I smiled as, once upon a time, I’d thought that I wouldn’t have a chance to fight.
“Oh, no! There is a difference! You’ll fly in the rear, above the aerodrome first, get trained and then start to fly sorties bit by bit. No way to get into such fights straight away! Even old fossils could just cope! I don’t send youngsters to such fights straight away.”
Arkhipenko had his reasons for talking this way. He pitied the young flyers joining us as reinforcements, and didn’t take them on patrol immediately. That’s why the losses were minimal in the squadron. And in this operation he had not wanted to take Boris Golovanov up, no matter how difficult it was for his quartet. Back then they got out of their cockpits hardly at all. It was either sorties or watches, but he allowed himself no more than lying under a wing, and made Boris sit on watch in the cockpit. But he would manage to fly off along with the rest, and send Golovanov to the parking area through two-way. Only later, when the tension of fighting had lessened, did he begin to take Boris on sorties.
“But you don’t let me fly either. Give me a chance to have a flight now at least.” Stepanov objected.
“You want to fly, don’t you? I thought if we didn’t want to nobody would. Alright, you’ll have a flight today. With Zhen’ka. Zhen’ka, did you hear that?”
At that moment I was chatting with Misha Lusto and Ippolitov. Although Misha was quite sceptical about the Second Front, opened by the Allies in the North of France, he had been following the action in Normandy, in the papers and on broadcasts, very attentively. Ippolitov, on the contrary, counted too much on the Anglo-Americans.
“Don’t say that. They landed on the sixth, and on the seventh fighting here came to a pause. Why was that? Because the Germans had drawn off their aviation to there.”
“He-he, you’re too quick! They had begun to fly less since the first or the second. And then, Utin said that there’d been a radio intercept. The Germans are trying to bide their time on their territory, while we are on patrol and only then fly to bomb.”
Ippolitov was embarrassed. But he did not give up. Since Lusto was neutral in this argument and expressed no opinion he kept insisting on his rightness.
“I’ve heard that they’ve done thirty-five thousand sorties over the bridgeheads! That’s a hell of a lot! They did twenty thousand just to land the paratroopers!”
“And what of it? How many planes did they send over to Berlin? Thousands. Did you feel better? We’ve seen no less Germans here.”
“Zhen’ka! Have you finished chatting over there? Don’t you hear me?”
“What’s up?”
“You’ll have to fly around the district with your quartet. Stepanov will be your wingman. You’ll have a test fight against him over the aerodrome.”
“Alright. When?”
“Apparently by this evening. I’ll go and make arrangements with Figichev.” Arkhipenko stood up, smoothed out his raglan. He never took it off, even in the heat of the Romanian summer of 1944. He headed across the airstrip to the command post.
“Fedor Fedorovich!” I stopped him. Give your raglan a rest. You’re going to get cooked in it. How can you wear it in this heat? And you fly in it all the time! Isn’t it hot? Throw those rags away!”
“You’re a crank! It’s leather! The only salvation in fire. Why didn’t your legs burn when you were landing in a burning plane? Your leather jackboots saved you. Otherwise you would have spent a fair bit in a hospital!”
“But you’re not going to fly now. Leave it here.”
“No fools here! You’ll chuck it out and where will I get another one from? It’s my mascot. I’ve been flying in it the whole war and never got a shell-hole.”
The flyers once tried to unaccustom their Commander of his raglan, which even Plyushkin would have been squeamish of. Plyushkin was a literary hero of Gogol’s novel The Dead Souls. He was an extremely greedy hoarder, a symbol of a miser. They hid it, but Fedor Fedorovich became so desperate that they unwillingly took pity on him, and returned him this mixture of leather and emalite glue. “You should have thrown it away long ago. There is more emalite than leather in it. You’ll get burned good and proper, instead of being protected from fire!”
