A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (9 page)

On the day the war started, I was about to take my exams for my
third-year courses. It was a Sunday, and when we heard the war had
started, all the professors and students gathered at the university. We
were patriotic and wanted to do something, to enlist or whatever.
When we women applied to join the army along with the men, we
were not accepted because the army would not draft women. We
protested that we were brought up to believe that women were equal
to men, and we thought that we should be allowed to go into the
army, too. That summer all we could do was dig trenches around
Moscow and put out fires, started by the fascist bombs, on the roofs
of buildings.

In October, 1941, we learned that three women's air regiments were
to be formed and trained, with Marina Raskova, Hero of the Soviet
Union, as the commander. By this time there were many experienced
women pilots in the USSR, but few women trained as navigators and
mechanics. The women they wished to train in those fields were
those who had completed at least a few years in universities, glider
schools, or parachuting or aviation technical schools.

I applied and was accepted for training in the regiments and was
selected to become a navigator. I was then assigned to the 588th Air
Regiment, later to become the 46th Guards Bomber Regiment. We
hated the German fascists so much that we didn't care which aircraft
we were to fly; we would have even flown a broom to be able to fire at
them! But we didn't fly brooms: we were given a biplane, the Po-2, to
do our night bombing, without even any optical sights to indicate
when to drop the bombs. Instead, we devised a method of visual sighting by making a chalk mark on the wing of the aircraft to indicate
when to drop the bombs. This sight was unique in that each of us, being of different heights, would make a mark in a slightly different
place-a personalized mark, it could he called-to help us in bombing
accurately. This method proved to work extremely well in practice.

The slow speed of this aircraft, only ioo kilometers per hour, made
us a target from both small-arms fire and antiaircraft guns. The plane
was covered with fabric, and the fuel tanks were not shielded, which
made us very vulnerable to being set on fire if we were hit. We wore
no parachutes until late in the war.

In Mozdok, in the Caucasus, where we flew missions attacking the
headquarters of the German staff, they had the most powerful searchlight we had yet encountered. If a searchlight caught our planes in its
beam, we couldn't see anything-we were blinded. The pilot flew
with her head very low in the cockpit because she could see nothing
outside, and when we managed to get out of the beam we were still
blinded for a few moments. It was difficult to even maintain the
aircraft in level flight, because we flew only by visual references. The
numerous searchlights caught and held us in their beams as spiderwebs hold a fly. They followed us even after we crossed the front line,
and the guns followed us also. When we returned to the main airdrome and examined our aircraft, we found so many holes in it that it
was like a sieve.

Later on we devised new tactics for our missions. We flew two
planes at a time to the target. The first attracted all the searchlights
and antiaircraft guns, and the other would glide in over the target,
with its engine idling so the Germans couldn't hear it, and bomb the
target. With all the attention on the first plane, the second could
make a successful attack.

We carried flares with us on our night missions that were equipped
with parachutes, so we had maximum use of their brilliant light as
they drifted down to earth. We sometimes used them to find an emergency field, to light our airfield, or to locate a target. When we were to
use a flare, I had to screw a pin out of the cylinder with my fingers, and
when the pin was removed, I had just ten seconds before the flare was
activated. So I immediately threw the flare over the side. In the winter
we were provided with fur gloves, but I couldn't complete the procedure
with the flare unless I removed the gloves. It was very cold, and my skin
would stick to the metal of the cylinder. That was also true when I used
the machine gun that was on a swivel rail on the back of my cockpit.
Our aircraft was very primitive, and other planes more sophisticated
than ours were provided with a mechanical means to drop the flares.
There was a hook on the cylinder for use by those aircraft.

Once when we were on a mission, I was to drop a flare to make
sure we were over the target, and I had taken off my gloves to activate
the flare. In order not to lose my gloves, I always had them tied
together with a leather cord. When I had activated the flare I tried to
throw it over the side, but I couldn't because the hook had caught in
the cord. I had ten seconds before we would have been on fire from
the flare. The pilot was calling out that she was blinded by the
searchlights and needed my help to orient herself, and I had to think
what to do. So I stopped trying to free the flare and threw the flare
with my gloves attached over the side. When the Germans had our
plane in the searchlights and my pilot was disoriented, the only way
she could orient herself was to have a flare light up the landscape. She
would then be able to see in spite of the searchlights.

Once we were given a holiday on November 7 to celebrate the
anniversary of the October Revolution. This was one of our few holidays, and we were constantly flying missions without any break. On
this day we celebrated the holiday with wine. We were so out of the
habit of drinking anything alcoholic that we got drunk immediately.
In the middle of the celebration, about io P.m., the Germans began
maneuvering, and the commander of the regiment ordered us to fly a
combat mission. We put on our men's flying suits, which were too
large for us, and the fur boots, which were very heavy and much
larger than our feet. We were stationed in the Kuban region, and there
was mud everywhere on our airdrome.

While we were running toward our planes, we sank into the mud. I
felt quite drunk, and I would say to my pilot I wouldn't go; I would
take another step and sink again into the mud, and my pilot came to
me and dragged me out of the mud by the collar of my flying suit. In
this way we finally got to the aircraft. She placed me in the cockpit,
and we took off for the mission. It was overcast, and we were told to
return if the overcast was lower than 56o meters. It really was lower
but we continued. We felt very jovial and were not at all serious about
the mission. When we saw the shadow of our aircraft on the clouds,
we thought it was another plane flying along with us. We saw that
when we turned right it did also, and when we turned left again it
turned with us, and it made us laugh to see it. We laughed so much
we didn't notice that we were flying over the target. We only realized
it when the German searchlights caught us. Our interphone quit, and
in order to warn the pilot that we were over the target, I had to lean
forward and shout into her ear.

