Miller Pyotr Klimentievich – commander of the anti-tank gun calculation of the 465th rifle regiment, senior sergeant.
I was born on August 10, 1910 in Ukraine. In 1933 he was drafted into the Red Army. After his conscription in 1936, Peter Miller came to Balkhash to build the largest copper smelting plant. From there, in May 1942, he left for the front.
In autumn 1943 Peter Miller met a former soldier. Behind his shoulders remained a year and a half of illegal front life, the bitterness of defeats, the joy of first victories. He’s been injured twice already. For his military services he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. After the hospital treatment, Staff Sergeant Peter Miller got into one of the regiments of the 167th Guards Division, which soon came out to the Dnieper River with the battles.
On the night of October 26, 1943, Staff Sergeant Miller’s platoon together with other divisions of the division began crossing the Dnieper River. The fascists opened fire with machine guns and mortars on the boats in which were soldiers of Peter Miller’s platoon. Only one of the boats reached the right bank of the Dnieper, and only two of them survived: an injured gunner Fedor Parshin and Peter Miller. Quickly digging, the heroes of the fighters entered the battle. Acting bravely and cleverly, they destroyed two firing points along with the calculations, distracting the attention of the Germans, ensured the crossing of their battalion.
The next day, the Guards regiment launched an offensive to expand the bridgehead. The Hitlerites were counterattacking all the time.
…two German tanks smoked on the battlefield, the third tank kept firing on the Guards’ positions. Hiding behind an embankment of narrow-gauge, Peter Miller crawled up to the tank and accurately threw a grenade to destroy the crew, allowing the regiment to go into counterattack. Soon reinforcements came to the Germans and forces became unequal. The guards began to retreat to the Dnieper. That’s when Peter Miller bumped into a German tank. Without hesitation, he climbed into the car, slammed the hatch and opened fire on the advancing fascists with their own machine guns.
The Nazis had a lot to lose in this tank, but they ran out of ammunition. Forged boots caught on the armor: “Ruth, give up!” Peter Miller fired a pistol twice at the Germans trying to lift the hatch. The third cartridge was left for himself, the last cartridge… And suddenly the mighty Russian…
“Hooray!” This neighboring division, having crossed the river, went on the offensive against the Germans, who hurriedly began to retreat.
By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of January 10, 1944 for this feat during the forcing of the Dnieper Miller Peter Klimentievich was awarded the high title Hero of the Soviet Union.
Later Peter Miller fought in the Carpathians. I met Victory Day in Czechoslovakia.
After the war Peter Klimentievich returned to the profession of metallurgist, worked in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk at the lead-zinc plant named after M.V. Lenin. V.I. Lenin.
During the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War at the entrance to the metallurgical shop of the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine was installed a memorial plaque with cast copper words: “In the metallurgical shop worked from 1937 to 1942 the loader Hero of the Soviet Union Miller PK”.
He died on October 21, 1987.
The material is published based on the book published in the RIO Bolashak Baspa and on the Internet.
Qaharman karagandylyktar = Heroes of Karaganda [Text]: a collection of biographical information / edited by J. S. Akylbaev, A. A. Abdakimov, N. O. Dulatbekov, R. K. Omarbekova. – Karaganda: Bolashak-Baspa, 2000. – – 146 p.
