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

by Anna Timofeeva-Egorova

  There were changes in the regiment: an order was issued for the appointment of “the Regimental Navigator Major Karev Petr Timofeevich as Deputy Commander of the 805th Ground-Attack Aviation Regiment, Lieutenant Egorova Anna Alexandrovna as Navigator of the same regiment”. I was still a Lieutenant but this was a lieutenant-colonel’s position! This promotion horrified me and I rushed to the commander “to sort it out”. Not long before, Kozin had visited his family somewhere in the deep rear. Upon his return he showed me a photo of his daughter. Wide-open trusting childish eyes, very similar to her father’s, two plaits, a kerchief tied under her chin, looked at me from the picture. “The heiress!” Mikhail Nikolaevich said laughing.

  We loved our commander very much. A gallant pilot, fair to his subordinates and strict in moderation, he carried in him so much vivacity, joy, sincere gaiety! ‘Batya’ (Daddy) was what we called him between ourselves in our friendly collective. He sang with us, danced, shared griefs…Showing me the photo of his daughter Mikhail Nikoilaevich confided: “You know, Lieutenant, when my wife found out that there was a female airman in the regiment, she became jealous.”

  “Let her be like that. It’s good sometimes”, the regiment zampolit2 Dmitriy Polikarpovich Svydkiy, appointed to replace the fallen Ignashov, laughed then.

  It seemed, after Ignashov, who had won great respect in the regiment for his tactfulness, after his kind treatment of people and his fidelity to principle, that the new zampolit would find it hard to gain people’s confidence and win the same level of fondness and respect from the personnel. But time went by and Dmitriy Polikarpovich, while still a combat flyer, won many people over. He had a marvellous feature – he knew whom to say an encouraging word to, whom to rebuke, whom to praise. And he would do all that at the proper time without delaying till tomorrow, and somehow inconspicuously and tactfully. And flying combat sorties with one or another group and frequently finding himself in difficult situations, Shvidkiy certainly knew the aspirations and the mood of the airmen.

  Debriefing of combat sorties had changed its character after Shvidkiy’s arrival in our unit. Whereas before we had spoken mostly about the accuracy of our strikes now we began to talk more about the pilots’ actions, their fortitude, initiative, battle tactics. Dmitriy Polikarpovich paid a lot of attention to combat camaraderie and cohesion. Our new zampolit liked to repeat Suvorov’s words “Perish yourself but rescue your comrade!” – how that was to reverberate around in the regiment I will tell of later…

  But in the meantime I had to talk to the Regiment’s Commander about my new appointment and I walked down into the headquarters dugout. “Comrade Commander, may I address you?” I pronounced, saluting according to the regulations.

  “You may”, Kozin nodded in agreement and glanced at me somewhat reproachfully.

  “What have you appointed me Regimental Navigator for? I won’t handle it. I’ll be a laughing stock! There’s Berdashkevich, the 2nd Squadron Commander, there’s Soukhoroukov, Vakhramov. It’ll be handier for them to be Navigator of a male regiment!”

  “Have you said your piece?” The lieutenant-colonel asked brusquely. “Then about turn and march! Double-quick to carry out your Regiment Navigator duties. And don’t bring this matter up to me again.”

  Now in my new capacity I ran training with the flying personnel: sometimes I would direct an ‘attack’ by radio from the bombing range observation tower. My duty was to make sure everyone had their maps in order. During preparation for a mission I had to make a meticulous study, tell the airmen how we’d be flying, where the targets would be, what we were going to bomb. That’s preparation for a sortie too. I began to like the navigator’s duties a bit too, they grew on me. After all, I had graduated from the Kherson Aviation School as a navigator, when working in the Kalinin aeroclub I used to teach aerial navigation for several hours a week, I had done a navigator’s course in Stavropol. In a word, knowing about my navigator’s ‘classes’ and taking into account my combat experience the regimental commanders had not appointed me for the position by an accident. Apart from that I was promoted to the rank of Senior Lieutenant.

  So, here I was standing on the tower, and there was such a wonderful panorama around me! The planes were taxiing over the green carpet of the airfield, from the Poltava side the American ‘Fortresses’3 were taking off to bomb the common foe. A small river was visible not far off, one of Peter the Great’s redoubts towered just nearby, and skylarks completely filled the sky…

  The telephone rang. I took the receiver and heard the voice of the flight controller:

  “Get ready, taking off shortly!”

  The radio-station’s engine under the tower began to work. I took the microphone, blew into it for convention’s sake and spoke: “Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! ‘Birch’ here! Do you hear there?”

  “‘Mignonette-2’ here”! ‘Mignonette-2’ here”! I hear you loud and clear. Request two hundred…”

  ‘Mignonette-2’ was Major Karev’s callsign, and two hundred was permission to carry out bombing and ground attack. I’d always wondered why Regimental Signals Commander Matyshenko gave the men call signs like ‘Mignonette’, ‘Violet’, ‘Lilac’, ‘Volga’4. And once he gave me the call-sign ‘Hawk’ – enough to make a cat laugh!

