Our battalion was mixed, half of men were workers, the second half were college students. Before the outbreak of the war I worked in Central Boiler and Turbine Institute, not far from here - across the street from the Polytechnic Institute. I was invited to the Institute's Komsomol Committee (Komsomol - Union of Lenin Youth). The committee's secretary was a girl called Tsilya Donde, and she told me that volunteer ski battalions were formed for fighting the White Finns - that was the expression of that they used in that time. She asked me if I would like to participate. I immediately agreed. There were four volunteers from the Boiler and Turbine Institute -me, Kolya Ryabinin, Boris Deurin (by the way, he did not make it back from the war, and no one knows what happened to him - he just disappeared), and Vasily Sidorin. Yes, we were four guys. By the way, Vasily Sidorin was the former cadet of Artillery School on Liteiny prospect. For some reasons, probably, because of his relatives - it was a tough time, he was discharged from the army. To be short, off we went. Three of us were in the same battalion, while Vasily Sidorin was in another battalion, probably, the same battalion with Toivo. I guess there were around a dozen of such battalions formed. The numbers that the battalions were given, did not correspond at all to the actual number of the battalions. I am a local Piter's boy (Piter - nickname for St. Petersburg used in Russian language), I was born in some 50 meters from this building - there was an old two-storey building there. All my life up to the war I had lived at Udelnaya, Sosnovka park is nearby, and I was quite good in skiing. I was also a strong guy, so I got into the ski battalion.
Our battalion was formed on the basis of the Engineering School, which that time was located in the Engineering castle. The leadership and the classrooms were on Sadovaya street, next to a film theatre, have no idea what it is called now, that time it was called Forum, I guess. Barracks, warehouse and all other stuff were on a square of the Engineering castle. By the way, my bed was in the former bedroom of Emperor Paul I, the bedroom where he got killed. It also had a secret passage. Anyway, it has nothing to do with the war. We had theoretical classes and weapon training. We were armed, by the way, with the top equipment of that time. Everyone, down to squad leaders, had TT guns, which were quite new that time, compared with old Nagant revolvers. Rank men were equipped with SVT semiautomatic rifles. For the first time the rifle bayonnet was of a knife shape, not the old four-edged bayonet. We also had PPD submachine guns, not PPSh, but PPD, with round ammo drums. We also had Degtyarev light machine guns. We also had Maxim heavy machine guns. We also had light mortars, of the smallest possible calibre. All these things were to be carried on our backs or on small sleds. The only thing we did in barracks, was weapon training. Assembling and disassembling. I guess it took something around 60 class hours. We did not have fire practice, the fire practice we did already on the territory of the Karelian Isthmus - we came there and had shooting practice for some 5 days. Loading, unloading, that kind of stuff. Before going to the front the battalion came here, to Sosnovka park, and had some kind of battle skiing practice. Deployment, formation and so on. That was all training we got before going to the front. Later, as I mentioned, we spent about a week in Raivola area practising shooting.
During the training and formation I was listed in battalion's scout platoon. On that day, that we came to Sosnovka for practice, I ended up being transferred to the medic section. Why? I had a dog before the war, a German shepherd. By the way, I used to train such dogs myself during the war. In 1933, the year that Hitler came to power, our NKVD dog unit purchased a batch of dogs in Germany. My father, through his friend in this unit managed to purchase a small puppy in 1933. It was a she dog, a real Lotta. A gorgeous and smart dog she was, I still have tears in my eyes when I remember her. As she was growing, and I was getting older and older, I ended up in a Lenin's Pioneer camp, which was located here, in Sosnovka, based on OSOAVIAKHIM camp. Those days there was an OSOAVIAKHIM camp here, it was primarily for training and further military training of those who had already served in the Red Army. It was the system that I think they also have now in Russia, they had short training sessions once in a while so that people would not forget their military skills. So, in that camp we had our Pioneer camp with regular Pioneer life, we had the same tents as the OSOAVIAKHIM guys. There we were training our dogs. The camp was organised by the club of service dog owners, they were the chaperons of or camp. Dogs were trained to become convoy and guard dogs, medic dogs and, then just guard dogs and police dogs. My doggie and me ended up in a group of kids that were training dogs for medic service. Dogs had two bags fitted to their bag, and their task was to find wounded, crawl up to them and allow wounded to take medication from the bags. So, when we with our battalion were training there in Sosnovka, I showed my medic skills. To my misfortune, I bandaged some guy in the sight of medic platoon leader of our battalion. He was a student, or better said 5th year cadet in the Military Medical Academy. Unfortunately, I do not remember his name. He saw me and asked:
- which unit are you from
- scout platoon
- OK
When we got back from Sosnovka,
he found me, and immediately took me to the battalion commander, begging to
transfer me to the medical platoon - I did not need any training. So this is
how I got into the medical platoon, we were five, and the doctor was the sixth
- that guy from the Military Medical Academy. Three guys were from the Civil
Aviation Institute, which was also on Liteiny prospect, I was the fourth, then
we got a professional Sergeant Major of Medical Corps, from Vsevolozhsk. His
name was Andrey Mogila (Mogila means grave in Russian), remembered this name
for all my life. So that was all we had in our platoon. Four young volunteers,
a professional military and a doctor. Just like the rest of the guys, we had
submachine guns, we had the same small sleds that we had to pull wounded from
the battlefield. When we entered Finland, the main type of medic transport were
two rozvalni low wide sledges. Our task was to transport the wounded to the
nearest aid stations, from there wounded were evacuated by trucks and other
means. Our task was to evacuate the wounded from battlefield. So you can imagine,
what it was like to be a medic in the attacking line - while there were no wounded,
while there were no one to take care of or bandage, I would shoot, if there
was someone to shoot. It was a very regular frontline service, without any privileges
related to staying in the rear. Well, actually, we did not have any rear as
a battalion. I do not know, probably Toivo mentioned this, but we had exactly
the same situation - during retreat Finns burnt down everything, so all that
remained were charred ruins and some cellars - this was our place for sleeping.
