The Second World War, according to experts, was a war … of wire communication! According to independent estimates, during the war, landline communications occupied up to 80% of the total picture with communications in the war. Suddenly? It seems to be the twentieth century, radio communication and all that … However, it is so. Not radio communication, but wired communication was the main one in the Second World War.
Ships, planes, tanks, of course, had radio stations. But here the question of reliability arose, and the question of range.
And if it was about more mundane infantry and artillery, then Comrade (Mr.) Field Telephone came to the fore.
Yes, the Second World War became the war of those very telephones, wires, soldiers with coils under artillery fire. This topic usually gets little attention because of the not too heroic picture. A signalman sits in a dugout and all he does is shout someone's call sign into the receiver. And the commander periodically runs up with bulging eyes and yells at the soldier: "Run to restore the connection!"
Even signalmen die not cinematically. Explosions of shells, and that's all … Neither you "one against a hundred Fritzes" (although something similar happened, and more than once). Not to you "For the Motherland! For Stalin!" A splinter or burst of a machine gun, and … The next soldier with a coil on the same field. For your shard or bullet.
The heroes of our story are not signalmen, but the field telephones of the Red Army. Including those supplied under Lend-Lease.
Lend-Lease for the majority of WWII participants and us, their descendants, is associated with airplanes, tanks, cars, stew. It is clear that such a narrow understanding of the essence of this phenomenon was developed not by knowledge, but by the approach of our ideologists and propagandists to the very supplies of allies. The majority of the Soviets, including the authors of this series, have a "leftist" view of this phenomenon since childhood.
Even now, when information about Lend-Lease can be obtained not only from Soviet sources, but also from foreign archives, the stereotype of perception persists. It probably sounds ridiculous, but radicals exist and even flourish in this matter. And radicals on both sides. But to read the primary source, the law on lend-lease, the opposing sides are lazy.
On the one hand, we hear about the insignificant role of these supplies in achieving Victory over Nazi Germany. Which is somewhat true. Purely mathematical truth. If you look at the total costs of the USSR for the war, then, according to most historians, the costs of lend-lease are really not impressive. Only 4% of all expenses of the Soviet Union!
But there is also another side. Readers who closely follow our series "Another Lend-Lease" have already made an impression of the products that were supplied to the USSR. And first of all, urgently needed materials and high-tech equipment were supplied, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated. Moreover, high-tech products were most often not produced in the USSR at all, or were produced in small quantities and clearly outdated samples.
That is why the authors considered it necessary to give their own understanding of Lend-Lease supplies. An understanding based on familiarity with the documents of that time, and, most importantly, technology.
So, the essence of Lend-Lease, if we discard the ideology, is quite simple. And it is strange that this is still not clear to some of the readers. According to the Lend-Lease Act, the United States could supply equipment, weapons, ammunition, equipment and other goods and products to those countries whose defense was vital to the United States itself.
Pay attention to the wording? Vital for the USA! Not to defeat fascism, not from ideological or political ambitions, but from the possibility of waging a war with someone else's hands and thus preserving their own country and the lives of their own soldiers. Why fight if you don't know how? Why fight when you can buy a fighter? And then you still get fame. And money too …
The Americans simply bought one of the parties (and in fact, given the actions of some American companies, both sides) in order not to get involved in an expensive conflict themselves. Agree, the war on the islands and the war in the European theater of operations are two different wars …
All deliveries were free! All machinery, equipment and materials spent, consumed and destroyed during the war were not subject to payment. But the property left after the war and suitable for civilian purposes must be paid at the prices that were determined at the time of delivery.
By the way, this is an answer to those who did not understand why cars and other working equipment were “destroyed” in the USSR, and what remained was used in Siberia and the Far East “in a spy way”. How it happened with trucks and truck tractors, for example. And to those who still count the dollars that we allegedly "did not pay the US in addition" for the lend-lease.
Field telephone. Can it be compared with a tank, an airplane or a Katyusha? An ordinary unsightly phone in a wooden box. Meanwhile, any fighter who has been under real fire will confirm this, sometimes a stable connection is more important than even one, but several tanks at once!
To understand the situation at the initial stage of the war, we need to go back a bit in time.
The command of the Red Army was seriously engaged in the development of new types of weapons and military equipment. Tanks, aircraft, guns, small arms. All this is absolutely necessary. However, in pursuit of the best tanks or aircraft, we not only "forgot" about some things, but simply could not. And later these things cost our army many soldiers' lives.
At the beginning of the war, the Red Army had several types of field telephones at once. According to the principle of calling, all telephones were divided into induction and phonic. By their characteristics, they were outdated by June 1941.
