[烛光生存狂]-【苏芬战争老兵回忆】尼古拉·贝文

Before the war

Before our service in the armed forces we were all very much in sports. Sports were very well developed those days, and when I came to the Navy, I had first degree in boxing. When the Baltic Fleet held its boxing championship in 1940, I got the first prize. That was kind of for my own self-esteem. Later, when I became a scout, all these skills proved useful - how to act against a person armed with a pistol, and so on. All those things proved necessary.

We were all sportsmen, all had some degrees or levels. It was not easy to get a GTO (Gotov k trudu i oborone - ready for labor and defense) badge - you and to ski some distance, swim some distance, do a high jump and long jump. It was not as easy as it is now. Voroshilov's Sharpshooter badge was the same - first you had to fire a small-caliber rifle, then a regular rifle, make a certain amount of points, and then you would get a Voroshilov's sharpshooter badge - it looked like a red banner a bit.

I was drafted in the First Naval Infantry Brigade in Kronshtadt[喀琅施塔得]. Our main weapon was a regular Mosin rifle. I could shoot well, at 25 meters I could knock down an empty bullet cartridge from TT pistol. When the war broke out, we had semiautomatic rifles for ten and them fifteen shots. Those rifles had a large bayonet, you could kill a pig with such a bayonet. It was later that we got submachine-guns, early days we only had rifles. By the way, you have to know how to shoot a submachine-gun, too - in short bursts. Later, when I was a scout, we also had pistols, five or six grenades per person and so on. But that all was later, during the second war.

Winter War

I was drafted during Komsomol draft and did my basics in Kronshtadt[喀琅施塔得], later in October 1939 we were transferred to Shlisselburg fortress[什利谢利堡]. We did some more training there. We were being prepared, but that time we had not yet known, for what. Later, when the campaign in Poland, Belorussia and Ukraine was over, troops started moving to the northern shore via Shlisselburg. We did not know, why. But actually, if you know Karelian Isthmus, there is Beloostrov[别洛斯特罗夫], then Solnechnoe, and Solnechnoe was already Finnish territory. It was right across the river there. Some people ask - why did that war happen? It was necessary. The fact that we moved border beyond Vyborg, helped us a lot. From Solnechnoe they could easily fire on Leningrad. They (Finns) had a very strong defense. I saw it myself. From Gulf of Finland[芬兰湾] to Ladoga[拉多加], bunkers had been built, up to 1.5 meters of concrete thick walls - I saw myself, how our planes bombed them and bombs ricocheted. Besides that, Karelian Isthmus has a lot of hills, lots of snow - hard to get through anyway. Finns also had bunkers, all had been pre-sighted with machine-guns and cannons. Even more so, they had barbed wire obstacles - five or four rows, lots of mines planted. When our troops tried to break through - they had lots of wounded. Frosts were also strong - when we were skiing, wind blowing into our faces was just stinging! Those times we did not have protective glasses and all those fancy things, just a helmet liner. Sometimes, when we were standing on guard duty, we still tried to turn our backs on the wind. So the frost was very strong, though we were very well dressed, it did not help anyway.

Gunboats and minesweepers were based in Saunasaari bay on the western shore of Ladoga lake during the Winter war - they were stuck there in the ice. Our entire company was there guarding them from possible attack. Feeding was good, they would bring us food in thermoses, but the bread was frozen. Feeding was good, I have no reasons to complain. They also issue us geese fat We covered our faces and hands with it in order to prevent frostbite. It was still cold, regardless of how well were dressed. We had short sheepskin jackets, and those who went on guard duty even had sheepskin coats. The bay was open form the east, so we built dugouts and machine gun nests there. In our dugout we set a barrel, installed a chimney and burnt wood in it twenty-four-seven. This stove produced heat, but also a lot of smoke and smut - we all looked like chimney-cleaners. Our barbed wire fence only had one row. We would hang empty tincans on the fence, just like Germans did.

In one kilometer distance from the bay there was a small island. We made a dugout there and sent a party there, too. During the night our scout parties went further away on the ice. During the day we could see a lot, but during the night our scout parties had to sit there on the ice further out and wait.

From early January the leadership started to train and prepare our group. They chose some nine or ten of us, I do not remember the exact number. They told us to prepare our skies, have dinner and rest till midnight - they did not tell us anything more, it was all top secret. Then we got up and skied on the ice of Ladoga lake - it was not guarded, it was free! We skied from Saunasaari bay to Konevets island, it was in some 25 kilometers from us. Our front-line was not far from there, our troops tried to advance, but did not get a damn thing. Two our scouts were on a mission, and we escorted them to the Finnish rear. We reached a certain area on the ice, some 2-3 kilometers from the coast, and then they continued their journey to the Finnish rear by themselves. They were dressed in Finnish uniforms, but it did not make much difference anyway - everyone had white overall. Depending on the situation, they would stay there for two or three days and then we would again get an order to have dinner and rest till midnight. Then again we would have to ski in the night to the place where we had to pick those scouts up. They waited for us there. They were signaling us with flashlights. We brought them back to our lines and they went to the HQ. WE had to repeat this journey approximately four times. All those scouts were later awarded with Order of Red Banner. I only recently learnt that they knew Finnish passwords and were freely moving there. The last time the password had changed, they did not know it, so they had to exchange fire with Finns and get out onto the lake right away. They arrived back to our lines ahead of schedule, and our troops spotted them form observation tower and raised alarm: "Finnish ski troops!" The guy on the ice did not even realize that he was already in the area controlled by Russians. We sent a truck on the ice in order to pick him up, but he started to run away like crazy. But the truck caught up with him and he was captured, and he turned out to be Russian. It was him who told the story that the password had changed and they had to flee on to the ice of the lake. This is why he made it to our lines in the morning. He new the way.

The scouts would go there just with submachine-guns They did not have radios, even in the early days of the Great Patriotic War we did not have them. In 1942, they made a small radio, transmitter and receiver, in besieged Leningrad. During the siege this radio was produced by Kozitski factory. Those radios were called Kama and Sever. The radio was good, we could both transmit and recede signal very easily. Those scouts were from the Navy, the Army's scouts would go separately from us. They did the same job as during the Great Patriotic War - they had to find out, what kind of fortifications Finns had, where artillery was and so on.

The gunboats that were frozen in the bay, were firing at Finnish positions. Finns returned fire on those gunboats, Finns even sent their planes there. Those were either reconnaissance panes or artillery observation planes, one of them was shot down. The two Finnish pilots that were in it, died. The plane was small, it was made of plywood. We buries those pilots. One time we had an alarm - one of our companies went to the ice in order to do some training, and we spotted them from the shore positio

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