Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko
Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko was a Hero of the Soviet Union and one of the best snipers in the Red Army. He is credited with 500 confirmed kills, and is another sniper who was mostly self-taught and did not go through Soviet sniper training.
He was born in 1919 in Smolensky Oblast and went to school until 1939 when he dropped out of college. He was conscripted into the Red Amy and sent to training at Simferopol Military Infantry School. He started fighting with the army, and in 1941 during the Battle of Moscow, he taught himself how to snipe. He went on hunts for enemy soldiers and was so successful that Sideorenko’s commanders requested that he train others. Men were chosen to train with Sidorenko if they had strong eyesight, weapons knowledge and endurance. He and the men he trained did so well that the Germans started sending their own snipers to try and take care of the threat.
Sidorenko was eventually made assistant commander of the Headquarters of the 112th Rifle Regiment where he mostly worked with instructing other men in sniping. He would only occasionally fight, taking a trainee with him to teach them how to perform in battle. It was on one trip with a trainee that he was able to destroy a tank and three tractors by using incendiary bullets. Throughout his time with the Red Army, he was wounded several times but the worst incident came in 1944 when he was wounded in Estonia.
He remained in the hospital until the end of the war, at which point he was told he was too valuable as a teacher to ever be allowed to see combat again. Sidorenko then retired from the Red Army and worked instead as a foreman at a coal mine.