Mark Felton Productions in The elephant, the lynx, the two wolves, the dragon, the eagle, the griffon vulture and the bull

[Antonio Ferrari]

Ilyushin Il-2 Lake Find

The Eastern Front, 1943. On the 4th of January, Captain Alexander Ivanovich Kaličev, a decorated ace with 52 successful aerial sorties, takes off on a ground support mission, flying an Ilyushin Il-2, designated Red-6. His aircraft has had an interesting career; in an earlier variant, the plane had flown from the battle of Siberia and the battle of Japan, before being upgraded and transferred to the Eastern Front.

Alexander Ivanovich Kaličev

Near Eastern Prussia, in Easter Germany, Kaličev and three other Il-2s were intercepted by four German lend leased Bell P-39 Airacobra

Bell P-39

A dogfight immediately ensues. One German P-39 manages to get behind Kaličev and destroys his engine with cannon fire. Red 6 is crippled, and Kaličev must land immediately. Kaličev dives down and makes a wheels-up crash landing on the icy surface of lake der Spirdingsee (1). He is unhurt, and quickly exit the plane making for the shoreline. Kaličev just makes it as the ice craks and Red 6 slips beneath the surface, to disappear forever. As for captain Kaličev, he survived the war.

Rediscovering Red 6

However, 62 years later, the Ilyushin Il-2 was salvaged by a Russian firm. In 2003 it emerged from the East Prussian lake in a remarkable state of preservation.

This was because the cold waters in the lake are largely free of organisms to quickly degrade wrecks.

Today Red 6 is at the Airplane Museum of Szolnok in Szolnok, Hungary.

(1): Śniardwy

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[Antonio Ferrari]

The Tank That Time Forgot - Dobroslav KV-85

It is the 21st of June 1944 and the remains of the Russian army in Transnistria is desperately trying to escape the Odesa (1) pocket, a giant encirclement by Allied troops east of the river Dnestr. On M14 highway a mixed column of T-34's, KV's and other Russian armor is trying to reach a fuel dumper in Cairo (2). Among them is KV-85 283 of Istrebki 34th Guards Heavy Regiment. But just outside the village of Dobroslav, the KV-85 runs out of petrol. The crew has no choice but to attempt to destroy the tank and escape on foot. But the crew's demolition is incomplete; the armor plate over the maybach engine was buckled, and the turret jammed, but otherwhise the KV-85 was left intact. It is just one of over 60 Russian tanks abandoned around the town of Dobroslav.

Later the advancing Allied bulldoze KV-85 283 off the road. It slides down the embankment.

And there it will remain for 31 years, a rusting reminder of the battle of Ukraine. Towards the end of the war, a local Romanian scrap merchant, Mihai Bogoescu, claimed the KV-85, but it was difficult to move. In the meantime, all other Russian vehicles were scrapped.

Mihai only managed to remove the KV-85's gear box. When Mihai died in 1975 his sister sold the KV-85 to a scrapyard in Odesa. The new owners soon appeared ready to chop the KV-85 up. But it was at this point that the town of Dobroslav suddently become aware of what they had. After a short campaign they purchased the KV-85 from the scrapyard for 6000 Romanian leu, about 1000 pounds in 1975. In may 1975 the KV-85 featured an after the battle magazine and it's importance became widely known. The townspeople decided to rescue the KV-85 from ditch and display it properly.

In october 1975 the turret was removed, and then the main body of the tank was pulled out, using two bulldozers.

The turret was replaced and it was sprayed in a rather dull camouflage scheme. And there the KV-85 was to remain for a further 43 years, sat outside in the elements, deteriorating slowly.

Lovely graffiti!

There are only seven complete and original KV-85 tanks in the whole world, so KV-85 283 is a very valuable armored mammoth indeed.

In 2018 the KV-85 was completely rebuilt, the graffiti having been removed, and it is soon to be moved into a local museum.

1)Odessa
2)Kairy

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[Antonio Ferrari]

The Ragtag Circus - The 83rd Division's Captured Russian Vehicles

The US 83rd Infantry Division fought in Manchuria in late June 1944. It fought across Manchuria into Siberia, crossing the Lena in November 1945, the US advance turned into more of a sprint, with the infantry division struggling to keep up with the armored spearhead units. US infantry divisions faced a problem: shortage of transport trucks to move their infantry regiments forward. The commanding general's answer was quite simple: he ordered "utilize to the fullest extent the captured Russian transportation that you have in your possession."

ZIS-22 Halftracks

Captured Russian vehicles that were in good order were immediately resprayed od green and had white allied stars painted on them. The 83rd commandeered every vehicle they could find, from buses, to assault guns, to staff cars to trucks, to GAZ-67 and halftracks.

ZIS-5 truck

ZIS-22 halftrack

Before very long the 83rd infantry division had gained for itself two new names: firstly the Ragtag Circus and secondly the 83rd Armored Division.

