Next, on american artifacts, we visit a exhibit on world war ii, soviet soldiers. My name is craig hall, basically i consider myself a amateur military historian i do various impressions. This impression here today, is to represent the contribution of the soviet union, as an ally of the americans and british. To helping them win world war ii. We have to give you the people credit to our allies. Some would say, we couldnt have done it by ourselves the point is, people ask me why do i do this impression, i think because the reason is we need to tell the story about the eastern. The Eastern Front if you do not understand what happened there you dont understand world war ii. The soviets made a significant contribution in that war. For example, what i normally do is on my display on the table over here, i have a National Geographic magazine, dated may 1944. The first article and it has to do with the liberation of the ukraine. The point being, the significance of that is of course one month later, we have the day. The point, and the relationship of the soviet contribution, as of that day, when we pushed her when we liberated the ukraine, the push the germans out of the country. By that point in time one month before the day we had been occupying 65 of the best german troops. If we had not done that, if we had failed the moscow or stalin. All of those troops could well have been under normandy db ship beaches and it could have been a different outcome. The story that has to be told is that the significant contribution to winning the war, if you would explain also as americans because we all contribute theres nothing wrong with supporting as we all do my father fought in world war ii, our contribution. But we have to understand the war as the total picture. In the Eastern Front, thats where we need to do it. As well the as that strategic advantage just the numbers, the sacrifice, is a story that needs to be told. There was something in the area of 2022 Million People who died on the Eastern Front. Half of whom, maybe military, if you dont like those numbers and cut them in half thats a lot of people. When it comes to the soviets at least half im sorry about as Many Red Army soldiers died in one battle in stalins and all the americans killed in action in the entire war. So we can see that the significant contribution that needs to be told. It really comes to the soviet contribution, the interesting thing, that i find and try to communicate to people is the difference if you will in the soviet contribution as opposed to the british and americans. I find, there are three significant differences. One of them has to do with the partisan movement. The partisan movement, and the soviet union, has a resistant type function. Its totally different than all of the other resistant in france, belgium, they did good things. No doubt. The french found a lot of american forgot a lot of american airmen back to london. In the soviet union the partisan movement was well organized and organizing the military fashion. There were as they say not only numbers, but because of the geography of that place, they could obviously hide if you will from the germans. For action behind the german lines the new army was formed. And army without uniforms, whose home and the front was enemies rears. The real army the minimum of glory and a maximum of determination. Their achievements were set forth, look well at these spaces, you will never see them again in the ranks of war. Or read their names over heroes grades. Ahead of them lay nothing but the road they stayed behind and went on fighting. There only goal was merciless destruction. The partisan Movement Began in 1941, basically in terms of its composition. When stalin made his first speech to the people, he reminded them and urge them to become partisans to rise up like the russians did when napoleon invaded russia. Back to the history of russia. This war is not an ordinary war. It is a war of the entire russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our head, but to aid all peoples growing under the yoke of fascism. When he said that, he probably didnt really mean it. Because for the first year, the only person that were allowed in the partisan movement were either Army Soldiers caught behind the lines or communist party members. In many cases, that was not a bad deal, because you are getting a lot of other volunteers, especially in people like the ukraine that were behind the line because ukrainians were initially that when the germans first invaded the ukraine the ukrainians welcome them thinking like in world war i when the germans came into the ukraine and made them a independent nation that they would again be a independent nation. I think after about a year they began to realize they had to devils. Stalin on the one hand, because they dont like the soviet system they dont like the fact that the elect are the organization crossed tens of thousands of people who died of starvation because of the system. But, by the way of course we also see that today. Deposition in terms of the ukraine and the russians and the animosity there. What happened is, now, they realize theres a never another devil because theres hitler and the and they are killing people just because they are on a different totem pole of the racial identity that the betrayed. They send their young back to germany as slave laborers. At that point, we were able to get people to join the partisan movement. In the soviet union in moscow, the leader of the partisan progress he finally convinced stalin that he should actually issue a order, that would now open the partisan movement to all people of the soviet union whether they were red army or communist party members. So they began to move as a sad and increasing numbers throughout the time. Most everything they dead, as an organized group, was designed, to support the regular army the red army okay . So for example basically there are four Different Things that say is a partisan movement. Again three of them support of the red army, they wish to provide intelligence, again on my table over here, we have a picture okay . This picture, depicts one of those, a red army scout dressed in a camouflage uniform is consulting with partisan members. So moving back over here, to