Soldiers swapped tank for vodka

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 6

Soldiers swapped tank for vodka

NZPA-AP Frankfurt, West Germany A crew of Soviet soldiers lost on manoeuvres in Czechoslovakia sold their tank to a pub owner for two cases of vodka, and were found sleeping off the liquor in a forest two days later, according to a newspaper account. The tank was nowhere to be found. Communist authorities later learned that the pub owner had torn

up the tank and sold the pieces to a local metalrecycling centre, reported the" Frankfurter “Allgemeine Zeitung" daily. The incident was reported in an article written by Ota Filip, a Czechoslovak emigre author who contributes periodically to the respected, conservative newspaper. Reached by telephone at his home in Munich, Filip said the episode occurred during large Warsaw Pact manoeuvres in Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1984. He said he learned of it in a letter from reliable sources brought to him by friends three weeks ago. Filip’s story, quoting a report by the police in Eastern Bohemia province in Czechoslovakia, related the incident as follows: A four-man Soviet tank crew participating in manoeuvres got lost as darkness was falling in cold, rainy, foggy weather. The crew was running out of vodka, since rations had been cut as part of a Soviet Government campaign against alcoholism. About 9 p.m. the soldiers drove into a village, parked their tank behind the town’s only pub and walked in. The crew had money for one more bottle of vodka, but bought three more after one

of them plonked down his gold wedding ring. At 11.15 p.m. the soldiers were spotted leaving the pub with two cases of vodka and more than 3kg of herring and pickles. They were found slumbering in a forest two days later, and told the local authorities and Soviet military police they did not know what happened to the tank. The first clue turned up 10 days later when the head of a local metal-recycling centre said he had just bought a lot of high-quality, sawed-up steel from a pub owner. Investigators soon found the shell of the tank in the shed behind the pub. The proprietor told the authorities that he had acquired the tank for 24 bottles of vodka with herring and pickles thrown in “as a gesture of comradeship.” Filip told the Associated Press he did not know what had happened to the pub owner and the Soviet soldiers. In the 19605, Filip wrote several novels which angered the Communist authorities and, in 1970, was imprisoned for “subversive activity.” In the face of international protests, he was released after 15 months, and in 1974 was allowed to emigrate.