Chapter from the book by G. Chliyants (UY5XE) and B. Stepanov (RU3AX) “Thumbing through the old “Call Book” and more...” (Lvov-Moscow, 2008)

One of the oldest Soviet military reconnaissance radio operators, retired colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Red Army Konstantin Mikhailovich Pokrovsky in the pre-war years he carried out many important command assignments. He kept radio contact with internationalist fighters fighting in Spain; was the head of radio communications for the USSR's chief adviser in China, which was repelling Japanese aggression at that time; during the Great Patriotic War he took part in the creation of partisan radio communications (his pre-war call sign could not be established; in 1946-58 he worked as UA3CB). Konstantin Mikhailovich recalled a lot about the role of radio operators of the GRU radio communications service, who were shortwave operators before the war. They operated both in enemy-occupied territory and maintained a round-the-clock radio watch to maintain radio contact with mobile groups and detachments. There were shortwave operators and service radio operators foreign intelligence NKVD. Reconnaissance radio operators were trained in Gorky at the so-called “Sormovo school”.

Several hundred shortwave radio amateurs were radio operators in partisan detachments, many of them supervised radio communications. At the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD), radio communications were headed by K.M. Pokrovsky and V.P. Yaroslavtsev (his call sign could not be established), in the partisan associations of the Bryansk forests - V.A. Lomanovich(after WWII - UA3DH), in Leningrad region – N.N. Stromilov(U1CR), in Latvia – A.F. Kamalyagin(U1AP). The radio center of the Minsk partisan unit was headed by shortwave operator I.F. Vishnevsky (his call sign could not be established), and the radio center of the Ukrainian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (USHPD) was headed I.V. Akalovsky(U5AH).

The People's Commissariat of Communications assigned the head of the Moscow Radio Communications Directorate to the transmitting center of the Central Broadcast Broadcasting Center. B.F. Mititello(formerly eu3BB).

A special school (with several branches) for training partisan radio operators was also created. Their teachers, in particular, were A.N. Vetchinkin(U3CY) and V.B. Vostryakov(U3AT).

Considering the specific nature of intelligence work, it was possible to collect information about only a few.

- Gorban Dmitry Grigorievich(Moscow; before the Second World War he was an operator of the collective radio stations MIIS - UK3AQ/UK3CU; during the Second World War he fought as part of the GRU radio centers; after the Second World War - UA3DG/U3DG);

- Dolgov Leonid Nikolaevich(Moscow; before the Second World War - U3BR; during the Second World War he headed a special group of GRU radio operators in the Balkans);

- Korolenko Timofey Prokopyevich(Minsk; before the Second World War - U2BT; during the Second World War - radio operator of the GRU communications center; after the Second World War - UC2AD);

- Pavlov Sergey Pavlovich(Moscow; before the Second World War - U3AB; from the second half of the 30s - an intelligence officer, in the 70s - UA3AB; retired GRU colonel);

- Slivitsky Konstantin Konstantinovich(Tashkent; formerly - au8AA; from March 1930 to July 1933, he was on an intelligence mission abroad);

- Tutorsky Oleg Grigorievich(Moscow; before the Second World War - U3BI; intelligence officer; in the 70s - UA3IB);

- Shulgin Konstantin Alexandrovich(Moscow; before the Second World War - U3BA, was an operator of the collective radio stations MIIS - UK3AQ/UK3CU; during the Second World War he fought as part of the GRU radio centers; after the Second World War - UA3DA/U3DA).

The most widespread and especially revered by radio operators of both the special services of the Red Army and the NKVD, as well as partisan detachments, was the radio station “North” or “Severok”, as radio operators of those times lovingly called it (you can see it in detail in the Museum of the RKK company - http://www .rkk-museum.ru).

The story of its creation is as follows. In 1939, Boris Mikhalin defended his diploma project at the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communications (his supervisor was Professor Boris Petrovich Aseev, who is also the deputy for science of the Research Institute of Communications of the People's Commissariat of Defense - NIIS NKO). The theme of the project was a portable radio station for geologists. After defending his graduation project, Aseev recruited Mikhalin to work at NIIS NPO. Boris Mikhalin began, on the basis of his diploma project, to develop the Omega radio station for military intelligence. This radio station was developed and a pilot batch (about 100 units) was produced.

Since December 1941 at the Leningrad plant named after. Kozitsky began its serial production of a version of the radio station, modified for mass production in war conditions. The start of this work was preceded by testing of three radio stations for similar purposes - Omega, Belka and PP-1. “Belka” was developed by NKVD specialists, but no information could be found about the PP-1 radio station. Preference was given to Omega, since it could operate for transmission in a smooth range, and Belka - only at fixed frequencies determined by a set of quartz resonators. In wartime conditions this was an important advantage.

The radio station, modified for mass production with the participation of Boris Mikhalin, was named “North”. Since 1942 (already in the besieged city), the production of its modification, “Sever-bis”, began. For this, in 1942, B. Mikhalin was awarded the Order of the Red Star. In total, about 7,000 radio stations were produced during the war years.

The same N.N. Stromilov, who essentially was its customer from the headquarters of the partisan movement in the Leningrad region, took part in the development of this radio station in serial production. Nikolai Nikolaevich, who did not have a higher education, was drafted into the army with the rank of junior military technician (junior lieutenant). But he enjoyed enormous respect from both the military and production workers. This is how it is described in the book by V. Zhukov and D. Isakov “The North gets in touch” (M.: Sov. Rossiya, 1971).

“I asked you,” Mironov said angrily, “I advised you to consult with Stromilov. And you, I see, ignored the advice.
- I am senior in rank... I serve more. What specifically do you dislike about my work?
- Senior in rank! Well, you know. - Mironov jumped up and pushed the chair away. - I’m not a boy either, but I’m ready to learn from Stromilov day and night. Yes Yes! Don't you agree? Do you think Mironov is exaggerating, he promoted some military technician to chief specialist? Okay, let me be wrong. But here...
He went to the closet and hurriedly pulled out a book with a hard blue cover. He tugged at the paper bookmark.
- Look: “The North Pole was conquered by the Bolsheviks” it’s called. And this is what Hero of the Soviet Union Otto Yulievich Schmidt writes here. See: “Little has been written about another great master - about the radio operator and radio engineer N. N. Stromilov. An employee of the Leningrad Radio Laboratory, he has long been creatively involved in the design of special radio installations for polar stations, excellent, convenient and reliable installations that provide communication with icebreakers and by plane, including Chkalov’s past and present flight..."
- Sorry, I don’t understand why this is? - the major interjected displeasedly.
- And you listen, listen: “Stromilov went to stay on Rudolf Island, keep in touch with his friend Krenkel and, if necessary, explain to him any misunderstandings that might have arisen with him.” new station". - Mironov said “clarify misunderstandings for him” almost out of words, especially loudly. - This is for Krenkel! Do you understand? But then: “But in fact N.N. Stromilov did much more. He flew as a radio operator in Golovin’s reconnaissance missions, and as a flag radio operator in Molokov’s detachment to the Pole. This is an artist in his field. It’s fun to watch how this long and thin man with sparkling eyes, Don Quixote’s figure, confidently conjures among the fine details of modern large radio transmitting equipment. His thin, nervously mobile fingers, like violinists have, it seemed. directly emit mysterious waves." You see,” Mironov concluded, “you see what a wonderful comrade works next to us. By God, it’s not a sin to learn from him. Subordination has nothing to do with it. We need to be smart. And we’ll have to repeat the report, redo the diagram. Don't come without a Stromilov visa!
…

Actually, “Sever” is a very reliable radio. This was also said, but in a combat situation anything can happen. Stromilov and his instructors found out in detail what failures there were for everyone who returned to the assignments, and compiled the malfunctions that occurred into tables. classified. How many improvements were made to the station by the factory engineers! And even if there were breakdowns and failures later, there was no way for designers and technologists to overcome them. Well, let’s say, an extremely unsuccessful landing of a parachutist, a blow that no radio equipment could withstand.”

The Belka radio station had a separate transmitter and receiver. There were noticeably fewer of these radio stations produced than “Severov”, but they still survived. Relatively recently, for example, near Volgograd when earthworks A cellar filled up during the war was discovered, in which the Belka-4 radio station was found in working condition.

On instructions from the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, the “Radio Station of Partisan Detachments” (RPO) was developed. It was produced in several modifications, for example, RPO-4 in 1942. In addition, the Prima radio station, developed for airborne troops, was also used in partisan detachments.

In cases where there was a need to establish radio communications over long distances, agent radio stations were used that used power from the network and had high power: “Nabla”, “Tensor” and “Jack”.

In the first year of the war, radio communications were in short supply, and small batches of radios were produced in different places. So in Kharkov a small series of radio stations was produced for partisan detachments and formations. In military historical literature, she is usually called “Partisan” or “Partisan”. It was developed in the shortest possible time (literally in the first days of the war) under the leadership of Pyotr Apanasovich Matsui. The radio stations were transferred to the disposal of USHPD. Also, at the very beginning of the war, and in the same Kharkov, for the partisans under the leadership of I.V. Akalovsky (U5AH) a small batch of Volga radio stations was developed and manufactured (it was not possible to find a photograph of its appearance). Already in Saratov (specialists and equipment, as well as the UShPD itself, were evacuated there from Kharkov), on the basis of a film equipment factory, the “Radio Station of Partisan Detachments” (RPO) and its modifications were produced until the end of the Second World War. The school for training partisan radio operators was also evacuated to Saratov. Later its branches were opened in Voroshilovgrad, Kyiv and Stalingrad.

Note: The book contains photographs of many shortwave radio operators - reconnaissance radio operators and practically all of the above radio stations.

At the beginning of September 1942, the State Defense Committee introduced the position of commander-in-chief of the partisan movement.

The next morning, upon arriving at headquarters, Voroshilov was one of the first to call the communications chief.

Military engineer of the first rank Ivan Artemyev, formerly the head of special radio communications of military intelligence, appeared before the marshal and heard:

If there is no radio communication, there is no point in creating partisan headquarters. Without reliable communication with the partisans, they will not be able to work.

Artemyev, an experienced signalman-reconnaissance officer, was amazed and, frankly, happy. It’s not often that you come across such a precise understanding of a problem from a boss of this rank. Indeed, it is not enough to organize people, it is not enough to give them weapons, ammunition, food, appoint commanders and send them behind enemy lines. We need to coordinate their attacks, direct them, support them. As the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Denis Davydov, said, do not deprive them of the “saving bonds of subordination.”

And this has happened more than once in our history, when it would seem that the fate of the entire operation, and sometimes the entire military company, depended on a private and even very narrow issue, how radio communications appeared in the eyes of some high-ranking commanders.

An example of this is the war in Spain. In Soviet times, a lot was written and filmed about Spanish events. The fight of the Republicans against the Nazis was covered in legends. Half a century later, many officers who voluntarily wrote reports with a request to be sent to Afghanistan told me that the romance of the international brigades prompted them to make such decisions.

Remember the “Spanish Diary” by Mikhail Koltsov, the poems by Mikhail Svetlov: “I left my hut, went to fight to give the land in Grenada to the peasants”; everyone's favorite film "Officers", where main character bravely fights against the Francoists.

Today it is no secret to anyone: without the international brigades, volunteer soldiers from sixty countries, and especially Soviet military assistance, the fascists would have strangled the republican government overnight. But Spain received 648 aircraft, 347 tanks, more than 1,000 guns, as well as ammunition and medicine. This entire armada of military equipment, tens of tons of military equipment had to be transported three thousand kilometers to Spain, mainly by sea. But, as you know, fascist ships were robbed on sea “paths”.

This meant that without communication with ships it was impossible to go to sea. For it is impossible to trace their path, to obtain information about the transition, about the results of arrival at the port of destination. We simply could not even transmit a danger signal to the ship or receive it. At that time, neither Soviet ships, nor even more so Spanish ships, had appropriate radio equipment.

It would seem that they had thought through a lot: the camouflage of the ships on which weapons and ammunition were to be carried; and the safest travel routes, and other issues. But without solving the communication problem, there was no point in thinking about the expedition. In other words, the fate of all Soviet aid, and therefore the fate of Spain, depended on the success of solving this problem.

We tried to figure it out. The problem at that time seemed almost insoluble. The People's Commissariat of Communications and the Navy were not able to solve it. And then in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, which at that time was headed by S. Uritsky, an operation was developed under the code name “Operation X”. The radio communications department of the department received an unprecedented task - to organize and provide direct radio communication with sea transport sent to Spanish ports.

There were two more tasks - maintaining communications between the headquarters of military advisers in Spain and radio communications between these headquarters and radio centers in Moscow and Leningrad.

To understand the fantastic nature of this idea, toughened by a military order, the failure of which, as we know, is fraught with the most serious consequences (let us not forget that it is already 1936), I will only say: no one in the world has done anything like this. And I think I would hardly have done it under those conditions.

As we have already said, Spain is neither more nor less - three and a half thousand kilometers. It was necessary to develop such transceiver equipment that could operate at sea, when the antenna is constantly swinging and the radio wave, as the signalmen say, “walks.” This means that it is extremely difficult to receive it. To create such equipment you need a technical base. She was also absent.

However, there is nowhere to retreat.

This is how the oldest employee of the special radio communications service of the Main Intelligence Directorate, retired colonel Oleg Tutorsky, recalls that time:

“In total, forty ships with weapons, provided by our communications, passed through the Mediterranean Sea from the USSR to Spain from October 1936 to August 1937. All ships were conventionally designated by the Latin letter “Y” (“Y”) and had corresponding numbers.

Radio operators, while in Sevastopol, contacted the Center. The ships completed loading, including passengers, and departed for Spain. The first “games” were Soviet ships: “Komsomol” (“Y-2”), “Old Bolshevik” (“Y-3”), “Kursk” (“Y-8”). Then came the Spanish steamships: Cabo de Santo Tome, Cabo de San Agustin, Magallanes... Some of them made two or three voyages.

Working with the first “Greeks” was especially painful. They were equipped with equipment designed and created at the GRU Institute.

Under the leadership of military engineer 3rd rank Razgovorov, they built a series of transmitters, powered from the network or from batteries. While achieving maximum power, we lost stability in frequency and operating mode. The transmitter absolutely could not stand the motion of the antenna. The frequency changed abruptly, the tone “cryed”. Despite the strong signal, it was almost impossible to receive radiograms.

Attached to the transmitter was a direct amplification receiver, also manufactured by the institute. It was built under the leadership of engineer Bakanchev. It worked, perhaps, worse than transmitters.”

This was the first experience in creating a transceiver complex. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. Although the developers of the equipment ardently defended their brainchild and referred to the low qualifications of radio operators.

The radio operators were indeed weak, but this did not justify the designers. In short, the management of the reception center, based on complaints from operators, convinced the management command to take emergency measures to resolve the conflict.

In February 1937, experienced radio operator O. Tutorsky was sent to Sevastopol. At that time, in the Black Sea port, more “Greeks” were waiting for loading. Soon they set off on a dangerous journey to Spain.

O. Tutorsky says:

“In Sevastopol, on ships, we installed radio stations with the utmost care, made good antennas, charged batteries, and adjusted communications. As a result, on a stationary ship, the transmitters worked more or less acceptable.

