I wouldn’t, and so he gathered his nerve. With a quick look around the chap grabbed me by the arm and dragged me up the hillock. Now crawling, now dashing we reached the mill. It was already half-smashed by shells and its broken blades were hanging down. The wings of my plane had been holed too, and climbing up on one of them I got a real scare: an air-blast had torn away the seat of the rear cockpit and thrown it up on the dash-board of the front one. What if everything was destroyed? I got into the cockpit and was happy to see that there was apparently no serious damage.
“Take the propeller.” But the chap had already grabbed it without an invitation.
“Turn the propeller a few times and jerk the blade, then jump away so it doesn’t hit you!”
“Heave ho!” and the propeller began to spin. The driver was blown away as if by the blast – he disappeared straight away. I noticed only when the tonne-and-a-half truck scampered away behind the hillock. The Germans intensified their firing at my plane. I had to get out of the cockpit and turn the machine towards the take-off direction myself. And just where did I get the strength from? Most likely from fear – and the determination to escape the enemy at all costs and save the machine played its role too. Basically, I took off under the Fascists’ very noses…There were no instruments, the dashboard was smashed, but the engine caught and I am alive…
I was flying east. The sun had already gone down and twilight had swallowed the ground. How would I land in the dark? I was circling, looking for my aerodrome, but below were only slag heaps2, cables, the railways that led to each shaft. At last I saw a small light far away. Surely they hadn’t set a fire for me? Fortunately they had!
It turned out that when all the deadlines for my return had passed they had decided in the squadron that I wasn’t coming back. On top of that the pilots from the 6th Army Signals Flight had landed on our airstrip during their retreat and reported to Major Boulkin that my plane had supposedly been seen flying towards a village occupied by the enemy. In short they had they had given up on me in the squadron. Only my plane mechanic was stubbornly waiting and believing I would return. It was him who had set up the small fire on the airstrip.
After landing I didn’t leave the cockpit for quite a while: I still couldn’t believe I had broken free of the enemy’s clutches. I took off the helmet, wiped my sweaty face with a sleeve of my overall, and stayed sitting in a kind of stupor. A routine day at the front had ended…
Dronov the mechanic, having looked over the planed noted, “You flew here on ambition, Comrade Commander. But no drama, we’ll fix it up…”
In the morning the mechanic reported the machine ready to fly. My ‘cropduster’ looked brand-new. “Thank you, Kostya!” For the first time I called Dronov by his first name. He blushed, muttered something and for some reason began shifting the plane covers from place to place…
“There’s something God-given in you”, the pilots were joking when I turned up to report to Boulkin the squadron commander, “Some natural flair! We had already said a few words for you at dinner…You’d be sure to find your way even if all instruments were turned off and the maps were taken away from you.”
“I would, I would for sure, especially if possessed by anger.”
“Why would you be angry?”
“How could I not be! The communications officer ordered me to wait for him and didn’t come back…”
“Egorova!” the squadron commander called. “The Head of Frontline Communications General Korolev asked if you came back from the mission. The communications officer who flew with you sends his apologies for not warning you.”
“Why did he desert me in Kalarovka?” I asked Boulkin angrily.
“He didn’t desert you, he was trying to catch up with the Army Headquarters in a passing vehicle to give the Commander the Frontline HQ’s order to retreat.”
“What was the point over handing over the order to retreat if the Army had retreated long ago?..”
“He was doing his best to carry out his mission and was late…But he returned to the Frontline headquarters. After all he sends you his apologies”, the squadron commander repeated.
“Apologies to whom, if he doesn’t even know if I’m alive or dead?”
I felt pain and anger. And my senior officer too! I was sure that abandoning me, a woman, to death, he had behaved in an unmanly manner.
13
See you after the victory
Q
uite often we had to fly to the South-Eastern Front HQ, located, back then, in Kharkov. There was complete confusion at the Kharkov aerodrome. Some planes were landing, others were taking off. Many ‘horseless’ flyers who had lost their planes in combat or even in non-combat situations roamed about the parking lot – the Germans had destroyed quite a few of our planes right on the aerodromes!.
