The first 11 B-25-S bombers from North American appeared in the Soviet Union in 1942, and until September 1945, 862 vehicles of various modifications were delivered to our country under Lend-Lease.
In the period from April 21 to May 27, 1944, the State Research Institute of the Air Force underwent state tests of the B-25-DP aircraft, the characteristic feature of which was the Wright-Cyclone R-2600 engines of the twenty-ninth series with the Hydromatic vane propellers from the Hamilton Standard company ( The B-25-S had similar engines of the 13th series) with a take-off power of 1700 hp, as well as a modified small arms design and the presence of underwing bomb racks, providing suspension for eight American bombs with a caliber of up to 300 pounds. The fuel system has also undergone changes. Additional fuel tanks with a capacity of 1,140 liters (302 US gallons) were installed in the wing consoles. By reducing the volume of the intra-fuselage gas tank, the bomb bay was more than doubled, in which a pair of FAB-250 and FAB-500 bombs could be suspended at the same time. There were other minor differences.
During state tests, engineer V.Ya. became the vehicle's leaders. Magon, pilot G.A. Ashitkov and navigator Filippov. The plane was also flown by pilots M.A. Nyukhtikov, A.M. Khripkov and V.M. Shulgin, navigators Litvinchuk and Tsvetkov. In his reports, Ashitkov wrote that “... the behavior of the aircraft and piloting technique... in comparison with the B-25-S aircraft has minor features, which are explained mainly by the increased specific load of the B-25-DP aircraft. The plane taxis calmly and steadily with different wind directions.
When taking off without flaps and with flaps extended at 15 and 23 degrees, the aircraft is stable and well controlled, but with flaps extended at 30°, stability and controllability deteriorate.
Taking off with flaps set to 45° is practically impossible, since the take-off speed increases slowly, and when the front wheel rises, the aircraft loses speed. In this case, the aircraft takes off from three points with detonation at low speed, while the aircraft is laterally unstable and poorly controlled and picks up speed too slowly while maintaining.
Level flight with a weight of 14650 kg is permitted at speeds from 170-180 mph IAS to maximum. At IAS speeds of 140-150 mph, the ailerons become ineffective and the aircraft's controllability deteriorates, and at 135 mph the aircraft becomes uncontrollable.
The plane is well balanced with trim tabs across all speed ranges and flies with the controls abandoned... Allows you to make turns with a bank of up to 55-60 degrees. The loads on the steering wheels are large. The time of minimum turn with a roll of 55-60° when the engines are running at the first speed of the supercharger at an altitude of 2700 meters is 1 minute 30 seconds, at the second speed of the supercharger at an altitude of 4650 meters - 55 seconds.
Horizontal flight with a normal flight weight on one engine operating at rated power with the propeller in the feathered position is impossible (... with a flight weight of 14,150 kg at a speed of 160-175 mph, flight is possible from an altitude of 1,700 meters and below).
If one of the engines fails, the plane is thrown sharply towards the failed engine, the load on the leg is very large and it is almost impossible to keep the plane in a straight direction. In this case... it is advisable to slightly cover the gas of the running engine, after which remove the load on the leg with the steering trimmer.
If the aircraft has good stability and the available equipment, long-range flights do not present any difficulties and do not particularly tire the pilots.
The autopilot is very sensitive and requires very precise adjustments, especially at altitude. The autopilot definitely cannot withstand the “churning” flight mode and requires periodic adjustments.
The aircraft intercom does not work satisfactorily.
If there is a continuous track, it is impossible to conduct targeted shooting (forward along the course - N.K.) both day and night - the track covers the target and the sight scale.
Thanks to a good view forward and to the left, the pilot can independently guide the plane to the target during bombing...”
Other flyover pilots generally agreed with their colleague. Nyukhtikov expressed himself most briefly and succinctly: “The B-25-DP aircraft, despite its large flight weight (13,700 kg), has easy take-off and landing in terms of piloting technique, travels relatively easily on one engine, has good longitudinal and quite satisfactory lateral sustainability. The latter could be good if the aircraft had a slightly increased margin of directional stability relative to lateral stability and reduced the load on the legs.”
Despite the fact that the plane had two cabins - a bombardier and a navigator, this did not ensure the normal work of the navigator in aircraft navigation. He was hampered by two stationary machine guns, the boxes of which cluttered the bombardier's cabin.
In this regard, Litvinchuk’s opinion is of interest: “The navigator does not have a place where he could work concentratedly, see all the instruments, use them and observe the ground. To operate the radio compass and navigation sight, you need to get off the seat. There is no speed indicator, clock or altimeter in the cockpit. These instruments are located on the pilot's board, and the navigator cannot see them from the seat. The view from the cockpit does not allow for detailed orientation. It is difficult to provide general orientation... The most suitable place for the navigator to work is the bombardier’s cabin, the view from which is good and fully ensures general and detailed orientation...” Researchers have noted the unsatisfactory performance of machine gun installations due to their frequent spontaneous failures, mainly associated with the loss and distortion of cartridge belts.
Based on the test results, in particular, the following conclusions were made:
“The normal flight weight of the B-25-DP aircraft, equal to 14650 kg, is greater by 1750 kg or 13.55% of the normal flight weight of the B-25-S aircraft due to:
a) increasing the empty weight of the aircraft by 75 kg;
b) weight gain payload by 1675 kg;
The maximum operational alignments of the aircraft - front 21.7% MAR and rear 33.5% MAR - are in the range of alignments allowed by the American company (20-33.5% MAR).
The decrease in maximum altitude speeds of the B-25-DP aircraft in comparison with the B-25-S aircraft was due to:
a) deterioration of the aerodynamics of the aircraft due to the installation of additional shooting points;
b) increasing normal flight weight by 1750 kg.
At all flight modes in the range of flight speeds from the minimum permissible to the maximum, the B-25-DP aircraft with a normal flight weight of 14650 kg (centering 31.0% GR) has good controllability and quite satisfactory stability in both longitudinal and lateral respects. When piloting at the minimum permissible speed, turns with a bank of no more than 15-20 degrees are allowed.
In comparison with the B-25-S aircraft, the piloting technique on the B-25-DP aircraft is somewhat more complicated due to the large specific loads. In terms of piloting technique, the aircraft is accessible to moderately qualified pilots.
The propeller group operates flawlessly in all modes of aircraft flight up to the practical ceiling.
The rifle installation does not ensure trouble-free operation of machine guns and requires frequent reloading due to the large bends of the power hoses and the braking of the cartridge belt in them. The working conditions of the tail gunners are unsatisfactory.
Bomber installations work flawlessly. Underwing American bomb racks do not provide suspension for domestic bombs. To increase the bomb load and expand the possible suspension options for domestic bombs, it is necessary to factory rework the underwing holders for FAB-250 and FAB-500 bombs.
The American D-8 bomber sight does not provide ease of use and bombing accuracy and is significantly inferior to our domestic sights of the NKPB-7 type.”
Unlike domestic bombers, the B-25-S crew cabin was comfortable. There were even heaters.
