Dogs during the Great Patriotic War. The exploits of dogs during the Great Patriotic War. Dogs during the Great Patriotic War Mina with delivery
During the Great Patriotic War About sixty thousand dogs were drafted into the army. The man's friends worked as messengers, security guards, scouts, saboteurs, mine hunters, and orderlies. Among the dog's jobs were tank destroyers.
In 1941-1942, in the absence of sufficient anti-tank weapons, it was the use of these moving guided projectiles that stopped the enemy near Moscow and Leningrad, near Kharkov and Stalingrad, near Voronezh and Taganrog.
The dog, equipped with a saddle on which there was an anti-tank mine, penetrated under the bottom of the tank, the detonator, touching the bottom, activated the fuse, and the tank was hit in the most weakness– bottom. From such an explosion, the armored monster died along with its crew. The dog also gave its life. Tank destroyer dogs (TDS) terrified enemies. Wehrmacht officer Clemens Podelwies wrote in the book “Battles on the Don and Volga”: “I was rushing to a rifle trench, a narrow single trench, and was about to jump into it, and then I was struck with awe by a picture, from the sight of which I immediately jumped to the side. In the trench lay a shot dead German Shepherd. A demolition charge was strapped to the body, and an iron spike rose on the back.”
When entering captured villages, the first thing they did was exterminate dogs in order to feel safe. The Nazis even shied away from dead dogs with mines on their backs, who died from bullets before reaching the tank. Attempts by the Germans to use nets under the bottoms of enemy vehicles against SIT did not lead to anything. They penetrated from behind the tank, and machine-gun fire was also ineffective. The dog was barely noticeable and, when launched by the counselor from a close distance of 50 - 100 meters, quickly found itself in a dead zone inaccessible to the machine gunner.
Only trainers were awarded for blowing up a tank. The award sheets stated that the counselor destroyed a tank using SIT. The dog's name was not written down. She remained an unknown war hero. By destroying with four-legged friend tank, the Red Army soldiers cut off infantry, set fire to tanks with anti-tank rifles and grenades. Often after a fight, dogs and counselors were buried in the same grave. Our story is about one such battle.
An evening message from the Soviet Information Bureau on July 2, 1942 reported: “Heavy fighting in one of the sectors of the Southwestern Front. Fifty German tanks tried to break through to our troops. Nine brave armor-piercers from the fighter squad of Senior Lieutenant Shantsev opened fire and set fire to 7 German tanks.” The report did not say that tank destroyer dogs (SIT) released by the Red Army soldiers set fire to the tanks.
This happened on June 10, 1942 in the Kharkov region near the Bulatselovka station (now Shevchenkovo station). On the road Chuguevo - Kupyansk, soldiers of the 138th separate fighter detachment of the 38th Army under the command of senior lieutenant Vasily Vasilyevich Shantsev, a native of the Lozovsky district of the Pavlodar region of the Kazakh SSR.
The detachment received its baptism of fire in September 1941 near the village of Kobelyaki, Poltava region. In November of this year, his fighters defend the city of Kharkov, and then in December the city of Chuguev.
Near the village of Peschanoye in March 1942, Red Army soldiers stop enemy tanks. In June of the second year of the war, the detachment’s soldiers closed tank-hazardous areas west of the Bulacelovka station.
Near the Gavrilovka farmstead, a platoon of junior lieutenant Isay Lukyanovich Stolyarov occupies the defense. He was born in the village of Reprikhovka, Klyavlinsky district, Kuibyshev region.
After heavy artillery bombardment and bombing of the front defense in the area west of the station, on June 10, 1942, at 10 a.m., the Nazis went on the offensive. The rifle unit standing on the defensive could not withstand the enemy's onslaught and retreated. Lieutenant Stolyarov and his soldiers were two hundred meters from the front line.
Having no order to withdraw, he gave the order to open fire on the advancing enemy machine gunners. The enemy lay down. Fighter fighters destroyed up to fifty Fritz and held back their advance. The Nazis threw tanks into battle.
When the tanks approached close quarters, launched by the assistant platoon commander, senior sergeant Evgeniy Ivanovich Builin, a native of the village of Bichevnoy, Kuibyshev region, the dog destroyed a Nazi tank. The soldiers of his squad followed the example of the commander.
Thirty-six-year-old counselor Alexey Grigoryevich Kolesnikov from the village of Novodevichye, Kuibyshev region, and his fellow Red Army soldier Alexey Petrovich Romanov from the village of Ermakovka, having let enemy tanks close, with the help of dogs, destroyed the tank destroyers one by one. Having lost their tanks, the enemies did not stop trying to break through the line occupied by the heroes.
A continuously firing enemy tank approached Romanov's trench. Alexey Petrovich blew it up with an anti-tank grenade. The Nazis retreated.
Near the village of Khudoyarovo, six tank destroyer dog leaders, led by squad commander Akhat Sabirovich Sabirov from the village of Shlanga, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, entered into battle with fifty tanks.
The soldiers brought the tanks close so that the launched dog would not become a target and would quickly fall into a dead field inaccessible to enemy machine guns. The command “Forward!” Vasily Illarionovich Lazunin from the village of Shabanovka, Kuibyshev region, gave it to his dog.
His pet blew up a tank. Out of surprise, the enemy tanks stopped, but after a moment of confusion, they continued to move.
Then two more dogs, let by V.I. Lazunin and Khatyp Nazmievich Shamsiev from Tatarstan, blew up two tanks.
The Nazis opened heavy fire from other tanks. Lazutin and the dog of Sergeant Said Gainutdinovich Gainutdinov died in the shootout.