A pilot from our squadron called Spirin flew to the Front headquarters with secret mail. When he came back after handing in the package his plane had disappeared from the parking lot. Spirin ran all over the aerodrome but the U-2 with number ‘7’ on its tail had vanished. Spirin reported his plight to the squadron and the squadron commander sent me with navigator Irkoutskiy to search for the vanished plane. We flew to all the aerodromes and airstrips of the Southern and South-Western Fronts but couldn’t find it. We arrived at the of Chougouyev aerodrome hungry and angry and decided to get hold of some food. Everyone was in the process of evacuation and there were enemy air raids over and over again. They wouldn’t even give us bread in the aerodrome canteen without ration cards (we had none on us)! Irkoutskiy ran to see the local commanders and I got back to the plane and saw a major sitting in my cockpit and yelling: “Contact!” Another airman (also a major) pulled the propeller with his hands and yelled running away from the propeller: “Aye-aye!” I stood stunned, then jumped on a wing of my plane and began thrashing the major, sitting in the cockpit, with my fists!
“You thief! Thief! Shame on you!” I was yelling, but he turned his face to me and said quietly: “Why are you screaming like in the bazaar? Had you said civilly that it was yours we would have gone to look for another ‘unclaimed’ one. But you’ve started screaming instead and even hitting…” He climbed out of the cockpit and strode away from the parking lot and the second major minced after him. For some reason I felt sorry for them…
During the retreat we often shifted base and changed airstrips, choosing them beside some forest or village. Our airstrips were under fire time and again, and sometimes bombed. But despite the difficulties and deprivations related to the retreat the morale of Major Boulkin’s squadron remained high.
“Fly a sortie and see whose troops are moving along the roads in this area”, the squadron commander once ordered me, making a mark on a map. Flying in the daytime in a plane made of plywood and percale, which can be shot down by an ordinary rifle, wasn’t a pleasant exercise. But an order is an order…
The troops on the roads turned out to be ours. “They are escaping encirclement”, I guessed. Exhausted and worn out, they were carrying their weapons and their wounded. Noticing a red-starred plane they began to wave their hands, field caps and helmets. But what’s this? Four Messerschmitts were diving on the column. For the first time I see the fiery thread of tracer. Soldiers were dropping, some ran away from the road…
Having made several passes on the column the Fascists pounced on my plane. A forest and a river winding between the trees saved me then. Nearly touching water with my undercarriage I followed all its curves and meanders. The manoeuvre was successful – the Germans fell back.
I returned to the aerodrome, landed and taxied to the parking lot. Dronov the mechanic greeted my return rapturously as always. And he had to patch up holes and fix up the plane and its engine after almost every one of my sorties! Nevertheless he had always managed to make my machine flight-ready for the next sortie.
There were many Moscovites in our squadron but that was no wonder: after all, it had been formed in Lyubertsy1. Every morning our radio-operators w
ere asked:
“Guys, what’s happening in the capital?”
