Red Star Airacobra

by Evgeniy Mariinskiy

  When I dropped out of the clouds again there were no Junkers below them. They were leaving southwards one by one. “Stick to me!” I heard Victor’s voice and saw him waggling his plane’s wings to show me where he was. We kept chasing single Junkers for some time after that, but they wouldn’t let us come close, being quick to retreat into the clouds. Seven fighter planes gathered together and went home after the battle. The eighth, Nikolay Bourgonov, Arkhipenko’s wingman, remained somewhere there on the frontline, our Gipsy.

  I didn’t know what had happened to him. Everybody was in line after the dogfight against the Messers. Then there was a short encounter with the bombers that took place mostly beyond the frontline. I remember my cheer when I saw the Germans throwing bombs on their own troops. What if Gipsy had to land down there? They’d take vengeance on him.

  Once we were on the ground, Arkhipenko told us he and Gipsy had shot one Junkers each in the first attack. Then the ‘clodhoppers’ dispersed. He saw Bourgonov chase another Junkers and come up very close, but suddenly he disappeared into the clouds from where only some debris from his fighter plane fell out. He saw nothing else…

  In four hours that day, from twelve noon to 4 p.m., the Regiment had four aerial battles and shot down twenty Fascist planes. But joy over this major victory was darkened by the loss of Gipsy who was loved by all in the Regiment…Then something incredible happened. The flyers had jumped upon the back of their three-ton truck to go home. Our ‘Wildebeest’ had by that time done her duty and fallen apart on the run. They discovered that Gipsy was already sitting there!

  “Gipsy!”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Gipsy’s here!”

  They were conferring on him friendly punches to the sides and back, interrogating him, interrupting each other and not letting Bourgonov get a word in. He was silent, smiling confusedly.

  It turned out that when he had latched on to the Junkers’ tail our anti-aircraft gun had shot away his tail with a direct hit. The unresponsive stump of the plane lifted its nose up, went into the clouds and began to tumble. Gipsy opened the cockpit door with great difficulty, bailed out and opened the parachute. Arkhipenko had seen the fall of the plane debris but Gipsy was in the clouds at the time…

  He fell out of the clouds over the German front trenches. He was shot at from the ground but they missed. Luckily, the wind blew in our direction. He landed on neutral ground. He was shot at again. A Tiger tank even crept out and shot at him with armour-piercing shells. Then Gipsy understood he was being shown up by the parachute’s white cupola, seen distinctly against the black background. He crawled away. Then two of our soldiers crawled out and pulled him away into their trench……

  “That was it…” Bourgonov finished.

  “So you haven’t been to the CP yet, have you?” Gulayev asked. “They reported to the Division…”

  “When could I? I saw everybody was getting on the truck. I thought you’d go without me. So I crawled in. I didn’t feel like walking anymore. I had had enough for one day…”

  It was lunch and dinner at once. Nobody had had time to have lunch on the aerodrome during that day. Now the flyers burst into the mess-room straight from the truck, not having stopped in at home. Never before had so many people crowded in here at one time. The hullabaloo and crush at the tables couldn’t darken our mood. Bourgonov and Galushkov were the heroes of the day. Bourgonov had bailed out, and Galushkov had got a small chip of plexiglass into his left eyebrow, from his cockpit windscreen that a bullet had broken.

  Only Chugunov’s face was falling out of this harmony. He was gloomily sitting in the corner in his usual spot, which he had occupied even before the arrival of the flyers from the aerodrome. Since he had not been flying he had not been given his hundred front line grams, i.e. his vodka ration, and he was muttering unhappily, “What are you bragging about, had I flown I would have done even better. They’ll get their medals now. Well, well! I’ll show them!”

  He gave no details who and what he was going to show. He had simply seen that it was possible to fight with no losses and it seemed to him today that it was not that hard. Have a flight, collect shot down German planes in your bag, and get awards. He didn’t risk speaking his mind in front of everyone, and mumbled in his beard instead. But Victor, sitting in front of him, heard that and asked me, “Have you reported how many you shot down today?”

  “None.”