  A group of Sturmoviks was already over the training ground – it made a circuit and steeply dived on a target. The pilots carefully caught the targets in their gun-sights and shot short bursts at the scattered dummies, then dropped bombs and circled to gain altitude. Karev, Mignonette-2, calmly gave orders and carefully watched every pilot’s work.

  “Khoikhlin! Reduce your diving angle…”

  “Ageev! Don’t fall behind…”

  “Tsvetkov! Slow your plane down or you’ll shoot ahead of the group.”

  “Well-done, Kirillov!”

  The voice of Mignonette-2 flew over the training ground and, seeing Karev’s painstaking work with the young pilots, I involuntarily thought of that steadfast man with deep respect, remembering my flights with him over Taman. I have never seen a bolder and more gallant flyer over the battlefield than Karev.

  After repeating the pass, Karev’s group retired towards the aerodrome.

  “Birch, Mignonette-17 here, Mignonette-17 here…” A different voice was heard now from the microphone. “Permission for two hundred?”

  “Granted!”

  And suddenly I heard: “Birchie, are your teeth bothering you?” I did indeed have a toothache. I was standing on the tower with a bandaged cheek, but I furiously cut off the insolent son of the airwaves: “Mignonette-17, mind your own business! Reduce your angle!”

  But the pilot didn’t obey and dropped his bombs diving at a steep angle.

  “Mignonette-17! Stop acting willfully! Otherwise I’ll shut the down the range!”

  “Roger”, the pilot replied gaily and closed in for another attack. You had to admit, he attacked the target deftly, but then he left the range descending, hedge-hopping, leaving a Ukrainian song behind him:

  You played a trick on me,

  You’ve gone and let me down,

  You’ve gone and turned me,

  From a boy into a clown.

  By now I knew the pilot was Lieutenant Ivan Pokashevskiy. That fellow with the broad face and mop of dark hair and mischievous grey eyes had stood out among the newcomers. He was out of uniform: on top of an old-fashioned blouse and civilian trousers he had a wool-lined jacket, worn, seasoned jackboots, an ear-flapped cap set on the back of his head – just about to fall off…Ivan told us he had been shot down in combat and taken prisoner. When the Fritzes were taking the POW airmen to Germany he and two of his comrades broke a hole in the wagon floor and at night time leaped out of the moving train. They then ran into the woods where they managed to find the partisans. Pokashevskiy fought alongside the partisans for seven months and was even awarded the Order of the Red Star. Then the airmen were transferred to Moscow and assigned to aviation units, and thus Ivan found himself in our regiment. When h
is father learned his son was alive (he and his mother had received the death notice a year before) he sold his bee-hives and bought an aircraft with the proceeds. Ivan’s father very much wanted his son to fly that plane: he reckoned it would be safer that way.

  Pokashevskiy was fitted out in our regiment and appointed as a pilot to the 2nd Squadron. And then his father – Ivan Potapovich Pokashevskiy – arrived in Karlovka and brought with him his eldest son Vladimir – a sovkhoz5 director.

  “Let my laddies serve in your unit”, he said to the regimental commander trustingly, in Ukrainian. “Volod’ka6 has been in ‘armour’7 as irreplaceable – enough is enough! It’s time he does his duty! But only on one condition – don’t make it cushy for my sons, put the heat on them like it says to in the Army Regulations…”

  The weather was wonderful that day. There was not a single cloud in the blue sky, the sun was as warming as in summer. A lot of people were gathered at the aerodrome – locals from Karlovka and the neighbouring villages with banners and portraits of Party and State leaders, and the heroes of the occasion themselves. And there, aside from the other planes, stood a brand-new Sturmovik with an inscription on the fuselage ‘To the Pokashevkiy sons – from their Father’.

  The head of the Division’s Political Department Lieutenant-Colonel I.M.Dyachenko and the Pokashevskiy family climbed up on the plane’s wing. The sons helped their father to get up on it and stood next to him: Ivan to the right, Vladimir to the left. The meeting was opened by Dyachenko who had two Orders of the Red Banner on his chest. Ivan Mironovich had been badly wounded defending Moscow, and after that the doctors ruled him out of flying operations.

  Dyachenko spoke passionately and excitedly about the kolkhoznik8 Pokashevskiy’s patriotic deed, about the coming battles and our future Victory. Then he let Ivan Potapovich have the floor. The old man gave a start and was just about to step forward, but his sons held him back so to stop him tumbling from the wing. And he said only two words: “Brothers and sisters!” and there he fell silent. His sons leant towards him and said something, apparently encouraging him…I would long remember that simple peasant’s short speech in Ukrainian: “I’ve got two sons. I’m giving them away to my dear Fatherland9. I’d like to join you beating the invaders but I’m a bit past it…”

  The old fellow wanted to say something else but, unable to cope with the emotions that had engulfed him, waved his hand, bowed from the waist in all four directions and kissed his sons three times. Uproar and applause from the whole crowd, – and the orchestra took up a flourish. “Chair him, chair him!” a cry came from the crowd and they picked the old man up in their arms.

