A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II

by Anne Noggle

  One day my commander told me I was to make a solo flight to Moscow, and I knew that only very skillful pilots flew on that air route. It was a miraculous dream come true: I had become a professional pilot! So I flew the P-5 and then the PR-S-it had the shape of a cigar and carried four passengers. Later I became the copilot on the K-5 aircraft, and the commander of the plane, Vasilij Lisikov, became my husband.

  For the rest of my life I will remember the years 1939-4o because of the senseless and brutal war with Finland. I had to participate in that war. I flew the Red Cross aircraft carrying severely wounded soldiers and officers and many who hadn't been wounded at all; they had frozen in the bitter northern frost. The temperatures were sometimes forty to forty-one degrees below zero centigrade. The soldiers were poorly equipped for such weather, so they lost their extremities-it was terrible. I made many flights in that war. I myself was wrapped in warm clothing so that I was unrecognizable, with a helmet, a mask for my face, fur high boots, gloves, and fur overalls. I flew an opencockpit plane-open to the wind-and in spite of the armistice concluded on March 13, we went on flying out the wounded. My life was complicated by the fact that I was carrying a child.

  At the front we landed on a lake covered with a thick layer of snow, because the aircraft was provided with skis. We would taxi to the bank of the lake, where we loaded the wounded and flew them to the hospital in Leningrad. When in June I announced to the commander of the detachment that I was expecting a baby, he was astonished. He had never even noticed that I was pregnant. He asked me how I managed to fly and carry on missions. I told him that being the only female pilot in the detachment was both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time! It had never occurred to him that there should be a gynecologist on the medical test board.

  The Great Patriotic War began when my child was only ten months old. In spite of that, I was drafted to the front in the first days of the war. I flew the medical plane, an SP-2, and on one of the missions I loaded two badly wounded soldiers to carry them to the hospital. About seventy kilometers from the front line, I saw a fascist Messerschmitt Me-Io9 circling around to my tail. What could I do-how could I protect my small, defenseless biplane with wounded aboard? He could easily see the large red cross on my plane. But nothing seemed to stop the beast; he was rapidly approaching my aircraft. Now he would fire at me with his machine guns. There in the rear of my plane lay the two wounded men; they didn't even sense the danger. And I was perfectly sure that our last minutes were ticking away. I had always wondered, in such a situation, how fast your life flashed in front of your eyes. At that point, I visualized all of my life, and now I will tell you.

  I was born in 1917 in the Far East. My school was on the bank of a small bay near the village of Americanka, and my father was a schoolteacher-he brought us up. When I was four years old I could swim very well; I climbed trees like a monkey. At eight, my father instructed me to bring my brother home from a village 5o kilometers away. I made my way alone through the taiga and brought him home-loo kilometers in all. I heard all of the taiga's mysterious noises but strangely had no fear. Now we were living in Leningrad and I was in secondary school, physically more mature than my classmates and good in school. They tried many tricks to humble me. Once they bet that I would never sit the whole night through in the cemetery. That night I went to the oldest cemetery in the city and sat the whole night in the lap of a monument erected to Tchaikovsky. I also dove into water from a tower ten meters high and sat the night in a basement full of rats! I won the right to lead.

  Sixteen of us girls went to flying school, where we were issued flying uniforms. I put mine on, and it was terrible-I looked like a monster! It was so awfully oversized that I couldn't move in it. I cut it drastically, as well as the high boots. Out of the remainder of the overcoat, I stitched a beret. In my new uniform I appeared in the formation, and I was given ten days in the guardhouse for destroying state property! The other girls decided to support me and express their solidarity, and the next day they all appeared for roll call in their altered uniforms. The commander of the battalion could do nothing but release me from the guardhouse. And that is what flashed before my eyes in that second while the enemy fighter approached. I didn't want to die. A painful feeling seized my heart: a mixture of grief, misfortune, and anger for my own helplessness.

