The medical ward was at the end of a corridor and while I was walking I tried to imagine Galya’s face. Strangely I didn’t remember it at all, as if I’d seen it long ago and forgotten it completely. Well, apparently, I didn’t know it well at all. Actually, over half a year of war, we had not been talking about anything but routine duties. I knew from the typical blokes’ chats that she was a good looking girl, and had a good figure. Many of the guys had been chasing her. I myself had never paid attention to her. The door suddenly opened and I entered the ward. The nurse who brought me managed to whisper that I had only five minutes and disturbing the patient was not allowed, and disappeared.
I looked around. In the middle of the ward there was a hospital bed with a chair and a bedside-table nearby. The room was lit by a dim lamp with no shade. Under this light it seemed to me that the bed was empty, but peering at, it I distinguished the outline of a human body. I came closer and looked at it again. Even I, a combat flyer who had seen the eyes of death, fell dumb-struck. There was an absolutely unfamiliar face, as if waxen, peaked and pale, with sunken cheeks. Half-shut eyes were looking upward at one spot and not blinking. Only after I’d leaned over could I distinguish Galya’s familiar looks. At that moment her eyes squinted slightly, then opened wide and grew wet. I guessed that she’d recognised me. She whispered barely audibly with her cracked lips.
“How are you, comrade Commander. Thanks for coming.”
“Hello, Galochka. Never mind… I should have come before but had no time. How do you feel?
“I’m glad that you’re back. I believed, I knew… Volkov told me yesterday. Are you wounded?”
“A trifle! I’ve been flying planes down here today. But you got in the way of the bullets at the wrong time. Who will maintain my plane now? Eh? But it’s nothing, they will fix you up, then send you to a hospital, then back to us. In other words, stand firm. Understand?”
She nodded assent but a tear rolled down from her right eye.
“The battle is nearly over. We’ll be in Germany soon but it seems that I won’t see the Victory, Zhenya.”
“Cut it out! We’ll get to Berlin together, breathe in free peaceful air. Don’t panic. Understand?”
“I understand.” Galya answered nearly inaudibly and turned away to the wall. I took that to mean she was tired. I stood up.
“Don’t go. Maybe we won’t see each other again, who knows…?”
“Time to go. The nurse told me that no one should disturb you. Forgive me…”
“What for?”
“For everything.”
I was leaving the field hospital with a heavy feeling, which turned into the bitterness of loss when, next morning, I was told that Galya had died…
Batya came back two days later. He came and sat on his bench, sullen and withdrawn. He had not found his son. There were rumours that some flyer who looked like Victor, with similar forelock and breeches, had been killed near Soroki. But this rumour seemingly was not confirmed. Where was he to look for him?
“Have you been to the hospitals, Batya, have you asked around?”
“Yes, I’ve been to Beltsy and Botoshani.”
“What about the place itself, where the fight was?”
“No, I didn’t reach those places. Had no time. I’m thinking about asking for permission again. Maybe, he’s somewhere in a field hospital.”
The question was resolved simply. In a day, the Regiment was to fly to Romania, to the battle zone. The bridgehead north-west of Tiraspol was handed over to another front, and we didn’t have to cover it anymore. “Hyar, you’ll find everything out in the hospitals on your way. And in Romania you’ll get back to the frontline,” said Arkhipenko to Batya in reply to his request.
Grigoriy Sergevich kept looking for Victor for a whole month but found no trace. Time was dragging on and his search was becoming more and more difficult. Many aircraft had been falling from the skies along the frontline and in the rear. It was impossible to remember all of them. The old man lost hope of finding his son alive but wanted to find at least his grave or place of death. All was in vain. He couldn’t find even the wreck of his aircraft.
Once, they drove the wreck of the plane I fell in, near Kotnari, past the aerodrome. The pile of twisted metal didn’t resemble an aircraft at all.
“And you fell with the aircraft?” Volkov was horrified. “Impossible… No chance of survival!”
“Don’t you see I’m alive?”
“They took your plane away, you see.” Batya sighed. “Maybe, Victor’s plane was transported away too. How can I find him now?”
“You can ask the Division Engineer, or in the Corps, if the plane has been taken away.”
