Over Fields of Fire: Flying the Sturmovik in Action on the Eastern Front 1942-45

31. Fighting after a lull

Polesie154 was now behind us, and our army moved forward liberating long-suffering Poland. Fields with narrow strips of unharvested rye, stretching from one farmstead to another like streamers, shot past under the wings of my Sturmovik. I could see villages with roofs covered with shingles, kościóžs155, wooden crosses at every road intersection.

We were on our way to attack the enemy reserves near the City of Chežm. On the radio I heard the voice of our group leader, Regiment Commander Kozin: “Egorova! On the right there are disguised artillery pieces in the shrubs. Strafe the scum with your cannons!”

I made a steep right turn, switched the plane to diving, pinpointed the target and opened fire. And at the same moment German ack-ack went to work blocking our way. “Vakhramov!” The commander ordered, ignoring the call-signs. “Give it to the battery with your rockets!” This was an ordinary combat operation. On the road near Chežm there was a mechanized column: armored cars, tank-cars, trucks and tanks…

“Manoeuvring, guys, manoeuvring…” The leader reminded us and led into the attack from a turn. “Aim well and fire!”

Strips of smoke stretched from the ground towards our machines — it was the small-calibre guns that had opened fire, and quadruple-barrel flak guns began chattering. I’d have liked to turn a bit and send a couple of bursts at them, but an armoured car loomed in my gun-sight too alluringly. And it would have been too late — we had already rushed past them.

We closed in for the second pass having lost our group’s rearguard, Victor Andreev. A guy from Saratov — reticent, unsmiling but kind-hearted and respected by all as the best ‘hunter’ in the regiment — he used to fly as Volodya Sokolov’s partner. Volodya had not come back from the previous ‘hunt’: a shell hit his plane, and the Sturmovik, chopping the trees with its propeller and cutting them down, fell into the forest behind enemy lines. And today we’d lost Andreev…

We gained altitude for bombing. There were more and more black bursts in the sky, but paying no attention we dropped our bombs. It was time to pull out of our dive but the leader continued his rapid rush towards the ground. Suddenly there was a volley of flak, and Kozin’s plane seemed to stop in the air. Something blazed up for a second, and his Sturmovik crashed in a midst of enemy vehicles. A huge pillar of fire shot up…

It is hard to convey in words now the state that engulfed us in those moments. We were violently throwing ourselves into one pass after another. It seemed there was no force that could stop us! Only after expending all our ammunition did we leave the battlefield — and no more shots came at us from the ground. The crews came back without any coordination, one at a time. We felt bitter guilt inside — we had failed to protect our Batya… We were met gloomily at the aerodrome — the fighter pilots had already despatched the terrible news by radio. Usually the plane mechanics greeted us delightedly, but today, with tears in their eyes.

The Regimental Commander’s mechanic sobbed violently, and not knowing how to make himself busy was throwing about the caponier tools, blocks, plane covers and whatever came into his hot hands. Men moved spontaneously from all stations towards the Regimental CP. The Chief-of-Staff came out of the dugout, stepped up on a shell crate lying nearby and said: “Comrades! The Regiment’s Commander would not be pleased with us. Where’s your combat spirit? Where’s the battle readiness of the regiment? A terrible war is on! We can’t forget about it. I ask you to disperse to your places. The airmen of the 3rd Squadron — stay for a combat mission assignment. We will avenge our dead: Mikhail Nikolaevich Kozin, Victor Andreev and our other comrades who have made the supreme sacrifice for their motherland”…

Our assumption that conditions would be quieter than over Taman had not been justified. On the second day after the death of the Regiment Commander, Ivan Pokashevskiy was killed together with his aerial gunner, Hero of the Soviet Union Junior Lieutenant Ivan Efremenko. It was a reconnaissance flight. Pokashevskiy’s brother Vladimir had fallen ill and hadn’t flown that day. The observers from the guidance station told us later that a lonely Sturmovik with the inscription ‘To the Pokashevkiy sons — from their Father’ across the fuselage leaped over the frontline just above the ground, made a steep climb and disappeared behind the lower edge of the clouds. Enemy flak guns struck, the shooting was heard to move away from the frontline into the depths of the German defence and then die away. Some time elapsed, and the pilot transmitted that he had seen camouflaged self-propelled guns and tanks in such and such a quadrant — and that the enemy was obviously drawing up his reserves. Soon all the enemy arms rattled again, pouncing at the Sturmovik coming back from scouting. The pilot gave as good as he got — he dived, and then his cannons and machine-guns worked furiously, the rockets left from under his wings like thunderbolts.

They began to worry at the guidance station: why the pilot had engaged in combat?

“Vistula-5, finish up!” They transmitted to Ivan’s radio, and suddenly saw the Sturmovik begin a slow (like that of a wounded man) turn towards its lines. The tip of his left wing was bent up, there was a huge hole in the right one, and the rudder had been torn off together with the antenna which was now dangling behind the tail. Pokashevskiy’s plane was descending lower and lower — Ivan was trying to drag his machine over to our side. He made it over the frontline, and immediately his plane crashed on the ground, with a thunderclap…

Group after group of Sturmoviks took off that day to destroy the enemy tanks Lieutenant Pokashevskiy had managed to report on. The first sixer was led by Victor Gourkin with the aerial gunner Berdnikov. Prior to the sortie he addressed the airmen:

“Let’s avenge the death of our comrades-in-arms — the two Ivans. Death to the Fascists! To your planes!”

Ivan Soukhoroukov led a group of the same size, following Gourkin, and I led the third one to attack the tanks. We destroyed the Hitlerites’ tank column, and every pass we made in that battle was dedicated to the memory of our comrades, who had made the supreme sacrifice for the liberation of the land of Poland…