Seryozha Aleshkov became the youngest Red Army soldier who fought in WWII.
The youngest soldier, Aleshkov was awarded the medal ‘For Combat Merit’, and received a Browning as a trophy pistol from an army general and was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant.
In the summer of 1942, Seryozha from the village of Gryn in the Kaluga Region, found himself completely orphaned: His father had died prior to WWII and the Germans executed his mother and brother for their links to the partisans, right before the boy’s eyes.
The six-year-old child was aimlessly wandering in the woods when he was discovered by a reconnaissance group of the 142nd Guards Rifle Regiment.
The soldiers decided to keep him in the regiment and he was even officially adopted by the regiment’s commander, Mikhail Vorobyov.
And Aleshkov became the son of the regiment and would take delight to volunteering himself to deliver newspapers and letters to subunits and constantly ran to headquarters to ask for more instructions.
On a historic day, while he was going about with his regulars, he discovered German fire support spotters hiding in a haystack and informed the Red Army soldiers to finish off the job.
Fast forward to November 1942, the 142nd Guards Rifle Regiment was transferred to Stalingrad to defend it.
During artillery shelling, Seryozha’s adoptive father met his death and was buried under debris in a dugout. The boy tried to dig him out on his own but, when he failed, he ran to find some sappers. Mikhail Vorobyov was saved, albeit shell-shocked and wounded.
“With his cheerfulness and love for his unit and those around him, he boosted morale and confidence in victory at extremely difficult moments. Comrade Aleshkin is the favorite of the regiment,” said the order conferring the award on Sergei, who had just turned seven.
His heroic actions and contributions qualified him to be awarded awarded ‘the For Combat Merit medal.’
Growing up, he survived a bullet on his heel and the little soldier ended in Poland where he served General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the 62nd Army, in which the little soldier served.
The General ordered the boy to be sent to the Suvorov military school where he received a law degree. As a souvenir, the military commander gave Aleshkov a trophy Browning pistol.
But Sergei would not succeed in his military career – he was let down by his health as he was addicted to smoking from an early age. Aleshkov died of a heart attack in 1990, at the age of only 54.
