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

by Anna Timofeeva-Egorova

  But from the Army personnel section I was immediately transferred to the Army-level SMERSh. “We will send an inquiry to the 34th Rifles Corps of the 5th Shock Army where they checked you out”, they told me. But the room I was placed into had all the utilities, and I was fed in the officer’s mess. The SMERSh chief’s wife brought me magazines and books. Some more women visited me, Army HQ officers, the pilots…They congratulated me on my return ‘from the world beyond’, I received many gifts. A whole pile of various things accumulated in my possession, and I remember someone joking: “So, Comrade Egorova, you’ve been to hell, now paradise awaits you…”

  And one day Captain Tsekhonya came to see me. Unfortunately, I don’t remember his first or parental name but I will never forget his kindness! He had served in our 805th Ground Attack Regiment as an Adjutant in the 3rd Squadron. That was what they then called the position that is now called ‘Squadron Executive Officer’. As Deputy 3rd Squadron Commander I used to curse him over all sorts of ‘trifles’ although they say that there’re no trifles in the Air Force. But he was such a sluggish chap that I used to ‘push him’ a bit. Tsekhonya would not get angry at me (or would just pretend not to), but either way he would not repeat his mistakes. And now, having found out I was alive and that I’d been found, he came to visit me. The captain brought me a gift of some beautiful dresses and said: “I put together a parcel for my wife, but I found out you were alive and I’ve brought it to you…”

  “What do I need dresses for?” I said apprehensively. “You’d better send it home to your wife, they are in great need after all, but those are useless here. Probably the quartermasters will supply me with a uniform blouse and a skirt?”

  “You need treatment, Annochka”, Tsekhonya said affectionately and…burst into tears, staring looking for a handkerchief in his pockets…

  Having received my letter, they reported from the Regiment to my Division: ‘Senior Lieutenant Egorova is alive and is on our sector of the front’. The division commander Colonel V.A. Timofeev then ordered our regiment Zampolit D.P. Shvidkiy to mount an ‘expedition’ to search for me. And now we were to meet…

  I was sitting on a bench in the staff department of the 16th Aerial Army, waiting to be called. My crutch that assisted me in walking was next to me, there was also my straw handbag with the Soviet Air Force emblem and my initials, ‘A.E.’ This bag had been woven for me by the airmen – POWs of the Küstrin camp (currently it is stored in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation). Shvidkiy was first to notice me. Leaping out of the car, he rushed towards me with his arms flung open and nearly knocked me over! And I for some reason failed to recognise him straightaway: short, in a fur-lined flying suit and flying boots (it was still chilly) and an ear-flapped hat on his head, he was just like a bear cub! The surname Shvidkiy1 corresponded pretty well to the lively character of Dmitriy Polikarpovich. He quickly kissed me, sobbed through his nose, and ran to arrange documents for me so as to take me to the regiment immediately.

  “No, no, don’t rush…” I told him.

  “No, I’m going all the same, I’ll get you out of here!”

  “The SMERSh here have still got me.”

  “What SMERSh?”

  He started making a noise, cursed, then ran away to draw up the documents. A group of submachine-gunners accompanying the zampolit approached too, then our aerial gunners, dressed in fur flying suits. They mobbed me, greeted me noisily, interrupted each other telling me the regiment news and only one man stood aside and, not hiding his grief, wept, while repeating: “And my Dousya was killed…” I looked closely at the crying man and recognised the aerial gunner Serezha whose death Dousya had bewailed so much. She had been stowing anti-tank bombs in the cockpit before her last sortie so as to avenge Serezha’s death…

  During those same days my mum received a letter from me – it had been sent when I was still in the camp, by the tankers who had liberated us. Having received the letter, she read it several times, crossed herself and decided she was losing her mind. After all, there had been a death notice, pension had been given her instead of my pay, a reliable fortune teller had visited her and, finally, there had been a funeral in the church and an entry in the church commemoration book for the peace of soul of the ‘Warrior Anna’! “I’m going mad,” mum finally decided, crossed herself once again and headed to her neighbour’s. There she began to ask, handing the letter over to the boy: “Tolyushka, read this! I seem to be imagining things…”

