In addition to hostilities and the constant proximity of death, there is always another side to the war - the everyday life of army life. A man at the front not only fought, but was also preoccupied with an endless number of things that he needed to remember.
Without a good organization of the life of servicemen in a combat situation, it is impossible to count on the successful completion of the task. On moral condition fighters, as you know, the organization of life had a huge impact. Without this, a serviceman in the course of hostilities cannot restore the spent moral and physical strength. What kind of recuperation can a soldier expect if, for example, instead of healthy sleep during rest it itches violently to get rid of itching. We tried to collect interesting photos and facts of front-line life and compare the conditions in which Soviet and German soldiers fought.
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Soviet dugout, 1942.
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German soldiers waiting, Central Front, 1942-1943.
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Soviet mortars in a trench.
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German soldiers in a peasant's hut, Central Front, 1943.
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Cultural service of the Soviet troops: front-line concert. 1944
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German soldiers celebrating Christmas, Central Front, 1942.
The soldiers of Senior Lieutenant Kalinin dress after the bath. 1942
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German soldiers at dinner.
Soviet soldiers at work in a field repair workshop. 1943
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German soldiers clean their shoes and sew up clothes.
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First Ukrainian front. General view of the regimental laundry in the forest west of Lvov. 1943
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German soldiers at rest.
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Western front. Haircut and shaving of Soviet soldiers in the front-line barbershop. August 1943
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Haircut and shaving of the soldiers of the German army.
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North Caucasian front. Girls-fighters in leisure hours. 1943
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German soldiers in their free time at rest.
Much in the life of a soldier, and even at the front, depended on uniforms. From the memoirs of a fighter of the Leningrad Front of the 1025th separate mortar company Ivan Melnikov: “We were given pants, a shirt, a cloth tunic, a padded jacket and wadded pants, felt boots, a hat with earflaps, mittens. In such uniforms it was possible to fight in forty-degree frosts. Germans from us were dressed extremely lightly. They were dressed in greatcoats and caps, boots. In especially severe frosts, they wrapped themselves in woolen scarves, wrapped their legs in rags, newspapers, just to save themselves from frostbite. So it was at the beginning of the war near Moscow and later - near Stalingrad. The Germans never got used to the Russian climate."
Western front. Soviet soldiers at leisure time on the front line. 1942
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Correspondence (by correspondence) marriage of a German soldier. The ceremony is conducted by the company commander, 1943.
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Operation in a Soviet field hospital, 1943.
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German field hospital, 1942.
One of the main issues of military life was the supply of the army and military rations. It is clear that you won’t get much hungry. The daily rate of food distribution of the ground forces of the Wehrmacht per day as of 1939:
Bread................................................. ...................... 750 grams
Cereals (semolina, rice) .............................. 8.6 grams
Pasta................................................. .............. 2.86 grams
Meat (beef, veal, pork) .............. 118.6 grams
Sausage................................................. ................. 42.56 grams
Lard bacon .............................................................. ............... 17.15 grams
Animal and vegetable fats ............................... 28.56 grams
Cow butter .................................................................. ....... 21.43 grams
Margarine................................................. .............. 14.29 grams
Sugar................................................. .................... 21.43 grams
Ground coffee................................................ ......... 15.72 grams
Tea................................................. ....................... 4 grams per week
Cocoa powder ............................................... ......... 20 grams (per week)
Potato................................................. ............. 1500 grams
-or beans (beans) .............................................. 365 grams
Vegetables (celery, peas, carrots, kohlrabi) ........ 142.86 grams
or canned vegetables .......................... 21.43 grams
Apples................................................. ................... 1 piece per week
Pickles................................................ ..... 1 piece per week
Milk................................................. ................. 20 grams per week
Cheese................................................. ....................... 21.57 grams
Eggs................................................. ...................... 3 pieces per week
Canned fish (sardines in oil) .............................. 1 can per week
German soldiers at rest.
The daily ration was given German soldiers once a day, all at once, usually in the evening, after dark, when it becomes possible to send food carriers to the near rear to the field kitchen. The place of eating and the distribution of food for food during the day, the soldier determined independently.
During the Great Patriotic War, the fascist troops who fought on Eastern Front, the norms for the issuance of food, the supply of uniforms and footwear, and the consumption of ammunition were revised. Their reduction and reduction played a certain positive role in the victory of the Soviet people in the war.
German soldiers during a meal.
Large containers equipped with shoulder straps were used to deliver food from the field kitchen to the fascist front line. They were of two types: with a large round screw cap and with a hinged cap, measuring over the entire cross section of the container. The first type was intended for the transport of drinks (coffee, compotes, rum, schnapps, etc.), the second - for dishes such as soup, porridge, goulash.
The daily norm for the issuance of food to the Red Army and the commanding staff of the combat units of the active army of the Soviet Union as of 1941:
Bread: October-March......................900 grams
April-September..............................800 grams
Wheat flour, 2nd grade............. 20 grams
Groats different ............................... 140 grams
Macaroni.................................30 grams
Meat.........................................150 grams
Fish............................................100 grams
Combined fat and lard ...................... 30 grams
Vegetable oil......................20 grams
Sugar ................................................35 grams
Tea............................................1 gram
Salt .................................................30 grams
Vegetables:
- potatoes.................................500 grams
- cabbage......................................170 grams
- carrots ........................................45 grams
- beets .......................................... 40 grams
- onion .................................. 30 grams
- greens ...................................... 35 grams
Makhorka ........................................20 grams
Matches..............................3 boxes per month
Soap.................................200 grams per month
June 1942. Sending freshly baked bread to the front line
It is worth noting that the food norms did not always reach the fighters in full - there was simply not enough food. Then the foremen of the units gave out instead of the established 900 grams of bread, only 850, or even less. Such conditions encourage the command of the unit to use the help of the local population. And in difficult conditions of battles, unit commanders often did not have the opportunity to pay due attention to the catering unit. Duty officers were not appointed, and elementary sanitary conditions were not observed.
Field kitchen Soviet soldiers.
Soviet soldiers during a meal.