The Germans, opening the tank hatch, offered the Red Army soldiers to surrender. In response, the deputy squad commander, junior sergeant S.G. Gainutdinov threw an anti-tank grenade, and Sergeant A.S. Sabirov gave a command to his dog. Two enemy tanks burst into flames on the battlefield. SIT leaders Nikolai Artemovich Panin from the village of Bogdanovka, Chkalov region, and Tatar Nur Zapparovich Zapparov and their dogs set fire to two more tanks entered the battle with the German tanks.
The enemy retreated and changed direction. In the short-lived battles that day, the enemy lost eleven enemy tanks. Junior Lieutenant I.L. died in battle. Stolyarov, senior sergeant E.I. Buylin, sergeant A.S. Sabirov, Red Army soldiers A.G. Kolesnikov, A.P. Romanov, Kh.N. Shamsiev, N.A. Panin, N.Z. Zapparov and Tatar Khatyp Zhazlievich Shashenev and their pets. All, except Kh. Zh. Shashenev, were posthumously awarded orders and medals.
The surviving tank destroyers were led out of the encirclement by the deputy commander of the destroyer squad, Lieutenant Alexander Grigorievich Zaitsev, a native of the city of Kuibyshev. On the Novo-Nikolaevka - Kupyansk road they knocked out three more fascist tanks. The soldiers emerged from the encirclement near the village of Otradnoye.
The 138th separate fighter detachment of the 38th Army retreated in battle to Stalingrad. Here he joined the 43rd separate Red Banner engineering brigade special purpose under the command of Colonel Ivan Porfiryevich Koryavko, the future Hero Soviet Union.
It was the fighters of this brigade who, with the help of dogs, destroyed 39 enemy tanks near the city of Stalin. Detachment commander Shantsev led the 212th battalion of engineering barriers. The best battalion of the brigade distinguished itself in November - December 1942 at the STZ, Red October, and Barricades factories, where fighters blew up ten German tanks.
The battalion's miners were the first to go behind enemy lines in small groups to wage a sabotage war against the Nazis. They blew up bridges, mined roads, firing points, and took languages.
Shantsev's battalion, having blown up firing points on the approaches to Mamayev Kurgan, contributed to its capture by the 284th Infantry Division of Colonel N.F. Batyuk, for this deputy battalion commander A.G. Zaitsev was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The battalion commander, Major Shantsev, died on August 20, 1943 in Ukraine from an enemy air bomb, liberating Donbass. Awarded by the Motherland with several military orders. The soldiers of the detachment and their commander have not yet been immortalized.
The feat of dogs during the Great Patriotic War is little known and not fully appreciated today.
In 1945, at the Victory Parade, they and the counselors walked along Red Square. A monument to tank destroyer dogs has been erected in Volgograd.
05/05/2017, 10:00
During wars, animals always fought side by side with people. First world war the main burden fell on the horses - historians suggest that about eight million horses remained on the battlefields at that time. But not only they fought - pigeons, cats, mules fought...
And during the Great Patriotic War, dogs came to the fore.
They walked the front roads together with people, shared a trench and rations, worked and fought. During the war, over sixty thousand dogs were drafted into the army. Purebred dogs fell into the ranks of signalmen, saboteurs, sled dogs and ambulance dogs, but mongrels suffered the most terrible fate - demolitionists.
Today, on the eve of the great Victory Day, we heartily congratulate all our veterans and, remembering their feat in the fight against terrible evil, we talk about those who helped them. About dogs. 
The history of dogs in the ranks of the Red Army began in 1919, when the canine scientist Vsevolod Yazykov, the author of many books on dog training, approached the Red Army Headquarters with proposals on the principles of organizing service dog breeding in the Red Army. Five years later, on August 23, 1924, the Order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 1089 was issued, according to which a Central training and experimental nursery school for military and sporting dogs“for the purposes of reconnaissance, communications, guard and sanitary services and guarding military warehouses.”
Nikita Yevtushenko was appointed the first head of the school. The nursery was named “Red Star”. The center gave impetus to the creation of service dog breeding clubs in the OSOAVIAKHIM system, the predecessor of DOSAAF and ROSTO.
A few months later, nurseries were created in Ulyanovsk, Smolensk, Tashkent and Tbilisi.
At first, the Red Army experienced a large shortage of service dog breeding specialists. Therefore, it was necessary to involve criminal investigation officers, hunters and even circus trainers.
To popularize the “dog business,” the first All-Union exhibition of sniffer dogs and dogs was held in September 1925. guard breeds, in which cadets of the Central Nursery of the Red Army demonstrated a “battle” with a smoke screen and shooting.
In 1938, Vsevolod Yazykov fell under the rink of repression, but it was his scientific methods formed the basis for the theory and practice of service dog breeding in the army, border and internal troops.
By the beginning of 1941, the Red Star school was training dogs for 11 types of services. The Germans stated with envy that “nowhere were military dogs used as effectively as in Russia.” By the beginning of the war, there were over 40 thousand of them registered in OSOAVIAKHIM clubs, and by the end, the Soviet Union took first place in the world in the use of dogs for military purposes.
By the way, with the beginning of the war, the Moscow regional and city dog breeding clubs sent about 14 thousand of their pets to the front line. The Kazan, Gorky and Tambov clubs also took an active part in recruiting special units.
Where did the club's pets serve?
From 1939 to 1945, 168 separate military units were created that used dogs. At the fronts there were 69 separate platoons of sledge detachments, 29 separate companies of mine detectors, 13 separate special detachments, 36 separate battalions of sledge detachments, 19 separate battalions of mine detectors and 2 separate special regiments. In addition, 7 training battalions of cadets from the Central School of Service Dog Breeding periodically participated in combat operations.