  It seems when they brought my death notice to mum, she was prostrated by grief, but refused to believe in my death. Some of the locals told her confidentially that there was a very reliable fortune teller who charged a lot, but told true fortunes and only true…Mum was warned that the fortune teller’s services would be dear, but mum collected some bric-a-brac and some money, and wrote a note to her elder daughter in Kouvshinovo, where the latter worked and lived with her family: “Manyushka! I need you badly for a day, take a day off from work and come around and stay the night”.

  With difficulty Maria got permission to be absent from work and came to Volodovo by night. “My little girl, go to Spas-Yasinovichy. Our last hope is the fortune teller. Whatever she says we will go with.”

  And Maria headed off at first light in the morning – 30 kilometres one way and as many back – all on foot. She had to do it in one day, for on the next day she had to be at work for the morning shift. The daughter carried out mum’s instructions, but the fortune teller divined that I wasn’t among the living. It looks like she didn’t pay her enough! Generally speaking, it’s rare for a fortune teller to divine bad news and not instill hope in a person. And my sister, instead of sparing mum with a white lie passed her the fortune teller’s ‘truth’. We had had a tradition in our family – always tell only the truth to mum no matter how hard it is…

  After such news mum fell seriously ill again. And on top of that the Kalinin Region Military Commissariat had assigned her a pension instead of the pay mum had been getting from me. After that her faith that I was still alive was ruined completely…

  Later, about five years after the war, I was called to the Noginskiy District Military Commissariat, where I was registered. Here they gave me, against a receipt, a writ to read, from the Kalinin Region Commissariat, in which they demanded a debt be recovered from me to the sum of three thousand roubles, allegedly for wrongful payment of pension to my mum over a period of five months. In case of non-payment they threatened to take the matter to court…

  “I won’t pay”, I said then to a major – the head of the Commissariat’s 1st Department.

  “Nobody asked them to assign my mother a pension instead of my pay.”

  But then this idea entered my head: “However, let the Kalinin Region Commissariat exact my unpaid bonuses for combat sorties successfully carried out from the Air Force. Take as much as you need out of it, and send the rest to my home address!”

  “Write a memo!” – The major ordered. I did. But more than half a century has gone since then, and not a peep out of them!

  After more than a month of illness, mum made it to the church with difficulty and arranged with the priest to read the Orthodox burial service over me for the peace of the soul of the fallen ‘Warrior Anna’. By the way, the commemoration record – a booklet with a cross on its cover, in which there are records of prayers for my health, and separately, for my repose – is still kept in my desk. In the box for ‘repose’ is written ‘Warrior Anna’, and then (angrily!) the record is crossed out in a different sort of ink, by mum’s hand…

  After the ‘funeral’ there was a wake. Only old women gathered for it: there were no young people at all in the village. Aunty Anisya – mum’s sister – told me about this wake later. She was a wonderful character! Whilst my mum was strict, truthful in everything, Aunty Anisya was a mischievous and merry jester. Sisters they were, but polar opposites. My Aunt had worked at the Kouvshinovo paper factory from the age of twelve – she’d bound no
tebooks. She married a seaman from the Baltic Fleet, her countryman, but he was killed during the Kronstadt rebellion2. All that Aunty Anisya had left from him was an enlarged photo of the dashing seaman and their two kids – Kolya and Panya, who she had had to raise on her own. With the years the pain of his loss had begun to pass away, and Anisya had acquired her cheerful character again.