When I returned to Moscow, I immediately ran to the reception center to listen to how the “Greeks” who had gone on a campaign were working. Unfortunately, the frequency was “crying”, the tone was howling.

I had to speak before a high commission and report on the results of the trip. There was only one conclusion: we need to develop and build a real, modern transmitter.”

After the commission meeting, Tutorsky was told so - so you will build this very “real and modern transmitter.” To help him, they gave him a radio operator L. Dolgov, two installers - Y. Kozlov, Rusanov, a designer and a mechanic. General leadership carried out by Boris Aseev.

After two sleepless weeks, Tutorsky’s group presented a new transmitter. But it was considered too technically complex: three stages, four lamps, power supply. The service management decided not to put the transmitter into production, but to modify it. An urgent search has begun for more optimal option. Soon an improved transmitter was born. It turned out to be more compact than the previous one and, no less important, was easier to manufacture. These radio stations began to be installed on all subsequent “I-Greeks”. Later, after modernization, the GRU transmitter was mass-produced and successfully operated at front-line radio centers during the Great Patriotic War.

Thus, in an outwardly routine manner, a major state task was solved, and an opportunity was found to provide uninterrupted communications for Soviet and Spanish ships.

Today, decades later, the phrase “provide uninterrupted communication” sounds simple and familiar, but then the loss of communication could cost hundreds of lives and cause enormous material damage.

Let me give you an example to prove it. Fortunately, it turned out to be the only one during the entire period of sea crossings from the Soviet Union to Spain.

This is how the former head of special radio communications of the intelligence department, Major General Ivan Artemyev, writes about him in his book “Call Signs of Moscow”:

“...On May 31, 1937, the Spanish steamer Aldenoa (under the code code “Y-34”) was sent from Sevastopol with weapons and volunteers. It was operated by our radio operators, foreman of long-term service Vasily Deberdeev and Red Navy man Lev Genzel, who had a 3-watt shortwave radio station “SR-8” of the first release with two sets of spare lamps.

After two days of the campaign, when the transport had already passed the Dardanelles, the next communication session with Moscow did not take place. For four days there was a search on the air for radio station “Y-34”, but it was not possible to find it.”

So, a transport loaded with weapons and equipment does not communicate with our military specialists for four days. All this time, reports are being made personally to the People's Commissar of Defense. But Aldenoa is silent. On the fifth day, K. Voroshilov orders the transport to return to Sevastopol. There is still hope that it was not sunk by the Nazis, and that the radio operators on the ship, if they cannot transmit messages, are at least listening to Moscow.

And so it happened. Y-34 heard the order and turned back. On the eighth day after departure, the ship returned to the Sevastopol port.

I can imagine how the radio operators Deberdeev and Hansel felt. The People's Commissar of Defense personally appointed a commission to investigate the reasons for the breakdown in communications. Ivan Artemyev also joined the commissions.

He recalls: “The investigation showed that the design of the radio station’s transmitter had a significant flaw: the anode and grid wires of the output stage of the transmitter were identical in length, color and location to both the anode and grid terminals of the lamps. If the connection was incorrect, the lamp would fail. This is what actually happened. The radio operators disabled all spare lamps and were unable to communicate. Of course, poor training of specialists also had an impact. But it would be unfair to blame them alone. Transport departed in a hurry. The radio operators were given less than a day to familiarize themselves with the equipment.

All this taken together led to the loss of radio contact and the return of the transport.”

The results of the investigation resulted in the removal from office of the head of the radio communications service of the intelligence department, P. Agafonov. Although he stayed in this position for only three months, and at the time of the incident he was in the hospital. The decision is clearly unfair. But, looking back at those events today, we can say that Agafonov, Deberdeev and Hansel were incredibly lucky. It was May '37. They could easily have been recognized as enemies of the people. Fortunately, everything worked out. But the lesson was serious.

This incident once again proved how fragile and thin the thread of communication is, how great the danger is if it breaks.

The creation of a transceiver device capable of maintaining a continuous, stable connection “ship-Center” solved another important problem: it ensured the safety of the “Greeks” who had to chart their course in the waters where the Nazis ruled.

A radio operator and participant in the Spanish events, retired Colonel K. Lupandin, talks about one of these campaigns:

“Our motor ship “Andreev” with a cargo of aircraft, a group of pilots consisting of Bondarchuk, Pavlovich, Tuzhansky, the commander of the submarine Egipko, left the Leningrad port on October 22, 1936 along the route: Baltic Sea-North Sea-English Channel-Bay of Biscay-port Bilbao.

The difficulty of this flight was not only the long length of the route, but also the fact that our radio station for oncoming communication with transport was not installed at the destination. Thus, we had no connection with Bilbao and could not have had one.

Upon entering the North Sea, our ship encountered a severe storm of force nine. According to the instructions of the Moscow command, we did not have the right to enter neutral ports during our voyage in order to wait out the storm. Therefore, despite the critical storm situation, the ship continued its voyage.

Nevertheless, radio communication with Moscow was stable and reliable. From the radio codes received from the Center, it became known that the warships of fascist Spain were preparing to come towards us in order to capture or sink the ship.

With a skillful maneuver, the ship's course was changed from the coast of France towards Bilbao. Thus, our ship turned out to be far from the fascist ships that came towards us.

Later, Moscow's information about the impending attack on the Soviet ship was confirmed. Thanks to the warning, the transport with equipment, military equipment and volunteers arrived safely in Bilbao.”

Now imagine what would have happened to the ship, equipment, and people if there had not been a radio station on board and no stable connection with Moscow.

The creation of a communication system between the “Yagreks” and the Center provided invaluable assistance at the front. After all, upon arrival at the Spanish port of Cartagena, reconnaissance radio operators removed the equipment from the ships and placed it at the disposal of our military advisers. So, as the “Greeks” arrived in Spain, an internal radio communication network was organized and built in the Republican army, navy and aviation.

Ignatiy Zaveryachev arrived in Spain on Y-1 in early October 1936. He was sent to the training center for Republican troops in Albacete. In Moscow, this correspondent was heard better than anyone.

The radio station on the Southern Front began operating in November 1936 in Malaga. It was installed by Lev Hurges, who arrived on one of the first Spanish “Greeks”, the steamer “Mar-Karibo”. Hurges was a certified radio engineer. In the past, he is the senior radio operator of the Gorky propaganda squadron.

After the Nazis captured Malaga, the station was transferred to Almeria, then to the Sierra Nevada mountains.

One of the first to establish radio communications was the station in Bilbao, which was deployed by Lieutenant Kirill Lupandin, who arrived from Leningrad on the ship Andrei Zhdanov.

After the capture of the northern zone by the Francoists, the station was relocated to Santander and then to Gijon.

Radio stations were also deployed in Cartagena, Jaen, Basa, and at the Alcala de Henares airfield near Madrid.

The radio operators of the naval attache, Captain 2nd Rank Nikolai Kuznetsov, often went to sea for combat operations. Thus, the radio station was installed on the destroyer Churruka. And when it was torpedoed by a submarine, the radio equipment was deployed on the Alvicant Antokera, which became the flagship.

Radio operator Grigory Epishev on this destroyer took part in a naval battle on March 7, 1938, when one of the best Nazi ships, the cruiser Baleares, was sunk.

...In March 1939, the Spanish Republic fell under the blows of rebels and interventionists. The fascist dictatorship of General Franco was established in the country, Soviet volunteers left the Iberian Peninsula. There were a little more than two years left before the Great Patriotic War.

Test in combat conditions

“In the tragic 1941, we often remembered Spain...” one of the military intelligence veterans once told me. And it is true.

Special radio communications of the Main Intelligence Directorate received their first combat lessons in Spain, China, and Mongolia. If other military intelligence departments only had to improve their activities, then the special radio communications service had to create everything from scratch, if you like, on empty space.

In the 13th department, which was headed by Major P. Agafonov, there were only twenty people. And there were a little over five years left before the war.

Today it is known that in 1935-1936, just when the special radio communications service was created, the Red Army was at the height of its power. We were superior to the Wehrmacht (Reichswehr) of Germany both quantitatively and, most importantly, qualitatively.

Already in 1932, in the Soviet Union, much earlier than in Germany, two large tank formations were formed. In 1933 - two more. According to the staff, the corps had 490 tanks. By this time, no army in the world had such powerful tool development of success in an offensive operation.

Much attention was paid to the development of aviation, such a promising branch of the military as the airborne troops. Parachute battalions, regiments, and, in 1936, brigades were created. In 1935 at Kyiv; During the maneuvers, an unprecedented landing of 1,200 paratroopers was carried out, and later 2,500 soldiers.

In military strategy we were also ahead: in the mid-thirties we were already developing and testing in practice the theory of a deep offensive operation.

However, after the execution of Marshal M. Tukhachevsky and his comrades, everything went backwards: the tank corps ceased to exist, the aviation armies were disbanded, and the airborne troops were organizationally destroyed. By the beginning of the war, much of what had been achieved in previous years had been lost.

But the special radio communications service developed quite actively. The winds of repression passed her by. Perhaps because, as a rule, people with very low military ranks worked in it, and they were of little interest to the NKVD executioners. In addition, GRU radio operators did not leave the “hot spots”: Spain, China, Mongolia. This way we managed to save the footage, and even test them in combat conditions.

A lot happened in the special radio communications service of the intelligence department in the five pre-war years. We must admit with bitterness that in 1941, under the terrible attacks of the Nazis, our commanders lost control of their troops, primarily due to lack of communication. The Red Army signal troops were essentially unprepared for modern, mobile warfare. And then, in critical situations, there was only one thread of intelligence communication between military intelligence officers.

Nowadays, few people know that our 16th and 20th armies, which were deeply encircled in the fall of 1941 in the Vyazma region, were saved only thanks to this thread.

The encircled formations lost contact with the front headquarters and with their neighbors. Everything could have ended tragically. The only line of special intelligence communications came to the rescue. According to it, the commander of the Western Front, Army General Georgy Zhukov, gave instructions, clarified the situation, in a word, directed the exit from the encirclement. The armies broke out of the enemy ring and were included in the defense system of Moscow. Thus, unknown to us, military intelligence radio operators saved thousands of lives of our soldiers and officers.

In the same autumn of 1941, the command of the Western Front sent the cavalry corps of generals Belov and Dovator to the rear of the German troops. Later, in the history of the Great Patriotic War, the raids of the Soviet Cossacks will be called legendary.

But these legendary raids might not have taken place. And for one reason only - due to lack of communication.

Horse-drawn military radio stations were cumbersome and could not keep up with the mobile, fast movements of the Cossack units. The Dovator and Belov horsemen were saved by intelligence officers, or rather, by the GRU special radio communications department. The corps included military intelligence radio operators with proven, light-weight, reliable Sever radio stations. “Severki,” as the radio operators affectionately called the stations, worked stably, communications were stable during the entire raid. Upon their return, the radio operators received orders.

Special radio communications have more than once come to the rescue of our troops and military commanders in the most difficult, critical moments of battle, performing functions that are far from typical for it.

That’s when GRU radio operators remembered Spain, Mongolia, China... They remembered kind words, although in relation to the war this sounds at least strange.

Those pre-war conflicts taught us a lot.

One of the radio operators, veterans of the Spanish events, once admitted: “When I see Stalingrad lying in ruins in an old newsreel, I remember Barcelona.” Surprisingly, it always seemed to me that nothing could be more terrible than the “Stalingrad personnel”. It turns out it can. He had his own Stalingrad. Much earlier than ours. He recalled those events like this: “In Spain there was a cruel war that we did not know. After all, our comrades came from a peaceful country. The Germans and Italians also conducted experiments there, preparing for a big war.

In March 1938, before the start of a major offensive to reach the coast, they carried out such an experiment over Barcelona.

What needs to be done to paralyze the life of a big city? Abandon aviation and bomb every two hours. Large-caliber land mines, small incendiary bombs... I don’t remember how many days the bombing lasted. But the Nazis achieved their goal. The city burned down. The destruction is enormous. Large time bombs penetrated several floors and exploded in the center of a ten-story building. Houses turned into heaps of rubbish.

I remember a detail: there was only one wall left of the school, with the inscription on it: “Fascist, watch what you are doing!”

The city was paralyzed. Transport and water supply did not work, electricity was not supplied, and no one put out the fires. The population fled to the mountains.

During the day, planes hunted for individual cars on the roads. The car of our naval adviser I. Eliseev was attacked while approaching Cartagena. Radio operator L. Dolgov was seriously wounded, a photojournalist who was in the car with us was killed.”

What familiar pictures for us: terrible bombings, fires, refugees, diving fascist planes. Everything happened again. Except that the GRU special radio communications service already had considerable Spanish experience.

Now military intelligence radio operators knew, for example, how to provide communications for a combat operation. In 1937, during the Brunst offensive operation over Madrid, radio operator L. Dolgov organized and headed the communications of the operational group of the chief military adviser with the Center and the city of Valencia. Everything went well.

After this, subsequent military operations - Zaragoza, Teruel, on the Ebro River were provided by communications from our military intelligence.

For greater mobility, radio operators were given a Ford semi-truck. They loaded it with equipment, batteries, an engine, and a power supply from the network and forward to the front as part of an operational group. The radio station was installed wherever necessary, depending on the situation - indoors, in a barn, in a car in the open air. There was a case when our radio operators took refuge in a drainage pipe under the highway. But they gave us a connection.

Not only signalmen studied, but also those who commanded them on the spot. After all, the special radio communication system was a new thing.

Retired Colonel K. Lupandin spoke about one of these cases: “The evacuation of a group of Soviet volunteers in northern Spain after the fall of Bilbao took place from a naval base near the city of Santander. When loading onto the submarine, I was ordered to take a radio with me just in case.

The evacuation, as usually happens, was carried out in a hurry, in a nervous atmosphere, and therefore I did not dare to clarify what the radio station was actually needed for. Upon entering the Strait of Biscay and sinking the boat, I was ordered to establish contact with Moscow. To my surprised attempts to explain that it was impossible to do this from under water, the authorities reacted very violently. I had to listen to a lot of reproaches.

I asked to at least surface and then promised to provide communication. But it was not possible to surface immediately, and the decision was made to return back. When in Santander we moored almost to the pier near the railway parapet of the embankment, I deployed the antenna on board the submarine and, in extreme excitement, established contact with the Leningrad radio center the first time and transmitted the encryption.”

There were many similar cases. Our commanders and military leaders still had to learn how to manage communications, especially something as specific as military intelligence communications. Hence the paradox. Sometimes the harder the radio operators tried, the clearer and more trouble-free the connection was, the less attention they paid to it. The management simply forgot about the difficulties and needs of the special radio communications service.

Radio operators were often assigned premises that were unsuitable for work, most often a basement or semi-basement. There was no place for them on ships or on campaigns at that time either. Thus, during sea trips on the flagship destroyer of the Spanish Navy, Alvicante Antoquera, a place for radio operators to live was determined in the junior officers' quarters in the aft compartment. But when a combat alert was announced, this compartment was tightly battened down and exit from it was stopped.

Even worse, if two radio operators went on a campaign, one had no place to rest at all. Radio operators were not given more than one position.

