl forward at night under enemy flares and gunfire to connect communication wires to forward outposts. This was extremely dangerous, as the enemy opened fire on anything moving, and many men didn't return. Michael firmly believed that the archangel Michael would protect him from death, so he volunteered to go forward in place of other men who were scared, in exchange for a watch. Those who had fear in their eyes usually didn't return.And so, now I have connected the dots. I know a lot more about Michael's life and the unit and the type of work he did. The online websites match all the battles listed on his document. And now, I realize my guesswork was correct, and I found out more than his own children and grandchildren were aware of.
Another piece of the puzzle of the curious life of Michael Borovik I had put up my search on the shelf concerning the two grandfathers of my wife who served in WW2, as I figured I had gotten as far as I practically could. As you might remember, if you've been following my clips on this issue, I had to make a guess or two about Michael Borovik. He served under the 1st Ukrainian Front under General Konev and participated in the capture of Berlin. In fact, Michael is listed on the document as having fought in the Kursk Bulge as well. At that time of the Kursk fighting, it was called the Voronezh Front under General Vatutin. And he was listed as being in the 8 Zap, and I thought this was Zapodnye, meaning western, but when I was chatting with a student who is also researching his great-grandfather's history in WW2, he saw my web page before the auto-translator worked and explained that it wasn't Zapodnye but 8 запасной артиллерийский полк Воронежского фронта, 1 Украинского фронта. Now, I had searched the 1st Ukrainian Front units, and the only 8th was an artillery unit; however, my wife did not recall her grandfather ever talking about artillery, rather that he laid wires to the forward trenches. And that's correct, but he was laying wires to the scout trenches, who called fire down from the artillery units. So Michael's unit had to crawl forward at night under enemy flares and gunfire to connect communication wires to forward outposts. This was extremely dangerous, as the enemy opened fire on anything moving, and many men didn't return. Michael firmly believed that the archangel Michael would protect him from death, so he volunteered to go forward in place of other men who were scared, in exchange for a watch. Those who had fear in their eyes usually didn't return.And so, now I have connected the dots. I know a lot more about Michael's life and the unit and the type of work he did. The online websites match all the battles listed on his document. And now, I realize my guesswork was correct, and I found out more than his own children and grandchildren were aware of.