  After all my misfortunes I had at last arrived at mum’s in the village of Volodovo…We were sitting with our arms around each other, with my Aunty at the table covered by a festive homespun white tasselled tablecloth. A samovar polished with brick dust to a glitter close to gold – as it had seemed to me in my childhood – was boiling on the table. This samovar was the ‘medium’ one. It was called that because we had three samovars at home, presented by the priest Gavriil – mum’s uncle, brother of my Grandmother Anna. The first samovar was the biggest – a bucket of water would fit into it; the medium one contained half a bucket, and the smallest five glasses. Mum used to boil it up quickly early in the morning, and first of all drank tea from it. The big one would be heated up with charcoal beforehand, and only when the whole family was together. It was especially good at home on Saturdays. The banya3 would be heated, and at the beginning, when the heat was highest, the menfolk would bathe, and after that the womenfolk. After the banya we would drink tea till we sweated. On the table there would be dishes of soaked red bilberries, cranberries and whortleberries…

  We had a lot of fiction literature at home. Where had those many books come to a remote village from? That same priest Gavriil used to bring them to us kids, as presents, and a lot of books had accumulated at our place. He used to tell us a lot of history, geography, knew plenty of verse. I remember Father Gavriil advising us what to read. And now, in 1945, when with my Aunty I sat at the festive table laid in honour of my ‘resurrection from the dead’, and when mum had come out of the kitchen bringing plates of snacks, Aunty announced loudly (so mum would hear it):

  “And now, my little niece, I’ll tell you how your mum held your wake. I won’t tell a lie”, my Aunty began. “There was plenty of food on the table, there were wine glasses, and she went and took the decanter from the locker, poured each of us a full wine glass, and put the decanter back in the locker, and then turned the key around to lock it up!”

  “What you’re saying is not true, Anisushka!” mum beseeched.

  But Aunty Anisya, giving me a wink, went on: “What do you mean, not true? It’s the truth, the plain truth!”

  Mum was distressed, having failed to understand another of Anisya’s jokes, but Aunty kept clowning, and so cheerful, so warm was it in my soul after all I had been through, that now I can’t convey all this, I can’t find the right words…

  Here is another episode from that distant time. When mum had received a message from me, and the neighbours had confirmed that she hadn’t lost her mind and that her younger daughter Anyutka was alive, mum put on her holiday clothes in celebration and headed to the District Military Commissariat.

  Later the military commissar would recall that visit: “A babushka4 came in agitated – and went straight to me. ‘Sonny’, she says, ‘get me rid of this accursed pension!’ I begin to question the babushka, ‘what’s your surname, who are you, who is the pension for’, but she kept on about the same thing: “Get rid of the pension, and that’s it!’ At last I sorted out what was what, gave her a seat, gave her some tea – and she left, pacified…”

  36

  The Colonel’s suit

  W

  hen the zampolit of our regiment, Major Shvidkiy, found me in the 16th Aerial Army Headquarters, he handed me a letter. It began with somewhat unusual words:

  Dear Annoushka! I am very sick, writing from bed, but it’s a pleasure to write to you. When we’d lost you, I couldn’t come to my senses from grief for quite some time. Do you understand that feeling? I don’t understand it clearly myself, but I know for sure that you mean a lot to me. Maybe it’s not the right time to write about it, because you’ve got other stuff to think about. I’ve been doing everything I can for you and even a bit more than that. Be as cool-headed as you can, but be persistent. I hope Major Shvidkiy will bring you back to the regiment! I beg you to come and see me first thing, for otherwise I’ll be offended. Everyone in the regiment is waiting for you. If they don’t allow you to come – be patient and remember that you’re always on my mind and I will be nagging the commanders. But I do want to believe that you will come…

  I embrace your slender shoulders as a friend and wish you well.

  With deep respect,

  V. Timofeev

  21.02.45.

