Yesterday's whatzis was of a different variety than usual. And I chose to do it as a lead in to the Memorial Day holiday, even if the subject isn't about Americans. To paraphrase Sting - Russians love their soldiers, too.
Given the subject matter, I admit Boq and I had some concerns you guys might go as silly as you sometimes do - I had a plan for that, which wasn't needful in the event.
PucKviruS got it correct: "They are Soviet Red Army identity capsules, Each capsule contains a slip of paper with the name of its bearer, like modern day dog tags."
That in turn led MCart to steal a touch of my thunder, by providing a link to Boston.com and their photo spread on Russia's commemoration of victory in the Great Patriotic War, which is WWII to us.
All the pictures are good ones - but the ones relevant to the Whatzis, the identity capsules, start at picture 30, and continue for several images.
The Russians probably have more unidentified remains from the entire Soviet era than our total number of lost during our wars, whether those losses were self-inflicted or were the result of WWI and II.
The United States has an organization commanded by a flag officer whose sole purpose is to find any living un-repatriated POWs, and to gather, identify, and return to the family the remains of the missing. JPAC - the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command. JPAC focuses on Korea and Vietnam, with occasional forays as needed into the Pacific, Europe and North Africa.
The Russians have a similar unit [See update in the extended entry - the Armorer] (and perhaps more, I don't know), )which due to the geography of their wars, spends most of it's time in the territory of the former Soviet Union. The Demyansk unit.
The Castle has a long-time reader, Bill-groupie, and native born Russian who emigrated to the US who comments as Sainted67. I asked her to watch the video and give us a precis of what was going on:
I don't have the music the Russians play for their military funerals. Instead, I found a march, music from the Great Patriotic War, titled "Sacred War." Don't let the title fool you.
We fool ourselves if we allow ourselves to think that the success of the campaigns in Western Europe didn't hinge on the efforts of the Red Army in the east - for whom the consequences of failure, and cost of success, were far greater in their immediacy than the same being said for the US. Just as their eventual success was made easier, and perhaps possible, by our efforts in the West. It took all of us to do it.
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance - in honor of the fallen of the Great Patriotic War, known or unknown. Found or unfound. While our opponent in the Cold War - they were our brothers in arms in the hottest war of the last century.
Going into Memorial Day, at Castle Argghhh!, we remember.
Given the subject matter, I admit Boq and I had some concerns you guys might go as silly as you sometimes do - I had a plan for that, which wasn't needful in the event.
PucKviruS got it correct: "They are Soviet Red Army identity capsules, Each capsule contains a slip of paper with the name of its bearer, like modern day dog tags."
That in turn led MCart to steal a touch of my thunder, by providing a link to Boston.com and their photo spread on Russia's commemoration of victory in the Great Patriotic War, which is WWII to us.
All the pictures are good ones - but the ones relevant to the Whatzis, the identity capsules, start at picture 30, and continue for several images.
The Russians probably have more unidentified remains from the entire Soviet era than our total number of lost during our wars, whether those losses were self-inflicted or were the result of WWI and II.
The United States has an organization commanded by a flag officer whose sole purpose is to find any living un-repatriated POWs, and to gather, identify, and return to the family the remains of the missing. JPAC - the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command. JPAC focuses on Korea and Vietnam, with occasional forays as needed into the Pacific, Europe and North Africa.
The Castle has a long-time reader, Bill-groupie, and native born Russian who emigrated to the US who comments as Sainted67. I asked her to watch the video and give us a precis of what was going on:
The video made me cry - they opened up that capsule, very carefully unwrapped the enclosed piece of paper and were able to decipher the full name, the d/o/b, the name of the next of kin and some info about the region the soldier was drafted from. One of the guys comments that his granddad had identical name. Then they looked through the database of KIA and MIA and found this private as MIA in March 1942 together with his brother who was also MIA in March 1942. The title of the video is "Not MIA anymore" and it was shot to show the regular work by a specialized search unit "Demiyansk"
I am not sure it was a vulcanized capsule, from what I remember reading and hearing from the veterans, it was just a regular round with the bullet removed... there might be those vulcanized capsules but definitely not for the people who were drafted in 1941-1942, they just did not have time to come up with that, they were sending people to the front with the minimum training during those years... the rounds are black from all the years in the ground...
I don't have the music the Russians play for their military funerals. Instead, I found a march, music from the Great Patriotic War, titled "Sacred War." Don't let the title fool you.
We fool ourselves if we allow ourselves to think that the success of the campaigns in Western Europe didn't hinge on the efforts of the Red Army in the east - for whom the consequences of failure, and cost of success, were far greater in their immediacy than the same being said for the US. Just as their eventual success was made easier, and perhaps possible, by our efforts in the West. It took all of us to do it.