Basically, these were the phones of the following brands - UNA-I-28, UNA-I-31, UNA-F-28 and UNA-F-31. These are rather heavy vehicles weighing 3.5 kilograms, and the UNA-F-28 and UNA-I-28 are generally 5.8 kilograms. Add to this a rather large wooden box in which all these telephones were located (for example, the UNA-F-28 was 277x100x273 in size, and the UNA-I-28 was generally 300x115x235 mm) and you get the main Soviet field telephone of that time.
UNA-I-28
UNA-I-31
There was, however, one more telephone - a powerful telephone set (THERE). True THERE was even larger in size. 360x135x270 mm. This model could be used both in the local network and in the central PBX network.
A little clarification is needed here for non-specialists. What is the difference between networks? The local network is powered by the device itself. Simply put, for this network to work, you need batteries in the phone itself. The telephones in the central network are powered by wires from the automatic telephone exchange. In this case, your own batteries are not needed.
Soviet telephones were equipped with Soviet batteries - Leclanchet manganese-zinc cells. The weight of one such battery was 690 grams. Usually, two elements were installed in telephones. By the way, this weight was not considered the weight of the device. Those. the weight of the elements was added to the weight of the device itself. The batteries had dimensions of 55x55x125 mm, rather serious for the elements.
And again a departure from the story. The Leclanchet element is named after its creator J. Lencanchet, who collected this primary current source in 1865. Most readers have repeatedly held this element in their hands in the form of an ordinary household battery.
The cathode in this cell is a mixture of manganese dioxide (MnO2-pyrolusite) and graphite (about 9.5%). Further electrolyte-solution of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl). Initially, the electrolyte was liquid, but later it began to thicken with starchy substances (the so-called dry cell). Well, and the anode-zinc glass (metal zinc Zn).
In addition to the listed telephones, there were such rarities as TABIP-1 in the Red Army.
Let's say right away that this phone is quite modern for its time. And we called it a rarity simply because it was rare. Although this device was intended for the company-battalion link. The device was not suitable for a higher echelon (battalion-regiment) due to the fact that the signal with increasing distance was simply deaf.
This phone was distinguished not only by much smaller dimensions (the reason is in the name of the phone itself) but also by the ease of use. And TABIP is just a "telephone set without power supplies." It had a sealed steel case and was almost 2 times smaller than the others (235x160x90 mm).
In general, in the Red Army, as well as in other armies, there was no order to use only their own telephones. So, in real life, in military units one could find phones of absolutely incredible brands and years of release. There was even a joke among the telephone operators. "Tell me what devices are in your unit, and I will tell you its combat path."
It would be especially interesting to look at the warehouses of the Red Army. As they would say today, these were treasures for collectors. Retro devices from the First World War, not only Russian, but also foreign production! By the way, it was these devices that were transferred to educational organizations that trained civilians in military specialties (like OSAVIAKHIM).
And the saying about the "combat path of a unit" was easily proven, for example, in those units that fought in Khalkhin Gol or in the Finnish war. The telephones of the Finnish and Japanese armies were almost the norm there. True, they were also a headache for the commanders. Spare parts were not attached to them, and military operations are not the most humane way to extend the life of equipment.
Here it is appropriate to cite the events on Khalkhin Gol as an example. From August 30 to September 19, 1939, Soviet troops captured as trophies (in varying degrees of serviceability) 71 field telephones, 6 switches, about 200 spools for telephone cables and 104 kilometers of the cable itself.
True, there was also a positive experience of using imported phones. The Finns used Estonian field telephones in their army (Tartu plant). And after pushing the Baltic states into the USSR in the summer of 1940, we received not only the apparatus of the Estonian and other armies, but also spare parts for the Finnish trophies.
This is the state of communications of the Red Army on June 22, 1941. Not to say that it is hopeless, but it is difficult to call it good either. Let's say this - there was a connection. Let it be a C, but it was. And then there was the fall of 1941 …
Already at the end of 1941, the situation with telephone communications in the Red Army became critical. Our commanders and chiefs, including Stalin and his entourage, understood this already in the first months of the war. Therefore, the issue of communication, including wired, was raised already at the first negotiations on supplies.
And again it is necessary to move away from the topic. Now into the field of business. Many people know that the USSR, or rather even earlier, Soviet Russia, successfully did business in some Western countries. It’s business. Although this was often explained by the need to finance foreign communist parties, supply the necessary goods to the USSR, and earn currency for the government.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a company created with Soviet money and also managed by our people was successfully operating in the United States. Amtorg Trading Corporation ("Amtorg").
The firm was founded in 1924 in New York and has become a truly successful commercial project. It was registered according to American laws, most of them were Americans, and she did not violate the laws of the United States. And the attention of the US counterintelligence was just a "makeweight" for a successful business.