The radio station provided very good communication, including when flying at maximum range. The check was carried out on the Chkalovskaya-Kharabali route (Astrakhan region) with a total length of 2340 kilometers.
At the conclusion of the Act, based on the results of state tests, it was recommended to remake American underwing bomb racks for domestic FAB-100 and FAB-250 bombs and replace the American D-8 sight with the domestic NKPB-7; remove the forward fixed machine guns and install a seat in the forward cockpit of the bombardier; rearrange existing equipment and install additional equipment and instruments in the navigator's cabin.
The first combat military unit of the Soviet Air Force to begin mastering the B-25 bomber in the summer of 1942 was the 37th BAP, which arrived from the Far East at the Kratovo airfield in the Moscow region. Soon it was joined by two more bomber regiments: the 16th and 125th, which until that time had fought on the Leningrad Front on Pe-2 aircraft. From these regiments, in July 1942, the 222nd BAA was formed, which from August 8 took part in hostilities as part of the 1st BAC. Taking into account the aircraft's performance characteristics and the heavy losses that the division suffered during daytime sorties, the division commander, Colonel F.V. Titov proposed reassigning the ADD division, which happened on September 22, 1942. In March 1943, for the courage shown in the performance of military duty, the 222nd BAD was awarded the honorary title of the 4th Guards BAD, and the 37th, 16th and 125th BAP became the 13th, 14th and 15th Guards BAP
By the summer of 1943, taking into account the number of B-25 bombers delivered to the country, they began to create the 4th Guards BAC on the basis of the 4th GBAD DD. It included the 5th GBAP DD, created in September 1942 on the basis of the 14th GBAP, and the 747th BAP DD, which, after retraining from the Er-2 to the B-25, received the name 22nd GBAP DD. In March 1944, the 335th BAP DD (from December - 34th GBAP) was formed as part of the 4th GBAD and the 337th BAP DD (from December - 35th GBAP DD) as part of the 5th GBAD. In addition, as part of the 4th GBAC in August 1944, a separate 341st daytime BAP was formed, also armed with B-25 bombers.
Bombardier's cockpit: 1-sight for bombing, 2-electric release AN-B-3, 3-control panel for bomb release
Airborne installation with a machine gun
Upper electrified turret with twin Browning machine guns
Tail mount with Browning machine gun
At the end of December 1944, the ADD was reorganized into the 18th Air Army. In this regard, the numbering of military units that were part of the 4th GBAD changed once again: the 4th GBAD became the 14th GBAD, the 5th GBAD became the 15th; 13th GBAP DD - 229th GBAP; 15th GBAP DD - 198th GBAP; 34th GBAP DD - 250th GBAP; 14th GBAP - 201st GBAP, 22nd GBAP DD - 238th GBAP and 35th GBAP DD - 251st GBAP.
Since August 1943, the 2nd GBAP DD of the 1st GBAD DD (formerly the 748th DBAP for special purposes of the 3rd BAD DD) was re-equipped with B-25s from Il-4 aircraft. In this regiment, one of the most famous ADD aces, twice Hero of the Soviet Union A.I., fought in the B-25D “Oleg Koshevoy”, purchased with funds raised by the youth of Donbass. Young. At the same time, the 362nd BAP DD was armed with B-25 bombers.
Some B-25 aircraft served as reconnaissance aircraft both in the Air Force (48th GBAP and 118th ODRAE) and in the Navy aviation (15th ORAP KBF and 118th OMRAP Northern Fleet).
After the end of the Great Patriotic War B-25 bombers continued to enter service with Long-Range Aviation units. Until the beginning of the 50s, they were received, for example, by the 330th DBAP in Bobruisk and the 132nd BAP on Sakhalin. In addition to its main purpose, B-25s with weapons removed were used in the USSR by various organizations as transport aircraft and flying laboratories for testing power plants and equipment.
B-25 aircraft were also operated at the Chelyabinsk Military Aviation School of Navigators. There, small arms and oxygen equipment were partially removed from the planes, since bombing from high altitudes was not taught. In the summer of 1954, (according to the story of navigator Selivanov), the console of the B-25 came off during a night training flight. This cost the lives of a crew of four under the command of Captain Kolpikov. After the disaster, the operation of the B-25 in the USSR Air Force ceased.
ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH DUDAKOV, the author of the memoirs published below, devoted 32 years of his life to flight work. Through Komsomol recruitment in 1936, he entered the Engel Military Aviation School, where he underwent flight training on U-2 and R-5 aircraft. Having graduated from school in 1938 with the rank of lieutenant, he worked there as an instructor pilot on SB (high-speed bomber) aircraft.
In 1942, along with other experienced specialists, he was sent to Monino near Moscow, where the 22nd AD DD was being formed. Successfully completing combat missions, by the spring of 1944 he had the rank of major and the position of squadron commander. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, he was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which he received in 1948.
He graduated from the Yu. A. Gagarin Military Academy in 1952 (modern name) and in 1960 from the General Staff Academy. Commanded the 22nd Long-Range Aviation Division in Bobruisk. After being decommissioned from flight work, he taught at the KRRA named after. Yu. A. Gagarin. In 1974 he retired with the rank of major general of aviation.
The crew of Colonel Ulyanovsky before flying to Berlin
I had to fly B-25 Mitchell aircraft for six years - from June 1942 (almost the entire Patriotic War) until I entered the Air Force Academy in 1948.
These were vehicles of different series: B-25S, B-25D, B-25G, which mainly differed from each other in the location of defensive weapons and their quantity, as well as fuel supply.
Aircraft began to arrive at the Monino airfield, where the 222nd AD DD was formed, consisting of three regiments. We received the B-25S first. They had two electrified towers: one in the upper part of the fuselage, the other in the lower part. Each had two 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. The navigator had another machine gun in the very nose of the plane.
During combat operations at night, the lower tower was essentially “blind.” This made it possible for German Me-110 night fighters to quietly adjust from below to the aircraft and follow it to the landing airfield, where the crew’s vigilance disappeared. As a rule, after the fourth turn during landing, ours were shot down with impunity. This is how several Il-4 and B-25S aircraft died.
Our command responded quickly: they asked to remove the lower turret, place one machine gun with a gunner in the rear and one machine gun on the sides of the fuselage; they were to be served by another gunner. Thus, the crew increased by one gunner and consisted of six people. In addition, an additional 215-gallon gas tank was installed in the bomb hatch, which increased the flight duration to 7 hours. This reconstruction was made possible thanks to the large size of the bomb hatch, in which four FAB 250 and two FAB 500 bombs were freely placed for suspension.
Thus the B-25D was born. Subsequently, two coaxial machine guns began to be placed in the stern, and this series was already called the B-25G.
We must pay tribute to the American command and their industry. They immediately fulfilled all our requests to increase the combat capabilities of the B-25 aircraft. By the way, the name “Mitchell” somehow didn’t catch on with us, and we always called the plane “B-25.”