  Now my brain worked clearly; not far ahead I saw a precipice and the thin thread of a rivulet-a tiny hope for survival. I dove at the moment the fascist fighter pulled the trigger, and then he flew past me. I saw explosions in the air, but I was not hit. I dropped between the riverbanks, very low, close to the water. Now the thought of death didn't seem so bitter-it was mixed with triumph. I knew he had lost me, and he would need to gain altitude to look for me. He would be furiousthe fighter plane not being able to cope with a small flying bug. The river narrowed; the banks closed in on the plane. My hands numbed, so hard did I grip the control stick. I didn't have the nerve to look back, but intuition told me he was somewhere very close. Suddenly the river abruptly turned to the right. I made a sharp turn, and at that instant the aircraft shook very hard; the enemy machine gun had hit my tail. Fortunately the control cables weren't damaged. But I saw that I couldn't fly farther up the canyon, or I would crash into the narrowing banks. I climbed up, and five minutes later I landed at my airdrome, the 14th Air Force Army. The commander and other pilots watched the Messerschmitt firing at something, but they did not see my aircraft. When I landed they understood what had happened. My plane was shot through in many places, but none of us was hurt. They told me what had happened to the enemy fighter: when he dove on my tail that last time, he came too low to the ground and crashed into the riverbank. The pilots congratulated me for my victory over the fascist fighter, and the commander of the 14th awarded me the Order of the Red Banner.

  After that episode, I was sent to the flying center to be retrained to fly the Li-2 aircraft, a version of the American Douglas C-47 built under license in the Soviet Union. I had my doubts about it because the Group of Special Role consisted of male personnel, and the crew I was assigned to comprised six men. I wondered how the male pilots would accept me. Also, my experience up to now had been in simple aircraft of the Po-2 type. The Lisunov Li-2 aircraft was equipped with two engines of i,ooo horsepower each, to give it a load of 2.5 metric tons of cargo or thirty paratroopers with equipment. It also had a gun turret on the fuselage with a machine gun. It was a very sophisticated aircraft with many instruments: some for blind flying, an automatic pilot, de-icers, and much more. And I had to master all that knowledge in a short time. At that time I had i,6oo flying hours.

  I was hospitably accepted at the center, and I finished the course with distinction. I was transferred to the Flying Division of Special Role, which was assigned to the State Committee of Soviet Defense. This organization completed missions on all fronts, from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea. The main base was at the Vnukovo airdrome, not far from Moscow. When we were fulfilling our combat missions, we flew out of auxiliary airfields closer to the front lines or to the location of our mission. The pilots were experienced airline pilots with many hours. Our missions were to bail out paratroopers, drop supplies for encircled troops, transport fuel and spare parts to advancing troops, fly to the partisans in the rear, drop intelligence officers to the enemy rear, and bring supplies to besieged Leningrad.

  I was assigned to the 1st Regiment. The regiment was commanded by Colonel K. Bukharov, although among ourselves we called him Uncle Kostya. He was fifteen or twenty years older than us and had graduated from flying school in 1925; he was deeply respected. He came from a noble Russian family. After the great October Revolution he had concealed his origin. He had deep roots of genetic nobility in him and preserved them, undestroyed by the regime. After hard, devastating flights deep into the enemy rear, the commander, having taken off his flying jacket, sat at the piano and played the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.

  Our deputy commander, Captain A. Kalina, was full of energ
y and was gifted with a good sense of humor and a sophisticated mind. He decided to take me as his copilot on a difficult night mission to the enemy rear, to drop two intelligence officers by parachute. He was astonished that I didn't feel fear. All my actions were thoroughly calculated; I was confident. On that flight there was no time for fear. We flew over the front line at a very high altitude; there was enemy antiaircraft fire, but we were not hit. Then we were attacked by fascist night fighters, and I could see the missiles exploding in the air. The commander ordered me to maneuver in a sideslip and then to dive down to the earth and hedgehop over the ground. It took me several minutes to accustom myself to the darkness, and then I began discerning rivers, highways, and forests. We changed course constantly: flying on one heading for ten minutes, changing to another course until I could see a lake, then changing again. It was a confusion-I didn't know where I was! Several seconds before we reached the target, he took the controls, climbed to 300 meters, and gave an order to the intelligence officers to bail out. The whole crew knew their jobs perfectly and worked in silence. On the way back he placed me in the pilot's seat and entrusted me with the aircraft.

