Over Fields of Fire: Flying the Sturmovik in Action on the Eastern Front 1942-45 (Soviet Memories of War)
Page 30
Dyachenko began to talk about my sorties again, but at that point Shvernik stopped him loudly:
“Enough! You may go.”
Ivan Mironovich went out, and Shvernik, addressing the Board members, said that he had spoken to Marshal S.I. Roudenko in whose Army Egorova fought in the last stage of the war, and the latter had given me a good reference: “Egorova fought honourably!” And he went on:
“Comrade Egorova, we reinstate you in the Party. Your length of service is preserved. You will be paying your dues from the day the Noginskiy raikom6 of the Party hands over your new Party membership card. Unfortunately we are unable to have it done by the October celebrations – only five days are left…”
After the meeting with my comrades-in-arms Captains Andrey Konyakhin and Leva Kabisher I began to receive letters from my regimental comrades. Our former commissar Dmitriy Polikarpovich Shvidkiy sent me a letter as well. He said he was living in Kharkov, worked at a tractor plant and was looking for the document in which he and former head of the Corps Political Department Colonel Tourpanov had recommended I be awarded the Golden Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union. Then the commissar ‘reported’ that they had already written to many authorities and even to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. At the end of the letter Shvidkiy asked me if I had seen the movie ‘Clear Sky’, directed by G. Choukhray, and advised me to be sure to see it, for this movie was about my fate and that of people like me.
In those months I got many letters form my regiment comrades, and they all advised me to see ‘Clear Sky’. “What kind of movie is it?” I thought and at last went to see it. I remember watching it and weeping, and my sons, sitting next to me, were urging me in whispers so as not to disturb the other viewers: “Mummy, stop crying. It’s only a movie, those are actors…”
In those days the Literaturnaya Gazeta journal published a piece ‘Egorushka’ written by Leonid Kashin. The editor of the magazine Starshina, Soldat told me on the phone that a Polish writer Janusz Przmonowski had arrived in Moscow and brought me a letter from Warsaw. The writer was eager to see me, and on the next day Lieutenant-Colonel Souvorov from the Starshina, Soldat magazine and Janusz Przymonowski sat at the table in our apartment. Przymonowski spoke excellent Russian. He asked me in detail about the war and was surprised that I fought in a Sturmovik: “It’s far from being a ladies’ plane! And to lead men into action? Unbelievable…”
And the letter Przymonowski had brought for me was from a Polish writer Igor Neverli. There was a photocopy from a West German magazine Deutche Fallschirmjäger (‘German Paratrooper’). Neverli addressed me:
Dear Friend!
I am hastening to forward you a document which must of interest to you. Colonel Janusz Przymonowski, when working on the literature for a monograph about the battle of Studzianki, read in a West German magazine Deutche Fallschirmjäger”, No.5, 1961, memoirs of former officers and soldiers of Hitler’s army. One of the respondents of this magazine tells of his experiences in the area of Warka-Magnuszew in 1944 and about the feat of a Russian female pilot. The place and time point to it being you, Anna Alexandrovna. I am forwarding you the story of the enemy witness and a photocopy.
My best regards!
Igor Neverli
Warsaw, 5.04.1963
A former officer of Hitler’s army had written in the Deutche Fallschirmjäger magazine:
Our Parachute division was relocated from sunny Italy to the pandemonium of the Eastern Front. We had a terrible experience under the hammer of Russian aviation that day. More than once I needed something at the dressing station, and there I witnessed the following:
They had brought a Russian pilot from the frontline in a medical cart. The guy looked badly maimed in his burned, torn flying suit. His face was covered with oil and blood. The soldiers who had transported him told me the pilot had bailed out of a burning plane and landed near their position. When they took off his helmet and flying suit, everyone was astounded: the pilot turned out to be a girl! All present were amazed even more by the behaviour of the Russian pilot who made no sound when pieces of skin were removed from her during treatment…How was it possible that such inhuman self-restraint had been fostered in a woman?
Thus, many years after the war, I found out a bit more about that tragic day of my life – and that was a view from the enemy’s side…
On 7 May 1965 a phone call resounded in our apartment. I took the receiver and quietly, so as not to awake my sleeping sons, said the usual: “Listening…”
“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!” the excited voice of the poet Gilyardy flew through the lines.
I asked, laughing, “Why are you celebrating so early in the morning, Nikodim Fedorovich?”
