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

by Anna Timofeeva-Egorova

  In extremely difficult conditions, fighting fiercely, our troops retreated to the foothills of the Greater Caucasus Range. The enemy had occupied a vast territory: the Rostov district, the Kalmykia Republic, Krasnodar and Stavropol Provinces, penetrated into Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Chechen-Ingushetia. On 25 October 1942 the Hitlerites threw up to 200 tanks into the battle and having broken through the lines of the 37th Army, they captured Nalchik on 28 October. Exploiting their success, in a week they approached Ordzhonikidze. But on 6 November the incoming reserves of our Army launched a counter-attack against the Fascist grouping and smashed it in six days of fighting. The Germans had gone on the defensive in the direction of Grozny too. The plan to conquer the Transcaucasus, Grozny and Baku oil-producing regions was frustrated.

  It was in those very days when my last sortie in the communication squadron took place. I flew to the Alagir area and on the way I was attacked by German fighters. Manoeuvring literally between the treetops, I desperately tried to hide from them. The Messers were firing blindly but with long spiteful bursts. I threw my plane left and right…“When will they finally leave me alone?..” And suddenly…My machine smashed its wing into a tree. A heavy blow…A crack…Another blow!…When I came to my senses I couldn’t understand at all where I was. My legs and arms were sore, my chest was constricted, it was hard to breath. Stirring a little I understood nothing was broken. But where was the plane? I looked around and saw it just nearby: it lay completely destroyed. The engine was stuck into the ground, the propeller (more precisely, fragments of it) was scattered around, the ailerons were hanging on the trees with some other parts. In other words the plane was no more. I felt pain, vexation and bitterness deep inside. “What shall I do? What shall I do…?” I repeated over and over again hobbling towards the aerodrome. There was no proof that I had been attacked by the Germans. I thought: “What if I say I crashed the plane myself. It’ll be a chance to get transferred to the ground-attack aviation!” After all, by that time I had already flown 130 combat flights in the U-2!

  Only the day after, towards evening, did I find the village of Shali, beyond Grozny, and appear before the squadron commander. “I crashed my plane and am ready to bear responsibility for it according to the war time rules” I rattled off, standing at attention.

  Major Boulkin, it seemed to me, was in a bad mood. Looking at me angrily he began to yell, “Do you wanna go to a penal company? You’ll find out there what hard times are! Now look – they’ve started playing vandal to escape to combat aviation!”

  Whom Major Boulkin had in mind I didn’t know, but it hurt to listen to his abuse.

  Alexey Ryabov stood up for me. “Look, Commander, let’s transfer her to the UTAP3 together with Potanin. Let her be retrained. After all, there’ve already been five requests to send her off to a women’s regiment…”

  This was the first time I had heard about that, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything – Dronov appeared from nowhere: “Permission to speak? I’ll fix up Egorova’s plane. I promise!”

  Many years later I found out Dronov had indeed restored my plane and handed it over to the squadron engineer, but then secured for himself a transfer to another unit and worked as a mechanic on an La-5 fighter plane till the end of the war. Nevertheless, Potanin and I were transferred to the town of Salyany on the Caspian sea to a training regiment. And the first obstacle on my way to a combat plane appeared immediately.

  “So, a ground-attack pilot?” The Regimental Commander said with interest. “But do you know what a hellish job it is to attack ground targets? No woman has fought in a Sturmovik yet! Two cannons, two machine-guns, two batteries of rockets, various bombs – that’s the Il’s4 armament. Trust my experience – not every good pilot can handle such a machine! Not everyone is capable steering a ‘flying tank’, of orienting himself in combat conditions while hedge-hopping, bombing, shooting the cannons and machine-guns, launching rockets at rapidly flashing targets, conducting group dog-fights, sending and receiving orders by radio – all at the same time. Think it over!” he reasoned with me.

  “I’ve though it over already. I understand everything” I replied briefly but resolutely.

  “God save us, what a stubborn one! Then do what makes sense to you!” And the Regimental Commander backed down.

  I lived there in a two-room flat with the wife of one of the pilots, who had flown to there from Baku. There were plenty of planes in the training regiment but all of them were obsolete. We flew UT-2, UTI-4, SB, I-16, Su-2. You could choose any plane and I flew a lot in an I-16. People said the I-16 was a very difficult plane to handle but I had no problems – that made the guys envious. It was such a small, wonderful plane, so agile! But of the Il-2 Sturmovik, which the regiment commander had commented would be beyond my control, there was still no sign. Still, my new comrades and I were eager to master that very Sturmovik. Nevertheless, I enthusiastically set about studying the equipment that was new to me. I learned to handle a fighter plane and to conduct a ‘dog-fight’. I could confidently take off in a light Su-2 bomber. Finding that its take-off and landing speed were almost the same as the Il-2’s, I took to this plane with a special zeal. Its engine worked on castorka, that is, castor oil. They would say then: “The castorka has arrived, hold onto your guts!”5

  Training flights were undertaken almost daily. I remember we started a dog-fight there, I began to loop my I-16, then landed and began to climb out, my head spun and I fainted: I was hungry. Petrol was plentiful in the regiment – fly as you please, but the food in the dry mess was watery, to put it mildly. We had cash, for we were paid wages, but there was nothing to buy – everything was rationed. The guys would go to the Kura river to fish for lamprey and call me to go with them. These lampreys were like snakes and that was why I thought: “My God, I’d rather stay hungry!” But having fainted after the fighting drill in that Ishak6 I told them; “Guys, I’m coming with you and I’ll eat lampreys”. They would set up a campfire, fry them a bit and eat them.

