In 1941, Army Group North attacked Leningrad. The Nazis managed to cut off the city from land and establish a blockade. They tried to break the resistance of its defenders by hunger, constant artillery shelling, and struck from the air.
Blocked Leningrad actually turned out to be an island cut off from the mainland
And this island has organized its own defense - on land, on water and in the air. In addition to the main air defense assets, the city was protected from enemy aircraft by hundreds of tethered barrage balloons. Filled with hydrogen and raised to a height of 2000 to 4500 m, giant rubber "sausages" did not allow the Nazi aces to descend for targeted bombing.
But these air defenders of Leningrad had one major flaw. After 25-30 days of operation, the balloons began to lose altitude, since the rubber shell let in hydrogen, and other gases and water vapors took its place. Therefore, the balloons had to be periodically lowered, vented hydrogen was vented and refueled with clean gas. The manual prescribed to refuel balloons when 15-20% of other gases and vapors leaked into them, which prevented the loss of lift of the aeronautical gas and explosions during the formation of an "explosive mixture". Millions of cubic meters of hydrogen-air mixture were thrown into the atmosphere, because in 1941 alone, balloons were raised 40,054 times!
In those days, junior lieutenant Boris Shelishch, a military technician, served in aerostatic winch repair shops. They were installed on two hundred "one and a half" GAZ-AA and were powered by a truck engine. It is clear that the trucks ran on gasoline, but under the blockade, gasoline in the city became as valuable as bread.
Military technician junior lieutenant Boris Shelishch.
When the gasoline ran out, Shelishch tried to use electric elevator hoists to launch balloons, but while the refurbishment was being carried out, there was no electricity either. In the besieged city, gas-generating trucks operating on wood blocks appeared. They tried to use a manual drive, but even ten healthy men could not cope with the lifting and lowering mechanisms. And when most of the privates and sergeants from the balloon units were sent to the infantry to strengthen the ground defense, instead of 12 people in the state, only 4-5 soldiers remained at the existing posts.
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Probably, it was at this time that junior technician Lieutenant of the Air Defense BI Shelishch recalled Jules Verne's novel "The Mysterious Island" (this is not a fiction, notes about this have been preserved in the inventor's archives). There, in the chapter "Fuel of the Future", it is said that when coal runs out, water will replace it. And not just water, but water, decomposed into its constituent parts - hydrogen and oxygen.
Boris Isaakovich loved Jules Verne, and working with balloons, the difficult situation in which his beloved city found himself, reminded him of childhood impressions and made his inventive brain work. “The day will come when all the coal will be burned,” said one of the heroes of the “Mysterious Island”. Isn't it true that the situation resembles the besieged Leningrad?
Bleeding "dirty hydrogen" into the atmosphere, they emitted energy that could work for Victory! It's like pouring gasoline in barrels.
And it was then that Shelishcha was struck by the thought - this is it, the fuel of the future, about which engineer Cyrus Smith spoke to the surprised Pencroft. In terms of calorific value, hydrogen is 4 times higher than coal, 3.3 times higher than petroleum hydrocarbons. This means that it is hydrogen that is called upon to help Leningrad, which now needs "the coal of the coming centuries."
But hydrogen is dangerous - Boris Isaakovich remembered the catastrophe of the "hydrogen flying Titanic" of the 1930s "- the airship of Nazi Germany" Hindenburg ". The whole world was covered by pictures of a burning transatlantic airship transporting wealthy people from Germany to America. However, the lieutenant reasoned, now the war, and if the balloons are not lowered for refueling, they will lose altitude, will cease to cover the city. To risk one truck or even one's own life in these conditions seemed quite justified.
So, on September 21, 1941, junior technician Lieutenant Shelishch turned to the command with a rationalization proposal: to supply "the spent air-hydrogen mixture from the landed balloons to the suction pipes of automobile engines." Very soon, on September 28, a meeting of the regimental bureau for rationalization and invention was held, which decided: “Consider the proposal valuable and acceptable. Instruct the author of the proposal to proceed with the experimental verification of his proposal."
The first tests were carried out in severe frost - up to 30 ° C. Despite this, after turning on the ignition, the hydrogen-powered engine started easily and worked steadily for a long time.