  The next day I was assigned to the crew of Captain Ivanov as copilot. Our mission: to fly cargo to the besieged city of Leningrad. My heart beat to the sound of my fair city-Leningrad, Leningrad. Our aircraft was filled with cargo for the people exhausted and devastated by the war: the bombings, the famine and cold. I knew we were bringing help to my friends and family.

  In a month I was appointed commander of the-aircraft. But a few days later I was ordered to fly to Siberia to be assigned as a copilot ferrying aircraft from America. It turned out that the commander of my division learned that I, a woman, was flying in his division, and he was determined to get rid of me. But then he was ordered to another command, and my chief rescinded the order.

  One day I was assigned to carry cargo and two passengers, the directors of a plant situated on the Volga River. We took off in the morning with clear skies, but the weather soon began to change for the worse. On the approach to the airfield the fog had completely covered the city, and I was not allowed to land. I wasn't worried about that, because we had enough fuel on board to land at another field until the fog lifted at our destination. The mechanic, a crew member, came to me and told me we had only a twenty-minute fuel supply. He had fueled the aircraft the night before, and someone had poured off fuel from the tanks. He had not checked the tanks before takeoff.

  I had to save the plane and the passengers! I flew to another town, where I could see the chimneys and smoke appearing from the fog. I entered the overcast on a heading toward the lowland along the river. The copilot was very fearful and was of no help to me. I chose a field and decided to land with the gear down. We touched the ground, and I braked abruptly because the field was small. Only because we had a heavy load of cargo did the aircraft not nose up. When we came to a stop, I leaned over the control wheel and nearly fainted. I knew I was alive only by the shivering in my knees. I had used all my willpower, skill, and energy to save the plane, and now I was speechless! The directors of the factory were angry that we had to make an emergency landing, but the crew said they should thank me for saving their lives. I never told about the lack of fuel, the real reason for the forced landing. I don't know why I did not report what had happenedpossibly for fear of being prosecuted, or because of the awe of my crew, who were overwhelmed with my flying skills and praised me to everyone.

  I actively took part in all the combat missions my division carried out. The new commander of the division summoned me and told me that I, being the only female pilot in the division, had a great responsibility, because all eyes were on me. Each flight, every landing was closely watched by the staff. And where the failure of a male pilot could pass unnoticed, mine would be always under surveillance. Any blunder, or worse-an accident-would not serve me well. He cautioned me to be demanding of myself. After that talk I changed drastically; I didn't look or act like myself. Everything congested inside; I became very strict with myself and my subordinates. Before, I would go to rest and relax after a mission; now, I went to the navigators' room and scrupulously studied the route of the next mission. When the crew went to see a movie, I went to the meteorological station and studied the weather reports. I would do everything better than the men.

  I was totally trusting of my crew with the exception of the mechanic; he had failed me once by not checking the fuel tanks, and another time he didn't warm up the engines in the winter. Besides, he was so dirty-mouthed I couldn't stand it. I was brought up with real Russian intelligentsia who survived the socialist revolution in Leningrad. My family lived in a roomy house, with six families and eleven children in one apartment. Our parents treated us carefully. In our big flat lived a novelist who read us poems and stories, and we children sat near the fire and absorbed all those wonderful pieces of literature. Her elder daughter played the piano and sang for us. All the tenants of our flat added much to our upbringing. We never heard rude words, shouts, or swearing. So back to the crew: no matter how much the mechanic pleaded to be left in the crew, I replaced him. The crew comprised a pilot, copilot, tail gunner, navigator, mechanic, and radio operator.

