A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (30 page)

Introduction

The 586th Fighter Regiment (Air Defense) was the first of the three
regiments to become operational in April, 1942. A defense regiment,
its primary duty entailed guarding important targets from incursion
by enemy bombers and escorting aircraft of important persons. Thus
the mission of this regiment was not to hunt enemy aircraft-to pick
a fight-but to guard specific targets from destruction. In this protective stance, when the enemy planes were turned back, they were not
pursued. The mission, being defensive in nature, explains why this
regiment did not have an outstanding record of enemy kills and thus
was never designated as a "Guards" regiment.

The original commander of the regiment, Major Tamara Kazarinova, an experienced military pilot, was recalled very early on in
the war because of failing health. Her replacement was a male pilot,
Lieutenant-Colonel A. V. Gridnev, who commanded the regiment until the end of the war. Originally there were two squadrons of ten
aircraft each, manned only by women pilots. Later an additional
squadron of male pilots joined the regiment. Some of the ground
personnel were also men, including a number of mechanics, because
the fighter aircraft were mechanically quite sophisticated, and the
women mechanics had been given only minimal training during the
short period before moving to the front.

In September, 1942, eight women pilots with accompanying ground
crews were detached from the 586th and temporarily assigned to two
all-male regiments during the Battle of Stalingrad. These regiments
consisted of pilots known as free fighters, pilots who actively sought
out the enemy and engaged them. Three of the women assigned to
these regiments perished in combat. Two of them, Lilya Litvyak and
Katya Budanova, became aces while flying with the male regiments.
Litvyak was credited with twelve kills and two shared kills; Budanova was said to have shot down even more enemy aircraft, although the exact number was not known. Both of them died in combat in the
summer of 1943. The remaining women pilots with their ground
crews were later returned to the 586th. Lilya Litvyak, whose remains
were not found until 1989, was posthumously awarded her nation's
highest award, Hero of the Soviet Union, by then-President Mikhail
Gorbachev in 199o.

Left to right: Lilya Litvyak, Yekaterina Budanova, Mariya Kuznetsova,
586th regiment fighter pilots

Early in the war, without radar, fighter aircraft were airborne at all
times protecting vital areas. When a radar unit warning of enemy
aircraft in the vicinity became operational, it became possible for air
defense fighters to remain on ground alert, instead of being airborne
and visually searching for enemy aircraft. The term "readiness one"
was used to indicate a fighter aircraft at the end of a runway with the
pilot in the cockpit, ready to start the engine and take off to intercept
the enemy as it approached. The regiment was initially equipped
with a Soviet-made Yakovlev (Yak-i) fighter, a single-seat, low-wing
aircraft with a liquid-cooled I,I00 HP engine. It had a top speed of
about 400 MPH and carried two very small-caliber machine guns.
Later the Yak-i was replaced with more advanced Yak aircraft,
equipped with heavy-caliber machine guns and a 20 mm cannon.

The first Yak-i's had a radio receiver only; later, the aircraft were
provided with two-way radios. No antifreeze was available for the
aircraft early in the war, and it was necessary to drain the engines of
water and oil in the winter whenever the planes were on the ground
for any length of time to keep the engines from freezing.

The regiment flew 4,419 combat missions, engaged in 125 dogfights, and shot down thirty-eight enemy aircraft. Ten of the women
pilots were killed during the war (including the three killed while
assigned to the male regiments), and nine more joined the regiment in
1943 as replacements.

NOTE: Nine women pilots of the 586th regiment were alive in 199o,
and all of them were interviewed.

Senior Lieutenant Tamara Pamyatnykh,
pilot, commander of the squadron

Tamara Pamyatnykh deft) and
Galina Burdina, 586th regiment

I was born in September, 1919.
When I was sixteen I attended
glider school, and then I went
on to the aviation school at Uliganovsk to become a flight instructor. When the war broke
out I became a military officer
and taught cadets. On October
10, 1941, I was called to Moscow.
It was an exciting time, for everything was chaotic, everyone
was running away, and there
were lots of refugees in the railway station. I thought I was to
be sent to the rear, but instead I
was admitted to Raskova's regiment.

We trained at Engels starting
in the last days of October, and
when Raskova asked us in which
regiment we wanted to serve, I
said the fighter regiment. We
trained in the Yak-r, and later I
was appointed commander of
the formation.

My first combat mission was in July, 1942. We were to fly escort for a transport aircraft carrying
Voroshilov, a member of the State Defense Committee, to the Stalingrad front. When we arrived and I got out of the cockpit to report,
the officer at the airfield looked at me and asked, "Where are the
pilots?" I was a lieutenant, and when I told him we girls were the
pilots, he didn't believe me. He walked around our three aircraft, saw
two more girls there, and he still couldn't believe it! He asked how we
were going to fly back, and I told him the same way we came here.