This was the line of our advance, starting from Raivola, from Vanhasaha village.
It was not even a village, it was just several houses - large two-storey wooden
buildings. The buildings served us as our main base before we went into action.
We advanced towards Vyborg, along the Gulf of Finland and Lower Vyborg highway,
the railway was on our right.
We had special uniforms. We had special skiing suits, based on thick wool, reversible. One side was white camouflage, the second side was dark blue - when we did not have to hide, for example, during march. We had hoods of the same pattern that could be buttoned to the jackets. The white side was quite thick and dense, but rather soft, it was not tarpaulin. That was our upper layer of uniform. We also had valenki and jackboots, but they were special jackboots for skiing units. We could attach skies directly to the jackboots - they had rectangular toe, large welt and large heel, slightly tilted, so that back belt of ski-binding could be attached. There was a belt with a buckle on instep and on top of the jackboot, so that a foot would not be loose in there. That's the jackboots that we had. We had two pairs of socks, and later some guys had more than two pairs. One pair was regular cotton socks, the second pair was thick and warm woollen socks, they were warm even with jackboots. What else did we have? We also had some sort of a sweatshirt with low turtleneck and trousers for skiing, both were made from camel wool. Our headgear was woollen helmet liner, moth recently ate my one and I had to throw it away. If weather was warm - although it was almost always -40 degrees, we would roll them up and make some small hats out of them. We did not have budyonnovka winter hats. Besides this, we also had regular gimnastyorkas and sharovari, just like the rest, we still had the uniform. I do not remember the colour of our collar patches, I did not pay attention to that. I think that ammo pouches were painted white, but at least some of us had ammo pouches for PPD ammo drums, one on each side. These pouches had shoulder belts and an extra belt on so that they would not hang loose. Each pouch could fit 2 drums. I did not have a grenade pouch, while others had them. We did not have anti-gas masks, and regular sidor bag packs. We did not have telogreikas, as our skiing jackets were warm enough. Helmets were regular, round shaped model 1940. At least some of the helmets were painted white. Our gloves were three-fingered, so that one could shoot. The outer side was brown and green tarpaulin, inside was some sheet wadding. Our commanders did not have any special insignia, as everyone knew each other's faces. As far as I remember, our uniforms looked exactly the same.
We as medics did not have any special insignia - red cross or whatever. We were just five, and everyone in the battalion knew us. The only extra piece of equipment that we had were medic bags with red cross on it. However, we tried to wear them so that no one would see the red cross - the cover was put against our body.
Our battalion was 764 men. We reached approximately this point - there is a group of islands here on a map - Esi-Saari, Pitka-saari and Lasi-saari. These were the islands where we lost the bulk of our men. We came against units of Swedish Voluntary Corps. This was the place where we caught hell. We mostly assaulted those islands during the night and did not have any armour support or anything heavy. While we were advancing along the shore - we saw, alas, our knocked out tanks. By the way, those tanks were still from pre-war period - T-26 and BTs. When I saw those burnt-down vehicles, I had just one desire - if I ever had to serve in the army, I would go for any infantry or whatever, but God save me from serving in a tank unit. And what do you think? One year later, in 1941, I was drafted after a year of postponement. They even drafted me four or three days before my birthday, and I went to grad Lviv, Western Ukrainian town Lvov into the newly formed 32nd Tank Division. Till the end of my military service I stayed in tank units.