I heard in reply: “Annoushka, turn on the radio! They’re broadcasting the Decree conferring on you the title of Hero…”
Then another call resounded…In a word, I was being congratulated by comrades-in-arms, public organizations, schools, editorial staff of newspapers and magazines, in which pieces about me and my brothers in arms had been published at different times. I will always remember the lines of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR conferring on me the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union: “For exemplary fulfilment of combat missions on the fronts of the struggle against the German-Fascist invaders during the years of the Great Patriotic War and for displays of valour and heroism during that…” I read the words of that document, and before my eyes I saw my regimental comrades who had gone forever into the inferno, roaring formations of Sturmoviks, the troubled years of my youth…
“What are they taking girls at the front for?” I heard the voice of Borya Strakhov, and it seemed that he stood in front of me on the aerodrome with field daisies in his hands and smiled boyishly, shyly and so brightly and joyfully. And after him the Sturmovik pilots rose in my memory: Pashkov, Andrianov, Usov, Stepochkin, Zinoviev, Tasets, Podynenogin, Pokrovskiy, Rzhevskiy, Mkrtoumov, Groudnyak, Balyabin…
The terrible years of the war have long gone. Our children have already become men and grandchildren have grown up. How fast the time goes by…Recalling the past battles and my frontline friends I think about their courage and nobility, their high sense of duty, contempt for death and the lofty feelings of frontline camaraderie, and more – their love for the motherland. There’s none better than her in the whole world!
I dedicate this book to those who didn’t return, and those who survived, and who passed away after the war – my dear comrades from the 805th Berlin Ground Attack Aviation Regiment. And forgive me, my comrades, that I didn’t see everything, haven’t remembered everything, haven’t written about everyone…
Photographs
Technical school, early 1930s – Anna is standing second from the right, rear row.
Anna as a cadet at a flying school.
Anna as a mechanic repairing pneumatic hammers and drills during the construction of the Moscow Metro, 1937.
Anna in the cockpit of a Po-2.
Glider school cadets – Anna is seated front left.
Anna receiving final instructions before a Po-2 flight.
Alexei Cherkasov, navigator in the 130th detached Aviation Signals Squadron.
Anna receiving orders alongside her Po-2.
Early single-seat Il-2s in flight.
German anti-tank guns viewed from the cockpit of an Il-2.
Pilot Vasili Baliabin, 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment (805 ShAP), killed in action 1942.
Squadron commander Vasily Rulkov, 805 ShAP, killed in action 1942.
Pilot Viktor Khukharev, 805 ShAP, killed in action 1942.
Il-2s taking off, 1943.
A destroyed Il-2, with the body of one of its crew lying on the wing.
Boris Strakhov, commander of the 1st Squadron in the 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment, killed in action in 1943.
Anna, summer 1943.
A member of Anna’s 197th Ground Attack Division receives an award.
Anna’s Il-2 mec
hanic Mikhail Korzhenko.
Pilots and heroes from the 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment – Victor Khoukhlin, Victor Gourkin and Andrey Konyakhin (left to right). Konyakhin daringly landed his Il-2 and rescued Khoukhlin and his rear gunner in the heat of battle.
Pilots from 805 ShAP - I. Sherstobitov, V.Khomyakov, N. Ternovskiy.
An enemy train burning after an Il-2 attack.
Il-2s lined up on an airfield.
A dramatic but blurred shot showing an enemy train under attack.
An Il-2 undergoing maintenance.
Some of Anna’s comrades from 805 ShAP photographed before embarking on a mission.
Commanders of 805 ShAP, from left to right: Regimental navigator Petr Karev, Regimental commander Michael Nikolaevich Kozin, political deputy Dmitriy Polikarpovich Shvidkiy.
Pilot Ivan Stepochkin, 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment, killed in action 1944.
805 ShAP Regimental commander Michael Nikolaevich Kozin, killed in action 1944.
Pilots from 805 ShAP after a combat sortie.
Mechanics and armourers from Anna’s Regiment, 805 ShAP.
A damaged Il-2 from the 820th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment (820 ShAP).
Wrecked German vehicles and equipment – the work of Soviet aviation.
The wreckage of destroyed German aircraft.
Two unknown members of 805 ShAP, c 1944.
Anna next to her Il-2, c 1944.
Doktor G. Sinyakov known as ‘The Russian Doctor’ (centre) and two POW pilots saved by him N. Maiorov (left) and D. Kashirin (right).
Anna proudly wearing her awards and decorations, 1960s.
Anna standing beside an Il-2.
Anna grasps the propeller blade of an Il-2 – machine and woman needed to work in unison to ensure both made it home safely after each mission.
