“Each truck and a half carries food for 10,000 rations, for 10,000 people. Driver, save these lives!” - such a sign met every driver moving out onto the ice Ladoga Road life. The thought of this drove forward almost 5,000 drivers who serviced the track during the two winters of its operation.
After the blockade ring closed around Leningrad in September 1941, the waters of Lake Ladoga remained the only transport artery (except for the air) through which the millionth city was still supplied.
Vessels of the Ladoga flotilla, despite the shelling, cruised along it daily. However, it was obvious that as soon as the ice rises on the lake, communication with the city will be interrupted. In order to prevent this, it was decided to realize what seemed almost impossible - and from the end of October, work began on the preparation of the ice track on Ladoga, which will very soon become known in Leningrad and beyond as the Road of Life.
On November 22, 1941, the first column of 60 GAZ-AA trucks of the 388th separate automobile battalion left for the ice. On the morning of the next day, they left the village of Kobona back, carrying food to the besieged city. In total, during the most terrible blockade winter of 1941-1942, drivers working on the Road of Life delivered 361 thousand tons of cargo to Leningrad, including 262 thousand tons of food, and took out half a million people - mostly women and children.
Thanks to their work, from December 25 in the city, the norm of bread on the work card was increased by 100 g, on the cards of dependents of employees and children - by 75 g. For some Leningraders, this was a salvation.
death on ice
The legendary lorry - low-powered GAZ-AA trucks - opened traffic on Ladoga. In ice hummocks, on a track that has not yet been rolled, they often skidded. At first, a driver who went astray risked losing his life - the chances that in poor visibility, in a snowstorm, and even more so in night darkness or morning twilight, they would grab him and find him were small. Most of the drivers who got lost in the early days on an unfamiliar snow covered road, died.
For the purpose of blackout, the headlights were ordered to be extinguished - the front often approached the Road of Life at a distance of 15 km, German aircraft cruised over it. Later, in next winters, a real infrastructure will appear on Ladoga - technical assistance posts, heating and nutrition points, traffic controllers standing at regular intervals, and signs, and low-power "gaziki" will be replaced by more advanced three-ton ZIS-5. But then, in late autumn - early winter of 1941, drivers, choosing between the danger of falling under fire from German aircraft and leaving the track in poor visibility and freezing to death in the open spaces of Ladoga, most often chose the first - and turned on the headlights.
“The headlights were no longer turned off at night, because it was dangerous to drive cars in complete darkness. And the enemy, who knew the track perfectly, was still powerless to stop the flow of life on it. The most he could do was crash one or more cars. Each of us wanted to be passed by an enemy shell, but everyone knew that only death would prevent him from fulfilling his duty and combat order, ”Leonid Barkovich, the driver of the 804th motor depot on the Road of Life, wrote in his memoirs.
On the last drops
The dangers that awaited the drivers, who were the first to make their way across the ice to the besieged city, were not limited to the risk of losing their way. According to the memoirs of Barkovich, the first convoys set off on a voyage from half empty tanks- fuel should have been back-to-back enough for a one-way journey - with the car doors open and on low speed. All these measures, designed not only to save drivers, but also to save resources invaluable in military conditions, spoke of the constantly lurking danger - to fall under the Ladoga ice, which had not had time to get strong enough, not so long ago.
Gasoline and antifreeze for the first flights to the "mainland" were delivered to the city by plane. If the car was destined to die, the precious fuel should not have gone under the ice with it, and the driver had to have time to leave the cab. With the same calculation in the column, strict observance of a hundred-meter distance was prescribed - in case the ice under the vehicle in front could not withstand the load.
However, sometimes the carefully developed rules for driving along Ladoga turned against its pioneers - for example, on his first raid from Leningrad at the beginning of the winter of 1941, Barkovich went with his father, but fell behind due to a breakdown. In the dark, already at the very end of the road, he accidentally noticed a stopped car with icy windows. His father was in the cockpit: there was not enough gasoline, poured end-to-end, to the shore. The father was ready to die on the ice. Barkovich, taking the car in tow, managed to take his father's truck ashore.
According to the Leningrad norm of bread
At the same time, most of the drivers who provided traffic on the Road of Life were Leningraders. Many of those who daily delivered food to the city, themselves lived under the blockade norm.
“It was clear to me too. And instructions to go with open doors. And the speed limit. And the ban on cars approaching less than 100 m. I slowly sucked a piece of biscuit, holding back the desire to swallow everything at once (five pieces for two people - the daily bread norm), ”the driver-driver Barkovich later wrote in his memoirs about the first flight.