The pilots' first impression of the car was unimportant. They immediately nicknamed her “cuttlefish.” The tail-keel with the pipe up and the three-wheeled landing gear seemed very clumsy. But after flying it, we changed our attitude.
The plane was very easy to taxi with excellent forward visibility. Piloting both on takeoff and in the air and on landing was so simple that it made it possible to quickly introduce young pilots into combat formation. Of all the types of aircraft I have flown, the B-25 is the most accessible in terms of flying technique. Two keels with rudders in the sphere of action of the jet from the propellers and a three-wheeled landing gear made it possible to take off and land in any crosswind. It is no coincidence that subsequently all aviation switched to a three-wheeled landing gear.
The B-25 was equipped with flight and navigation instruments that were remarkable for those times. It had two attitude indicators - for the left and right pilots, a good autopilot, which provided great assistance to pilots during long and “blind” flights, and most importantly, a radio compass, which was indispensable in night flights.
Of particular note is the aircraft's anti-icing system, which allowed it to fly in any weather. On the attack ribs of both planes there was a mechanical de-icer from Goodrich. Rubber “bags” were periodically inflated, chipping off the ice, and the screws were washed with alcohol.
A. V. Dudakov (left) and engineer Druyan
Refueling the Mitchells of the 125th BAP, 1942
Arrival of the regiment commander before a combat flight (Umat, 1944)
It is necessary to say about the reliable operation of the motors, which had a total resource of 500 hours. And the Wright-Cyclone engines produced it. Of course, there were refusals - aviation is not without it. My pilot, senior lieutenant Nikolai Sidun, had one of his engines disabled by a direct hit from an MZA shell in the sky over Budapest. He managed to “pull” over the Carpathians on the second, arrive at his Uman airfield and land safely. The flight on one engine lasted for 3 hours.
Retraining personnel for this technique was not without incidents. Nobody knew English - everyone studied German at school. But the language barrier was quickly overcome. We immediately learned: “ON” - on, “OFF” - off. And what kind of device it was - you could already see where to turn it to turn it on - the arrow showed it. So stickers with inscriptions were quickly abandoned. However, there were also unpleasant situations, especially when operating the propeller group. There was a case when a pilot flew for a little more than two hours and fell without fuel. We flew on this plane with the same fuel supply for about five hours. The accident occurred due to an incorrect combination of engine speed and boost (gas sector supply).
Now about combat work. Experienced pilots were seated in the left seat of the crew commander, and youth were seated in the right seat. During the day we relearned quickly. Several crews were sent on a combat reconnaissance mission. And here it immediately became clear that it was difficult to cope with the enemy in the B-25 during the day - the speed and ceiling were low, you couldn’t get away from the “Messer”. True, the Germans were unable to shoot down a single plane from us - the pilots managed to hide in the clouds, but everyone received holes. Our command again quickly oriented itself to the situation, and the regiments were urgently retrained for combat operations at night. We trained at the Kryazh airfield near Samara. After this, the combat work at night went successfully and in full swing. The Germans announced to the whole world that the Russians no longer had aviation. And on August 15, 1942, I made my first combat flight from the Monino airfield to the railway. Kursk junction We still had to prove that Soviet aviation was alive and capable of striking deep behind enemy lines.
Aircraft B-25D-30 squadron commander L.V. Dudakov, 1945
Planes of the 222nd AD DD bombed the cities of East Prussia: Koenigsberg, Tilsit, Onstenburg. The Germans did not expect this. They didn't even have blackout. And they mistook our raid on Koenigsberg for an attack by Anglo-American aircraft.
My crew had to fly a lot to drop reconnaissance aircraft over the entire territory of Europe, including the Berlin area. In this case, a tank with a capacity of 518 gallons was suspended in the bomb hatch, and then it was possible to remain in the air for 15 hours without landing. The scouts jumped out at an altitude of 300-400 m through a hatch in the navigator's cabin. In total, during the years of the Great Patriotic War, I completed 220 combat missions.
We can’t help but mention the B-25 version with a cannon. It was installed in a hole through which the navigator entered the front cockpit, had a caliber of 75 mm and a combat reserve of 24 rounds. One copy of such a machine ended up in our division. I was instructed to test it day and night at the training ground, and at night for combat use. Then give a conclusion about the possibility of using this aircraft.
At the training ground, the wing console was placed vertically and the dies were lit at the ends and in the center of it. I climbed to an altitude of 3000-4000 feet, put the plane into steep glide and opened fire by pressing the trigger. During the day the tests went well, but at night the unexpected happened, as often happens when learning new technology. The night flight took place in the same sequence as the day flight. But when I pressed the trigger, a bright flame about ten meters long flew out from the cannon shot, which blinded me. I lost the ability to follow the instrument readings; I only understood that I needed to take the helm so as not to crash into the ground. I couldn’t determine how much to take, but I gave it full throttle due to the danger of losing speed. When I began to see a little, I turned on the headlights, which illuminated the tops of the trees: another second or two - and the matter could have ended tragically. During the subsequent approach and shooting, I simultaneously closed my eyes while pressing the trigger and opened them after the shot: it was pleasant to watch how the tracer projectile flew towards the specified target.
After field tests, I flew four combat missions in a B-25 with a cannon. The targets of the attack were railway trains on stages along the road that ran west of the Dnieper - from Kyiv to Dnepropetrovsk. Train traffic was frequent; there was a train on each section. I managed to blow up one of them with cannon fire - apparently it hit ammunition or fuel.
Based on the test results, he wrote an Act and made the following conclusion: “It is advisable to use the B-25 aircraft (cannon version) in the Navy to attack enemy ships.” For the tests I was given 10 days leave. This was a great reward in the active army.
It is worth noting the strikes of our aviation on the then enemy capital of Helsinki, on the naval base and military defense of the cities of Turku and Kotka. As a result, Finland was withdrawn from the war, which means thousands and thousands of lives of soldiers and officers were saved.
Later we attacked Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, the cities of Constanta, Gyor, Satu Mare, Danzing, Kotowice and many other enemy targets.
Due to successful military operations, our regiment of the 125th BAP ADD was transformed into the 15th Guards BAP ADD, which received the name “Sevastopol”.
The American B-25 aircraft was widely used by our aviation due to another important advantage. There were two pilots on it, and we trained only the pilots who sat in the right seat on this machine to become the crew commander, because they acquired good combat experience and were excellent at instrument piloting.
I confess: throughout my entire flying career I have had two favorite aircraft - the B-25 and Tu-16. But "Mitchell" is something closer to the heart. Apparently because he once saved my life during the war.
I spent the best years of my life working as a pilot while serving in Long-Range Aviation. 32 years in continuous connection with the sky. And the thought of wanting or not wanting to go on a flight never arose. For me, as for many boys of that time whose dream of flying came true, the disease was not just contagious, but became chronic and clearly incurable.
If you ask me when I got sick with palate, I won’t be able to answer unequivocally. Most likely, this did not happen suddenly, but as an accumulation: a chain of events, imprinted in my subconscious, gave me the final decision - I WILL BE A PILOT!