We did have some coordination with other infantry units, but there was no such coordination that we had later in the Great Patriotic War - infantry on tanks, infantry with tanks. We mostly fought the war as a semi-legal unit, you see. This was the impression that I had - our government did not talk too much about our participation in the war. Out of 764 men we lost the largest number on those islands. Only 136 men made it back from the war. Of course, some were wounded. Many suffered frostbites, although we had goose fat against frostbite. Many men suffered frostbite due to their own negligence - during short breaks during the advance, why not pull out warm valenki felt boots from your bag and change? No, they preferred to stay in jackboots, and there you go.
We melted snow in canteens, we had dry tack, and canned food, mostly meat. What else did we have? We had Russian sweet condensed milk. I do not remember anything about vodka. I just do not remember, just because I was not a great drinker then. We slept in all kind of ways. We tried to use burnt down ruins, cellars and so on. Sometimes we slept on pine tree branches, Sometimes, when it was windy, we would dig holes in snow to hide from the wind. We did not set up tents, although we had them in our bag packs. We were not allowed to lit fires during the night.
There were cuckoo snipers, not may, but there were some. an important thing was that they did not meet us up front, but would rather fire from the rear. I do not know about their role, there were not many of them, and they were not a crucial factor. Of course, they killed a certain amount of our men, but there were not many of them. First of all, they fired on those who walked a bit in front of the assaulting line, apparently taking them for officers, then they would kill all MG crew with Maxim guns, and then they went for those who pulled sleds. They were firing on selected targets, and there was just a small number of them. Speaking about Suomi submachine gun - we did not perceive it as something unusual, as we were ourselves all equipped with automatic weapons. We did not throw away our SVTs, but we tried not to get them as primary weapon. We kept our submachine guns, and tried to get carbines instead of rifles. I we had a chance to get a carbine, we considered it a great luck, as they were convenient. SVT indeed turned out to be a lousy rifle. It is indeed a formidable weapon in summer, but during the Finnish war, in all that frost - we could not oil them properly. It did not matter how hard we tried, but still some parts were freezing together and it just did not work - it was a semi-automatic weapon, after all. We did not take part in battles on Mannerheim Line, we just passed by it. Our Vanhasaha village was just behind the Line. What else was there? Vanhaniemi or something. Right after the Mannerheim Line was brocken, the troops started their advance and we were sent in the breach. Our main battle was assault of those islands, although we did take part in fighting on the way. We had a very bad luck on those islands. Personally I did not have any hatred towards Finns. Prisoners? I did not see a single surrendering Finn with hands in the air. Some of them withdrew - those that could withdraw, the rest forever stayed there on the island. There were many dead there. Many. Many our guys got killed there, and the same with the Finns. We never got under fire from Finnish coastal artillery when we were on the ice, as we mostly advanced at night. As soon as we reached the area of the islands, most of our action was in night time. I do not remember any propaganda materials, there were no leaflets nor loudspeaker speeches. Politruk did have some work with the Komsomol (Lenin's Youth) members, but you could not do much in those conditions. Anyway, we were all Komsomol (Lenin's Youth) members.
The last days of the war. We were already approaching Vyborg - after we left those islands. We could already see the city, we could see some buildings on the shore. I do not remember what time it was, it could be early morning, it was still dark. It could be evening as well, I just do not remember. They passed the word around along the line - at noon of March 13 all fire was to cease. In the morning it was a horrible cannonade both from our and Finnish side. Everyone fired all they could. At noon - if a fly would he in the air, you would be able to hear it buzz - such was the silence. Not a single shot. A dead silence. I could not even believe that such thing was possible. Then people started to regain their senses, started throwing hats and all stuff in the air. We did not meet the Finnish soldiers after the armistice. Almost nothing remained of the battalion - just a handful of men. Of course there were some units next to us - frontline is frontline. Personally I had some kind of indifferent mood. It felt like everything was over, everything was stopped so abruptly. There was some feeling of dissatisfaction, but it also felt that it had to be that way. It was a feeling of total uncertainty.
Local military district counted my service as a volunteer in the 100th Ski Battalion - I had to be drafted in 1940, but was drafted as late as 1941 - I got a whole year of postponement. Besides that, after I got back from the war, I got a vacation on a resort in Crimea. By the way, I met another guy from our battalion, a recovering wounded. He was getting his treatment there. So, for a whole month I was enjoying the warmth after the winter. I was recommended for a medal for the Finnish war, but later it all got cancelled.
What I remembered the most from that war? It was the incompetence of our army, as it could not deal with a handful of Finns in a proper manner and in time. It was all kinds of gentlemen's stuff and too much negotiation. They showed us, how to fight the war. For us the fighting for those islands was the most important. However, in the Great Patriotic war, we ourselves showed, how to fight the war.
Interview and editing - Bair Irincheev