Plafonds for Novokuznetskaya
According to the practice that soon became established, cars went to the city loaded with food, and primarily flour. From there - with people who would need to be taken out of the starving city. Most of the passengers were Leningrad children. And if open doors could save the driver who was carrying cargo in the car, then in the case when a lorry full of people fell through the ice or came under fire, this measure, alas, could not save. Many of those who, thanks to the Ladoga road, found a second life, along the way, witnessed how a car following them or right in front of them in a convoy, with passengers like them, instantly went under the ice - especially during shelling.
Helped to save the Road of Life and many historical values stored in the city. So, for example, ceiling lamps, now installed at the Novokuznetskaya metro station in Moscow, were taken out of Leningrad along Ladoga ice.
Movement to the last
The first automobile "navigation" was closed only in the middle of spring, on April 21, 1942 - by this moment the ice, which had reached a meter thickness in the dead of winter, began to melt. For almost the entire journey, the cars followed the water. At the very shore, their cargo sometimes had to be carried on their hands - the thickness of the ice no longer allowed to drive close to the shores. However, as long as there was a chance to deliver food to the city, the movement continued. Short minutes of rest were waiting for the drivers only when the cars were loaded again.
“While the car was loaded and unloaded, it was possible to take a nap at least a little, resting your head on the steering wheel,” Barkovich recalled.
The road of life continued to work until March 1943, in total more than 20 thousand people worked on it. How many of them gave their lives so that Leningrad could live is still not exactly known.
During the blockade, Leningrad survived thanks to the Road of Life. 30 kilometers on the ice of Lake Ladoga is the only connection with the country. The correspondent of the MIR 24 TV channel, Nahid Babaev, spoke about the cost of saving the city on the Neva on the famous "lorries".
Flour was transported to besieged Leningrad on "lorries", and emaciated residents were transported to the "mainland". A third of all cars never made it to shore. It is estimated that almost a thousand of these “one and a half” still lie at the bottom of Lake Ladoga.
“The last three cars were coming. The first car went under the ice as soon as it left. Our car went in the middle, it went around this car, and we drove, and the car followed us, it also went under the ice, ”said Maya Sverdlova, a resident of besieged Leningrad.
Maya Ivanovna and her mother were evacuated on March 28, 1942. She was only four years old. I remember only the cold and horror in my mother's eyes.
“First of all, of course, they took care of the children. And when they put them in the car along Ladoga, of course, they literally put the children on the floor and closed them, ”recalls Maya Sverdlova.
Officially, this route from the besieged city was listed as Military Highway No. 101. "Dear life" it was called by the people of Leningrad. Automobile "navigation" opened in November 41st. The first 60 cars entered the thin ice. It was necessary to move with the headlights off: the front was nearby, blackout. Getting lost in the dark, and sometimes even in a snowstorm, is easy. At first, in unfamiliar terrain, drivers often lost their way. And sometimes they froze, without waiting for help.
“There is no other transport. The lake is frozen, nothing can be transported on boats and ships, on sledges too, it is long and impossible. Railway transport does not work either, because it has one track. A "one and a half" is still a car. He can go wherever he wants," he said. automotive expert Vyacheslav Subbotin.
Soon, heating and technical assistance points appeared on Lake Ladoga on the Road of Life. Regulators have begun to work. Mostly they were women. When the ice thinned or was pierced by shells, they guided the caravan through a stronger area.
“This is a feat, probably, of our military divers and civilians, they are during a good one, dense winter, the road was strengthened with logs and any raw materials, fittings, anything. They dived, got these logs under the lady, strengthened the road. Therefore, the Germans were very often surprised during the bombing: they seem to be bombing, but the cars are moving, ”commented restorer Mikhail Pisarev.
And the enemy bombed Ladoga incessantly. Drivers understood: each of their flights could be the last.
The GAZ-AA car was nicknamed "one and a half" for its carrying capacity of one and a half tons. In the USSR, it began to be produced in 1932 at the Gorky car factory. During the war years, the cabin was replaced with a wooden one, the doors were completely abandoned - the metal went to shells. There were other tricks too.
"In these cars in difficult conditions skis were installed when there was a lot of snow, and these are the lugs. But it was far from always possible to use them - only when the car got stuck. They put it on, the car drove out, overcame difficult area, and this case was filmed, ”shared the restorer Mikhail Pisarev.
The first thing that draws attention modern motorist, - there is very little space in the "one and a half". You sit down, and your knees immediately rest against the cockpit. Heating, of course, no. The driver hung a bowler hat, which hit the back of the head and did not let him fall asleep. Despite the cold, the door was always open. If the car fell through the ice, this gave the driver a chance to jump out and survive.
