“Tanks rumbled across the field” - a folk song rework of the Great Patriotic War in numerous interpretations tells about the dead heroes-tankers. Under the "volleys of tower guns" they were escorted to the last journey. Or they didn’t see off: there weren’t enough hands, the war was on, we wouldn’t forget about the living. What can we say about the iron - the battlefields are densely watered with blood, covered with the remains of artillery, trucks, aircraft. Fighting vehicles through forests, fields, swamps were piled with terrible monuments. But so they did not ...
Tank for sale
In the post-war decade of the middle of the twentieth century, there was no time for monuments: wrecked armored vehicles, other equipment, the inhabitants of the territories where the battles took place were turned into scrap metal, replenishing family budgets. For decades they could not find the missing soldiers; the abandoned "thirty-fours" are of no interest to anyone except the children and the scrap earners.
In the 80s of the twentieth century, the turn came to the rusty rarities of World War II. “Memory watches”, search squads, black diggers - all took up abandoned tanks, crashed planes, simultaneously finding the remains of soldiers, restoring names. The equipment and weapons of the Great Patriotic War are of historical interest in some and commercial in others. Money hunters, for example, near Vyazma (or Tver) dug up a whole German T-III in a ravine. Then they found buyers in the Baltic states, dismantled the car for scrap metal. Thanks to the vigilant customs - the rarity has remained in Russia.
Collectors of military equipment are ready to buy WWII combat vehicles for millions of dollars. A detained T-III in working order costs 5 million rubles, T-IV (Tigers), Panthers from the Kursk battle on the black market are even more expensive. Diggers sell the memory of the Soviet heroes of World War II, as if it were their property.
Who owns the wrecked tanks
A few years ago, news feeds narrated that Hollywood actor Brad Pitt bought the Soviet T-54. He stands in Los Angeles, representing part of the history of the great USSR. But the Russians, it turns out, the story is not needed? Who is the owner of abandoned and forgotten WWII tanks? According to federal law - the Ministry of Defense, which has order No. 845 on the safety of found artifacts, individual parts, not to mention the equipment that can be wound up after a technical inspection.
According to the law of preserving the memory of those who died in that terrible war, everything that will be found in the battlefield must be surrendered to the military commissariats. Probably, then it should be transferred to museums. But no - museum workers cannot find the money to buy historical value from a “passerby who accidentally dug up a wrecked military vehicle in the forest on a caterpillar track”.
Black diggers - they know history very well, carefully study the fate and paths of abandoned tanks. The trouble is that the descendants will not see this, they will not know, they will not penetrate: wherever money is ruled by history, people don’t think about morality.
Find to remember
The history of a great power that defeated the brown plague of fascism, preserved in iron crumpled by explosions, is also collected by real patriots - search groups of museums and youth organizations. They collect exhibits for posterity so that the children of the children remember "at what price they won." Moreover, military iron, a tank thrown in the forest, is almost impossible to find, all the easy production has already been collected. Now search engines lift cars from the bottom of rivers, from swamps, where the efforts of many, not just a greedy digger, are needed.
The archives are carefully studied, the memories of eyewitnesses, now grandchildren, who listened to grandfathers and veterans, but not all were remembered, are collected. Information is checked, old people leave, time flies. And yet luck happens.
Rear guard retreats
The Moscow search club "Rear Guard" picked up "exhibits of the Second World War" from reservoirs, presented it to museums of Russia, installed on pedestals. This story can be touched, felt, appreciated the tragedy and power of a military hurricane crumbling armor, like a piece of chalk. The archives of search engines have a lot of raised and restored equipment:
- The heavy KV-1 (Klim Voroshilov) was lifted from the bottom of the Neva, transferred to the Museum of the Battle of Leningrad.
- T-34-76 “Bold” was taken from the bottom of the lake in the village of Malakhovo, Pskov Region.
- T-34 raised from the lake in the village of Zelenkino. Another of the same pulled without a tower.