Just shortly before the war, I also intended to study at school, which I announced to my older brother Ivan (he is 7 years older than me, he was my support and protection). This decision of mine was unexpected for him and clearly puzzled him, especially since he was in a hurry to get to school. His calm and reasonable interpretation that I was still too young for school, that I needed to grow up, was unconvincing for me, because I would go with him and sit at the same desk with him.
For the first time, he agreed to show me the school. He and I reached the pasture, from here I was supposed to look at it, but not cross the road. Otherwise, the director, Uncle Suprun, will catch me and drive me away anyway, he really doesn’t like harmful and disobedient people. At the age of four I already had some idea about naughty people, but about harmful ones... I was puzzled and agreed with everything. I looked at the school for a long time. She seemed huge and mysterious to me. Sighing, he returned home. But now I could go out into the pasture myself and watch as much as I wanted.
One day, Ivan came home from school and enthusiastically told how his son flew to visit the principal on a real plane and sat down in the pasture right next to the school, and everyone ran to the plane, looked at it, even touched it with their hands. I was upset to the point of tears - how did I miss it so much?
Soon the war came. Now that I had seen enough of the planes, I could recognize them not only by appearance, but also by the sound of running engines. I knew whether it was our red-star defender flying or whether it was a fascist vulture with black crosses. And the battles for my native village of Taranovka were fierce - both air and ground. 25 soldiers from Lieutenant Shironin’s platoon, who defended the crossing in the south of the village on March 2, 1943 until reinforcements arrived, were awarded the highest award of the Motherland - Hero of the Soviet Union (19 of them posthumously).
The village was captured by the Nazis several times and they were driven out. But ours still left. At the same time, they stole all the livestock, including our wet nurse, the cow Zirka (Star), so that the enemy would not get it. The house burned down. There was a strong battle going on, there was simply no one to put out the fire. We managed to save only some documents and some dishes. Everyone hid in the cellar next to the ashes. And the Nazis staged a raid. The two approached the cellar and threw a gas grenade into it. Everyone began to choke. My father grabbed me under the arms, threw me out of the cellar and began to get out with difficulty himself, since he suffered from rheumatism. I lay on my back and coughed, I felt very nauseous. And a few meters away two fascists with machine guns stood calmly, and as soon as my father got out, a shot rang out. The father fell and never got up again. I immediately realized that they had shot me. I waited - now they will shoot everyone. Brother Ivan appeared from the cellar, followed by his mother, then other relatives. The Nazis stood and watched. Suddenly they calmly turned around and went to the neighboring house.
For a long time, the grannies fed me some kind of drugs. I decided that when I grew up, I would definitely be a scout, I would definitely find the killers and avenge my father.
As soon as the Nazis were driven out, Soviet power was restored. The cow was immediately returned to us, albeit a different one. But we still called her Zirka. It’s hard to even imagine what it would be like for us without her. Luckily for us, the barn was preserved. My brother and I divided it in half with a partition made of improvised material, coated with clay and straw, put Zirka in one half, and ourselves in the other. Mother and brother went to work on a collective farm.
And I went to first grade. I walked until it started to freeze. I didn't have shoes. Dropped out of school. I was waiting for summer. And over the whole summer I myself earned 75 rubles, my mother bought me boots to grow into, so I was provided for all 4 grades of primary school. And my pants were gorgeous. A local milliner sewed them for me from German cloth mittens, which my brother borrowed from our neighbor’s guests when they suddenly got ready to go home in such a hurry. They had no time for mittens.
I went to elementary school, which was located on the edge of Taranovka, a kilometer and a half from home. The school, which was headed by the father of the famous pilot Suprun, and where I so dreamed of studying, was completely destroyed. Down to the very foundation.
During all my years in elementary school, I used up two student notebooks and one textbook, “Ridna Mova” (“Native Speech”), for which my mother had to shell out 125 rubles at the market. And they wrote - whoever did what and on whatever. Only in the fourth grade did they begin to acquire fountain pens and learn to make ink from elderberries. My brother was especially successful in this matter and provided not only for me, but also for my friends.
In the fifth grade I went to secondary school in the center of the village, past the destroyed elementary school. And this is more than two kilometers. We always walked along the railroad bridge in a crowd because it was always dry there. But they walked with caution so as not to be hit by a train.
Here, somehow by itself, we formed our own team: me, Nikolai Garbuz and Ivan Tereshchenko. And what’s interesting is that everyone has their own favorite activity, but their views are common. We never wandered around other people's gardens, we never started fights, but we could always stand up for ourselves. There was plenty of free time. I played in a string orchestra and was involved in amateur performances, Ivan Tereshchenko painted beautifully, especially with watercolors, and Nikolai Garbuz was always making something. Nikolai's older brother and his family lived in Kharkov, just two hours away by commuter train (18 stops), and Nikolai often visited him. So one day he brought the drawings of the glider and a set of necessary parts and materials. After classes, if there was no housework involved, we hurried to assemble the glider. They assembled it, and, quite successfully, tested it - it flies.
They decided to entrust the flight to the lead pilot Nikolai. A long thread was tied to the point indicated on the drawing, and Nikolai began to tow. The glider obediently separated from the ground and began to gain altitude. The delight was indescribable. Our pilot got so carried away and set such thrust that the glider quickly used up the not-so-long thread, and Nikolai found himself in time on the edge of a ravine. He stopped for a moment and ran along the cliff. The glider clearly did not understand the pilot's intent. It was as if he had stumbled upon something, hung for a moment, fell on the left wing, sharply lowered his nose and rushed to the ground after Nikolai. He was already picking up speed, he was already coming out of the descent, but he didn’t have time. Planet Earth greeted him so unfriendly that when we ran up, we realized from the wreckage that we would not be able to repair the glider.
Once at school, in the hallway, posters appeared on the walls depicting our planes: bombers over Berlin, fighters in air combat, and others. After class, the three of us looked at it carefully and discussed it for a long time. We thought about it. Soon, the same Nikolai, after another visit to his brother, brought the conditions for admission to the Kharkov secondary special school of the Air Force. And now our decision is clear and undeniable: we will go to a special school. But sixth and seventh grades still had to be completed. It seemed like time stood still. We still didn’t really know what kind of school it was, but since it was special, it would be more difficult to study there. And that’s exactly what we started from.
Quite often on weekends, especially in the summer, we recruited a team of like-minded people from our class and went to work on the collective farm. We did not claim any payment. This was our help to the farm. We worked where we were sent. Most often, they mowed, dried and baled hay by hand, carried oxen and dried grain on a threshing floor. And we were spoiled quite often: either our team was allocated a huge watermelon straight from the melon tree, or a whole circle of makukha. The collective farm had its own oil mill; they sowed a huge field of sunflowers and extracted their own sunflower oil. This smell roasted sunflower seeds and fresh sunflower oil is still unforgettable.