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance - in honor of the fallen of the Great Patriotic War, known or unknown. Found or unfound. While our opponent in the Cold War - they were our brothers in arms in the hottest war of the last century.
Going into Memorial Day, at Castle Argghhh!, we remember.
Update: I misunderstood Olga when she referred to "specialized search unit Demiyansk" me being military all my life, and the guys in the video being in uniform - I went down the "must be the Russian Army" route. As Olga explains in the comments, and I've put up here - I was wrong:
Bless the volunteers then!There has never been/are not Soviet/Russian military units digging up the casualties from the Great Patriotic War. All this work has been done by the volunteer groups (mostly civilians) who go on their own dime and time and painstakingly go through the battlefields looking for remains and identity capsules and try to bring some kind of closure to the families more than 60 years later... They actually do that for the Germans, too, when they find those...
Bugger. Something in my eye.
I do not know who you are, Drugogo; but you are doing God's work. Thanks my brother.
I agree with the argument that the Soviets suffered more casualties and may have assumed the greater role in the defeat of the Nazis. But I think this statement glosses over all the materiel support we provided to the Soviets in the Lend-Lease Program, which they DID need until they succeed in moving their industrial capacity eastward and cranked up their weapons production, and I think it minimizes the role that the other Allies played in defeating the Nazis in North Africa and Italy, as well as in other parts of Western Europe.
As an aside, the ideological differences between The West, and postwar Soviet Russia were truly a tragedy. We could have been great friends. One anecdote that I picked up from (Will post book name later tonight when I get home) recounted an incident that came out of that bombing campaign. While some allied bombers were refueling on a Russian airfield, the battered but still functioning Luftwaffe found the airfield and begain strafing it. In the ensuing fires near the fuel and ammunition dumps, Russian troops would not allow the American airmen to risk themselves fighting the fires, went in, and did the job themselves. Their airfield, their job, and that was that.
It's always bothered me, how much time has been lost, all these years, when we could have been great friends. We're not so different after all. You can see it in the pictures John linked above. If you look in the comments, you can find pictures that focus more on the people gathered to participate in the observance.
And we both have more in common with each other than either of us have with the politicians who occupy the positions of power in our respective nations.
I hope one day to get to Russia and the Ukraine. For a military historian, a treasure trove.
The Russian soldiers fought with great courage, tenacity and long endurance. They fought for their homeland. They were our ideological enemy before the war, and after. I suspect we'll have to actually fight them someday, either face to face, or again through a series of proxies. Their proclivity to fall back into whatever cult of personality/strongman type rule will, eventually, pull them back into an expansionist totalitarianism. The recent moves by Russia sure do tend to point to them wanting to become a serious problem for everyone else, again.
About that WW2 and the Russians needing no help. Not even close. Yes, they took massive casualties and tied up much of the German ground forces but the Germans weren't the only players on that side of the war.
Our campaign in the Pacific and, to some degree, our low grade campaign in China, helped much to motivated the Japanese to maintain their, under the table, non aggression pact with the USSR. That allowed the Soviets to send forces from the east to help fight the Germans. Quite a lot of forces from the east, actually.
Also, the need for the Germans to prepare defenses in France and such places tied up resources, logistics and personnel that would have, otherwise, gone to fight the Russians.
And, the UK and US battles in North Africa ensured that the Germans never had the option to bypass the Urals and strike the new Soviet industrial 'heartland' from the mid east.
The victory in WWII/The Great Patriotic War was a team effort. Without U.S. assistance the Russian Front fighting may have ended in stalmate and a seperate peace allowing Fritz to turn much more than 25% of his attention on us.
I force my U.S. History students to watch "Enemy at the Gates" to get a taste of what our gallant Soviet allies sacrificed to allow us to indulge in I-Pods and HDTV.
I will toast the fallen heroes of the Great Patriotic War and pray that their government never again betrays their sacrifice.
Cricket - I would assume, given the photographs, the capsules were with the bodies in the mass grave. The reason you have two dog tags is so that one can be taken for accountability, the other is left with the body.
My Uncle did the convoy runs to Muransk in a Corvette. He mentioned that despite risking their lives, the Soviet’s in port gave them the cold shoulder, always puzzled him. Likely as they were being closely watched by the NKVD.
As for what would have happened in WWII, the USSR supplied much of the blood spilled, but without the key supplies sent to them, they would have had to sign some sort of peace treaty. Had Stalin not gutted his officer corp and prepared properly for the war coming, much less Russian blood would have been spilled. The Soviet Union lacked many things, but courage was never in short supply. I am glad those lost soldiers are found, may they rest easy.