Over Fields of Fire: Flying the Sturmovik in Action on the Eastern Front 1942-45 (Soviet Memories of War)

by Anna Timofeeva-Egorova

  “Sto-o-op the chatter!” The regimental Chief-of-Staff Major Kouznetsov loudly cut off our sotto-voce conversation, and everyone fell silent. Such was our introduction to Vyacheslav Arsenievich Timofeev…

  The 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division successfully relocated to the Byelorussian aerodromes. The weather wasn’t spoiling us those days. A layer of thick fog lay dolefully over the airfield, and the Sturmoviks, having taxied out to the start point, had to turn their engines off. But then the wind blew and dispersed all the misty haze. The airmen of our division took off on combat missions one group after another. The Sturmoviks were bombing the vanguard of the enemy’s defences, neutralising the enemy’s artillery fire, blocking them on the roads, burning vehicles and tanks, wiping out infantry…Our routine work had started.

  We co-operated with the famed General Chuikov’s Army (the 8th Guards)14 – from the Czartorysk field aerodrome. It seemed to us, the airmen, to be a bit quieter over here after the fighting over Taman and the Kerch Peninsula, but it was far away from being so. On one sortie Captain Berdashkevich was leading a group of nine Sturmoviks to the target. They’d been given a complicated mission – to destroy a ford on the Bug river, and thus to impede the retreat of the enemy troops. Misha had meticulously ‘played out’ the whole route with the pilots: he had shown it them on the map, scribbled on the ground with a twig the distinctive landmarks, the flak guns’ estimated positions. Then each of the wingmen repeated the ‘flight’, and only when Berdashkevich had made sure that everyone had understood everything, did he order: “Off to your planes!”

  On approach to the target the pilots heard his calm and gentle voice again: “Safety locks off. Spread out, keep freer…”

  “Manoeuvring, guys! Manoeuvring!” Berdashkevich ordered and in a dive threw his machine at the ford.

  The others followed him and the target was carpeted by bombs. But fiery tracer from the ground criss-crossed over the Sturmoviks. The pilot Khoukhlin’s plane somewhat clumsily, as if unwillingly, aimlessly, with a smashed wing and a destroyed stabilizer climbed up, and then abruptly lowered its nose and went towards the ground with a dead engine. Nevertheless, Khoukhlin managed to straighten out and then land the badly damaged Il-2 on a small, crater-pitted field beyond the ford on the enemy side – and the Hitlerites rushed towards the Sturmovik from all sides like carrion crows. The group leader Berdashkevich saw all this, and sent the remaining eight Ils to help his wingmen. The Sturmoviks diving one after another were beating off the Hitlerites surrounding our plane, and Andrey Konyakhin – a faithful and inseparable friend of Victor Khoukhlin – closed in for landing where the shot up Sturmovik stood.

  Konyakhin’s plane touched down very close to the Khoukhlin’s Il, jolted over humps and bumps and stopped. The Fascists, scenting a double prize, rushed into another attack, but Berdashkevich and his group drove them off again. In the meantime Andrey, defending himself from the closely pressing submachine-gunners, was firing his plane’s cannons and machine-guns at them, but his trails of fire were going too high, missing the enemy. Then Konyakhin’s aerial gunner leaped out and…lifted the Sturmovik’s tail with a superhuman effort! The pilot now began shooting at the Hitlerites on target. In the meantime Khoukhlin set fire to his badly damaged Il, ran to his friend’s plane and climbed into the rear cockpit with his gunner. Konyakhin turned his machine around, gave it full gas and a boost, and the Sturmovik rushed at the panicked Hitlerite sub-machine-gunners and then climbed into the sky.

  Later Andrey told how after the take-off he began to doubt whether he had enough fuel to make it home. He glanced back at the gunner’s cockpit and went numb – two legs were sticking out of it next to the machine-gun! Dumbfounded, he didn’t understand at first that it was his own gunner, who had jumped into the already occupied cockpit on the run and had not managed to turn around in the tight space – he’d got stuck upside-down.