We did not disclose our intention to enter a special school to anyone in order to avoid misunderstandings. Everything became clear when we graduated from seventh grade and began collecting documents. The teachers discouraged me, advised me to finish 10th grade and then study further. But I set a goal for myself and decided to achieve it. Besides, I didn’t know what would happen in three years, where and how I could study to become a pilot, besides, the three of us decided to enroll, I couldn’t let my friends down. Yes, and it was hard for the mother to feed the extra mouth.
And then one fine day, at the appointed time, the three of us arrived at the special school. Oh, and there turned out to be a lot of us who wanted to! It was here that I first learned what a competition was. First of all, my friends were eliminated: Ivan Tereshchenko - an ophthalmologist, Nikolai Garbuz - a surgeon. They returned to school and after graduation, Ivan entered and graduated from the Kharkov Aviation Institute, and Nikolai graduated from the flying club and the Voroshilovgrad Aviation School.
I passed the medical examination. There were exams in Russian, but I studied at a Ukrainian school. I had my doubts. But everything worked out: the dictation was “excellent”, the solution to the problem was “excellent”, but for the explanation of the solution the grade was reduced. Okay. I was enrolled. He was immediately appointed assistant commander of the 5th platoon with the military rank of “sergeant”.
We were given uniforms (real military uniforms with shoulder straps) and were given an allowance (three excellent meals a day). All newcomers were accommodated in a dormitory, and for the second and subsequent years they rented apartments for us in the city. Our teachers were masters of their craft. And, despite the fact that during my studies I missed 300 hours of classes due to illness, I had only 5 “B’s” in my certificate, the rest were “A’s”.
Our graduation in 1955 was the last: special schools were closed.
Before being assigned to schools, I was asked which one I would like to study at. I said without a doubt - in the fighter class. So they recommended that I write a report to the Balashov Fighter School. That's what I wrote. And I was not alone: many who went to the Balashov Flight School went specifically to the Fighter School. And only when approaching Balashov, in a conversation with one of the passengers, we found out that night bombers were stationed there. Naturally - surprise and disappointment. But there was no turning back, and no choice either. They soon realized that this was even for the better. I still don't regret it. This insignificant misunderstanding allowed me to subsequently travel all over Yakutia, see the country from the Baltic states to Vladivostok and from Crimea to Novaya Zemlya.
At the school we only passed the medical and credentials commissions. Graduates of special schools were fully prepared for military service. I immediately continued my classes in the gymnastics section.
After studying theoretical disciplines, flight training took place on a Yak-18 aircraft at the 217 km airfield with an instructor, Captain Viktor Petrovich Akimov.
The second course took place in Rtishchevo - both theory and flight training. Flights on a Li-2 aircraft with an instructor, Captain Konstantin Mikheevich Pavlov. Neither theoretical nor flight training caused me any difficulties. I graduated from the school in the first category, and I was sent to a special group of Long-Range Aviation for an internship in the Yakutsk separate air group, air squadron, Yakutsk. All graduates born in 1935 and older were immediately fired and assigned to Aeroflot.
Five of us were sent to Yakutsk: me, Ilya Fetisov (it was out of solidarity with him that I left nowhere), Lenya Soroka, Boris Karamzin and Anatoly Malykhin. After taking a vacation in my native Taranovka, I set off for an internship in a completely unknown land. Five days later I was already in Krasnoyarsk, where our group gathered, except for Malykhin and Soroka. Next we had to fly by plane.
The passengers flying with us looked at us with curiosity as if there was some kind of misunderstanding, but they didn’t ask us any questions, they just whispered quietly. And we only realized on the spot what was going on. Meanwhile, the IL-14 faithfully drove us to Yakutsk. After landing and stopping the engines, the flight engineer opened the door, and a snow cloud burst into it like an explosion.
The passengers calmly and thoroughly prepared to leave. What should we prepare for? We took our suitcases and were ready. We went down the ladder, and everything immediately became clear. Below we were met
It’s not clear what, but we still guessed, since it was something with a gentle female voice and a red bandage on its left arm, but neither its face nor eyes were visible. Apparently, she had so many questions about our appearance that they were all immediately confused and the only thing she managed to either ask or express surprise was: “Guys, where are you going?” “We’re here for an internship,” Boris Karamzin explained clearly and intelligibly, because there was no time to talk.
Indeed, the picture was creepy. On the one hand - Yakutsk, December, local time 23.00, fog and frost 45 degrees; on the other hand, we are wearing hats, ears up (Boris Karamzin is wearing a cap), overcoats, breeches, chrome boots with thin leather soles and summer socks. What saved us was that the plane taxied right to the entrance to the airport terminal. But still, in the next minute my heels froze to my heels, it was difficult to breathe. The attendant pointed to a light bulb dimly shining through the fog and ordered us to run to the airport terminal. There was our salvation.
It turned out to be only a few dozen steps to run. We burst through the door together, accompanied by a cloud. The first is Karamzin. He immediately fell at our feet, since the floor was tiled and the soles were leather. We found ourselves right in the waiting room, crowded with passengers who, at first, were simply shocked by our appearance, then a timid tentative laugh, picked up by roaring laughter. He was so good-natured that we joined in too. Then we were escorted to a restaurant in the same building, where we undressed, had dinner, and warmed up. With the help of the same duty officer, we moved to the other side of the station square to a dispensary for flight personnel.
And two days later it warmed up to -30 degrees. We found the detachment headquarters, where we met the same trainees, already experienced in these matters. They explained a lot to us: how to get to the city, where to rent an apartment, and most importantly, we should get flight uniforms in Irkutsk, at the aviation school (2500 kilometers from Yakutsk).
As soon as the housing issue was resolved, we decided, with the help of the landlady and neighbors, to dress Karamzin up, give him our clothing certificates and send him to Irkutsk. And on the fourth day he brought not what we needed, but what was given to him. I received size 46 high boots. I grieved only until the first time I went outside. I gained experience right away: I put on flannelette underwear, my lieutenant trousers for graduation and a shirt with a tie, a woolen sweater, a jacket with shoulder straps, woolen socks and boots, and on top - a fur uniform and high boots. He covered his nose and ears with the collar of his sweater, put on a military hat with a cockade, and turned up the collar of his fur jacket. In such uniforms there was only a narrow gap for viewing.
I started flying without a hitch. Looking from the outside and judging by the names, the crew was international: the ship’s commander is Viktor Rakino, the right pilot (aka navigator) is Mikhail Palval, the radio operator is Boris Tsulin, the flight mechanic is Vladimir Medvedev. In this composition we examined the whole of Yakutia at all altitudes and in all directions. There was an airfield as such only in Yakutsk; all the rest were landing sites. But they were still respectfully called airports. They had communications facilities, runway markings, aircraft refueling and maintenance, crew rest areas, and basic hotels for passengers. Some were equipped with drive radios. As a rule, the head of the airport is also a dispatcher, flight director, and cashier.
They flew mainly outside the flight, serving the Amakinskaya geological exploration expedition, the management of which was located in Nyurba. At all airports, during the rest, we were plagued by midges, mosquitoes, and at night, also by bedbugs. There was no control over them. They were starved, they were poisoned, all the beds were covered with gauze curtains, everything was useless. The rubbing was very effective, which was supplied to geologists without restriction, and they considered it an honor to provide it to us. And in general, at that time in Yakutia, everyone who was in flight uniform was simply deified, especially prisoners. In general, it was unacceptable to allow anything offensive towards the pilot. And this obliged me to do a lot, and, above all, to constantly see myself from the outside.
