ANOTHER COLD WINTER IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA.
I wrote this out about five years ago but I never got around to putting it on Trucknet, so here goes.
Back in 1981 I was told that I had to load at Courtaulds in Spondon near Derby and I had to deliver the full load of bales of textiles to Ankara in Turkey. After I had tipped I called into the Telex Motel in Ankara to get my reload instructions which told me go to a town near Nova Sad in northern Yugoslavia and load furniture for Cradley Heath near Birmingham. As I had no Austrian permit it meant travelling through Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It was the beginning of December and throughout the trip I had only seen a few snow showers, nothing too much to worry about and no need for snow chains as the main T.I.R. routes had been kept fairly clear. However as I was coming up through Czechoslovakia the snow started coming down and then it began to build up on the road.
It was about 9 o’clock in the morning as my column gear change “S” registered 16:280 M.A.N. plodded on up the motorway north of Brno. The motorway from here to Prague was beginning to climb a few hills in the open countryside and the snow was starting to drift across the open fields and onto the road. In the distance I could see that the police had parked across the main carriageway and they diverted me off the motorway onto a minor road.
I followed the minor road for about 10 kilometres until I was in what I thought was the middle of nowhere when I came up towards a cross roads. I couldn’t see the road sign as it was covered in snow, so I parked the truck in the middle of the road with the hand brake on and I left the engine running. I made my way through the snow which was about a foot deep at the side of the road and by now there was about two or three inches of snow covering the road.
I cleared the snow off the sign with my hand and discovered that I had come up to a main road and to the left was the road to Prague. As I turned round I got the shock of my life, the truck was moving. I stood there staring at the truck, watching it sliding sideways down the camber of the road moving very slowly towards a deep ditch that had a stream flowing through it, running parallel to the road.
When I fully realised what was happening I scrambled through the snow and back on to the road. I climbed into the cab, put the truck into gear and let the clutch out slowly, the drive wheels started spinning, the unit wasn’t going anywhere but the trailer wheels were still sliding sideways slowly towards the ditch. I engaged the diff lock, I let the clutch up slowly but instead of going forward the nearside back end of the unit also started moving toward the edge of the road. The tractor and trailer were by now in a slight jack knife position. After a couple of vain attempts I got out to look at the situation, the trailer was still moving slowly towards the ditch and there was nothing that I could do about it.
I had the horrible feeling that the trailer was going to slide down into the ditch and pull the tractor back with it. This was a nightmare that was happening even though it was 9.30 in the morning and I wasn’t dreaming. I climbed back into the cab and took out my jacket, gloves and moon boots.
I put on the warm clothing and looked at the back of the trailer, it had stopped moving but the truck and trailer were in a jack knife position. I climbed back into the cab to try again, by now the nearside drive axle was onto the grass verge and the offside wheels were spinning on what felt like a sheet of ice.
About 10 minutes had passed and I hadn’t seen another vehicle, at least by now it had stopped snowing. Then in the distance I saw a small army four wheel drive going along the main road. Much to my surprise it stopped, somebody got out, climbed onto the bonnet and started to look towards me through a pair of binoculars. Then he climbed down and got back into the vehicle which turned around and made it’s way over towards where I was parked. Two soldiers then got out of the vehicle and came over towards me and I realized that by their ill fitting uniforms and the hammer and sickle insignia on their furry hats that they were Russians.
Americana, one of them asked, he obviously hadn’t noticed the Union Flags that were painted on the doors, Nein British I replied, British cigaretten he said.
As I felt a little bit sorry for them I climbed back into the cab and gave them each a twenty packet of Benson and Hedges. I never smoked but the company who I working for always paid us £5 a trip to buy your duty frees which could always be used for a back sheish or to say thank you to anybody who gave you a helping hand. The young squaddies looked really happy with their packet of ciggies as they took the cellophane wrapping off very carefully. Then, one of them walked back to the small four wheel drive and pulled out what looked like an old world war two radio transmitter about the size of a ghetto blaster. He then pulled out the aerial which went up to a height of about five feet and started talking into the old telephone handset in Russian.
When he had finished, the two of them let down the tail gate of the four wheel drive and took out a chain. This was no ordinary chain, it was about twenty feet long, it looked like it weighed a ton and could only be described as a ships anchor chain. They dragged it across to the front of my unit and connected it up to my front towing pin. If they thought that they were going to tow me with their little four wheel drive, which was about the size of a short wheel base Landrover, then a miracle was about to happen.
One of the soldiers said to me “ funf minuten ” (five minutes), he got into the vehicle and parked it about one hundred feet behind my trailer, then walked back to where I was stood. So what was going to happen in five minutes, maybe I had misunderstood what they meant. Then one of them said something to his mate and pointed across the field.
I could not believe my eyes, for there coming across the snow covered field, doing about 30 miles per hour and blowing up clouds of powder snow was a Russian tank. The noise got louder and louder as it got closer and it knocked down a barbed wire fence as it squeezed between my unit and the sign post that I had just scrapped the snow off. As it made it’s way onto the road the noise was becoming unbearable, I could see the driver at the front of the tank with his goggles and his ear defenders on and then the hatch on the top popped open, a head appeared and started having a conversation with my two new friends.
The turret turned to the right and the tank then nosed it’s way slowly towards the front of my unit as the two squaddies put the other end of the chain on to the towing pin of the tank. I jumped into my cab, started the engine and gave the driver the thumbs up. The turret along with it’s gun turned to the right once again and the tank started to reverse, my unit and trailer straightened up and I was pulled onto the road in a clean straight line.
Three soldiers got out of the tank while the two young guys from the four wheel drive took the chain off my towing pin. I gave them all a packet of cigarettes and my two friends another packet each. I also gave them an empty Townsend Thoreson duty free plastic bag each and they were all looked extremely happy.
After a lot of hand shaking I went on my way and I eventually ended up on a road that ran parallel with the motorway which was in the valley below. It was never what you called a busy motorway but I could see that most of the vehicles looked like they were stuck in the snow. I carried on up the old road for about 20 kilometres where I picked up the motorway again and had a fairly good run up to Prague and the West German border.
The following morning I met up with a Dutchman who told me that he had been stuck near Brno for over six hours the day before so all in all it was not a bad day and one that I will never forget.
This was not the only time that something like this happened. The following year I was running with another two Brits going through Czechoslovakia when the person who I was following ended up getting stuck on a hill near Pilsen. Before we had even started putting the snow chains on a Czech Army half track appeared and towed us all to the top of the hill.
There was no night heater in that wagon and I used to think that I was lucky if I could pick up a weak signal from Radio Luxemburg or Radio Free Europe late at night but it was still a very pleasant experience driving through the Bohemian winter countryside.
I hope this brings back a couple of memories for some of you lads who had similar experiences of winters in the Commie Block.
The start of the motorway just south of Prague
Regards Steve.
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