To the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory

In 1942-1945, Soviet organizations provided for the fulfillment of a special government task for the transportation of military - strategic cargo to the USSR via Iran and Iraq. This operation was then encoded as "Special task".

In the historiography of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the issues of performing tasks for assembling and driving military aircraft and trucks, as well as organizing transit transportation of military and general cargo that arrived for the USSR from the United States and England to the ports of the Persian Gulf under the lend-lease agreement, have so far remained poorly covered 1 . In the memoirs of admirals of the Navy N. G. Kuznetsov, A. G. Golovko and others, only the picture of cargo transportation for the USSR by the Northern Sea Route, through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, is sufficiently fully recreated. After the tragic loss of the Jurassic convoy PQ-17 in the Barents Sea (June 1942)2 British Prime Minister W. Churchill decided to send another caravan of ships with cargo not by the northern route, but through the ports of the Persian Gulf. Even in his message to J. V. Stalin (sent in August 1941), he spoke in favor of organizing the transportation of goods for the Soviet Union by rail. Later, there was a question about road transportation through Iran .3
In Iran, the government was then headed by Prime Ministers Ali Soheyli (March-July 1942). Qawam es-Saltaneh (until February 1943), Ali Soheyli again (until March 1944), Mohammad Sayed (until November 1944), Bayat (until April 1945). Soviet organizations were many deputies of the Mejlis (Parliament) are well known. Two decades later, I had a number of meetings with them in Moscow as representatives of the Iranian business community.

Even before the arrival in Iran of the office of the authorized People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR for the transit of materials and military equipment through Iran and Iraq for the front (official name) and then the apparatus of the Soviet Transport Administration (STU) and its subordinate military operational departments (VEO-17 and VEO-50), a number of Soviet organizations were already functioning on the territory of Iran, which, on the basis of the relevant Iranian-Soviet agreements, were engaged in both the export of our goods and the import of goods of Iranian origin to the USSR, but in modest volumes, corresponding to the then trade turnover of the USSR with Iran. There was a Trade mission of the USSR headed by V. P. Migunov. One of the divisions of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade was active-the Iransovtrans transport organization, whose union chairman was V. A. Klentsov, and the branch in Iran was headed by L. E. Krasnov , the oldest transport worker of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, who had previously worked in London for many years, and his deputy, a former sailor I. P. Kononov. The Soviet side strictly observed the existing agreements with the Ira-

1 Some facts of road transportation and aircraft haulage were covered in the pages of the Military Historical Journal (1977, No. 4, pp. 41-49; No. 12, pp. 61-66).

2 See N. G. Kuznetsov's article on this subject (Voprosy istorii, 1971, No. 5, pp. 192-196).

3 Correspondence of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR with the Presidents of the United States and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
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According to the agreement, it respected the sovereignty and interests of our neighbor.

To carry out its tasks, prior to the operation described here, Iransovtrans used local private vehicles to transport foreign trade goods to the Soviet border and to deliver goods coming from the USSR to the cities of Iran. One of these private owners of motor vehicles was a former Russian citizen, businessman Isaev, who had settled there since the 1920s. His trucks operated on highways leading to Tehran, Pahlavi, Nowshahr, Mashhad and other major cities. The main cargo was sugar and manufactured goods from the USSR, cotton, dried fruits, leather and other raw materials from Iran. In addition, Rusiranbank, established in 1923, operated in Iran. It was located on the territory of the Trade Mission of the USSR and served Soviet-Iranian foreign trade and transport, as well as banking operations. Finally, a small office of the Iransovneft mixed organization operated under our Trade Mission.

Iransovtrans and Iransovneft were engaged to provide and carry out the transportation of imported goods to the Soviet Union through Iran as organs of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, which had already been in Iran for a long time; the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade for the transit of materials and military equipment for the front, consisting of officers of various branches of the Armed Forces, who were sent to Iran and Iraq in February 1942 (military engineer of the 2nd rank N. S. Karlashev, military engineer of the 2nd rank M. A. Sergeychik, military technicians of the 1st rank I. T. Rostovtsev, V. I. Rudenko and V. E. Sheingauz, military technicians of the 2nd rank V. I. Samsonov and V. I. Tikhonyuk, translators V. M. Gluskin, O. V. Zilberberg, I. S. Koroleva, E. N. Kuznetsova, secretaries, signalmen and typists); STU as an institution of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, subordinate to the leadership of the rear of the Red Army and arrived in Iran at the end of 1942. In order to centralize and increase the effectiveness of the management of Iransovtrans in 1943 (since March 1943). I headed it) was subordinate to the commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade for Transit, while the main office remained in Moscow. Iransovneft was now operationally subordinate to the management of Iransovtrans, so that the transit of military equipment and general cargo was concentrated on one line. Subsequently, for the sake of further bogging down the management, the head of Iransovtrans was simultaneously appointed deputy head of the STU.

STU was assigned the task of carrying out cargo transportation in the northern zone of Iran both by rail and by road. The exception was cargo carried by military trucks assembled in Andimeshk, Khorramshahr and Shuaib. The latter were led by the military apparatus of the authorized People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, and then by Iransovtrans. The STU was subordinated to automobile, motor transport, road construction and road maintenance units, as well as organizations of the People's Commissariat of Railways of the USSR. Military specialists sent to Iran, with the participation of the Soviet Embassy (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR to Iran was A. A. Smirnov) and Trade missions, identified the need for assistance from specialists from military communications institutions. The first priority was to develop and adapt the Trans-Iranian Railway for large-scale transportation of military equipment, army supplies and general cargo for the Soviet defense industry from the ports of the Persian Gulf to the Iranian ports in the south of the Caspian Sea. The general management of the operation was carried out by the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR (directly in charge of it was the Deputy Minister I. F. Semichastnov), and from the Armed Forces-the head of the rear of the Red Army A.V. Khrulev.