Demolition dogs
They were officially called “tank destroyer dogs” and were adopted into service in 1935.
Today this idea seems scary, but war has its own logic. The life of an animal is cheaper than the life of an infantryman. The dogs were put on special universal packs, into which were placed one or two TM-41 anti-tank mines with pressure-action fuses equipped with an elongated metal “antenna” pin. The leader threw the dog out of the trench from a short distance, releasing it directly onto the tank or at a slight angle to the direction of its movement. A dog, trained to find food under the noise of a running tank engine, quickly reached the tank, fell into a dead zone and threw itself under it. The rod clung to the armored hull, pressed on the fuse, and the mine was instantly detonated.
There were also release mines - the dog climbed under the tank, contact with the bottom triggered the release mechanism, the mine fell to the ground and went off, and the dog managed to escape. Unfortunately, drop mines were difficult to install and therefore ineffective. Most of the fighter dogs died along with the tank.
How were they trained?
No normal animal in its right mind would crawl under a rattling iron box. The dog was not fed for several days and was taught that food could be found under the tank. Then they attached a mock-up of an explosive device to her back and taught her to crawl under the tanks with it, while they were given meat from the bottom hatch of the tank. After that, we were taught not to be afraid of moving and shooting tanks.
The dogs were trained to avoid shelling from tank machine guns, for example, to crawl under the tank not from the front, but from the back. At the same time, in combat conditions, the dog was kept from hand to mouth, and when the tanks approached, they attached a real explosive device to it, removed the fuse and released the dog towards the enemy tank.
The Germans called our dogs Hundeminen (“mine dog”) and did not like them very much. The fact is that the tank machine gun was located quite high and had difficulty hitting a fast running dog. The Germans began to use nets under the bottom, which were supposed to prevent the dogs from climbing under the tanks, however, as already mentioned, the dogs went around the tanks from behind. The German command ordered every soldier to shoot any dog that appeared in sight. Even Luftwaffe fighter pilots were ordered to hunt dogs from the air. Over time, Wehrmacht soldiers began to use flamethrowers mounted on tanks against dogs, this turned out to be enough effective measure resistance, but some dogs still could not be stopped.
In July 1941, in the battles near Chernigov in the army of Lieutenant General Lelyushenko, demolition dogs blew up 6 German tanks, and in the Dnieper region - almost 20 vehicles. According to the recollections of German soldiers, in October 1941, on the outskirts of the city of Karachev, a dog blew up the lead tank of a German armored column.
The report of the commander of the 30th Army, Lieutenant General Lelyushenko, dated March 14, 1942, said: “During the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, the enemy tanks launched into the attack were put to flight by the dogs of the destruction battalion. The enemy is afraid anti-tank dogs and specifically hunts for them.”
The operational report of the Sovinformburo dated July 2, 1942 stated: “On one of the fronts, 50 German tanks tried to break through to the location of our troops. Nine brave four-legged “armor-piercers” from the fighter squad of Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Shantsev knocked out 7 enemy tanks.”
On the Leningrad Front, in a special-purpose battalion commanded by Major P. A. Zavodchikov, dogs with explosives in a special pack were trained to make their way through the passages in the barbed wire that the Germans left for defectors on our side. Once in the enemy's position, the dogs ran into bunkers, rushed at the doors of bunkers, dugouts and other shelters, where they smelled people, touched a wall or door with a fuse and detonated a mine.
On July 24, 1942, troops of the 17th German Army took Rostov-on-Don after stubborn two-day battles. However, during the capture of the city, a company of anti-tank dogs managed to destroy 24 tanks.
The four-legged demolitionists especially distinguished themselves during the defense of Stalingrad. So, in the 62nd Army the 28th separate detachment service dogs under the command of Major Kunin destroyed 42 tanks and 2 armored vehicles, and the special detachment of Senior Lieutenant Shantsev destroyed 21 tanks.
And on July 6, 1943, on the second day of the Battle of Kursk on the Voronezh Front, in the defense zones of the 52nd and 67th Guards Rifle Divisions, dogs blew up three tanks, the rest turned back. In total, during that day, tank destroyer dog units blew up 12 tanks.
In total, during the war, according to Soviet sources, more than 300 enemy tanks were knocked out by dogs.
However, by the middle of the war, dogs were no longer used in anti-tank warfare. There were several reasons - German soldiers learned to fight them, dogs that were trained using Soviet tanks made mistakes on the battlefield, were frightened by unfamiliar German tanks, ran back and, as a result, blew up Soviet vehicles. The number of Soviet tanks also increased, the infantry was armed with anti-tank weapons, and dogs were no longer thrown under the tanks.
But their service was not over.
Sled dogs
It is almost impossible to get a wounded man out of the battlefield. Young nurses, under enemy fire, had to find a wounded man, help him and pull him out of the battlefield, and even his weapon. At the same time, the speed of movement with the wounded is minimal, and his life depends on his quick delivery to the medical unit.
And here the orderly dogs came to the rescue. They formed sledding and sanitary teams. They carried seriously wounded people from the battlefield under enemy fire, transported them to battalion or regimental medical centers, and on return flights brought ammunition, medicine, and equipment to frontline units. In winter, loads were carried on light sleds, in summer on drags or simply on stretchers placed on wheels.
Dogs were used where no other vehicle could reach - in swamps, forests, and deep snow. On all fronts, from the Black Sea to the North Sea, about 15 thousand teams of sled dogs worked. They marched with our army from the Volga to Berlin and took 700 thousand wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield and delivered 5862 tons of ammunition to the front lines.