“Give it a rest hyar! It’s still a good raglan. I still can go to a dancing hall in it like before the war, stand around, pull out cigarettes.” He showed how he would pull out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you know what kind of cigarettes we used to smoke back then? This size! You smoke a metre and throw away two!” This was his favourite proverb. And the farther our troops advanced to the west, the more often he would remember the cigarettes he used to smoke before the war. Possibly he used to smoke common ‘Belomor.’ The brand was always preferred by the pilots for some reason, but during the war, when we had to smoke any kind of rubbish, these common cigarettes had grown in his mind into something being three metres long. “You smoke a metre and throw away two!”
Arkhipenko waved his hand, “You guys understand nothing about it!” and went away. By the way, the Squadron Commander had flown his four hundredth sortie during these fights. In honour of the occasion, the Commander of the ground service battalion had found, somewhere in the stores, two new raglans for him and Nikolay Gulaev. But the commanding officers, the Regiment Commander Figichev and the Chief of Staff took them away for themselves and gave the flyers their own shabby ones. Nevertheless, Arkhipenko was unspeakably happy, and although it was not possible any more to wear his old raglan, he assembled the squadron and solemnly presented his deputy Mikhail Lusto with his old one. The laughter was so thunderous that flyers from neighbouring squadrons ran up and joined the presentation. Fedor came back in about half an hour.
“Come on, Zhen’ka, muster your eaglets and take off. Don’t go too far though. Fly around the aerodrome. Don’t go to the frontline. Remember, Stepanov is there with you.” Like the other flyers, Arkhipenko distrusted the lull at the front. The crews that had made reconnaissance flights, reported that there was still a lot of German aircraft on the aerodromes near the frontline. Of course, one might come across them in the air at any time.
“Alright. I’ll lead them over here and back home.” I pulled out a map, pointed my finger at it and thought, “Not to show the frontline? What kind of flight around the battle area is that? Three of us will manage to protect Stepanov!” We flew along the frontline from Tyrgu-Frumos to Jassy, went into the German territory, but everything turned out alright. It was quiet in the air and the land was silent. No flak gun barked. We flew back to the aerodrome. I let the other pair land and stayed in the air with Stepanov. “You stay behind my tail, Sergey!”
There was no point staging a dogfight. The main thing was to teach the young pilot to hold behind the leader’s tail. I led my Bellochka into a steep turn, glancing at Stepanov over my shoulder. “He’s holding well, good boy!” From the steep turn I threw my plane into a rollover. “Well done! You’re a battle flyer now!” I kept looking back and downward at my wingman. Messerschmitts had taught us not to look at the dashboard, and to feel the speed in any position. Stepanov was dragging behind and below me. I put my plane on its back so as to pull it out of the battle turn, but Sergey kept climbing and his fighter’s nose was still looking up. “You’re a sneaky fellow! It’s not hard to climb above me on a new plane!” My plane’s engine had been completely worn out during fighting. It barely had enough power to take off from this confined aerodrome. “It’s time for him to cut down the climb! This way no engine will handle it!”
But what’s this? Sergey’s plane abruptly dropped its nose and began to count the coils of a spiral. “Pull out!” I yelled into the two-way as if Stepanov didn’t know himself that he had to pull out. He did it. And again he began to climb in a battle turn. “He’s going to fall through again!” I decided not to wait for more trouble, as Stepanov had too low an altitude, and rushed downward to meet him. “Follow me!” He took his place. I did some more loose evolutions. What if he failed again and got smashed? Then I went for landing.<
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“Sergey, did your engine play up? Why did you climb up?” I asked him on the ground and added doubtfully, “You’ve got a new plane and it should be working well.”
“No, it pulled well.”
“Why did you break away into a spiral then?”
“Don’t know. I had started getting out of the battle turnaround and it broke away.”
“Getting out?” I shrugged. When was he getting out? He was climbing up all the time. “Were you really pulling out?”
“Sure I was.”
“You didn’t even think about it! You probably wanted to climb above me.”
“No, I’m being honest.”