When writing the article, materials were used
One generation on the shoulders?
Isn't it too much?
Trials and Contradictions
Isn't it too much?
Evgeny Dolmatovsky
Military photo and film chronicles in their best shots through the decades have conveyed to us the true image of a soldier - the main worker of the war. Not a poster fellow with a blush all over his cheek, but a simple fighter, in a shabby overcoat, a crumpled cap, in hastily wound windings, at the cost own life won that terrible war. After all, what we often see on TV can only remotely be called a war. “Soldiers and officers in bright and clean sheepskin coats, in beautiful hats with earflaps, in felt boots are moving across the screen! Their faces are as pure as morning snow. And where are the burned overcoats with the greasy left shoulder? It can’t be greasy!.. Where are the exhausted, sleepy, dirty faces?” - asks a veteran of the 217th Infantry Division Belyaev Valerian Ivanovich.
How a soldier lived at the front, in what conditions he fought, was afraid or did not know fear, froze or was shod, dressed, warmed, survived on dry rations or was fed hot porridge from the field kitchen to the full, what he did in short breaks between battles ...
Uncomplicated front-line life, which, however, was the most important factor war, became the subject of my research. Indeed, according to the same Valerian Ivanovich Belyaev, “memories of my stay at the front are connected for me not only with battles, sorties to the front line, but also with trenches, rats, lice, and the death of comrades.”
Work on the topic is a tribute to the memory of the dead and missing in that war. These people dreamed of an early victory and meeting with loved ones, hoping that they would return alive and unharmed. The war took them away, leaving us letters and photographs. In the photo - girls and women, young officers and experienced soldiers. Beautiful faces, smart and kind eyes. They still do not know what will happen to them all very soon ...
Getting down to work, we talked with many veterans, re-read their front-line letters and diaries, and rely only on eyewitness accounts.
So, the morale of the troops, their combat effectiveness, largely depended on the organization of the life of the soldiers. The supply of troops, providing them with everything necessary at the time of retreat, exit from the encirclement differed sharply from the period when Soviet troops turned to active offensive operations.
The first weeks, months of the war, for well-known reasons (the suddenness of the attack, sluggishness, short-sightedness, and sometimes outright mediocrity of military leaders) turned out to be the most difficult for our soldiers. All the main warehouses with stocks of materiel on the eve of the war were located 30-80 km from state border. Such placement was a tragic miscalculation of our command. In connection with the retreat, many warehouses and bases were blown up by our troops due to the impossibility of their evacuation, or destroyed by enemy aircraft. For a long time, the provision of troops with hot food was not established, in the newly formed units there were no camp kitchens, kettles. Many units and formations did not receive bread and crackers for several days. There were no bakeries.
From the first days of the war, there was a huge flow of the wounded, and there was no one and nothing to provide assistance: “The property of sanitary institutions was destroyed by fires and enemy bombardments, the sanitary institutions being formed were left without property. There is a big shortage of dressings, narcotic drugs and sera in the troops.” (from the report of the headquarters of the Western Front to the Sanitary Directorate of the Red Army of June 30, 1941).
Near Unecha in 1941, the 137th Rifle Division, which at that time was part of the first 3rd and then the 13th armies, left the encirclement. Basically, they went out in an organized manner, in full uniform, with weapons, they tried not to stoop. “... In the villages they shaved, if possible. There was one emergency: a soldier stole a piece of bacon from the locals ... He was sentenced to death, and only after crying the women were pardoned. It was difficult to feed on the road, so we ate all the horses that were with us ... ”(from the memoirs of a military paramedic of the 137th Rifle Division Bogatykh I.I.)
Those who retreated and left the encirclement had one hope for the locals: “They came to the village ... there were no Germans, they even found the chairman of the collective farm ... they ordered cabbage soup with meat for 100 people. The women boiled it, poured it into barrels… For the only time in the entire environment, they had a good meal. And so all the time hungry, wet from the rain. We slept on the ground, chopped up spruce branches and dozed off ... We all weakened to the extreme. Many of their legs were swollen so that they did not fit into boots ... ”(from the memoirs of Stepantsev A.P., head of the chemical service of the 771st rifle regiment of the 137th rifle division).
The autumn of 1941 was especially difficult for the soldiers: “It snowed, it was very cold at night, many of their shoes were broken. From my boots there were only tops, which were the toes out. He wrapped the shoes with rags until he found old bast shoes in one village. All of us have become overgrown like bears, even the young have become like old people ... the need forced us to go and ask for a piece of bread. It was insulting and painful that we, the Russian people, are the masters of our country, but we go stealthily through it, through forests and ravines, we sleep on the ground, and even on trees. There were days when you completely forgot the taste of bread. I had to eat raw potatoes, beets, if found in the field, or even just viburnum, but it's bitter, you can't eat a lot of it. In the villages, requests for food were increasingly refused. It happened to hear this: “How tired of you ...” (from the memoirs of R. G. Khmelnov, a military paramedic of the 409th rifle regiment of the 137th rifle division). The soldiers suffered not only physically, but also mentally. It was difficult to endure the reproaches of the inhabitants who remained in the occupied territory.
The plight of the soldiers is evidenced by the fact that in many units they had to eat horses, which, however, were no longer good for starvation: “The horses were so exhausted that they had to be injected with caffeine before the campaign. I had a mare - you poke her - she falls, and she can’t stand up by herself anymore, she lifted her by the tail ... Somehow a horse was killed in a burst from an airplane, after half an hour the soldiers pulled away that there were no hooves left, only a tail ... Food was tight, I had to carry food on myself for many kilometers ... Even bread from bakeries was carried for 20-30 kilometers ... ”, - Stepantsev A.P. recalls his front-line everyday life.
