A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (34 page)

When the women pilots were protecting a particular area and there
were no enemy planes, they could fly two or three missions in a day.
But when there was a dogfight, the maneuvers and steep dives made
the blood come from the ears-there was a blood overload. Under
these conditions they could only fly one mission; the men could fly
more.

Galina Burdina was on duty, readiness one, in the cockpit, and on
our field in Hungary was a Romanian squadron, because by that time
the Romanians had surrendered and were fighting on our side. One of
them saw Galina in the cockpit-she was a very beautiful girl-in her
helmet with the curls of hair showing, and the pilot said, "I saw her
over Korsun-Shevchenkovski." That was when we were bombing the
cargo planes of the Romanians and Germans on an airfield, and one of the pilots was Galina. They flew very low, and this pilot could see a
girl with curly hair and a beautiful face in the cockpit, and the pilot
said, "I saw a woman pilot when she flew by," and nobody believed
him at that time. Then in Hungary at the airdrome he recognized her
curly hair, because he had memorized her in those few seconds!

During the battles near Zhitomir town there was a lot of night
bombing-fascist raids-and it was very difficult for our fighters to
find the target aircraft at night, even though they were guided. At
night, when the planes were taking off or landing, the spotlight
flashed for just a second to show them the direction, but there were
some lights along the runway. We on the ground were fascinated by
the view. On the one hand we realized it was dangerous to carry out
missions at night, but on the other it was a remarkably spectacular
performance. It was as if a huge prehistoric dinosaur were swinging
its wings, with burning, gigantic eyes sparkling here and there in
complete darkness, only stars twinkling in the sky. The lights along
the runway were blue, and they were switched off after landing.

In another instance near Saratov, the Germans tried to bomb a
bridge across the Volga. Komyakova shot down one aircraft, and after
that no Germans appeared in the sky for some time. Some of the
missions were to escort some very important person, for example,
Nikita Khrushchev, who was at that time the First Secretary of the
Ukrainian Communist Party and a member of the military council of
the Ukrainian front. When he was flying from Moscow to Stalingrad,
the pilots from my regiment escorted his transport plane. At that
time the Germans had air superiority at Stalingrad. The German
planes were flying all around our airfields, and in the daytime it was
impossible to take off or land. They would fly for about one and onehalf hours and then leave to refuel, and other German aircraft didn't
arrive right away. The Russian planes would then use this short interval to land and take off. When our pilots took off from this airfield
they still had others at their disposal, so if the runway was blocked
they flew to another airfield.

When the girls from my regiment were going to fly to Stalingrad,
everyone realized they could meet their death there. I remember their
faces at that time, beaming with happiness. They were at last to fly to
the front to fight the hated enemy, and they were saying, 'At last our
dream came true." I will remember that forever!

I always keep in touch with my friends-it is for the last day of my
life.

Senior Sergeant Anna Shibayeva,
mechanic of armament

I was born in 1917 near Moscow, together with the revolution! I
worked at a plant as an expert in medical equipment. When the war
broke out I voluntarily joined the army. I knew nothing about aviation
before the war. I was selected by Marina Raskova to join the women's
regiment as a mechanic of armament. I was trained in Engels with the
other girls and then assigned to the 586th Fighter Regiment. I served
in that regiment until the very last day of the war, and the pilot of our
crew was Zoya Pozhidayeva, and the aircraft was the Yak fighter.

After the war I went back to the plant and retired last year from the
same position I held before the war.

My husband was killed in the war. We had no children, I never
remarried, and I live alone. But I have very many sisters from my
regiment.

Lieutenant Klavdiya Pankratova,
pilot, commander of the formation

I was born in the Crimea in 1916, but later on I moved to the Ukraine.
I was admitted to glider school and then graduated as an instructor.
Later I entered the Kherson Aviation School and received the rank of
lieutenant. I had only excellent marks, and that is why I was given the
rank of lieutenant before the war. I graduated in 1938, so I was twentytwo years old. I then began working as an instructor-pilot preparing
the cadets for the air forces. The chief of our flying school went to
Moscow and learned about Raskova's regiments. He returned and
told me that he had lost me to Raskova's regiment, having blurted out
that he had a woman instructor in his school. My cherished dream
was to become a fighter pilot.

When I joined the 586th Fighter Regiment (Air Defense), my duties
were to escort other aircraft and to work in air defense. In about 1943 1
became a night fighter. It was difficult because the ground areas were
not lighted, the sky was absolutely black, and I flew by intuition. I
could see, not very clearly, some black spots in the air and shot at
them, and I couldn't even see where I was shooting! There were
nights when we had to repulse the attack of the fascist bombers, and
the sky was black with aircraft and no lights at all.

I lived with the feeling that I was doomed to live in the air, and
when an air attack began, I was eager to fight. One time we were
prepared to take off on a mission, and we took off across the runway
instead of down the runway. While the first aircraft succeeded in the takeoff, mine flew into the pillbox at the side of the runway, and the
plane was destroyed. When it hit the pillbox, it came apart completely and exploded on the ground.

Once a male pilot and I were assigned a mission. We took off in our
two fighters and had a battle with German Junkers, Ju-88s, and I shot
down one of the bombers while I was fighting. The German aircraft I
shot down exploded, and no one got out. I lost contact with my
wingman; the weather conditions were very bad, and he just disappeared. When I landed at our airdrome he was there, but he had to
land at several places before arriving at our home base because he had
lost his orientation. My own map holder was blown away while I was
fighting, but I flew back by instinct and memory.

