Russia at war 1941-1945

Voibokalo (roughly to their original "Mga salient" which they had captured in September), and it was Voibokalo, on the main Leningrad-Vologda railway line, and just south of the Schüsselburg Bay, which became the main "food base". It was only some thirty-five miles from Osinovets, on the Leningrad side of the lake. What is more, during the following weeks, a branch line was built, in incredible winter conditions, from

Voibokalo to Kabona, a matter of some twenty miles, so as to bring the trains right up to the lake, where the food was then put in lorries.

Although the food supplies in Leningrad were still worse than precarious at the end of December, the War Council decided to increase the bread ration slightly on December

25. This was not enough to reduce the death-rate, but it had an important effect on

morale.

Altogether, between the beginning of the blockade on September 8 and January 1, some 45,000 tons of food were delivered to Leningrad in the following ways (in tons):

By

By

By the ice

Total

water

air

road

Grain and Flour

23,041

743

12,343

36,127

Cereals

1,056

—

1,482

2,538

Meat and meat products

730

1,829

1,100

3,659

Fats and cheese

276

1,729

138

2,143

Condensed milk

125

200

158

483

Egg powder, chocolate,

—

681

44

725

etc.

Total:

25,228 5,182

15,265

45,675

Considering that there were about two and a half million people still in Leningrad, these quantities were, of course, extremely small, and, what is more, the quantities delivered by January 1 across the ice were worse than disappointing. It should, it is true, be added that, apart from food, a certain quantity of ammunition and petrol were also brought into

Leningrad during this period.

Altogether, neither in December nor even in January, could the Ice Road be said to be working satisfactorily, and at the beginning of January Zhdanov expressed his extreme discontent at the way things were going. What complicated matters still further was the decrepit state of the small railway line (in the past a derelict suburban line, built long before the Revolution) between Osinovets and Leningrad. The railway even lacked

water-towers, and engines had to be filled with water by hand, and trees had to be cut on the spot to supply them with damp and wholly inadequate fuel. The line which used to have one train a day, was now expected to carry six or seven large goods trains. The half-starved railwaymen were fighting against terrible odds.

There was also an acute shortage of packing material in Russia and a high proportion of the food taken to Leningrad was wasted as a result. It was not, in fact, until the end of January or rather, until February 10, 1942, when the branch-line from Voibokalo to

Kabona was completed, and not until after a good deal of reorganisation had been done, that the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga began to work like clockwork. By this time

several wide motor-roads had been built across the ice, and hundreds of lorries could now deliver food to Leningrad, and also evacuate many thousands of its inhabitants, many of them half-dead with hunger. The Germans did what they could to interfere both with the building of the railway line to Kabona and with the ice-roads themselves; these roads were both bombed and shelled, but Russian fighter planes protected them as far as

possible, and traffic police were stationed along the roads. One of their duties was to lay little bridges across any holes or cracks in the ice made by German bombs or shells.

By January 24, 1942, food supplies had sufficiently improved to allow a second increase in Leningrad's rations; workers were now getting 14 oz. of bread, office workers 11 oz., dependants and children 9 oz., and front line troops 21 oz.; on February 11, the ration was increased for the third time.

On January 22 the State Defence Committee decided to evacuate half-a-million people

from Leningrad; priority was given to women, children, old and sick people. In January 11,000 people were evacuated, in February 117,000, in March 221,000, in April 163,000; a total of 512,000. In May, after shipping on Lake Lagoda had been restored, the

evacuation continued, and between May and November 1942, 449,000 more people were

evacuated, making a total, in 1942, of nearly a million people. Moreover, the evacuation of industry, which had been so harshly interrupted in September 1941, was resumed:

between January and April, several thousand machine tools, etc., were evacuated across the ice to the east. What is more, a petrol pipeline was laid, between April and June 1942, across the bottom of Lake Ladoga to supply Leningrad with fuel. The German attempts to wreck the pipeline by dropping depth-charges into the lake failed. Similarly, when the Volkhov power station resumed work in May 1942, an electric cable was laid across the bottom of Lake Ladoga, to supply Leningrad with electric power.

The Ladoga Life Line—ice in winter, water in summer, continued to function