Zinoviy Grigoryevich Kolobanov (1910–1994) was a Soviet tank commander whose company of five KV-1 heavy tanks ambushed a German armoured column on the approaches to Leningrad on 20 August 1941. His own tank, number 864, knocked out 22 German tanks in one battle – one of the most successful tank actions of the war.
A professional tankman
Kolobanov was born at the turn of 1910–1911 in the village of Arefino in the Vladimir region, into a peasant family. His father died in the Civil War, and he went to work young before studying at an industrial technical school in Gorky. He joined the Red Army in the 1930s, trained as a tank officer and fought in the Soviet–Finnish War of 1939–1940 as a tank company commander, receiving the Order of the Red Banner.
In the summer of 1941 he commanded a company of KV-1 heavy tanks in the 1st Tank Regiment of the 1st Tank Division on the Northern Front. The KV-1, with armour up to 75 mm thick, was very hard for the German tank guns of 1941 to penetrate.
The ambush at Voyskovitsy, 20 August 1941
In August 1941 German panzer divisions were driving on Krasnogvardeysk (today Gatchina), the last major town before Leningrad. Kolobanov’s company was ordered to block the roads near the Voyskovitsy state farm. He chose positions where the only road crossed open, marshy ground and dug his five tanks into well-camouflaged pits, two of them in reserve, so that they could fire on the road without being seen.
Kolobanov’s own tank was positioned to fire along the road. When the German column appeared, his gunner, Senior Sergeant Andrei Usov, knocked out the leading tank with the first shot and then the next, blocking the narrow road. Tanks that tried to turn off the road sank in the soft ground. Twenty-two German tanks and two towed guns were destroyed by Kolobanov’s tank before it ran out of ammunition. Together the company destroyed 43 German tanks that day.
After the battle the crew counted 156 hits on their tank. None had penetrated the armour. The crew were: commander Senior Lieutenant Zinoviy Kolobanov, gunner Senior Sergeant Andrei Usov, driver Sergeant Major Nikolai Nikiforov, assistant driver Private Nikolai Rodnikov and radio operator Senior Sergeant Pavel Kiselkov.
Awards and wounds
Kolobanov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the battle, and Usov the Order of Lenin. His company went on fighting in the retreat towards Leningrad. On the night of 15 September 1941, while the tanks were refuelling and taking on ammunition at the cemetery in Pushkin, a German shell burst beside his tank and he was gravely wounded in the head and spine. He was treated in hospitals until March 1945.
After the war
After his recovery Kolobanov returned to the army and served in tank units in Belarus. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1958 and worked at the Minsk Automobile Plant. He died in Minsk on 8 August 1994. In 1980 a memorial with an IS-2 heavy tank on its pedestal was unveiled at the site of the battle near Voyskovitsy.
More: the Siege of Leningrad · all heroes of the war