Unfulfilled Promise: The Soviet Airborne Forces, 1928-1945

By Leroy Thompson

Merriam Press World War 2 History Series. The Soviet Union pioneered the use of parachute troops during the 1930s. However, few of the large-scale Soviet parachute drops attempted by the Soviets during World War II were successes by Western standards. There were inherent differences in the Soviet philosophy of airborne warfare which caused them to view many of their airborne operations in a far different light than other countries. The relationship between the Soviet airborne forces and the partisans was constantly considered by the Soviet High Command when planning airborne operations and that relationship is stressed here. This is a comprehensive history of the weapons, equipment, aircraft and gliders, training, and combat history of the elite of the Soviet armed forces in the period up to and including World War II. 28 photos and ill., 2 maps, 4 organization charts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Merriam Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781576384220

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Unfulfilled Promise: The Soviet Airborne Forces, 1928-1945

Unfulfilled Promise: The Soviet Airborne Forces, 1928-1945

Leroy Thompson

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Military Monograph 8

Bennington, Vermont

2015

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First eBook Edition

Copyright © 2015 by Merriam Press

First published by the Merriam Press in 1988

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The views expressed are solely those of the author.

ISBN 9781576384220

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Acknowledgments

For sharing his wide knowledge of all aspects of the Soviet armed forces and for allowing me to use photographs of items from his collections, I would like to thank Norris Rohrer.

I would also like to give special thanks to M. Willis of the Department of Photographs, Imperial War Museum, for invaluable help in locating photographs of Soviet parachutists in action during World War II.

Thanks are also due to Robert W. Fisch, the Curator of the West Point Museum for help in obtaining photo­graphs of equipment in the West Point Museum col­lections.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife Gayle for her work on the organizational charts and maps used in this study.

Introduction

Even though the Soviet Union pioneered the use of para­chute troops during the 1930s, no book has yet appeared in English about the Soviet use of airborne troops in World War II. This can probably be explained in part by the fact that the few large scale parachute drops attempted by the Soviets during the war were failures by Western standards. However, as I will attempt to show in this work, there were inherent differences in the Soviet philosophy of airborne warfare which caused them to view many of their airborne operations in a far different light than U.S., German, or British analysts.

If at times I seem to stress the relationship between the partisans and the airborne forces overmuch, it is because the partisans were constantly considered by the Soviet High Command when planning airborne operations. Many high ranking officers, in fact, would probably have rated the reinforcement of partisan bands as the principle airborne task.

Although most writers on airborne warfare mention the Soviet airborne forces in passing, hard data on organiza­tion, strength, training, and even operations is difficult to find. Official Soviet sources would logically seem to be the best place to locate facts, but this is not the case. Through a habitual urge for secrecy or perhaps unwil­lingness to admit how costly in casualties some airborne operations were, little mention is made of the airborne troops in official Soviet histories either in English transla­tions or in the original Russian language editions. The best data on operations is usually obtainable from German sources, though many mistakes were made by the Ger­mans because of the confusion inherent among defenders against airborne landings. In many cases when develop­ing my organizational charts, I have had to sift data from German, Soviet, American, and British sources and then draw conclusions based on this data weighed against the air transport available at the time. Various sources, for example, might differ on the number of men in a Soviet airborne corps by as many as five thousand. Whenever I give strengths of units my figures are based on hard data if possible. When deductions are necessary I normally do not use a strength figure unless at least two different sets of deductions justify the conclusion.

I have arranged the chapters dealing with weapons, equipment, and training before the combat history of the Soviet airborne forces during the war to give the reader a better background for understanding the limits and advantages under which the Soviet airborne trooper was operating.

Though Guards divisions have frequently been called the elite of the Red Army, they are a manufactured elite. During World War II and continuing until today, the true combat elite of the Soviet armed forces has been the airborne trooper. I hope this work will help the reader to appreciate just how well the individual Soviet parachutist deserved this status in the war against Germany.

Training

While other countries were just beginning to experiment with military parachutists, the Soviets had already es­tablished a military parachute school by the mid-1930s. Even more important for training airborne troops, how­ever, had been the absorption of all parachute clubs in 1933 into Osoaviakhim (loosely translated as the Society for the Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defense), a paramilitary group roughly similar to the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts and geared towards teaching skills applicable to the Soviet armed forces. In addition to parachute train­ing, many young men and women were receiving training in flying both gliders and powered aircraft. By 1936, there were 559 parachute towers in the Soviet Union and 115 parachute training schools. In that same year members of Osoaviakhim and other civilians made 1,600,000 jumps from towers and 30,000 jumps from planes.

As a result of this intensive civilian training program, it is estimated that in 1940, over a million Soviet men and women were trained parachutists. Osoaviakhim had taught many of the most promising parachutists other military skills. Marksmanship, map reading, first aid, and physical training, for example, were included as adjuncts to parachute training. Mass jumps were made by groups who assembled after landing to undertake some mis­sion. Missions included long hikes, attacks on communications objectives or factories, and what would now be called orienteering exercises.

As a result of this intensive preparation, most pre-war recruits into the Soviet airborne forces were already well grounded in basic skills when they commenced their military training. Female involvement in the Osoaviakhim parachute program also was the basis for the Red Army’s airborne doctors and nurses who jumped to give medical aid to the partisans during the war.

Since educational standards were higher for airborne recruits they normally picked up skills more