History has preserved the names of team leaders Kozlov, Rudkovsky, Kravchenko, Polyansky. From December 1941 to May 1945, orderly Khotulaev, on a team of 4 dogs, removed 675 wounded from enemy fire and transported more than 18 tons of combat cargo to the front lines. His dogs were well trained: they could not only run fast, but also crawl and dash without a leader. Junior Sergeant Pomenskikh carried out 726 wounded and 29 tons of combat cargo on his team.
And private Dmitry Trokhov, on a dog sled led by the husky Bobik, took 1,580 wounded from the front line over three years. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and three medals “For Courage”. As a rule, a human orderly who carried 80 people from the battlefield was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
“Because of the heavy fire, we, orderlies, could not get to our seriously wounded fellow soldiers,” recalled orderly Sergei Soloviev. - The wounded needed urgent health care, many of them were bleeding. There were only a few minutes left between life and death... Dogs came to the rescue. They crawled up to the wounded man and offered him his side with a medical bag. They waited patiently for him to bandage the wound. Only then did they go to someone else. They could unmistakably distinguish a living person from a dead person, because many of the wounded were in unconscious. The four-legged orderly licked the face of such a fighter until he regained consciousness. In the Arctic, winters are harsh, and dogs have more than once saved the wounded from severe frosts - they warmed them with their breath. You may not believe me, but dogs cried over the dead.
In total, during the war years, about 2 million wounded were transported by dog sleds from the battlefields.
Mine detection dogs
Dogs are indispensable when searching for explosives. No sensor can compete with them. During the war, dogs, together with sappers, were engaged in clearing mines after the enemy had left and looked for charges during front-line operations when our troops were advancing.
The dogs were able to find mines not only in a metal case, but also in a wooden one, which was not detected by a mine detector. The efficiency of the sapper's work with the dog increased several times. In December 1941 alone, sappers with mine detection dogs discovered about 20 thousand mines and landmines.
And Sergeant Malanichev’s group managed to neutralize 250 mines at night, near the enemy, with the help of dogs in just two and a half hours of hard work.
From reports of the Northwestern Front:
“The use of mine detection dogs is of great importance in the work of engineering units. The presence of dogs reduces explosions of personnel during mine clearance. Dogs clear minefields completely without missing mines, which is impossible to do when working with a mine detector and probe. The dogs search for mines of all systems: domestic mines and enemy mines, metal, wood, cardboard, filled with various types of explosives.”
From the directive of the chief of engineering troops of the Soviet Army to all fronts:
“When examining routes, the speed increased to 40-50 km per day compared to the previous 15 km. “On none of the routes checked by mine-detecting dogs was there a case of undermining of manpower or equipment.”
In total, during the war years, over 6 thousand dogs were trained for mine detection work, which neutralized over 4 million mines. Dogs cleared mines in Belgorod, Kyiv, Odessa, Novgorod, Vitebsk, Polotsk, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin. The total length of military roads checked by dogs was 15,153 km.
The most famous dog of the war years is, of course, Dzhulbars, who became a legend. He served in the 14th assault engineer brigade and alone discovered more than 7 thousand mines and 150 shells. From September 1944 to August 1945, he went on a voyage through Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria, where he discovered 7468 mines and more than 150 shells. We can say that Julbars has seen the world - he cleared mines from palaces over the Danube, the castles of Prague and the cathedrals of Vienna . He also helped in demining the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kanev and St. Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv.
And on March 21, 1945, for the successful completion of a combat mission, Dzhulbars was awarded the medal “For Military Merit.” This is the only time during the war that a dog received a military award.
There is talk about Dzhulbars beautiful legend. At the end of the war, he was wounded and could not take part in the Victory Parade in Moscow. Major General Grigory Medvedev reported this to Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who commanded the parade, and he informed Joseph Stalin. They say that Stalin ordered the dog to be carried across Red Square on his jacket.
The worn jacket without shoulder straps was delivered to the Central School, where a tray was built. And at the Victory Parade, the commander of the 37th separate mine clearance battalion, Major Alexander Mazover (remember this name), marched fighting dog along Red Square.
Another famous mine-detecting dog is the Leningrad collie Dick. His personal file states:
“Called into service from Leningrad and trained in mine detection. During the war years, he discovered more than 12 thousand mines, took part in demining Stalingrad, Lisichansk, Prague and other cities.”
Dick accomplished his main feat in Pavlovsk - he discovered a two and a half ton landmine with a clock mechanism in the foundation of the palace. There was only an hour left before the explosion.
After the Great Victory, the legendary dog, despite multiple wounds, was a repeated winner of exhibitions, lived to a ripe old age and was buried with military honors.
Signal dogs
The dogs did explosions, searched for mines, and rescued the wounded. And they also established communication. And communications, as you know, are the most important component of success in any military operation. The enemy always tried to bring out communication lines, and it was the signalmen who had to drag the wire under enemy fire. And here the dogs came to the rescue.
From a report from the headquarters of the Kalinin Front:
“Six communication dogs replaced 10 messengers, and the delivery of reports was accelerated by 3-4 times. The losses of dogs, even with a high density of enemy artillery and mortar fire, are very insignificant (one dog per month).”
Signal dogs easily passed where a person had difficulty moving. When dogs were used when it was completely impossible to use other means of communication, they delivered all reports and orders in a timely manner, even to the wounded. For example, Sergeant Akimov’s squad, consisting of four counselors with dogs, delivered more than 200 combat documents to a sector of the Northwestern Front.