Gradually, the country and the army recovered from the sudden attack of the Nazis, the supply of food and uniforms to the front was established. All this was done by special units - the Food and Feed Supply Service. But the rear forces did not always work quickly. The commander of the communications battalion of the 137th Infantry Division Lukyanuk F.M. recalls: “We were all surrounded, and after the battle, many of my fighters put on warm German uniforms under their overcoats and changed into German boots. I built my soldiers, I look - half, like Fritz ... "
Guseletov P.I., commissar of the 3rd battery of the 137th rifle division: “I arrived in the division in April ... I selected fifteen people in the companies ... All my recruits were tired, dirty, ragged and hungry. The first step was to put them in order. I got homemade soap, found threads, needles, scissors, with which the collective farmers sheared sheep, and began to shear, shave, patch holes and sew on buttons, wash clothes, wash ... "
Receipt new form for soldiers at the front - a whole event. After all, many fell into the unit in their civilian clothes or in overcoats from someone else's shoulder. In the “Order on the call for the mobilization of citizens born in 1925 and older before 1893, living in the territory liberated from occupation” for 1943, paragraph No. spoon, socks, two pairs of underwear, as well as the surviving uniforms of the Red Army.
War veteran Belyaev Valerian Ivanovich recalls: “... We were given new overcoats. These were not overcoats, but simply luxury, as it seemed to us. The soldier's overcoat is the hairiest ... The overcoat had a very great importance in frontline life. She served as a bed, and a blanket, and a pillow ... In cold weather, you lie down on your overcoat, pull your legs up to your chin, and cover yourself with the left half and tuck it in from all sides. At first it is cold - you lie down and shiver, and then it becomes warm from breathing. Or almost warm.
You get up after sleep - the overcoat froze to the ground. With a shovel, you cut off a layer of earth and raise a whole overcoat along with the earth. Then the earth itself will fall off.
The whole overcoat was my pride. In addition, a non-perforated overcoat protected better from cold and rain ... On the front line, it was generally forbidden to take off an overcoat. It was only allowed to loosen the waist belt ... And the song about the overcoat was:
My overcoat is marching, it is always with me
It is always like new, the edges are cut off,
Army harsh, my dear.
At the front, soldiers, longingly remembering their home and comfort, managed to more or less tolerably get settled on the front line. Most often, the fighters were located in trenches, trenches, less often in dugouts. But without a shovel, neither a trench nor a trench can be built. There were often not enough entrenching tools for everyone: “The shovels were given to us on one of the first days of our stay in the company. But here's the problem! For a company of 96 people, only 14 shovels were received. When they were given out, there was even a small dump ... The lucky ones began to dig in ... ”(from the memoirs of Belyaev V.I.).
And then a whole ode to the shovel: “A shovel in war is life! Dug a trench for yourself and lie still. Bullets are whistling, shells are exploding, their fragments are rushing with a short screech, you don’t care. A thick layer of earth protects you ... ”But a trench is an insidious thing. During the rains, water accumulated at the bottom of the trench, reaching the soldiers to the waist, or even higher. During shelling, one had to sit in such a trench for hours. To get out of it means to die. And they sat, otherwise it’s impossible, if you want to live, be patient. There will be a lull - you will wash, dry, rest, sleep.
I must say that during the war the country had very strict hygiene rules. IN military units located in the rear, systematically examined for lice. In order not to pronounce this dissonant term, the wording "form 20 examination" was used. To do this, the company, without tunics, lined up in two lines. The foreman commanded: "Prepare for inspection in form 20!" Those standing in the ranks took off their undershirts to the sleeves and turned them inside out. The foreman walked along the line and the fighters, who had lice on their shirts, were sent to the sanitary inspection room. War veteran Valerian Ivanovich Belyaev recalls how he himself went through one of these sanitary checkpoints: “It was a bathhouse, in which there was a so-called“ fryer ”, that is, a chamber for frying (warming up) wearable things. While we were washing in the bath, all our things were warmed up in this “roaster” at a very high temperature. When we got our things back, they were so hot that we had to wait for them to cool down ... "Fryers" were in all garrisons and military units. And at the front, they also arranged such fryers. The soldiers called lice "the second enemy after the Nazis." Front-line doctors had to fight them mercilessly. “It happened at the crossing - only a halt, even in the cold everyone throws off their tunics and, well, crush them with grenades, only there is a crack. I will never forget the picture of how the captured Germans scratched furiously ... We never had typhoid, the lice were destroyed by sanitation. Once, out of zeal, even the tunic was burned along with the lice, only the medals remained, ”recalled Piorunsky V.D., military doctor of the 409th Infantry Regiment of the 137th Infantry Division. And further from his own memoirs: “We were faced with the task of preventing lice, but how to do it at the forefront? And we came up with one way. They found a fire hose about twenty meters long, punched ten holes in it every meter, and drowned out its end. Water was boiled in gasoline barrels and continuously poured through a funnel into a hose, it flowed through the holes, and soldiers stood under the hose, washed and oohed with pleasure. Underwear was changed, and outerwear was roasted. Then a hundred grams, a sandwich in the teeth, and into the trenches. In this way, we quickly washed the entire regiment, that even from other units they came to us for experience ... "
Rest, and above all sleep, was worth its weight in gold in war. Sleep was always lacking at the front. On the front line at night, it was generally forbidden for everyone to sleep. During the day, half of the personnel could sleep, and the other half to monitor the situation.
According to the memoirs of Belyaev V.I., a veteran of the 217th Infantry Division, “during the campaign, sleep was even worse. They were not allowed to sleep for more than three hours a day. The soldiers literally fell asleep on the go. It was possible to observe such a picture. There is a column. Suddenly, one fighter breaks down and moves for some time next to the column, gradually moving away from it. So he reached the roadside ditch, stumbled and was already lying motionless. They run up to him and see that he is fast asleep. It is very difficult to push such a person and put them in a column! .. It was considered the greatest happiness to cling to any wagon. The lucky ones who did it got good sleep on the go.” Many slept for the future, because they knew that there might not be another opportunity like this.
A soldier at the front needed not only cartridges, rifles, shells. One of the main issues of military life is the supply of food to the army. Hungry won't win much. We have already mentioned how difficult it was for the troops in the first months of the war. In the future, the supply of food to the front was debugged, because for the disruption of supplies it was possible to lose not only shoulder straps, but also life.