Notes
Chapter 1
1 Translator’s note – lit. ‘crown’.
2 Translator’s note – Mediaeval warrior heroes comparable with West European knights-errant.
3 Translator’s note – a common designation for people subjected to repression during Stalin’s purges.
4 Translator’s note – Young Communist League.
Chapter 2
1 Translator’s note – felt boots.
2 Translator’s note – a famous animal trainer.
3 Country Youth School.
4 Translator’s note – leatherette.
5 Translator’s note – literally ‘little apple’ – a popular song in the Red Navy.
Chapter 3
1 Translator’s note – diminutive from ‘Vasiliy’.
2 Translator’s note – abbreviation for Metro Construction.
3 Translator’s note – FZU – Factory-Plant School – a common educational establishment for young industrial workers in the USSR in 1930s.
4 Translator’s note – gumboots.
5 Translator’s note – A historic site in Moscow.
6 Translator’s note – local trade union.
7 Editor’s note – literally, ‘Little Anna’.
8 People’s commissar, or minister.
9 Translator’s note – a set of sports and fitness tests.
10 Translator’s note – a set of tests on primary medical skills.
11 Translator’s note – shooting skills award for civilians.
12 Translator’s note – a recreation park in Moscow.
Chapter 4
1 Translator’s note – literally, “Comsomol Crack Worker”.
2 Translator’s note – another diminutive for Anna.
Chapter 5
1 Translator’s note – ‘Labour’.
2 Translator’s note – abbreviation of ‘rabochiy correspondent’ or working correspondent – a correspondent who worked at industrial operations.
3 Translator’s note – Russian abbreviation for the Air Force of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army.
4 Translator’s note – a five day period – in the 1930s in the USSR the normal seven-day week was replaced by a five-day week.
5 Translator’s note – a national group in the Northern Caucasus.
Chapter 6
1 Editor’s note – The Society of Assistance to Defence, Aviation and Chemical Construction. It was established in 1927 by the merging of the Voluntary Society of Friends of the Air Fleet, Chemical Defense and Industry of the USSR and the Society of the Assistance to Defence. In 1948 it was divided into three Societies – the Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army, the Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Air Force, and the Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Navy.
Chapter 7
1 Translator’s note – Sergeant-Major.
2 Translator’s note – a province in Southern Russia.
3 Translator’s note – a common Russian name for the Baltic countries.
4 Editor’s note – with 31 or 32 personal and 16 shared victories.
5 Editor’s note – a diminutive form of Victor.
6 Translator’s note – diminutive for Louka.
7 Translator’s note – literally, ‘little hawk’ – a common nickname for Soviet fighters.
Chapter 8
1 Editor’s note – a pro-Communist organisation for 9-14 year old children in the USSR, similar to the Scout movement.
2 Translator’s note – a penal colony run by the NKVD – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
3 Editor’s note – addressing a person using both their first and second (patronymic) name is a sign of respect in Russia.
4 Editor’s note – a common name for the Great War in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s.
5 Translator’s note – another diminutive for Vasiliy.
6 Translator’s note – a common nickname for the counter-revolutionary forces during the Civil war in Russia (1918-1922).
7 Translator’s note – abbreviation of Communist University.
8 Translator’s note – Moscow Garment.
9 Translator’s note – Moscow City Council.
10 Translator’s note – another diminutive for Anna.
11 Translator’s note – a trio of judges – a typical court during Stalin’s purges.
12 Editor’s note – Yurka, Yurochka – diminutives for Yuri.
13 Translator’s note – diminutive from Alexey.
14 Translator’s note – died during Stalin’s purges in 1937.
Chapter 9
1 Translator’s note – Provincial Comsomol Committee.
2 Translator’s note – the President of the USSR – a notable figure during Stalin’s reign.
3 Translator’s note – diminutive for Vasiliy.
4 Translator’s note – surname of famous Soviet test-pilot brothers in the 1930s.
5 Editor’s note – the highest mark of the five-point system still employed in Russia.
6 Translator’s note – abbreviation for ‘squadron commander’.
7 Translator’s note – between the Volga and Moscow rivers.
8 Translator’s note – a Moscow street.
Chapter 10
1 Editor’s note – a common diminutive for Maria.
2 Editor’s note – yet another diminutive for Anna.
3 Translator’s note – the pre-revolutionary name of the city of Kalinin – now Tver’ again.
4 Translator’s note – the scene of fierce beach fighting on the Black Sea coast in the Caucasus during WWII.
5 Translator’s note – a square in Moscow with the three major train stations facing onto it.
6 Translator’s note – large caltrop-like obstacles made of welded railway girders.
7 Translator’s note – Yuri Levitan – a well-known radio announcer during WWII.
8 Translator’s note – abbreviation of ‘Soviet Information Bureau’.
9 Translator’s note – a historical name for the wives of Dekabrists or ‘Decembrists’ – members of the Russian nobility who rebelled against the monarchy in 1825. Most of them went into exi
le to Siberia and some of their wives followed them.