- OT-34 - a unique medium WWII tank extended from a swamp near the village of Batovo and others.
Public non-profit organization liquidated in the summer of 2018.
Grave at the bottom
Here are some examples of how search engines work in the new millennium. Alas, 78 years after the start of World War II, we still did not honor all those who died for the freedom of their Fatherland. Hundreds of abandoned tanks are still waiting for search engines.
Belgorod region. In the south of the main clash in the Battle of Kursk, in the floodplain of the North Donets, in 1943 there were Soviet and German divisions - participants in the Arc of Fire. Place near s. The rust is called a tank cemetery: more than a hundred cars were destroyed and destroyed in one day on July 12.
Local search engines found a silted skeleton of T-34 at a depth of two meters. The seven-ton machine was hardly raised: 70 years ago, an explosion thundered from the inside, the ammunition exploded. There were no crew remains. A local resident told how a seven-year-old boy heard that the soldiers blew up a damaged car and left the gardens. This find became an exhibit of the Museum in the legendary Prokhorovka.
Belarus In Polesie, employees of the WWII Historical Museum at a former river crossing found a Soviet tank in good condition. Discovered by archival documents using special instruments. And they can’t raise it - there are not enough funds.
The search group of the IKK “Stalin Line” during its existence took out several WWII combat vehicles from the water: a heavy KV, light BT-7, several T-34s, as well as a couple of German vehicles.
Severomorsk. In the Barents Sea, the American Ballot, which sank in 1943, raised the M3 Lee, a medium tank that did not reach the front. The main part of the cargo was saved, this car was unlucky. Severomorsky restored equipment, transferred to the museum. Descendants know little about the help of the Allies during that war. It turns out that not only did they deliver the stew from America along the northern route.
Volgograd. From the bottom of the Dobraya river near Surovikino, the Soviet light T-60 was raised, which was damaged near Stalingrad.
The Nazis called T-60 "locusts", they were fast, maneuverable, transporting infantry during the battle from place to place. But for the "iron cats" - "Panthers" and "Tigers" - they became easy prey. Ours called the car "BM-2" - a mass grave for two.
In total, six such rarities were found - the dream of military museums. You can see it in the museum-reserve of the Battle of Stalingrad. A few months earlier, they immediately got a T-34.
Tver region. In the Zavidovsky Reserve during the “Watch of Memory” a German tank was discovered, presumably a commander’s one. Such during the years of the Second World War only 200 units were produced. Restorers set the brand, search engines collect the history of technology.
Moscow region. In the wilderness in the summer of 2018, a villager accidentally stumbled upon a war machine from the time of the Great Patriotic War. The village is not indicated so that scrap metal lovers do not catch themselves. An abandoned German tank, half gone to the ground, rusting, is waiting for historians and those who can get it out of the ground.
Tula region. Two copies of military equipment were found at the bottom of the river in the Novomoskovsk district. At the time the information appeared, it was not known whether they belonged to someone's aircraft, nor the brand. But preparations for raising equipment have already been carried out.
In 1941, the Kazakh division fought near Tula. In northern Kazakhstan, 16 thousand soldiers are reported missing. The search engines during the study of the bottom of the Oka discovered the Soviet T-34, lying on the tower, very silted.
Kurile Islands. On the distant island of Shikotan, defensive positions still rust abandoned tanks of World War II. The short Japanese war, which completed the history of World War II, is silently flaunted by trunks and towers from the ground. As if warns of the terrible consequences of wars.
Return from Nothingness
There are many stories about WWII tanks that were abandoned and forgotten 70 years ago. But if you know that in only one Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle, more than six thousand combat vehicles and self-propelled guns took part, all finds of the 21st century become a drop in the bucket.
Search squads are doing a great job almost with bare enthusiasm, without the help and support of the state, which is the copyright holder of wartime finds. And the Second World War will not end for us until the ashes of the last missing soldier are interred. Until all the iron participants in the battles are museum witnesses of the Second World War.