Not without incident. During dangerous experiments, two balloons burned out, a gas tank exploded, and Boris Isaakovich himself received a shell shock. After that, for the safe operation of the air-hydrogen "explosive mixture", he invented a special water seal, which excluded the ignition of the mixture during a flash in the engine intake pipe.
Repeated tests of the action of the water seal have been successful. When everyone was convinced that the system was working properly, the command ordered to transfer all aerostatic winches to a new type of fuel in 10 days. Shifts of teams of locksmiths, welders and workers of other specialties worked around the clock, producing several hundred sets of equipment. In the future, all balloons were controlled from "hydrogen" trucks, and these trucks worked better than on gasoline.
In the fall and winter of 1941, almost all cars were parked in the Leningrad barrage balloon regiments due to the lack of gasoline. But the car, in the back seat of which there were hydrogen cylinders, drove regularly.
In 1942, an unusual car with a hydrogen engine was shown at an exhibition of equipment adapted to the conditions of the blockade (the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda wrote about this on January 17, 1942). Although the engine ran for several hours in a closed room, visitors to the exhibition did not smell any smoke, burning, or unusual smells. The exhaust gases - ordinary steam - did not pollute the air. Later, at an exhibition of cars operating on substitutes for gasoline, this car was demonstrated to the commander of the Leningrad Front, Colonel-General L. A. Govorov, who approved the idea of its creation.
Bench tests of the engine, which worked without stopping for 200 hours, showed that its wear was lower than the norms established when operating on gasoline, the engine did not lose power, no harmful impurities were found in the lubricating oil, and soot traces in the combustion chambers. The reliability of the water seal, on which safety depended, was subjected to a special test.
For this work B. I. Shelishch was awarded the Order of the Red Star in December 1941, and his assistants were also noted. And the invention itself was nominated for the Stalin Prize in 1942. But it did not pass through the competition, since then there was still no official decision on its adoption on a national scale. Later, when such a decision was made, they did not return to this issue. And Boris Isaakovich was sent to Moscow to use his experience in the air defense units of the capital - 300 engines were transferred to "dirty hydrogen".
By the way, during the war he even contrived to issue an A. S. 64209 for the invention. And thus ensured the country's priority in the development of the energy sector of the future. The author did this, however, only after the break of the Leningrad blockade. The documents recorded the deadline for filing an application 8247 (322526) to the People's Commissariat of Defense - July 28, 1943. In the description of the invention, senior technician Lieutenant Shelishch wrote: “Basically the problem was solved in November 1941, and the invention received its complete design and mass practical application in all parts of barrage balloons of Leningrad and other fronts in 1943-1944. And further: "At the same time, the practice of working on hydrogen has confirmed that hydrogen as a fuel in general has great prospects for application in other branches of the military, as well as in industry …"
After the Victory, part of the barrage balloons was quickly disbanded. Due to the lack of "waste" hydrogen, its use as fuel for engines has ceased. But for many years, decommissioned engines, which were powered by hydrogen during the war, worked on collective and state farms.
Boris Isaakovich performed a civil feat and at the same time showed extraordinary imagination and ingenuity. The timing of the implementation of his hydrogen project is striking: in just 10 days, 200 trucks were transferred to hydrogen, with the greatest reliability of the equipment. During the entire war, only one car out of 500 exploded due to hydrogen leaks. But for the manufacture of water locks, they had to use everything that was at hand - fire extinguisher bodies, water pipes …
After the war, Boris Isaakovich returned to his blockade invention only in the mid-70s, when the concept of "hydrogen" perspectives in the world energy industry gained wide recognition and it became known about experiments in the United States on the use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, conducted since 1969. In the 70s, the first "hydrogen" cars appeared in Balashikha and Zagorsk, and even "hydrogen" taxis drove in Kharkov. This made me remember the invention of 1941, which provided domestic priority in this area. It was then that several newspaper and magazine publications about the inventor appeared. The priority of Boris Isaakovich Shelishch was also confirmed by the Commission on Hydrogen Energy of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Boris Isaakovich Shelishch died on March 1, 1980. There is an air defense museum in St. Petersburg. Here you can see a photograph of the inventor, a copy of the description of the invention and the same water seal made from a fiery red fire extinguisher.