I was deeply upset by the loss of Victor and wanted to help Batya, but how? Join his search? They wouldn’t let me. And it wouldn’t be fruitful. I remembered my own fall. “Had I fallen a couple of kilometres further”, thought I, “they wouldn’t have found the wreck in the forest.” Once, near Moscow, they spent a week searching for a flyer who had died in a training flight. And they’d seen the place he’d fallen from the aerodrome. Ground troops keep changing all the time. New ones would like to help but how? No chance of going through all the woods on your own.
The advance of our ground troops that started on 2 May, around Tyrgu-Frumos towards Roman, failed. The troops had come across the fortifications built by the Romanians back in 1939, and switched to defence. I’d heard about those fortifications from artillery guys, but thought that was another frontline fairy-tale. That was, say, the way they tried to justify lack of battle success. Now all that had been confirmed. Air and ground battles almost ceased to occur, but still there was no point in a flyer asking permission to go search for his friend.
I nearly lost my plane again. The aerodrome we were based on was situated on a meadow in a curve of the River Zhizhiya. It was quite small, and there was just enough space for take-off and landing runs. And with my engine, it was useless to try to take off from there. There was a good chance of falling into the river from its precipice. One such attempt nearly ended with an accident, and I had to jerk my plane up at no speed. I barely managed to stop it rolling. But a misfortune brought a fortune. New planes were brought to the Regiment as reinforcements. A flyer on one of them counted wrong and landed about a hundred metres past the strip. The frightened fellow jumped out of the cockpit and swam to the opposite bank of the river, then came to reason and swam back under the concerted laughter of the spectators. The plane was taken out of the river. It could be repaired only in a workshop, but the engine seemed to be a good one. Volkov broke all the records. He removed the engine from this one and fixed it on to mine in fifteen hours. For this feat he received a written commendation from the Regiment’s commanding officer, and just a “well-done!” from me.
There was no fighting, no sorties either. The flyers languished in fruitless watch on the aerodrome. The only available fun was shooting. One of the caponiers was converted into a shooting gallery, and we began to zero in the aircraft arms, shoot from pistols and light machine-guns on targets. But it was still boring without real work.
But I was the dreariest. I still expected some news about Victor. At least something certain. But there was nothing. I was dragged away from gloomy thoughts by the arrival of reinforcements to the Regiment. A Muscovite named Boris Golovanov, a round-faced, sturdily built bloke, with wicked black eyes, joined our squadron. Actually, he had arrived only for probation since he had been left in a Reserve Aviation Regiment as an instructor. But he hoped that he would secure a review of this decision. Several days later new ferocious times arrived, shifted all reflections to the background and muffled them.
19
At Larga Station
Pitch dark. Nikolay climbed up on a wing and yelled into my ear, “Turn on the lights! I’ll show you where to taxi to!” I nodded “alright”. Volkov jumped off the wing and disappeared. The bluish-white beam of my headlight cut through the darkness of the aerodrome. Every blade of grass
sparkled with green. In the distance, on the other side of the airstrip, I saw the small figures of people, the squadron engineer and flight technicians. The planes had to be taxied over there. From one side, another beam of light flashed out, then more and more. Now six twinkling swords ran across the airstrip, slightly swaying and picking out of the dark grass. Caponiers lined up along the Zhizhia River. There were trees on the other side of the airstrip, where the road passed through, and there was the village of Todireni.
The planes taxied next to each other, wing to wing, the way it was never done at the front. But today they were on watch, and would take off to the first flare from the Command Post, or as appropriate, if the flyers saw the Fascist planes. That was how it had been written in the order from Division.
“From 4.45 a.m. 30/5/44 the 129th Guards Fighter Regiment will have 6 planes at full alert, ready to repel the enemy aviation attack on the air base. Take off will be carried out to the signal from the Division Command Post, Aerial Observation Stations, Notification and Signals, and as appropriate.”
Yesterday we taxied out just as early, sat in the cockpits waiting for the signal, then at dawn took off and flew far beyond the frontline. We were sixty kilometres away from our troops. We were on patrol, covering the action of our ground-attack planes on the Roman aerodrome over there, a bit north of Bakeu. Simultaneously, other Fascist aerodromes were attacked and bombed, as the front commanders had been alerted by a high concentration of enemy aviation.