By August 1958 the internship was completed. I was sent to Ivanovo for a course for ship commanders, where they deepened theoretical training (especially in aircraft navigation and meteorology) and received daytime flight training. And on December 23, everyone who had not yet been there was sent on leave straight from classes. When I returned in early February 1959, the regiment in Ivanovo had already been disbanded. I was sent to Ryazhsk. The Separate Squadron of the Ryazan Center for Combat Training and Retraining of Flight Personnel was located there, where he completed the night program with instructor Captain Kagdin. Here I met my future combat companion Alexandra, who later gave me two beautiful sons, for which I owe her my whole life and always forgave the occasional everyday complaints that, as a rule, did not depend on me. I probably knew that I would return to Yakutsk again for at least a year. It was extremely unwise to take her with us. She worked in Ryazan. I said that if in a year she waits for me, then we will never part again. And so it happened. For more than forty-seven years we have been inseparable.
In August 1959, he returned to Yakutsk for an internship as a ship commander. Here things were much simpler. First of all, Ilya Fetisov and I were included in a brigade of 11 people and sent to an island 240 kilometers north of Yakutsk to harvest hay for the local collective farm. They landed us on the island by boat, left us a bag of potatoes, two round loaves of locally baked bread and 3 kg of beef and sailed away. We were left alone on a huge island. There was no time to waste: evening was approaching, we had to get settled. We examined the island, found out where what bushes were, what kind of grass, and chose the highest point for housing. At a short council, forces were distributed. They assigned a cook to cook dinner, a fireman to help him build and maintain a fire, and everyone else went to the construction site. By sunset everything was ready: a hut for 11 people made of branches covered with grass, a common bed made of a thick layer of grass on the floor, and dinner.
And so, for each day, a cook and a fireman were assigned in turn, whose duties included taking care of food, that is, catching fish, because the meat was eaten in the first two days, there was nowhere to store it. Once a week, an aborigine crossed to us by boat and brought the same two loaves of bread strung on the handlebars and a small piece of meat in a bag on the back trunk on a bicycle. And rolled back. After three weeks of work, four bullies from the collective farm arrived to help us, along with an ox, a drag and a boy for stacking hay. The most powerful of them had a hunting rifle, and he wore it in front, hanging it around his neck, since the length of the gun exceeded his height. But he did not part with it; apparently, it was his pride; he allowed us to hold it in our hands with dignity. For another week we mowed, dried and stacked hay, while the Yakuts pulled down the shocks and stacked them. Then a messenger arrived and conveyed to us the greatest gratitude of their chairman for our work and the order for its completion.
We returned a month later and started flying. There were no problems with the raid. Two flights of the aircraft for repairs to Moscow (Bykovo) and a flight from Bykovo gave me 75 hours and a wealth of flying practice.
After 120 hours of flight time, the detachment command considered my internship completed, and they offered me to remain in the detachment, guaranteeing the crew and the aircraft. I agreed. While we were completing the paperwork, I decided to use my vacation. A week later I was already in my native Taranovka. But I was overtaken by a telegram with an order: to be sent to Ryazan by April 30. And I celebrated May 1, 1960 in Ryazan.
By August 1960, he underwent theoretical retraining on the Tu-16 aircraft and was sent to the headquarters of the air division, Tartu, to the position of right pilot. I arrived in the evening with my young wife and two suitcases. None of the townspeople knew where the military unit was located, and perhaps did not want to know. But they explained how to get to the hotel, where there was not a single free place. We had a room reserved, we had to wait until 23:00 and if it wasn’t available, then they would give it to us. And we were lucky. We spent the first night in comfortable conditions. The next morning I found the division headquarters and received an assignment to the local air regiment, as well as a detailed explanation of how to get there.
And we got there. At the headquarters they processed me, I introduced myself to the leadership of 132 tbap 326 tbad. I was advised first of all to find an apartment in the city. That day I didn’t succeed and had to resort to the help of the unit on duty, who organized two soldiers’ mattresses with blankets and two sets of bedding with pillows. We spent the night in the classroom in the aisle between the tables. And the next day they rented a room not far from the entrance. A month later I was given an “apartment” in a one-story Finnish house designed for two families. So I settled in one of the entrances. In it, a large room of 18 square meters was occupied by a conscript with his wife and a very small daughter, a smaller room of 12 meters was occupied by a childless family from an aircraft factory, and a third room of 9 square meters was given to me. Three years later, when my son was one year old, I moved into a large room next door; the other two were occupied by a senior aircraft technician with his wife and daughter.
Immediately upon arrival at the unit, I passed the tests and started flying. Major Sukhanov volunteered to carry out a familiarization flight to the zone with me (flying the aircraft after repairs at the aircraft factory). After retraining in Ryazan, I did not even complete a familiarization flight. Therefore, on the day of preliminary preparation, I sat for a long time at my workplace in the airplane cockpit, growing into it psychologically, thinking through possible tricks. Immediately after takeoff, as soon as I retracted the landing gear and flaps at the command of the commander, he handed over control to me and closely watched my actions. But he soon calmed down. I took control before releasing the landing gear. After the flight, out of cadet habit, I turned to him for comments. “Fine” - and no comments.
My commander, Captain Grigoriev, was also recently appointed to the post of commander of the Tu-16 aircraft from the Il-28 aircraft, a 2nd class pilot, a humorous, strong man, somewhat shorter than me, energetic, but not hasty. So issues of psychological compatibility and mutual understanding never arose for us during the next two years of working as part of the crew.
Within a month I was elected deputy secretary of the squadron’s Komsomol organization, the secretary being Viktor Gorelkin, who also trained in the Yakut aviation squadron, but mastered the Tu-16 a year earlier. And two or three months later he left for Ryazan for a course for ship commanders. I automatically became secretary.
At the beginning of 1961, the entire regiment was relocated to the Tol-machevo airfield, from where it simulated a “blue” raid on Ural targets. My flight time on the Tu-16 was already 60 hours, mostly at night. The flight was also supposed to take place at night in radio silence, with the engines starting at the signal of two green rockets. For more than two hours the regiment waited for the signal in readiness No. 1. The crew fell asleep at their work stations. We woke up to the noise of taxiing planes. The commander gave the command to start the engines. After checking all the systems, it remained to decide where we were and who to taxi behind. Some crew stopped before reaching us. The commander gave the signal to taxi out, and we entered the battle formation, but it is not yet known who is behind us.