Under gunfire and artillery fire, through impenetrable forests and swamps, messenger dogs delivered more than 200 thousand documents to companies, battalions and regiments and laid 8 thousand kilometers of telephone wire.
From a report from the headquarters of the Leningrad Front:
“6 communication dogs used by the 59 joint venture (42nd Army) replaced 10 messengers, and the delivery of reports and orders from the SB CP to the companies and combat outposts accelerated 3-4 times.”
There is plenty of evidence of the heroism of signal dogs. So, near the city of Vereya, 14 dogs maintained contact with the guards regiment, which found itself behind enemy lines. East European Shepherd Asta, carrying a report on which the fate of the regiment depended, was mortally wounded. But, bleeding, she managed to crawl to the target and deliver the report. The German sniper shot through both ears of the messenger dog Alma with the first shot, and shattered the jaw with the second. And yet Alma delivered the package.
And the Airedale terrier Jack saved an entire battalion from certain death. For three and a half kilometers under intense fire, he carried an important report in his collar. He ran to headquarters wounded, with a broken jaw and a broken paw, delivered a package and fell dead.
Mink the dog the most difficult conditions and for short term delivered 2,398 combat reports, and a dog named Rex - 1,649. In 1944, during the liquidation of the Nikopol bridgehead, the dog Jack delivered 2,982 combat reports, and maintained contact between units, crossing the Dnieper, was wounded several times, swam across the Dnieper three times, but always got to his post. And on the Leningrad Front, the dog Dick delivered 12,000 reports.
Dogs are saboteurs
The first saboteur dog was the shepherd Dina. At the Central School of Military Dog Breeding, Dina completed a tank destroyer training course. Then, in the battalion of mine-detecting dogs, Dina acquired a second specialty - miner, and then mastered a third profession - saboteur.
She took part in the “rail war” in Belarus. In the fall of 1943, she successfully completed a combat mission: she jumped onto the rails in front of an approaching German military train, dropped her pack with a charge, pulled out the igniter pin with her teeth, rolled down an embankment and rushed off into the forest. Dina was already close to the miners when an explosion occurred, blowing up the train.
The brief summary stated: “On August 19, 1943, on the Polotsk-Drissa stretch, a train with enemy personnel was blown up. 10 cars were destroyed, a large section was disabled railway, a fire spread throughout the entire area from the explosion of fuel tanks. There are no losses on our side."
For her training, Lieutenant Dina Volkats was awarded the Order of the Red Star. At the end of the war, Dina distinguished herself twice more during mine clearance in the city of Polotsk, where in one of the cases she found a surprise mine in a bed mattress in a German hospital. After the war, Dina was assigned to the Museum of Military Glory.
Guard dogs and intelligence dogs
Guard dogs worked in combat guards, in ambushes to detect the enemy at night and in inclement weather. Without raising a voice, they alone, by pulling the leash and turning their torso, indicated the direction of the impending danger.
For example, the guard shepherd dog Agai, while on combat guard duty, 12 times detected German soldiers who were trying to secretly approach the positions of Soviet troops.
And the dogs of the reconnaissance service accompanied the scouts behind enemy lines, helped pass through his advanced positions, discover hidden firing points, ambushes, secrets, and helped capture the “tongue.” Smart dogs worked quickly, clearly and silently.
Such scouts were the dog Jack and his guide, Corporal Kisagulov. Together they accounted for more than two dozen captured languages, including an officer captured inside the heavily guarded fortress of Glogau. The corporal was able to penetrate the fortress and leave it with the prisoner past numerous ambushes and security posts only thanks to the dog’s scent.
Dogs still help our military today in the fight against crime, help search for drugs, neutralize terrorists, protect civilians, and help prevent crimes. It is gratifying that dogs today have many more tasks that do not involve risk to life. And all this is only thanks to the feat of our soldiers, whose Victory we celebrate in these bright and sad days.
Of the 70 thousand dogs mobilized into the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, 48 thousand. Some of them got their share of anti-tank dogs.
There were 13 tank destroyer battalions, which accounted for about 300 units of enemy armored vehicles destroyed, including 63 tanks at Stalingrad. Last used These units took place during the Battle of Kursk. But dogs continued to be trained under this program until 1996.
Demolition Dogs: A Mongrel's Tale
I'm a mongrel. No purebred ancestors. An ordinary yard dog. He ran in the yard with the owner's children and guarded the house at night. Just once usual life ended. People gathered in a crowd at the loudspeaker and from there they said the word that everyone now often repeats: “war.” The next day, the owner collected the bag with which he went fishing and left.
And a month later the postwoman came, but I didn’t even want to bark at her: she seemed somehow guilty. She entered the house and from there the mistress’s cry was heard, quiet, bitter, and her heart sank. And soon people began to say another word: “Germans.” The hostess put the bundle of things in the wheelbarrow, sat the youngest on the bundle, the cat in his arms, and the elder held on to the hem.
“Come on, Sharik,” he says, “we need to leave.” I don’t understand: what about the house? Who will guard? And she calls again. And off we went. It took two days. Around us there are people like us - with bundles, children, cows, cats... And towards us, in a thin chain, men in identical clothes and with weapons, dusty, tired and somehow hopeless. On the morning of the third day they suddenly shouted: “Germans! Air!”, then the roar of engines from above, shots often, often, and a roar.
Suddenly something threw me up, hit me, and I forgot. When I came to my senses, there was a big hole where we were walking. Our car is broken, things are scattered, and the owners are nowhere to be found. And the smell is so sour - my throat is sore. I later found out that it smells like that. About a year. Mainly at stations. There are soldiers there, they are kind. They themselves are not full, but they will wipe out the can of stew with bread and give it to me.