And today everybody was waiting for retaliation. In fact, once it became lighter, a green flare soared from the Command Point, and the fighters flew off. The lamps of our two-ways were gradually warming up, and we began to hear messages from outside. “Two hundred bombers are on their way to the Larga station!” A ground control station transmitted from the frontline. It was the first thing I heard. “Here they come”, I thought. “Going to be hot!” I wasn’t thinking about myself, but about those who stayed on the ground, on whose heads the bombs were due to be tipped. “We’re going to get our share as well. Surely they have enough fighters.”
“Three hundred fighters over the Larga station.” The ground control station transmitted again.
“Arkhipenko! Be on alert! Cover the spot”. On the ground they expected to see the whole armada over the aerodrome. Minutes were passing one after another, but the bombers were not around yet. One could hear echoes of a distant aerial combat, conducted by a ‘sixer’ from a neighbouring regiment, only from a two-way. “Strike at him! Give me cover! Bail out, bail out!”
“Why didn’t we go up there?” I was outraged. “There’s a fight, isn’t there?” Arkhipenko apparently thought along the same lines. He turned around and led his group southwards to the nearby frontline. But they immediately sent a strict order from the ground. “Arkhipenko! Stay on the point! Carry out your duty!” We had to obey. The Commanders still reckoned that it was an attempt to conduct a retaliation strike on our aerodromes. Only later on, it became clear that after an hour of artillery bombardment, the Hitlerites struck with the whole of their aviation, which had been built up for a month, upon the positions of the 52nd Army. The air strike was being conducted on a narrow portion of the front line only twelve kilometres long.
Flights of four and six Messerschmitts and Fockers had been on patrol over this stretch from the morning of 30 May. In the meantime, scores of Ju-87, Ju-88, He-111 covered by four to six fighters for every nine bombers, kept hammering endlessly at our defence positions with en-echelon strikes. Despite their huge numbers, they were suffering heavy losses and decided to change tactics. From 4 pm until dusk, the Fascists began to operate with groups of up to eighty bombers each. These armadas were covered by twenty to thirty Me-109 and FW-190 fighters.
During one day a total of one thousand nine hundred Fascist aircraft flew over this area. And sixty of them, shot down by the Soviet fighter planes, fell down just on our positions. And how many of them had crashed beyond the frontline, being shot up and unable to make it home? The next day the Germans managed to send into action only one thousand six hundred planes, on the fourth day, seven hundred and fifty, on the seventh, three hundred and seventy planes.
That day we did four sorties and all of them with dogfights. Gulayev again distinguished himself on the first day. He shot down two enemy planes in two sorties, one Ju-88, one Ju-87, two Me-109s and one He-126. During the first sortie, he himself led a group of twelve fighters, they came across a He-126. Gulayev shot him down, but in the meantime, two groups of fifteen Ju-88s each, had approached the frontline, escorted by six Romanian IAR-80 fighters and six Me-109s. Nikolay Gulayev shot down a Ju-88. Boukchin and Zadiraka shot down one IAR-80 each. A covering group, led by Bekashonok, fought as well. Bekashonok and Basenko shot down one Ju-88 each, and Galushkov, one Me-109. The whole group made it home with no losses, having shot down seven German planes.
But Gulayev’s second sortie was not that successful. Their ‘sixer’ came across eight Messerschmitts, but thirty more Ju-88, escorted by sixteen Me109s, closed in. Our claims made up nine enemy planes, i.e. five ‘clodhoppers’ and four Messerschmitts, and five more in the whole sortie. But the Germans managed to shoot down the whole ‘sixer’. My comrade Akinshin, from aeroclub and flying school, and a young pilot Gromov, who had just joined the Regiment, died. Zadiraka, Chesnokov and Kozinov managed to bail out from burning planes. The same day, being wounded, they returned to the Regiment, from where they were sent to a hospital. Gulayev himself was wounded too, but managed to land his plane on a ground attackers’ aerodrome. His main mistake was that he had taken three non-battle-seasoned flyers who were shot down in their first combat.
