A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (20 page)

Petlyakov PC-2 aircraft on a mission,
iz5th regiment

Five aircrews-a total of fifteen women of the regiment-perished
in the war, and five women became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Captain Valentina Savitskaya-Kravchenko,
navigator of the regiment (vsx)

Lieutenant-Colonel Valentin Markov,
pilot, commander of the regiment (vm)

vsx : This idea of forming three regiments appeared in September,
1941. The antifascist meeting took place in Moscow, and Marina
Raskova, a trained navigator, Hero of the Soviet Union, and later a
pilot, called upon all the women who could fly to join the army. In
October, 1941, many women pilots and other women involved in aviation started arriving in Moscow. Originally one regiment was planned,
but instead Raskova formed three regiments. Even then many women
had to go home because there weren't enough positions for them. We were taken to an airfield at Engels, on the Volga River, for
training. The 586th Fighter Regiment was sent to the front in
the Yak-I plane in April, 1942.
In June, 1942, the women in the
newly formed 588th Air Regiment were sent on their first
combat mission. Our regiment,
the 587th, received the Pe-2 dive
bomber, a new twin-engine,
very complex aircraft, in August and September of 1942. In
January, 1943, we were sent to
the front near Stalingrad. There
was a shortage of this aircraft,
and initially the planes were
sent to combat regiments already at the front, so there was
a delay in receiving ours. Raskova had insisted that all the
women's regiments fly only aircraft made in the Soviet Union.

Valentin Markov, commander,
125th regiment

Marina Raskova, who had chosen to lead our regiment as its commander, perished with her crew while trying to land her plane in very
bad weather on January 4, 1943. She was then thirty-one years old, and
she had a thirteen-year-old daughter. She hit the high bank of the
Volga River while approaching the airfield at the Stalingrad front and
crashed. Marina never lived to fly a combat mission.

vM: I was appointed regimental commander at thirty-three, and I
was a major. At the end of the war I was a lieutenant-colonel. I
finished my military career as a lieutenant-general of the air force.

vsx: The regiment started its combat missions in February, 1943,
after more training at the front. The Pe-2 was very heavy and difficult
to control while taking off and landing. It could carry up to a ton of
bombs. We flew off of fields with no paved runways; these were potato fields. The navigator, who sat behind the pilot facing the rear,
would turn in her seat and push on the pilot's back to give her the
added pressure to raise the tail of the plane and shorten the takeoff
distance.

When we were dive bombing we could carry only the bombs under
the wings. At Engels there were too many pilots and not enough
navigators. I was a pilot who was taught to be a navigator. The women
who were chosen to fly the dive bomber were the most experienced
pilots with a minimum of 700 flying hours.

vnn: At the time I was chosen to command the female regiment I
commanded a male regiment. I had been shot down and wounded and
was hospitalized. When I was told that I was to lead a female regiment, the order was like a cold shower to me-I was shocked! The
man who recommended me for this position approached me carefully, from a distance. He asked if I knew about the death of Raskova,
and when I said I did, he asked what I would think of commanding
this regiment. I couldn't visualize how I could command women
during war, flying bombers. I knew the aircraft and knew how difficult it was even for male pilots to fly. I couldn't imagine how women
could manage it.

I was told I would be given every assistance from Moscow. In fact
these were sheer words, only declarations. How could they help me
from Moscow, such a great distance from Stalingrad! I didn't believe
their promises and asked them to appoint some other pilot, but I
was told the order had already been issued and signed. When I left
the office, angry and pale, and told my friends waiting for me at the
door that I'd been appointed the female regimental commander,
their hair rose in surprise and indignation. They believed I would
have to go through hell in that regiment. By my nature and character
I am very disciplined, and knew that there was nothing to do but
agree.

vsx: We women wouldn't even hear of a man coming to command
our regiment!

vM: A hundred questions arose in my mind: what should I do as
their commander? I knew women's nature very well, and I knew
because of their caprice and susceptibility to offense it would not be
an easy job to rule them. As their commander I was to fly with them
in combat, and to fulfill a combat mission demanded strict discipline
on the pilot's part. This was why I hesitated. I also didn't know what
the attitude of the women would be toward me. Marina Raskova was
their beloved commander; they were so fond of her and wanted to
follow her example. I made a decision to be a just, strict, and demanding commander, irrespective of the fact that all these personnel were
female. When I came to the regiment they didn't like me.

vsK: Behind his back we called him "bayonet." He was so strict
and straight.

vM: They called me so also because I constantly put my principles
of strict discipline into their heads, teaching them how to do this and
that, seeing to the exact accomplishment of my orders, to their uniforms, boots, and brass. But their antipathy against me did not last
long. I arrived at the regiment on February 2 or 3. The regiment had
made only a few combat missions beginning at Stalingrad.

The main combat training was at the northern Caucasian front in
April, 1943. In that area there was strong resistance from the German air forces, and at that point the experience of the women in
combat began improving. They flew at very low altitudes following
the terrain, dropping bombs from an altitude of one and one-half
kilometers or lower. When we were bombing all the artillery were
firing at us: submachine guns from the ground, anti-aircraft artillery, and ground artillery; it was very dangerous. We had very heavy
dogfights in the air. All in all, we were heavily attacked by the
Germans.

The field airdromes were not more than forty-five to fifty kilometers from the front line. The aircraft could fly about two and one-half
hours without refueling. Their speed was 40o kilometers per hour
with a range of about one thousand kilometers. During a day we
usually made two or three flights. It took the ground personnel two
hours to prepare the planes for the mission: to fuel, rearm, and patch
holes if necessary. The aircraft was metal, and the loads when we
dove were great. On the front edge of the wing there were dive brakes
used on dive bombing missions.