And that jar is for four people, although I can only eat it once. Sometimes they took me on the train. I'm even confused where I am now. At some station a soldier picked me up; he still smelled like dogs. He put a collar on me, put me in a truck and brought me to the unit. The elder looked and said that I was big and fit. There were a lot of dogs there, all mongrels like me.
Soon people arrived. Very young, still boys, but already soldiers. The senior man looked at the formation and with such melancholy, as if it was burning him from the inside, said: “Congratulations, comrades of the Red Army, on your arrival in the sapper meat grinder, as the infantry calls us. The thoroughbreds have already been killed, let's kill the mongrels. Here are your suicide bombers, in enclosures.”
I got a new owner. He's such a redhead, his face is covered in freckles. The boy was a boy, but he understood dogs. And they began to prepare us. The only preparation is to not feed him for two days, and then put a bowl of food under the tank. If you want to eat, you will climb. It was scary as hell, but they climbed. Then they began to attach something to my back, like a horse saddle. Heavy... The owner said: 12 kilograms. And again the bowl under the tank. Then under the tank with the engine running.
Then they started shooting during feeding and throwing something, which exploded. We got used to it, we climb under the tank and burst it. We even climb under a moving tank. I became attached to the new owner and followed him with my tail. And he talked to the commander, and they began to train a few of us who were more savvy, more often and longer than others. We were taught to crawl, to run from hole to hole while we ran to the tank.
I do not know why. The owner asked, so it’s necessary. He was so happy when I learned to hide! And I am happy to please him. And he taught me to pretend to be dead, and not to run straight to the tank. Then we, who were taught more, were given other packs. They said it was an old model; it turns out they were invented before the war. There you had to pull this thing with your teeth, right next to the tank, and the pack would fall off your back.
And you immediately need to run away, quickly, quickly, into a hole somewhere or lie down further away. I wasn’t trying for food anymore, I liked that the owner was smiling. And the commander smiled at least sometimes and said: “Maybe at least someone will survive.” Then all of us, with the owners, were on the train. Next by car. Then they went somewhere where explosions were heard. The owner and I were the last to go.
The commander stopped as if inspecting the column, let everyone through, turned to the church that could be seen from behind the hill, and crossed himself. I hear him say quietly but passionately: “Lord, what are they for, sinless creatures? Well, do this for the last time, I can’t look them in the eyes anymore!” We spent the night in the trenches.
The owner and I curled up under his overcoat, pressed ourselves, and he whispered in my ear: “Do you know how I don’t want to send you away? But it’s necessary, brother, it’s necessary... Just do everything right, I ask you. Don’t expose yourself, they will shoot, they are afraid of you. Don’t forget to hide, don’t run head-on. Once you’ve done everything, hide in the crater until it calms down.”
The engines are roaring, the tanks are coming. It's time. The pack is already on me. My redhead suddenly hugs me, kisses me on the nose and hurriedly mutters: “Just stay safe, brother! Please! I’ll cover it as best I can.” He takes the safety pin out of the fuse on his pack, sobs, wipes away a tear with his sleeve and falls to the carbine. And I’m already running across the field, as he taught - in dashes, hiding, indirectly... I’ll be back, brother. If you're lucky…
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They walked with man, side by side, and in difficult times they came forward. They shared a trench and rations with a man. They worked and died instead of man. These are dogs, dogs in war.
The legend about Dzhulbars and Stalin's overcoat
There is a beautiful legend about Julbars. At the historical Victory Parade on July 24, 1945, all fronts of the Great Patriotic War and all branches of the military were represented. Following the consolidated regiments of the fronts, the Navy regiment and columns of military equipment, dogs walked along Red Square with their handlers.
At that historical parade there were soldiers with dogs behind the “box” the country's chief dog handler, Lieutenant Colonel Mazower, walked. He was allowed not to mark a step and not to salute the commander-in-chief, since he was carrying in his arms a soldier of the 14th assault engineer brigade - a dog named Dzhulbars. The four-legged fighter took part in battles and clearing terrain in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. There, Dzhulbars discovered 468 mines and 150 shells, for which he was nominated for a military award - the medal “For Military Merit”. By the day of the historical parade, Dzhulbars had not yet recovered from his injury. They say that he was carried on the tunic (overcoat) of Stalin himself.
Feats of dogs in the Great Patriotic War
Whether this is true or not, I have no one to ask, but the dog handlers were walking around the square. It is a fact. And dogs took an active part in the Great Patriotic War. In total, along the military roads from Moscow to Berlin, 68 thousand Sharikov, Bobikov and Mukhtarov crawled, walked, drove and ran: pedigree and not so, large and small, smooth and shaggy. They all made an invaluable contribution to this great cause.
Formation and development of service dog breeding in Soviet times associated primarily with the name of the cynologist scientist Vsevolod Yazykov, the author of many books on the theory of training and the work of dogs in the military sphere. Looking ahead, I will say that his scientific methods formed the basis of the theory and practice of service dog breeding in the army, in the border and internal troops.
Back in 1919, it was Yazykov who first approached the Red Army Headquarters with proposals on the principles of organizing service dog breeding in the Red Army. But only five years later, on August 23, 1924, the Order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 1089 was issued, according to which a Central training and experimental nursery school for military and sporting dogs was organized in Moscow at the Higher Rifle and Tactical School “Vystrel”. Nikita Yevtushenko was appointed the first head of the school. The nursery was named “Red Star”. The center gave impetus to the creation of service dog breeding clubs in the OSOAVIAKHIM system, the predecessor of DOSAAF and ROSTO. Unfortunately, in 1938 Yazykov died in the crucible of Stalinist repressions. By the beginning of 1941, this school was training dogs for 11 types of services. The Germans stated with envy that “nowhere were military dogs used as effectively as in Russia.”