Only in the first blockade winter, the most difficult, more than 500 thousand people were taken out of Leningrad along the Road of Life. And 360 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to the besieged city. And all this on the legendary “one and a half”, which a few years ago even erected a monument on the shores of Lake Ladoga.
The laurels of the winners go first of all to those who carried weapons and drove military equipment. And people whose contribution to the defeat of the enemy was determined not by the number of destroyed tanks or downed enemy aircraft - railway workers, military doctors, front-line drivers - sometimes remain in the shadows.
We would like to talk about the ingenuity shown by our motorists during the Great Patriotic War. It is ours: after all, pedantic foreigners rarely deviate from the prescriptions of instructions and are not very capable of inventions in emergency situations.
"Tailor" repair
In the jargon of auto repairmen, “footcloths” are lining plates not provided for by the design for worn liners crankshafts engines. And the very definition of such a repair is synonymous, if not with outright hack work, then at least with a frivolous attitude to business. But it seems that if such slang existed in that war, it would undoubtedly mean something completely different - saved human lives, cars, cargo ...
Pre-war engines domestic trucks did not have thin-walled replaceable crankshaft liners. Indigenous and connecting rod bearings filled with a special alloy - babbitt. Naturally, such a material was not durable enough in comparison with the currently used liners based on steel tapes. When smelting engine bearings, drivers of ZiS vehicles in desperate situations used cuts of leather belts from uniforms. The engines allowed such improvisation for several hundred kilometers of the car. Of course, it is difficult to imagine such a repair under enemy fire, but in between battles, in order to get the car out of the front line and get to the auto repair battalion, it’s quite ...
Barrels instead of tanks
There are known cases of trucks being converted to supply gasoline to the carburetor by gravity from a barrel in the back. If Gorky's lorries had a similar supply from a regular, highly located tank under the "torpedo" was common, then for the ZiS-5 the tank was located under the body, and the fuel supply depended on the serviceability of the fuel pump. Barrels, on the other hand, solved two problems at once: both independence from the operation of the feed pump, and a significant increase in the cruising range of machines without refueling. After all, the tanks of one and a half and ZiSov contained, respectively, only 40 and 60 liters of fuel. And this initiative of drivers was subsequently supported - with long "shoulders" of transportation, it was sometimes prescribed to have on each truck on a spare barrel of fuel to increase the autonomy of transport.
Starting engines "Leningrad-style"
In most cases, the motors of cars in the hard times of war were started by starting handles. Was it before new batteries and spare starters, when sometimes even gasoline and tires were not enough? And the engines of that era, which had a low compression ratio (4.5-6 units), started up well with “crooked starters”.
Those who have used the crank know that just turning it is useless. We need short but strong jerks. But where was the exhausted motorists of besieged Leningrad to get enough strength? And then the soldier's ingenuity and military fraternity came to the rescue. Homemade T-shaped starting handles appeared, which were twisted by two people from opposite sides.
Drivers-coachmen…
It is known that one of the mottos of the legendary Ladoga Road of Life was: “The more flights, the faster the victory over the enemy!” So much importance was attached to the supply of this section of the Soviet-German front. But there was nowhere to take an unlimited number of trucks and drivers. Then one or even two sledges, which were previously intended for horse teams, began to be attached to the cars. Of course, not all cars worked in the sleigh. But it is quite possible that in the total volume of transportation through the ice track on Ladoga, such trailers replaced more than one hundred missing one and a half ...
... And driver-machinists
During preparations for the battle on the Kursk Bulge, perhaps for the first time in our automotive history, trucks acted as ... railway locomotives. What caused this - the lack of steam locomotives or the interests of secrecy of preparations at the forefront - is not known and, probably, it does not matter anymore. But the famous three-ton ZiS-5 were put on rails, and they drove 3-4 wagons with military cargo.
Already after the war, we also had special motor vehicles on the railway track. The machines, created on the basis of trucks ZIL-130, KrAZ-257 and similar, had pneumatic outputs for controlling the brakes of the cars.
And what was it like for front-line soldiers, whose cars had only their own mechanical lever-cable brakes without any amplifiers, to drive trains weighing up to 100-150 tons?
"Fifth Speed"
On worn-out gearboxes of Gorky's lorries, higher, fourth, gears began to randomly turn off. Then the drivers came up with the "fifth speed" (the front-line jargon of those motorists). Knotty sticks, covering the gearshift levers with their spears, in the position of the included direct gears, were placed at the other ends in a thrust in the “dashboard” of the car. And the problem was solved - the steering wheel could already be held with both hands.
“We walked days and nights, it was very difficult ...
