A battered pickup drove us to the spot. Making our way through the dense crowd of mobilised men we presented ourselves to the commissar. But he, finding out what the matter was, just shook his head: “What’s she got to do with us? She’s come from Moscow — let her get back there”.
“Now don’t drag your feet, major! We need flyers badly”, the senior lieutenant pressed.
“I can’t, I have no right to spread anarchy”, the military commissar persisted.
The argument went nowhere. We had to back down. Listarevich (the senior lieutenant had managed to introduce himself) calmed me down: “Forget about these bureaucrats. Let’s go to our unit straightaway, we’ll sort everything out on the spot.”
We visited a military hospital on our way and it came out that the Senior Lieutenant Listarevich had picked up two pilots recovered from wounds, a mechanic who had lost his unit and a pilot from the OSOAVIAHIM. Now he cheered up, for he was not coming back to his unit empty-handed! We were rushing in our pickup to some of the 130th Detached Aviation Signals Squadron of the Southern Front. The senior lieutenant had bee a pilot himself and was doing his best to prove it driving his pickup. He sped as if in a U-2, almost 100 kilometres an hour, without thinking much about the men sitting in back…
At last, the aerodrome — or rather a landing area near Chaplino station in the village of Tikhiy. Covered with dust and pretty well exhausted from the bumpy ride we presented ourselves before the commanders’ eyes straightaway.
“Not a lot of troops…”
“The aeroclub was evacuated, Comrade Major”, the senior lieutenant defended himself, “but I brought you some eagles.”
“Eagles?” The Major asked again and gave me a somewhat suspicious and sidelong look.
Only now I did notice an Order of the Red Banner on the commanding officer’s chest and rejoiced: it meant he was a combatant, so I couldn’t afford to miss my chance. That was why I boldly reported “Former Kalinin aeroclub pilot instructor Anna Egorova reporting for duty.”
“But there’s been no order yet to draft women to the front.”
“Do I really need an order to fight for the motherland?”
“That’s true…” The major looked at me narrowly.
“Have you got your papers, Egorova?” The Major’s voice now sounded encouraging.
“Absolutely!”
I quickly put on the desk my pilots’ certificate, passport, Comsomol membership card and the orders to the Stalino aeroclub. Having thoroughly examined the papers the Major turned to a captain nearby: “Grishchenko! You’ll fly off to Simferopol tomorrow. You have to fly anyway, and while you’re at it you’ll check Egorova’s flying technique.”
I intercepted Lisarevich’s glance. My pleased ‘recruiter’ gave me a wink, “you see, everything is alright — you may consider yourself a pilot of the Southern Front’s 130th Detached Aviation Signals Squadron”.
The squadron commander was Major Boulkin and all the pilots were veterans who had flown the Polikarpov I-16 in Spain70. My eyes grew wide when I saw them all in brand-new uniforms and all with decorations. I thought — where am I? They fought in Spain — they are all heroes’ heroes! And for some reason they’d been transferred to the Signals Squadron… Grishchenko was deputy commander of the 130th Squadron and head of the flying service. For some reason he’d taken a great dislike to me (I didn’t know why) but our flight from Tikhiy Village to Simferopol went safely and my position was approved. Later, when I had already settled down well in the Signals Squadron I was told that Petr Ivanovich Grishchenko used to be a fighter pilot who had been discharged from flying after an accident but after the war had broken out he’d obtained permission to become a pilot in the 130th Squadron. The deputy squadron commander flew courageously and he was entrusted with the most crucial tasks. Once in 1942 near Lisichansk Grishchenko’s plane was intercepted by four Messerschmitts but Petr manoeuvred his defenceless koukourouzniki71 so skilfully and deftly that the Fascists couldn’t do anything to it and went home. Actually, in his riddled plane the lieutenant didn’t make it to the aerodrome — he landed in a bog and nosed over. Our soldiers helped to drag the machine out, the pilot repaired it himself, completed his mission and returned to the squadron. When reporting what had happened the former fighter pilot acknowledged: “It appears the U-2 is a plane too — nothing to shoot with but it’s alright for ramming…”
Such was the plane I received on the third day of my time at the frontline. Not a high-speed fighter, not a dive-bomber, just a U-2. The plane I was attached to by my already long-term service, the plane that had undergone its second birth during the War and was redesignated the Po-2 after its designer Polikarpov. That was the plane that earned glory, the admiration of the frontline troops and the hatred of the enemy.
12. “Is it natural flair or is it all God-given?”
Frontline veterans remember this simple biplane getting the most unexpected, sometimes overblown, sometimes ironic but always favourable nicknames. For the infantry it was ‘frontline starshina’, the partisans nicknamed the U-2 ‘kitchen gardener’ or ‘cropduster’ for its incredible ability to land on tiny patches of ground, and seasoned pilots respectfully called the nimble plane ‘the duck’. But the nickname was not the point. The U-2 had won its glory by honest soldierly work: it transported wounded men, dispatched mail, flew reconnaissance flights, bombed the Hitlerites by night. Generals and Marshals, war correspondents and doctors considered it the best form of frontline transport. Its unusual maneuverability, simplicity of maintenance and ease of handling allowed it to conduct such operations as were for fast and heavy aircraft simply impossible.
It didn’t seem a big deal to fly the U-2 carrying orders, searching for military units, reconnoitring roads, carrying couriers and signal officers. But this seemingly routine work was fraught with such the surprises and dangers! What kind of routine was it if all flights towards the frontline for fast communications with secret mail, and flights beyond the enemy lines were by rights considered combat sorties? It was not for nothing our squadron was recommended for Guards rank, but the unit was too small for that. Only in 1944 was the 130th Squadron given the honorific name ‘Sevastopol’…
But 1941 wasn’t over and the front was moving east… While putting up increasing resistance to the enemy, our troops were nevertheless giving up their positions. During the retreat communications between units were sometimes lost and there is nothing worse than loss of control when you’re at war! The squadron’s flyers were sent into the air to restore it or to despatch necessary information or a required order. They would take off in rain, in fog, in any weather.
…On 21 August I received orders to fly to the 18th Army Headquarters. I was advised of the approximate locality where this headquarters ought to be, but once there I would have to clarify its position. The squadron commander warned me that there would be many Hitlerite fighter planes en route. Blink and they will knock you off straight away. I remember the weather was superb, typical August, and at another time I would have been glad of that, but now… In a clear sky a ‘cropduster’ was defenceless against Fascist fighters. You couldn’t get away from them — you had no speed. And plywood is not armour, it doesn’t stop bullets. And your only weapon was the revolver on your belt. The only escape was to dive towards the ground, spread your wings just above the grass and fly so low that you could hear your undercarriage mow the feather-like grass of the steppe.
70
Translator’s note — during the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 many Soviet pilots fought on the Republican side.
71
Translator’s note — ‘cropduster’ — a somewhat contemptuous nickname for the U-2 biplane, that was used in agricultural operations.