  “Why? You told me that you’d shoved a burst into a ‘skinnie’ and another one into a ‘’clodhopper’!”

  “I didn’t see where they fell. Maybe, they never fell at all.”

  “Rubbish. I’m not sure about the Schmitt since you were shooting from afar and might have only hit him. But you said your full burst went into the Junkers, didn’t you?”

  “Where else could it have gone? He was blocking the whole view in front of my plane. No bullet would have gone past him.”

  “And you’re not sure if you’d shot him down? One of our shells is enough to knock him out and here it was a whole burst!”

  “Well, it’s too late to think about it now, shot down or not shot down. I didn’t see him fall. If I didn’t see, maybe I didn’t shoot him down. The ground troops will confirm how many planes fell, and what sort. We’ll work it out then.”

  They began to serve the first course. The aroma of rich Ukrainian borsch spread over the mess-room. And it was really good, for the first time since our arrival on the Ukrainian Right Bank, i.e. the part of Ukraine west of the Dniepr. Maybe the flyers had simply built up an appetite? They’d done a cracking job, but had not had their lunch on time. Generally speaking we were fed badly. The local population had nothing since the Fascists had robbed them of everything, and supplies across the Dniepr were still problematic. The technical personnel lived only on green fodder, i.e. what they would collect as the leftovers of the corn and beetroot harvest in the fields. Rarely, somebody managed to shoot a hare with his rifle. They bred in great numbers, but they were, oh! so hard to hit.

  Anyway we all rattled our spoons with pleasure. Only Chugunov turned to a waitress flushed with the closeness, the noise and general joy and with a smile on her face.

  “How many times have I told you that you must serve me the first course with a bone! You are lost in thought, aren’t you?” The waitress silently, with the same joyful smile took the plate from him but the laughter in her eyes had gone. Instead of laughter, two angry sparks appeared in them. This good-for-nothing is posing again. She didn’t come back for about five minutes. “Manager! Why aren’t I being served?” Chugunov lost control.

  “Coming, coming!” We heard from the kitchen and the waitress appeared in the door. She was even more flushed and her cheeks had gone nearly crimson. She bit her lip so as not to burst out laughing. She was solemnly carrying in her outstretched arms a dish, across which lay a cow’s leg bone sticking out fifteen centimetres on both sides.

  “H-h-here you are s-s-sir!” She barely managed to say, put the dish in front of Chugunov, and covered her mouth with her apron. The flyers, who had fallen silent at her appearance in the door, now rocked with laughter. Chugunov looked in silence at the dish and the bone for a few seconds, then went pale and abruptly leapt to his feet with lips trembling with rage and his fists clenched.

  “W-what’s going on? Are you making fun of me?” His eyes were flashing like lightning and it seemed that he was about to leap at the waitress and beat her half to death, and only the table was hindering him from doing it. “I’ll show you!” He even began to stutter with anger. “I-I-I…!” He couldn’t find any more words and wanted to jump from behind the table to scuffle with the waitress but the other flyers wouldn’t let him.

  “Sit down, Chugunov, eat!”

  “What a nice bone! It would do for ten dogs!”

  “They’ve really looked after him!”

  “It’s a special treatment! He’s been hanging around the mess-room all the time!”

  He somehow got out from b
ehind the table and shot out through the door pursued for a long while by comments. “Take the bone with you! It’ll be enough to gnaw on for a whole week!”

  “Put it under a vehicle, crush it and you can have the marrow!”

  “Take the bone!”

  7

  Nothing to report

  “You, Chugunov, are going with me,” Arkhipenko declared next day. “Gipsy needs a rest today. But you, see hyar, make no mistake, if anything happens I’ll shoot you down myself.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chugunov said as indignantly as if he meant it. “I’ll cling to you with my teeth.” But it was snowing, there was no flying and the day stretched out in a tedious wait. This monotony was interrupted only by the arrival of Ivan Gurov who had been shot down almost two months previously, on 21 October.

  But on 17 December, from early in the morning, the sun shone out from a cloudless frosty sky and the aerodrome returned to life. “Well, Chugunov, get ready,” Arkhipenko said as he appeared in the squadron dug-out. “Take off in two hours. You, Gipsy, stay back hyar, have a rest.”