When we completed the mission and returned to our airdrome, the commander was very curious about what we were doing all this time.
The overcast was below our limits, and all the other planes had
turned back. The reason we were not to fly at lower altitudes than
those specified was that dropping the bombs from any lower altitude
would endanger our plane, because the explosion would blow upward
and hit us. Upon inspection, our plane had been hit. There were two
large holes that proved to our commander that we had really completed our mission and at a lower altitude than allowed.

We were in Germany in May, 1945, and everybody knew that the end
of the war was near, and no one wanted to die. We were assigned to a
mission within the range of loo kilometers. Normally our missions
were not to be more than 5o kilometers, but our commanders were
impatient to finish the war as soon as possible. On this mission our engine overheated, and two of our engine cylinders lost their heads. According to regulations, we were supposed to find an unpopulated place
to just drop our bombs and return to our airdrome. The visibility was
zero, we could see nothing on the ground because of the fog, and we
couldn't see where to drop the bombs. It could be on our own troops,
on civilians, or on anyone. So we decided to land with the bombs still
attached. We did not want to die, to risk our lives, but we had to do it
even though we couldn't see the landmarks at the airdrome, only the
red spots of the lights. The airdrome was near an old church, and it was
the church spire that gave us our orientation. When we landed, we were
not near the runway but on the edge of the forest. We stopped just one
meter from the start of the forest. Out of joy that we were safe and
alive, we jumped out of the cockpit and started an Indian dance.

There were other narrow escapes. Once when we were fulfilling a
mission, a shell hit below my cockpit, and it stopped inside the
parachute I was sitting on! God saved me. Another time a shell came
through my high boot, but it did not even hit my foot or leg.

We were assigned a combat mission on May 8, one day before the
victory. Everything was ready, the bombs loaded and the crews on
their way to the aircraft, when suddenly we saw the mechanics run
up to our aircraft and do something. What they were doing was deactivating the bombs. The Germans had surrendered; the war was over.
I burst out crying. Everybody cried that day.

After the war I returned to Moscow University and received my
degree in history and simultaneously graduated from the Academy of
Military Interpreters. I worked as an interpreter and didn't like it. I
studied economics and received a Ph.D. in economics. Then I was sent to Cuba to study the Cuban economy. I was there one year right
after their revolution. The Cubans were very polite and nice to me.
They would ask if I was a labor hero or a war hero, and when I said a
war hero, they were fascinated.

Senior Lieutenant Serafima Amosova-Taranenko,
pilot, deputy commander of the regiment in flying

Serafima Amosova-Taranenko,
46th regiment

I was born in Siberia. An airplane once made a forced landing at our village, in a very distant rural area far from any city,
and that was the first airplane I
had ever seen. We were so excited, we ran around it, touching
it; we were village children and
didn't know anything about civilization. I couldn't even dream
of becoming a pilot. After I finished seven grades in school I
was sent to the city to study
technical courses, and I was
made a leader of small children.
I was leading them down a
street, teaching them about
street signs, when I saw a model
of an airplane on a sign hanging
on a building. I went closer and
saw that it was a flying club.
Young volunteers could train in
aviation before the war.

I entered the flying school at age eighteen, and I flew well and got
excellent marks in glider school. Because I was an excellent pilot, I
was allowed to open the air show there at our airdrome. We had no
catapult, but the soldiers, who had been invited to stretch the elasticized rubber, stretched it very tight, and the glider took off much
sooner than I expected. The plane pulled up into a vertical position
and stalled over onto its back; then entered into a spin so the controls
didn't respond, and it dove into the ground. People ran to get out of
the way. I was injured and was taken to the hospital. At the hospital
the medical staff ridiculed me and said I shouldn't have stuck my nose into male business anyway. Lying in bed, I secretly cried all
night. I was very sorry for myself and my glider. This was in June,
1933.

In August, the government appealed to the young people to join a
civil aviation school. I was then working as a Young Communist
League leader in the regional Komsomol Committee, and I was appointed chief of the board selecting students for civil aviation school.
I secretly put my name on the list to he admitted to the program.
When the committee saw my name they refused to let me go, because
they wanted me to perform Komsomol activities there. So I went to a
higher level of the party, and they let me do it. I was the only woman
in the class, and there were ten men. I was the only woman in the
whole school! The boys there respected me, they worshiped me, and
even loved me. They didn't even dare to touch me. I studied there for
three years with excellent marks, and they said I could choose where
I worked. I chose the western Siberian area so I could fly over my
father's house; I wanted him to see me flying the plane. I went home
when I graduated, and to my grief I learned my father had died in May.
It was August, and no one had told me of his death!

In August, 1936, I began flying on the longest route in civil aviation, from Irkutsk, Siberia, to Moscow. I flew the aircraft that carried
mail, a Pe-5. Then I flew as an airline pilot in a single-engine aircraft
that carried nine passengers and a crew of two. In 1941, before the war,
when I had been flying for five years as a civil pilot, I was drafted into
a pilot training school to teach young men to fly. We trained boys
whose knowledge was very limited and who had not even seen a
steam engine before! It was during graduation exercises that we heard
that war had broken out. Before the war, people would say the smell
of powder was in the air, for war had already started in Europe. When
the war began, I decided to join the army voluntarily. I was a pilot,
second class. The army told me that no women were to fly in combat.
In November, 1941, I received a cable saying that I should he released
from my duties and report to the regiments being formed by Marina
Raskova.