Sled and ambulance dogs
From the memoirs of Sergei Solovyov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War from Tyumen:“Due to the heavy fire, we, orderlies, could not get to our seriously wounded fellow soldiers. The wounded needed urgent medical attention, many of them were bleeding. There were only a few minutes left between life and death... Dogs came to the rescue. They crawled up to the wounded man and offered him his side with a medical bag.. They waited patiently for him to bandage the wound. Only then did they go to someone else. They could unmistakably distinguish a living person from a dead person, because many of the wounded were unconscious. The four-legged orderly licked the face of such a fighter until he regained consciousness. In the Arctic, winters are harsh, and dogs have more than once saved the wounded from severe frosts - they warmed them with their breath. You may not believe me, but dogs cried over the dead...»
Known about Private Dmitry Trokhov. Over the course of three years, on a dog sled led by the husky Bobik, he carried 1,580 wounded from the front line.. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and three medals “For Courage”. It is worth noting that the orderly for 80 people carried out from the battlefield was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This is perhaps the most heroic and most useful work dogs.
Mine detection dogs
Mine detection dogs - there were about 6 thousand of them - were discovered, and sapper leaders neutralized 4 million mines, landmines and other explosives.
The famous Leningrad collie Dick. In his personal file it is written: “Called up for service from Leningrad and trained in mine detection. During the war years, he discovered more than 12 thousand mines, took part in demining Stalingrad, Lisichansk, Prague and other cities. Dick accomplished his main feat in Pavlovsk.” It was like that. An hour before the explosion, Dick discovered a two and a half ton landmine with a clock mechanism in the foundation of the palace. After the Great Victory, the legendary dog, despite multiple wounds, was a repeated winner of dog shows. The veteran dog lived to a ripe old age and was buried with military honors, as befits a hero..
The dogs took part in demining the city. Belgorod, Kyiv, Odessa, Novgorod, Vitebsk, Polotsk, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin. The total length of military roads checked by dogs was 15,153 km.
Communication dogs
Communication dogs - in difficult combat situations, sometimes in places impassable for humans, delivered over 120 thousand combat reports; 8 thousand km of telephone wire were laid to establish communications (for comparison: the distance from Berlin to New York is 6,500 km).
Sometimes even a seriously wounded dog crawled to its destination and completed its combat mission. The German sniper shot out both ears of the liaison dog Alma with the first shot, and shattered the jaw with the second. And yet Alma delivered the package. Famous dog Mink for 1942-1943. delivered 2,398 combat reports. Another legendary dog, Rex, delivered 1649 reports. He was wounded several times, crossed the Dnieper three times, but always got to his post.
Tank destroyer dogs
Tank destroyer dogs - during the war they blew up more than 300 fascist tanks.
In the battle of Stalingrad 28th separate a detachment of working dogs under the command of Major L. Kunin destroyed 42 tanks and two armored vehicles, for which the commander of the 62nd Army, General V.I. Chuikov, expressed gratitude to the entire personnel of the detachment for their steadfastness and courage, and awarded 47 soldiers with orders and medals.
The Arc of Fire has also been the site of the use of service dogs. So, on July 6, 1943, on the second day of the Battle of Kursk on the Voronezh Front in the defense zones of the 52nd and 67th Guards Rifle Divisions the dogs blew up three tanks, the rest turned back. In total, during that day, units of tank destroyer dogs blew up 12 fascist tanks.
Starting from the 30s, in Ulyanovsk, Saratov, Kubinka there was practicing the use of dogs to blow up tanks. A dog equipped with a saddle with explosives penetrated under the bottom of the tank, the release mechanism was activated, activating the fuse, and the tank was hit in its weakest place - the bottom. Attempts by the Germans to use nets against dogs failed - the dog penetrated from behind, machine-gun fire was also ineffective - the dog is hardly noticeable and quickly finds itself in the dead zone. Unfortunately, drop mines were difficult to deploy and therefore ineffective. And most of the fighter dogs died along with the tank.
Saboteur dogs
Sabotage dogs blew up trains and bridges. These dogs had a detachable combat pack attached to their backs. Military reconnaissance dogs and saboteurs participate (behind the front line) in the strategic operation “Rail War” and its continuation “Concert” - actions to disable railway tracks and rolling stock behind enemy lines. According to the plan, the dog gets to the railway track, pulls the lever to release the saddle, and the load is ready for sabotage.
The shepherd Dina showed extraordinary abilities in this., who entered the front line from the Central School of Military Dog Breeding, where she completed tank destroyer training. In the battalion of mine-detecting dogs Dina acquired a second specialty - miner and successfully mastered the third - saboteur. Other four-legged fighters also learned the intricacies of this profession. Soon the sabotage group was prepared. A special commission from the front headquarters carefully checked every counselor and every dog. A few days later an order was received to send the group behind enemy lines.
For a long time there was no news from the saboteurs. And then a joyful message came: “Dina worked.” The brief summary stated: “On August 19, 1943, on the Polotsk-Drissa stretch, a train with enemy personnel was blown up. 10 carriages were destroyed, a large section of the railway was disabled, and a fire spread throughout the entire section from the explosion of fuel tanks. There are no losses on our side."
Intelligence dogs
The dogs of the reconnaissance service accompanied the scouts behind enemy lines to successfully pass through his advanced positions, detect hidden firing points, ambushes, secrets, assist in capturing the “tongue”, they worked quickly, clearly and silently.