To this day, signalmen recall that living conditions on Spanish ships were poor. “There was dirt everywhere, there were bugs on the bunk, cockroaches were swimming in the soup,” one of the intelligence veterans admitted to me. "Why?" - I was surprised. It turned out that the revolutionary “freedom and democracy” abolished the traditional “scraping of coppers.”

However, despite all the difficulties, spanish war gave military intelligence radio operators invaluable experience, which came in handy during the Great Patriotic War, when we had to face a technically competent and highly professional enemy.

This was not only the case in Spain. The fate of our reconnaissance radio operators took us everywhere in the thirties.

There were bitter disappointments, and an understanding of how weak and backward we are in the technical equipment of radio communications, and first victories, gaining faith in our own strength.

In October 1937, a group of department employees led by V. Ryabov was tasked with providing communications to a convoy of vehicles delivering weapons to China to fight the Japanese invaders.

A convoy of ZIS-5 vehicles concentrated in the area of ​​the city of Chardzhou. She had to make a long journey to the Chinese border, then through the Gobi Desert in the direction of Urumqi. Radio communication had to be organized and maintained between the head and tail of the column, as well as with the starting and ending points of movement.

At first glance, the matter is not complicated. Radio operators with radio stations were assigned to the cabins of the first and last vehicles. Communication between them: by telegraph - seven kilometers, by telephone - four.

We set off. And the path went along mountain passes to the Chinese border. The column stretched, the cars went beyond the horizon, the engines created strong interference, the correspondents of the first and last cars did not hear each other. Communication failed.

There were difficulties of a different kind. Reconnaissance radio operator D. Tsimlyakov, sent to Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang army, had to work in heat of forty degrees. The batteries, which, by the way, have nothing to replace, could not stand it. There was nowhere to wait for help. The radio operator fed the transmitter from the engine.

In 1939, during the fighting near the Khalkhin Gol River, it became necessary to ensure radio communication between the joint headquarters of the Soviet and Mongolian forces with the headquarters of the Transbaikal Military District in Chita. Fortunately, a group of technicians and operators from the Main Intelligence Directorate was already working in Ulaanbaatar. It provided retransmission of radiograms transmitted from China to Moscow.

From this group, several radio operators with a radio station headed by M. Sokolov were selected and sent to the city of Tamsak-Bulak.

It should be noted that the radio station operated in a combat zone, under the bombing of enemy aircraft. Great difficulties arose in providing the radio station with power. But the most important thing was that there was a connection.

By the way, the work of reconnaissance radio operators under enemy bombing, as practice has shown, is not such a rare thing. In China, our operators have gained experience and developed tactics.

This is how one of them, veterans of the GRU special radio communications service, recalls the Chinese events of 1939:

“Soviet radio operators strictly followed the order: to always be ready in case of a sudden enemy air raid, not to expose themselves to risk, to take care of their material.

The preservation of materiel was of particular importance. In conditions of isolation from home, when every fuse was worth its weight in gold, spare parts were stored with special care, carefully packed, arranged in layers of cotton wool.”

"Fritz" calls "Wiesbaden"

The life of the great intelligence officer of our time, Richard Sorge, seems to have been studied to the smallest detail. More than fifty books have been written about him.

Among the foreign authors talking about the legendary “Ramsay” were Allen Dulles, director of the US CIA, Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for the commander of American forces in the Pacific, and Far East General MacArthur.

A large literature dedicated to the intelligence officer’s feat was created in the Soviet Union. Maria and Mikhail Kolesnikov, Yuri Korolkov and other authors dedicated their work to Richard Sorge.

It is amazing that every researcher found something new and unknown in the image of this man and his deeds. What a truly powerful personality!

I do not intend to repeat even very briefly what has been written. Yes, this is impossible to do. I would like to highlight just one thought - the success of the Ramsay group, unprecedented in modern history, ten years of uninterrupted titanic work with amazingly effective results - the fruit of the labor of a constellation of talented intelligence officers.

Yes, Sorge led, directing these people. But what comrades he had! Let's remember Hozumi Ozaki - a brilliant Japanese scientist and journalist, doctor of law.

At the end of 1935, the Soviet leadership received a message from the Ramsay group, which the center simply refused to believe. For what was said in the radiogram turned Moscow’s political views upside down. Already in the prison cell, Sorge will write: “Berzin told me to hurry up. I didn't have much time. He, like everyone else in Moscow, believed that Japanese aggression in the Far East was inevitable.” The Kremlin urgently strengthened its Far Eastern group, and Sorge conveyed that the Japanese government’s plans for the new year did not include a military clash with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the document spoke of the conclusion of a Soviet-Japanese treaty, which would allow the Japanese to calmly, without fear of anything, strike China.

The center demanded documentary evidence. Sorge managed to substantiate his intelligence report. A radiogram arrived from Moscow: “Your information is reliable and has been taken into account. Dahl."

But what did the colorless, dry words “noted” mean? They meant nothing less than a turn in the entire policy of the huge Eurasian country. This was Ramsay's first biggest success.

This is how Hans Otto Meisner, at that time the third secretary of the German embassy in Tokyo, assessed him. In his memoirs, he writes: “The information obtained by the group had a strong influence on the Soviet construction program. Until now, military training has been carried out under the banner of strategic defense against Japanese attack, including troop maneuvers in Siberian conditions. Most of the weapons produced went to the Far Eastern Army, which, according to plans, by the end of 1936 was supposed to have a strength of three million people.

Sorge's luck delayed the implementation of this program, and for the first time the Red Army was able to fully implement its defense plans in the West.

But who directly obtained this valuable information? Hodumi Ozaki. The chief secretary of the Japanese prime minister not only told the Soviet agent about the essence of the government program, but also gave him a top secret document. Ozaki reshot the program on film. Brilliant work by Sorge's assistant!

The group's radio operator, Max Clausen, was just as talented in his field. It is known that he had miscalculations in operational work, but in matters of communications he was an unsurpassed master. Some authors who wrote about Sorge's reconnaissance group call Clausen a "radio sorcerer."

Essentially, he can be considered the founder of agent radio communications Soviet intelligence. It is difficult in the history of the GRU to find a radio operator who, in the period from 1929 to 1941, worked as an illegal immigrant for ten years, all this time skillfully escaping the clutches of counterintelligence. And even if today it is not known for certain how the Japanese reached Sorge’s group, we can say with a high degree of confidence: radio communications were not the root cause of the failure.

The GRU archives preserved a memorandum to the head of the Intelligence Directorate, dated December 1945. It says: “...The history of the Ramsay station shows that “Fritz” (Clausen) is not the root cause of failure. The incriminating materials seized from his apartment after his arrest (he was the last to be arrested in the station and not as a radio operator) exposed, first of all, himself.”

Max Clausen himself, released from Japanese dungeons after the Allied command entered Tokyo, will write in his report in Moscow: “As interpreter Hasebi told me, the investigator in my case, Iyo, told him that the police were misinformed about my activities, believing that I was collecting intelligence information, and my arrest because of my work at the radio station was unlikely, because the transmitter in my home was discovered by the police only after a message from Miyagi (Joe).”

However, let us return to the beginning of the collaboration between the great Sorge and the “radio wizard” Clausen. Max Gottfried Friedrich Clausen, the son of a shopkeeper and bicycle mechanic, from the island of Nordstrande, had by then life path.

He studied blacksmithing and attended a vocational school. In 1917 he was drafted into the army, into the German Signal Corps. It was then, in one of the radio units on the Western Front, that he became acquainted with a matter that became central to his fate.

After demobilization from the army, Max is again at the blazing forge. In 1921 he went to Hamburg and became a mechanic on a merchant ship. There were voyages to the Baltic ports, and there was also prison for participating in a strike of German sailors.

In 1927, the Soviet Union bought a three-masted schooner from Germany to supplement its seal hunting fleet. Sailor Clausen also arrives in Murmansk with the schooner's crew. Soon he returns to Hamburg, and next year Max is in Moscow.

From then on it begins for him new life. He undergoes training in radio operator courses and in 1929 leaves for Shanghai as a radio communications expert.

To everyone else, he is the German traveling salesman Max. He finds an apartment in one of the remote, quiet areas of Shanghai and here he meets his... love.

Anna Wallenius rented rooms in the same house. Max liked the rooms. They were located in the attic: you couldn’t think of a better place to place a radio station. And Clausen suggested that “Frau Anni” exchange housing, especially since he had a better room. And the fee of forty dollars spoke for itself.

But Anna flatly refused to move from the attic. What could Max do? Get to know an intractable woman better and get your way. That’s exactly what happened. Soon Clausen moved into the attic and began constructing a transmitter.

Often he went down to Annie for a cup of tea. And at the most inopportune hour, in the midst of work, on the eve of leaving for Canton, Max announced: “I’m getting married!”

Sorge understood how responsible this step was, especially in their position. He asked Max to introduce him to his bride. Richard liked Annie. Wallenius, whom everyone took for a Finnish woman, turned out to be Russian, Anna Zhdankova, an emigrant from Russia. She was born in Siberia, her father gave her “to be raised” in the family of the merchant Popov. In 1918, Anna found herself in exile in China. This was the beginning of the work of the “Big Five” radio operator at the “Ramsay” station. Ten years of hard, dangerous work lay ahead. More than once Max Clausen walked on the edge of an abyss. Since he worked in a group, he had to perform not only the functions of a radio operator, but also some operational assignments. Clausen will talk about one of them, when the group was on the verge of failure, during his trial.

He was going to Shanghai to pick up Anna, and at the same time had a meeting with a contact from Moscow. Sorge handed Max several rolls of film.

Before he could board the train, a Japanese counterintelligence agent appeared next to him. The bundle of microfilm looked like hot coals in his bosom.

The agent bombarded him with questions. Who it? Where is he going? How long has he lived in Japan? Clausen showed a document certifying that he was the owner of an export-import office.

But the agent did not calm down. Now he wanted to know what the company was doing, who could vouch for him?

“It immediately seemed to me that he had reason to suspect me,” Clausen admitted during the trial. “I almost resigned myself to the thought of an inevitable arrest... Half an hour passed, and I became convinced that he was playing with me, that he had boarded the train, already having an order for my arrest. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he muttered something inaudibly and disappeared.”

Despite the agent's disappearance, Max was very worried. On the ship he stayed at the side, ready to throw the film into the water at any moment.

Clausen's shock was so strong that upon meeting his wife and arriving at the hotel, he immediately fell asleep and slept for half a day. Then for several more days he felt disgusting.

Sorge temporarily removed him from radio broadcasts, and Max began commercial activities.

However, the main dangers for “Fritz” were associated with his main profession as a reconnaissance radio operator.

In one of the many books about Sorg, I found a phrase that Max preferred radio equipment made with my own hands, bought in a store. “If such a device failed, it was immediately clear where the defect was,” explained the author.

But the matter is completely different. When assembling the transmitter, Clausen took great care and did exactly the right thing. He studied the local radio market and selected the most suitable scheme. I purchased radio components in various cities, not myself, but through trusted persons. I did some things myself. For example, I made inductors from copper tube, taking the gas line from the car. This coil ensured not only the strength of the installation, but also the constancy of the electrical parameters.

Clausen even made the telegraph key with his own hands, since the purchase of a Morse key could attract the attention of counterintelligence.

Anna bought the necessary radio tubes for the transmitter in Shanghai, visiting the store no more than once or twice.

Having purchased and made some radio components himself, Clausen assembled a radio transmitter. Structurally, it consisted of separate blocks that were connected to each other by connectors.

I wanted the blocks to have “agent” qualities - small dimensions, light weight. But sixty-odd years ago this was impossible. And then wise Max found his original solution: He made several large blocks (mostly power supplies), one for each radio apartment. And the transmitter itself, of very modest size, was kept in a cache in his house. Thus, he did not have to carry a fully assembled, bulky radio transmitter to communication sessions in different radio apartments.

In addition to the power supplies in the radio apartments, Clausen had telegraph keys and antenna cables. All this equipment was removed from the cache only for the duration of the connection.

For purposes of secrecy, to communicate with the Center, Clausen used ordinary broadcast receivers, which, even during a search, could not arouse suspicion.

Working conditions for a radio operator in Canton, Shanghai, and Harbin were extremely difficult. The power supply was often interrupted, it was necessary to use autonomous sources: a dynamo with manual drive, dry batteries. But the dynamo interfered with radio reception, attracted attention, and dry batteries quickly discharged and accumulated. After all, for normal operation of the transmitter, Clausen had to connect ten batteries in series. It was dangerous to store used batteries; they had to be buried in the ground or drowned in reservoirs. These operations were not always successful.

One day Max made a new transmitter, and decided to throw the old one, along with the used batteries, into the lake.

I asked group member Branko Vukelic to help. On a summer morning they set off. There are heavy backpacks on our shoulders. We moved towards Lake Yamanaka. They soon noticed that they were being followed. Let's hurry. But the police did not lag behind. Having caught up with the travelers, the detectives began to ask questions. They were interested in the luggage, the route, and the purpose of the trip. The scouts tried to laugh it off. Failed. And then Vukelich said that they had bottles of alcohol in their backpacks and offered them a drink. The police quickly said goodbye. Vukelich knew: Japanese detectives were afraid of “sullying” themselves by drinking with foreigners. This was considered a white-collar crime.

Max and Branko approached the lake and, taking a boat, threw their dangerous cargo into the water.

However, the point was not only in the dangers that awaited the scouts at every step, but also in the fact that the work of a radio operator in those years required full effort. Communication sessions with “Wiesbaden” (the code name of the radio station in Vladivostok) sometimes lasted for hours. Sometimes most of the radiogram had to be repeated several times. At the same time, extreme caution was needed: they changed apartments. Thus, in Tokyo, the Ramsay group used seven radio apartments.

All apartments had hiding places for storing equipment. Max himself hid the equipment in a niche in the wall under a portrait of Hitler in his own house.

The transmitter for the communication session was delivered in a suitcase, in a basket with groceries. Anna was often brought in for this purpose. Clausen's wife explained her frequent trips to the city by purchasing food for chickens and dogs, which the couple purchased specifically for these purposes.

In total, during the period of work in China (1930–1932), Clausen transmitted only 597 urgent intelligence reports to the Center, 235 of which were reported to the command of the Armed Forces and the government. They revealed a wide range of issues: the actions of the Japanese military during the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and the Shanghai battles a year later, the activities of foreign military advisers to the Chinese army, the political and armed struggle between various military-political groups in China, the state of the country's economy.

Max Clausen's radio station played a special role during the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. A document appeared on the People’s Commissar of Defense’s desk, which emphasized: “The experience of strategic agents during the armed conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway brilliantly confirmed that agents equipped with modern radio communications enable the command to be timely aware of the enemy’s strategic and operational maneuvers. During the conflict, communications over the air operated flawlessly.”

Those who “brilliantly confirmed” the experience of the agents in 1933 were recalled to the Center. If Sorge returned to Moscow with pleasure, settled in the New Moscow Hotel and enthusiastically dictated the pages of his new book about China into a typewriter, then Clausen’s life turned out differently. While still in Shanghai, it was discovered that Anna did not have a passport. But according to legend, a German businessman was returning to Germany. I had to worry. But old connections at the German embassy helped.