  This letter was written by the Commander of our 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division Colonel Vyacheslav Arsenyevich Timofeev. His words amazed and delighted me, and its content made me pensive. Why was he writing to me like that? I didn’t know much about him…Moreover, I’d always related to the commanders with a certain alienation and mistrust. They even joked in the regiment that Egorova simply ignored the commanders, and because of that still hung around with the lieutenants while acting as a lieutenant-colonel. I had even had a ‘conflict’ with the Division Commander. Back then the regiment was relocating to the Dys aerodrome near Lublin. I’d been scheduled to move there with the last group. Whilst I was standing and talking to the pilots, the Division Commander appeared out of the blue. He came up to us, and I reported by the book and said that an Il-2 would soon be ready after repairs and we would be taking off.

  “Take me up with you”, the colonel asked as if joking.

  “What do you mean ‘take me up’? You’re welcome to fly with us. But you, as the senior in rank, will be the leader”, I replied.

  “Oh, no, I don’t want to be leader. I’d better form up at the rear of your group”, the colonel said again, – overacting a bit, as I thought.

  “I don’t like the superiors looking over my shoulder!” I rapped out without stopping to think. The colonel took offence, turned around and left, saying nothing. After that he did his best not to notice me, and I was glad of it: one way or another I was further out of the commanders’ sight.

  But nevertheless I was cheered by that letter. I was pleased to know that there was someone in the wide world who thought and cared about me, was trying to improve my lot. It turned out that Timofeev had requested Shvidkiy take me to the Division Headquarters, which was based in Zamtera. We did so, and the Division Commander received me joyfully and cordially. He kept my hands in his for some time, looking closely at the burns, and then suddenly kissed them. I quickly jerked my hands back and blushed, and he began to invite me and Shvidkiy to have lunch with him. The Komdiv1 called an orderly and instructed him to bring three lunches from the aerial personnel mess, and produced a bottle of wine from somewhere. After lunch the Komdiv said: “Now, Annoushka, you need to stay in our army hospital, get treatment and then, when the doctors give their verdict and depending on how you’re feeling, we’ll decide the question of your further service…”

  They kept me in the army hospital a short time and sent me to Moscow at the disposal of the Air Force Personnel Department (my position – Regimental Navigator – was scheduled to the Air Force Personnel Department). The head of the Personnel Department General Shadskiy told me I would be sent to the disposal of the Serpoukhov Military Commissariat for my further service.

  “There will be a Lieutenant going with you”, the personnel man explained. “Head off tomorrow by train, the Lieutenant will pick you up from home with your personal papers in a package.”

  Indeed, in the morning a lieutenant with Air Force shoulder boards popped in and off we went. On arrival at the spot we visited the Military Commissariat where an orderly opened the package. Another one with a wax seal was found inside it. “You have to go to the school. It’s next door to our building. You’ll see it – it’s behind barbed wire. Reception is on the opposite side from us”, the man on duty directed us further.

  At the checkpoint, when the Lieutenant s
howed the package, they let us through to someone in charge. To be honest, I still couldn’t figure out where they were taking me. And suddenly the lieutenant told me: “Sit a while in reception, and I’ll go into the office by myself first.”

  He went in, and I heard someone behind the door coarsely cursing the lieutenant over and shouting: “Why are you escorting a criminal with outa firearm?” The Lieutenant calmly explained: “Comrade General, she’s wounded, in uniform, with medals. And look what a reference she’s got…She was put forward for the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously…”

  But there was obscene language again – and the lieutenant flew out of the office like a bullet.

  “Let’s get out of here quick! They’re bastards in your Air Force. They’re sending a checked-up person for a trial…”

  For the rest of the trip on the train we were silent. I felt completely run-down, and the lieutenant barely managed to walk me to the Arbat. I never met my escort again.

  Having recovered under the all-seeing eye of Ekaterina Vasilievna – my brother’s wife – I went to the Directorate-General of the Air Force, to the personnel department, to see General Shadskiy. I was heading there with the firm intention of spitting in his face and then what would be would be…But he would not see me, as if having guessed my intention. In the medical department they gave me a referral to the Medical Examination Board. They said that after the examination, they would send me to a sanatorium.