Ahead, the crew taxied onto the runway and took off. The navigator noted the time, we taxied, and three minutes later the commander released the brakes and began the takeoff run. The plane rushed into the night and quickly picked up speed. A few seconds later, a metallic knock was heard, and the plane began to smoothly move to the left. The commander did not react. Just for a moment I glanced at him and saw him far behind. A frost ran down my back. The commander rolled away! I started to bring the plane to the center line with the right brake and heard: “Misha, take off” - “I’m taking off.” And it’s so clear that there’s nothing else left for me. The navigator gave a speed reading. According to the takeoff method of that time, it was time to create a takeoff angle and continue the takeoff until the plane took off. But for me, who had never taken off at night with full take-off weight, this was extremely dangerous. I smoothly began to unload the front wheel and, when it separated, I fixed the steering wheel. He monitored the runway lights to ensure that the plane did not increase the angle, and when the takeoff speed was reached, he separated the plane by briefly taking the control wheel. I immediately focused my attention on the instruments. The main thing is the absence of rolls and climb. The navigator continued counting the speed. This helped me a lot. While I was piloting, the commander removed the headlights, removed the landing gear and flaps, and set the engines to climb mode. At two hundred meters he commanded the operator to push his seat into place; he untied himself and dashingly slammed him all the way forward.
We reached the assigned level. The trail of the plane was shaggy ahead. The commander took control and increased speed. We started to catch up with the one in front and, as soon as we saw his tail number, we started to fall behind in order to get into place: the leader was in front of us. After a tactical strike from a low altitude, we set a course for Tolmachevo, but on the approach to the airfield, due to a thunderstorm situation, the entire regiment was sent to land at a dirt airfield in Kazakhstan without descending. After taxiing, the crew gathered at the plane, the commander told how, in order to get more comfortable on the seat, he moved it back one space, but did not return it to its original position before launch. On takeoff, as soon as the plane began to take evasive action, it did not have enough legs to apply the brake. He decided to pull up the seat, removed it from the stop... and rolled back all the way. The crew did not spread this incident anywhere, but the commander secretly told the detachment commander, Major Sukhanov, who after that looked at me with completely different eyes. A year later I was transferred to the crew of the deputy regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Popov.
In December 1964, with great difficulty and with the help of the deputy regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Popov, he made his way to Ryazan for a course for ship commanders, after which he was appointed to a position in the 477th separate radio regiment, Mirgorod. And then I was presented with a fact: they say, the regiment is constantly solving complex problems, and besides, there are constant orders, so choose - either the academy or the Tu-22. I preferred the academy. Therefore, they planned me for each flight shift to the maximum. At the same time I was preparing for exams. And I managed to get the second grade and prepare for the entrance exams. In 1966 he was enrolled in the Air Force Command Academy.
In 1970, I, an academy graduate, was appointed to the position of deputy squadron commander in the 219th separate reconnaissance regiment, Spassk-Dalniy. And, after taking a vacation, I and my whole family (my wife, seven-year-old eldest son, and one-and-a-half-month-old youngest son) set off to continue exploring the Far East. The fact that I trained there for three years on a Li-2 aircraft did not count. I decided to fly to Khabarovsk by plane, and then by train. We landed late at night with all the subsequent problems of how to get to the garrison.
I was assigned to the squadron, whose commander, Lieutenant Colonel Beshenov, had recently headed the duty detachment in Anadyr. And from the first days I had to perform the duties of a commander. When the commander returned three months later, the squadron's combat training continued as planned. At the insistence of the deputy regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kirilets, and the squadron commander himself, Lieutenant Colonel Beshenov, they sent me an application for the position of squadron commander.
And four months later he took over the squadron in Vozdvizhenka. And here I first got a separate two-room apartment, albeit with a walk-through room and a shared bathroom. But this was already an apartment, not a closet.
When he arrived in Vozdvizhenka, the regiment commander was in charge of the flights. I called him and reported his arrival. He ordered me to come to the “tower”, where he joyfully greeted me. It was Evgeny Biryukov. He graduated from the academy two years earlier than me, received an appointment to Mirgorod and learned a lot from me about the regiment, conditions of service, and about the famous city. And that's where we met him. He also only recently took over the regiment.
There was only one crew in the air, and I did not distract him from directing the flights. I just asked why there were so many people here. It turned out that the regiment took off on the route. In the crew of the detachment commander, Major Grebenyuk, the front cabin was not pressurized during the climb. The ship's commander gave the command to the navigator-operator (Lieutenant Onoshko, called up under a two-year contract from the civil institute) to check the position of the switch on the automatic pressure regulator, which is located in the front cabin in such a place that it can only be seen from under the operator's seat . Tom, naturally, had to unfasten his seat belts, disconnect the oxygen hose, and crawl under the seat. Onoshko decided to move the switch, but it was locked. Then he started hitting it with a pistol. But he quickly lost consciousness because the crew continued to climb in an unsealed cabin. The ship's commander turned around and saw the motionless operator, reported to the commander, and he gave the command to immediately descend with a turn to the point. At an altitude below 4000 meters, the operator came to his senses and took workplace, and the crew had to burn out fuel for several hours before landing.
Zhenya Biryukov, who is optimistic by nature and not without humor, made such a comment on this matter that even now, in conditions of freedom of speech, I will not repeat it - for ethical reasons. I nodded in agreement, adding that if Onoshko had imagined the design and operating principle of the pressure regulator, he would not have tried to fix the problem with a pistol, but first of all would have checked whether the pressurized hatch of the front technical compartment was closed.
A year later, in the same regiment, I was appointed deputy regiment commander instead of my college colleague Boris Konstantinov, who had left for Ukrainka to become regiment commander. The primary task was to improve the training base. At that time, the regimental headquarters was located at the airfield in a two-story house that was in disrepair: sagging floors, shaky, swinging stairs, crumbling walls. We achieved the transfer of the headquarters to one of the barracks in the town and occupied the first floor, where they equipped a task setting class, also known as a flight preparation class, also known as a flight debriefing class. For each flight mission, they developed a diagram “Methodology for performing flight mission No...” and equipped a storage facility for the diagrams. These diagrams were the main visual aid when setting tasks, training crews and debriefing.
The regiment began preparing for the most important aviation exercise with a full flight to the Priluki airfield and carrying out practical bombing at all air ranges flown over. And soon the task came directly to the exercise. From Priluki, instead of the exhausted aircraft, they ferryed another one, which, before taking off for the exercises, they only managed to fly around and perform several flights in a circle. In the regiment, each crew was assigned a regular vehicle by order, and crew coordination was ensured. I didn’t have one, and for the exercise I got the newly arrived plane.
The regiment followed in two groups: the first was led by the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Basistov, the second by me. Senior aircraft technicians were included in the flight crews. Structurally, an additional work place was equipped, provided with an oxygen device, internal communication and the possibility of using a rescue parachute in case of abandoning the aircraft. We conducted training exercises, except, of course, for leaving the plane (this was theoretically practiced at the workplace). The technician was flying on a combat aircraft for the first time and was noticeably nervous before and after takeoff, but soon, seeing how calmly the crew was working, he calmed down.