Since February 1942, the implementation of organizational and technical measures to bring into line with the new tasks of the Trans-Iranian highway connecting the Persian Gulf ports of Bandar Shahpur and Khorramshahr with the port of Bandar Shah on the Caspian Sea began. A group of officers from various rear services of the Red Army, led by a representative of the military communications authorities, Major General A. N. Korolev, arrived in Tehran, and together with them-civil railway workers within the framework of the above - mentioned special organization created by the People's Commissariat of Railways (NKPS), VEO-50. These people, who had a lot of experience, immediately contacted the og-

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With great energy and a sense of responsibility, we carried out the reconstruction of the Trans-Iranian Railway in record time, bringing it in line with the requirements of wartime and planned transportation. It was a very complex railway with a low throughput profile, replete with numerous tunnels and steep ascents, and often passing through narrow gorges of mountain ranges. The previously planned norms, plans and calculations sanctioned by the British were completely overturned. In the future, the work of this important highway was successfully managed by Major General of the technical troops I. V. Kargin, who replaced A. N. Korolev, who was recalled to his homeland due to illness.

The ever-increasing volume of cargo for transit transportation and the gradually accumulating opt of work required improvements in the apparatus of Soviet organizations in Iran. The responsible" owner " of all cargo without exception, not to mention military equipment and weapons, was the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade with its staff sent to Iran and Iran. It was necessary to pay special attention to the management of the case, since such transit transportations in such a volume through the territory of foreign states on their own in the experience of military communications of the Red Army, and other bodies of the USSR, were not previously available. It was necessary to find ways not only to properly organize and ensure transportation, identifying effective forms of interaction with Iranian state organizations, but also contacts with the command of American and British troops in the presence of a language barrier and almost complete ignorance of these countries by the Soviet people who were first sent to Iran and Iraq.

According to the agreement reached, the zone with a radius of 100 km from Tehran was to remain unoccupied by Allied forces. In the southwestern part of Iran, there were British troops with headquarters in Sultanabad. Later, a relatively small area in the south of Iran was assigned to American troops, and the headquarters of the American group of forces of the Persian Gulf was located on the north-eastern outskirts of Tehran, in Amir Abad. In Iraq, where the situation was very tense, the British were in charge. This could be noticed even by an outsider, because the British soldiers not only on the streets, but also in the cinema, as well as night clubs and other sinister establishments, were always armed and with a solid supply of live ammunition in bandoliers on their belts. The main military active force in Iran, Iraq and the entire Persian Gulf zone was then the British expeditionary forces, and in the southern part of Iran and Iraq there were units of the Indian army, but under the command of British officers (from the battalion commander and above).

Only from the moment the office of our commissioner came into operation in contact with the US military administration - both on the railway, and in ports, and at automobile assembly plants, and at air bases - the efficiency of transportation has sharply increased. The US military administration was responsible for the section from the Persian Gulf to Tehran (by rail), as well as to Qazvin (by road). Further north, the head of the relevant operations was the STU with its assigned transport units. And communications in the area south of Tehran were provided partly by British, but mainly by American units. The slow (apparently not without intent) British, without much experience and dramatic situations, calmly retreated after that to secondary roles in matters related to the transit of military equipment, weapons and materials for the Soviet Union through Iran and Iraq. At the beginning of transportation, the Zahedan - Mashhad - Ashgabat highway was also of some importance, along which part of the general cargo transported from Karachi to the Zahedan border post was transferred to the Central Asian republics of the USSR. However, the share of traffic in this direction was small, and soon this route, as inefficient, was essentially closed.

Taking over responsibility for the southern supply route, the British established traffic control: on the railway in Iran and began to develop the capacity and carrying capacity from ports to Tehran. Rolling stock from India and Iraq has started arriving in Southern Iran. Construction organizations of the British Army engaged in the reconstruction of ports in Khorramshahr, Bandar Shahpur

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and Basra. But all this was done slowly and ineffectively by the British. Then the American construction company Folspen began to build a highway from Khorramshahr to the north and build a railway line from Ahvaz to Khorramshahr with a branch to Tanuma. The British administration controlled the operation of the Trans-Iranian Railway from Bandar Shahpur to Tehran. About 500 twenty-ton railcars and 50 steam locomotives that have already been in service were delivered from India. The volume of rail traffic for the USSR increased from 200 tons daily in the fall of 1941 to 700 tons by mid-1942. However, the reconstruction of ports in the Persian Gulf and on the Shatt al-Arab River, as well as the railway, was sharply behind schedule. There was a threat of disruption of supplies to the USSR. The US military mission to Iran that arrived in Basra was unable to do anything, since at that time it had only advisory rights and was numerically insignificant. Representatives of the US President F. D. Putin who visited Iran. Roosevelt was noted for the poor state of affairs and made a proposal to transfer the operation of the Trans-Iranian Highway and the ports of the Persian Gulf to the Americans and to organize the transportation of goods, in addition to rail transportation, by US motor transport to Soviet points in northern Iran.

