War Story 3: Getting Equipment From Underground Sources

A Russian friend of mine (who has sadly passed on before his time due to liver cancer), was a big strapping guy that you might think of at the mention of the words Russian soldier. He had described what it was like to be in the Russian army. There were shortages of everything, and it was everyone for themselves.

    One day an off-base construction outfit arrived to build a steel fence around the base. This work would take several days, so at the end of each day they would leave a very large gasoline-powered arc welding machine next to the fence line. They figured it was too big to move easily and too hard to hide if anyone tried. They were wrong.

    It seems that my friend's outfit could use such a welder for general repairs and the odds of ever getting one on the up and up were zero. What they did was wait until dark, long after the workmen left, and dig a large hole next to the welder. Then they lowered the welder into the hole, backfilled it and graded the area to disguise what they had done. The next morning the military police were all over the base like ants. They looked everywhere trying to find the welder, which they knew was there somewhere. They never found it and had to bring in another welder to finish the fence.

    My friend said that a military policeman had asked him how they had done it. He said the policeman's curiosity was killing him and nothing would happen to anyone if he would just tell him how they had done it. Not falling for this ploy, he kept mum. Later, after a sufficient cooling-off period had passed, they dug up the welder and put it to good use.