Skis have been regularly used in military affairs since the 11th century. In the Red Army they were appreciated during the Winter War with Finland in 1939-1940: then the first battalions and brigades of skiers appeared. The Finns themselves, who used skis without exception, set an example. During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army en masse embarked on the track.
Formed ski battalions quickly proved their effectiveness. Mobile and maneuverable, well disguised, they could unexpectedly attack the enemy in vulnerable sectors of the front and leave just as quickly. During the Battle of Moscow and the December counteroffensive against the Germans, more than 30 ski units fought for the capital. Almost all winter operations of 1941-1943. were conducted with the participation of skiers. It was during the first war winter that they were especially useful, compensating for the lack of motorized units. Penetration behind enemy lines, commit sabotage - these tasks were solved by soldiers on skis. They devastated the settlements of the German front-line rear. In the fall of 1941 in Chelyabinsk, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan and Zlatoust, separate ski battalions, the OLB were formed (in the amount of 67, more than 50 thousand people). The recruits were sportsmen and hunters from the Urals and Siberia,as well as sailors of the Pacific Fleet. They tried to provide the fighters with ammunition, food and communications so that they could autonomously conduct battles for several days. The battalions accepted morally staunch soldiers. These units were a kind of winter special forces of the Red Army. Well-trained, they fought on the most difficult parts of the front line, and by their courage, pressure and force earned the Germans nicknames "white devils", "snow ghosts" and "Ural demons". The appearance of these "demons" in the rear did not bode well for the Germans. Only three ski battalions from Chelyabinsk, which began their combat path in November 1941, destroyed 87 railway bridges in the first year of the war, derailed more than a thousand wagons with German manpower and supplies, and attacked 24 Luftwaffe field airfields. The killed and wounded enemy soldiers were not even counted.
Yakov Ivanovich Sazanov, who served in the 112 ski battalion, recalled one of the battles near Moscow: “Two ski companies managed to get out unnoticed by the enemy in his flank and rear. This circumstance decided the outcome of the battle. A surprise attack from the flank and rear, as well as from the front, that is, from all sides, stunned the Nazis, and soon began their panicky, disorderly retreat. " In panic, the fleeing Wehrmacht fighters threw junk, rifles and guns in flight, but could not escape their pursuers. Having run away 200-300 meters from the abandoned village, they were greeted by strong barrage of Russian skiers, who sat down in advance in anticipation of the enemy on the supposed route of their escape. The battle did not last long. All Germans were destroyed or captured, and all their property, including equipment and supplies of food and ammunition, became a trophy of Sazonov's detachment. In 40-degree frost, the fast and decisive "snow ghosts" did not leave the Wehrmacht a chance. In his memoirs, Sazanov recalls all his colleagues as worthy and heroic defenders of the Motherland. Sometimes even too much: "The main drawback at that time was the useless trick of individual commanders," because of which the skiers unnecessarily lost their own, to the point of frivolity, brave officers.
According to Sazonov, the Germans themselves gave the highest assessment to the fighting qualities of the ski battalions: "The interrogations of many captured German soldiers and officers showed that they always mentioned skiers with horror." After the war, they were highly appreciated by Marshal of the USSR K. K. Rokossovsky, who noted that "the ski battalions of the Soviet Army played a noticeable role in defeating the enemy, especially in the first stages of the war." Rokossovsky thanked the skiers for their exploits and promised to remember the dashing "snow cavalry" of the Soviet army.
The skiers are also honored by the fact that at the beginning of the war, when they played an important role, their supplies were still amiss. For example, skis were made of poor quality, too heavy: “One solid block! So they took the board, bent it - that's it. These boards were often crooked. " But even on them, and loaded with machine guns and other weapons, skiers could easily make 40 km per day (despite the fact that the transitions behind enemy lines were always carried out at night). Sibiryak A. A. Tereshchenko recalled: “We had 3 companies in our battalion. The first was armed with PPSh submachine guns, the second - with rifles with ammunition from 3 to 9 rounds for each shooter, the third - unarmed militias. The commander said to them: "Your weapon is on the battlefield." There were many who died at the beginning of the war, and there was not enough ammunition and weapons. But they fulfilled their task. We defended Moscow and brutally beat the Wehrmacht. The Germans, by the way,there were also skiers, but they did not have such glory as the Soviet ones. Until the end of the war, the Urals and Siberians defended the reputation of "white demons"."
Konstantin Dmitriev