The situation that had developed by mid-1942 was discussed by representatives of the anti-Hitler coalition. In July, Churchill held a meeting in Cairo with Roosevelt's personal representative, A. Harriman, with the participation of other representatives of the United States and the General Command of the British Armed Forces in Iraq and Iran. At the meeting, it turned out that the British, without substantial assistance from the United States, will not be able to prepare transport highways and ports in Iran and Iraq for transportation on their own in a short time. Churchill, having agreed to hand over part of the case to the Americans, made a reservation that control of traffic on the Trans-Iranian Railway should be in the hands of the British command. The British administration wanted to use the Americans as the technical executors of its plans and directives. This ambivalence persisted until the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad.

However, back in July-August 1942, the United States developed a detailed plan of actions on the Trans-Iranian highway and in the ports of the Persian Gulf. This plan, approved on September 22, 1942 by the Allied Headquarters of the United States and Britain, provided for the deployment of military technical units and organizations of other services from the United States to Iran with the necessary material support. At the same time, the Americans were going to deliver cargo to ports on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, occupying all communication routes in the Soviet zone of responsibility, and the Soviet leadership was asked by the allies to withdraw our troops from the northern zone of Iran. But they were there on the basis of the Triple Alliance Treaty of January 29, 1942 between the USSR, Great Britain and Iran, which defined the right of the former two "to maintain land, sea and air forces on Iranian territory" (Article 4). The British and American allies were politely but firmly reminded of this article of the treaty. Special attention was paid to Article 3 of the treaty, which provided for Iran's assistance to its allies in organizing the transportation of goods through Iran to the USSR. Finally, the Soviet side in all cases sought to act in such a way as not to infringe on the sovereignty of its southern neighbor in any way.

Undisguised attempts by the United States to establish its influence in Iran have taken place more than once. So, once the commander-in-chief of the US forces in the Persian Gulf, D. Connolly, sent a large column of American military trucks from Khorramshahr with American drivers and officers to the port of Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea. But the convoy did not receive a pass in Qazvin to pass through the Soviet zone, was detained and forced to hand over the cargo to the Soviet reception point. It later became the final destination for American road trains that brought cargo from the Persian Gulf for subsequent transportation to the borders of the USSR by Soviet military vehicles. After the aforementioned "incident," Connolly sent a series of reports to Washington and the US Embassy in Moscow demanding that

4 See: Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War. Doc. I m-ly. T. I. M. 1946.

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US vehicles were allowed to reach Pahlavi. However, I did not get a positive answer, because I claimed the wrong thing.

The Americans also tried to prove that Soviet organizations were "unable" to provide transportation of goods by rail from Tehran to Bandar Shah. To this end, first, in January 1943, the American military administration unilaterally and on its own initiative set an underestimated rate of wagons and locomotives for the northern sections of the Trans-Iranian Railway, trying to "push" the Soviet side. And when distributing rolling stock delivered from the United States for the railways of the northern zone of Iran, they did not allocate a single diesel locomotive for the USSR out of 57 that arrived from the United States. Secondly, in the first half of 1943, they organized a deliberately closed approach to Tehran of trains with cargo for the USSR. This created difficulties for Soviet railway workers due to the difficult situation on the 2,621-meter-high pass for passing steam-powered trains and returning empty cargo from Bandar Shah to the South. Third, Harriman, when meeting with Soviet representatives at a reception held in his honor at Connolly's, stipulated that diesel locomotives would be given to us by transferring the entire line north of Teheran to the Caspian Sea under the control of the American railway service. However, as you know, the USSR does not give in to pressure. Only once did two convoys with an American battalion enter Tabriz. But it was a special case when this battalion was specifically wanted to be transported by rail to the Poltava region to support the Italy - USSR" shuttle " aviation operations.

I will now turn to some aspects of my participation in Operation Special Assignment. In January 1942, I arrived from the front at the State Defense Committee. "Alive?" - they met me there with a question. The fact is that the German front-line press reported that a military engineer of the 3rd rank, L. I. Zorin, was killed on the Bryansk front. Before the Great Patriotic War, I held a responsible post in our trade mission in Berlin and really could have died on the morning of June 22, 1941, when the Gestapo, checking my identity with a photo, arrested me. More than once he was close to death, leading the subsequent gathering of Soviet workers in Germany and being one of the leaders of the echelon of Soviet people interned by the Germans. He repeatedly found himself in a difficult situation at the front in the summer and autumn of 1941. Then I was recalled to Moscow, and I was appointed Deputy commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR for the transit of military equipment and materials that the Allies will supply to our country under lend - lease by southern route. I was involved in this case, as explained in the State Defense Committee, as a specialist in armored vehicles and artillery, and the head of the Engineering Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, 1st rank military Engineer I. S. Kormilitsyn, was assigned to carry out general management and deal with the supply of aircraft. The immediate task is to organize the delivery of military equipment to the front through Iran and Iraq in a short time.

After leaving Moscow, we flew to the south-east with a stopover in Stalingrad. Our first group was formed in the following composition: I. S. Kormilitsyn-chief, L. I. Zorin-deputy, members of the group-I. D. Muravyov (in the recent past, the commander of the aviation division, who piloted our plane part of the way), V. M. Shibalov (aviation specialist), B. D. Tashchin (regimental commissar), A.V. Levchenko (radio operator), K. F. Melnikov (cryptographer), I. S. Ryumina, S. A. Gracheva and S. I. Gorskaya (translators). Soon, already abroad, the group grew and, depending on the amount of work, sometimes reached 2-3 thousand people of various specialties. We flew through Makhachkala to Baku, where we waited for a long time for the summer weather, and then again by air, flying over the mountain ranges, we reached the Iranian capital. No one met us in Tehran. We didn't even know whose airfield it was. Only when we saw the soldiers in English uniforms did we realize that we were at a military airfield, which, by the way, was still under construction and did not accept aircraft.

