After several hours of work, with a large crowd gathered, the tank was partially pulled onto solid ground and given its first wash. The vehicle was lying upside down, with its tracks facing upward.
After being turned over
The “thirty-four” had to be pulled out in several attempts because, near the shore, its turret became stuck against harder ground. The bulldozer’s anchor also broke loose because of the soft soil, along with the Chinese-made fitting on the tow cable loop. After the problems were fixed, the tank was pulled out resting on its turret. The ground beside it was then excavated, and two bulldozers were used to turn the tank over. After that, the two bulldozers hooked onto it and dragged it about 30 meters from the edge of the lake, with the tracks turning as they moved.
After the first wash, the police moved the spectators back. The tractor engines roared again, and the vehicle was completely pulled onto the shore.
The second wash. The public was allowed back near the combat vehicle. By then, the crowd had grown considerably, and people began competing for the best places to take photographs.
Peat and mud were washed away with a fire hose. The search teams’ fire pump had already been seen at their camp in the previous report.
Even at this stage, it was possible to notice that the sets of road wheels on the two sides were different. On the left side, the wheels appeared to be arranged in the standard configuration, with three central wheels featuring internal shock absorption, while on the right side all the wheels had rubber tires. This should not have been the case—or perhaps it was the other way around. This suggests that the tank may have been repaired at a frontline workshop, with replacement wheels installed from whatever components were available.
Both tracks on the combat vehicle were intact.
A tree stump prevented the tank from being dragged any farther, so it was decided to turn it over at that location. The first attempt to turn the tank over with a single bulldozer failed. A pit had to be dug beside the vehicle, after which riggers attached two cables and two bulldozers easily rolled the 30-ton machine onto its tracks.
One major disadvantage of this method was the bent right-side fender and the loss of some of the boxes containing assorted items. But at the time, nobody was thinking much about that—everyone simply wanted to get the tank back onto its tracks.
Notice that the turret was turned around, with the gun pointing toward the rear. Apparently, the turret had been rotated when the tank fell into open water in an attempt to balance the vehicle, but it did not help. The searchers were lucky: if the gun had been pointing forward, extracting the tank would have been much more difficult. Before the tank was loaded onto the trailer, the turret was easily turned back into its normal position, and the vehicle was transported up the slope that way.
The third wash removed not peat but thick, greasy clay.
Once the powerful stream of water hit the tank’s upper front plate, details that had previously been hidden beneath the mud began to appear.
The most surprising feature was the hull machine gun. It had suffered virtually no damage during the recovery. The right-side fender and mudguard, however, were not so fortunate.
The white-painted inscription “Smely” (“Brave”) became visible on the turret. Surprisingly, the storage box on the left fender was completely undamaged.
It was full of rifle cartridges covered with rags—or perhaps pistol cartridges for a PPSh submachine gun?
The tank was remarkably well preserved. The driver’s hatch was slightly open, while behind the vehicle lay a piece of metal that appeared to have broken away from the engine compartment.
What do you think this plug on the rear of the turret was used for?
The turret made for a beautiful photograph, although it would have been even better facing the other way. That was done later.
The rigging crew stands beside the tank recovered from the swamp. Another “Smely” inscription can be seen on the left side of the turret. Farther toward the rear, on the right side of the hull, there are inscriptions that appear to read something like “We will fulfill Comrade Stalin’s order,” although this is not certain.
There has been speculation that this vehicle may have participated in the November 7, 1942 parade on Red Square. At least the 33rd Tank Brigade was present at that parade.
The police gently moved the crowd away from the tank.
The vehicle now had to be dragged a little farther onto level ground and washed again before its ammunition could be removed. Two bulldozers working together managed the job.
After 67 years, the tank finally moved under its own tracks. It almost immediately stopped on level ground, but its road wheels and tracks turned freely.
The driver’s hatch opened easily, and black sludge poured out from inside.
The antenna had eventually bent during the turning operation, having almost survived the entire extraction intact.
At first, the sludge inside the tank was washed out with a fire hose. This worked down to the level of the lower edge of the driver’s hatch, but eventually the remaining material had to be removed with buckets.
Attempts to open the turret hatches failed. no longer remember whether they were rusted shut or locked from the inside. A police officer can be seen examining the cartridges in the storage box with interest.
Almost immediately, people began stripping parts from the vehicle. A rather large Moscow colonel grabbed a track link that had fallen from the right side and carried it toward his vehicle. When I caught up with him, he gave me an annoyed grin and brazenly claimed that it was a tractor track link. Apparently, some officers in the Russian Army could not tell a tractor track from a tank track.
The recovery organizers turned a blind eye to the incident because they depended on senior officials from the Russian Ministry of Defense in Moscow. Under the law, the tank was considered property of the Ministry of Defense’s Trophy Department, and after a recovery, negotiations would normally begin to prevent the vehicle from being taken away and stripped of its components.
Then came the removal of the ammunition and the initial demilitarization. We had arrived at the recovery site at 9:30 a.m., and by then it was already after 3:00 p.m. We needed to return to Pskov, so I missed the most interesting part of the process and will use photographs from the website of the Ariegard search club, which carried out the recovery.
It was said that the tank had a full ammunition load, but I counted only about 70 shells.
The shells were clearly of different types, and some had fallen out of their cartridge cases.
this was the turret-mounted DT machine gun; the hull machine gun was removed somewhat later.
The number of machine-gun ammunition drums was astonishing. Add to that the cartridges found in the side storage box and seven grenades. The 33rd Tank Brigade’s crews clearly had no shortage of ammunition supplies.
The goggles were certainly not Brad Pitt-style, but they were also products of the Suksun Optical and Mechanical Plant.
A flare pistol.
Apparently, this was a box containing spare parts for the tank’s radio.
The “Smely” tank was finally ready for transportation.
According to the official version, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry removed and destroyed the ammunition for the 76-mm gun, while the Interior Ministry confiscated the small arms and ammunition. Representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense from Moscow took the gun’s breech mechanism with them.
There were rumors that several shells and other items later appeared as souvenirs in the offices of local officials.
The tank itself was transported to Pskov on a trailer. Because the trailer broke down, it arrived there just in time for May 9.
A month later, specialists from the Russian Ministry of Defense in Moscow carried out the final demilitarization of the “Smely” tank, leaving behind little more than an emptied hull.
But that is a completely different story.