War does not take into account the time of day. It happened that we had to move in complete darkness in the interests of blackout or with headlights broken during shelling or collisions. Then senior cars - there is such a position in the military automotive divisions- lay down on the front fenders of the cars and, peering into the darkness, gave commands to the drivers. And the drivers drove the cars almost to the touch.
Those who have traveled on our broken roads even in the seats of an UAZ or Niva know that such a trip is not the most great pleasure. But imagine yourself on a swinging wing, not designed for such loads, and at the risk of being thrown under the wheels on a bump not visible to the driver!
... But the driver did not throw the steering wheel "
On post-war cars high cross appeared systems of centralized regulation of air pressure in tires. If necessary, you can reduce the specific load of the machine on a wet road and increase the area of adhesion of the wheels to the ground to increase traction. And in that war, in especially difficult road conditions, Studebaker drivers installed "spare wheels" with the second ramps on the hubs of the front drive axles. The design of the wheel mounting on Soviet and foreign trucks of the 30-80s of the last century made it easy to do this. The machines received three pairs of twin drive wheels, and at the same time, the specific pressure of the “front end” on the ground decreased.
Naturally, the necessary human efforts to turn the steering wheel immediately increased significantly, because there were no amplifiers yet. But in the interests of the common cause, this was not taken into account.
"Pull-push" in our opinion
The Studebakers, as well as their Russified descendants ZiS-151 and ZiL-157, had front and rear buffers at the same height. The Americans guessed that due to this it was possible to push the stuck car and start the stalled car “from the pusher”. However, our front-line drivers went even further. They linked the cables closely, buffer to buffer, two or even three cars. And such a hitch, 6-9-axle "push-pull", could have even better cross-country ability than single tracked vehicles.
When the springs broke...
Breakdowns of springs on broken front roads were not uncommon. This was especially true for one and a half. At cars GAZ-AA and GAZ-MM rear cantilever (cantilever) springs could be broken even when hit in reverse on a stump And the front, one and only, transverse spring perceived loads from both wheels at once. But if the suspensions were damaged, sometimes it was necessary to first deliver the goods, and then think about normal repair. And then, wooden logs of suitable thickness were installed between the beams of the bridges and the spars of the frames, the bridges were rigidly pulled to the frames with towing cables or chains, and the cars were able to continue on their way.
This method of forced repairs on the way, which received the term "ski" in the slang of truck drivers, is still known today. The author of these lines himself resorted to a similar repair on a lorry of the 90s, a GAZelle, which had insufficiently durable front springs. It is possible that the mentioned method in a hopeless situation will be useful to any of the readers of the magazine.
A real repairman - both a tinsmith and a carpenter
With the outbreak of war, as is known, the design of the most massive Soviet trucks- ZiS-5 and GAZ-MM - has been revised. In particular, the "deep" stamped front fenders were replaced with bent welded ones. The pre-war cabins, which had wooden frames and metal outer skins, were now made entirely of wood. A part Gorky machines did not even have doors, replaced by canvas curtains and wooden fences - "kerchiefs" All this was done to reduce the cost of production. But, of course, the designers also thought about the possibility complete renovation cars by forces of front-line motorists. After all, the supply of spare cabins, new wings and doors hundreds and thousands of kilometers away to the active army was out of the question. It is quite possible that this is why many lorries and three-tons, battered on the front roads on the way to Berlin and Prague, subsequently differed in external structural elements from both their original state and from each other ...
... But they were still closer to the factory originals than those miserable "crocodiles" on the chassis of the diesel ZIL-4331 that drove our veterans along Red Square in the anniversary year of 2005.
Instead of an epilogue
Many drivers who went through the whole war and had military awards did not fire a single shot at the enemy. Others were shooting for them. Infantrymen who entered the battle "from the wheels", closing the gaps in the defense. Artillerymen who unhooked their guns from ZiSs and "students" on the way to those who had broken through German tanks. Soviet tankers, who received fuel and ammunition from support vehicles, sometimes right on the front line ...
However, without the military labor of front-line drivers, the weapon that brought us Victory could not operate.
- Andrey Kuznetsov
Text: Denis Orlov
Photo: Denis Orlov. Collection of the branch of TsVMM "Road of Life" in Osintsovo
When I announced that I was going to the “Road of Life”, in two completely unrelated places, I heard a childishly naive and adultly terrible question: “What is this?” ... Yes, I admit that in one case, a man made a foolish joke. But the other one, he really did not know or forgot about what was happening in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1941-1943. No, of course, if I uttered the word "blockade", and in the back streets of its overloaded advertising and all sorts of memory talk shows, everything would fall into place. But I didn't say...