"Oh!" the English major said, looking at the landing gear of our plane, which was deeply embedded in the ground.

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On the same day, we worked out a program for further activities. Aviation specialists headed by I. S. Kormilitsyn fly to Baghdad to discuss a specific plan for the supply of weapons. From Baghdad, the group will travel to Basra, where the assembly of the aircraft is to begin. Together with representatives of Iransovtrans in Tehran, I. P. Kononov and I. P. Shchapov, I was instructed to go to the port of Bushir and organize the assembly, acceptance and dispatch of military trucks to the Soviet border via Tehran. On February 11, 1942, we left in two cars. There were only three major settlements on the 1,200 km route: the former capital of Iran, Isfahan, the capital of roses, and the wine-growing center of Shiraz, surrounded by the formidable peaks and gloomy gorges of Kazerun. Kazerun has high mountains with steep cliffs. A narrow, unpaved road meanders through the serpentine gorges in a bizarre way. Thousands of workers along the entire length of the road manually added gravel and crushed stone brought by trucks. The work was supervised by an English company.

You can imagine our surprise and disappointment at the sight of such works. Not today or tomorrow the road will be needed for the distillation of cars, and here, as they say, even the horse was not lying around. The workers picked up their shovels as soon as they saw any cars on the road. Our driver Armen, who spoke good Russian, explained that the workers were afraid of the English boss and his assistant, who beat them with sticks. In Shiraz, we were warned that a Turkic-speaking Qashqai tribe had risen up in the Kazerun region, which had its own fighting units and was actually subordinate not to the Teheran authorities, but to its own tribal leaders. A few days earlier, they had attacked the British consul's car in Bushehr. We decided to go anyway. On the way, we came across a stone blockage. As we started to pull the stones apart, we suddenly saw people looking at us from behind the shelter. Apparently, they were interested in the never-seen-before-seen Red Army uniform. Three men approached us warily, their rifles ready. Armen spoke to them. Gradually, the Kashkai faces brightened. A lively conversation ensued. It turned out that they were waiting for the British or Iranian merchants. Willingly accepting our modest gift of Russian cigarettes, the Qashqais helped us clear the rubble and let the cars pass.

We finally reached Bushehr. It couldn't be called a port in the full sense of the word. The sea is very shallow there. Steamers are forced to stop 10-12 miles from the coast, maintaining communication with the land through sailboats. There were no cranes, piers, or access roads on the shore. There were only small customs warehouses and a post office. The British controlled the entire life of the city and port, they also commanded the newly built airfield on the bay and the highway. The local population experienced terrible hunger, feeding mainly on locusts. It was sold at the market in huge baskets-dried gray, fresh green, toasted brown, salted and so on. On the embankment, along the main street and in the alleys, children, old people, mothers with infants in their arms wandered, sat, lay and stood, all in rags or completely without clothes, in scabs, with eyes affected by trachoma. They moaned, begged, begged for help and bread, starved to death in the streets, and were extremely thirsty because there was absolutely no drinking water in Bushehr. It was delivered by ship from Basra or even from Bombay and Karachi. Water was worth its weight in gold and was sold in specially shaped bottles with wide glass stoppers. We settled down in the former Russian consulate of tsarist times, a run-down and abandoned two-story house. The only advantage of the house was the concrete catchment area in the yard, where drinkable rainwater accumulated. Unfortunately, it hadn't rained for a long time, and the catchment area was empty. You could only dream of electric lighting. We had two kerosene lamps at our disposal.

From the very first days, the English Consul R. House, who had a good command of the Russian language, and his wife showed special attention to us. They lavished pleasantries on us and persistently invited Soviet officers to move into their home. House was an intelligence officer in the Middle East and made no secret of it. Sovetskaya Ros-

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this, as he admitted, always interested him, and that's why he learned Russian. He often wondered what senior Soviet officers did in their spare time. In a few days, our residence was "blessed" with five unexpected visits to him, and at the most unscheduled time. Some of the benefit of his visits was that we found out that it was impossible to swim in the Persian Gulf: the water caused severe skin irritation. In addition, there were many dangerous sawfish for bathers. We were also able to see a primitive car assembly plant, developed by the British on the very shore of the sea. The head of the assembly was a representative of the company YUKSS mechanic R. Bold in a checkered shirt with short sleeves, in a wide-brimmed hat, with a pipe in his teeth. He went among the Iranian workers and gave them slaps on the back of the head and punches. In total, there were several Englishmen at the assembly. High-class specialists and good organizers, they worked with the local population using the same colonial methods that had developed in the British Empire for centuries.

Operations in Bushehr were organized as follows. Sailboats with Iranian longshoremen came alongside the ship. On them, heavy crates were loaded from the holds by the mechanisms of the steamer. Sailboats brought them to the shore through a narrow channel. In stormy weather, the crates often sank. And if at least one crate was lost, two cars were put out of action at once, because the trucks arrived in this form: in the first crate there were two cabins, in the second - two chassis, in the third - two rear axles, in the fourth - two bodies, in the fifth - spare parts and everything else. Crates with semi-assembled vehicles were unloaded at the customs yard and delivered to the assembly area via a narrow-gauge railway. Work on the assembly was carried out manually on wooden trestles. The build quality was very poor, and many of the assembled cars needed to be reworked. And we needed to speed up the supply of vehicles for the front without losing a single hour. And we immediately got involved in the case.

