The Great Patriotic War … In those terrible years of losses at the front, everything was not at all the same as in the movies, which have also become part of history. For many decades, soldiers and officers were silent about the miracles that saved their lives. There is no other way to name what happened in front of many people and still has no rational explanation. Intervention from above was observed by many people, every day walking in an embrace with death and left to live or sentenced by the Almighty.
There are many known cases where soldiers survived in situations where no one could survive. No wonder they say: "Miraculously saved!" Precisely - by a miracle. And there are many such cases. Here are just a few of these stories.
Good Spirit Warning
In the summer of 1944, before the start of Operation Bagration (liberation of Belarus and the Baltic states), the draftsman-cartographer of the division headquarters Sergeant V. Vasiliev worked with an operational map - he determined the length of the front sections. The wheel of the trophy curvimeter (a device for measuring the length of arcs) slid along the front line. Suddenly the sergeant felt some kind of resistance - as if a cogwheel had fallen into tar or thick jam. He looked at the map, ran his fingers over it - the paper was smooth everywhere. I tried to run the curvimeter again - the same thing!
I ran my finger along the line - it moved freely. He lifted a sheet of map, looked under it and found nothing. I ran the wheel several times away from a strange place - it moved freely. He shrugged his shoulders and began to work on.
The next morning, it was at the place of "braking" that Vasilyev had to draw a thick blue arrow that pierced our front line of defense. At dawn, the Germans began reconnaissance in force, captured the first trench, but could not expand the area they had taken. By evening, the Nazis were driven out of the trenches.
The sergeant now had no doubts that the strange "braking" was connected with this combat episode. "Some kind of witchcraft, or what?" - thought the atheist Komsomol member Vasilyev.
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A week later, the strange "braking" was repeated - already on another site. Expecting a thrashing for fantasizing, he nevertheless reported this to the assistant chief for intelligence, Lieutenant Dovgan.
He immediately grabbed the curvimeter - the braking was well felt. The lieutenant swore in confusion. Then, at his own peril and risk, he warned the regiment commander that there was evidence of a possible German attack tomorrow morning.
The lieutenant colonel replied that no enemy activity was noted, but promised to report if anything happened. The regiment was alerted in advance, but the soldiers remained in the dugouts and dugouts - usually an artillery attack preceded the reconnaissance in force. However, this time the Germans decided to do without him - at 6.15 they launched an attack. German six-barreled mortars howled, covering the first trench. And then the artillery regiment prepared in advance opened the return heavy fire. The German attack immediately drowned out.
“The Holy Spirit helps us, or what? And will this continue? - asked after this story the chief of staff, Major Ryasny.
And then Vasiliev took up the curvimeter seriously: he checked it on other maps, photographs, newspaper texts, posters - no reaction. Other initiates also tried to "play tricks" on the maps showing the situation of the recent hostilities - nothing came of it either. The "braking" was clearly warning.
The next day, the device began to "slow down" again, but outside the division's combat zone. Neighbor on the left was the Red Banner Belgorod division - it recently managed to take the dominant height 512, from which the German rear was easily visible and shot through. This hill, pitted with funnels and stuffed with metal, was called Pimple in conventional parlance. Here is the curvimeter opposite him and "slowed down".
Major Ryasny contacted a colleague in the neighboring headquarters and confidently (reluctantly!) Reported the threat of an imminent enemy counter-attack.
"When?" a colleague asked. “Tomorrow,” the major replied with an inner shudder. After all, the mistake here “smelled like a tribunal. But a colleague was able to reassure Ryasny, they say, yesterday they took the "tongue" and know about the timing of the blow of the Nazis: "We won't give up the pimple!"
The attempt to recapture the height was very persistent. On the slopes, hand-to-hand fights took place several times. The fighting lasted two days. But the pimple was managed.
Seven more times the curvimeter reported the active intentions of the enemy. The higher authorities remained completely unaware of how the intelligence officers got such accurate data.
Then the "braking" stopped as suddenly as it began. By that time, the front line had advanced westward for 400 kilometers. “Not enough power! - the scouts joked. "Or did the Spirit only act in its area?"
Vasiliev kept the curvimeter, but he told about the events of the wartime only forty years later, when the attitude towards such things changed somewhat. Mystery scholars tried to figure out the phenomenon and came to the following conclusion. Most likely, it was the influence of some inhabitant of the "subtle world", who thus tried to warn of the threat. By the way, the very first "message" was received 20 kilometers from the ancient monastery destroyed by the Nazis.
Perhaps it was the soul of a dead warrior? It is not known - psychics could not make the small device "speak" again.
Evil eye
My good friend, a disabled war veteran Nikolai Mikhailovich Skvortsov was at the front "from bell to bell." He was a deeply religious, very truthful person. I spoke about those years in a few words. He became more outspoken only 45 years after the war. And he had something to tell.
