23.3. 1915 Vasily Zaitsev was born

Vasily Zaitsev was one of the best snipers during World War II. He also wrote several textbooks, taught and was a factory director himself. He was born on March 23, 1915.

He grew up in the harsh environment of the Ural Mountains, where he learned to shoot while hunting game. At the age of twenty-two, he joined the Navy Fleet, having trained as an accountant. After the outbreak of World War II, he took part in the Battle of Stalingrad. Specifically, Zaitsev served in the 1047th Rifle Regiment of the 284th Rifle Division of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front. He is credited with shooting 242 soldiers. But there could have been more...

Zaitsev took a liking to the SVT 38 rifle, which was modified to the SVT 40 in 1940. It was complemented by a short PU sighting scope, ingeniously attached to the rear of the breech lid by a forked bracket whose prongs dug into the rails. It was an effective weapon with a maximum range of 600 metres. Zaitsev claimed that its main advantage lay in its ability to conduct rapid fire.

"We concealed ourselves in a position in the ruins of the house. The Germans moved in marching formation. We let them get within about three hundred meters... and then we opened fire. There were about a hundred Germans. One fell, and then another, and then another...it took two seconds to fire and re-aim, and the SVT rifle has a ten-round magazine. We killed thirty-six Germans there. This shows how important the role of snipers was in the defence of Shalingrad," Zaitsev reportedly said.

He also described how his experience as a nimrod, his unusually keen eyesight, his coolness, his patience, and his ability to find the places where the enemy least expected him helped him the most.

In January 1943, he was severely wounded in the head. He was even presumed dead until a nurse noticed that he was moving his arm. "He was threatened with blindness, but was taken to Moscow, where a world-famous eye surgeon, Vladimir Filatov, saved his sight through a series of operations. He learned of his appointment as a Hero of the Soviet Union from fellow patients in a Moscow hospital," Miloslav Jensik writes in his book about Stalingrad.

After that, he wrote several textbooks and was the commander of a sniper school. He returned to the front as a captain, but was wounded again at the Dnieper River and lived to see the end of the war in a Kiev hospital. "He settled in the city and eventually became the director of a factory. He died in December 1991 at the age of 76," writes Jensik.


Sources:
Martin Pegler, Jan Syka: Sniper Rifles - from the 19th to the 21st Century
Milan Syruček: On the Edge of a Pen
Miloslav Jensik: Stalingrad - 2nd Edition: Every House, Every Window, Every Stone
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