BattleBitter
· Day 101 of 1418
The enemy marches on Moscow
Approaches to Moscow
- Podolsk cadets stood in the enemy's way
- ≈ 3,500
- Podolsk cadets stood in the enemy's way
On 30 September Operation Typhoon, the all-out attack on Moscow, began. The enemy was sure it would take the capital before winter. Local people, including schoolchildren and students, dug anti-tank ditches, while soldiers held every line to the last.
Near Vyazma and Bryansk several Soviet armies were encircled, and for a while the road to Moscow lay almost open. To buy time, everyone at hand was thrown into battle: militia volunteers, Siberian divisions, military cadets.
Cadets from Podolsk, young men of 17 to 19, held the line at the village of Ilyinskoye for almost three weeks and delayed the enemy. Most of them were killed. Every school near Moscow remembers them.
See it on the map