Here is an example of Amtorg's work from the 1926 report of the chairman of the board A. V. Prigarin:
“Until now, all organizations have received loans, except for the State Bank, about $ 18,000,000, with about $ 13,000,000 - a bank loan and $ 5,000,000 - a commodity loan. The amount is quite significant, but all loans are short-term, and most are backed by goods."
Now let's get back to our story. It was "Amtorg" that got involved in solving the problem of the red army's wire communication at the initial stage of the war. Therefore, we cannot forget the work of these people. And confirmation of this fact can be found in any museum that has, for example, American field telephones during the war. To the surprise of visitors, the phones are Russified!
American EE-8B and EE-108 have inscriptions in Russian! What we will not see on equipment and weapons supplied under Lend-Lease. Simply put, some of the telephones were supplied to the USSR as commercial ones. And in this case, the product must really be adapted to the user of the importing country.
And for dessert, we will inform the specialists that really exotic devices IAA-44 and 2005W were not supplied under Lend-Lease at all. All of them ended up in the Soviet Union through Amtorg. At least we could not find a refutation of this fact in reliable sources.
What about the military supplies? When did they officially start? And what did they supply?
Oddly enough, but we have no clear answers to these questions. First of all, it is necessary to recall that the lend-lease agreement was concluded on June 11, 1942! However, it included deliveries from October 1, 1941.
This means that the deliveries that were made before October 1, 1941 were made not under Lend-Lease, but under a loan of $ 10 million to the Treasury, $ 50 million to the Defense Supply Corporation and others (totaling $ 1 billion), about which we wrote in the first part of the cycle. Well, the already mentioned company "Amtorg".
In addition, it is quite difficult to track these deliveries at all. A telephone is not a tank or an airplane. It may not "float". And given the fact that supplies came from four directions: by the northern route to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, through the Persian Gulf and Iran (especially valuable materials and raw materials), to the ports of the Black Sea and the Far East (Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky and other ports), the task becomes simply overwhelming.
There is only one document in which there are some figures regarding field telephones in the first year of the war. This is the report of Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (USSR People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade) to I. V. Stalin and V. M. Molotov at the beginning of 1942.
In a certificate drawn up on January 9, 1942, it was said that in October-December 1941, 5,506 telephones were delivered to the USSR, and another 4,416 were on the way out of 12,000 pieces. which the United States undertook to deliver monthly and, accordingly, 36,000 which were generally expected to be received in 1941.
By the way, one should not forget that the number of telephones received by the USSR. only those devices that are actually delivered are included. Items sent but lost during delivery are not counted. Here, an interesting fact should be cited, which our colleagues found in the Arkhangelsk port.
The fact is that the Northern route of delivery was the shortest, albeit the most dangerous. And the records of the delivered property were kept there with military precision. So, for the entire period of the war, according to the financial statement of surplus and shortages of imported cargo in the Arkhangelsk port, 1 (one!) Telephone set from the number of delivered ones was lost. Its cost is US $ 30.
What phones came to us under Lend-Lease?
According to experts, the first field telephone model delivered to the USSR from the USA was the EE-8-A army induction telephone. Compared to the models produced at that time by the Soviet industry, the device was quite advanced. Later, EE-8-A was upgraded to EE-8-B. Manufacturer - US Federal Telephone and Radio Corporation.
Both telephones were devices of the MB system - with a local (built-in) 3 V battery, which was intended to power the carbon microphone of the TS-9 type tube. And yet, all phones of this model are assembled according to the "anti-local" scheme.
The difference between model A and B is in the batteries. The set of EE-8-A telephones included two VA-30 round dry batteries, which are known to modern readers as the "type D cell". They were produced by Ray-O-Vac. The Soviet industry did not produce such elements.
EE-8 phones were also produced in non-standard (extended) leather bags. Such bags were made specifically for deliveries to the USSR on the orders of "Amtorg" with payment in hard currency.
The bags of such phones were being finalized to provide the possibility of using not only American, but also Soviet dry batteries of the 2C type (42 x 92 x 42 mm), which were supposed to be placed inside the same phone bag.
A special wooden block was installed inside the bag, on which Soviet batteries were installed. And the fastening was provided by a special leather cover with a button.
Above, we wrote about the supply of commercial phones by Amtorg. On these models of the Americans, this can be seen even visually. Army EE-8 on the bags necessarily had an embossing with the brand of the apparatus - "TELEPHONE EE-8-A". Experts say that the EE-8-B had such inscriptions.
But on the "Amtorgovskih" machines there was no such stamping. But the devices were Russified and had instructions in Russian. The weight of the phone with batteries was only 4.5 kilograms.
Well, fly in the ointment. The device was reliable, it easily changed the telephone and microphone in the microtelephone handset, however, it was significantly heavy and could not work with phonic devices and switches, which were widely used in the Red Army.
