The Nickname
Initially, concerns for secrecy kept their military designation from being known by the soldiers who operated them. They were called by code names such as Kostikov guns (after the head of the RNII - the Reaction-Engine Scientific Research Institute), and finally classed as Guards Mortars. The name BM-13 was only allowed into secret documents in 1942, and remained classified until after the war.
Because they were marked with the letter K (for Voronezh Komintern Factory), Red Army troops adopted a nickname from Mikhail Isakovsky's popular wartime song, "Katyusha", about a girl longing for her absent beloved, who has gone away on military service. Katyusha is the Russian equivalent of Katie, an endearing diminutive form of the name Katherine: Yekaterina →Katya →Katyusha.
German troops coined the sobriquet Stalin's organ (German: Stalinorgel), after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for its visual resemblance to a church organ and alluding to the sound of the weapon's rockets. They are known by the same name in Denmark (Danish: Stalinorgel), Finland (Finnish: Stalinin urut), France (French: Orgues de Staline), Norway (Norwegian: Stalinorgel), the Netherlands (Dutch: Stalinorgel), Hungary (Hungarian: Sztálinorgona), and in Sweden.
The heavy BM-31 launcher was also referred to as Andryusha (Андрюша, an endearing diminutive of “Andrew”). But in fact, only the Soviet press used this name.
Read more about this topic: Katyusha Rocket Launcher
Famous quotes containing the word nickname:
“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)