Over Fields of Fire

by Anna Aleksandrovna Timofeeva-Egorova

  Everyone in the squadron — both pilots and mechanics — treated me well. Some ‘suitors’ appeared as well but I managed somehow to talk to them not tête-à-tête but in front of others — that way it was easier to fend off an ‘attack’ and let it be known that nothing was going to come of it. It wasn’t easy, of course, to be a single woman in a group of men. Sometimes I wanted so much just to talk to someone heart to heart. But one stern word — War — held me back and cowed me…

  We flew over to an airfield previously prepared near Cherkassk but there was no headquarters, no canteen nor any fuel. Our land transport was a roundabout route via Maikop, Tuapse, Tbilisi and Ordzhonikidze because the straight road to Grozny had been cut by the enemy. Senior Lieutenant Listarevich had been appointed Land Transport Commander and Lieutenant Irkoutskiy Commissar. They left on 18 August 1942 — on Air Force Day itself — but we didn’t feel like celebrating at this hard time of retreat. And our ‘base’ caught up with the squadron only on 30 October when the Front headquarters was already in Grozny. Thus when we had landed and turned off the engines, we gathered by the Deputy Squadron Commander Pen’kov’s plane and began to think what to do next. We saw an ageing woman coming from the settlement we had landed near. She greeted us, looked us over and said “Do you have anything to eat, maybe you’re hungry?” And without hearing an answer she suggested straightaway “I’ve cooked a bucket-size pot of borsch. As if I knew you would come around. My son is a pilot, after all, but I haven’t heard from him for a long time…” and she began to sniffle, wiping her eyes with the lap of her broad blouse.

  After a tasty lunch we decided to pour the left-over petrol into the tanks of one plane and fly to look for the rear services of our squadron. I happened to fly with Cherkasov. Again under our wings there was land enveloped by smoke, burning houses, burning unharvested wheat, corn, sunflowers. People were moving in carts and on foot, with parcels, with cows on leashes. It was painful to watch and even more painful to know that you couldn’t help them.

  Only five days later, somewhere near Pyatigorsk, at last we found our headquarters. Here they read out ‘Order 227’, a stern order whose meaning boiled down to: “Not a step back!” As a rule the order numbers were remembered only by staff officers. But even now this one, Order number 227, will be recalled by any war veteran if asked about it. It was said in this order that we had to defend every position, every single metre of our soil to the last drop of blood. Those who reckoned that the territory of the Soviet Union was big enough and we could retreat even deeper into it, to lines more suitable for defence, were condemned. The order obliged us to declare a resolute war on cowards, panic-mongers, infringers of discipline. To comply with this demand meant to save the motherland, to defeat the enemy.

  Units raised from the troops to maintain order played a paramount role, but an ‘amusing incident’ took place as well. Between Pyatigorsk and Nal’chik the Fascists again shot down Serezha Spirin’s plane, which was flying to locate the 17th Cossack Cavalry Corps. The August heat was on, and the pilot had taken off in just light overalls, leaving his uniform with his papers back at the aerodrome. He was shot down, the plane burned up, the pilot was injured too. Firing on the ground didn’t give him a chance to lift his head. Spirin crawled. When he reached our lines he was immediately arrested as a deserter. No matter what he tried to say to vindicate himself nobody would believe him. Fortunately, a Front HQ liaison officer, with whom Spirin had flown to the fighting units many a time recognised him. The speedy court martial was postponed, and Commissar Ryabov flew off with confirmations and papers to pick him up.

  The front line was changing several times a day. We had to fly all over the North Caucasus. The enemy Panzer units had already forced a crossing over the Kuban in the Armavir Region and captured Maikop and Krasnodar. The Germans had occupied nearly all the mountain passes, taken Mozdok and small bridgeheads on the right bank of the Terek River. It was difficult for us to understand the situation that had developed in the North Caucasus in August 1942. I remember getting an order to locate the headquarters of the 58th Army, again with the same navigator Cherkasov, whom I made a flight from Nal’chik to Grozny with. We found the Army and handed mail over to the Front headquarters but how much we went through during that flight!

  I returned from the mission tired, despondent from all I’d seen, angry. I handed the plane over to Dronov and rushed to squadron headquarters. Now behind me I heard the mechanic’s bitter words addressed to the engineer, “Again like a sieve! How I’m going to fix it and what with, I have no idea. There’s no workshop yet…”

  Calling in at the command post to report to the Commander of Task Implementation I saw the returned Kolya Potanin and Victor Kravtsov were already reporting. The quiet and sober-minded Potanin didn’t look himself. Always well-kempt and tidy, now he was in a burnt uniform, his face smeared with oil and blood, hair scorched. He was reporting to the squadron commander Major Boulkin and to the executive officer Listarevich about what had happened and asking to be transferred to combat aviation. The following had happened to Potanin: he had been sent with important cargo to the Ardon area, to our units surrounded by the enemy. Many years later Chief Marshal of Aviation Konstantin Andreevich Vershinin — the former commander of our Aerial Army — wrote in his book “The 4th Aerial” about those flights: “Many brave men flew to encircled pockets in the daytime as well”. It seems you couldn’t say it clearer. At daytime, in a defenceless plane, into a surrounded area… The pilots despatched foodstuffs, ammo, medical supplies, other cargo to the troops… That day Potanin, having completed the mission, was transporting a badly wounded man out of the pocket. On the way back he found himself under ground fire and then under fire from Fascist fighters. No matter how well he manoeuvred, how he tried to escape the shells targeted at him, his plane was shot up, caught fire and fell into brush. Potanin managed to leap out under from the burning debris, then, rolling on the ground he put the fire on him down and rushed to save the wounded navigator, but he was already dead…

  “I want to smash the bastards!” His eyes sparkling, clear and limpid as the sky, Nikolay was arguing with the squadron commander. “I can’t do it this way any more. They hit us and we hide in the bushes!.”

  The Kubanets91 Kravtsov stood silent. Instead of reporting he, still silently, passed a paper of some sort to the squadron commander. I saw him, also soundless, reading it. With no hesitation he wrote something on it in bold letters, and passed the paper to the executive officer. Later we found out that Victor Kravtsov had refused to fly in U-2s and asked to be transferred to the ground-attack aviation. The squadron commander’s reply was the same as many times before: “Denied”…

  19. “You want to go to a penal company?”

  It was a frightening and difficult time back then, in the autumn of 1942 in the North Caucasus. All fighting men from Private to Field Marshal seemed to be at breaking point. None of us had received any letters for a long time: the field mail had got lost somewhere. How was my mum, how was Victor, where were they? Were they alright? “Of course, they are alive and well!” I would reassure myself: “It’s problems with communications!” In the left breast pocket of my blouse there were my Party membership card and two photographs — my mum’s and Victor’s, and a very tiny one of Yourka. Mum was as usual in a headscarf and looking at me with sorrow. But Victor, on the contrary, was laughing jauntily, slightly throwing back his curly head. He was in uniform. There were three cubes and ‘birds’ on his collar patches. Yourka was in a white shirt with a Pioneer scarf92 on the photo. They hadn’t wanted to accept him in the Pioneers because of his repressed father until the zavouch93 stood up for him and for other similar unfortunate children. She said then: “If we don’t accept our students in the Pioneers we won’t form a single Pioneers group in the whole school. You all know that in our Arbat schools almost every second students’ father has been repressed. Many were then accepted in the Pioneers but after that, true, the zavouch was fired…

&n
bsp; 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 UTAP94 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’s95 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!”96

  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 Ishak97 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 cannons
, 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.”