Over Fields of Fire

a year before) he sold his bee-hives and bought an aircraft with the proceeds. Ivan’s father very much wanted his son to fly that plane: he reckoned it would be safer that way.

Pokashevskiy was fitted out in our regiment and appointed as a pilot to the 2nd Squadron. And then his father — Ivan Potapovich Pokashevskiy — arrived in Karlovka and brought with him his eldest son Vladimir — a sovkhoz144 director.

“Let my laddies serve in your unit”, he said to the regimental commander trustingly, in Ukrainian. “Volod’ka145 has been in ‘armour’146 as irreplaceable — enough is enough! It’s time he does his duty! But only on one condition — don’t make it cushy for my sons, put the heat on them like it says to in the Army Regulations…”

The weather was wonderful that day. There was not a single cloud in the blue sky, the sun was as warming as in summer. A lot of people were gathered at the aerodrome — locals from Karlovka and the neighbouring villages with banners and portraits of Party and State leaders, and the heroes of the occasion themselves. And there, aside from the other planes, stood a brand-new Sturmovik with an inscription on the fuselage ‘To the Pokashevkiy sons — from their Father’.

The head of the Division’s Political Department Lieutenant-Colonel I. M. Dyachenko and the Pokashevskiy family climbed up on the plane’s wing. The sons helped their father to get up on it and stood next to him: Ivan to the right, Vladimir to the left. The meeting was opened by Dyachenko who had two Orders of the Red Banner on his chest. Ivan Mironovich had been badly wounded defending Moscow, and after that the doctors ruled him out of flying operations.

Dyachenko spoke passionately and excitedly about the kolkhoznik147 Pokashevskiy’s patriotic deed, about the coming battles and our future Victory. Then he let Ivan Potapovich have the floor. The old man gave a start and was just about to step forward, but his sons held him back so to stop him tumbling from the wing. And he said only two words: “Brothers and sisters!” and there he fell silent. His sons leant towards him and said something, apparently encouraging him… I would long remember that simple peasant’s short speech in Ukrainian: “I’ve got two sons. I’m giving them away to my dear Fatherland148. I’d like to join you beating the invaders but I’m a bit past it…”

The old fellow wanted to say something else but, unable to cope with the emotions that had engulfed him, waved his hand, bowed from the waist in all four directions and kissed his sons three times. Uproar and applause from the whole crowd, — and the orchestra took up a flourish. “Chair him, chair him!” a cry came from the crowd and they picked the old man up in their arms.

From that day on Ivan and Vladimir Pokashevskiy were assigned as the crew of their dad’s plane: Ivan as pilot and Vladimir as aerial gunner. And now I was watching through my binoculars: the bombing range team was checking the results of the Pokashevskiys’ work — excellent! All the hits were on target! Suddenly a Sturmovik flew up and approached the range without my permission. “Birch’s here! Birch’s here!” I said rapidly. “Advise who’s flying over the range?”

There was no reply, and by now the plane was already making a turn and diving at our tower. Had he gone mad? He seemed to have confused the ‘T’ sign on the tower with a cross on the range. “Everyone to the trenches!” I ordered and saw the two-way-station driver, a technician and someone else throw themselves into the trench.

A bomb exploded: the blast wave swept away a tent standing nearby and rocked the tower — bomb splinters also hit it full on. For some reason I grabbed not the rails but the microphone and the telephone, and rushed here and there with them, shouting:

“Signaller! Send a red flare, a flare! Send him away from the range!”

The flares soared. The pilot understood his error and retired. Well, he hadn’t done a bad job at all — it was just a pity that it had not been on the right target. But… training is training!

The next group was led to the range by the comesk Captain Berdashkevich — a kindhearted Byelorussian from Polotzk. Misha was heartbroken: his father, a partisan, had been killed in action, and his mother had been shot for her partisan connections.

“Flak from the right!” setting the scenario for his group, and the novices conducted an anti-flak manoeuvre, changing both their altitude and course. “Out of the sun, right — four Fokkers!” The leader’s voice was heard again, and the whole group rearranged itself into a defensive circle.

A ‘life-buoy’, as we called such a circle, is a variety of battle order worked out for defending against Messers. Let’s assume that an enemy fighter tries to attack our Sturmovik — then a plane following him along the circle is in a position to cut the attacker off with his frontal fire. We may pounce on targets from this circle too — I saw twelve Sturmoviks already diving, their rockets darting at the ground, and a ripple explosion resounded mightily over the area. Then cannon and machine-gun fire destroyed the targets and, at the moment of pulling out of the dive, bombs separated from all the aircraft at once. When the dust settled I saw no targets through the binoculars…

May flew by imperceptibly. The young pilots had learned to shoot and bomb accurately, and begun to keep formation not only when flying straight but also when manoeuvring. They’d learned to attack targets in groups up to a squadron in size. Now the regiment was ready to take off to the front and at last we received approval. The 197th Ground Attack Division, which now included our 805th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment, had just been formed. It was destined to join the 6th Aerial Army commanded by General F.P.Polynin: we knew that we would fight as part of the 1st Byelorussian Front.

The 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division was commanded by Colonel V. A. Timofeev. Many pilots remembered him from aviation schools such as Postavskoye and, during the war, Orenburgskoye, which he had been in charge of. When Timofeev was introducing himself to the flying personnel he seemed to me to bear some resemblance to a Tsarist officer as they had been shown in the movies. His tunic and breeches were strictly fitted to his figure, the box-calf jackboots with high heels and knee caps shone as if lacquered, there were leather gloves on his hands.

“You can tell straightaway: he’s from the rear”, said my plane’s mechanic Gorobets, standing next to me.

“No! Don’t you see, the Colonel’s got the Order of Lenin and a ‘XX years of the RKKA’149 medal on his chest?” Pilot Zoubov objected. “He fought on the Kursk Salient, was a Deputy Division Commander there. And he received his Order of Lenin back in pre-war times in Transbaikalia. He was in charge of an aviation brigade after graduating from the Air Force Academy and made it the best in drill preparation in Blucher’s150 Far East Army.

“Why are you mentioning Blucher? He was an enemy of the people, after all!”

“He was no enemy of the people at all”, “Misha declared stubbornly. “He was a real people’s hero: my own uncle — my mum’s brother — a kombrig151 used to tell me about him when I was a kid — and I believed him and still do. And Timofeev, by the way, was arrested in 1938 too and spent two years in Chita prison before he was released as a baselessly victimized man, restored in his rights and appointed head of an aviation school. Shvernik152 himself — a teacher of Vyacheslav Arsenievich — backed him! But apparently there was no one to stand up for Blucher…”

“They say Timofeev fought during the Civil War?” someone asked Zoubov.

“He did. He was a scout on the Eastern Front, then a Deputy Commissar in the 15th Inzenskiy Regiment.”

“How do you know all that?”

“How could I not know? I was a flying cadet at the Orenburg School. Vyacheslav Arsenievich used to tell us about the Civil War, gave very interesting lectures.”

“What about?”

“Various things — I’d never heard anything of the kind before. And how to hold your knife and fork properly, how to smoke elegantly without leaving marks on your fingers. We were taught how to dance and how to invite a partner to a dance.”

“What’s this, the war had been on for two years and you were learning to dance?” Tolya Bougrov, a pilot with extensive burn scars on his face, asked angrily.

“Maybe, he also taught you how to choose a good wife?” Zhenya Berdnikov grinned.

“Sto-o-op the chatter!” The regimental Chief-of-Staff Major Kouznetsov loudly cut off our sotto-