After I made a lot of combat missions with this regiment I saw the
attitude toward me become softer and more respectful, and by the
summer of 1943 we had become real, true combat friends. Many
people helped me to fulfill my mission and to train the personnel.
Especially helpful were the head of the liaison service, a woman who
graduated from the military academy before the war; the engineer of
the regiment, responsible for armament; and the squadron commander, Timofeyeva, who had a husband, who was also at the front,
and two children. She had joined the army even though she might not
have been drafted. Our regimental doctor, a woman, also gave me
knowledge of female problems. So I knew everything about the situation in my regiment. Of course there is a specific approach to the
command of a female regiment, some peculiar features. You should be delicate when you are treating with the women; you should use
your ears like radars.

vsx: A lot of girls fell in love with him; he was very handsome.

vM: The regiment was receiving combat assignments from the air
force division. We had two squadrons in our regiment of ten aircraft
each, with approximately twenty-one or twenty-two planes in the
regiment. As a rule a mission was assigned to one squadron or to a
regiment as a whole, but at times an air-bomb division would make a
mass bombing. Ours was a regiment of front bomber aviation, and the
targets were at the front line of the enemy positions. Manpower firing; strong points; concentrations of armament, tanks, and artillery
formations; airfields; railroad lines; stations; bridges; and seaports (at
the end of the war) were our main targets.

At the beginning of the war there were more pilots and crews than
bombers, and on many occasions I chose who to assign to a mission.
There were fixed crews, with no changing of crew members from one
bomber to another. As a rule a squadron also operated in the same
way. I flew with the regiment when we were assigned a mission.
Valentina was my navigator. The female crews competed with other
crews and counted their combat missions. And on occasions when I
chose some crews but not others, they attacked me, were cross with
me-why she but not me! Each mission was a risk to their lives,
because all the fire from air and ground was concentrated on the
bombers. In spite of all this, the women were striving to go on these
missions.

We lost five crews. These were combat losses: five crews, three
women in each. But there were many occasions when the crews made
forced landings: in swamps, shot down, or jumping with parachutes.
Not all the crew would get out sometimes. In one such case the
squadron was attacked by many German Focke Wulf-19os, and one of
our planes was shot down, burning, and the pilot gave the command
to her crew to jump. The tragedy was that when the navigator was
jumping her parachute caught on the barrel of the machine gun. She
was outside the plane, but the harness was caught and she couldn't
free herself. The pilot was trying to help the navigator slide off the
barrel of the gun, and she worked the controls to swing her free. The
navigator was freed from the plane, opened her parachute, and almost
immediately touched the ground. The pilot perished in the crash.
This is one example of friendship, mutual support, and bravery.
There were some men in our regiment. Some were gunners, but the pilots and navigators were all women. The majority of the ground
personnel were also women.

vsK: There were seventy-five women flying in our regiment. Five
of them became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

vM: The women in my regiment were self-disciplined, careful, and
obedient to orders; they respected the truth and fair treatment toward
them. They never whimpered and never complained and were very
courageous. If I compare my experience of commanding the male and
female regiments, to some extent at the end of the war it was easier
for me to command this female regiment. They had the strong spirit
of a collective unit, which is still clearly manifested on our reunion
day. Fifty years have passed since the war ended, but all these years
we've been having our reunions on May 2 in front of the Bolshoi
Theater. Most of us are old and sick, but it is our sacred day. We leave
our business and illness aside and come there to see each other.

During the war there was no difference between this regiment and
any male regiments. We lived in dugouts, as did the other regiments,
and flew on the same missions, not more or less dangerous. It's hard
to fancy how difficult the conditions were for these women. There
should be two toilets at least, for men and women. We had only one!
All the crews had almost the same number of combat missions. Almost all of these women were shot down, and after hospitalization,
they came back to the regiment and flew bravely. But only after the
war were they awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This
bureaucratic machine takes time. And from the present viewpoint, I
can see that very few of my girls were awarded that highest title. If I
could turn time back, I would have promoted many more of them for
that award. Now I have a very grave sentiment about that because
many of them deserved it.

vsx: During the war the Germans knew about our regiment, but
there were no newsmen or cameramen at our regiment. At the night
bomber regiment there were a lot of them from the press. Nobody
wrote about our regiment during the war. For the Soviet people it was
like a secret regiment, carrying out secret assignments. Only at the
victory parade in Moscow did the country learn about our existence. I
didn't know anything about American women pilots during the war.

I knew that there were American women pilots who flew
planes to Alaska.

vM and vsx: Now the situation has changed, and we know a little
more about you, and you know a little more about us.

vsx: I was appointed at Engels to be the squadron navigator. The
Pe-2 bomber is not very convenient for the navigator. The design of
the navigator's space, we cannot call it cabin, was poor. In front of the
navigator there was the armor-protected seat of the pilot, behind the
navigator the machine-gun ring, and in the floor there was a small
window. There was one machine gun. The pilot had a cannon and a
machine gun to fire. The pilot and navigator sat in one cabin, and the
gunner was behind us in a separate compartment. We used maps
printed before the war. Everything was perfect on them, but many
cities were destroyed, so it looked different. The flooring of the fuselage in our compartment was made of clear plastic. When I could
not see the landmarks I took off my parachute and peered around the
pilot, to the right and left side, looking. I dropped the bombs, which
were released by buttons. We used an optical sight, into which we put
the altitude and speed of the aircraft.