At the beginning of the war, Nikolai Mikhailovich acquired a wonderful ability: he felt which of his comrades-in-arms would be killed in the next battle. It was a heavy burden - to know everything and not dare say because nothing can be changed. He only tried to do something for the death row, forced them to write letters home, prayed with them.
The soldiers soon noticed some connection between his, say, attention to his comrade and his imminent death. They noticed and decided, an evil eye, they say. They began to avoid Skvortsov, warned young Red Army soldiers from the replenishment. So it was possible to get a bullet in the back, but severe pneumonia saved him, which drove Nikolai Mikhailovich to the hospital.
Upon recovery, he was sent to another part, and soon this "gift" disappeared. But Skvortsov began to hear the voice. It sounded unexpectedly, was clear, imperative. Skvortsov did everything that he told him, considering him the voice of a guardian angel.
Here is one of the stories told by Nikolai Mikhailovich:
- August 1944. Lithuania. We went with the major, the household assistant, to get the shells. From the front line - 20 kilometers, the places are calm. We left without delay. The major managed to get a decent meal, and he was on fire to "cheat", although he was only speculatively familiar with the driver's business. And the road is very bad, there is a swamp all around.
- Give the steering wheel! - yells.
- I won't give it, Comrade Major, it's not allowed. And what a difficult road, look into the swamp!
He calmed down for a little while. Then, when the road went through the forest, he again demanded to let him drive. I order, they say, that's all.
And then a voice rang out: "Give it back!" I heard this voice more than once, usually unexpectedly, more often in some critical, difficult situations. And he always ordered how to do it. And he was always right. I stopped the car and put the major behind the wheel, sat down next to me. We drove a hundred meters and suddenly … broken glass blurted out, cracks snaked across it. The major began to fall on his side. There is a bloody hole in the forehead.
"Sniper!" - I realized, reached for the steering wheel, switched speed, gave the gas. The car rushed forward. I didn’t hear the second shot, but I heard the bullet squeal, ricocheting off the metal. I drove three hundred meters, stopped, and then a platoon of machine gunners poured out from the side road. I explained everything to them and showed them where the sniper was shooting from. The platoon combed the area, and about 20 minutes later the soldiers dragged a young guy in a camouflage coat. He hid under a snag, hoping that he would not be noticed.
“The lieutenant wrote down what I said in a notebook and gave me a signature. He sent a sergeant with me."
The next day, when all the excitement was over, they summoned me to Smersh. The interrogation was long, although there was nothing to complain about. Our battalion commander was there, who was questioned in advance.
The sniper turned out to be a 19-year-old Lithuanian who graduated from the "marksmen" courses. He admitted that the major was his third. And I, at the word of the voice, was saved.
Grandmother's clock
I would like to tell you one of my stories, which awakened in me in my declining years an interest in esotericism. Many Red Army soldiers, especially those who were older, had crosses on their wearers. In the atheistic Soviet era, they certainly did not wear them. But, seeing off men to the mortal battle, grandmothers, mothers or wives put crosses on them, hoping that they would save loved ones from misfortune. Others had pieces of paper with prayers or charms-charms, stored together with capsules, obligatory for every fighter, inside which there was a sheet with a surname, name, patronymic, date of birth and address.
Some commissars suggested that foremen and squad leaders actively identify "crusaders" during bath days and remove cult attributes from them, but junior commanders were not very zealous, as many elderly soldiers reacted very sharply to such attempts to "separate them from God."
The role of amulets was played by both photographs and some objects presented at parting. I want to tell you about my amulet.
1944, summer. Belarus. The reconnaissance in force was not very successful, and here I am, a military assistant, on my way with the wounded on the armor of a tank with a jammed turret to the rear. The path was convenient - along the bottom of a shallow ravine, which the Germans could not see. In it, however, there was a real jumble of barbed wire, but the tank does not care. Further about 100 meters it was necessary to slip through the open meadow. And it was here that the tank was trapped by the enemy gunner. The shell, sent by him, hit exactly and literally knocked down the tank turret. I was thrown onto the wire, from which I got out with difficulty.
Heard nothing from the concussion. The uniform is torn, and there are many abrasions and scratches. I felt myself - no serious injuries, no fractures.
I wanted to know what time it was: I looked at my watch and was stunned … It was an old grandmother's pocket watch, to which they attached brackets, turning them into wrist watches. Now only a case with a strap remained of them - no glass, no dial, no mechanism …
I looked at the remains of the watch without stopping, remembering that the previous night I saw in a dream my grandmother, who had died a year before the war. She smiled and shook her head. If not for the watch, I might have been left without a hand. And if you take into account that while riding on some transport I have a habit of pressing my hand to my chest against my heart … In general, my grandmother saved me. This I know for sure.
Sergey PERVUSHIN, participant of the Great Patriotic War