Soldiers were regularly given dry rations, especially on the march: “For five days, each was given: three and a half smoked herring of rather large sizes ... 7 rye crackers and 25 pieces of sugar ... It was American sugar. A mound of salt was piled on the ground and it was announced that everyone could take it. I poured salt into a canned food jar, tied it in a rag and put it in a duffel bag. No one took the salt besides me… It was clear that I would have to go hungry.” (from the memoirs of Belyaev V.I.)
It was 1943, the country actively helped the front, giving it equipment, food, and people, but still the food was very modest.
A veteran of the Great Patriotic War, artilleryman Osnach Ivan Prokofievich recalls that dry rations included sausage, bacon, sugar, sweets, and stewed meat. The products were American made. They, the gunners, were supposed to be fed 3 times, but this norm was not respected.
The composition of dry rations included shag. Almost all the men in the war were heavy smokers. Many who did not smoke before the war did not part with cigarettes at the front: “It was bad with tobacco. They gave out shag as a smoke: 50 grams for two ... A small pack in a brown package. They were issued irregularly, and smokers suffered greatly ... As a non-smoking guy, shag was useless to me, and this determined my special position in the company. Smokers jealously protected me from bullets and shrapnel. Everyone understood very well that with my departure to the next world or to the hospital, an additional ration of shag would disappear from the company ... When they brought shag, a small dump arose around me. Everyone tried to convince me that I should give my ration of shag to him ... ”(from the memoirs of Belyaev V.I.). This determined the special role of shag in the war. Simple soldier songs were composed about her:
How do you receive a letter from your beloved,
Remember the distant lands
And smoke, and with a ring of smoke
Your sadness flies!
Oh, shag, shag,
We made friends with you!
Watches vigilantly look into the distance,
We are ready to fight! We are ready to fight!
Now about the hot meals for the soldiers. Camping kitchens were in every unit, in every military unit. The hardest part is getting food to the front line. Products were transported in special thermoses - containers.
According to the then existing orders, the foreman of the company and the clerk were engaged in the delivery of food. And they had to do this even during the battle. Sometimes one of the fighters was sent for dinner.
Very often, girls-chauffeurs on lorries were engaged in the transportation of products. War veteran Feodosia Fedoseevna Lositskaya spent the whole war at the steering wheel of a lorry. Everything was in the work: breakdowns that she, unknowingly, could not eliminate, and spending the night in the forest or steppe in the open, and shelling enemy aircraft. And how many times she cried bitterly from resentment when, having loaded food and thermoses with tea, coffee and soup onto the car, she came to the airfield to the pilots with empty containers: German planes flew in on the road and riddled with bullets all thermoses.
Her husband, military pilot Mikhail Alekseevich Lositsky, recalled that even in their flight canteen it was not always good with food: “Forty degrees of frost! Now a mug of hot tea! But in our dining room, you will not see anything other than millet porridge and dark stew.” And here are his own memories of his stay in the frontline hospital: “The stale, heavy air is densely saturated with the smell of iodine, rotten meat and smoke from tobacco. Thin stew and a crust of bread - that's the whole dinner. Occasionally they give pasta or a couple of spoons of mashed potatoes and a cup of barely sweet tea ... "
Belyaev Valerian Ivanovich recalls: “Dinner appeared at nightfall. At the forefront, meals are served twice: immediately after dark and before dawn. During daylight hours, I had to make do with five pieces of sugar, which were given out daily.
Hot food was delivered to us in a green thermos the size of a bucket. This thermos was oval in shape and was carried on the back on straps, like a duffel bag. Bread was delivered in loaves. For food we sent two people: the foreman and the clerk ...
... For food, everyone gets out of the trench and sits in a circle. One day we were having lunch in this way, when suddenly a flare flared up in the sky. We are all pressed to the ground. The rocket went out, and everyone starts eating again. Suddenly one of the fighters shouts: “Brothers! Bullet!" - and takes out a German bullet from his mouth, which is stuck in bread ... "
During transitions, on the march, the enemy often destroyed camp kitchens. The fact is that the kitchen cauldron rose above the ground much higher than human height, since there was a firebox under the cauldron. A black chimney rose even higher, from which smoke swirled. It was an excellent target for the enemy. But, despite the difficulties and danger, front-line cooks tried not to leave the fighters without hot food.
Another concern at the front is water. Soldiers replenished their drinking water supplies by passing through settlements. At the same time, it was necessary to exercise caution: very often the Germans, retreating, made the wells unusable, poisoned the water in them. Therefore, the wells had to be guarded: “He made me great impression strict order of providing our troops with water. As soon as we entered the village, a special military unit, which exhibited sentries at all sources of water. Usually such sources were wells, the water in which was tested. The sentries did not let them come close to other wells.
... The posts at all wells were around the clock. Troops came and went, but the sentry was always at his post. This very strict order guaranteed complete security for our troops in providing water ... "
Even under German fire, the sentry did not leave the post at the well.
“The Germans opened artillery shelling along the well ... We ran away from the well for quite a long distance. I look around and see that the sentry has remained at the well. Just laid down. Such was the discipline of the protection of water sources! (from the memoirs of Belyaev V.I.)
The people at the front, when solving everyday problems, showed maximum ingenuity, resourcefulness and skill. “We received only the bare minimum from the rear of the country,” A.P. Stepantsev recalls. - many have adapted to do themselves. Sledges were made, harnesses for horses were sewn, horseshoes were made - all beds and harrows were forged in the villages. They even cast the spoons themselves... Captain Nikitin, a Gorky resident, was the head of the regimental bakery - under what conditions did he have to bake bread! In the ruined villages, not a single whole oven - and after six hours they were baking, a ton a day. They even adapted their mill. Almost everything for everyday life had to be done with one’s own hands, and without an organized life, what could be the combat capability of the troops ... "
Soldiers and on the march managed to get themselves boiling water: “... Village. Chimneys stuck out all around, but if you get off the road and get close to such a pipe, you can see the burning logs. We quickly got the hang of using them. We put a kettle of water on these logs - one minute and the tea is ready. Of course, it was not tea, but hot water. It is not clear why we called it tea. At that time, we did not even think that our water would boil on the misfortune of people ... ”(Belyaev V.I.)