His breakaway into a spiral remained a mystery for me and other pilots long after that. But, in subsequent flights, Stepanov regularly broke away into a spiral, several times in a row. He managed to pull out skilfully, although admittedly, it was very hard to get a Cobra out of a spiral, as the steering lever tended to break loose from one’s grip, hammered hands and knees and galloped all over the cockpit. Only after about five flights with Sergey did I guess that Stepanov had been trained by an unskilled instructor. He probably recommended only one method, in case of loss of speed in any position, to push the lever away from oneself, even if a plane went up vertically. Of course, a breakaway into a spiral was inevitable with that.
I managed with difficulty to convince Sergey that in this position he had to tilt his plane on one wing or put it on its back. “No, it’s wrong!” Sergey objected. “We’ve been always taught to push the lever away.” I had to draw on aerodynamics, to prove to him, that if speed was lost on a climb, neither rudder nor speed would be enough to carry out the final stage of a reverse loop.
A few days later, Nikolay Glotov was transferred to the regiment in exchange for Lebedev. He settled in well in the squadron and we grew fond of him for his cheerful character.
Soon, the flyers who had been wounded in the fighting near Jassy began to return to the Regiment. Golovanov came back too. He had filled out even more during treatment and earned a nickname.
“Look, Yurik is back!” Arkhipenko greeted him, standing up and extending his hand.
Boris looked around in surprise. “Yurik who?”
“What are you looking around for hyar? Yurik is our chef. He’s as fat as you are. Or rather, you’re as fat as him.” Although three Golovanovs were needed to make up one Yurik, the nickname took its hold on him. There would be no more Boris Golovanov after that. Yurik stayed.
The days went on. The fatigue had gone long ago, and the flyers began to languish from idleness. We would come to the aerodrome late, around sunset. Only the group on watch would have taken full alert beforehand. Other flyers would not be in a hurry to occupy their cockpits, after arriving at the aerodrome. They would gather around the Command Post, ask for news. Who else but the staff workers would know the latest communique of Sovinformbureau, i.e. the Soviet Information Bureau, the official Soviet Information Body during WW2. And the flyers were after the news that was vitally important for them. When will new planes or engines arrive, and will there be any missions?
“Look, the Belorussian Fronts are advancing again, but we are sitting around.” The flyers grumbled, not remembering that there yet had been no advance in Belorussia that year. Their own front had managed to go over the whole right-bank Ukraine and Bessarabia, and entered Romania.
“But we have just beaten off a German advance,” some others were arguing.
“And what of it? We beat them off near Belgorod and went for an advance ourselves! We should be doing it here as well.”
“Obviously they’ve forgotten to ask us where to advance.”
“Listen, Zemlyachenko,” I came up to the deputy Chief-of-Staff. “When will they bring new planes up?”
“What kind of difference does it make for you? You’ve got a new one, fault-free.”
“Fault free! Let someone fly it! The engine doesn’t drag on, and the plane itself is good for nothing.”
“No way you’ll get a new one.”
“Won’t get? I can’t fly this one. It’s going to fall at any take off!”
“Well, well, keep it quiet, they may think you want to smash it intentionally. Alright then. They promise to do it today. But you won’t get one.”
“We’ll see!” I was walking to the parking area in a good mood. If the planes arrive, I’ll insist on getting one for myself!
“Fedor Fedorovich, the planes are coming today.”
“I know.”
“I need a new one.”
“Where will this one go?”
“To maintenance. Let it go to the rear.”
“We’ll see. They say there’ll be spare, reserve planes. You’ll take one of those.”
We were just about to come up to the plane. I stopped, but Arkhipenko went on.
“Comrade Commander.” Volkov began to report but I interrupted him.
“Now, now, Kolya, no need. I’ll probably get a new fighter plane today.”
“And what about me, us?” Nikolay began, frightened, but immediately collected himself, glancing at Karpushkin and Evteeva. The latter had replaced Bourmakova, who had perished. “What about us? Shall we stay with this one? And Tikhonovich doesn’t want to get left behind.”
“Don’t worry! Turn this old lady in and you’ll get a new one.”
“That’s good! And I didn’t know what to do with this one. Everything falls apart. The centre section is deformed. I guess it’s been overloaded pretty well in these fights.”
“It’s been a bit like that.”