Moscow was doing it hard: her most terrible days had arrived. The enemy stood at her gates, air-raid warnings were announced nearly every night. But the Moscovites faced the oncoming threat with fortitude. People of the most peaceful occupations: cooks and scientists, clerks and steel-makers, artists, engineers and confectioners were joining opolchenie2 divisions. Moscow itself was turning into a fortress…
After capturing Mariupol and Taganrog the Fascists began to advance on our Southern Front. We flew to the Army Headquarters and to divisions several times a day. The Hitlerites aimed to penetrate into the Shakhty district and from there to Novocherkassk and Rostov. And indeed they managed to press our troops up against Novocherkassk but then the troops of Kharitonov’s army, fighting to the bitter end, didn’t allow the enemy to move forward even a metre. Abandoning the idea of capturing Rostov from the North and North-East, where our 9th Army had stopped them, the Hitlerites decided to deliver a frontal blow on Rostov. On 21 November the Fascists took Rostov. The very same day we relocated to the Lotikov Shaft airstrip near Voroshilovsk…
In the middle of the night a messenger woke the pilot Grishchenko and navigator Irkoutskiy. They were ordered by squadron headquarters to fly to the 37th Army with a top-secret package. We decided straightaway that it was obvious some operation by frontline and army troops was being planned. The nights are dark in autumn, especially in the South – and our planes were completely unadapted for night flights. In spite of this Grishchenko and Irkoutskiy flew the route safely and recognised the village where the headquarters of General Lopatin’s 37th Army was located. They made several circles around the station but there was no sign of a landing strip – not even a lit torch. But no matter how long you are going to make circles there were orders to deliver the package at any cost and so Grishchenko slowed down, turned the ignition off and began to glide. They flew over a hut, then above something just as dark and at last the plane touched down and began taxiing. But the flyers were still sighing with relief when the plane at first abruptly rolled down, then suddenly up and at the same moment smashed into something. Grishchenko came back to his senses first and asked Irkoutskiy “Ivan, are you alright?”
“I am, but my hand hurts for some reason.”
“And my foot’s trapped, I can’t pull it out…”
At last they made it out of the broken plane and went to look for the Army headquarters. It was still dark and quiet in the village – not even a single dog began to bark. However, they found the headquarters, handed in the package and told of their landing. The flyers were walked to a hut where wounded men lay on the floor on straw. Grishchenko’s leg was badly grazed and Irkoutskiy had broken fingers. They remembered there was a dying young female medic amongst the wounded, injured on her buttocks…In the morning the army communications commander Colonel Boborykin ordered the smashed plane burnt. The guys were not censured for that flight but were not commended either.
Our troops began to advance and now Rostov was liberated from the occupiers. An enemy attempt to consolidate his grip on positions prepared beforehand was frustrated and the Red Army troops kept pressing the enemy westward. Boulkin’s squadron relocated to the Filippenko hamlet and the Front headquarters to the town of Kamensk on the Northern Donets river. I was very happy about that: all these months I’d been thinking with fear that my family might fall under occupation. My mum had written me that the Fascists were very close to our Kouvshinovskiy District. The Red Army liberated the city of Kalinin on 16 December. Torzhok hadn’t been held by the Germans but they had destroyed it completely. “So many churches, ancient cathedrals – they razed it all to the ground, those antichrists”, my mum wrote. She further advised that Konev’s headquarters3 had been located not far from our village and his officers were billeted at her place.
“They are so lovely and kind. I heat up the samovar for them, make tea from various herbs and they procure some sugar – we sit and drink tea with them, they tell me all sorts of news from all fronts. I used to question them about you, showed them your letter from the front. They said: “Your daughter is alright, Stepanida Vasilievna, there’s a lull at that sector of the front now”. They might be telling me untruths but it was so convincing and polite. You, my girl, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, it’s only you – my kids and grandchildren, my heart aches for. Nothing’s been heard from Egoroushka for a long time, since the very beginning of the war, since he wrote me that he was going to hit the enemy, that was all. Kostya is somewhere at the Southern Front. Kolyushka’s been badly wounded and he’s in hospital now, Zina is in Leningrad, blockaded, working as a foreman at the ‘Krasnyy Gvozdil’shik’ plant. A death notice came about Vanyusha. Maria is in such a state from grief that she looks like death warmed up. I know nothing about Alexey – there’s been nothing from him since he wrote me from Drogobych about his daughter Lilya’s birth shortly before the war. Vasya keeps applying from Norilsk for permission go to the front but no one’s answering. How are you, my girl? Take care of yourself, dress yourself warmly. I’ve knitted mittens for you with two fingers so you can shoot easier…”
In this letter my Mum prayed God to keep us, her children alive and to let the Red Army muster more strength and cleanse the Russian land of the evildoers…
The letters coming to the front were mostly encouraging. They wrote us from the home front that everything was going well with them, that they were provided with everything, that they were doing their best for victory over the bitterest enemy of humankind – Fascism. The most important message in the letters from the front was – one is alive, fit and giving the enemy hell. It was a sacred and just lie…
I received letters from Victor on the North-Western Front. Victor wrote that he was flying ‘small ones’ (that was what we called fighter planes during the war), that he had shot down nine German planes, that he had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner and two Orders of the Red Star. “When shall we meet again, Anya?” Victor asked, and answered himself, “After the Victory…”
I remembered for the rest of my life how a young radio operator burst into the squadron headquarters and shouted from the door, “Guys! The Germans around Moscow have been smashed!”