this display, we see parts of the uniform, and equipment that he wouldve worn. In this case he wore the camouflage outfit in this case a leaf pattern as opposed to it they call the other pattern in that picture is lightly dressed with that, he doesnt have a helmet he has a soft and bad his backpack with a few items in it that is not case he has binoculars, he has a canteen, he has about, and his weapon is the pps 41. Again lightly dressed, this is what he does he provide intelligence. Also, i have another element that he would be carrying. This is a scout knife. Very few Red Army Soldiers were provided with knives of any sort unlike the americans. The scout knife was provided to the scouts by the soviet army and the unique thing about it, its used in a particular way. As you can see the knife has a blade edge and a nonblade edge and one would think you will use a knife in that manner but a scout is actually trained to use it in one particular way and if you see the help and the way it fits my fingers, is designed for two motions one motion, is across the neck, one behind in the other is from the bottom and up. Is designed to be lethal, quick and solid. Which is the role of the scout, not to be discovered to take out the intelligence back to the main red army. The other thing that partisans did for example were then rate, sabotage the things we normally think of guerrilla fighters being involved in. One of the more significant ones was what they call the real world war as part of a battle of occurs. Again, the partisan movement was being directed from moscow theres a bureaucracy in moscow, they knew about the battle of occurs they knew they would be attacked they were defending against it. Orders went out to all the various units of the partisans that they should attack the germans communications, the supplier whatever. Thats what they did. Is would be small, unit operations which you would have half a dozen men are dozen men, with ammunition to blow things up and attack convoys and whatever the other thing they did is rated. Which was different in the sense of size and purpose. For example, Ukrainian Partisans were actually direct dead by stalin in that they should conduct the raid down the mountain and this would be a unit involving Something Like 700 partisans which is a substantial number of arms. Like machine guns to draw the germans a way to chase them. I was the idea of the raid as opposed to the sabotage. So those are the three things for example that the partisans did not support of the army itself. The other thing the partisans did if they represented the government of the soviet union. To the people, behind the lines. For example, one of the directors by the way, over to my display, you will now hear a number of weapons on this other display, most of them are german. One of them is italian. And access ally or ally of the german. Even the belt buckle is german. But the point is, the directive was were supposed to be self sufficient. So they are getting arms, unrelated capture them from the germans not exactly what we did use the german supply chains to supply the partisan even the belt buckle, but we adopted it to the soviet union partisan group, covering it with the soviet star. That doesnt mean we werent the supplied or is supplemented by the soviet union but we also supplemented them as well. But then you had to go collect farms. You would have to bring along your, salt or political officer and he would talk to the people and say, you must give food to the partisans because they are fighting to support the motherland, its like your motherland. By the way, a speech of giving support if you will, and motivation and confidence to the people about the fact that the war is going to be one, and comrade stalin is still in moscow, and we are going to win. But i so it probably was a directive or a warning. We are not giving aid to the germans if you collaborate in giving, you might be giving permanent discipline. We know of course from discipline it would involve a firing squad and sometimes the partisans did have exercise that kind of discipline in terms of representing the government. Partisans continued on until 1944, the last operation being operation in which was the case where the article we saw ukraine was liberated, they were pushed out of the soviet union, now there is no need for partisans anymore because there are no lines to fight behind. Most of the units were disbanded, and they were made into the regular red army units. One unit that i per trader that i find that interesting, about the soviet contribution as i said one was the partisan and the other was calvary. So i represent a cavalry in my case a cavalry sergeant my uniform is a fairly standard late war uniform, i had my wet red stripe on my uniform and my hat had various combinations of colors the idea of being beyond the blue and assemble with the cross. And also i would carry a saber as well it goes back to the sabres right theres other types of them. Calvary men were lightly armored and mounted. The point is an interesting thing is about the soviet american in terms of calories that they had these large numbers of mounted calvary groups. For example i might represent the fourth guards calvary by the way guard. He has this metal and then what happened of course is a work progress, things change in the military and part of the change, what is to adopt i will call it a prewar thought of manners and uniform. So, in the times of the czars there was a leak unit, guard units, so when you were a unit, that did something very good, very notable, but probably heroic you would be distinguished as a guard unit and youd be given better pay, better supplies. So, the point being we would take back large, mounted force all of the army with us pistols, swords, that machine then we saw earlier maybe mortars maybe light submachine guns but then they would take that core or division and combine it with a recognize recognized so was a group that worked in tandem. They were armored with the soviet t 34, kb one, and some american tanks provided. The way they would work theoretically first of all the calvary would perform a functional intelligence or reconnaissance. Calvary sent out to get information and bring it back to the commander to use. Then there