“Well, buddies,” Arkhipenko came back from the command post, “there’s plenty of news!”
“What’s up?”
“We’ve done our war at this front.”
“Why?”
“Vatutin has been wounded by Bendera’s men. He’s dead, have you heard about that?”
And who had heard about Bandera? One way or another, no one in the regiment had.
“Of course we’ve heard. And what of it?”
Stepan Bandera was the leader of the Ukrainian Nationalists who fought against the Soviet Army during WW2. Everybody used to say ‘Bendera’ not ‘Bandera’ back then. Most likely this was because everybody remembered the famous hero of Ilf’s and Petrov’s book. Ostap Bender was the hero of the popular novels The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf, first published before World War II.
“Konev is transferred to the 1st Ukrainian Front as the Commander.”
“And?”
“And our Corps, hyar, is being transferred there, to the 2nd Air Army of General Krasovsky. Get ready for the relocation flight.”
“When are we going?”
“Soon, I suppose. They haven’t said yet. We’ve got only a mission for today. You, Zhen’ka, will fly in a pair to escort a Li-2 with technical materiel. You’ll leave your planes over there and get back on the same Li-2.”
“Where are we flying to?”
Arkhipenko showed the location of the new aerodrome on the map and warned, “Bealert hyar. Messerschmitts frequent the area over there. Don’t let them cut down the Li-2.”
“Well, it’s not my first escort. We used to escort lots of them with Korolev.” I sighed, remembering Victor, and glanced again at the map in Arkhipenko’s hands. “But we don’t have this sheet.”
“Lusto will go and get maps for everybody now. Take mine in the meantime.”
I began to scan the map attentively, trying to memorise the route of the planned flight.
“So we will fly to the new front?”
“Which one is new?”
“Well, here is Romania, and Poland is next to it. The new aerodrome is northeast of Lvov. Lvov is still in German hands, but the frontier wasn’t that far away.”
“Hold back your joy. This is the Western Ukraine. They say there are plenty of Bandera’s men over there. Even Vatutin, the Front Commander, was killed by them.”
“The Western Ukraine. There’s been almost no Sovi
et power at all. But it’s still Ukraine. But most likely there are not that many of them over there.”
All the pilots and most of the technicians were born and grew up under Soviet power. We couldn’t imagine that someone would fight against his ‘own’ regime. And they were not Germans over there but the same Ukrainians as in the rest of the Ukraine. In the meantime, everybody had forgotten how much blood had been spilled in the Civil War. Until now, we had been advancing with the front, across provinces in which the Soviet Power had been established straight after the revolution and the Civil War. The whole population had been greeting the Red Army with cheers. And seemingly it should have been like that everywhere. But here, in the Western provinces, which had joined the Soviet Union just before the war, the Polish peasants looked for the horns of the Antichrist on the heads of the Bolsheviks, as they called all the Soviet soldiers and officers. But this was still to come.
The Li-2 began to climb up. The fighters took off too. They ran over half the airstrip, three quarters of it. They would take off shortly. Indeed I saw Ippolito’s fighter rise into the air and begin to leave the ground behind, gradually retracting the landing gear. But my machine kept running, on the ground, only slowly gaining speed. I was heading for disaster. The end of the airstrip was approaching me. There was no point stopping the take-off, as there was no room for braking. There was only one way, up into the air. Otherwise, precipice to the river, narrow strip of water and my plane would smash onto the opposite bank. I gassed up again with all my strength. No result, as it had been pressed down to the limit, the engine was roaring at full speed and there was nothing to squeeze out of it. I tried to yank it up but in vain. “Bloody tank!” And I jerked the tank release lever.
As Nikolay told it later on, he’d seen a fire flash near the end of the aerodrome and a huge ball of black smoke, through which bright-red flame burst, and swallowed the plane. “That was all. I turned my head away so as not to see the smoke and fire. To have survived in combat for so long and to die on your own aerodrome. They should not have let him fly that old junk. There was fire on the ground, but above it, through the smoke, your plane was seen climbing, without the auxiliary tank.”
Red Star Airacobra Page 24