Among the fighters, who were accustomed to doing little in pre-war life, there were simply real jacks of all trades. Guseletov P.I., political officer of the 238th separate anti-tank fighter battalion of the 137th rifle division, recalls one of these craftsmen: “Our uncle Vasya Ovchinnikov was on the battery. He was originally from the Gorky region, he spoke “o” ... In May, the cook was wounded. Uncle Vasya’s name is: “Can you do it temporarily?” - "Can. Sometimes, at the mowing, they cooked everything themselves. ” Rawhide leather was required to repair ammunition - where can I get it? Again to him. - "Can. It used to be that at home they made leather and everything themselves. ” The horse has become loose in the battalion economy - where can I find a master? “I can do that too. At home, it used to be that everyone forged themselves. ” For the kitchen, buckets, basins, stoves were needed - where to get it, you won’t wait from the rear, - “Can you, Uncle Vasya?” - “I can, it used to be, at home they made iron stoves and pipes themselves.” In winter, skis were needed, but where can I get them at the front? - "Can. At home, at that time, they went to the bear, so they always made skis themselves. At the company commander's pocket watch got up - again to Uncle Vasya. - "I can watch, but I just need to look well."
But what can I say, when he got the hang of pouring spoons! A master - for any business, everything turned out so well for him, as if it was done by itself. And in the spring he baked such pancakes from rotten potatoes on a piece of rusty iron that the company commander did not disdain ... "
Many veterans of the Great Patriotic kind word remember the famous "People's Commissar's" 100 grams. In the signed People's Commissar of Defense I.V. The Stalin Decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR “On the introduction of vodka into the supply in the active Red Army” dated August 22, 1941 stated: “Establish, starting from September 1, 1941, the issuance of 40º vodka in the amount of 100 grams per person per person to the Red Army and the commanding staff of the first line of the existing army." It was the first and only experience of the legal issuance of alcohol in national army in the 20th century.
From the memoirs of military pilot M.A. Lositsky: “Today there will be no sorties. Free evening. We are allowed to drink the prescribed 100 grams ... "And here's another:" To capture the faces of the wounded officers when they were poured 100 grams and brought along with a quarter of bread and a piece of lard.
M.P. Serebrov, commander of the 137th Infantry Division, recalls: “Having stopped the pursuit of the enemy, parts of the division began to put themselves in order. Camp kitchens approached, they began to distribute lunch and the prescribed one hundred grams of vodka from trophy reserves ... "Tereshchenko N.I., platoon commander of the 4th battery of the 17th artillery regiment of the 137th rifle division:" After a successful shooting, everyone gathered for breakfast. Placed, of course, in the trenches. Our cook, Masha, brought homemade potatoes. After the front-line hundred grams and the congratulations of the regiment commander, everyone cheered up ... "
The war continued for four difficult years. Many fighters went through the front roads from the first to last day. Not every soldier had a happy opportunity to get a vacation and see relatives and friends. Many families remained in the occupied territory. For most, the only thread that connected him to home was letters. Front-line letters are a truthful, sincere, source of study of the Great Patriotic War, little subject to ideology. Written in a trench, a dugout, in a forest under a tree, soldiers' letters reflect the whole gamut of feelings experienced by a person who defends his homeland with weapons in his hands: anger at the enemy, pain and suffering for his native land and his loved ones. And in all the letters - faith in a quick victory over the Nazis. In these letters, a person appears naked, what he really is, because he cannot lie and be hypocritical in moments of danger either before himself or before people.
But even in the war, under bullets, next to blood and death, people tried to simply live. Even at the forefront, they were worried about everyday questions and problems common to all. They shared their experiences with family and friends. In almost all letters, soldiers describe their front-line life, military life: “The weather here is not very cold, but the frost is decent and especially the wind. But we are now well dressed, a fur coat, felt boots, so that we are not afraid of frost, one thing is bad that they are not sent closer to the front line ... ”(from a letter from the guard captain Leonid Alekseevich Karasev to his wife Anna Vasilyevna Kiseleva in the city of Unecha dated December 4, 1944 G.). The letters express concern and concern for loved ones, who are also having a hard time. From a letter from Karasev L.A. to his wife in Unecha dated June 3, 1944: “Tell the one who wants to evict my mother that if I come, he won’t do well ... I’ll turn his head on one side ...” But from his own letter dated December 9, 1944: “Nyurochka, I’m very sorry for you that you have to freeze. Press on your superiors, let them provide firewood ... "
From a letter from Mikhail Krivopusk, a graduate of school No. 1 in Unecha, to his sister Nadezhda: “I received a letter from you, Nadya, where you write how you hid from the Germans. You write to me which of the policemen mocked you and on whose instructions a cow, a bicycle and other things were taken from you, if I stay alive, I will pay them for everything ... ”(dated April 20, 1943). Mikhail did not have a chance to punish the offenders of his relatives: on February 20, 1944, he died liberating Poland.
Almost every letter contains longing for home, relatives and loved ones. After all, young and handsome men went to the front, many in the status of newlyweds. Karasev Leonid Ivanovich and his wife Anna Vasilievna, who were mentioned above, got married on June 18, 1941, and four days later the war began, and the young husband went to the front. He was demobilized only at the end of 1946. The honeymoon had to be postponed for almost 6 years. In his letters to his wife, love, tenderness, passion and inexpressible longing, the desire to be close to his beloved: “Beloved! I returned from the headquarters, I was tired, I walked at night. But when I saw your letter on the table, all fatigue and anger went away, and when I opened the envelope and found your card, I kissed it, but this is paper, and you are not alive ... Now your card is pinned to me at the head of my bed, now I have the opportunity, no, no, and even look at you ... ”(dated December 18, 1944). And in another letter, it’s just a cry from the heart: “Honey, I’m sitting in a dugout now, smoking makhorka - I remembered something, and such longing, or rather, evil takes everything for this ... Why am I so unlucky, because people get the opportunity to see their relatives and loved ones, but I’m not lucky ... Darling, believe me, I’m tired of all this scribble and paper ... you understand, I want to see you, I want to be with you for at least an hour, and everything else to hell, you know, to hell, I want you - that's all ... I'm tired of this whole life in anticipation and uncertainty ... I now have one outcome ... I will come to you without permission, and then I will go to the penal company, otherwise I will not wait to meet you! .. If there was vodka, now I would get drunk drunk ... ”(dated August 30, 1944).