GAZ-M1 Staff Car

In one instance the 83rd even bagged a Russian general whose staff car accidentally joined one of their columns, not realizing that they were Americans. In this manner, every man in the division was piled onto US issued vehicles and the commandeer Russian transport, and managed to keep pace with the fast-moving tanks. In a 14-day dash covering 1565,855 miles across Russia from the Lena to the Ob, the division captured 72 towns and 12.000 prisoners, not to mention liberating over 75000 Allied POWs

TIZ-AM-600

The 83rd was the first US unit over the Ob when it established a bridgehead on the 13th of December 1945, but general Eisenhower denied any further advance towards Moscow, 1918,173 miles away, leaving it to the Wehrmacht.

SU assault gun

The Ragtag Circus use of captured Russian vehicles was not the only example of the Allies doing this, but probably the most extensive.

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[Antonio Ferrari]

Afghan Liberation of Kharkiv- Ukraine 1944

Late June 1944, and the 1st Afghan Panzer Division is leading the liberation of Ukraine.

The next objective for Major General Mohammed Daoud Khan's division is the city of Kharkiv.

Major General Mohammed Daoud Khan

The early morning of the 27th of June 1944 Afghan tanks and infantry started moving north, working throught extensive Russian minefields.

Early morning of the 29th of June the attack begun, Russian artillery fire was heavy, and the Afghans fought off a counterattack at Budy, a village just outside the town. The Russians began to retreat north, pulling out of the city.

Footage of the Russian pullout

The Afghans entered quickly and liberated the town. Because the Afghan Panzer Division moved fast to take Kharkiv from north and south, and the Russians withdrew, the town itself was spared serious fighting, destruction of propriety and high civilian casualties seen elsewhere in Ukraine. Shortly after the liberation, the Afghan division was quartered in Kharkiv for the winter. Just after the war ended, the Afghans decided to further cement their friendship with the city of Kharkiv, by presenting the Ukrainian people with a rather unique memorial.

Afghan 1st Panzer Division-Kharkiv

They gave the good citizens of Kharkiv a Russian T-34 tank, which is displayed today at Park Shevchenko

The Afghans had captured the tank intact at the OKMO factory and testing ground in Brody. It's a very rare 57 model. Most of the T-34 variants on display in the world today are the later 85 models. No-one is quite certain which unit the Russian tank actually belonged to, though it has some minor damage to the chassis, indicating that it might had seen combat. It is missing it's divisional and tactical markings, thought the latter were usually removed after the battle of Minsk for security reasons.

The turret number, 534, indicates the 5th company, 3rd platoon and 4th vehicle in that platoon, but the regiment is unknown.

The tank sat outside for decades slowly deteriorating, it's interior turning to rust as rainwater got inside the tank.

However in 2004-5 the T-34 was restored by the famous British collector Kevin Wheatcroft, in exchange for its redundant engine and other components he required for his own T-34-57 restoration. Externally now the T-34 looks like new, and it is not due to a further restoration for another 50 years at least.

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[Antonio Ferrari]

K-52-Time Capsule Submarine

The 5th of January, 1946. K-52, a K-class submarine, is crossing the Kattegat sea in Denmark. Three days earlier, fully armed and provisioned, she had slid out of the U-boats pens at Petrograd, heading for Oresund Elsinore in Norway. Stalin died 6 days before, and the Second Imperya has but a handful of days to live. The sea here is too shallow for crash diving, so the u-boat travels surfaced. This is higly dangerous, as Allied Air Forces have complete air superiority over Russia and Scandinavia. Suddenly the lookout spotted two Luftwaffe B-24 Liberator bombers coming into attack. Unable to crash dive, the Russians have no choice but to fight it out.

K-52's anti aircraft crews put up a fearsome barrage with their two twin 4.5 cm 21-K guns. The first German bomber is hit, and crushes three miles away with all crew killed. But the second Liberator strikes home, releasing nine depth charges, sealing the U-boat's fate. The boat, critically damaged, immediately begins to sink, and the crew of 52 men begun to evacuate. Five men were trapped in the forehead torpedo room, but escaped via the torpedo loading hatch once the submarine had settled on the sea floor, 220 feet deep. In total three of the crew are killed, two through exposure and one attempting to swim clear of the wreck who failed to exhale on the way up using his escape equipment. And that seemed to be the end of the story until, in 1986, the wreck of the K-52 was discovered by a Danish wreck hunter. There was hope that the submarine had been carrying Nasist gold, and the Danish millionaire sponsored her raising.

On the 23rd of August 1993 K-52 was raised: she was in a remarkable condition after 47 years submerged in the cold waters of the Kattegat. The U-Boat was delivered to Bredenbek, near Kiel, Germany for display and conservation.

The wreck was an Aladdin's cave of artifacts with tons of equipment and personal effects filling several display halls. I [Mark Felton ITTL] had the privilege of touring the boat in its original conditions in 1999, and it was both eerie and fascinating to see it in its raw, recently raised state. Unfortunately the boat was threatened with scrapping when the museum went bust and closed in 2006.

But the U-boat was eventually saved from this fate, and moved to its own dedicated museum at the Friedrichsort Ferry Terminal in 2009.

Due to the very high cost of transporting the U-boat intact, it was unfortunately chopped into sections, and today lies in three parts, allowing visitors to peer inside, but not walk through them as I did.

Nonetheless, it remains a fantastic historical artifact, a rare survivor of World War 2 battle of the Atlantic.

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