We, the pilots, began spinning in some fantastic dance. Revelry broke out in all the units. Everyone was laughing, singing, hugging each other – and tears were gleaming in people’s eyes…At last the Germans had stumbled! The victory near Moscow had not only military but also huge moral significance: all our spirits rose.
14
The Greenhorn
T
he winter campaign of 1942 was successful. The enemy was still very strong but the imperishable value of the first successes was that that they inspired us, instilling in us the spirit of belief in Victory. Those days this spirit was typical of all the troops on our Southern Front. Together with the troops of the South-Western Front they broke through the enemy defences at the Balakleya sector and formed the Barvenkovskiy Salient. Every frontline soldier was sweating on the success of the dashing raid by the two cavalry corps of Parkhomenko and Grechko on the Germans’ rear. In the winter cold, on the ice-crusted ground they spread panic in the Hitlerites’ camp with their sudden strikes. One encouraging dispatch after another was coming to Front headquarters via radio but suddenly the air waves fell silent. The commander needed to know exactly in which direction the corps could have moved after their last message had arrived. The commanders understood that the cavalry, exhausted in fierce combat and sleepless nights, needed rest. They had to be brought back, but how could it be done if the air waves were silent? “Let’s send a U-2”, The Southern Front Communications Commander General Korolev suggested.
A whirlwind was raging behind the misted windows but we – the Signals Squadron pilots – were up to the task…On one of those days of February when a blizzard had swept banks of snow all over the streets of the Filippenko hamlet I was called up to the squadron headquarters.
They told me about the situation on our sector of the Front and ordered me to fly to the Barvenkovo Region where I would have to find Parkhomenko and Grechko’s cavalry corps and hand them over a package marked ‘Top Secret’. The Southern Front Communications Chief was to fly with me as far as Barvenkovo, but from there I would have to operate independently.
An angry wind was battering the machine. The engine was shivering as if in a fever and sometimes the wail of the wind drowned it out. All this was not a problem but how to break through the solid curtain of snow? It was endless, it had swallowed my small plane and held me tightly in its hands. Snow was clogging my goggles and was hitting me in the face. There was practically no visibility: I had only my intuition and experience to rely on. But there are moments when even they are powerless – and that was exactly what I felt on that day. But at last we were here in Barvenkovo. I delivered the General not far away from the railway station and was about to fly on. Climbing out of the cockpit the General leaned towards me, looked at me with his sad eyes and kissed the helmet on my head…
The snow was becoming thicker and thicker, the blizzard was getting stronger. In the cockpit I felt as if I were on a trapeze. All this taken together made it completely impossible to orient myself during the flight. What should I do? Return? But I had no right to take such a decision: I’d been ordered to keep flying and find the cavalry at any cost. Finding them would mean saving many thousands of lives… And I, finding any sign of a dwelling, would land my U-2 to learn who was there – friend or foe. Each time I had to land in extremely poor weather conditions. Airmen know what that’s like. I landed three times and three times I took off despite the winds and snowfall. I flew very low examining every gully, every ravine. I noticed tanks on one farmstead but I had not got a good look at them when they opened fire on me. But it turned out alright – the snowstorm saved me…
Over Fields of Fire: Flying the Sturmovik in Action on the Eastern Front 1942-45 (Soviet Memories of War) Page 9
