Let's change course, and today our story will not be about weapons, but quite the opposite. About what stood on the other side of the war.
In the personal history of almost every soldier, be it a private or a general, there are episodes that were really on the verge of death, and in the stories they are most often presented in a humorous vein. These are episodes of injury and subsequent treatment. Hospitals and infirmaries are perceived in memories as a kind of sanatorium. Lie on white sheets, eat pills, discuss the problem of a light or heavy hand of a nurse, which injects another injection into your long-suffering one every 4 hours.
Today's material is about ambulance trains, with the help of which doctors saved hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers.
Trains, the feat of which was already in the fact that these trains were at the very edge, at the very front end. And they did their job.
By the way, for many readers who were not specifically interested in the history of medical trains, the understanding of their work at the front came from the cinema. Remember the movie "For the rest of your life …"? It probably sounds strange, given the specifics of the cinema, but on the whole, the film very truthfully shows the combat path of an ordinary medical personnel.
Moreover, the authors did not invent anything. The ambulance train, which is described in the film, existed in reality. This is a military ambulance train # 312, formed at the Vologda steam locomotive repair plant in the early days of the war. The train set off for its maiden voyage on June 26, 1941. The train crew consisted of 40 medical workers and railway workers.
The contribution of this train to the Victory can be expressed in two numbers. During the war, the train covered 200 thousand kilometers! In fact, the distance is equal to five round-the-world routes! During this time, more than 25,000 wounded were evacuated from the battle zone and transported to the rear hospitals! One train and two and a half tens of thousands of saved lives … The museum car of this train stands today on the territory of the Vologda repair depot.
Everyone understood the need for military medical trains. This explains the quick reaction of the USSR governing bodies. Already on June 24, the People's Commissariat of Railways instructed the railways to form 288 sanitary trains. For these trains, 6,000 wagons were allocated, the staff of railway workers in the brigades and the places of formation of trains were determined.
Realizing that it is impossible to create so many fully equipped trains at once, and that different trains were needed, the People's Commissar of Railways divided the trains into two categories. Permanent (150 trains) flying on the routes front - rear hospitals and temporary (138 trains), the so-called sanitary briefings. The flyers were intended to transport the wounded to the nearest rear.
Very often in the photographs of that time, we see exactly the flyers. A train of freight wagons equipped for the transportation of lightly and seriously wounded, a pharmacy-dressing wagon, a kitchen, a wagon for service and medical personnel. By the way, the episode of the film "Officers", when the wounded are loaded practically under enemy fire, is almost the daily routine of such flyers.
The system of the People's Commissariat of Railways was and remains, even today, quite militarized. The shoulder straps that we see on railway workers are not at all a tribute to fashion. This is a strict, almost military, hierarchy. That is why the instructions of the People's Commissar were carried out on time. And control over their implementation was tight. The country could not afford slovenliness.
For example, let's talk about just one episode of that war. An episode to remember! The carriage workshop of the Tashkent Steam Locomotive Repair Plant received a combat mission - to prepare special trains. No equipment was received for them. It had to be produced locally.
The machines for the seriously wounded were made by a team of women and adolescents under the guidance of an experienced foreman Lukyanovsky, evacuated from the Velikie Luki railway car repair plant. We worked around the clock. People understood that they needed to complete the task as quickly and better as possible.
In September 1941, the first three ambulance trains left the carriage shop for the front, and four more in the next two months. In December, five trains with red crosses were sent to the front at once. 12 fully equipped trains in 4 months! Isn't that heroism?
In conditions when German aviation dominated the air, and tank wedges pierced our defenses in different places, ambulance trains became the object of constant hunt for pilots and tankers of the German army. They were not embarrassed by the presence of red crosses and the lack of train protection. Russians are not people. This means that they need to be destroyed without regard to any treaties and moral norms.
Trains returning from the front were no less "wounded" than those they brought to hospitals. At many stations, repair points for such "wounded trains" were organized. Here is how the work of such a repair base at the Kuibyshev station is described in the book "Railway Workers in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945":
And one more document, which is simply impossible not to quote. For memory…
Excerpt from the order of the Chief of the Military Sanitary Directorate of the North-Western Front of March 14, 1942:
After a short excursion into the history of the appearance of military medical trains in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War, let us turn to the hero of our story. So, the permanent medical train of the Red Army. Two carriages of just such a composition are presented in the museum of Verkhnyaya Pyshma. Yes, this is not a complete composition, but it is a rather indicative exhibit from a medical point of view. Trains consisted of just such wagons. Carriages for lightly and seriously wounded soldiers.
Unlike ambulances, where the main task was to provide first aid and prompt evacuation to the rear, permanent ambulance trains were hospitals on wheels. Simply put, in these trains, already during transportation, the wounded and sick were treated.
That is why, if we compare the evacuation capabilities of a train and a flyer, then the comparison will not be in favor of the train. On average, one flyer could take up to 900 wounded in one flight! Exactly the same train of permanent composition could accommodate at most "only" about 500 people.