Dog Jack and his guide, Corporal Kisagulov, were scouts. They were jointly responsible for more than two dozen captured languages, including an officer taken prisoner inside the heavily guarded fortress of Glogau. The corporal was able to penetrate the fortress and leave it with the prisoner past numerous ambushes and security posts only thanks to the dog’s scent.
Watch dogs
Guard dogs worked in combat guards, in ambushes to detect the enemy at night and in inclement weather. These clever four-legged creatures only by pulling the leash and turning their torso indicated the direction of the impending danger.
The guard shepherd dog Agai, while on combat guard duty, detected Nazi soldiers 12 times who tried to secretly approach the positions of our troops.
Dogs also served as living mascots, helped soldiers overcome the hardships of war and simply fought alongside them...
In these December days of 1942, the 6th Nazi Army, surrounded in Stalingrad, was living out its last weeks.
But before that there were three and a half months of fierce fighting for the city.
The Land of Soviets threw the last reserve of the Supreme Commander into battle. Paratroopers and marines, urgently converted into infantry, stood to their death on the embankments of the Volga. The vaunted Wehrmacht, which marched all over Europe in a victorious march, could not overcome 50-70 meters to the Volga. In fierce street battles, often turning into hand-to-hand combat, our soldiers crushed German units.
IN Battle of Stalingrad The Germans had a huge advantage in tanks. The city's defenders could only fight the tanks with grenades and Molotov cocktails.
In the fierce battles of the summer of 1941, the Red Army lost more than 70% of its anti-tank artillery, there was an acute shortage of guns at the front, the command decided to use any means on the battlefield, including anti-tank dogs.
Anti-tank detachments of tank-destroying dogs were urgently deployed to Stalingrad.
Mostly mongrels were taken into the extermination squads, and the training course for the “tailed fighter” lasted six months, but after the start of the war it was reduced to three months. The criteria for selecting dogs was simple - the animal had to be strong enough to carry two anti-tank mines. For tank destroyer dogs, a special explosive device was developed - a canvas pack, on the sides of which two TNT blocks weighing 6 kg were placed. In addition, a wooden contact detonator was attached to the animal’s back.
Dog with anti-tank mines
In July 1941, combat testing of the new weapon began. The dogs were released on the battlefield hungry - the counselor directed the animal directly towards the tank or at a slight angle to the direction of its movement. The tests were unsuccessful - out of twenty dogs released towards enemy armored vehicles, not one completed the task. Some of the animals were destroyed by German infantry and tanks, while the rest simply fled.
Despite the first failure, work in this direction did not stop, and during the war years, thirteen tank destroyer squads were formed in the USSR, each of which consisted of 120-126 dogs.
The most striking episode of the use of “anti-tank” dogs was the battles in the Stalingrad direction.
Fierce fighting took place in the defense zone of the 62nd Army, which included special detachments of “four-legged fighters” - the 28th under the command of Major Anatoly Kunin and the 138th under the command of Senior Lieutenant Vasily Shantsev.
On June 10, 1942, near the Gavrilovka farm, 50 German tanks broke through the defense of Lieutenant Stolyarov’s rifle platoon, and the 138th detachment became the only obstacle in the enemy’s path. The soldiers allowed German tanks to come close, after which they brought their dogs into the battle. The first tank was destroyed by the pet of senior sergeant Evgeniy Buylin, and then the dogs of counselors Kolesnikov, Romanov, Shamsiev and others successfully completed their work.
In total, in the fierce battles of June 1942, the 138th detachment destroyed 14 German tanks. Senior Lieutenant Shantsev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner - according to his award sheet, “06/10/1942, in the area of the Khudoyarovo and Gavrilovka farms, fighters of the detachment under the leadership of the detachment commander, Senior Lieutenant Shantsev, knocked out 11 enemy tanks.
On June 23, 1942, along the Novo-Nikolaevka-Kupyansk road, fighters from a detachment led by Lieutenant Shantsev knocked out 3 enemy tanks.” In these clashes, nine members of the squad died along with their charges, but the enemy’s offensive was stopped.
“Anti-tank” dogs were also active later, during urban battles in Stalingrad - in street clashes they had the opportunity to hide behind rubble and walls of houses, unexpectedly appearing in front of the enemy.
On September 15, 1942, the dogs of the 28th detachment managed to destroy 6 tanks. A fighter from this detachment, Nikolai Maslov, recalled:
“We used dogs to blow up tanks one after another, and the Germans turned back. When our unit was given the task of holding the approaches to the tractor plant, we were urgently transferred to our positions at night. The Germans tried to take the plant with a night attack, but they met strong resistance from our units, and the dogs were particularly active. In this battle, when an enemy tank was coming at me, I threw a Molotov cocktail, but did not reach the target. The crew, seeing me, fired from a tank and wounded me with a shell fragment: it was torn off on my left arm. thumb. The dog was also injured. But I managed to give her a command, and she blew up the tank.”
The detachment in which Maslov fought was able to destroy 42 German tanks during the battles for Stalingrad, and together with the results of Shantsev’s detachment, this figure amounted to 63 vehicles. The losses of the extermination squads were also very high, amounting to three quarters of their original strength (about 200 dogs died).
According to some reports, during the war, Soviet fighter dogs destroyed about 300 German tanks, although this figure has not been documented.
“Anti-tank” dogs remained nameless heroes of the war, but were still honored with immortality. In 2010, in Volgograd, on Chekistov Square, the world’s only monument to tank destroyer dogs was erected - a life-size bronze dog.