There was a steamer with 600 American Dodge trucks in the roadstead. We telegraphed for Soviet drivers from Tehran. A few days later, the drivers of the military unit stationed at the airport in Tehran, and then stationed in Tabriz, arrived in Bushir and began to prepare the assembled trucks for the long journey. We also took care of loading them with peanuts from India. Many faces of our people have remained in our memory from those days: young girls who worked on the Trans-Iranian Railway, where sometimes even men did not dare to drive trains; drivers who sometimes fell asleep on the move, but did not take their hands off the steering wheel; radio operators with eyes inflamed from insomnia; freight collectors who fell down from fatigue... Here, too, there was a front, and people worked at the front. On February 23, 1942, the 24th anniversary of the Red Army, the first convoy of 50 vehicles left Bushehr. After passing through a difficult route through Kazerun, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tehran, Karaj, Qazvin, Zanjan, Miane, Tabriz, and Julfa, it arrived in the USSR, and then to the front, marking the beginning of the transit of military equipment and materials by the southern route.

Next, 120 trucks and cars of the "Willis" type with a large number of ramps, spare parts and tires were to be sent daily. In four years, the Soviet Union received 189,515 vehicles of various brands via Iran. During this time, several hundred accidents occurred for various reasons, including sabotage, mainly on difficult sections of the road like the Ahvaz - Khorramabad section, where descents, ascents and turns take 162 km out of 260 km of the route, or the Khorramabad-Melayer section, where 65 km of mountain roads were covered on 173 km of the route. land plots, 35 km of descents and ascents and 25 km of mountain passes at an altitude of 2100 m above sea level. Among the most significant acts of sabotage, I will mention the arson attack in early 1943 on several parts of the Khorramshahr automobile assembly plant. The fire lasted two days. The fire destroyed, in addition to buildings, 354 unassembled cars. Many people suffered serious burns. This was not surprising, for Iran was full of people who hated the British and Americans, as well as direct German agents.

Crushed stone and gravel "combs" on the road are forever etched in my memory.-

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There were endless potholes and splashes, a wild shaking that exhausted the very soul of travelers, acrid clouds of dust that penetrated everywhere, terrible heat, a sharp change in the microclimate, incredible desert winds, distant mirages. A special calamity is road thieves. As soon as the column slowed down, usually on mountain climbs, the robbers jumped from the rocks into the trucks, cut the tarpaulin with knives and dragged everything that came to hand. Sometimes entire cars were lost.

What did not our road troops units - the "military highways"-VAD - 32 and VAD-33, which arrived from the USSR in early 1944, have to do there and in this and in other connection? Manned by road service officers and replenished with military personnel deemed unfit for service after front-line injuries or contusions, both WADS provided maintenance of field roads, traffic regulation, prevention of motor vehicles, their protection and much more. VAD-32, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel A. E. Obyodkov, was assigned a route from Qazvin via Menjil, Rasht, Pahlavi to Astara with a total length of over 500 km and from Neredk via Chalus to the port of Nowshehr in the south of the Caspian Sea with a length of more than 200 km; VAD-33, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel V. F. Oprits, was entrusted with a highway from Tehran via Qazvin, Zanjan, Miane, Tabriz to Julfa is over 800 kilometers long. Their route was divided into several road-curfew sections, which had on-board vehicles, graders, motorcycle scooters and service platoons.

The STU was also subordinate to a number of other institutions, which also had a lot of work to do. But the most difficult problem was still the problem of drivers. For example, the auto regiment of Colonel N. S. Smirnov initially coped with overtaking. Then, when the arrival of vehicles began to increase and already in 1943 reached 5 thousand monthly, it became obvious that one regiment could not do it. After all, each driver made no more than one flight per month (taking into account the acceptance of the car, reloading, preventive inspections, repairs and delivery at border points). For the distillation of 5 thousand cars a month, at least 5 thousand drivers were required; and there were months when 10 thousand cars were received.

It was decided to immediately start short-term driving training for Iranian citizens. The two-month retraining program provided for familiarization with car brands and basic traffic rules, as well as driving training. Senior Lieutenant V. V. Romanenko, a qualified motorist, became the head of the courses in Tehran. At his disposal were allocated several Soviet sergeants-motorists, translators, the necessary number of vehicles of various brands. Not far from the central prevention center, a place for training was identified and practical driving routes were marked. The general leadership was carried out by an unusual military unit - a special auto squad of officers and sergeants assigned by the Main Automobile Directorate of the Red Army and the troops of the Transcaucasian Front. The detachment was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Engineer M. V. Arguzov.

A few days after the newspaper advertisement was placed, hundreds of people appeared near our point, on the outskirts of Tehran: ragged, barefoot, and watery-eyed opium smokers-clear evidence of the" charms " of the Shah's regime. Mostly unemployed people gathered, but there were also seekers of "long money": small merchants, artisans, hairdressers, shoe cleaners. No one has any identification. Most of them have never dealt with technology. In the future, some well-trained and well-established Iranians were appointed heads of future convoys and they themselves were given the right to choose 50 people and train them to work as car drivers. Gradually, the STU had 5,200 transport vehicles at its disposal to deliver cargo to the borders of the USSR. Until September 1943, our ZIS-5 and GAZ-AA dominated, then they were replaced by Studebakers. It was a big deal. So, all types of transport in October 1943 were transported to the USSR 446689 tons of cargo, in November-577717, in December - 653367 tons. If during the whole of 1943 3,447 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to the USSR, in 1944 5,498 thousand tons passed through Iran to the USSR.