A leather bag in the conditions of Russia, where autumn-spring thaw and rains are a common phenomenon, quickly got wet, the brass screws for fixing the device in the bag and the fastener clip oxidized, which somewhat limited the use of such devices on the front lines.
Later modifications in the number of deliveries to the Red Army of the EE-8A devices were American army field telephones in a canvas box bag. This is how the Russian weather modernized American technology.
The next device, which certainly deserves our attention, is the EE-108 phone.
It deserves at least the fact that it was specially designed for supplies to the Red Army. This is a classic American with an inductor call, no power supplies, in a leather bag. He worked at the expense of the EMF generated in the line by the electromagnetic capsules of the TS-10 telephone receiver.
The TS-10 handset had two electromagnetic capsules, similar in design to the reversible capsule of the Soviet TABIP apparatus. One of the capsules bore the inscription "Transmitter M", the second - "Receiver T".
The speaking tangent was made in the form of a recessed round brass button. There is no "TS-10" designation on the handset itself, it can only be seen in the documentation.
The EE-108 devices were delivered in hard leather bags with the inscription "TELEPHONE EE-108" embossed on the front walls. A leather shoulder strap was attached to the bag. The dimensions of the bag were 196 x 240 x 90 mm, the weight of the telephone was 3.8 kg.
By the way, there is one surprising fact regarding this particular device. In the reference manual TM-11-487 on the equipment of communication systems of the US Department of War (October 1944), this device is not at all. Although, according to the recollections of veterans of the American army, single copies of this phone were used in the US army. In particular, when laying telephone lines.
80,771 telephones were manufactured. 75,261 devices were delivered to the USSR. China - 5,500 devices. And the Americans gave 10 sets to the army … Holland. This is according to the docs.
The next device is probably the best known. This is a field telephone with an inductor call, MB system, manufactured by Connecticut Telephone & Electric, IAA-44. The end of the war phone. Produced since 1944.
The description of this device should begin with the fact that … according to documents in both Soviet and American archives, such a phone was never delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease! Although many sources say otherwise. Only here are the documents …
Here we again come to the work of the Amtorg company. Truly, these guys did their job just fine. A grip on the envy of bulldogs. IAA-44 is the fruit of their work. We were struck by the "American" letter "I" in the title. With humor, the Soviet Americans were all right. Although, according to some sources, there were devices with the name "IAA".
The device IAA-44 is very similar to the American field telephones EE-8. As in the EE-8, two American dry batteries of the VA-30 type with a total voltage of 3 V were used to power the microphone. The initial capacity of the American batteries was 8 ampere-hours.
Inside the apparatus there were compartments for two Soviet-made 3C dry batteries, the initial capacity of which was 30 ampere-hours. In wartime, replacing American 6-8 amp-hour batteries with 30 amp-hour batteries is great! Terminals were also provided for connecting an external battery with a voltage of 3 V.
As in the EE-8 devices, in the IAA-44 field telephones, a TS-9 handset was used. There were jacks for connecting an additional handset.
Field telephones IAA-44 were delivered in metal cases with dimensions of 250 x 250 x 100 mm. The weight of the device with two Soviet 3C batteries is 7.4 kg.
It is clear that now veteran readers are waiting for a story about how we used the American experience to develop the production of something similar at home. What and when appeared on the basis. Meaning the Soviet field telephone TAI-43.
Yes, a wonderful designer, holder of several military orders, engineer-lieutenant colonel Olga Ivanovna Repina really created a field telephone, which was in service with the Soviet Army for more than 20 years, outwardly similar to a foreigner. But not an American, but a German. And as you already understood, this phone has nothing to do with US-British shipments.
Even those who had not heard this name before, not only saw her inventions in the service in the Soviet army, but also used them. These are the early TA-41 (for very veterans), TAI -43 (for the front-line soldiers of the Great Patriotic War and the post-war generation) and TA-57 (for today's readers). Thanks to the wisdom of women on the battlefield, tough men communicate efficiently. Paradox.
The TAI-43 military field telephone was created on the basis of captured samples of German field telephones FF-33 (Feldfernsprecher 33) of the 1933 model. It is about this phone that our signalmen say "Fritz works even under water."
More precisely, it will probably be like this: Repina took the design and layout of the controls from the German. But the arrangement of the telephone nodes is practically new. In one of the sources, we even found this: "TAI-43 is 90% ours and only 10 German." Let's leave this opinion without comment. This is the business of communications specialists.
But our devices are worthy of a separate topic (therefore, immediately after Lend-Lease, we will do it).
Let's repeat a simple and startling figure for the second time. Nearly 80% of all messages in World War II are wire-based!
And it would not be very smart to underestimate the contribution of our (then real) allies in the form of thousands of telephones and hundreds of kilometers of cable.