And finally, Moscow, the Soviet Union... It was then that they remembered the “brilliant radio magician”’s marriage to emigrant Anna Zhdankova. But you never know that she carried out the most important reconnaissance missions, took risks, connections with the emigrant colony were not forgiven then... And Anna and Max, under the false name of Rautmanov, went not on another reconnaissance mission abroad, but to the deep rear, to the Saratov region, to the republic of the Volga Germans.

The small steppe town of Krasny Kut, a machine and tractor station and Max Rautman - a mechanic. Here, too, he found use for his talent - he radioed his native MTS. At that time this was unprecedented. Anna started a farm - sheep, chickens... And at this time Richard Sorge was already in Japan, in Tokyo. Radio operator Bruno Windt (Bendt) is trying to establish contact with Vladivostok. Does not work. There is no “magician” Max - and there is no connection...

Great radio magician

In 1935, the Shanghai residency, the GRU, headed by Sorge's successor Ya. Bronin, failed. “Ramsay” was summoned to Moscow. The center carefully analyzed the circumstances of the failure and found no serious arguments against Sorge’s return to Japan.

In turn, Sorge reported that the position of the intelligence officers was strengthening, the information capabilities of the Tokyo station were growing, but there was no reliable radio communication. Richard asked to send Max Clausen to Japan. He was confident in his professionalism.

Soon a letter arrived in Krasny Kut: the GRU leadership invited Clausen to return to his work.

By that time, Yan Berzin was assigned to the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army under Blucher, and Sorge and Clausen were received by the new head of military intelligence, Semyon Uritsky.

This is how Richard Sorge described that meeting in his posthumous notes:

“In 1935, in Moscow, Clausen and I received parting words from the head of the Intelligence Directorate, General Uritsky. General Uritsky gave instructions in the sense that we, through our activities, strive to avert the possibility of war between Japan and the USSR. And I, being in Japan and devoting myself to intelligence activities, firmly adhered to this instruction from beginning to end...”

In September, Max went to France, then to England, and from there to Austria. He returned to France again. From Le Havre he leaves Europe by boat. Sailing to America. Even the most sophisticated counterintelligence cannot track such a path, and yet Max is worried. NCIS, on a boat, customs in New York - anything can happen. And a visit to the German Consulate General, an explanation with meticulous German officials?!

“I was very afraid that they would be detained in New York,” Clausen wrote after the war. - But I was lucky there. The American official looked at my passport, stamped it and returned it.”

The authors of the book about Richard Sorge, Maria and Mikhail Kolesnikov, comment on this episode as follows: “He was always lucky, Max Clausen.” By the way, in our literature the image of Clausen as a kind of “lucky guy” is very popular. Alas, the life of a scout is full of surprises. Yes, in America, the visit to customs and the German Consulate General ended happily, but in Japan, it happened that he was a centimeter from the abyss into which the reconnaissance group could fall.

The taxi ride on December 31, 1938 could have ended in failure. That day, Max took the transmitter from Vukelic's house, put it in his briefcase and called a taxi. There were no signs of trouble. The car moved down the street, Clausen was in a good mood. Suddenly the driver pressed the brake, and a Japanese policeman jumped into the car while it was moving. He took off the briefcase with the radio station and lowered it to the floor. The numb Clausen did not even have time to open his mouth. The usual questions rained down: “Last name? Home address? What do you do? Where are you going?

Max answered the questions as calmly as he could and showed his business card and driver’s license. Having finished the interrogation, the policeman put his briefcase on the seat and got out of the car. The usual check adopted in those years in Japan could have been the last in the fate of the Soviet intelligence officer.

In this case, Clausen was not guilty of anything, he did not make a mistake. This is what Sorge admitted. And yet, everyone remembered how Max dropped his wallet in a taxi, which contained the group’s report in English, for a radio broadcast to the Center, they remembered the policemen who were on the tail of Clausen and Vukelich when they went to drown the old transmitter, and the Secret Service employee , who became attached to Max on the ship. Operationally, Max was more of a bad luck guy than a lucky guy. But at the same time, he was the only one who could bring the group’s secret materials to the mind and heart of the Center.

Although even here everything was not simple. Max Clausen conducted his first session with the Center in February 1936 from a separate house in Chigasaki, sixty kilometers southeast of Tokyo. They looked after this house together with Sorge.

Thus began constant radio communication between the Ramsay residency and the Center. At first it was difficult for her.

The correspondent of “3-X” (this is the code name of the Clausen radio station) and the radio center in Vladivostok (“Wiesbaden”) had mutual complaints: mutually weak audibility of signals, poor tone, low stability of the frequency of the correspondent’s transmitter.

Frankly speaking, nothing else should have been expected. After all, let’s imagine the conditions under which Clausen had to equip the radio station. There were no precise measuring instruments, the calibration of the transmitter tuning scale had to be done by eye, and the necessary parts that met the technical parameters were not always available on the local market. Max not only made the transmitter himself, but also built antennas, counterweights, and a telegraph key.

So the Center’s operators had to write down the text with one hand while receiving radiograms, and with the other, rotating the receiver tuning knob, chase the walking frequency of the correspondent’s transmitter.

Not all was well in Wiesbaden either. There were no powerful radio transmitters, no highly efficient directional antennas, and there were not enough highly qualified radio operators.

This affected the reliability of communication: sessions lasted for three to four hours, the “3-X” transmitter worked under heavy overload.

However, we must pay tribute: the Center realized the national importance of the messages from the Ramsay station and made every effort to improve communications. Ivan Artemyev, an engineer from the Red Army Communications Research Institute, left for Vladivostok. Subsequently, Ivan Nikolaevich Artemyev will head the radio communications department of the Main Intelligence Directorate. In turn, a letter was sent to the station. It said: “The most important aspects of your work, on which its further success depends, are the strengthening of the legalization position, as well as the preservation and proper use of M. Clausen’s equipment.

We understand perfectly well that you have to face various difficulties when equipping a radio station. Remember, mistakes in this matter threaten disaster. That is why we earnestly ask you not to leave this business unattended for a minute and not to forget that with the slightest connivance and even a trifling mistake, we can lose the most decisive link in your work - communications.

We repeat: these two questions are the basis for you.”

Having received such instructions from the Center, the resident and radio operator prepared very carefully for each communication session. The radio station moved to different addresses. Clausen worked from his apartment and his office, from the apartments of Sorge, the English journalist Gunther Stein, Vukelic's summer villa in Meguro and other places.

When choosing a radio apartment, Max proceeded from the fact that it was best to settle down for the session in a large building in the city, where direction finding of the station was difficult. At the same time, he understood that in a big city there were large losses in the radiated power of the transmitter. Therefore, in each specific case, he took into account various factors: time and working conditions, the situation in the area, around the building, the secrecy of the approach to it, the possibility of observation. :

All radio apartments were equipped with hiding places for storing equipment. For this, niches in the walls, floors, chimneys, and ventilation ducts were used.

Clausen liked to conduct radio communications with the Center in the evening or at night. The communication program provided for two or three sessions per week, but the work went on daily. The session is no more than an hour. But so much material accumulated that the connection was delayed for several hours on end.

To reduce the time spent on air, Max proposed his own, original version of the abbreviated Morse code. Its use made it possible to speed up radio exchange with the Center almost twice.

Clausen was extremely careful in conducting radio communications with the Center. During the operation of the station, continuous surveillance was carried out around the house. Danger signals were provided. The duties of the “sentinels” had to be performed by Anna Clausen, Branko Vukelic, his wife Edith, Steiner’s wife Margot, and often Richard Sorge himself.

Anna, for example, was walking her dog at that time, which looked quite natural.

Every day, the radio operator of the “Ramzaya” group changed his work hours and frequency call signs, the true meaning of which was covered by digital coefficients.

Clausen constantly studied and knew the situation in the country well. Every little detail was taken into account. For example, the Japanese police conducted sweeping driver's license checks twice a month. This means that when moving the radio station these days, the car or motorcycle must be clean and in good working order.

“Fritz” tried not to move the radio station five to seven weeks before the New Year. The police carried out a “hunt” for criminals and all kinds of suspicious persons. They could stop the car and conduct a search.

The measures taken have made themselves felt. Communications on the Tokyo-Vladivostok line have become more reliable and secretive.

If earlier, when entering into contact with Wiesbaden, Clausen had to “hang” on the air for five minutes for each call sign, now they worked immediately, without transmitting call signs. And this significantly reduced the communication session time and made it difficult for Japanese counterintelligence to control.

The duration was also reduced due to improved audibility of radio stations.

Richard Sorge reported to the Center on this matter. “Despite the overall difficult situation, the organization of radio communications is going well. Thanks to my personal efforts and “Fritz”, we have already organized three radio apartments and are preparing another one; we work mainly at night. “I now have the opportunity to send as many radiograms to the Center as I like.”

Moscow, in turn, highly valued the skill and professionalism of the Ramzai group and in particular its radio operator.

On February 22, 1937, a letter was sent to Tokyo from the Intelligence Bureau. “You are our best radio operator,” it said, “and we do not doubt you and your work for a minute... The work you have done is highly valued and will be recognized accordingly.”

In total, during the Tokyo period, Clausen transmitted by radio to the Center more than eight hundred urgent reports only, of which approximately one third were reported to the People's Commissar of Defense, the Chief of the General Staff and the government.

But what reports they were!

About the Anti-Comintern Pact between Japan and Germany, about the provocations of the Kwantung Army against Mongolia in 1936 and 1939, about the groupings of Japanese troops in the war against China in 1937, about Germany’s preparation for the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, about the beginning of the Nazi offensive troops against France, on the treaty (1940) between Japan and the Chinese puppet government of Wang Jingwei.

Here is the story of just one of these reports - about the Anti-Comintern Pact between Japan and Germany. At his trial in Tokyo, Sorge said: “Since I learned at the very beginning about the secret negotiations in Berlin between Oshima, Ribbentrop and Canaris, monitoring the relations between the two countries became one of the most important tasks of my activity.”

What happened as a result of this activity? In his memoirs, Hans Otto Meissner evaluates the results of the work of the Soviet residency:

“The Sorge group has achieved unprecedented success. Details of the Anti-Comintern Pact reached the Kremlin forty-eight hours after signing (!) and almost thirty hours before it became known to the Japanese cabinet and the German high command. After that, a whole month passed when the whole world learned about him.”

In other words, Stalin learned about the pact a day and a quarter earlier than the Japanese ministers and German generals.

The greatest burden fell on the radio operator of the Ramsay group in 1940–1941, during the period of intensive preparations by Germany for an attack on the USSR.

Clausen often spent entire nights with the key. The volume of most radiograms reached several hundred, and sometimes exceeded a thousand encrypted groups. Not only was the radio station overheating, but even the airwaves seemed to be heating up. Sorge passionately wanted to convey to the Center information about the impending disaster. But the Center was silent... The Center doubted...

And Sorge reported alarmingly about Germany’s preparations for an attack on the USSR and about Japan’s position in the event of aggression. He spoke about Hitler's determination to start a war, about the concentration of a large group of troops on the border. On February 14, 1941, Sorge submitted to the Center a report prepared for the Japanese government on the full combat strength of the Japanese army, as well as on the troops stationed in Manchuria, Korea, and China. Somewhat later, Moscow will receive a radiogram from “Ramsay” about the state of the production capacities of the Japanese aviation and tank industries, about the strategic oil reserves of this country.

In mid-1940, after five years of intensive activity by Clausen, the head of Japanese counterintelligence Osaka managed to establish that an illegal radio station of unknown origin was operating in Tokyo. The exact location of the radio station could not be determined.

Among the first to learn that Japanese “listeners” had picked up the trail of the Fritz radio transmitter was Sorge.

Osaki, in great secrecy, told the German Ambassador to Japan Ott about this, and he strictly confidentially shared the news with Sorge. The resident understood that we were talking about Clausen’s radio station. Now their station was monitored by radio counterintelligence divisions, armed with the latest German direction finders, radio monitoring services of the army and the postal administration of Japanese institutions in China and Manchuria. Even radio amateurs and commercial radio stations were involved in this work.

Life itself forced me to “lay low,” hide, and wait it out. But there was no time to “stay back.”

And Sorge and Clausen change their communication tactics. Now, instead of scheduling communication sessions, Wiesbaden monitored Fritz's calls every 15 minutes at the beginning of the hour. The intensity of the radio station was significantly reduced. Very urgent material was transmitted to the Center. But how much was there, this urgent material, and what value...

On June 17, 1941, Clausen transmitted to the Center: Germany will attack the Soviet Union in the second half of June.

On July 30, a radiogram reported: if the Red Army stops the Germans near Moscow, Japan will not enter the war against the USSR.

On September 14, Sorge reported that the Japanese government had decided not to oppose the Soviet Union this year. Thus, from September 15, the Soviet Far East can be considered guaranteed against the threat of attack from Japan.

After this, Sorge believed that the tasks facing his group had been completed.

He prepared a radiogram to the Center. “Further stay in Japan is useless. Therefore, I am waiting for instructions: to return to my homeland or go to Germany for a new job.”

But this telegram was not broadcast. On October 18, 1941, police burst into Clausen's house. On the same day, Sorge and Vukelich were arrested.

Sorge hoped that he would not be executed. In a conversation with journalists who were allowed by the Japanese to visit the cell of the Soviet intelligence officer, the great “Ramsay” expressed his conviction that Stalin highly valued his work and would take measures to save him.

The scout was wrong... Sorge and his military comrade-in-arms Ozaki were executed in Tokyo's Sugamo prison on November 7, 1944.

There were six months left before the Great Victory...

And yet, why didn’t Stalin save Sorge and exchange him? There was time and opportunity. The Japanese, as if waiting for Moscow’s proposals, kept “Ramsay” in prison for three years and postponed the execution.

Until now, Stalin's indifference to the greatest intelligence officer of our time remains a mystery and worries humanity. From time to time, disputes flare up on the pages of the press, and then historians and journalists launch into lengthy discussions. As they say, who knows what.

But there is the most probable and even documented answer. It goes back to the thirties, an era of suspicion, mistrust, and repression.

Four heads of military intelligence were declared enemies of the people in turn - Berzin, Uritsky, Gendin and Proskurov.

The head of the intelligence department, Karin, was recognized as a German spy, and Sirotkin and Pokladok, who led the activities of Soviet intelligence in Japan, were recognized as Japanese spies, respectively.

The conclusion was drawn: if the leaders sold themselves to foreign intelligence services, it means that they also handed over Sorge’s station. Therefore, “Ramsay” works under the control of Japanese counterintelligence.

Hence the decision made by the Intelligence Directorate in the second half of 1937: to recall Sorge from Japan and liquidate the station.

We must pay tribute to the then head of military intelligence, Gendin: exposing himself to undoubted risk, he reversed this decision. The residency was preserved, but with the defective label of “politically inferior.”

Now memos to the leadership of the country and the army were sent with reservations:

“To the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade... I present a report from our source, close to German circles in Tokyo. The source does not enjoy our complete trust, but some of its data deserve attention.”

Later, GRU veteran M. Sirotkin, who had to work directly with Richard Sorge, wrote a study: “The experience of the organization and activities of the Ramsay group.”