On the third kilometer of the Road of Life, a birch grove runs down to the river. The trees in it are tied with red scarves. These trunks are symbols of the souls of Leningrad children who died from starvation and raids. But if you plant a tree in memory of everyone, the mournful grove will stretch from the city limits, the Rzhevka railway station, to Osinovets and the shores of Lake Ladoga ...
Requiem
A diver, one of those who, during the blockade winter, was laying a high-frequency cable under the ice of Ladoga to connect the besieged city with the mainland, immediately after the descent nervously pulled the halyard: immediate rise! Once on the surface, he confusedly told what had happened. At the bottom of the lake stood a lorry with full body of people. Apparently, the truck went under the ice instantly, and the weakened residents, who were taken out of the blockade ring, could not jump out. And when the diver opened the cabin door, a truly apocalyptic picture appeared to his eyes: a driver was driving a truck, holding a baby on his lap, and next to him was a woman with a baby. I don’t know if the director of the Museum of the Road of Life, Alexander Bronislavovich Voitsekhovsky, told about this case to veterans of the Wehrmacht who came to visit the places of past battles? By the way, they brought their own, brand new uniform as a gift to the museum...
Children are the main thing that the ruthless mechanism of war does not take into account. Thanks to transportation along the frozen Ladoga, already on December 25, 1941, the daily ration of bread in besieged Leningrad was raised ... from 125 to 200 grams. But how was it possible to explain to the children that apart from this they will not receive anything?!
Since the time of Troy, hunger has been the main weapon of the besiegers of the city. Well, the special commission of the Leningrad Health Department called the results of the action of this weapon "alimentary dystrophy." It was she, and not bombs or shells, that claimed most of the lives of Leningraders.
The main instrument of death
The German army did not have enough resources to attack both Leningrad and Moscow at the same time. On September 8, having closed the ring near the city on the Neva, the Germans chose hunger as their instrument of death. The invaders could not be denied imagery. No one has yet talked about the Road of Life, but the head of the operations department of the 18th German Army, Ferch, wrote in his diary: “Let the way home and from home be the road of death for these people.”
By the way, in the translated literature, which filled the last years on the shelves of our stores, we often read about such factors that decided the outcome of the war as communist fanatics, inexhaustible human resources and, of course, “General Frost”. Let it be so, but the gigantic transport operation that went on for three years under the very noses of the Germans (8-13 kilometers away) does not fit well into the stereotype folded in the West.
We will take navigation out of the scope of the narrative (after all, this is not at all a topic for an off-road magazine), but the ice military highway (VAD) was originally planned as a military operation. Already on September 8, Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the Leningrad regional committee and city party committee, summoned specialists from the hydrometeorological service of the Baltic Fleet for consultations on organizing transportation along Ladoga. On September 24, the service submitted to the command a report on 34 sheets, reflecting data on the strength, stability and duration of the ice cover of the lake. So, in fact, the Road of Life project was born.
First flight
It remained to wait for the ice. From November 12 to November 17, 1941, secretly, constantly at the risk of falling under fragile ice, marine hydrographs and soldiers of the 88th separate bridge-building battalion reconnoitered the future route. On November 20, the first horse cart passed through it, on the 21st - passenger car, and on the 22nd - a column of 60 trucks of the 388th separate autobattalion under the command of Captain Porchunov. The cars left the village of Kokorevo empty in the direction big land, to the village of Kobona. The distance is 150–200 meters, the cabin doors are open, the maximum possible speed is 45–50 km/h. The ice, barely 20 centimeters thick, sagged noticeably under the weight of the trucks.
Just in the place where the first sixty Porchunov cars descended onto the ice, near the Torn Ring memorial ensemble erected in 1966, we meet the GAZ-MM lorry, in order to try to understand how everything happened in the distant 41st year.
Lorry
We intentionally did not dramatize and "burden" the reader with the question of whether the modern SUV Dear Life, but they found the most real lorry - inferior, with strangers rear springs, patched cab and random bodywork. However, for the most part, they were like that - work for wear and tear and quick repairs with the help of improvised means. More important for us was a plate with the date of release of the truck: "12/12/41". This means that this car, preserved by one of the St. Petersburg plants as an internal transport, could also go through that Ladoga!