  From that day on Ivan and Vladimir Pokashevskiy were assigned as the crew of their dad’s plane: Ivan as pilot and Vladimir as aerial gunner. And now I was watching through my binoculars: the bombing range team was checking the results of the Pokashevskiys’ work – excellent! All the hits were on target! Suddenly a Sturmovik flew up and approached the range without my permission. “Birch’s here! Birch’s here!” I said rapidly. “Advise who’s flying over the range?”

  There was no reply, and by now the plane was already making a turn and diving at our tower. Had he gone mad? He seemed to have confused the ‘T’ sign on the tower with a cross on the range. “Everyone to the trenches!” I ordered and saw the two-way-station driver, a technician and someone else throw themselves into the trench.

  A bomb exploded: the blast wave swept away a tent standing nearby and rocked the tower – bomb splinters also hit it full on. For some reason I grabbed not the rails but the microphone and the telephone, and rushed here and there with them, shouting:

  “Signaller! Send a red flare, a flare! Send him away from the range!”

  The flares soared. The pilot understood his error and retired. Well, he hadn’t done a bad job at all – it was just a pity that it had not been on the right target. But…training is training!

  The next group was led to the range by the comesk Captain Berdashkevich – a kindhearted Byelorussian from Polotzk. Misha was heartbroken: his father, a partisan, had been killed in action, and his mother had been shot for her partisan connections.

  “Flak from the right!” setting the scenario for his group, and the novices conducted an anti-flak manoeuvre, changing both their altitude and course. “Out of the sun, right – four Fokkers!” The leader’s voice was heard again, and the whole group rearranged itself into a defensive circle.

  A ‘life-buoy’, as we called such a circle, is a variety of battle order worked out for defending against Messers. Let’s assume that an enemy fighter tries to attack our Sturmovik – then a plane following him along the circle is in a position to cut the attacker off with his frontal fire. We may pounce on targets from this circle too – I saw twelve Sturmoviks already diving, their rockets darting at the ground, and a ripple explosion resounded mightily over the area. Then cannon and machine-gun fire destroyed the targets and, at the moment of pulling out of the dive, bombs separated from all the aircraft at once. When the dust settled I saw no targets through the binoculars…

  May flew by imperceptibly. The young pilots had learned to shoot and bomb accurately, and begun to keep formation not only when flying straight but also when manoeuvring. They’d learned to attack targets in groups up to a squadron in size. Now the regiment was ready to take off to the front and at last we received approval. The 197th Ground Attack Division, which now included our 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment, had just been formed. It was destined to join the 6th Aerial Army commanded by General F.P.Polynin: we knew that we would fight as part of the 1st Byelorussian Front.

  The 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division was commanded by Colonel V.A.Timofeev. Many pilots remembered him from aviation schools such as Postavskoye and, during the war, Orenburgskoye, which he had been in charge of. When Timofeev was introducing himself to the flying personnel he seemed to me to bear some resemblance to a Tsarist officer as they had been shown in the movies. His tunic and breeches were strictly fitted to his figure, the box-calf jackboots with high heels and knee caps shone as if lacquered, there were leather gloves on his hands.

  “You can tell straightaway: he’s from the rear”, said my plane’s mechanic Gorobets, standing next to me.

  “No! Don’t you see, the Colonel’s got the Order of Lenin and a ‘XX years of the RKKA’10 medal on his chest?” Pilot Zoubov objected. “He fought on the Kursk Salient, was a Deputy Division Commander there. And he received his Order of Lenin back in pre-war times in Transbaikalia. He was in charge of an aviation brigade after graduating from the Air Force Academy and made it the best in drill preparation in Blucher’s11 Far East Army.

  “Why are you mentioning Blucher? He was an enemy of the people, after all!”

  “He was no enemy of the people at all”, “Misha declared stubbornly. “He was a real people’s hero: my own uncle – my mum’s brother – a kombrig12 used to tell me about him when I was a kid – and I believed him and still do. And Timofeev, by the way, was arrested in 1938 too and spent two years in Chita prison before he was released as a baselessly victimized man, restored in his rights and appointed head of an aviation school. Shvernik13 himself – a teacher of Vyacheslav Arsenievich – backed him! But apparently there was no one to stand up for Blucher…”

  “They say Timofeev fought during the Civil War?” someone asked Zoubov.

  “He did. He was a scout on the Eastern Front, then a Deputy Commissar in the 15th Inzenskiy Regiment.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “How could I not know? I was a flying cadet at the Orenburg School. Vyacheslav Arsenievich used to tell us about the Civil War, gave very interesting lectures.”

  “What about?”

  “Various things – I’d never heard anything of the kind before. And how to hold your knife and fork properly, how to smoke elegantly without leaving marks on your fingers. We were taught how to dance and how to invite a partner to a dance.”

  “What’s this, the
war had been on for two years and you were learning to dance?” Tolya Bougrov, a pilot with extensive burn scars on his face, asked angrily.

  “Maybe, he also taught you how to choose a good wife?” Zhenya Berdnikov grinned.