Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - European Theater of Operation: Hubert Griffith - R.A.F. in Russia - 4. Archangel - Murmansk
R.A.F. IN RUSSIA; by HUBERT GRIFFITH; DEDICATED TO WING-COMMANDER H. N. G. ISHERWOOD, D.F.C., A.F.C., Order of Lenin, and MAJOR - GENERAL KUZNETSOV, Red Air Force ; to the Fighter-Boys of No. 151 Wing, R.A.F. and to their Soviet opposite numbers. LONDON 1942.
CHAPTER IV - ARCHANGEL-MURMANSK
September 1st to 9th
As anticipated, activity of a strenuous kind began immediately the main vessel completed her docking at one of the wooden wharfs, among miles of other wooden wharfs.
The first business of all was a Conference aboard a Russian Admiralty Yacht. The yacht was an extremely smart, newly-built motor-vessel about the size of a British Naval sloop, a wonder of white paint-work, polished brass, and polished satin-wood in the Admiral's cabin. Present at the Conference : Air Vice-Marshal Collier from Moscow (the Russian-speaking head of the British Air Mission), the Russian Rear-Admiral (young-looking, probably about 40), two British Naval Liaison officers, the Wing-Commander of No. 151 Wing, his two technical experts (his Wireless and Engineer officers), and his Wing Adjutant, myself.
The Conference was of pressing interest to all concerned because : (a) immediate action was imperative ; and (b) all preconceived notions of what was to happen had suddenly fallen to the ground. During the voyage the Wing-Commander had tentatively worked out a plan by which, if the Wing was not met on arrival by the Moscow authorities, it would proceed in its own transport, in relays, by road, to Murmansk - if there happened to be any roads in that part of the world. (This plan was negatived from the moment of landing, because there didn't happen to be any roads.) The plan already clear-cut in the heads of the Moscow authorities was that the Wing should proceed instantly to Murmansk in a series of special trains that had already been requisitioned (but this plan in its turn was negatived by the news, received the day that the Wing landed, that the Kandalaksha-Murmansk railway - see map for this - had been temporarily put out of action by an enemy bomb-raid the previous night).
Problem : " What does ` A ' do ? " - ' A ' standing for the Wing, with its imperative necessity of getting at least some of its personnel, particularly its wireless personnel and equipment, to Murmansk with the minimum of delay ?
In the circumstances, a plan had to be hatched out that combined all available resources of air and sea (and rail when repaired) :-a small party of those immediately needed went by two aircraft, leaving the next day and the day following ; another party of 200, under the Wing-Commander, went by two Royal Naval destroyers a couple of days later direct to Murmansk-Vianga (Vianga being the aerodrome, fifteen miles outside Murmansk, that was our ultimate home. This party made the journey comfortably in 22 hours.) On the fourth and fifth days, yet another party went by Russian tramp-steamer to Kandalaksha, and thence by train to Vianga ; and two more parties of about a hundred each left to undertake the journey by train over the by now repaired permanent-way. These were by no means so lucky, and took three complete days and nights for the journey. A couple of Russian destroyers also figured in these complicated manoeuvres ; and yet one other party, of expert technicians, was left at Archangel under the Engineer-Officer, to complete the task of erecting the Hurricanes that had been brought out in crates with the Convoy. (The doings of this last party, lodged on an ancient paddle-steamer nicknamed the Winkle-Barge, is given a short section to itself later.)
The ramifications of the Wing on its first and last Russian cross-country journey are thus too varied to be followed in detail. Those who went by sea suffered no worse than twenty-two hours aboard the decks of British or Soviet Destroyers, cutting through a calm sea. Of those who went by air, one party, flying in a big undefended Douglas, was turned back by the proximity of hostile aircraft, and made the journey without incident the next day. The town of Archangel remained a smudge on the northern horizon, and thus plays no part in the Wing's history. First contact with the Russian civilian and general population-the first " impact " of the Wing with its feet on Russian soil - is recorded in the notes of two officers, one who helped in some timber-shifting, and myself who made the three-day-and-nights train journey.