  Once I heard that the head of the political section of the 230th Ground Attack Aviation Division Colonel Toupanov had arrived at the UTAP to select pilots for combat regiments. Well, I thought “You can’t die twice, but we’ll all die once” and rushed to headquarters! I asked everyone I met: “Where’s Toupanov?” But they only shrugged in reply. At last I stopped a stumpy man in flying overalls and uniform peaked cap and asked again: “Do you know where Colonel Toupanov from the front is around here?”

  The stranger looked at me attentively, smoothing out the wrinkles on his overalls under his officer’s belt. “And what exactly do you need him for?”

  “I’ll tell as soon as I meet him”

  “Let’s assume I’m Toupanov.”

  “You?” My insolent tone frightened me. What a blunder I’d committed! But there was no room to retreat. And furthermore the colonel repeated: “So, what did you want to tell me?”

  “My name is Egorova,” I started from the beginning. “I graduated from the Kherson aviation school, worked as a pilot-instructor, have been at the front since the beginning of the war as a pilot in Boulkin’s squadron, maybe you’ve heard of it…”

  “Can you make it shorter?”

  “I can…Take me into your division!”

  Obviously the colonel had not expected such a turn of events. He looked at me narrowly once again: was I joking or not?…But there was no sign of levity on my face. “Alright, Egorova. Come around tomorrow for an interview…”

  In the morning about thirty men were gathered by the headquarters. Among the agitated crowd of pilots there were invitees and volunteers. Everyone wanted to fly the Sturmoviks – such was the mood! Toupanov spoke to every man – questioned them about flying, home, family. Some were picked for the 230th Ground Attack Aviation Division, some were not. When it was my turn and I entered the office, Toupanov, not responding to my salutation, kept silent and at last said, “Do you understand what you’re asking? To fight in a ‘flying tank’! Two can
nons, two machine-guns, rockets! And hedge-hopping height? Diving? Not all men can handle that…”

  “I understand,” I replied quietly. “Of course the Il-2 is not a ladies’ plane. But is the U-2? Dying is not ladies’ business either! It’s not the time for bearing children!” Here I got heated. “But I’m not a countess, I’m a Metrostroy girl. My hands are no weaker than a man’s…” And I stretched both hands forward. But the Colonel wasn’t looking at them at all. Only now had he noticed the Order of the Red Banner on my chest.

  “What were you decorated for?”

  “For locating the Cavalry Corps and carrying out other missions for the Southern Front HQ”, I replied.

  “W-e-l-l,” Toupanov drawled. “In the first year of the war they didn’t give many of those…” And he continued, “It seems to me you said you used to work as a pilot-instructor before the war?”

  “I did, in the Kalinin aeroclub.”

  “And how many people did you teach to fly?”

  “Forty two…”

  Toupanov remained silent, and then began to ask about my mother, then about my brothers. Of my brothers I said they were all at the front, but concealed again that my eldest brother had been repressed. I told him about my sister Zena as well – she was in the sieged Leningrad working as foreman at the Metal Plant.

  Questions poured as from a horn of plenty, and I kept answering hanging my head lower and lower, ready to burst into tears. There was less and less hope left that I would fight on a Sturmovik. I even thought Toupanov was distracting me from the main topic intentionally and was sure to conclude at the end of the interview that I wasn’t suitable: women, he would say, do not fly Sturmoviks …But something quite unexpected happened. The head of the Aviation Division Political Section smiled at me as if apologizing, and asked: “Have I tired you out with my questions?” And then concluded: “We are taking you on. Consider yourself a pilot of the 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment of our 230th Division. In three days we’re heading off to Derbent. Be ready.”

  How happy I was! I rushed outside and began to do cartwheels on my stretched arms, to the friendly laughter of my comrades: it was lucky I was in trousers!

  Before departure I went to bid farewell to the commander of the training regiment. He sincerely congratulated me on my transfer to the Sturmoviks but, as if by the way, suggested: “After all, we’ve received ‘Ils’ too. You’d get your own room – you’d be more comfortable. On top of that there’s no flak here. Stay with us.”

  “No!”