  “What rest? I am perfectly fine!”

  “Well, let Chugunov have a flight and then we’ll see. If everything goes fine, Chugunov will stay as my wingman and you’ll be a leader. It’s time for you…”

  Chugunov ran to the parking to receive a plane. He had a very exacting look into all the chutes, checked the level of fuel and even made them test the engine once again. “What’s the point of testing it yet again? We got up four times during the night to warm up the engines, and half an hour ago we did it once more.” A mechanic was trying to convince him.

  The ground service battalion had no means of keeping the engines warm. With the arrival of cold weather, the mechanics had to get up several times a night, to warm them up. It was the only way to keep the planes battle-ready, and prevent freezing of the cooling fluid systems. The worn out mechanics, with dark-blue circles under their eyes, had been doing their job thoroughly. It would have been cruel to demand more from them. Beside that, running the engines on the ground was reducing the engine life-time. It was not generally recommended, because of the poor cooling of water and oil radiators. But Chugunov had seized upon power and it was useless to argue with him. “Stop talking! Carry out your orders!” Whilst they were firing up and testing the engine, the second squadron returned from their sortie. The flyers had had another fight but this time not quite successfully. They’d shot down three Fascist planes, but lost two of their own. Fomin and Remez had been shot down in that fight…

  When the time came to take off there was no Chugunov on the parking bay. He was searched for everywhere, they sent to look for him to the Regimental CP but his trail had gone cold.

  “Ah, Bloody Aeneas!” Arkhipenko repeated an expression of Korolev’s. “He’s heard two of the guys didn’t come back and gone off into the bushes! He’s caught the Bear’s disease, caused by nervous strain.” So saying, Arkhipenko didn’t suspect he was not far from the truth. Chugunov indeed had hidden out in the bushes, squatted down and was peeping out waiting for the squadron’s departure. Arkhipenko had a last look around the parking bay, still hoping Chugunov would appear, then spat and turned to Bourgonov who was following him. “You’ll have to go, Gipsy…” “That’s what I’m doing.”

  Later on Chugunov insisted he had had stomach cramps and although no one argued with him, all were tired after fighting, he didn’t stop justifying himself for a long while. “I basically thought”, he finished, “you wouldn’t take me up. The fighting is so hot! If there were no fighting…” “If there were no fighting what the hell use would you be, Aeneas? There’d be no point flying then!” Korolev was outraged. “You’d rather a scenic flight to the frontline and back and bag some medals!” he said recalling yesterday’s dinner.

  To bag medals, once upon a time, back in the flying school, I used to dream of receiving a Red Banner Order. Now my desires were much more modest. I wanted to shoot down at least one ‘clodhopper’. Then I could feel I wasn’t wasting my time at the front. Why a Ju-87 in particular? I just thought this kind of plane was the easiest to shoot down. I didn’t think about death at all but felt one had to be ready for it, and giving cover to the leader was not enough to justify my presence at the front. Korolev had shot down three planes in front of me. But it was Korolev! I wished it had been me.

  Cherkassy, Chigirin, Znamenka, Alexandria and New Prague were liberated and the frontline stabilised after the 2nd Ukrainian front had joined with the Cherkassy grouping of forces on 15 December. Aerial fighting came to a lull as well. The Regiment kept doing its combat work though. We flew for reconnaissance, to cover ground troops, escorted spotters for Il-2 planes. But Fascist planes were not showing up in the air and there was nothing to shoot down.

  Overall I was unhappy with the situation in the air. And moreover in the meantime Korolev once unwittingly touched my sore spot. “So, you haven’t written your mum that you’r eat the front, have you?” He asked me, reading a letter he had just received.

  “No. I’ve told you before.”

  “You should. Families of frontliners are eligible for some privileges. Is your mum dependent on you? Do you send her your allowance?”

  “Dependent? I don’t know. I’ve been sending her money from the front. We used to get seventy roubles in the Reserve Regiment, and a jar of tobacco was worth one hundred and ten.”