This is how he defines Moscow’s attitude towards Sorge: “The element of ambivalence in the Center’s attitude towards the residency is very characteristic. Information materials coming from “Ramzai” are in most cases highly appreciated, but when, on instructions from the management, certificates are drawn up about the personnel and activities of the station, the authors-executors of these certificates do not dare to abandon the stamp of “political mistrust” imposed on the station. Contrary to common logic, without taking into account the real results of the residency’s activities, they put their findings and conclusions under this stamp. Moreover, in the absence of any convincing justification for such conclusions, the same references to the 1937 conclusion on the Shanghai failure and other previous references are used each time.”

This, in fact, is the answer to the question that has been troubling us all for so long, why Stalin turned his back on Sorge.

The only one of the Big Five to survive was Max Clausen.

He was released from prison in 1945 by the Allies. They released you and warned you that it’s unlikely that Moscow will forgive you for failing. So think about it, take your time, live here in Japan.

Max Clausen hesitated. He remembered the year 1933, his exile in Saratov Krasny Kut. And this is after several years of successful intelligence work in Shanghai and Harbin. For what? Only because he married Anna, an “alien element”, an emigrant.

Then Sorge saved him. And now, after the failure of the residency, the death of Richard, Ozaki, Vukelich, who will save him now?

Max and Anna Clausen remained in Japan. The legendary "Fritz", the "magician of the radio", who contributed so much to our victory, was afraid to return to Moscow.

The Center also understood this. At that time, they could not allow Max and Anna to become defectors. Clausen was kidnapped and taken out of the country.

Twenty years after his death, Richard Sorge will be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and Max and Anna Clausen will be awarded orders.

So what's the bottom line? The Sorge-Clausen radio station operated uninterruptedly in illegal conditions for almost ten years - from 1929 to 1932 in China and in 1935-1941 in Japan.

Japanese counterintelligence discovered it only in 1941 and was able to intercept only fifty radiograms. But none of them were deciphered. Moreover, the Japanese were unable to establish either the ownership or the exact location of the radio station, although the intensity of its work exceeded all possible limits. Only from mid-1939 to the day of his arrest, “Fritz” transmitted over two thousand radiograms to the Center, in total up to one hundred thousand groups of cipher text. Great achievements agent radio communications are unknown in its history.

As is known, huge counterintelligence forces were involved in the search for the radio station. However, the skill of the “radio magician” Clausen surpassed the strength and capabilities of the Japanese.

A great illegal radio operator worked next to the greatest intelligence officer of our time. And that's it.

"Expedition Z"

The radio operator of the Intelligence Directorate, Pokrovsky, stood thoughtfully at the globe. After the meeting with the head of the service, he had something to think about. The year 1938 is drawing to a close. Japan captured more and more areas of China. Beijing has already been surrendered to the Japanese aggressors, the capital has been moved to Chongqing.

The Soviet Union is transferring weapons, ammunition, equipment, and fuel to China. In the area of ​​​​combat operations and at the headquarters of the Chinese army - our advisers, generals and officers. Our pilots are fighting in the skies of China.

Help for the Chinese is coming along the road from Almaty, across the Soviet-Chinese border, the Tien Shan mountains, through the most waterless, cruel, cold Gobi desert. What is a caravan with weapons? Along the entire route of this ultra-long route there are repair shops, hotels, and canteens. Soviet ZIS trucks stormed the sands and fought sandstorms.

The second route is air. It passed through the cities of Ghulja, Urumqi, Hami, Suzhou, Lanzhou and further to the center and south of China. Airfields were built here, and combat and transport aircraft were refueled.

Both routes had to be provided with communications. Otherwise, planes won’t take off and caravans won’t set off. The headquarters must know everything - from the weather report to the exact location of the convoy.

Military intelligence radio operators - Malykhin, Kuznetsov, Pavlov, Chernopyatov, Sidorenko, Tumanov - were already working on air and road transport routes.

Radio operator Pokrovsky had his own task: to go to the temporary Kuomintang capital of Chongqing and from there, from the headquarters of the chief military adviser and military attache, organize communications with the Center. It cannot be said that by that time there was no radio communication between Chongqing and Moscow at all, no. But it passed through an intermediate radio center in Lanzhou, which inevitably affected the efficiency of the work.

One more very important circumstance had to be taken into account: the Lanzhou hub was extremely busy. Equipped with the most modern equipment by the standards of that time, it kept in touch with all points of the route stretching from Alma-Ata for three thousand kilometers, controlled the wiring of caravans and aircraft flights. The node's radio operators provided communication sessions with Moscow, Alma-Ata, Ulaanbaatar, and with airfields where Chinese bombers and fighters were based, which were in constant combat readiness.

The bombing by Japanese aircraft also caused many difficulties. To all this were added transit radiograms from Chongqing to Moscow.

So radio operator Pokrovsky was thinking, standing at the globe: how to establish direct communication from the temporary Chinese capital with the Center. How will you fix it? He pulled a thread from Moscow to Chongqing. In a straight line it was more than 7 thousand kilometers. A huge distance for the technology of that time. To provide radio communication over such a range, it is necessary to build a transmitting radio station with a power of tens of kilowatts with special highly directional antennas and ultra-sensitive receiving devices. In other words, create capital, stationary nodes on both sides of the communication line.

But these dreams were more of a fantasy. Pokrovsky understood: nothing like this could be done in front-line conditions. They need a light radio station that can be quickly deployed. But this means the transmitter is no more than 50-100 watts. And with such transmitter power you can’t really run away.

In those years, the properties of short waves were little studied. They were discovered only a decade and a half ago. Experience, one might say, was enough. Only here is Krenkel! The communication session between Bard's polar expedition and the South Pole haunted Pokrovsky. After all, Krenkel could...

Before leaving, Pokrovsky nevertheless expressed his thoughts to the leadership of the GRU radio communications service and proposed conducting a daring experiment. Frankly, he asked a lot: first of all, to comply with strict professional requirements. Namely, the broadcast of the Center’s most powerful radio transmitter, an active search for radios from Chongqing using the best directional antennas. The most skilled, highly professional radio operators of the Intelligence Directorate must be recruited to conduct the experiment.

Management gave the go-ahead.

With such a strong determination to crush the range barrier, radio operator Pokrovsky left in February 1939, first to Alma-Ata, then to Chongqing.

This is how he himself remembers it:

“After the fierce fighting in Wuhan, there was a lull on the fronts of China. The Japanese troops, exhausted in battle, were unable to build on their success.

In February 1939, our group began its journey from Alma-Ata to the east.

The first part of the journey across the Soviet-Chinese border - the Tien Shan Mountains with their magnificent landscapes - waterfalls, tall bronze pine trees - was more like a tourist trip.

The high degree of organization of work on the track immediately became visible. Car caravans moved towards Central China without delay.

At the bases in Shikho and Urumqi there are repair shops, hotels, and canteens. All of them were ready to serve the caravans around the clock.

Most of the highway passed through deserts and semi-deserts. Actually, it ran along the ancient “Silk Road”, opened in the 2nd century BC. Along it, Chinese merchants carried silks of unprecedented beauty, brocade, gold and iron products, and white clay dishes.

On the “Silk Road,” off-roads reign: camels don’t need roads. So we had to heroically storm the sands, overcome sandstorms and the icy cold of the Gobi Desert.

The whole long journey only confirmed me in the correctness of my aspirations - to open a direct radio bridge from Chongqing to Moscow, to relieve the workload of my fellow radio operators, to provide more efficient communication to the chief military adviser.”

In Chongqing, Pokrovsky began conducting an experiment.

The main task was to establish direct communication with Moscow. To do this, he decided to find Soviet radio stations on the air located in the European part, or better yet, in the capital itself.

I established daily surveillance of them and selected approximate waves. Although many of them already knew the same experience. It was monotonous, painstaking, simply menial work, but only it could help achieve a great goal.

The reconnaissance radio operator had particular hopes for the end of the night and early Chongqing morning: the segment of the day when darkness covered the entire area of ​​the planet from Chongqing to Moscow. According to Pokrovsky’s calculations, these few hours should have provided a connection between both capitals.

After preparatory work and some design changes in the transmitter, the first direct communication session was scheduled. The results exceeded all expectations: Moscow heard signals of seven on a nine-point scale. The connection was stable, without failures. Radiograms were received at the Center with an extraordinary travel time - in a matter of minutes.

To check the reliability of the new radio link, Pokrovsky asks Moscow to resume communication in ten, then in twenty, and again in thirty minutes. The connection is still stable and audibility is good. But after two hours it drops to three to five points, fading and loss of signals begin. After another half hour, Moscow loses the correspondent, communication is cut off.

Soon the signals from Moscow disappeared on the air. The hot southern sun rises over Chongqing.

Thus, communication was organized between the temporary capital of China and the Center, and another step was taken in the development of ultra-long distances.

The work of our reconnaissance radio operators in China and Mongolia made it possible to accumulate truly invaluable experience, which was widely used during the Great Patriotic War.

No matter how strange it may sound, internal, or, as they were called, indoor antennas, which were later adopted by the partisans, were invented by our radio operators in the Gobi Desert.

The fact is that the highway passed through desert areas in Xinjiang and Gansu. Dust storms raged here in spring and autumn. Cruel, prickly winds swept through the sand dunes for more than a day, not two - sometimes for a week. For radio operators, electrified sand accumulated powerful electrical charges in the receiving antennas. The sparks of the discharges were like small lightning. The connection was disrupted, and there was a deafening crackle of electrical discharges in the headphones. Reception of even small telegrams took a long time.

And then the radio operators showed ingenuity and ingenuity: they tried to install the antennas not as usual, outside, but inside the room. The audibility turned out to be worse, but the connection was stable. The elements were defeated.

“Later,” one of the veterans of special radio communications told me, “the experience of using indoor antennas was used for transmitters. The following circumstances prompted this. The appearance of various gangs was noted near our representative offices located on the highways. There were cases of attacks on our caravans and killings of people. Therefore, the command required constant vigilance and readiness for emergency radio communications in extreme cases.

The use of indoor antennas for transmitters has given good results. The high combat readiness of radio equipment was now successfully ensured by the presence of such antennas.”

The invention of indoor antennas carried another valuable quality - secrecy. It's no secret that the radio antenna has always been an unmasking element. Now she was hidden from prying eyes.

With the beginning of fascist aggression against the Soviet Union, radio operators of sabotage groups and partisan detachments quickly realized the benefits of using internal antennas.

No less complex problems faced those who serviced the air route.

What it represented at that time can be judged from the memoirs of the famous Soviet pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, and later Colonel General of Aviation F. Polynin. He oversaw the transfer of our aircraft to China.

“The Alma-Ata-Lanzhou air route,” writes F. Polynin, “which had eleven intermediate landing sites, really could not boast of precise operation. The airfields were poorly equipped, aircraft crews were not provided with meteorological information, and no one planned flights. For these reasons, disasters have occurred.”

In 1938–1939, our country intensified the supply of aircraft to China. This, in turn, required providing aircraft in the air with accurate weather data. But how to do that? Only with the help of stable, uninterrupted communication. However, China is not Europe.

High mountains, sudden changes in weather, dusty and strong storms became real opponents of radio operators.

The only way to withstand natural disasters and establish a radio bridge along the entire length of aviation and highway routes could be the deployment of a system of radio nodes. And this opportunity was used.

Retired Colonel I. Matvienko says:

“The radio center in Almaty provided communication with two dozen correspondents over a distance of three hundred kilometers (this is the city of Gulja) to almost five thousand kilometers. At this distance were Chongqing, Changsha, and Lanzhou.

Another direction is Moscow. A distance of four and a half thousand kilometers.

With correspondents, in addition to the main ones, it was necessary to schedule some additional sessions. This was caused by the operational situation on the highways, as well as in combat areas.

It turned out that the radio center operated continuously, around the clock, with intense radio traffic.

The employees of the radio center in Lanzhou, in the Chinese province of Gansu, had to work in even more difficult conditions. This radio center provided communication with military advisers who were in combat zones and with the Soviet representative in the Special Region of China.

The radio unit was working under heavy overload. Frequent Japanese bomber raids on the city threatened to destroy the communications center. Therefore, upon receiving an air raid signal, several reconnaissance radio operators with equipment went to the mountains and took refuge in shelters.

However, there were few such powerful radio centers as in Almaty or Lanzhou. Most radio stations on the route were equipped with transmitters low power, and the main problem was the cumbersome power supply complex. This whole household had to be maintained, as a rule, by one or two people.”

Purely technical problems also arose. The equipment used by the radio service on the ground and installed on airplanes turned out to be of different types, and therefore conjugating radio channels became an extremely difficult matter.

Another depressing circumstance soon became clear: the gunners-radio operators of transport aircraft were not trained in the operating techniques used in the expedition’s radio communication system.

No one gave them time for retraining, and no one could give them. There was a war going on.

In short, it was necessary to find an extraordinary solution.

And the reconnaissance radio operators found him. They developed completely new rules and techniques for conducting radio communications between aircraft and airfield radio stations. They were quickly mastered by radio operator gunners, since these rules included a strictly limited number of signals international code and the most profitable working and spare radio waves. Now the necessary information was always supplied uninterruptedly on board the aircraft.

Surprisingly, during this tense wartime, intelligence radio operators also managed to engage in scientific research.

In those years, the method of intensive wave changes was just beginning to be introduced into radio communication practice. Depending on the time of year and day, the waves had to be changed quite often. Distances of three to four hundred kilometers were of particular concern to telecom operators. For such short distances in the summer, stable work was carried out at waves of sixty to seventy meters. But in the fall and winter it was impossible to ensure stable communication in this range.

We “plowed”, as they say, the entire KB band, went through all the available transmitters, but did not achieve success.

However, they did not give up and did not calm down. We continued to search. And soon the persistence of the reconnaissance radio operators was rewarded: at the site in Alma-Ata, they managed to expand the range of low-power transmitters on their own. The tests gave excellent results both in winter and autumn.

Immediately, recommendations were sent throughout the route and necessary details to improve transmitters. This work was carried out in a short time, and a very important task was solved.

The war in China sharply highlighted another problem for the GRU radio communications service. The flow of radiograms to and from the Center was constantly growing. You can cope with them only by increasing the radio transmission speed with a Morse key. But there were few “aces of the key”, you could count them on one hand - Dolgov, Shechkov, Pokrovsky, Pariychuk. The rest were far behind the masters.

And then, on the initiative of one of the best radio operators in military intelligence, Leonid Dolgov, a two-way key was installed at the radio center instead of the usual Morse key. Dolgov made it himself. Now a little training, even for an average radio operator, gave a huge jump in speed - up to one hundred and fifty characters per minute.

True, the homemade keys often broke, but we managed to come to an agreement with the communication workshops of the Alma-Ata-Pervaya railway station, and the specialists produced one and a half hundred double-sided keys. They were well made and worked reliably.

A little over two years later, when going into the active army, radio operators took the “Dolgov key” with them, successfully used this new product themselves and taught others.

By the will of fate, “Expedition Z” became the last training ground for military intelligence radio operators before the Great Patriotic War. Going to war in '41, they already knew what war was.

New York in touch

The two pre-war years were extremely tense for the Soviet Union.