Later on everything got mixed up. There were sorties, dogfights, watches on the aerodrome at full alert, short sleeps. To be exact, night-time naps, as we slept no longer than two hours, and sorties, watches and dogfights again. Never before had the Regiment fought battles of such ferocity, or encountered such massive actions by the German aviation. And who knows, had there been no Pokryshkin’s Division which had joined the Corps, shortly before Jassy, as it was called later, few flyers would have lived through to its end. Pokryshkin’s Division took off part of the fight load from the flyers of the other two Divisions of the Corps.
Several episodes were ingrained in my memory with photographic accuracy. Having dived vertically from a height of five thousand metres, we were chasing some ‘clodhoppers’ at a height of fifteen hundred. Arkhipenko and Bourgonov had raced forward, ahead of me by about three hundred metres. At that moment two Fockers had tipped over, and latched on to their tails.
“Arkhipenko, Gipsy, the Fockers are on your tails!” I yelled, but they didn’t hear me. A Focker was in my gun-sight, but Bourgonov was in it too and I couldn’t shoot. In helpless anger I squeezed the lever looking for a chance to open fire. All in vain. Bourgonov’s fighter plane caught fire and broke into a spiral, and I saw a parachute cupola above it. I opened fire at the very same moment and didn’t stop until the Focker caught fire, dipped his nose and hit the ground somewhere in the northern suburb of Jassy. No one bailed out. At last Arkhipenko noticed that he was being chased, and escaped from the other Focker’s strike. But Bourgonov landed straight on to the position of a German flak battery. Having survived captivity he would be liberated by our troops in 1945. They wouldn’t allow him to return to aviation. For a long time after that the brand, ‘former POW’, would hang over him, hampering his life.
I’m led by Arkhipenko, since Ippolitov stayed on the aerodrome. ‘Clodhoppers’ flew out of a heavy thundery cloud. Messerschmitts and Fockers whirled around them. The ‘clodhoppers’ went for a dive. One of them is in my gun-sight. A shell shot out by a Messerschmitt burst beside me. “He’s shooting from afar, the bastard. Not to worry, I’ve got cover, they’ll drive him off. The main thing is not to let them bomb.”
“Poupok, hit the ‘skinnies’!” Arkhipenko yelled. A gun burst. A trace of shells clearly seen against the background of a dark cloud. They reached
the Junkers. It inclined sideways. An explosion in its engine, its hull and between the wheels of the undercarriage, and the ‘clodhopper’ falls apart. Only small fragments of it fell on the ground. Apparently a bomb exploded.
One more sortie. “Descend!” General Utin ordered from the ground. “The Henschels are attacking the ground!” Arkhipenko’s quartet dives. I am beside Fedor, as a wingman should be. We race into thick smoke and dust, thrown up by bomb and shell blasts. We can see nothing. Ahead of us the contours of a hill or tumulus ooze through the smoke. Beside it the bodies of twin-engine Henschel129s are seen. Arkhipenko shoots. A Henschel catches fire, loses stability and hits the ground straight away. Another one is to the right. I open fire but miss. It quickly slips away into a depression.
“Fighters are over us!” Utin transmits. I follow Arkhipenko upwards, with a right battle-turn. A Messerschmitt is on Arkhipenko’s tail but I can see it in my gun-sight. The distance to it is about fifty metres. A short cannon burst, and the ‘skinnie’ goes into the ground in a vertical dive.
Goreglyad is leading a ‘bookshelf’ of twenty-four planes. Groups of four to six are on different altitudes, always ready to assist each other. The ‘skinnies’ have been immediately trapped in this net. When evading the upper group in a dive, they came under fire from one of the lower ones. Three Messerschmitts went into the ground straight away, as smoky torches. In the meantime, a group of He-111s was flying high above at seven, to seven and a half thousand metres. Bombs are coming right from there. What are they hitting? What could the Fascists see from such a height whilst we cannot see anything, even from two thousand metres through the thick shroud of smoke and dust covering the ground?
Arkhipenko cut into the middle of a big group of Ju-87s. He shoots. The ‘clodhoppers’ fled in all directions, but some Fockers flew alongside. Later Arkhipenko said, “I look, hyar, and see the Fockers fly along with the ‘clodhoppers’ and turn their muzzles towards me. I shot out a burst, hyar, and quickly made off.”
Red Star Airacobra Page 22