The first ice road operated until 21 April. Frosts in the winter of 1941-42 were severe (on the night of December 31, 51.7 degrees below zero were recorded), the thickness of the ice was decent. As a result, quite strong ice kept in April even under a half-meter layer of water, which the cars cut through like boats. So, on our April trip, specialists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations check the thickness of the ice cover: half a meter! Moreover, its upper part is a swollen porridge, into which the car buries its wheels. Surprisingly, due to the full thrust (167 Nm), developed at 1200 rpm (for today's engines, they are considered idle), this car is independently selected from captivity. And behind there is a track cut like in oil. On the dark and solid ice another difficulty - on narrow tires 6.50–20, the lorry glides like on skates.
blindly
At night, on the Road of Life, cars were moving with a blackout, guided by the landmarks placed by the scouts, the bat-type lamps of the traffic controllers and the oncoming horse carts. Poor lighting brought additional losses - in the dark, the drivers could not see holes and craters. If, however, a large crack came across - a "drill", the car drove under the ice floe at full speed. In this case, the driver did not have time to jump out - the previous ice floe, like a tombstone, covered the car. The guys from the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that recently a kiter (a fan of skiing with a paraglider) died in the same way on Ladoga. From the surface it is difficult to see if there is a ravine in front or just a puddle of melt water. One half of the ice floe tilted under the weight of the athlete, and the parachute dragged him under the other. The folded parachute was found, but the kiter himself was not.
But the most difficult thing for military drivers was when a blizzard began on Ladoga - the wind literally blew the cars off course. So, one day the ignition system failed at the driver Ivan Kudelsky in the middle of the lake. The column is gone. While fiddling with candles, it started to snow. Deprived of landmarks, the driver drove ... to Shlisselburg. Fortunately, the German sentry was confused, and Ivan tied him up and brought him safely to ours, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. This curious case, however, refused to be confirmed in the museum in Osinovets, but director Wojciechowski said that stopping a food truck on the highway was punished to the fullest extent of wartime laws.
Stars on the hood
Two tons of bread is a thousand rations, and those who left for the third voyage across the ice knew this very well. However, food was not the main cargo. They transported coal for two power plants operating in the city, transported liquid fuel (the submarine cable from the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station and an underwater oil pipeline had not yet been laid), transported metal (defense plants continued to operate in the city), transported ammunition, weapons and explosives. For every hundred tons of cargo transported along Ladoga, drivers painted an asterisk on the hood, like pilots for a downed plane.
During the day, the "Ladoga" driver was supposed to make two shuttle flights, but some managed to make three. And in order not to fall asleep, they resorted to a barbaric method - a bowler hat was hung from the cabin wall, which rattled and beat on the head.
The cars came with drag trailers, which made it possible to transport more cargo at a time without the risk of falling through the ice. So, the driver of the 390th separate motor battalion, holder of the Order of the Red Star Vasily Serdyuk made about 400 trips on a lorry with a trailer, delivering a total of 1,100 tons of various cargoes to the besieged city.
resonant wave
What was the cost of pre-war recommendations for determining the carrying capacity of ice? Hydrographers carried out calculations, guided by an unwritten rule: if it is impossible, but it is very necessary, then ... it is possible. In the southern part of Lake Ladoga, under enemy artillery and mortar fire, hydrographers and hydraulic engineers conducted experiments to determine the maximum loads on ice. The initiator of such experiments was the well-known scientist Boris Proskuryakov, and the general strategy was outlined by Academician Abram Ioffe. All the conclusions of front-line scientists flocked to the Ice Service of the Naval Observatory. The deformation resistance of ice under static load and data on elastic deformations of ice during the propagation of a blast wave over the ice were studied. During the escort of motorcades along Ladoga, previously unknown fluctuations of the cover were also observed: the wave formed under the subsiding ice moved at a constant speed for a given thickness of the cover and the depth of the reservoir. It could lead the applied load or lag behind it, but the most dangerous thing was the coincidence of these speeds - then resonance set in, leading to a break in the ice.
without turret
Today it seems incredible, but the besieged city gave the front tanks. During the first six months of the blockade - more than 700 cars! And they also crossed to the mainland on the Ladoga ice. So, the 47-ton KV-1 walked on the ice without a turret, dragging it a hundred meters behind on a drag!
Like any road, the Ladoga highway was serviced - signs were installed, cleared of drifts, holes were sealed, and the ice was thickened. Tent hospitals, rest and repair centers were set up along the road. First of all, they were intended for those who were taken out of the besieged city. The statistics are as follows: during the first winter, 514,000 residents and 35,000 wounded soldiers were evacuated.
In total, the Road of Life was serviced by 4,500 vehicles, of which 3,000 one and a half GAZ-AA and GAZ-MM, 1000 three-ton ZiS-5, and the rest - different cars, including 40 city buses ZiS-8 from the so-called Moscow Bus Expedition. The latter arrived at Ladoga in January 1942 and took out 69,000 blockade survivors, leaving a quarter of the cars at the bottom of the lake.