  After the landing the engine stalled. Everyone who was at the aerodrome rushed to the motionless Sturmovik. They pulled one aerial gunner from the rear cockpit, then the other, then the pilot. Konyakhin was sitting in his cockpit, pale, his head thrown back on the protective screen, his eyes closed, his wet curly hair stuck to his temples. Major Karev was the first to rush to him and began to kiss him. Then, straight from the plane wing, he addressed his regiment comrades excitedly: “Comrades! The pilot Konyakhin has adhered to the great commander Suvorov’s precept: “Perish yourself but rescue your comrade!” He’s observed this commandment three times – he’s brought his Sturmovik back to the aerodrome, saved his friend and stayed alive himself! Let’s chair the hero!”

  The pilots and gunners pulled Konyakhin out of the cockpit and carried him over to the headquarters dugout on their hands. The next day photojournalists from the Army and Front-level newspapers arrived unexpectedly. They wanted to photograph Andrey, but he hid from them and sent his total refusal via a friend: “They won’t get me! This is a combat airfield, not a photo studio and I’m not gonna pose.”

  So, a piece in the paper was published without Konyakhin’s portrait. Later I became a witness of this dialogue between the friends: “You’re still alive?” Konyakhin asked Khoukhlin.

  “I am, but how come they haven’t shot you down yet? They should have smacked you with shrapnel you-know-where to make you go to bed on time and not sit up late with Katyusha from the field ambulance.”

  The city of Kovel was liberated from the Germans by July 7. Following that, we relocated to one of its aerodromes situated in the area. Once on a new field, I was immediately ordered to make a reconnaissance mission over the enemy’s communications, to detect his troop concentrations and to record that on a photo film accordingly. After taking off, I passed over the next airfield to join the fighters about to cover me. A couple were already waiting for me with their engines running. While I was circling the field, they took off and started climbing up. I quickly established a radio link with a flight leader of the fighters and without catching my breath ordered:

  “I will run both a visual recon and make some photos. Please do not move far away from me – keep me covered. Is that clear? Receiving!”

  Usually on such occasions the leader would of the fighters reply: “Understood!” and either repeat the task or specify if something was unclear. But this time after a short pause, there was a hoarse young tenor, full of sarcasm: “Hey, you, a ‘hunchback’! Why are you screeching like a milksop?” And after some silence he added with annoyance: “And you pretend to be a Sturmovik pilot? It is disgusting to hear you!”

  In the end, the fighter pilot attached a salty word.

  The offensive ‘milksop’ outraged me! In a fit of temper I wanted to respond in a similar manner, but managed to hold myself in check. After all, they didn’t even suspect that they were subordinate to a ‘milksop’. So after a minute I resumed my high spirits.

  I had carried out the task successfully and on my way home contacted the guidance station, reporting the situation in the reconnoitred area. A familiar officer from the guidance station thanked me for the intelligence data with the words: “Thank you, Annoushka!” And it was then, when the fighters went mad. They started an amazing performance around my plane! One would make a ‘barrel’ turn; another would roll over his wing! After calming down a bit, they rejoined my Ilyushin closely and, vying with each other, began to cheer me from their cockpits waving their arms. Flying past their aerodrome I thanked the fighter pilots in farewell: “Thank you, brothers! Go and land! I’ll make it home on my own now…”

  But my ‘bodyguards’ accompanied me to our very aerodrome. Only after seeing me land did they circle our field, waggle the wings of their planes and vanish over the horizon. I was reporting ‘mission accomplished’ to the commander at the CP when I noticed something. Yes, everybody was listening to my report, but first smiling – and then suddenly bursting into a laugh. “Lieutenant Egorova has started bringing her admirers straight to her base!” Karev genially commented on the event. The pilots la
ughed, and I laughed too, pleased with the successful reconnaissance. I had come back without a scratch.

  31

  Fighting after a lull

  P

  olesie1 was now behind us, and our army moved forward liberating long-suffering Poland. Fields with narrow strips of unharvested rye, stretching from one farmstead to another like streamers, shot past under the wings of my Sturmovik. I could see villages with roofs covered with shingles, KościóŽs2, wooden crosses at every road intersection.