Soldiers write in their letters about the house, remember the pre-war life, dream of a peaceful future, of returning from the war. From a letter from Mikhail Krivopusk to his sister Nadezhda: “If you look at those green meadows, at the trees near the shore ... the girls are swimming in the sea, then you think that you would throw yourself overboard and swim. But nothing, we will finish off the German, and only then ... ”Many letters contain a sincere manifestation of patriotic feelings. This is how our countryman Dyshel Yevgeny Romanovich writes about the death of his brother in a letter to his father: “... Valentin should be proud, because he died in battle honestly, went into battle fearlessly ... In past battles, I avenged him ... Let's meet, we'll talk in more detail ... "( dated September 27, 1944). Major tanker Dyshel did not have to meet his father - on January 20, 1945, he died liberating Poland.
From a letter from Karasev Leonid Alekseevich to his wife Anna Vasilievna: “It is a great joy that we are conducting an offensive along almost the entire front and quite successfully, many large cities have been taken. In general, the successes of the Red Army are unprecedented. So soon Hitler will be kaput, as the Germans themselves say ”(letter dated June 6, 1944).
Thus, miraculously preserved to this day, soldier's triangles with a field mail number instead of a return address and a black government stamp “Viewed by military censorship” are the most sincere and reliable voices of the war. Living, genuine words that came to us from the distant "forties, fatal" today sound with special power. Each of the front-line letters, the most insignificant at first glance, albeit deeply personal - historical document the greatest value. Each envelope contains pain and joy, hope, longing and suffering. You feel an acute feeling of bitterness when you read these letters, knowing that the one who wrote them did not return from the war ... Letters are a kind of chronicle of the Great Patriotic War ...
The front-line writer Konstantin Simonov owns the following words: “War is not a continuous danger, the expectation of death and thoughts about it. If this were so, then not a single person would have endured its severity ... War is a combination of mortal danger, the constant possibility of being killed, chance and all the features and details of everyday life that are always present in our life ... A person at the front is busy with an infinite number of things , which he constantly needs to think about and because of which he does not have time to think about his safety at all ... ”It was everyday everyday activities that had to be distracted all the time, helped the soldiers overcome fear, gave the soldiers psychological stability.
65 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, but the end of its study has not yet been set: blank spots remain, unknown pages, unexplained fate, strange circumstances. And the topic of front-line life is the least explored in this series.
Bibliography
- V. Kiselev. Fellow soldiers. Documentary storytelling. Publishing house "Nizhpoligraf", Nizhny Novgorod, 2005
- IN AND. Belyaev. Fire, water and copper pipes. (Memories of an old soldier). Moscow, 2007
- P. Lipatov. Uniform of the Red Army and Navy. Encyclopedia of technology. Publishing house "Tekhnika-molodezhi". Moscow, 1995
- Stock materials of Unechsky local history museum(front-line letters, diaries, memoirs of veterans).
- Memoirs of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, recorded during personal conversations.
This post will tell us about what Soviet soldiers had to fight in during the Great Patriotic War. Despite the fact that at that time military personnel often wore trophy clothes, no one canceled the generally accepted equipment, and read below about what it included.
Steel helmet SSH-40. This helmet is a modernization of the SSH-39 helmet, accepted for supply to the Red Army in June 1939. In the design of the SSH-39, the shortcomings of the previous SSH-36 were eliminated, however, the operation of the SSH-39 during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. revealed a significant drawback - it was impossible to put on a winter hat under it, and a regular woolen balaclava did not save from severe frosts. Therefore, soldiers often broke out the SSH-39 under-the-shoulder device and wore a helmet over a hat without it.
As a result, in the new SSH-40 helmet, the under-shoulder device was significantly different from the SSH-39, although the shape of the dome remained unchanged. Visually, the SSH-40 can be distinguished by six rivets around the circumference in the lower part of the helmet dome, while the SSH-39 has three rivets, and they are located at the top. The SSH-40 used a three-leaf under-body device, to which reverse side shock absorber bags stuffed with technical cotton were sewn on. The petals were pulled together with a cord, which made it possible to adjust the depth of the helmet on the head.
The production of the SSH-40 began to be deployed at the beginning of 1941 in Lysva in the Urals, and a little later in Stalingrad at the Krasny Oktyabr plant, but by June 22 the troops had only a small number of these helmets. By the autumn of 1942, helmets of this type were made only in Lysva. Gradually SSH-40 became the main type of helmet of the Red Army. He was released in large quantities and after the war, and was withdrawn from service relatively recently.
The pot is round. A bowler hat of a similar round shape was used in the army Russian Empire, made of copper, brass, tin plate, and later aluminum. In 1927, in Leningrad, at the Krasny Vyborzhets plant, mass production of round stamped aluminum bowlers for the Red Army was launched, but in 1936 they were replaced by a new flat bowler hat.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in the fall of 1941, the manufacture of round bowlers was again established in Lysva in the Urals, but from steel instead of scarce aluminum. The return to the round shape was also understandable - such a bowler hat was easier to manufacture. The Lysvensky plant did a great job, which made it possible to significantly reduce the cost of production. By 1945, the total production of round army bowlers amounted to more than 20 million pieces - they became the most massive in the Red Army. Production continued after the war.
Duffel bag. This item of equipment, nicknamed "sidor" by the soldiers, was a simple bag with a strap and a rope neck tie. He first appeared in tsarist army in 1869 and without significant changes he got into the Red Army. In 1930, a new standard was adopted that determined the look of the duffel bag - in accordance with it, it was now called the "Turkestan type duffel bag", or the duffel bag of the 1930 model.