When the ice got tired
The Ladoga highway did not at all fit the popular idea of the road as some kind of static segment from point A to point B. It's all about the fatigue load of the ice. The route withstood an average of 15 days, after which, at a considerable distance from it, another trajectory had to be laid. The distance from Kokorevo and Vaganovo to Kobona on ice is about 32 kilometers. But during the winter, such roads had to be organized from fifty - 3000 kilometers for two ice epics!
For the same reason, they refused to install anti-aircraft guns on ice - after firing a few shots, the gun fell through. Anti-aircraft guns were placed along the coast. They had enough range to cover most of the airspace over the lake, and the track itself was bared with heavy DShK machine guns, which also did a good job.
Cover
So what prevented the Germans from destroying the strategic means of communication? The route was covered by ten artillery battalions, the 39th air division, the 123rd fighter regiment, the 5th and 13th fighter regiments. The 4th Naval Brigade, the 284th Rifle Regiment, the 1st NKVD Division, and units of the 23rd Army were stationed here. The cover of the road was so powerful that the second winter the cars went with their headlights on. With the lights on, they went under the ice ... Trucks lived longer than people. Drivers called these terrible monuments "fireflies"...
Other ice roads. Or not Ladoga alone ...
In addition to the Road of Life, the defense lines of Leningrad were connected by other ice arteries. One of the routes connected Shepelevsky Lighthouse, Seskar Island and Lavensari Island (now Powerful) in the Gulf of Finland. The length of this road was 71 km. By the way, it was crossed by ... a similar German route from the Stirsudden lighthouse to the Kurgalsky Peninsula. The intersection of these routes (there were constant skirmishes between our fighters and the Germans), the wits called the "International". I wonder which of the roads was the “main” and which was the “secondary”?
Another extensive network of ice roads connected the Oranienbaum bridgehead with Kronstadt and Leningrad. This artery is sometimes called the Little Road of Life.
The blockade of Leningrad lasted 872 days. During this time, more than one million people died of starvation. After the end of World War II, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi and fascist criminals took place.
Representatives of the USSR charged the commander of the German army group "North", because of whose actions so many civilians of the besieged city died. On this charge, General von Leeb was acquitted. At that time, there was not yet a clause in which it would be forbidden to use starvation as a military strategy in relation to the civilian population.
The survivors of the besieged city owe a lot to the appearance of the highway (“Road of Life”) through It was it that made it possible to break the blockade ring, because due to its geographical position, Leningrad is not able to survive without the supply of food.
The meaning of the paved path
The road operated from autumn 1941 to spring 1943. Her appointment was to connect the besieged Leningrad (St. Petersburg) with the country. Officially, it was called military highway No. 101.
From September 1941, Soviet troops, along with the civilian population, were surrounded by German and Finnish troops. The city was not ready for the blockade and did not have the necessary supplies of food and fuel. Everything needed could be delivered by air or across the lake.
The "Road of Life" through Lake Ladoga made it possible to evacuate part of the population and partially provide the survivors with food.
Trucking on ice
In October 1941, research began for the construction of a route across Lake Ladoga, in winter it was covered with ice. After preliminary calculations, construction began in November. It was assumed that the width of the track would be 10 meters, so that cars could move simultaneously in both directions. Every 5-7 kilometers were built special items for heating.
The direction of the road was chosen based on the presence of a strong ice cover. He had to endure big loads. The main one was the GAZ-AA, popularly called the "one and a half". In order to prevent mass failures under the ice, there should have been a distance of at least 100 meters between the cars. At the same time, a railway line was laid across the lake.
The created "Road of Life" (Leningrad) passed not far from the front line, it required protection, which was provided by military units. The ice section of the road had two defensive lanes, created with the help of wooden log cabins, sandbags, which were frozen with ice. Small-caliber artillery guns were installed every one or two kilometers, and every three kilometers. From the air, the highway was protected by six fighter regiments.
During the first winter of the blockade, more than 500,000 residents were evacuated along the Road of Life and about 250,000 tons of food were delivered. It was mainly flour, grain, cereals, meat products, fats, vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, vitamin C. The work of the ice road continued in the winter of 1942-1943.
Cargo transportation by water
With the melting of ice, the road through did not cease to exist. From the spring of 1942, transportation on ice was replaced by navigation on water. However, due to the fact that ice still remained in some areas, the gap between deliveries across the lake was a whole month. In April, it was no longer possible to carry cargo over the ice, and barges were able to go through the water only from the end of May.