  20

  “Not a woman, a combat pilot”

  T

  he group of pilots headed off to Derbent by train before dark. I was amongst them – the first female pilot who had got admission to the Sturmoviks…Since my childhood I’d been lucky enough to meet good people. Wherever I studied, wherever I worked I would meet loyal friends, kind-hearted tutors. I was trained at the factory school by the old craftsman Goubanov, I was assisted by the engineer Aliev, who was the shift boss, in my transfer to the most important sector of operations – the tunnel. I was trained by the superb instructor Miroevskiy in the aeroclub, the secretary of the Ulyanovsk District Comsomol Committee gave me a hand at a very hard moment of my life, then there was Maria Borek from Leningrad, the Secretary of the Smolensk District Comsomol Committee, the Commissar of the Smolensk aeroclub…Was it really possible to count all those who had warmed my soul with their sympathy and human kindness and helped me to realize my dream!

  But not everyone met me with sympathy in the ground attack regiment. There were some (for some reason, especially many of those belonged to the technical staff) who grumbled under their breath “What good is a woman in ground-attack aviation?” But the regiment navigator Petr Karev shushed them: “The Regiment’s not getting a woman, it’s getting a combat pilot…”

  So there I was in the ground attack regiment. The Battalion Commissar Ignashov – deputy commander for political affairs – summoned us, the newly arrived pilots, by turns for interview. I didn’t know what he had spoken about with my comrades, but I was stunned by his very first question: “And what’s the point of putting yourself in mortal danger?”

  “Mortal all of a sudden?” I growled, displeased.

  But Ignashov went on: “A Sturmovik is too hard for a woman. And take into account, our losses are rather great. I’ll tell you confidentially that in the latest fighting over Gizel village we lost nearly all our airmen. Although our plane is armour-plated, more airmen die in it than in any other kind of plane. Think it over properly and go back to the training regiment. The Sturmovik isn’t suitable for a woman!”

  “And what is suitable for a woman at war, Comrade Commissar?” I asked challengingly. “To be a medic? To drag a wounded man from the battlefield under enemy fire, strained beyond her strength? Or being a sniper? To stalk the enemy under cover for hours in all weathers, kill them, get killed herself? Or maybe, a surgeon would be easier? To receive the wounded, to operate under bombing and, seeing people suffer and die, suffer herself?”

  Ignashov wanted to say something but I was already hard to stop. “Obviously it would be easier to be dropped off behind enemy lines with a radio transmitter? And maybe now women are better off on the home front? They smelt metal, grow corn and bring up kids at the same time, they get the death notices of their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, daughters? It seems to me, Comrade Commissar”, by now I had began to talk quieter, “now is no time to see any difference between a man and a woman until we cleanse our motherland of the Hitlerites…”

  I finished my impromptu ‘performance’, and then Ignashov smiled: “That’s right, my daughter is as cranky as you. She used to work in a base hospital as a surgeon, but no way: she had to be at the frontline. Currently she’s somewhere near Stalingrad…We haven’t heard from her for a long while – neither my wife nor me. My wife suffers especially – she’s alone at home…Do you write letters to your family?” Ignashov asked, taking some pills out of his pocket. Only now did I discern how ill he was. He had ‘bags’ under his eyes, blue lips, and a pale and puffy face.

  “I do write letters but haven’t had any from home for a long time. I feel very sad sometimes. Then I convince myself that it’s the field mail’s fault…”

  “At your age you can convince yourself even of something pleasant”, the Commissar said, addressing me with ‘thou’ for the first time. “Are you married?”

  “No”, I replied in one word, and suddenly, as if I had at long last found someone to speak my mind to, to disclose my innermost thoughts to, I burst out: “But I love very much one man, a pilot. He’s a fighter pilot, in combat somewhere near Leningrad. We wanted to get married before the war but I kept postponing it. One time I said that we should graduate from the flying school, another time that I had to turn out one more group of cadets, and then the war came…”

  The conversation with Ignashov clearly took too long but we parted like old friends.

  “You can come to me with all your questions, joys and sorrows. We will sort everything out together”, he said, sort of casually, in farewell, and stretched his hand out to me. Ignashov was popular in the regiment. As for the political commissar who had been his predecessor in the 805th, once they had even bashed him! According to the stories he used to just walk around giving orders. The regiment was in combat, men were dying, everyone was having a hard time, but he would just give orders…Ignashov was a completely different man.

  We were given only two days to study the Sturmovik equipment and get ready for examination by the senior regimental engineer. All the newly-arrived men were distributed among the squadrons straightaway. The pilot Vakhramov and I were sent to the 3rd Squadron. Puny, short Valya1 Vakhtramov looked like a boy. And when we’d found out that he was only about nineteen we were surprised: this little chap, with this height, had managed to put up his age so as to join an aviation school!

  When we reached the Ogni aerodrome Vakhramov lagged behind the train. There were very few p
assenger trains back then and he had to catch up with us on a tanker of fuel oil. Of course he was stained badly and had also lost his papers. In short, when Valentin arrived at the regiment nobody would believe he was a pilot: my confirmation was required. The regiment commander himself met Vakhramov out and said just one thing: “Clean yourself up!”