The duffel bag had only one compartment, the top of which could be pulled with a rope. A shoulder strap was sewn to the bottom of the bag, on which two jumpers were put on, intended for fastening on the chest. On the other side of the shoulder strap, three rope loops were sewn to adjust the length. A wooden toggle was sewn to the corner of the bag, for which the loop of the shoulder strap clung. The shoulder strap was folded into a "cow" knot, into the center of which the neck of the bag was threaded, after which the knot was tightened. In this form, the bag was put on and carried behind the back of the fighter.
In 1941, there was a change in the appearance of the duffel bag of the 1930 model: it became slightly smaller, the shoulder strap was narrower and received lining inside on the shoulders, which required its stitching. In 1942, a new simplification followed - the lining in the shoulder strap was abandoned, but the strap itself was made wider. In this form, the duffel bag was produced until the end of the 40s. Taking into account the ease of manufacture, the duffel bag became the main means for carrying the personal belongings of the Red Army soldiers during the Great Patriotic War.
Gas mask bag model 1939. By 1945, no one removed the gas mask from the supply of Red Army soldiers. However, four years of the war passed without chemical attacks, and the soldiers tried to get rid of the "unnecessary" piece of equipment by handing it over to the wagon train. Often, despite the constant control of the command, gas masks were simply thrown away, and personal belongings were carried in gas mask bags.
During the war, soldiers of even one unit could have different bags and gas masks different types. The photo shows a gas mask bag of the 1939 model, issued in December 1941. The bag, made of tent fabric, closed with a button. It was much easier to make than the 1936 bag.
Small infantry shovel. During the war, the MPL-50 small infantry shovel underwent a number of changes aimed at simplifying production. At first, the overall design of the tray and shovel remained unchanged, but the fastening of the lining with the rear cord began to be made by electric spot welding instead of rivets, a little later they abandoned the crimp ring, continuing to fasten the handle between the cords with rivets.
In 1943, an even more simplified version of the MPL-50 appeared: the shovel became one-piece stamped. It abandoned the lining with the rear cord, and the shape of the upper part of the front cord became even (before it was triangular). Moreover, now the front strand began to twist, forming a tube, fastened with a rivet or welding. The handle was inserted into this tube, tightly hammered until wedging with a shovel tray, after which it was fixed with a screw. The photo shows a shovel of intermediate series - with strands, without a ferrule, with fixing the lining by spot welding.
Pomegranate bag. Each infantryman carried hand grenades, which were regularly carried in a special bag on the waist belt. The bag was located on the left rear, after the cartridge bag and in front of the grocery bag. It was a quadrangular fabric bag with three compartments. Grenades were placed in two large ones, and detonators for them were placed in the third, small one. The grenades were brought into combat position immediately before use. The material of the bag could be tarpaulin, canvas or tent fabric. The bag was closed with a button or wooden toggle.
Two old grenades of the 1914/30 model or two RGD-33 (pictured) were placed in the bag, which were stacked with the handles up. The detonators lay in paper or rags. Also, four F-1 "lemons" could fit in pairs in a bag, and they were located in a peculiar way: on each grenade, the ignition nest was closed with a special screw plug made of wood or Bakelite, while one grenade was placed with the cork down, and the second up. With the adoption of new types of grenades during the war by the Red Army, putting them in a bag was similar to the F-1 grenades. Without significant changes, the grenade bag served from 1941 to 1945.
Soldier's trousers of the 1935 model. Accepted for supply to the Red Army by the same order as the tunic of 1935, bloomers remained unchanged throughout the Great Patriotic War. They were high-waisted breeches, well-fitting at the waist, loose at the top and tightly fitting the calves.
Drawstrings were sewn on the bottom of the trousers. There were two deep pockets on the sides of the trousers, and another pocket with a flap fastened with a button was located in the back. At the belt, next to the codpiece, was a small pocket for a death medallion. Pentagonal reinforcement pads were sewn on the knees. Loops for a trouser belt were provided on the belt, although the possibility of adjusting the volume was also provided with the help of a strap with a buckle in the back. Bloomers were made from a special double "harem" diagonal and were quite durable.
Soldier's gymnast, model 1943. was introduced by order People's Commissar Defense of the USSR dated January 15, 1943 instead of the gymnast of the 1935 model. The main differences were in a soft standing collar instead of a turn-down. The collar was fastened with two small uniform buttons. The front placket was open and fastened with three buttons through through loops.
Attached shoulder straps were placed on the shoulders, for which belt loops were sewn. The soldier's tunic had no pockets in wartime, they were introduced later. Pentagonal field epaulettes were worn on the shoulders in combat conditions. The infantry's epaulette field was green, the piping along the edge of the epaulette was crimson. Lychki Jr. commanders sewn at the top of the shoulder strap.
Belt. Due to the fact that leather was expensive to process and often required for the manufacture of more durable and responsible items of equipment, by the end of the war, a braid waist belt reinforced with leather or split leather elements became more common. This type of belt appeared before 1941 and was used until the end of the war.
Many leather waist belts, differing in detail, came from Lend-Lease allies. The American belt shown in the photo, 45 mm wide, had a single-pronged buckle, like the Soviet counterparts, but it was not made of wire that was round in cross section, but was cast or stamped, with clear corners.
The Red Army also used captured german belts, in which, because of the pattern with an eagle and a swastika, the buckle had to be finalized. Most often, these attributes were simply ground off, but if there was free time, the silhouette of a five-pointed star cut through the buckle. The photo shows another version of the alteration: a hole was punched in the center of the buckle, into which a star from a Red Army cap or cap was inserted.
Scout knife NR-40. The reconnaissance knife of the 1940 model was adopted by the Red Army following the results of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, when there was a need for a simple and convenient army combat knife.
Soon, the production of these knives was launched by the Trud artel in the village of Vacha (Gorky Region) and at the Zlatoust Tool Plant in the Urals. Later, HP-40s were also manufactured at other enterprises, including besieged Leningrad. Despite a single drawing, HP-40s from different manufacturers differ in details.