The country's leadership needed to carry out work to restore damaged ships. No more than 15 barges were in working condition. We decided to build barges on the spot. The pulp and paper mill in Syasstroy became the site for the work. At the same time, in Leningrad itself, the construction of metal ships began, which were transported for final assembly by rail.
Anti-aircraft artillery divisions and fighter aviation regiments were engaged in the protection of the route. They had to fight with the forces of the German-Finno-Italian flotilla.
In 1942, about 400 thousand inhabitants were evacuated by water, food was delivered for 350 thousand tons. At the same time, 290 thousand military personnel were delivered to the city. In addition to food and oil products, horses were also delivered to the city.
From April 1943, cargo transportation across the lake continued. Although their number has decreased, since a significant part of the cargo has already been transported by rail, launched since 1942.
Was the "Road of Life" (Leningrad) alone?
The official route is the path from Kokorev to Kobona along the lake. This thread connected the multi-million city with the country. Such information is available in textbooks and for tourists. However, there are data according to which the "Road of Life" through Lake Ladoga passed along a different path. Many facts testify to the existence of other lines for transportation.
Calculation inconsistency
Confirmation of the existence of several roads are simple calculations. So during the first winter of the blockade, the road worked for 150 days. About 350,000 tons of cargo was officially transported. It turns out that 2400 tons were delivered to Leningrad per day.
Carried cargo "one and a half", in the back of which it was possible to load one and a half tons. Another half ton could be attached to a sled. That is, for a flight, one car loaded to capacity could transfer two tons. Every day, 1,200 fully loaded lorries crossed the road. At the same time, they had to move in both directions.
Ice could not withstand such an onslaught. Moreover, in addition to trucks, buses also plied along the highway, which took out about half a million civilians during these 150 days. Tanks were also transported along Ladoga, from which weapon turrets were removed to lighten the weight. It is unlikely that one blockade "Road of Life" would have withstood such loads, especially since ice acted as a road.
The Mystery of the Sunken Trucks
During the transportation under the ice took about a thousand cars. Many of them are still under water today. When the water in the lake is especially clear, the pilots visually fix the outlines of the trucks. They are not always on the route of the official route. Some of them are located hundreds of kilometers from the well-known "Road of Life".
There are documents from which it becomes clear that some drivers deviated from the route in order to cash in on transportation and dump some of the cargo. However, there were not many such cases, and there were many hundreds of trucks that sank far from the highway. So the question of whether Leningrad was provided by Lake Ladoga only at the expense of one road is rather controversial.
Reasons for the existence of multiple tracks
The official road (“Road of Life” across Lake Ladoga) No. 101 Kokorevo-Kobona, of course, existed and operated. However, calculations and the location of many sunken trucks suggest that she could not be the only one.
All maps and documents on this case for a long time were classified and stored in special archives. Perhaps such secrecy is due to the desire not to reveal all the ways in the event of another war.
Reasons why there could be multiple tracks:
- Danger from German aircraft. The overwhelming superiority of German aviation in the winter of 1941 was undeniable. Having marked the road across the lake, the Nazis regularly bombed it. To minimize losses from air raids, it was necessary to change the route. The first lines were laid closer to the shores of the lake, but as the ice strengthened, the route was drawn closer to its center.
- The ice could not withstand the constant load. Eyewitnesses of those years testify that only 60-70 cars could pass along the road. Further, the ice began to crack, and it took time to restore it. This means that the movement should have been new way. Otherwise, Leningrad would not be able to receive such an amount of cargo.
Creation of a railway line
With large cargo transportation, only Railway. By 1942, a line was laid on the eastern shore of the lake. This made it possible to increase cargo transportation. Thanks to all of the above methods, the blockade of Leningrad was partially lifted.
The memory of the broken blockade ring
Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in maintaining the health of the ice cover. They lived on the ice, filling in the cracks that appeared, building wooden decks. The feat of these people, as well as the drivers themselves, is difficult to truly appreciate. At the cost of the lives of many of them, the blockade was lifted. Lake Ladoga became the exit that made it possible to break the ring of death for many civilians.
Along the land section from Leningrad to Ladoga there are monuments dedicated to the "Road of Life". All of them are part of the "Green Belt of Glory" memorial, which stretches for many kilometers. The memorial consists of seven monuments, 46 commemorative pillars along the highway, 56 pillars along the railway.
The most memorable are the monuments at 40 and 103 kilometers of the highway. The first is the Broken Ring memorial (architect V. G. Filippov), which symbolizes the breaking of the blockade ring formed by the German-Finnish troops over Leningrad since the autumn of 1941. At 103 kilometers there is a monument " Legendary lorry"(architect Levenkov A.D.). He depicts a car that rides, breaking out of the ice.