  “Anyway, you’ve got your allowance now. Write to her that you are at the front.”

  “What about? About flying and ironing the air?”

  “Write to her that you helped your leader to shoot down three enemy planes. You secured that, as it were… Of course, you need to shoot one down yourself. But you know that there’s no chance to knock anything down with a bad wingman. More likely you’ll be knocked off yourself.”

  “Alright, I’ll write to her.”

  “Secured”… My father had a division under his command during the Civil War. He fought near Tsarytsyn, the city later named Stalingrad, during the Civil War in Russia, from 1918–22, in an area of ferocious battles. He took part in the putting down of the Kronstadt mutiny, and I only “secured” something…

  “Listen to me, Zhen’ka, this is how we’ll be flying now. Whoever is in a better position will attack and the other will give cover. We’ll be swapping positions over in combat.” The decision seemed unexpectedly simple and mutually acceptable. “That’s good! See the way Gulayev’s been teaching Bukchin to fight. He’s been letting him go ahead and the guy shot down two in one dogfight. And Gulayev himself has nothing to resent. He’s got thirty on his account.”

  But anyway I had a letter to write. Whatever I had written before, there was a war on and my mother had been worrying about me. It would have been even worse not to write her at all. I had to do it. “I’ve got nothing to report”, I wrote in this letter, “except that I’ve already been at the front for three months. No fighting at the moment, we have not been flying recently. We sit on the aerodrome and are bored…” A couple of days later I could have written a different letter…

  We were escorting a reconnaissance flight of Il-2s, headed to photograph the Fascists’ fortifications north of Krivoy Rog. This flight didn’t promise anything exciting, but we had to escort them. Who knew what might happen to them? The ‘humpbacks’ were flying over the German defence lines taking photographs. “What are they taking pictures of?” I glanced at the ground with interest but failed to see anything. A typical Ukrainian thaw had occurred in the night and now down below there was a mottled carpet of white and black patches. “Like hell you’ll see anything down there! It’s a kind of camouflage.”

  Not having seen anything interesting on the ground I transferred my attention to the air. Yet there was nothing there either. There was only thin grey haze, with the sun and the blue of the skies shining through it. No one… I scanned the air in front of me, aside, behind, above and below me… Something flashed a little bit to the left of the sun’s dull
disc. A pair of ‘skinnies’? Too close to each other…

  “Arkhipenko! A ‘frame’, i.e. a German reconnaissance plane, to the left and above.” Now a twin-fuselage and engine reconnaissance plane FW-189, circling over our troops selecting targets for artillery and aviation was clearly seen against the background of thin cloud cover. We recognised it by its ‘voice’.

  “Number Four, attack!” Arkhipenko replied. I was in the best position for attack out of the whole group. I attacked the ‘frame’ from below in a battle spin. The FW-189 was not expecting an attack. The Hitlerites distracted by their reconnaissance, apparently didn’t see our fighters against the mottled background of the land surface. I calmly trained my guns at it, pressed the trigger and watched with satisfaction as my gun burst crossed the Fascist plane. The first shell exploded in the left wing, the second, armour-piercing one, no explosion was seen, went through the cockpit, a third exploded in the right engine. Apart from three 37mm shells a good two dozen armour-piercing and incendiary large-calibre bullets went into the German plane.

  The Fascist tried to escape with a jerky turnover. It made the compressed air break off in wide white sheets, not only from the console, but from the whole wing, right up to the cockpit situated in the middle of the ‘frame’, and between its engines.

  Did he really try? A plane under control would have been barely capable of such a drastic manoeuvre. Just before he was flying on the same course as my Cobra and now it was going in the opposite direction in nearly a vertical dive. It would be the same as hitting a stone wall at full speed. The manoeuvre was most likely a result of the damage taken by the ‘frame’.

  However, I had no time to think about it. In a fight you act, you don’t think. One way or another it was too late for it to escape. Its right engine was ablaze, its rear gunner was killed and silenced, the wing smashed by a shell, and one of the unfolded wheels made things worse for it. The nearly vertical dive didn’t save it as my Cobra quickly caught up with it. One more burst and the spotter hit the ground.