On initial stage During the Great Patriotic War, only scouts were armed with HP-40 knives. For the infantry, they were not authorized weapons, but the closer to 1945, the more and more knives can be seen in photographs of ordinary submachine gunners. Production of the HP-40 continued after the war, both in the USSR and in the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact.
Glass flask. Glass flasks were widely used in many armies of the world. Russian was no exception. imperial army, from which this type of flask was inherited by the Red Army. Despite the fact that tin or aluminum canteens produced in parallel were more practical, cheap glass containers were good for the mass draft army.
In the Red Army, they tried to replace glass flasks with aluminum ones, but they did not forget about glass either - on December 26, 1931, another standard was approved for the manufacture of such flasks with a nominal volume of 0.75 and 1.0 liters. With the beginning of the war, glass flasks became the main ones - the shortage of aluminum and the blockade of Leningrad, where most aluminum flasks were produced, affected.
The flask was closed with a rubber or wooden stopper with a twine tied around the neck. Several types of cases were used for carrying, and almost all of them provided for wearing a flask on a belt over the shoulder. Structurally, such a cover was a simple bag made of fabric with rope ties at the neck. There were options for covers with soft inserts to protect the flask during impacts - these were used in the Airborne Forces. A glass flask could also be carried in a belt case, adopted for aluminum flasks.
Bag for box magazines. With the advent of box magazines for the Shpagin submachine gun and with the development of the Sudayev submachine gun with similar magazines, a need arose for a bag to carry them. A bag for magazines of a German submachine gun was used as a prototype.
The bag contained three stores, each of which was designed for 35 rounds. Each PPS-43 was supposed to have two such bags, but wartime photographs show that submachine gunners often wore only one. This was due to a certain shortage of stores - in combat conditions they were consumables and were easily lost.
A bag was sewn from canvas or tarpaulin and, unlike the German one, was greatly simplified. The valve was fastened with pegs or wooden toggles, there were options with buttons. On the back of the bag were sewn loops for threading a waist belt. Bags were worn on a belt in front, which provided quick access to equipped stores and stacking empty ones back. Laying stores up or down the neck was not regulated.
Yuft boots. Initially, the boots were the only footwear of the Russian soldier: boots with windings were accepted for supply only at the beginning of 1915, when the army increased dramatically in numbers, and the boots were no longer enough. Soldier's boots were made from yuft and in the Red Army were supplied to all branches of the military.
In the mid-30s, tarpaulin was invented in the USSR - a material with a fabric base, on which artificial sodium butadiene rubber was applied with an imitation of leather texture. With the beginning of the war, the problem of supplying the mobilized army with shoes became acute, and the “damn skin” came in handy - the boots of the Red Army soldier became tarpaulin.
By 1945 a typical Soviet infantryman he was shod precisely in kirzachi or boots with windings, but experienced soldiers sought to get leather boots for themselves. The photo on the infantryman shows yuft boots, with leather soles and leather heels.
The Second World War is multifaceted, many books, articles, memoirs and memoirs have been written on this topic. But for a long time, under the influence of ideology, these topics were covered mainly from a political, patriotic or general military point of view, very little attention was paid to the role of each individual soldier. And only during the Khrushchev “thaw” did the first publications begin to appear based on front-line letters, diaries and unpublished sources, covering the problems of front-line life, the period of the Patriotic War of 1941-1945. How did soldiers live at the front, what did they do in a short time respite, what they ate in, what they wore, all these questions are important in the overall contribution to great victory.
At the beginning of the war, soldiers wore a tunic and trousers with tarpaulin overlays in the areas of the elbows and knees, these overlays extended the life of the uniform. They wore boots and windings on their feet, which were the main grief of all the service brethren, especially the infantry, as they were uncomfortable, fragile and heavy.
Until 1943, an indispensable attribute was the so-called "roll", an overcoat rolled up and put on over the left shoulder, which caused a lot of trouble and inconvenience, which the soldiers got rid of at any opportunity.
In the early years of the war, the legendary “three-line”, the three-line Mosin rifle of the 1891 model, enjoyed great respect and love among the soldiers. But for example, the SVT-40 rifle was not loved because of its capriciousness and strong recoil.
Interesting information about the life and way of life of soldiers is contained in such sources of information as memoirs, front-line diaries and letters, which are least of all subject to ideological influence. For example, it was traditionally believed that soldiers lived in dugouts and pillboxes. This is not entirely true, most of the soldiers were located in the trenches, trenches, or simply in the nearest forest without any regrets. It was always very cold in the pillboxes at that time there were no autonomous heating and autonomous gas supply systems, which we now use, for example, for heating summer cottages, and therefore the soldiers preferred to spend the night in the trenches, throwing branches on the bottom and stretching a cape on top.
The food of the soldiers was simple "Schi and porridge is our food," this proverb accurately characterizes the ration of soldier's bowlers of the first months of the war and, of course, the best friend of a soldier is cracker, a favorite delicacy especially in field conditions, for example, on a military march.
Also, a soldier's life during short periods of rest cannot be imagined without the music of songs and books that gave birth to good mood and uplifting spirits.
But still, the most important role in the victory over fascism was played by the psychology of the Russian soldier, who is able to cope with any everyday difficulties, overcome fear, survive and win.
Previously banned photos of British soldiers from World War II have surfaced online. An English photographer managed to capture soldiers in skirts, dresses and stockings during pantomime performances John Topham.
Photographs Topham took while working in intelligence air force. The British Ministry of Information forbade their distribution. The government was afraid that such images could destroy the image of a brutal British soldier, writes Daily Mail.
Pantomime was a popular way of relieving stress and having fun in the army. And for prisoners of war in Nazi camps - to maintain morale.
The pantomime performances were a huge success. The actors rehearsed 6 hours a day for several months to learn their roles. Performing in pantomime was a responsible matter.
In the photographs, the soldiers do each other's makeup, run up the stairs in light women's dresses and have fun on the stage. The photographer managed to capture in the photo the moment when the performance of the troupe was interrupted by an alarm and soldiers in dresses, stockings and military helmets rushed to their weapons to defend their positions.