In March 1939, fascist troops entered the port of Klaipeda (Memel). A humiliating treaty was imposed on Lithuania.

Germany concluded “friendly” treaties with Latvia and Estonia.

In the summer of 1938 and 1939, the Red Army repelled Japanese aggression near Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River in the Far East.

In November 1939, war with Finland began.

Tensions grew near our borders. It was clear that war with Germany could not be avoided. But it is difficult to predict how the United States of America will behave in this case. Perhaps they will act on the side of the Soviet Union, and if... Intelligence should be prepared for this “if”. But readiness is, first of all, connection. But the Intelligence Directorate did not have special radio communications with the American continent.

...In October 1939, the head of the radio communications department, Ivan Artemyev, summoned second-rank military technician Oleg Tutorsky. At that time, Tutorsky served in a separate radio division. The military technician had a war in Spain and a business trip to Czechoslovakia behind him. He confidently worked with the key, had a good feel for the airwaves, easily understood any text and especially numbers by ear, and knew the structure of transmitters.

In a word, he was one of the best radio technicians in the division.

Artemyev spoke with Tutorsky “for life” and sent the military technician to Znamensky Lane, 19. On the fourth floor, in one of the offices, Captain Milshtein received him. He said that there was an intention to send Tutorsky to America. Frankly, it’s tempting to live in the USA. But Tutorsky, as a military man, was restrained, listened to the captain, and that’s where they parted.

A few days later, Artemyev had a meeting. The head of the department himself attended it Chief Engineer radio control of the People's Commissariat of Communications, Professor B. Aseev and military technician Tutorsky. One question was discussed: how to establish radio communications with America. We listened to Tutorsky. He suggested testing communications “under the roof” of a radio amateur. Moreover, radio amateurs at that time were already in contact with the American continent, and this was not such a rare occurrence.

Management liked Tutorsky’s proposal, and he was ordered to begin work immediately.

However, America is far away, the upcoming mission of the Soviet radio operator is, naturally, secret, and, of course, no one was going to drag the radio station with them across the ocean. It had to be assembled with your own hands upon arrival in the USA. And here it was necessary to find parts, American-made lamps and make and set up a transmitter similar to the one that would be made overseas.

At that time, second-rank military engineer Oleg Tutorsky did not suspect that back in 1930, the leadership of the 4th Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters received a directive from People's Commissar Kliment Voroshilov, which ordered “to take urgent measures to organize radio communications with all the most important points in the West and East...”

Well, the American continent is much more important. Moreover, there was no contact with him at all. If by that time there was already a two-way connection with Berlin, Kabul and even Shanghai, the United States remained inaccessible to military intelligence.

“In pursuance of the directive,” says the GRU archival documents, “the leadership of the 2nd part of the 4th directorate of the headquarters of the Red Army in November-December 1931 tried to organize two-way radio communication with illegal radio station on the American continent.

The illegal radio station, codenamed “Double B,” was supposed to operate on a schedule from 9 to 10 o’clock Moscow time. In Moscow, two radio stations worked with this radio station and tried to establish communication: one in Sokolniki, the other on the Lenin Hills, in an experimental laboratory.

The Moscow radio station began work. According to the program, each of the correspondent radio stations had to make calls for 15 minutes.

The work of the Moscow radio station and radio stations from America was to be listened to by the radio stations of the intelligence departments in Leningrad, Minsk and Khabarovsk. This was the first attempt to organize reception at geographically dispersed points.

However, this attempt to establish radio communication with an illegal radio station located on the American continent using imperfect technology in the absence of forecasting the state of the ionosphere and operational experience was not crowned with success.”

But the best radio technician in the division, fortunately, did not know about this failure and therefore set to work with his usual diligence and perseverance.

In a warehouse at the Intelligence Institute, he managed to find such American-made parts and build a transmitter in one of the laboratories. He took the design of a three-stage transmitter as a basis. He had assembled such stations before, and they worked quite well.

At the end of November 1939, Tutorsky moved all his radio property to the Moscow region, to Kuchino, where he was to work. I installed the equipment, threw the antenna onto a tall tree - and, as they say, we got to work. However, the very first hours caused sincere disappointment. There was no one to work with. There was a war going on in Europe, and there was dead silence on the amateur bands. There were simply no foreigners on the air. And we need not just foreigners - Americans.

Even then he knew: communication with America only on a wave of 40 meters is a rarity, on 80 meters - even more so. It turns out, only on a wave of 20 meters at a limited time of the day. But when exactly?

Military technician Tutorsky listened to the broadcast for several days and nights. His knowledge was confirmed: Americans can be “caught” on a wave of 20 meters and only at one time, when it is 9 a.m. on the eastern coast of the United States and approximately 5 p.m. in Moscow. The West Bank still needed to be “wiretapped.” Unfortunately, in different days and the audibility was different: sometimes excellent, and sometimes zero. Communication had to be maintained for only one or two hours a day, when the entire route was illuminated by the sun.

At that time, there were no scientific methods for predicting the passage of short waves, and Tutorsky had to go through trial and error.

Hearing the Americans, he tried to contact them, but no one made contact. Something was wrong. The transmitter was working normally and should have been heard. Alas, the correspondents of the American continent were silent as fish.

Later, Tutorsky learns about the ban on amateur radio traffic at the beginning of the war. But then, in the winter of '39, he knew none of this. Only one thing was clear: the task had to be completed.

Easy to say - easy to do. Try talking to a deaf person, and even across the ocean.

This went on for several days. He went on the air, hearing the Americans, sent a signal, but there was no response. At times it seemed like a dead end.

One day a thought flashed: what if?.. The thought was as daring as it was crazy. What if we go to US coast stations? But how to do that? How to get them to respond? Why would reputable radio stations suddenly negotiate with an unknown correspondent if even fellow amateurs don’t want to “talk” to him?

This is where combat experience helped. During the war in Spain, Tutorsky studied the intricacies of radio communications of the merchant fleet and had a lot of “communication” with merchant ships from Cartagena. Now he decided to work as a radio operator on the Spanish ship Cabo de Santo Tome. True, by that time the ship lay at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Nazis, but that was not important. The main thing is that the station responds.

On the air, Tutorsky “groped” for American coastal stations codenamed “WCC” and “WSL”. He heard them better than radio amateurs; their power was stronger. Stations issued a general call to "everyone" and invited them to answer on a specific frequency.

Military engineer Tutorsky adjusted the transmitter to the appropriate altitude in the sea range, waited for a good passage and called the “WCC” radio station using the call sign of the Spanish ship. A code answer immediately followed: “My call sign...” And further: “I hear you well, what do you have for me?”

This was a breakthrough to the American continent.

The next day, our reconnaissance radio operator performed the same experiment with the American radio station “WSL”, although “hiding behind” a different call sign. Once again, the US East Coast responded well.

Now the results of the work should have been reported to the authorities. Which is what was done. At the end of January 1940, a decision was made to send military technician of the second rank Oleg Tutorsky to the United States. Task: to establish intelligence radio communications “USA-Center”.

From then on, intensive preparation began: studying in English, special radiograms. And also calls to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Soon they informed you that you would be sent to New York via Italy.

The Second World War was going on, days after days flew by, and Tutorsky waited. Hitler captured Denmark and Norway, the Nazis invaded Belgium and Holland, defeating France. Italy entered the war, and now the path to the United States was closed for him.

The People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs said that the trip was postponed until the issue of his transfer to Japan, and then to the USA, to San Francisco, was resolved.

Summer has passed, autumn has come.

On the morning of September 13, Tutorsky was told to leave for Vladivostok this evening and then to the USA. Just one day, a lot to do. And, as the British say, the “rat race” began. Passport, money, documents, trips to Intourist, Narkomfin. I managed to pack my things, say goodbye to my sister and grandmother, but still didn’t have time to see my mother. She was at work.

Major Vasily Parkhomenko saw him off at the station. He took from the radio operator the identity card, the order book along with the order, the motorcycle driver’s license, in general, all the documents that confirmed Tutorsky’s identity. Now he was a different person, with a different surname and destiny.

He traveled for seven days on a train to Vladivostok, then took a boat to Japan, from there via Hawaii on the Japanese liner Asama Maru, and flew to San Francisco in first class. And then there’s another three days of travel, through Chicago, and he’s in New York.

It was already the end of October 1940. New York greeted our reconnaissance radio operator with light rain and smog.

The Soviet Consulate General was preparing for a reception in honor of the 23rd anniversary of the October Revolution, and Tutorsky was left to his own devices in the first weeks. He used his free time to explore the city. And only then Oleg Grigorievich realized how bad his English was. For almost a year he studied grammar and memorized words. The teacher “coached” him in speaking three times a week. I memorized some phrases on everyday topics - about housing, food, travel by train, boat, bus. He seemed to know the time, the numbers... But it turned out that his vocabulary of words and phrases was passive, and he did not know how to use what he had memorized when necessary.

When reading various inscriptions, advertisements, newspaper headlines, as luck would have it, I came across words that were not the ones I knew. And so the meaning remained inaccessible.

With spoken language it was even worse. He knew a lot of standard phrases, but he pronounced them incorrectly and therefore remained incomprehensible. When I asked, I suddenly received an answer that was not from the words I knew.

So the realization came that, along with the main work, the primary task would be mastering the language.

As for his main work, Oleg Grigorievich quickly realized: he was alone with his problems. And there were a lot of them.

Firstly, the duality of the situation. Officially, for all employees, he held the position of duty commandant, that is, a kind of doorman, and was required to be at work all day. But it was necessary to carry out the main task, for which, in fact, he was sent. And on top of that, do it secretly.

There was no official housing at the consulate for Tutorsky, and he had to settle quite far away. As he himself later said: “In accordance with the financial situation.” The so-called furnished rooms were, in fact, a dormitory, where eight rooms had one shower, washbasin, and kitchen. The room turned out to be twilight, the light was always on, Entrance door didn't lock. Small employees and students lived here. Accommodation was not cheap, almost forty dollars a month. With Tutorsky’s salary of one hundred and fifty dollars, the payment was considerable.

Only by the end of November did Oleg Grigorievich’s boss, Lieutenant Pyotr Vnukovsky, “reveal” himself. He served as chief of staff of the consulate. Work has begun...

The location for the radio station was determined in one of the apartments of the six-story consular building. Soon Vnukovsky brought three large chests with radio equipment, parts, and lamps. They were in a long-term storage warehouse. It turned out to be an unexpected gift.

This is how Tutorsky himself recalls those events: “In 1935–1938, our employee and his wife were in New York with the documents of foreigners. He had to settle in the city, establish a radio station and organize communications with the Center.

I knew this colleague well.

He was fluent in English and French. A certified radio engineer (a rare occurrence at that time), he participated in the development and creation of various radio communication equipment. What I saw in his chests - a homemade, rather complex receiver, a half-assembled transmitter - is evidence of his good engineering skills.

Unfortunately, he was not a professional radio operator, did not know Morse code well, and did not have sufficient experience working on the air.

So it turned out that from a technical point of view it was possible to organize communication, but it didn’t come to the point of going on air.

In addition, during the years of crisis in America, it was not easy to get a job with his documents.

Our illegal immigrant failed to cope with all these problems. But his inheritance - three chests with radio parts - turned out to be very useful and helped me a lot in building a future radio station.”

The parts were used to assemble the transmitter. The receiver was purchased through Amtorg and an antenna was installed on the roof. It did not raise any questions, since there were antennas on almost every house here. Although the scouts worked, realizing that caution would not hurt. Opposite their house there was a skyscraper where the headquarters of the Republican Party was located, and on the second floor there was a stationary counterintelligence post, from where the Soviet consulate was monitored.

The radio station was almost ready, but it had not yet been possible to launch it. The consulate building, like most old buildings in Manhattan in New York, did not have alternating current, only direct current. Medium-wave American receivers operated from this current, but the station needed a converter or at least a motor-generator.

We got the motor. But he created strong interference. I had to tinker with it - make the power wiring with a shielded wire, ground the screen and the housing. In a word, remove the interference.

When the preparatory work was completed, the reception conditions amazed Tutorsky. A huge metropolis, with a lot of different electrical devices, gave a minimum of interference. There were no overhead power grids in the entire city; everything was hidden in the ground. Even trams were powered by a flexible hose laid in a ditch between the rails. Car ignitions already had devices to suppress interference emissions. Thus, the receiver was completely ready for high-quality work. It was up to the transmitter, or rather the power supply to it. An alternating current motor-generator with a power of one kilowatt was needed. But what kind of generators does the US produce and purchase? Tutorsky did not know this, and could not have known. The matter was complicated by the fact that it is dangerous to choose and buy such cars openly. They acted mainly through a GRU officer who worked at Amtorg. We studied the catalogs and ordered. Failure. After testing a motor weighing thirty kilograms, Tutorsky burned out the plugs on the entire floor. We sat down again with the catalog, purchased the necessary devices, and started the engine. Now there is a new attack. In time with the transmitter key, the generator created such noise that it was almost impossible to work. They began to look for a way to “calm down” the generator. They wrapped the car in newspapers and stuffed it into a chest. It seems to have worked out.

Finally, they reported to the Center by telegraph that they were ready to work, offered time and received consent.

The telegram was encrypted. After a thorough check of the equipment, on the appointed day at nine o’clock in the morning, Tutorsky began listening to the Center. The first five minutes pass, there is no signal from the Center.

Everything is fine, the transmitter is ready for use. Time passes... Fifteen minutes, twenty... forty... an hour. The session did not take place. The mood couldn't be worse.

A new session was scheduled in three days. This time Vnukovsky did not come to the radio room.

Turning on and... my heart jumps out of my chest. Radio operator Oleg Tutorsky hears transmitter number one of the Moscow center “rumbling” on the air. Oleg Grigorievich’s friend Sergei Korolev works.

New York responds. The generator in the chest “grunts”, the needle of the device swings. Radio operator Tutorsky is heard. He sends a telegram and receives confirmation. On the calendar January 12, 1941. The first special radio communication session with the American continent.

In a few days, Pyotr Vnukovsky will congratulate Tutorsky. By order of the head of the department, “for completing the task in especially difficult conditions,” he was thanked and presented with a valuable gift.

Thus, military technician Oleg Tutorsky completed his task. However, the special radio communications service had something to think about. If in Moscow, at the central receiving center there were rhombic antennas, with a sharp focus on New York, well-tuned receivers, then there was nothing like that, for example, neither in Lvov, where, according to the calculations of intelligence specialists, there should be an optimal receiving point for “American » signal.

Based on the results of the experiments, a disappointing conclusion was made: it was not possible to establish a stable, reliable connection with the United States.

Work on organizing a radio bridge with the American continent will continue after the war.

Notes:

Berzin (real name and surname Kyuzis Peteris) Jan Karlovich (1889–1938) - Soviet military leader, army commissar of the 2nd rank. In 1924–1935 and 1937 - Head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters. Unreasonably repressed, rehabilitated posthumously.

The Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded on November 25, 1936 between Germany and Japan with the aim of fighting against the Communist International. Then it was joined by Italy, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Denmark, the puppet governments of Manzhouguo, Slovakia, Croatia and Nanjing (China). In 1940, the Anti-Comintern Pact was transformed into a military alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan.