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According to the Moscow Protocol of October 1, 1941 regarding military supplies under lend-lease, the USSR transferred 400 aircraft (100 bombers and 300 fighters) to the United States and Great Britain every month. This included the British Hurricane, Tomahawk, Spitfire and Mosquito bombers, the American Kittyhawk, Hercobra, Thunderbolt, Boston and B-25 fighters and bombers, the Catalina seaplane, the Douglas transport and other vehicles. Welding of aircraft was initially conducted in Margil and Shuaib (in Iraq), then in Abadan (Iran). Specialists of the Soviet Air Force carefully developed and planned the route of aircraft transfer to Kirovabad with an intermediate base in Tehran, where the pilots rested, and the aircraft were inspected and refueled. Radio beacons were installed in Sultanabad, Tehran, Pahlavi and some other places. A special group of Soviet pilots examined the mountain ranges of Iran, found that on existing maps all heights were underestimated by about 250 m, and made significant corrections.

For the transfer of aircraft, the 6th Stage Fighter Aviation Regiment (PIAP) was formed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel I. S. Peshenkov, and later-the 71st PIAP under the command of Lieutenant Colonel A. I. Gerasimov. Both regiments were equipped with experienced pilots who had extensive front-line experience. The second regiment moved planes from Abadan to Tehran, the first-from Tehran to the USSR. Their seemingly everyday, but in fact heroic work included everything: a short-term study of unfamiliar cars, and the daily risk of a test pilot, and a dangerous stage, and unforeseen accidents. Senior Lieutenant I. S. Abuzin was killed during the landing of the "Erkobra" aircraft; captain G. V. Merkulov was killed over the mountainous region of Kurdistan; Captain I. N. Khrutsky, along with the crew and passengers, including military representative engineer - Colonel M. N. Chasovikov, crashed in the mountains; commander of the 6th PIAP I. S. Peshenkov was killed.. An airbase consisting of 80 Soviet officers, sergeants and privates, plus foreign military and civilian specialists, was established in Abadan to receive the aircraft and send them by air. Colonel I. D. Muravyov was appointed commander of the base, and after his death in February 1942. - Colonel, then Major General of Aviation I. A. Obrazkov. To receive aircraft arriving from the south, inspect them and prepare them for further flight, an intermediate airbase was created in Tehran from 26 officers, sergeants and privates under the command of Lieutenant Colonel V. V. Fokin. To protect the Tehran airbase, a regiment of internal troops of the NKVD was stationed there under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union Colonel N. F. Kaymanov.

Initially, the pace of assembly and transfer of aircraft was extremely low. The British liked it, but we didn't. Major conversations on this issue were held between me (who headed the case after the death of Kormilitsyn in a plane crash) and my deputy M. F. Langnik until the command of the airfield in Shuaiba was transferred to the Americans. Alisson. This 30-year-old test pilot, a modest and hardworking man, regardless of time, sought to fly around as many assembled aircraft as possible. From morning until dusk, except for the hot part of the day, he was at the airfield, taking off and landing, trying out car after car and giving instructions to American engineers and technicians on how to fix the detected shortcomings. He spent his free time among our pilots, sharing his experience, patiently explaining the design features of new American aircraft. His friendship with the Soviet people did not go unnoticed by his superiors, and quite quickly, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to him. He was sent to China. Alisson was replaced by other guys from the US Air Force. Also very businesslike, but nothing more.

The tense situation on the Soviet-German front required more and more combat aircraft. Shuaiba was unsatisfying, not to mention the airfield in Marghil, which had almost ceased to exist. The issue of creating a more powerful base was put on the agenda. It was Abadan. While preparatory work was being carried out there, Soviet specialists began arriving: Engineer Major N. P. Terkin, senior technicians-lieutenants G. N. Podkorytov and I. I. Lepeshkin, and translators.

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Newcomers expected to see well-equipped aircraft assembly plants, airfields with equipment, mechanisms, power supply and water supply, telephone and radio communications, sewerage, storage facilities and warehouses, living quarters and canteens, medical and cultural institutions... But how else? After all, abroad, they say! Americans and Englishmen! Unfortunately, they didn't see anything like it. Much, if not all, they had to do on their own, with many other things they had to put up with, including temporary housing, assembled in a hurry and nicknamed "thermos flasks". The main thing is to fulfill the order of the Motherland: immediately organize the acceptance and transfer of aircraft to the USSR. All the personnel of the Soviet aviation specialists, without wasting time on arrangement, urgently began to fulfill their military and civil duty.

