I returned from the mission tired, despondent from all I’d seen, angry. I handed the plane over to Dronov and rushed to squadron headquarters. Now behind me I heard the mechanic’s bitter words addressed to the engineer, “Again like a sieve! How I’m going to fix it and what with, I have no idea. There’s no workshop yet…”
Calling in at the command post to report to the Commander of Task Implementation I saw the returned Kolya Potanin and Victor Kravtsov were already reporting. The quiet and sober-minded Potanin didn’t look himself. Always well-kempt and tidy, now he was in a burnt uniform, his face smeared with oil and blood, hair scorched. He was reporting to the squadron commander Major Boulkin and to the executive officer Listarevich about what had happened and asking to be transferred to combat aviation. The following had happened to Potanin: he had been sent with important cargo to the Ardon area, to our units surrounded by the enemy. Many years later Chief Marshal of Aviation Konstantin Andreevich Vershinin — the former commander of our Aerial Army — wrote in his book “The 4th Aerial” about those flights: “Many brave men flew to encircled pockets in the daytime as well”. It seems you couldn’t say it clearer. At daytime, in a defenceless plane, into a surrounded area… The pilots despatched foodstuffs, ammo, medical supplies, other cargo to the troops… That day Potanin, having completed the mission, was transporting a badly wounded man out of the pocket. On the way back he found himself under ground fire and then under fire from Fascist fighters. No matter how well he manoeuvred, how he tried to escape the shells targeted at him, his plane was shot up, caught fire and fell into brush. Potanin managed to leap out under from the burning debris, then, rolling on the ground he put the fire on him down and rushed to save the wounded navigator, but he was already dead…
“I want to smash the bastards!” His eyes sparkling, clear and limpid as the sky, Nikolay was arguing with the squadron commander. “I can’t do it this way any more. They hit us and we hide in the bushes!.”
The Kubanets91 Kravtsov stood silent. Instead of reporting he, still silently, passed a paper of some sort to the squadron commander. I saw him, also soundless, reading it. With no hesitation he wrote something on it in bold letters, and passed the paper to the executive officer. Later we found out that Victor Kravtsov had refused to fly in U-2s and asked to be transferred to the ground-attack aviation. The squadron commander’s reply was the same as many times before: “Denied”…
19. “You want to go to a penal company?”
It was a frightening and difficult time back then, in the autumn of 1942 in the North Caucasus. All fighting men from Private to Field Marshal seemed to be at breaking point. None of us had received any letters for a long time: the field mail had got lost somewhere. How was my mum, how was Victor, where were they? Were they alright? “Of course, they are alive and well!” I would reassure myself: “It’s problems with communications!” In the left breast pocket of my blouse there were my Party membership card and two photographs — my mum’s and Victor’s, and a very tiny one of Yourka. Mum was as usual in a headscarf and looking at me with sorrow. But Victor, on the contrary, was laughing jauntily, slightly throwing back his curly head. He was in uniform. There were three cubes and ‘birds’ on his collar patches. Yourka was in a white shirt with a Pioneer scarf92 on the photo. They hadn’t wanted to accept him in the Pioneers because of his repressed father until the zavouch93 stood up for him and for other similar unfortunate children. She said then: “If we don’t accept our students in the Pioneers we won’t form a single Pioneers group in the whole school. You all know that in our Arbat schools almost every second students’ father has been repressed. Many were then accepted in the Pioneers but after that, true, the zavouch was fired…
In extremely difficult conditions, fighting fiercely, our troops retreated to the foothills of the Greater Caucasus Range. The enemy had occupied a vast territory: the Rostov district, the Kalmykia Republic, Krasnodar and Stavropol Provinces, penetrated into Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Chechen-Ingushetia. On 25 October 1942 the Hitlerites threw up to 200 tanks into the battle and having broken through the lines of the 37th Army, they captured Nalchik on 28 October. Exploiting their success, in a week they approached Ordzhonikidze. But on 6 November the incoming reserves of our Army launched a counter-attack against the Fascist grouping and smashed it in six days of fighting. The Germans had gone on the defensive in the direction of Grozny too. The plan to conquer the Transcaucasus, Grozny and Baku oil-producing regions was frustrated.
It was in those very days when my last sortie in the communication squadron took place. I flew to the Alagir area and on the way I was attacked by German fighters. Manoeuvring literally between the treetops, I desperately tried to hide from them. The Messers were firing blindly but with long spiteful bursts. I threw my plane left and right… “When will they finally leave me alone?..” And suddenly… My machine smashed its wing into a tree. A heavy blow… A crack… Another blow!… When I came to my senses I couldn’t understand at all where I was. My legs and arms were sore, my chest was constricted, it was hard to breath. Stirring a little I understood nothing was broken. But where was the plane? I looked around and saw it just nearby: it lay completely destroyed. The engine was stuck into the ground, the propeller (more precisely, fragments of it) was scattered around, the ailerons were hanging on the trees with some other parts. In other words the plane was no more. I felt pain, vexation and bitterness deep inside. “What shall I do? What shall I do…?” I repeated over and over again hobbling towards the aerodrome. There was no proof that I had been attacked by the Germans. I thought: “What if I say I crashed the plane myself. It’ll be a chance to get transferred to the ground-attack aviation!” After all, by that time I had already flown 130 combat flights in the U-2!
Only the day after, towards evening, did I find the village of Shali, beyond Grozny, and appear before the squadron commander. “I crashed my plane and am ready to bear responsibility for it according to the war time rules” I rattled off, standing at attention.
Major Boulkin, it seemed to me, was in a bad mood. Looking at me angrily he began to yell, “Do you wanna go to a penal company? You’ll find out there what hard times are! Now look — they’ve started playing vandal to escape to combat aviation!”
Whom Major Boulkin had in mind I didn’t know, but it hurt to listen to his abuse.
Alexey Ryabov stood up for me. “Look, Commander, let’s transfer her to the UTAP94 together with Potanin. Let her be retrained. After all, there’ve already been five requests to send her off to a women’s regiment…”
This was the first time I had heard about that, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything — Dronov appeared from nowhere: “Permission to speak? I’ll fix up Egorova’s plane. I promise!”
Many years later I found out Dronov had indeed restored my plane and handed it over to the squadron engineer, but then secured for himself a transfer to another unit and worked as a mechanic on an La-5 fighter plane till the end of the war. Nevertheless, Potanin and I were transferred to the town of Salyany on the Caspian sea to a training regiment. And the first obstacle on my way to a combat plane appeared immediately.
91
Translator’s note — a man from Kuban, a Cossack-populated area in Southern Russia in the Kuban River basin.