Lopatin, Aleksei

Lopatin, Aleksei Vasil’evich 

Born Feb. 2 (15), 1915, in the village of Diukovo, Ivanovo Oblast; died July 2, 1941. Commander of the 13th Border Outpost of the Vladimir-Volynskii Detachment (from 1940); Hero of the Soviet Union (Dec. 18, 1957); lieutenant.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) the personnel of the border outpost under Lopatin’s command, while defending the frontier of the USSR, contained for 11 days fascist German troops that enjoyed great superiority over them. On June 29, Lopatin led women and children out of the encirclement, and then returned with the soldiers to the outpost. The heroic border soldiers under Lopatin’s command died bravely in an unequal fight on July 2. In 1958 the border outpost was named after Lopatin, and he was permanently placed on the unit’s personnel list.