The first officer wrote :-" Standing on the deck of the transport one afternoon, while waiting to get orders to move up, the last day that the troopship was in port, I saw a couple of old Russian lumber-men and a party of a dozen Russian girls sawing up and loading timber into lorries as they arrived at the dockside. After they had loaded up all the timber that was in sight, they moved off to the next railway-shed, and from the coming and going of lorries it was obvious that the sawing and loading up was still going forward. I thought after three weeks almost stationary existence on board ship, that I'd go ashore and get some exercise by helping. The party was under the command of a girl about twenty, a qualified engineer. They worked away for three hours like absolute fury, the engineer-girl working the hardest of the lot. No one was looking on or supervising - but the speed of the work was prodigious. Once a lorry was loaded up with sawn timber, the girls would sit down for a breather and start smoking and singing. And then, when another lorry would come up, they'd start in all over again. About half-way through the loading and sawing I felt that I had strained every muscle of my body, and my hands were raw with working a two-handed saw - but every time I sat down for a rest, there would appear another girl at the end of a log weighing half a ton and waiting to be helped carry it, or another girl waiting for someone to help her saw it in half - and back one would have to go to the treadmill of labour out of pure shame - explaining that one had been three weeks aboard ship, and one was not quite in one's natural athletic condition. . . .
" The whole thing was, on their part, a marvellous exhibition of enthusiasm, energy and concentration. When they had finished loading every piece of timber in sight, they got to and swept down the whole quay-side (including all the rubbish chucked off the transport), a task which took an hour, and then buzzed off home. One had at last seen Russians at work, unwatched. Or rather - certain Russians at work unwatched. If there is anybody in Russia among the ` higher-ups ' making mistakes and blunders - and by what the Russian army is doing there is no evidence that any higher-ups are making mistakes and blunders - there is evidently a terrific mine of enthusiasm and energy backing the war effort among the ` lower-downs.' This I have seen with my own eyes."
The second narration is my own experiences of the train journey :
" Aboard the Archangel-Murmansk train first day out from home :
" The ` Movement Order ' got out by the Wing for this particular party was even more crazy than most Movement Orders might be expected to be in this part of the world. It stated that the party will move ` pro-visionally tomorrow, Sept. 7th ' - but actually we didn't know if the train would be ready yesterday or next Tuesday fortnight. It stated, for the information of the victims, that the journey " is expected to take from two to three days, but this may be extended to six days or more. . . ." In other words, nobody knows a thing - and we have been given a week's rations for luck - a week's rations for a journey that is only three hundred miles as the crow flies, a distance equivalent of from London to Carlisle !
" The expected length of time can be explained, of course, by a glance at the map and a knowledge of local conditions. It can be seen that the three hundred miles in a bee-line across the White Sea becomes at least six hundred in going round by land. Nor is this the whole trouble. The first, downward part of the journey, follows the well-established Archangel-Moscow railway. The last, upward, part of the journey follows the well-established Leningrad-Kandalaksha-Murmansk railway. But to get across from one to the other one needs the newly-built single-line track, laid across approximately two hundred miles of sandy soil between the points ` A' and ` B.' This bit of line is so recently-built as to appear on none of the usual maps in any detail, and we only know its vague point-to-point direction. Two things only are certain about it : one, that trains have to proceed very slowly on it ; and two, that as it is single-line, there may be any amount of delay while our train is held up for other trains to pass. Urgent supply-trains are being sent up the line towards the Front, and hospital-trains are coming down. We will have to pull into sidings to let through both kinds. Well - two days or six - it is all part of the campaign's unexpectedness. . . .
" The landscape is dull and monotonous - sand-dunes, low lines of hills, stunted birch-trees, low, heavy clouds. The weather is still quite warm, the equivalent of normal English autumn weather. Bully-beef and bread for supper. Go off to sleep.
Next day
" Awake feeling as though stretched on a rack. There are only two passenger-coaches on the train, and they are both " Hard class," which means, in Russia, extremely hard, plain deal boards to stretch out on, which after a night-time feel as though they were made of immortal ebony. The train is as full as it can go, and to ease the situation of bunks among the troops, I have taken a sergeant and a batman to share my compartment. We have fifty palliasses stuffed with straw for distribution among about 100 airmen - therefore make the men draw lots for who gets a palliasse and who does not - while having to pretend that I, as an officer, am loftily superior to discomfort and like going without a palliasse anyhow. Lunch today, tinned stew heated over spirit-cookers. At odd intervals the train pulls into a siding or wayside station, and then Russian railway officials rush aboard bearing large cans of boiling-hot water (" kipiatók ") and we get tea going. The train's maximum speed, going along the newly-laid line, seems to be a poor 15 m.p.h. ; the train's usual is just a little faster than a walking-pace. For light in the evenings there are a couple of candles stuck in the corridor outside each compartment.