  We were transferred to a division of the long-distance flights, closer to the front. After this redeployment, the commanding staff of the division invited me to a division dinner with their major-general at the head of table. As the dinner came to an end, I noticed that the general's staff were quietly sneaking out of the room. I tried to follow their example, but I was stopped by the commander of the division. I understood that the general wanted to bed me down. Yes, I was only a lieutenant, but apart from that I was Olga Lisikova, and it was impossible to bed me down. His pressure was persistent. I had to think very fast, because he was in all respects stronger than me, and I knew well that nobody would dare to come to my rescue. In desperation I said, "I fly with my husband in my crew!" and he was taken aback. He didn't expect to hear that. He released me; I immediately rushed out and found the radio operator and mechanic of my crew. I didn't make explanations. I, as commander of the crew, ordered that one of them was to be my fictitious husband and gave them my word of honor that nobody would ever learn the truth! Then I released them.

  I couldn't sleep all night; I couldn't believe any commander would behave like that. I thought, Were generals allowed to do anything that came to mind? I couldn't justify his behavior. The only explanation that seemed appropriate was that I was really very attractive in my youth. Thank God we flew away early the next morning.

  I already had 120 combat missions when our division began receiving the C-47 aircraft. It was a most sophisticated plane, beyond any expectations. We pilots didn't even have to master it-it was perfect and flew itself! Before I was assigned a mission in it, I made one check flight. My next flight was a combat mission, to drop paratroopers to liberate Kiev. Later, when Kiev had been liberated, I flew there again. There were few planes on the landing strip, and in the distance I saw an aircraft of unusual shape, like a cigar. I realized at once that it was an American B-29. I taxied and parked next to it. My radio operator, tail-gunner, and I were invited aboard by the American crew. We spoke different languages, but my mechanic knew German and an American spoke it also; thus, the communication took place. The outside of the aircraft was no surprise, but when you got into it, touched it, and saw the most sophisticated equipment, you realized that it was the most perfect aircraft design. The Americans received us very warmly. The news that we flew the American C-47 made them respect us more. The most astonishing news for them was that I, a woman, was commander of the plane. They couldn't believe it. It was an instant reaction-I suggested that I would fly them in my plane to prove it! I put the crew in the navigator compartment and placed the copilot in the right seat beside me. The flight was short, six or seven minutes, but it was hilarious. After that I was strictly reprimanded by my commander.

  By the time I had made 200 combat missions, I was entrusted
at last to fly in the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. I will tell you about one of those flights. I was assigned a mission to drop six paratroopers into the deep rear of the enemy. When we ascended to the altitude of 3,000 meters the tail-gunner reported a Focke Wulf 19o on our tail, but not attacking. I couldn't understand why; then decided that it was a reconnaissance aircraft, and the pilot was interested in what cargo we carried. I knew if I changed course or dove, he would start firing. I climbed up a little and hid the aircraft in the clouds. The fascist instantly began attacking us but made another mistake by firing while he was facing the moon, which blinded him. There were bullets bouncing against the fuselage but so far no serious damage. He attacked once more but with no success, because we were by then deep in the clouds.

  We had changed course, so now we corrected it and crossed the front line. In the enemy rear we usually flew at a very low altitude, because the Germans had detectors sensitive to flights above 300 meters. Our path to the enemy rear was a crooked route, because we avoided flying over towns and other places where we might be detected. It happened that we flew directly over an enemy airfieldbombers were circling around it. I knew that these fields were surrounded by antiaircraft guns and sound detectors that could easily tell we were Russian. More experienced pilots had told me to quickly change the engine sound if this happened to me, so I ordered the mechanic to change the synchronization of the engines so we might sound like a German Junkers aircraft. It worked; we flew through the area without an attack.

  At last we arrived at the appointed spot, and my passengers bailed out. We held to that course so the Germans couldn't identify the place where the men jumped; then we took a course back to our base. After about forty minutes at low altitude, the mechanic inquired if I had touched the fuel-tank switch. I was angry, because in my crew we had a strict rule: never interfere with other crew members' work. But then he showed me the fuel-tank switch circling of its own accord. I understood what had happened: the German fighter had shot the fuel lines, and now we had fuel only in one tank, only enough for one and one-half hours. The other fuel tanks had been cut off.