Another important question is how much, in percentage terms, would have made it to hospitals.
What was the military ambulance train like? You should start here with one more quote. Quotes from the memoirs of a direct participant in the events who made a flight on the legendary train number 312, which we have already mentioned.
Vera Panova, author of the book "Sputniki", wrote about what the military ambulance trains were like:
So, the train included a locomotive consisting of one or two steam locomotives. The number of steam locomotives could vary depending on the capabilities of the railway and the distance of the train journey. This was followed by passenger cars for transporting the wounded. The wounded were placed according to the degree of danger of injury. The seriously wounded were housed in special carriages close to operating rooms and other special carriages.
Specialized carriages for treatment and surgical operations were in the middle of the train. Moreover, the medical places in such cars were equipped in such a way that they could be easily transformed. So, in addition to the main function, operating tables were also places for bandaging the wounded, for washing the lying wounded, etc.
Let's get into the car. It is difficult to say how many man-hours of labor there are, but the carriage has been completely restored from photographs of those years.
Interesting, right? By the way, in many photos this is exactly the case: in the carriages there are portraits of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, although a portrait of either Stalin or Kaganovich (People's Commissar of the People's Commissariat for Railways) would be more appropriate. Although Ivan Kovalev is present from the NKPS here, who replaced Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich at the post of People's Commissar of the NKPS in 1944.
Cabinet with medical equipment. Tonometer, Esmarch apparatus, ultraviolet lamp.
Medicine dispensing table.
The radio "plate" is a working one. There are two of them in the carriage, they are connected to the MP-3 player, and they reproduce records quite well.
Ventilation. Looks very confident, by the way.
Hozblok. Medicine is medicine, and everyone needs food.
Pharmacy. In the format usual for that time. There were few ready-made forms, mainly the dosage was prepared on the spot in the form of a powder or injection.
Well, the carriage itself. It is quite easy to distinguish where the lightly wounded are. The recumbent and seriously wounded soldiers were located on such bunks in three tiers.
Dressing-procedural-operating room. Depending on the need and qualifications of the medical staff.
By the way, with a slight movement … Well, not quite so, but quite normally the dressing room could be transformed into:
- dining room for those who stand up;
- red corner;
- a bath for bedridden patients.
Here in this pipe with watering cans there was hot (!) Water. From the boiler of the steam locomotive.
Electric lighting. But if desired or necessary, it was possible in the old fashioned way, with candles. Without the danger of setting something on fire.
The second speaker is the radio and a modern turntable sticks out from behind it.
Staff compartment. And then there was a sewing workshop.
In addition to specialized medical carriages, the trains included auxiliary carriages: a carriage for train personnel, a kitchen carriage, a pharmacy carriage, a morgue carriage … The availability of these cars varied. For example, the morgue car was often absent due to the fact that, according to a special order of the head of the medical service of the Red Army, the dead servicemen were removed from the train at the nearest station and handed over to the local hospital for burial.
Paradoxically, the same order reigned in hospital trains as in inpatient hospitals. What Vera Panova wrote about is no exception. This rule is! A rule, the failure of which was punished to the fullest extent of the conditions of wartime. How it was possible in conditions of constant or almost constant, taking into account the time for repairs after front-line adventures, movement, we do not understand.
At the same time, according to the recollections of the participants in the events themselves, in such trains one could find inventions completely unimaginable for the railway. So, on the roofs of the carriages one could often see … a vegetable garden! A real vegetable garden, boxes in which greens were grown for the wounded. And from under the carriages there was a cackling and grunting. Laying hens and piglets lived there! Again, for a variety of food for the wounded. By the way, the authorship of these inventions is attributed to the same 312 train …
There is another point that I would like to tell you about. Above, we mentioned the inhumanity of German pilots and tankers. But there were others. From the very beginning of the war, active sabotage activities were launched against the Soviet ambulance trains. And not only the Germans, but also the so-called "worked" on the trains. pests from among Soviet citizens.
The orderly Leonid Semenovich Levitsky talked about how the saboteurs worked in our rear:
The next day, at 7 o'clock in the morning, military ambulance train No. 1078 was attacked at once by 18 German bombers.
The format of the article does not allow us to talk about the many feats that the railway workers and VSP doctors performed. Is it really necessary? It is enough that the stories about mobile hospitals are alive. Those who should have died back then, during the war, are still alive. Their children and grandchildren are alive. Is this not a monument to Soviet military medical trains? A monument in almost all of us.
It is very interesting to walk on these cars. They don't seem big on the outside, but it's surprising how much the builders were able to cram in there. And how rational everything is.
Touching creaking floors, the smell of wood, everything can be touched, everything can be touched. Beautiful. But on the other hand, you understand that in the "combat" state these cars looked completely different. And it was not Ruslanova who sang from the speakers, and they, most likely, were not heard over the groans and cries of the wounded.
We consider these two cars to be the most valuable exhibits of the UMMC museum in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. Those who restored them have invested so much love in our history that it cannot but touch the soul of a normal person. Many thanks to these people!