Halted about an hour this afternoon, opposite a Russian hospital-train coming down from the line. The cordiality of a great reunion ! All the Russian army very much with their tails up. Grins, and exchanges between the troops of chocolate and peppermints and cigarettes. I have been trying to learn a little of the Russian language in recent years in England. Nothing astonishes me so much as to find that I can both understand and be understood, to a certain limited extent. But it is a genuine pleasure to be able to explain, even in elementary Russian, that " we are the R.A.F. arriving " - and to find that they are very pleased to have us arrive. Bully-beef, biscuits, tinned damsons to eat in our train. The Russian nurses in the hospital-train wear white overalls, wide grins, and look very competent. The Russian soldiers, in their slings and bandages, make the universal sign for " thumbs up," and grin also. Landscape unchanging - firs, pines, sand, and low hills.
Third day out
Food still stew and biscuit. No clothes are taken off at night, because all clothes are needed against the hardness of the seats. A wash is a luxury. One has a shave once a day, in half a glass of cold water - and if it doesn't make one look thirty years younger, at least it makes one feel it.
A pleasant incident : - two Russian colonels travelling on the train invited me into their compartment last night to drink tea. They are types about thirty-eight or forty years old, clean and trim and smart and official - they give the feeling that they have only to whisper an order and the whole Russian staff of the train would be sent running for them. And yet . . . during that long midnight party yesterday evening in their compartment, which they also shared with a batman and a minor train-official, one could see the complete friendliness that existed between them all - each member of the party saying all he thought, discussing the situation freely and without constraint, cracking jokes, just as though ranks as between colonels and batmen did not exist. . . .
This is something that the Russians have achieved in twenty years--and that I don't know that we have even tried for yet. Late in the evening in the compartment there was the cooking of tins of soup held over a candle, one of the colonels being the chief cook and holding the tins in his fingers ; and there was the batman talking away about the things he knew about, the lie of the local country and its customs - and there were the colonels, gents., in the best sense of the term (chaps with good manners and good looks and good conversation) encouraging him to talk away as much as he liked ; and there was still the feeling that those colonels, on their jobs, on parade, among their regiments, would have been as rigidly obeyed and listened to as any Grenadier Guards colonel. It was revealing ; and I was glad to have been present at that mild, candle-lighted tea-party. It showed, among other things, that Afinogenov's play " Distant Point," a play that I translated several years ago, and that deals with the relationship of high Soviet officers with their subordinates - was no lie.
Met and pulled up alongside another Russian hospital train today. One of our airmen gets a tunic-button sewn on by a Russian nurse, with a crowd of about a hundred Russians looking on and applauding.
Fourth day out
I now ache so continuously that it has simply become a habit that one can forget about - or maybe this is what is called the process of " becoming hardened." Breakfast this morning, herrings out of a tin, and tea - the ever-lasting strong, sweet, kitchen-tea that the airmen adore. The Russians have been unfailingly good at providing us with hot water. A sergeant came into my compartment this morning and told me that he had never enjoyed a journey so much. I see what he means. It is a train journey such as few other Englishmen have ever experienced since the early days of trains, round about the year 1830. It's nice to know that he appreciated it.
The " garmonica " -concertina- that one of the Russians provided our troops with early in the journey has never stopped playing. --
A couple of young Russian officers got in with us last night. They couldn't speak a word of English, but got on like a house-afire with the airmen by sitting in their compartments and singing operatic airs to them accompanied by the squiffer. They were out to be extra-ordinarily friendly, and their music cheered up the tone of the train considerably. We are due to arrive this afternoon, after shunting about the sidings of Murmansk for a couple of hours at midday. The final seventeen-mile stage of the journey is accomplished by the train being pushed backwards up a steep winding track by a small tank-locomotive that seems to need to pause to take breath every few miles. The outskirts of the Camp at last, about four p.m. Get down off the train, boys ! Off load ! What a hot bath we'll have tonight-if there are such things as hot baths going. . . .
Two days later
The Camp turns out to be a Camp far away in the remotest country-side. Miles - not from the nearest town - but from the nearest village. Work ahead, eighteen or so hours a day, at unloading, and getting the Camp going. Very near the war again at last. . . .
Our pilot-boys have already been in action-with spectacular results ; three Huns shot down for certain ; one of our own is missing. It's worth putting on record that the Russians from the beginning have been extra-ordinarily good to us, treating us, including the least of our airmen (i.e., private soldiers), like honoured guests. And I've already heard one slightly astonished phrase from one of our pilots, who has seen a Russian anti-aircraft barrage in action :-" Well, I'm bloody glad they're on our side and not against us ! "—which is, to say the least of it, interesting.
Now to see what's going to happen at Vianga Camp, near Murmansk, within the Arctic Circle, North Russia.