  We were on our way to attack the enemy reserves near the City of CheŽm. On the radio I heard the voice of our group leader, Regiment Commander Kozin: “Egorova! On the right there are disguised artillery pieces in the shrubs. Strafe the scum with your cannons!”

  I made a steep right turn, switched the plane to diving, pinpointed the target and opened fire. And at the same moment German ack-ack went to work blocking our way. “Vakhramov!” The commander ordered, ignoring the call-signs. “Give it to the battery with your rockets!” This was an ordinary combat operation. On the road near CheŽm there was a mechanized column: armored cars, tank-cars, trucks and tanks…

  “Manoeuvring, guys, manoeuvring…” The leader reminded us and led into the attack from a turn. “Aim well and fire!”

  Strips of smoke stretched from the ground towards our machines – it was the small-calibre guns that had opened fire, and quadruple-barrel flak guns began chattering. I’d have liked to turn a bit and send a couple of bursts at them, but an armoured car loomed in my gun-sight too alluringly. And it would have been too late – we had already rushed past them.

  We closed in for the second pass having lost our group’s rearguard, Victor Andreev. A guy from Saratov – reticent, unsmiling but kind-hearted and respected by all as the best ‘hunter’ in the regiment – he used to fly as Volodya Sokolov’s partner. Volodya had not come back from the previous ‘hunt’: a shell hit his plane, and the Sturmovik, chopping the trees with its propeller and cutting them down, fell into the forest behind enemy lines. And today we’d lost Andreev…

  We gained altitude for bombing. There were more and more black bursts in the sky, but paying no attention we dropped our bombs. It was time to pull out of our dive but the leader continued his rapid rush towards the ground. Suddenly there was a volley of flak, and Kozin’s plane seemed to stop in the air. Something blazed up for a second, and his Sturmovik crashed in a midst of enemy vehicles. A huge pillar of fire shot up…

  It is hard to convey in words now the state that engulfed us in those moments. We were violently throwing ourselves into one pass after another. It seemed there was no force that could stop us! Only after expending all our ammunition did we leave the battlefield – and no more shots came at us from the ground. The crews came back without any coordination, one at a time. We felt bitter guilt inside – we had failed to protect our Batya…We were met gloomily at the aerodrome – the fighter pilots had already despatched the terrible news by radio. Usually the plane mechanics greeted us delightedly, but today, with tears in their eyes.

  The Regimental Commander’s mechanic sobbed violently, and not knowing how to make himself busy was throwing about the caponier tools, blocks, plane covers and whatever came into his hot hands. Men moved spontaneously from all stations towards the Regimental CP. The Chief-of-Staff came out of the dugout, stepped up on a shell crate lying nearby and said: “Comrades! The Regiment’s Commander would not be pleased with us. Where’s your combat spirit? Where’s the battle readiness of the regiment? A terrible war is on! We can’t forget about it. I ask you to disperse to your places. The airmen of the 3rd Squadron – stay for a combat mission assignment. We will avenge our dead: Mikhail Nikolaevich Kozin, Victor Andreev and our other comrades who have made the supreme sacrifice for their motherland”…

  Our assumption that conditions would be quieter than over Taman had not been justified. On the second day after the death of the Regiment Commander, Ivan Pokashevskiy was killed together with his aerial gunner, Hero of the Soviet Union Junior Lieutenant Ivan Efremenko. It was a reconnaissance flight. Pokashevskiy’s brother Vladimir had fallen ill and hadn’t flown that day. The observers from the guidance station told us later that a lonely Sturmovik with the inscription ‘To the Pokashevkiy sons – from their Father’ across the fuselage leaped over the frontline just above the ground, made a steep climb and disappeared behind the lower edge of the clouds. Enemy flak guns struck, the shooting was heard to move away from the frontline into the depths of the German defence and then die away. Some time elapsed, and the pilot transmitted that he had seen camouflaged self-propelled guns and tanks in such and such a quadrant – and that the enemy was obviously drawing up his reserves. Soon all the enemy arms rattled again, pouncing at the Sturmovik coming back from scouting. The pilot gave as good as he got – he dived, and then his cannons and machine-guns worked furiously, the rockets left from under his wings like thunderbolts.