General Oshima - Japanese Ambassador in Berlin; Joachim Ribbentrop - Foreign Minister of Hitler's Germany in 1938–1945; Admiral Friedrich Wilhelm Canaris - head of military intelligence and counterintelligence (Abwehr) of Hitler's Germany in 1935–1944, executed in April 1945 for anti-Hitler activities.

Wuhan is one of the largest cities and economic centers in China, at the confluence of the Han River and the Yangtze. The administrative center of Hubei Province.

Amtorg is a joint-stock company established in 1942 in New York, a commission agent and intermediary for the export of Soviet goods to the USA and the import of American goods to the USSR.

Vyskubov S. P. On air "Severok"
Before leaving for the airfield, they lined us up in full combat gear. The head of the parachute service began to examine everyone. He came up to me and shook his head:

-Are you crazy? You weigh a hundred kilograms and have gained the same! What did you fill the sidor with? Well, throw away half of it! Your weapon is a walkie-talkie. Clear?

“It’s clear, comrade lieutenant, but I won’t throw away the cartridges.” I’m not going to my mother-in-law for pancakes, but to the rear of the Nazis,” I pouted.

- Talkers! - the head of the parachute service shouted. - Follow the order!

What to do? I had no right to disobey the order: for this they could be removed from the assignment or punished. What a shame on the whole battalion! But still... And I turned to the radio company commander.

Lieutenant Chizhov tried to lift all my equipment: a duffel bag, a machine gun, disks with grenades, a walkie-talkie with radio batteries. He chuckled:

- Yes, it’s a little hard. Overloaded, of course...

I stood my ground:

- Nothing is superfluous! Will you need cartridges? So you nod your head, which means they are needed. And you need grenades too. What to throw away? Canned food and crackers?

“We need to lose a little weight, but everything is fine,” Chizhov said.

The paratroopers standing nearby laughed.

But the head of the parachute service nevertheless reported to the battalion commander, and I was called to headquarters in full combat gear. Well, it means that I have everything I’m going to fly with...

He came out of breath. Reported as expected. I stand, slightly bent over from the weight. Well, I think now I’ll get hit with the first day for not following orders!

“Yes, my dear,” said the battalion commander. He walked around me, felt my duffel bag, looked into my eyes, and a smirk appeared on his lips. - So, you have the strength to carry such a load?

I smiled modestly. “What a strength there! I was going to fight, not to go on a tourist trip,” I wanted to say. But he said nothing.

The battalion commander turned me towards him and placed his wide palms under the duffel bag, as if weighing me:

- Nothing...

“He has more than a thousand cartridges,” said the head of the parachute service, without hiding his indignation. The battalion commander turned to him.

- That’s good! The man is ready to fight! Then he turned his gaze to me:

- Tell me, what if you have to run? You won't get far with such a load...

- Comrade Major, I am not going to run away from the Nazis. Let them run away from me,” I retorted.

- That's right. A real paratrooper should not run from the enemy. Well done! - And Nyashin shook my hand.

- Comrade Major, he is a radio operator! His weapon is a walkie-talkie,” the head of the parachute service again could not restrain himself.

“It’s okay, the parachute will hold,” the major said thoughtfully.

My heart was relieved.

* * *

In the evening we arrived at the airfield. There we learned that we were flying to Crimea, that that same night an amphibious assault was to land and capture Kerch.

We were tasked with landing in the rear of the 46th German Infantry Division in the area of ​​Vladislavovka, as well as the Arabat Spit, and cutting off the Germans’ escape routes from Kerch and Feodosia, creating panic behind enemy lines.

And so we boarded the TB-3 planes. The dispatch was led by the commander of the front air forces, General Glushenkov, and the head of the front intelligence department, battalion commissar Kapalkin. The engines of the heavenly slow-moving vehicles roared. One, two, three rose into the air...

Our TB-3 was the second to last to take off. It was humming so loudly, and the inside was rattling so much, that we thought it would fall apart. But everything worked out, and our plane flew on the set course.

It is difficult to say how long we were in the air. At least it seemed like a very long time to me. Especially while waiting for the command “go.” They jumped out in different ways: Roman Kvashnin jumped through the hatch, I jumped through the door.

When the parachute opened, I looked around. Just below me, Kvashnin was hanging under the white dome. And somewhere to the side, below, the white parachutes of my group comrades were visible. It’s hard to understand who landed where!

Almost right before the ground, a German heavy machine gun suddenly began to rumble. He was shooting somewhere to the right, tracer bullets pierced the dark sky with bright stitches, fireflies were reaching for my dome. And suddenly - this was still not enough! — the dark sky was suddenly torn apart by a searchlight beam. He mercilessly baptized the blackness, greedily groping across the sky.

Finally I landed. Before I had time to turn off the canopy and free myself from the straps, Kvashnin ran up to me.

- Everything is fine? “Come on quickly,” he jabbered and began to help assemble the parachute. - Well, we made some noise for the Krauts!

- Not as rustling as fear. “They’re clearly scared,” I responded.

The Germans actually started firing guns and mortars. Their fire intensified every minute: mines exploded around us, and shells a little further away. Neither one nor the other caused us any harm: they shot, apparently, as a warning.

* * *

At dawn our entire group was assembled. Scouts discovered a German battery on Arabat. Lieutenant Chizhov immediately sent almost the entire group to capture her. They silently removed the sentries, disarmed the servants and seized the guns. The guns were immediately turned against the Nazis retreating from Kerch.

In the rear of the 46th German Infantry Division, which was defending the Kerch coast and the Arabat Spit, panic began. The captured artillerymen we took showed that a very large airborne assault of the Red Army had supposedly landed in their rear.

The Nazis abandoned their vehicles, weapons, property and fled to the west of the Crimean Peninsula. Yes, fear really has big eyes!

A group led by battalion commander Nyashin was operating next to us. The paratroopers attacked a convoy accompanying a column of Soviet prisoners of war and destroyed it, freeing sixty people, some of whom were immediately armed with captured weapons.

Soon everyone together raided the village of Kiet, where the Romanian infantry regiment was located. This operation was so swift that the enemy left all his property, staff documents, military maps and fled in horror, suffering heavy losses.

In that battle, my supply of ammunition and grenades came in very handy!

* * *

Twice a day we went on air and contacted the front intelligence department: we reported about the operation carried out, about trophies, about the seizure of staff documents...

As a result of the fighting and rapid actions of the paratroopers, the Kerch enemy group was cut off and was in danger of encirclement. In an effort to avoid this, the fascist command began to urgently withdraw its troops to the west. On the night of December 30, 1941, a naval landing force drove the enemy out of Kerch and, having captured the city, began to pursue the enemy.

A few days later, on the ship Anatoly Serov, we returned from our first raid to Krasnodar, presenting the front intelligence department with a valuable trophy - staff documents of the 46th German Infantry Division and the Romanian regiment, as well as operational intelligence reports and orders for the 42nd Corps of the 11th. th German army, two encryption machines.

The paratroopers completed their first mission successfully.

Georgy Chliyants, Lviv

Chapter from the book by G. Chliyants (UY5XE) and B. Stepanov (RU3AX) “Leafing through the old “Call Book” and more...” (Lvov-Moscow, 2008)

One of the oldest Soviet military reconnaissance radio operators, retired colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Red Army, Konstantin Mikhailovich Pokrovsky, carried out many important command assignments in the pre-war years. He kept radio contact with internationalist fighters fighting in Spain; was the head of radio communications for the USSR's chief adviser in China, which was repelling Japanese aggression at that time; during the Great Patriotic War he took part in the creation of partisan radio communications (his pre-war call sign could not be established; in 1946-58 he worked as UA3CB). Konstantin Mikhailovich recalled a lot about the role of radio operators of the GRU radio communications service, who were shortwave operators before the war. They operated both in enemy-occupied territory and maintained a round-the-clock radio watch to maintain radio contact with mobile groups and detachments. There were shortwave operators and radio operators of the NKVD foreign intelligence service.

Reconnaissance radio operators were trained in Gorky at the so-called “Sormovo school”.

Several hundred shortwave radio amateurs were radio operators in partisan detachments, many of them supervised radio communications. At the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD), radio communications were headed by K.M. Pokrovsky and V.P. Yaroslavtsev (his call sign could not be established), in the partisan associations of the Bryansk forests - V.A. Lomanovich (after the Second World War - UA 3 DH), in the Leningrad region - N.N. Stromilov (U 1 CR), in Latvia - A.F. Kamalyagin (U 1 AP). The radio center of the Minsk partisan unit was headed by shortwave operator I.F. Vishnevsky (his call sign could not be established), and the radio center of the Ukrainian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (USHPD) was headed by I.V. Akalovsky (U 5 AH).

The People's Commissariat of Communications assigned the head of the Moscow Radio Communications Directorate B.F. to the transmitting center of the Central Broadcast Broadcasting Center. Mititello (formerly eu 3 BB).

A special school (with several branches) for training partisan radio operators was also created. Their teachers, in particular, were A.N. Vetchinkin (U 3 CY) and V.B. Vostryakov (U 3 AT).

Considering the specific nature of intelligence work, it was possible to collect information about only a few.

Gorban Dmitry Grigorievich (Moscow; before the Second World War he was an operator of the collective radio stations MIIS - U K3AQ/UK3CU; during the Second World War he fought as part of the GRU radio centers; after the Second World War - UA3DG/U3DG);

Dolgov Leonid Nikolaevich (Moscow; before the Second World War – U3BR; during the Second World War he headed a special group of GRU reconnaissance radio operators in the Balkans);

Korolenko Timofey Prokopyevich (Minsk; before the Second World War - U2BT; during the Second World War - radio operator of the GRU communications center; after the Second World War - UC2AD);

Pavlov Sergey Pavlovich (Moscow; before the Second World War - U3AB; from the second half of the 1930s - an intelligence officer, in the 70s - UA 3 AB; retired GRU colonel);

Slivitsky Konstantin Konstantinovich (Tashkent; formerly au8AA; from March 1930 to July 1933 he was on an intelligence mission abroad);

Tutorsky Oleg Grigorievich (Moscow; before the Second World War – U3BI; intelligence officer; in the 1970s – UA3IB);

Shulgin Konstantin Aleksandrovich (Moscow; before the Second World War – U3BA, was an operator of the collective radio stations MIIS – UK3AQ/UK3CU; during the Second World War he fought as part of the GRU radio centers; after the Second World War – UA3DA/U3DA).

The most widespread and especially revered by radio operators of both the special services of the Red Army and the NKVD, as well as partisan detachments, was the radio station “North” or “Severok”, as the radio operators of those times lovingly called it (you can see it in detail in the Museum of the RKK company -).

The history of its creation is as follows. In 1939, Boris Mikhalin defended his diploma project at the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communications (his supervisor was Professor Boris Petrovich Aseev, who is also the deputy for science of the Research Institute of Communications of the People's Commissariat of Defense - NIIS NKO). The theme of the project was a portable radio station for geologists. After defending his graduation project, Aseev recruited Mikhalin to work at NIIS NPO. Boris Mikhalin began, on the basis of his graduation project, to develop the Omega radio station for military intelligence. This radio station was developed and a pilot batch (about 100 units) was produced.

Since December 1941 at the Leningrad plant named after. Kozitsky began its serial production of a version of the radio station, modified for mass production in war conditions. The start of this work was preceded by testing of three radio stations for similar purposes - “Omega”, “Belka” and PP-1. “Belka” was developed by NKVD specialists, but no information could be found about the PP-1 radio station. Preference was given to “Omega”, since it could operate for transmission in a smooth range, and “Belka” - only at fixed frequencies determined by a set of quartz resonators. In wartime conditions this was an important advantage.

The radio station, modified for mass production with the participation of Boris Mikhalin, was named “North”. Since 1942 (already in the besieged city), the production of its modification, “Sever-bis”, began. For this, in 1942, B. Mikhalin was awarded the Order of the Red Star. In total, about 7,000 radio stations were produced during the war years.

The same N.N. took part in the development of this radio station into serial production. Stromilov, who essentially was her customer from the headquarters of the partisan movement in the Leningrad region. Nikolai Nikolaevich, who did not have a higher education, was drafted into the army with the rank of junior military technician (junior lieutenant). But he enjoyed enormous respect from both the military and production workers. This is how it is described in the book by V. Zhukov and D. Isakov ““North” gets in touch” (M.: Sov. Russia, 1971).

“I asked you,” Mironov said angrily, “I advised you to consult with Stromilov. And you, I see, ignored the advice.

I am older in rank... I have served longer. What specifically do you dislike about my work?

Senior in rank! Well, you know. – Mironov jumped up and pushed the chair away. “I’m not a boy either, but I’m ready to learn from Stromilov day and night.” Yes Yes! Don't you agree? Do you think Mironov is exaggerating, he promoted some military technician to chief specialist? Okay, let me be wrong. But here...

He went to the closet and hurriedly pulled out a book with a hard blue cover. He tugged at the paper bookmark.

Look: “The North Pole was conquered by the Bolsheviks” it’s called. And this is what Hero of the Soviet Union Otto Yulievich Schmidt writes here. See: “Little has been written about another great master - about the radio operator and radio engineer N.N. Stromilov. An employee of the Leningrad Radio Laboratory, he has long been creatively involved in the design of special radio installations for polar stations, excellent, convenient and reliable installations that provide communication with icebreakers and aircraft, including Chkalov’s past and present flight...”

Sorry, I don't understand why this is? – the major interjected displeasedly.

And you listen, listen: “Stromilov went to stay on Rudolf Island, keep in touch with his friend Krenkel and, if necessary, explain to him any misunderstandings that might arise with the new station.” – Mironov said “clarify misunderstandings for him” almost in a manner, especially loudly. - This is for Krenkel! Do you understand? And here goes further: “But in fact N.N. Stromilov did much more. He flew as a radio operator in Golovin’s reconnaissance missions, and as a flag radio operator in Molokov’s detachment to the Pole. This is an artist in his field. It’s fun to watch how this long and thin man with sparkling eyes, Don Quixote’s figure, confidently conjures among the fine details of modern large radio transmitting equipment. His thin, nervously mobile fingers, like violinists have, it seemed. directly emit mysterious waves.” “You see,” concluded Mironov, “you see what a wonderful comrade works next to us. By God, it’s not a sin to learn from him. Subordination has nothing to do with it. You have to be smart. And we will have to repeat the report, redo the diagram. Don't come without a Stromilov visa!

Actually, “Sever” is a very reliable radio. This was also said, but in a combat situation anything can happen. Stromilov and his instructors found out in detail what failures there were for everyone who returned to the assignments, tabulated the failures that occurred, and classified them. How many improvements were made to the station by the factory engineers! And even if there were breakdowns and failures later, there was no way for designers and technologists to overcome them. Well, let’s say, an extremely unsuccessful landing of a parachutist, a blow that no radio equipment could withstand.”

The radio station “Sever” was made according to a transceiver circuit, when most of its elements are used both during reception and transmission.

The Belka radio station had a separate transmitter and receiver. There were noticeably fewer of these radio stations produced than “Severov,” but they still survived. Relatively recently, for example, during excavation work near Volgograd, a cellar filled up during the war was discovered, in which a Belka-4 radio station was found in working condition.