going to mount an operation the theory of them working together is this. The calvary force will come in on the flank, get into the rear, enter the deck, supply, transportation attack headquarters, caused turmoil in the rear and as they are doing not try to extricate themselves because many times are outnumbered and outgunned, then the mechanized part of the team hit the front. That causes the germans to respond to that, given time for the calvary to escape. Then accomplishing surprised and causing turmoil. That is the theory, it didnt always work but certain battles for the mechanized battles in the calvary was pretty mild up. Like i said its a unique part outside of the polish calvary and german calvary, you go to a country that is a large group of multicalvary somewhat very effect of manor. The other big thing, or important thing about the soviet contribution is the use of women in combat. With that, ill turn it over to you on introduce yourself. Yes my name is cheryl williams, i am representing the senior contributions the soviet effort 2. I just start off to let you know, the soviets were actually unique at that time, in their desire and ability to include women in combat. Women served as medics, drivers, pilots, they were actually called not quite so affectionately but they were called the night witches. They would bomb the germans during the day the ladies would come in at night. They were called the night witches. Also, most flamboyantly and famously there were the women snipers. The soviet women snipers. They were lethal, very effective, one of them went on tour with eleanor roosevelt. That is a female contribution to soviet world war ii. Is something thats not done a lot. Is a story that hasnt been told. We typically craig and i enjoy doing things that are little bit different. People seemed to respond very well to it these events are always well attended. To me as an interesting story and its something that we get told a lot. What are the questions and reactions you get . We get a lot of oh, i did know that. Honestly. Ill tell you something, conversely i learn something every time i do this i learned from the people who come, i learned from my partner, i learn something every time i come in and do one of these events. So we do get a lot of questions about spam. Spam represents on our table and scenario the fact that we were in la the united state in britain, it will it represent that we were provided supplies for military to help us fight german spam to tanks to locomotives an interesting thing about spam as we like to add a little humor to her presentation so i tell you the bad joke for example we see some mornings the cook come to the troops since they have good news and bad news, we would say well what is a good news and he was a well we have potato soup all week and then we was able what is the bad news and he was a no potatoes. So thank you america for spam to help us substitute for potato soup during the week. And again, this is part of our display, the interesting thing, i touched on it a little bit about the regular red army as i said, our goal here is not to describe the red army in detail, there are many reenactors and historians that can give a lot of information about the red army this book for example down here on my disk way, emphasizes but obviously a picture of the Red Army Soldier, over here we have the white magazine 1944, about a Red Army Soldier and the life magazine. We were allies. Even to the point of being in the movies. You probably heard of gregory pat. This was his first movie about red armies partisans. He dies a noble death fighting for the soviet union. Then over here is also another one. It depicts partisans to some degree having the famous actors and actresses of 1940s but 1945 after that, things changed. The soviets became our enemy, we saw them very seldom in the movies, until the soviet union died and then we saw movies again. For example defiant about soviet jewish partisan and many others that came along. But as i was saying about the uniform and the reference that i am a card, when the red army was first organized, in the 1920s, one thing he wanted to do was to eliminate the uniform of the regime. Under the czars the uniform of a regular soldier, and many cases looked very much like the one im wearing. The difference being they would have the raised collar, they would have apple lose. Trotsky took the red armies that i want to make it a working man army. As we saw on the front of that form we call that the early war uniform it was a simple smock, with the laid down collar. There is more and more reference to the past. To the heroics of the military oh under the czars. So later on, during the war the uniform is now changed, back to the czar type looking uniform with the raised collar and so forth. Again the metals came back. Metals were horrific prolific there were guard units, now we were going to have a lead red army guard units to encourage the men to fight. So yes, i would like to people i would like people to take away from this. I would say for example, cspan is a good source for much of the information that we use in our hobby. Ive heard numerous occasions made on cspan and the professional historian made and see how we downplay we dont say enough about the soviet contribution to winning world war ii. In the story of the soviets in world war ii. With that i guess i would like people to take away that story and understand, it was a significant contribution both in terms, of its strategic impact, on winning the war, as well as great sacrifice that the soviets occurred in winning that war. The war in russia enters its third year was soviet armies pounding the and the blocks east of the baltics. To the black sea used to the baltics retaking town after town soviet forces find a ravage country left by the but hitler played paid a price and that price was more than 5 million not the soldiers. We are featuring American History programs on what available on cspan3 American History, real america the civil war, oral histories. The presidency. And special event coverage about our nations history enjoy American History tv now, and every weekend on cspan3. Saturday on American History tv, at 10 pm eastern, on real america, the 1970 film, communist on campus. If