Every day we had to report on the planes received and sent back to our homeland by radio. Subsequently, a radio center was created on the territory of the Soviet trade mission, which collected reports not only on aircraft, but also on trucks and on the transportation of general cargo. Every day at 6 o'clock. In the morning, the combined radio report was transmitted to Moscow. As for the planes, our mechanics and pilots meticulously accepted each of them, and not only because they had to make a difficult flight from the Basra - Abadan region to Tehran, and then to Kirovabad over deserts and mountains above 4 thousand meters, but, most importantly, for the reason that on these planes Soviet pilots were supposed to fight the Nazi invaders. The first aircraft was accepted by the Soviet military commission in February 1942; in March 1942, we received and sent home only 5 aircraft, in April this number increased. 35 Boston-3 aircraft arrived in April, 32 were sent to the USSR; 67 arrived at assembly points in May, 69 were sent; 101 arrived in June, 101 were sent to the USSR. 2 B-25 bombers arrived in April, 2 were sent to the USSR; 21 arrived in May, 19 were sent; 40 arrived in June, 33 were sent. Further monthly growth was also observed, but remained insignificant in comparison with what was required by the front. Meanwhile, the Battle of Stalingrad unfolded and the battle for the North Caucasus was underway.

And it was at this difficult time for our country that the US President addressed a letter to J. V. Stalin, received on July 6, 1942: "The Egyptian crisis threatening the supply routes of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics prompted Prime Minister Churchill to address me with an urgent request about the possibility of transferring 40 A-20 bombers to the Egyptian front, currently in Iraq on their way to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As the information available here is insufficient, I am not in a position to make a judgment in this case. For this reason, I thought it would be better to ask you to make a decision, taking into account the interests of the United Nations war effort as a whole. " 5 Stalin replied to him on July 7: "In view of the situation created for the Allied forces in Egypt, I do not object to the transfer of 40 A-20 bombers from among those stationed in Iraq for the USSR to the Egyptian front." 6 On July 10, a letter was received from Churchill addressed to J. V. Stalin: "I have just learned from President Roosevelt that you have agreed to send 40 Boston bombers to our armed forces in Egypt, which arrived in Basra on their way to you. It has been difficult to make such a request at this time, and I am much obliged to you for your prompt and generous response. They are heading straight into battle, where our planes are inflicting heavy damage on the enemy. " 7 On July 10, we received an order from Moscow that surprised us at that time: 40 A-20 bombers ("Boston") were immediately handed over to the British to be sent to the Egyptian front. We probably don't need to write about how we felt at the same time. Suffice it to recall that on July 7, 1942, our Southwestern and Southern fronts, which were holding back the fierce onslaught of the fascist troops, began to withdraw further east, beyond the Doya River.

5 Perepiskaia ... Vol. II. Moscow, 1957, pp. 26-27.

6 Ibid., p. 27.

7 Ibid., vol. I, p. 50.

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In May 1942, the British, without consulting the Soviets, decided to move the Mitchell bomber assembly base from Shuaiba to Tehran. We knew they wanted to move farther north. And in Tehran, the situation was as follows. Traffic on the Trans-Iranian Railway was irregular, its capacity and carrying capacity was extremely low. For 2,150 km of the main tracks, the road had only 2 thousand covered wagons, platforms and tanks, mostly delivered earlier from Germany, and 117 steam locomotives, and 60 steam locomotives and 15% of the rolling stock were unsuitable for operation. Inspection of the technical condition of rolling stock and its repair were not carried out, repair facilities were not available.

Meanwhile, the bulk of cargo, especially food and ammunition, went along this road. Our work was not directed by the special department of the STU; the stations of the northern section were equipped with Soviet duty officers, dispatchers, machinists, repairmen, auditors (about 1 thousand people); Soviet methods of work were widely implemented, ensuring efficiency and safety of traffic. In January 1943, the STU came into direct contact with American organizations, and in May, the British completely handed over to the Americans everything related to the transportation of goods to the USSR. This made our work much easier, although misunderstandings constantly arose. The reasons were different, but the real reason was the desire of the Americans to manage the entire Trans-Iranian highway, and not just in its southern part, and to move close to the borders of the Soviet Union.

One of the reasons for the collision was the" wagon crisis " of late 1943, artificially created by the Americans. After saturating the southern ports with machinery, throwing three working battalions of 1 thousand soldiers each, replacing steam locomotives with diesel locomotives and achieving heavy trains along the 1027 m high pass, the Americans increased the capacity of the southern section of the Trans-Iranian Railway and soon filled up the station. Tehran by cargo. We could not keep up with them for many reasons: there were not enough people, there were not enough locomotives, and the reconstruction of the road on the 2621 m high pass to the port of Bandar Shah was just beginning, and there were not enough barges. Our country was waging a war-a brutal, intense, and bloody one; everything went first of all to the front. If we received locomotives, they were low-powered and could hardly lift cargo to the pass. And then there was the desire of the Americans to transfer goods from wagons directly to barges or ships that came very irregularly. We were out of breath for a while. The Directorate of the 3rd Railway Service of the US Army unilaterally set an understated rate of rolling stock for the northern sections of the road and reduced the turnover of cars.