In August, 1942, three of us were assigned a combat mission: to
deliver a message to the commanding staff of the army concerning its
movement. It took considerable time to fly there, and it was dark
before we arrived. None of us had flown the fighters at night; we
hadn't been trained in night flying at all. I could see Stalingrad burning, but I couldn't see the front line and feared we might land on an
enemy airfield. At that moment the Soviet forces shot a rocket into
the air to indicate the location of the airfield. We had no lights turned
on, and I was afraid that one of the other two planes would land on
top of mine, so I turned on my lights for just a minute, even though I
had no permission to do it. Galina Burdina told me that if I hadn't
done that she would have landed on top of me! We all landed safelyour first night landings.

On one combat mission with Raisa Surnachevskaya as my wingman, we were assigned to intercept and shoot down a German reconnaissance aircraft. We soon saw not one aircraft but two formations of
German bombers totaling forty-two planes. We climbed until our
altitude was well above them and dove down firing at the lead aircraft
of the formation. Each of us shot down one bomber on our first pass
through their formation. Then we turned and approached the formation again and shot down two more bombers. By that time my guns
were empty, and I decided to ram one of their bombers with my
aircraft. I came so close to the enemy that I could see the face of the
pilot. He was a huge man with a very fierce face. I was about to ram
him when my plane was hit with gunfire, the wing separated from
the aircraft, and I fell into a spin. It was also on fire.

I was being thrown about with so much force that my arms were
flailing about, and I couldn't even get hold of the seat belt. I had
already opened the canopy. My life flew in front of my eyes. I wanted
to jump, but I couldn't open the belt. I didn't feel fear, but I thought I
was going to die. At last I got the belt open and I didn't even jump-I
was thrown out of the cockpit! I pulled the ring of my parachute, and
it opened. When I landed, I started touching myself to see if I had injuries because I thought I had been severely wounded. I had blood
on my face, and I felt very ill. My face was hurt, and the blood was
running down. When my parachute opened, I was only ISO meters
from the ground.

I looked up to the sky and saw that Raisa had circled around and
was making another attack on the bombers. I thought, If she makes
that attack alone she will never survive. I went to the telegraph station to report to my regiment that my aircraft was down and destroyed. Then I saw Raisa walking across a field, and it was wintertime, and there was snow, and we were in our fur boots. We came
together and embraced each other and had the feeling that we had
both been given birth again.

But in spite of the fact we were safe and alive, I began worrying
that I might be punished because my aircraft was destroyed; I wasn't
afraid, but I thought something might happen because of it. Instead,
we were decorated! It came over the radio that we had turned back the
large formation of German bombers and shot down four of them. We
were each awarded the Order of the Red Star. Then the King of England, who read of this event, sent each of us a gold watch through the
Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mine is inscribed: From the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the brave and gallant pilot Lieutenant Tamara
Pamyatnykh-from the King of England, George VI.

Once I had an accident in the air. I was assigned the mission of
intercepting an enemy reconnaissance plane, and I flew the mission
with Galina Burdina. I came in to attack the enemy aircraft and
discovered that it was an Airacobra, an American-built Russian plane.
At the same time the Airacobra pilot mistook my Yak for the enemy. I
didn't fire at him because I recognized him in time, but he came in
and started firing at me. The problem was that when you are told by
the ground controller that enemy planes are in that area you just
assume that one is it, and you start shooting right away, not looking
to see what plane it really is. The Airacobra's bullets hit my fuel tank,
smashed the instruments, and hit through the armor plate. The
wings were shot, and I had to return to my airfield.

When the other pilot mistook me for an enemy plane and I recognized him as a Soviet fighter, I began diving away. He dove after me
and then Galina dove after him, for she wanted to save me. He continued firing and hitting my aircraft, and then he flew away. I managed
to land on our airfield. When I got out of the cockpit, I saw that there
were holes in my jacket where a bullet had gone completely through
but hadn't touched me! At first the regimental commander didn't believe me when I told him a Russian Airacobra shot me down, but
when they cut open the gas tank they found Russian bullets, and then
he knew it was true. That pilot was to be tried by a military tribunal
for his mistake, but we applied to the commander of the army with a
personal request to set him free because we felt so sorry for the young
boy. So he wasn't sentenced and went on flying.

In 1944 I fell in love with a pilot from a male fighter regiment,
married, and flew in my husband's regiment for the remainder of the
war. In July, 1944, my husband was shot down and imprisoned by the
Germans in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, but he survived. When
Buchenwald was liberated by the Soviet troops the prisoners were
half-dead. When my husband came out into the fresh air he fainted,
and he was taken to an American hospital. He was there for twenty
days receiving nourishment, and then he was loaded into a Soviet
aircraft and brought back. We did not meet until after the end of the
war, in Moscow. He remained in the air force for the rest of his career
and retired as a colonel. I gave birth to three children, and now we
have five grandchildren.