On the instructions of the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, the “Radio Station of Partisan Detachments” (RPO) was developed. It was produced in several modifications, for example, RPO-4 in 1942. In addition, the Prima radio station, developed for airborne troops, was also used in partisan detachments.

In cases where there was a need to establish radio communications over long distances, agent radio stations were used that used power from the network and had high power: “Nabla”, “Tensor” and “Jack”.

In the first year of the war, radio communications were in short supply, and small batches of radios were produced in different places. So in Kharkov a small series of radio stations was produced for partisan detachments and formations. In military historical literature, she is usually called “Partisan” or “Partisan”. It was developed in the shortest possible time (literally in the first days of the war) under the leadership of Pyotr Apanasovich Matsui. The radio stations were transferred to the disposal of USHPD. Also, at the very beginning of the war, and in the same Kharkov, for the partisans under the leadership of I.V. Akalovsky (U 5 AH) a small batch of Volga radio stations was developed and manufactured (it was not possible to find a photograph of its appearance). Already in Saratov (specialists and equipment, as well as the USHPD itself, were evacuated there from Kharkov), on the basis of the film equipment factory, until the end of the Second World War, the “Radio Station of Partisan Detachments” (RPO) and its modifications were produced. The school for training partisan radio operators was also evacuated to Saratov. Later its branches were opened in Voroshilovgrad, Kyiv and Stalingrad.

Note

The book contains photographs of many shortwave radio operators - reconnaissance radio operators and practically all of the above radio stations.

After the appointment of Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as commander-in-chief of the partisan movement, he arrived at the headquarters and was among the first to call the head of communications.

Military engineer of the first rank Ivan Artemyev, formerly the head of special radio communications of military intelligence, appeared before the marshal and heard: “If there is no radio communication, there is no point in creating partisan headquarters. Without reliable communication with the partisans, they will not be able to work.”

Artemyev, an experienced signalman-reconnaissance officer, was amazed and, frankly, happy. It’s not often that you come across such a precise understanding of a problem from a boss of this rank. After all, it’s really not enough to organize people, it’s not enough to give them weapons, ammunition, food, appoint commanders and send them behind enemy lines. We need to coordinate their attacks, direct them, support them. As the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Denis Dovydov, said, do not deprive them of the “saving bonds of subordination.”

Yes, the war changed everything overnight. Military intelligence faced unprecedented challenges. In the first three weeks of July 1941, the Western Front alone sent 19 reconnaissance and sabotage groups and 7 partisan detachments into the German rear. Only 500 people. The power is great. But it turns out that these five thousand scouts can do little.

The turning point comes only in September. What caused it? To this question, the head of the intelligence department of the Intelligence Directorate during the war, General N. Sherstnev, answered this way: “Of all types of communication between the Center and agents, radio communication turned out to be the main means. Precisely since the Sever radio station entered service in September 1941. Before the advent of this radio, the losses of agents were exceptionally large ... "

So, radio station “Sever”, or, as the radio operators affectionately called it, “severok”. The history of the appearance of this technical miracle is fascinating and tragic at the same time. The radio station should rightfully be on a par with such world-famous inventions as the creation of the best medium tank of the Second World War, the T-34, or the Katyusha guards mortar. Only a lot is known about the tank and the Katyusha, but almost nothing about the Severka. But if the station had not appeared in the first difficult months of the war, the losses of our intelligence behind enemy lines would have been exceptionally large.

This radio station was idolized not only by intelligence officers. According to veteran of special radio communications, retired Colonel A. Semennikov, “severok” was the technical basis of partisan radio: “It was she who brought long-awaited news from Moscow and raised the spirit of the Soviet people in the fight against the enemy. And we have the right to say: the one who created this little miracle - a convenient, reliable, portable radio station - invisibly participated in the combat operations of military intelligence officers and partisans.

The history of the creation of the small-sized and one-of-a-kind intelligence radio station “North” began in the 20s. Then, for the first time, domestically produced medium and long-wave tube radio stations began to enter service with the Red Army communications troops. And it immediately became clear that none of these radio stations could be used for reconnaissance. First of all, due to the short communication range, as well as heavy weight and dimensions. Suffice it to say that the radio station for the front headquarters could only fit... in a railway carriage. And to transport army radio equipment, they ordered eight gigs, and four gigs for the division. Imagine a secret agent who is accompanied behind enemy lines by a horse-drawn convoy with radio equipment.

In 1931, a radio instructor of the 4th department of the headquarters of the Far Eastern Military District wrote to the Intelligence Directorate:

“The state of affairs in Khabarovsk is deplorable. There is a transmitter with six single lamps. Powered by batteries that cannot be charged. The power plant, as a rule, does not work. The second transmitter is homemade. Poorly mounted. Work is often denied. Can only be tuned to one wavelength. There are no parts for repairs... Radio operator agents going abroad are poorly trained.

Reasons: there are no guidelines from the manual, no visual aids. There are no reference materials."

This quote from a letter from a radio instructor of the district intelligence department, who at that time was located in the most important area of ​​​​military intelligence operations - the Far East, reflects the real state of GRU radio communications. Well, as they say, you can’t remove the words from a song. These were the objective realities of the period of the birth and formation of the service.

Even then, intelligence understood that a small one was needed. Compact, modern agent radio station. However, the distance from understanding to a concrete invention is enormous. And it’s not just about people - designers, engineers, workers. To create a radio station, you need rare metals, alloys, necessary chemicals, and you should start producing small-sized anode batteries, incandescent elements and much more. And if you put the invention into production, thousands, tens of thousands of similar kits will be required. The task is extremely difficult.

In 1939, an unknown student at the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute, Boris Mikhalin, began developing a portable radio station. And although Boris was still studying at the institute, he had considerable life experience behind him: as a thirteen-year-old boy, he began to work, became interested in amateur radio, worked at a radio center near Moscow, and attended a workers' school. And now I decided to dare to create a small-sized radio station for geologists and polar explorers.

Mikhalin’s scientific supervisor, Professor Boris Aseev, suggested looking at the design more broadly, in particular, thinking about using the station for military purposes. Aseev was able to discern a future talented engineer and designer in student Mikhalin and recruited him to work in the laboratory of the People's Commissariat of Defense. Here the young inventor was helped by Artemyev, Pokrovsky, Mukhachev. Having completed the development of the radio station, Mikhalin defended his graduation project, which could well have become a Ph.D. thesis.

It must be said that Boris Mikhalin made a very convenient, reliable and at the same time ingenious design in its simplicity. To reduce weight and dimensions, the inventor developed a so-called transive circuit, when the same lamps and most parts were used for reception and transmission. As a result, the transceiver weighed only two (!) kilograms. The batteries, however, were three times heavier. Full set The walkie-talkie was placed in two canvas bags.

The radio was called "Omega". Unfortunately, before the war, only a single prototype was made.

With the beginning of the war, it became obvious: it was necessary to choose the best one from different samples. But how? The NKVD representative defended the Belka radio station, military intelligence, naturally, I wanted to see Omega in service.

In September 1941, a large meeting was held in the office of the deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, General Bolshakov, at which the disadvantages and advantages of competing stations were hotly discussed.

“The office was filled to capacity with familiar and unfamiliar faces,” recalls veteran of the GRU special radio communications service, retired major Konstantin Pokrovsky. - Someone gave me the edge of the chair. He sat down and looked around. The general's face expressed intense attention... The atmosphere of a heated argument was felt, but its reason was not yet clear.

A man I didn't know spoke:

- ...Besides, this station was already in operation, behind German lines, and showed its best side.

“I understand,” Assev interrupted him hotly and decisively, “every sandpiper praises his own swamp, but in all cases there must be a sound approach and technical analysis...

It became clear that there was a dispute over new developments of intelligence radio stations. On the one hand, a representative of the NKVD defended his development, on the other, an employee of the Institute of the Main Intelligence Directorate. In the army intelligence agencies, in the NKVD agencies, in partisan detachments and formations, there was a direct organic lack of small-sized, light-weight, economical and convenient radio stations for working behind enemy lines.

...Boris Petrovich was worried, defending the elegant circuit idea of ​​a young specialist, diploma student Boris Mikhalin, who found a talented solution for using two-volt series lamps. Unexpectedly, obeying an emotional impulse, Aseev concluded:

You can’t compare an empty shoe polish jar with a Stradivarius violin.

There was an awkward silence for a moment..."

Frankly speaking, Boris Petrovich Aseev could have paid with his head for such words. But business comes first. There was a terrible war going on, millions of lives and the fate of the Fatherland were at stake.

“...Summarizing the meeting, General Bolshakov said:

It is unlikely that we will find the only correct solution within the walls of this office.

And he suggested conducting field tests of radio stations. But the NKVD representative immediately objected:

There is no time for tests, and “Squirrel” does not need them.

Still, they insisted on testing. The head of the special radio communications service, Ryabov, presented convincing arguments: practical tests will take only two weeks; the detachment will be located near the reception center; no interference from each other, but constant control.

...Within two days a tent city grew up in the forest, and competing stations began operating.”

The memories of one of the experiment participants were preserved:

“A special detachment, consisting of several dozen radio operators, engineers, and designers under the command of a young radio operator, Lieutenant A. Delezha, successfully conducted field tests of small radio stations designed to work in special conditions, in other words, behind enemy lines. The tests took place in the forests near Moscow, and air battles often took place above our heads. At the end of September, snow fell and our tents were covered; this complicated the testing conditions, but at the same time brought them closer to the extreme conditions that are so often encountered in life.

Almost all stations showed the desired results, but especially, in my opinion, as a shortwave operator who has long been a professional, “Omega” by B. Mikhalin was especially good. It was she who later became the legendary “North”, with which many reconnaissance and partisan formations were equipped. Expressing my opinion on this matter, I remarked to Professor Aseev, at whose suggestion I ended up in the detachment, that with such a station I was ready to go to the rear of the Germans even tomorrow, if only I was allowed. Boris Pavlovich smiled gratefully: “Omega” was his ward, his pain, his joy...”

As you know, even in peacetime, there is a difficult and long path between the initial samples and their mass production. And here is war, starving, besieged Leningrad cut off from the whole country. But it was here, at the Kazitsky plant, that the decision was made to produce Mikhalin’s Omega, which went into industrial production under the name Sever.

The need for radio stations was simply enormous: partisans, GRU reconnaissance groups, NKVD special groups, and underground organizations were waiting for them.

The birth of the serial "North" was difficult. Not enough starting materials, workers and technicians were starving. Designer Mikhalin shared his meager rations with teenagers who worked in the factory workshops. The workers, barely able to stand on their feet from hunger, did not leave their machines and assembly tables for two or three shifts. The station's release was supervised by intelligence representative of the Leningrad Military District N. Stromilov, a famous polar radio operator. By appointing him to this position, the command was confident that his experience would help achieve serial production of the Sever radio station within strict technical parameters.

During the production of the station, many surprises and unforeseen situations arose. Here's just one of them.

The Sever radio had three radio tubes: two domestic and one imported. The station was constructed in peacetime, and there were no problems with purchasing foreign lamps. But where to get them in war? And even in besieged Leningrad? Local developers themselves left the city, some went to the front, some were evacuated. However, without a lamp there is no radio station.

Employees of the intelligence department of the Leningrad Front and representatives of the plant rushed to search. Fortunately, they quickly found an engineer, a talented “lamp specialist.” And in a short time he created a new lamp, smaller in size and not inferior to the foreign one in its parameters.

Perhaps this man did not even suspect that he had accomplished a feat. His invention saved the lives of tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers. Unfortunately, the name of this engineer remains unknown.

“North” became a mass radio station adopted by intelligence officers and partisans. It is known, for example, that over three thousand GRU radio operators worked on it.

According to the testimony of many of them, the station was easy to operate and, what is very important, durable. She successfully endured the shaking of front-line roads and the shocks of parachute descent. Knowing the handwriting of the radio operator and the peculiarity of the “North”, the radio operator of the node could recognize his correspondent, which was very important in reconnaissance.

In 1944, when all of Belarus had already been liberated, the communications department of the headquarters of the partisan movement of the republic would make the following conclusion: “Basically, the Sever radio not only justified itself, but, which is very typical, replaced almost all other types of stations.”

As an example, here are some numbers. Thus, partisan radio operators operating in the zone of the 1st Baltic Front in July 1943 had twenty-eight Sever radio stations and only one Belka. Life and practice resolved the dispute in favor of Boris Mikhalin's invention.

Not only intelligence officers and partisans fell in love with “North,” but also our military leaders. Many front commanders, when leaving for the troops, took with them a radio operator from the Sever station.

Colonel L. Vnodchenko, characterizing military radio communications in the war with Japan, wrote: “Experience has shown that in mountain taiga areas the methods of organizing radio communications differ from the usual ones. The shielding effect of mountains reduced the effectiveness of radio communications: mountain ranges interfered.

This also affected the deployment of communications in the valleys. Heavy rains caused large interruptions, and sometimes a complete cessation of communications.

And then the Sever reconnaissance station was widely used. It maintained contact between the front headquarters and the troops, with airborne assault forces landed in large areas, in the towns of Manchuria and Korea. The connection was quite stable. “Sever” station has proven itself to be the best.”

There are known cases when radio communications could not be established by the forces and means of army signalmen. This happened in 1942 near Leningrad, when the headquarters of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front was surrounded. Reconnaissance radio operator V. Golovin was parachuted into the area of ​​the surrounded headquarters and from there kept in touch through the Sever station with the front reconnaissance radio center.

During the Kerch-Feodosia operation, radio operators Tulyakov and Prikhodko with the Severki were part of the landing force and reliably kept in touch with army headquarters.

The enemies also knew about the radio. The fascist command announced a large reward: for the capture of a radio operator with a “North” radio, a reward of one hundred thousand German marks was guaranteed.

Scout P. Avtonomov (“Galka”), who jumped three times behind enemy lines as a radio operator of the “Kudryaviy” group, wrote in his report:

“...There, behind the front line, being far from my native land, where my soul is tormented by longing for the Russian people, for everything near and dear, where I often had to smoke moss and share equally with my fighting friends a piece of horse meat, where an unequal battle was fought and constantly there was a risk of being wounded and ready to shoot yourself so as not to fall into the clutches of the Nazis, where there was no peaceful sleep and nerves were strained to the limit, there you truly understand what simple means to you Russian word- Motherland.

I have been fighting since I was eighteen. And even though I lost a lot of health and nerves, even though my blood and the chips from the radio station remained near Leningrad, I went through the entire path of the war from the first to the last day with my formidable weapon and my beloved “severok” and came out victorious!”

This is how the reconnaissance radio operator merged the concepts: war, Motherland and his beloved “northern”.

It remains to add that Boris Andreevich Mikhalin worked successfully after the war. In 1958, he led the development of a new generation of equipment - a small-sized high-speed radio station "Electron", and in 1963, on the basis of this station, he created the "Proton" equipment, well-known in the circles of reconnaissance radio operators.

In 1967, the talented designer passed away. And his legendary “North” is now presented not only in the exhibition of the memorial complex on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, but also in museums in England and the USA. And really, this invention is worthy of coming out of oblivion.

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