Product Details
The first special unit of underwater reconnaissance in the USSR was formed in Leningrad in 1941 and was under the auspices of the reconnaissance department of the Baltic Fleet. It included 146 people who were divers who had received special training from the Naval Medical Academy and the Special Underwater Expedition (EPRON), an institution engaged in various underwater activities. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, underwater reconnaissance officers were also mobilized under the name of the Special Purpose Company (abbr. RON).
Despite the fact that the "Frog People" were engaged in military operations in the most difficult conditions, they did not establish mass production of the uniforms necessary for them, so the swimmers actually had to make their own equipment and weapons, which, in fact, were unique and analogues in world history did not have. However, these difficulties did not prevent reconnaissance divers from successfully completing their tasks.
The special purpose company performed a number of important tasks: they committed sabotage, collected intelligence behind enemy lines, undermined enemy ships, and also eliminated bridges and strategically important coastal structures. In addition, they were attracted to the guidance, repair and protection of the famous "Road of Life" of besieged Leningrad. So, it was the “deep special forces” that repelled an attack on the northern capital by Italian scouts and submariners, and also destroyed the base of Italian-fascist boats located near Strelna.
During the entire time when the Great Patriotic War was going on, the RON fighters carried out many sabotage operations aimed at the defense of Leningrad. Among their successfully completed tasks were: the destruction of the base of the Finnish troops, the explosion of the Nazi pier near Peterhof, but one of the most famous is a series of dives to more than 30 meters in order to raise the archive of secret documentation from the German submarine U-250. It was then that the fighters of the "underwater infantry" found the legendary Enigma cipher machine.