  They began to worry at the guidance station: why the pilot had engaged in combat?

  “Vistula-5, finish up!” They transmitted to Ivan’s radio, and suddenly saw the Sturmovik begin a slow (like that of a wounded man) turn towards its lines. The tip of his left wing was bent up, there was a huge hole in the right one, and the rudder had been torn off together with the antenna which was now dangling behind the tail. Pokashevskiy’s plane was descending lower and lower – Ivan was trying to drag his machine over to our side. He made it over the frontline, and immediately his plane crashed on the ground, with a thunderclap…

  Group after group of Sturmoviks took off that day to destroy the enemy tanks Lieutenant Pokashevskiy had managed to report on. The first sixer was led by Victor Gourkin with the aerial gunner Berdnikov. Prior to the sortie he addressed the airmen:

  “Let’s avenge the death of our comrades-in-arms – the two Ivans. Death to the Fascists! To your planes!”

  Ivan Soukhoroukov led a group of the same size, following Gourkin, and I led the third one to attack the tanks. We destroyed the Hitlerites’ tank column, and every pass we made in that battle was dedicated to the memory of our comrades, who had made the supreme sacrifice for the liberation of the land of Poland…

  32

  Poland

  T

  he 1st Army of the Wojsko Polskie1 which had been formed on the basis of the Tadeusz Kosciuszko2 1st Polish Division, was initially raised in May 1943. The Polish National Liberation Committee was formed in the Polish City of CheŽm, which we used to fly to for strafing and bombing. Following the liberation of the cities of Lublin and Dwblin our 6th Ground Attack Aviation Corps was given the honorary title ‘Lublinskiy’, while the 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division (which included our 805th regiment) – ‘Demblinskaya’.

  One of Hitler’s death camps, Majdanek, where a million and a half women, children, elderly people and POWs had died, was located in Lublin. Delegations from many units visited Majdanek, and so did representatives of our regiment. We saw with our own eyes the gas chambers, in which the Hitlerite butchers had been exterminating people. I remember us entering long barracks and standing petrified: piles of children’s footware of different sizes lay in front of us, ladies’ handbags from the mothers killed with their children…I couldn’t hold back the sobs, and I wasn’t alone…When we returned to the regiment a meeting was summoned. At first all honoured the memory of the dead with a minute of silence, then my comrades made short speeches calling for the ruthless struggle against the enemy!

  After completing the operation our regiment relocated. Now we were based near the Polish town of Parczew. The hostess of the apartment in which Dousya and I were billeted, Pani Juzefa, met us every day with a jug of milk. On the spot, on the doorstep, she would pour a glass for each of us and ask us to drink it. Then the host would appear – a tall and proud Pole in homespun clothes – and would also insist we drink it. It was impossible to refuse, the more so when our hosts treated us to big lumps of cottage cheese.

  Once I came back from the aerodrome alon
e, and my hostess met me with frightened eyes: “Matka Boska!3 Virgin Mary! Where is Panenka4 Dousya?” she exclaimed in alarm.

  “Dousya is delayed at the aerodrome. She’s the orderly at headquarters today”, I lied, trying not to look at the Polish woman.

  Pani Juzefa began to blow her nose into her apron and hurriedly wipe her eyes, and crossed herself. As for me, I rushed out of the house – my heart was so unbearably heavy: that day Dousya Nazarkina did not make it back from a flight…

  It so happened that our commissar (as we, in the old style, called our zampolit Shvidkiy) had flown on a combat mission in my plane, and taken my aerial gunner. The pilots with whom he had flown, and the group leader Berdashkevich, reported after returning form the mission that the commissar, not having reached the target, had turned away, and none had seen him since…

  A plane was dispatched to search for them, but Shvidkiy and Nazarkina were not found. The next night they came back to the regiment – worn out but unharmed. It turned out that when they were approaching the target the Sturmovik’s engine began to play up. Shvidkiy managed to turn the machine around and glide down to our territory. He landed the machine on a marsh near a lake. They barely got out of there…“Anna Alexandrovna!” Dousya appealed to me. “I only want to fly with you. Don’t give me away to anyone anymore!”