When we took off at night I knew that the only way to survive was
to be ice inside, to feel absolutely nothing, to concentrate, to focus
only on the mission. To fight at night had to be by intuition, because
we could actually see very little. The takeoffs and landings were
extremely difficult-no lights, no guidance. When we returned to our
field we were allowed for a short time to turn on one landing light.
You needed to be psychic or have a sense of the situation to know
where the ground and runway were. Before a flight I had to think over
everything, every detail of the procedures.

Early on in my flying, in the glider school where I began, I had to
compete with the men, but I never felt inferior to a man, never, and I
also knew if I were to perform in something I would do it even better
than a man!

In the regiment I was the most frank, open, and lively girl. I was
always full of humor, the first to be merry, and my sisters in the
regiment constantly asked me to sing songs, tell a story, dance, but
life changes a personality drastically. Now it's difficult to believe that
I was a ringleader in the regiment.

Once four of us were ordered to fly to the Kursk Bulge, to support
the ground troops there. There were four aircraft: two commanders of
the formation-I was one of them-and two commanders of the
squadron. When we were returning from that mission we flew in two
pairs, and I saw that the other pair was taking a different course or
route, so I decided to show them the right course. I approached them
twice and wagged my wings-we had no air-to-air radio contact-and
then I returned back on course, but they wouldn't follow me. After
the second attempt to get them to turn to the right heading, we left
them and returned to base. Later we learned that one of them made a
belly landing, and the other flipped over while landing. The com mander of our regiment reprimanded me for not bringing the other
two aircraft back with us. I asked him, "How could I have done that,
could I have tied them with a rope to my aircraft and returned them
here?"

Pilot Klavdiya Pankratova in a Yak-9 fighter, 586th regiment

We were normally sent in pairs on a reconnaissance flight, but for
some reason that I did not understand, I was always sent alonealone without a prayer. One day I was given the mission to reconnoiter the area near Kursk, and I flew there and met another of our
fighters, a man who was also without a wingman. He turned to me
and said, "Brother, let's fly together." I growled out something indecipherable to him on the radio, being afraid to be recognized as a
woman, accepting his offer. So we flew in a pair and fought as a pair,
and I protected him in an attack on a Messerschmitt. When the fight
was over, I decided to break away and finish the reconnaissance work
assigned to me. He never knew I was a woman; we never saw each
other's face.

In the four years of the war I was a night fighter, and I knew that in
order to survive there should be no one on my tail, no fascist aircraft
there. I always looked back, first over one shoulder and then the
other, constantly watching behind my plane. When the war was over and I was walking down the street, I couldn't move without fear of
someone behind me, a danger, a fear I carried with me from the war.

I had a very unpleasant experience with the commander of the
regiment. I never tried to teach morals to anyone, but I was two or three
years older than our commander, and I sometimes taught the girls how
to do this and that, and he didn't like it. In the air I was constantly sent
alone, not in a pair, and I always returned. The male commander didn't
like my skillfulness; he didn't like me. And in 1947 he crossed my
name off the list of those in our regiment who were to be awarded the
Order of the Great Patriotic War, first grade, for deeds at the front. And
he assigned me to night fighters where you flew alone always, never in
a pair. Later on I was given another order, the Order of the Great
Patriotic War, second grade, but I never saw the first grade.

It was impossible to locate the enemy aircraft at night to shoot
them down, except when they were caught in a searchlight. Our
fighters replaced one another; one took off and the other landed, and
they alternated all night long. One night I was loitering in the area
over Kiev, and I was caught by the searchlights. The German aircraft
began shooting at me, and my plane was trembling but no shell penetrated it. I was swinging it back and forth like a leaf falling to escape
the lights and the firing.

I flew 168 combat missions. I shot down a German fascist aircraft,
a Ju-88. I also flew the P-39 Airacobra and the English Spitfire. I was
the only Soviet woman pilot who did that. It all happened because at
the end of the war, I married a fighter pilot and was transferred to his
regiment, where all of the fighter aircraft were American and English;
I married into the regiment. My husband and I flew in that regiment
together for a year. I have a strong belief that it doesn't matter
whether it is a woman or a man at the controls; a woman can he a
military pilot, she can fulfill combat missions if a misfortune like
war falls upon the heads of the people of a country.

And then it came to who should retire. It was not the men, of
course; I was made to retire, and I didn't want to. Later I wanted to go
into civil aviation, but they hated fighter pilots; they didn't take me.
So I had to quit flying.

Senior Sergeant Zinaida Butkaryova-Yermolayeva,
parachute packer

I was born in a village, and my parents were peasants. In 1931 my
relatives who lived in Moscow decided to take me to live with them.
It was the time of collectivization in the Russian countryside, known for its peasant riots and massive annihilation of farmers resisting this
hated policy. It was dangerous to live in a Russian village at that time.
So I came to Moscow and lived for some time with my relatives there,
and then I went to the textile factory. I was under seventeen at that
time; I worked there for five years. There was a campaign in the
country to work as much as you could, to achieve outstanding results
in labor, and I was one of those who joined this movement. The
factory was a weaving mill, and I was a weaver.

I was fond of sports, and when the war started I was young and
single, and I usually took the night shift at the factory. I lived in a
dormitory, and I saw a note pinned on my bed that said, Zinaida, you
should come to the drafting office. I was sent to the office of the
Central Committee, and they told me to come back the next day to be
sent to the front. I said I had to work in my factory. I was told I should
quit the factory and be there the next day. We were all in a patriotic
mood at this time, and I said I would go to the front with pleasure.