However, the Soviet people got out of this difficult situation at the expense of newly arrived specialists and equipment from the USSR and thanks to the large construction works carried out in the shortest possible time. The delivery of empty wagons from northern Iran to the American zone increased, idle time for unloading was reduced, and transshipment bases appeared. As for the northern section of the road, under the leadership of the STU, extensive development of the tracks and all services was achieved, as well as the active use of new working methods. In Moscow, a decision was made "On measures to ensure the transportation of imported goods through Iran to the USSR", in support of which we were allocated significant material and foreign currency funds. To increase the capacity of the northern sections of the road to 12 pairs of trains per day, the necessary number of additional tracks were laid at stopping points; exhaust puffins and catchers were arranged; tracks at mountain stations were lengthened (where this could be done without large rock works); new communication wires were hung and telegraph devices were installed; drainage wells were built Water pipes, water tanks and much more have been made, including the installation of new machines and equipment of the repair service in a number of locations. At the same time, the Qazvin - Pahlavi - Astara Iranskaya, Shahrud - Kuchan - Bajgiran, Qazvin - Tabriz - Julfa Irakskaya highways were reconstructed and repaired with the installation of gas stations and 10 points on them.-

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transport facilities for overnight accommodation and food for motor drivers; the mechanization of Iranian ports in the Caspian Sea was significantly re-equipped and expanded. All these large-scale works were carried out under the direct supervision of the State Commission headed by the Chief of Staff of the Main Directorate of the Rear of the Red Army, Lieutenant-General M. I. Milovsky. The members of the commission were Deputy People's Commissars of Foreign Trade A. D. Krutikov and S. A. Borisov.

And in those days, under the blows of our troops, the Fascist invaders retreated. The Soviet-German front was rapidly advancing to the west. In 1944, the huge strain on the human and material forces that provided transportation through Iran began to subside somewhat. For the first time in the entire operation period, the cargo tonnage began to decrease, and the refinement of transportation plans went in the opposite direction - a reduction in traffic. This was followed by the liquidation of a number of Iransovtrans offices, agencies and points in Southern Iran. In August 1944, six steamers arrived in Basra with a cargo of 20,486 tons; in September, one steamer delivered 1,180 tons of cargo. By September 1, 5 thousand tons of cargo remained in Basra. After dispatching these remnants, the Soviet apparatus left Basra, and on October 24, the Soviet agency ceased to exist there. The supply of car components to the English assembly plant in Rafadaya has stopped. On October 15, the personnel also left the camp in Shuaiba. Agencies in Tanum and Hanneken were eliminated. In November, the port of Bandar Shahpur received five steamers with a cargo of 44,273 tons; in December-two steamers (16,873 tons). Since January 1945, steamers have stopped coming to this port. A month later, the Iransovtrans agency in Bandar Shahpur was also liquidated. In November 1944, the last American cars were assembled at the factory in Andimeshka. In December and the first half of January 1945, this plant was dismantled, and a month later the Soviet people left Andimeshk.

It is impossible not to recall here ordinary Iranians, poor, destitute, oppressed, disenfranchised, but who did not lose hope for better days. Without their warm participation, without their genuine sympathy, without their help, diligence and diligence, things would have been more difficult. I remember with great satisfaction how we worked together in those years, easily found a common language, and understood that in the end we were doing one common task, on the successful implementation of which the fate of not only the Soviet people, but also the Iranian people, depends.

In total, from 1941 to 1945, the total turnover of cargo through Iran to the USSR, taking into account their transshipment, amounted to about 10.5 million tons. With an average transportation distance of 770 km, the volume of transport work amounted to more than 8 billion ton-kilometers. I would also like to mention that in 1943-1944, Soviet automobile units delivered 130,000 tons of wheat on the return route from the USSR to Iran to help the local population affected by crop failure. And this in the midst of the most difficult living conditions of the people of our country, who were smashing up the Nazi invaders! To organize work on the transportation of lend-lease materials, the Soviet Union had to spend 2173178 thousand riyals in Iran, not counting the cost of maintaining military units. However, it would be wrong to cross out lend-lease - the help of allies in the supply of military and other goods. We appreciate good deeds and the hand of friendship extended in difficult times, especially in the memorable year of 1942, when the forces of the Motherland were strained to the limit. The operation through the Persian Corridor was an experiment of international cooperation that had no equal in history. But let's not forget that lend-lease supplies accounted for only a small part of what the Soviet defense industry produced during the war. If we talk about the Soviet people who worked in Iraq and Iran, then almost all of them were front-line soldiers who were urgently recalled from their units to perform a responsible task for the Motherland.

Our people worked selflessly and, as a rule, without days of rest, and lived on the front line, constantly showing initiative, ingenuity and labor enthusiasm. Just like at home, they worked under the slogan " Everything for the front, everything for victory!". The same should be said about our naval officers, who squeezed the maximum possible out of the port equipment. Not everything and not always turned out smoothly, especially at the beginning. There were disruptions, there were shortcomings, but we tried to fix them immediately. There were also some casualties. Drivers died at the wheel

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a heavily loaded car hurtling over a precipice; Soviet people were killed sacrificing themselves to prevent a train crash; those who were protecting cargo were injured by bandits; a transport plane with a large group of military pilots returning from the USSR to collect combat aircraft that were being assembled at air bases in Southern Iran was killed in the Zagros mountains. It is no exaggeration to say that all the work of the Soviet people in Iran was a labor feat, especially if we add that unloading and loading operations were also complicated by the fact that transshipment operations were carried out mainly manually, without any means of mechanization, especially before 1944. For example, the volume of such work with cargo from US vehicles at the Qazvin transshipment base alone amounted to 189736 tons in 1943. These loads had to be removed, stacked and bunted, and then loaded onto STU vehicles. In practice, this amounted to 600 thousand tons," shoveled " manually. And although the activities of our people unfolded in the conditions of a deep rear and on foreign land, in fact, in the sense of their deeds, it was the same front with its own specifics and losses of people. Here, in fact, was one of the most important areas of the struggle for providing the Red Army with what was needed in the difficult days for our Motherland to defeat the fascist invaders.

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