The regiment made its second landing in Semipalatinsk, and it was good that it was during the day. The weather conditions during the landing were really difficult: cloud cover with a lower edge of 150 meters and a drift to the right of 10 degrees, and from a height of 100 meters the drift sharply decreased to 5. There was some feeling of excitement for the young crews, but everyone coped with it, everyone landed on the first approach , because the most experienced flight control group was headed by an equally experienced leader, division commander, Major General Dmitriev (everyone called him “dzhigit”). The next day, the regiment also took off during the day, but the weather was even worse: with low clouds there was severe icing. There were reports of icing, and Captain Chernyshenko, who had taken off in front of me, reported in an alarming voice about the strong roll of the plane; at an altitude of 1500 meters he reported a decrease in roll. I gave the command to my group to taxi into the parking lot. We flew to Priluki the next day.
On the way back we land again in Semipalatinsk. We reached Barnaul at an altitude of 10,000 meters and began to descend. Soon, an itching sound was clearly heard. A jet of liquid was hitting the casing under high pressure. Kerosene? Oil? Hydromix? All instruments and equipment worked normally. Reported to the flight director. I understood from the voice that the group was being received by Major General Dmitriev. The crew watched. Everyone calmly went about their business, but the technician was pale. I smiled at him slightly and winked. Immediately the radio operator reported a trickle of pinkish liquid on the right blister. Hydromix! Two other questions disappeared, but two new ones arose - will there be a fire and from which system was the mixture knocked out? All that was left to do was wait.
At the height of the circle, before releasing the landing gear, I handed over control to an assistant; I decided to release the landing gear myself. As soon as the landing gear valve was released, the pressure in the main hydraulic system dropped to zero and did not increase anymore. I reported this to the manager, as well as the decision to release the landing gear in an emergency. But only the right pillar came off the lock and fell out, the left and front ones remained removed. I decided to press the right strut and turned on the boost pump. The stand was released very slowly. Already on the landing line, at a distance of 8 kilometers, a shock was heard and the green light on the right pillar came on. The operator reported the output of the mechanical indicator. The right landing gear is extended and locked!
Reported to the manager. He asked to pass over the strip at an altitude of 50 meters and asked what I intended to do next. He replied that I would produce the remaining racks.
He reported to the manager about the full extension of the landing gear and his decision to land. Just in case, I told the navigator to move behind my seat and rest his back against it. On this runway, which was extensive for my plane, the brakes worked perfectly; I didn’t use braking parachutes and vacated the runway in the middle, where I was already met. There was only enough fuel left in the plane to go around, climb to the altitude of the circle and leave the plane.
The division commander, Major General Gryaznov, came up and congratulated us on the successful completion of the flight. And he sent a telegram notifying him of the death of the crew navigator’s mother. He immediately handed the navigator this telegram and money for travel, put him in the car and sent him to the station. So I continued the training with a different navigator, but on the same plane, which was put in order within a day.
As soon as the division commander left, his place opposite me was immediately taken by the deputy division commander, chief of the IAS, Colonel Efremov, an arrogant man in his attitude towards his subordinates and categorical in his statements. This was expressed even in his gestures, for which he was called “master” throughout the division. He expressed his extreme indignation at how I, the deputy regiment commander, chose such an aircraft for training. Of course, I exploded, but to calm myself down, I pulled my ear several times and asked in an even voice, what would have been the outcome of this flight if another crew had been in my place? I provided him with an intact plane, now figure it out. There was no answer, so they parted ways.
During takeoff at night from the Belaya airfield, the command communication transmitter failed to climb. Through the radio operator, he reported to the command post about the refusal and termination of the mission, and to the departure airfield about the return. Having received confirmation, the crew spent four hours running out of fuel, after which the radio operator requested an approach. But no matter how much he asked, no one answered. The runway lights were on, the fuel was running low, and I landed without searchlights and without permission. I taxied to the control tower and turned off the engines. No one met.
When the entire crew climbed to the tower, the entire management group was sleeping at their jobs. The time was four o'clock in the morning. He told the crew to settle down as best they could, he sat down on an empty chair next to the leader and instantly passed out. It seemed like only a moment passed and I woke up. The sun was shining brightly, and next to me, the leader, Colonel Shvetsov, looked at me with an uncomprehending look, with the prints of his hat on his right cheek. He could only ask: “Where are you from?” “Fell from the sky,” I answered.
In the midst of the rejuvenation of military personnel, at 34 years old, I found myself old. I was offered the position of senior combat training inspector of the air corps, Irkutsk, where I went in June 1974.
I must say that I clearly did not like the inspection work. Perhaps I never understood its essence. It was considered traditional for me, as a representative of the combat training department of the air corps, to be included in the commissions of other departments, for all scheduled and unscheduled inspections, exercises, and for flights in units as an instructor; twice headed training camps to prepare crews for flights in minimal weather. Up to 250 days of travel allowance and no more than 70 hours of flight time (mainly as an instructor) were guaranteed annually. Reports on the work done, deficiencies discovered and corrected, which should be noted at the next visit, were not given much importance.
And I began to make my way to Ryazan. At the end of 1978, he was appointed as a teacher of aerodynamics at 43 pulp and paper production plants and PLS, and quite by accident. I struggled for four years. According to the principles of that time, one had to serve in the Far East for 18 calendar years, and only after that one could apply for a transfer to the “mainland”. Neither my 11 years of service in the East, nor my desire to leave my position, even with a demotion, were taken into account. Mister chance helped: the deputy commander of the training squadron, Major Alenichev, due to family circumstances, urgently needed to leave Ryazan. This circumstance was used by the deputy corps commander, Major General Tolstukhin (to whom I once outlined my situation in a conversation) to solve my problem. For which I am more than grateful to him.
In 1980, a research department was created at the Center, where I was appointed deputy head. The head of the department, Lieutenant Colonel Blokhin, was appointed later, and when he arrived three months later, work in the department was already running as usual. And soon this department was divided into two: research into the combat use of strategic and combat use of long-range aviation. I accepted the second department. He mastered the Tu-22M aircraft and retrained the head of the political department, Colonel Singaevsky, to use it. In June 1986, he launched a rocket, and in October, at the height of perestroika, after landing on the zebra, he left for TsNIAG and retired from flight work. A year later, in 1987, at the age of 51, he was transferred to the reserve due to age.
I work as a tour guide at the Long Range Aviation Museum. This is truly blessed and rewarding work. Until recently, it was necessary to work in conditions of absolute lack of funding, but the museum workers not only preserved it, but also improved it.
I’m standing on the parade ground at my graduation from school, all so happy, and I receive two envelopes - one with money, and the second with an order, I eagerly open this very order and read - Tbilisi, district headquarters, report by such and such a deadline. That's all - military life began as it is. The vacation flew by quickly and now we were boarding the plane. With a wife and a bunch of suitcases. And I’m only 23 years old and I’m still completely naive and green, at the airport for some reason I paid a lot of money to a local taxi driver to take me to spend the night in the private sector - they ripped off more money there - in general I was stupid, I had to go to the district headquarters right in the evening - there’s a hotel there after all . In the morning we are looking for this very headquarters and there are some classes there for a couple of days and then distribution again - I still remember the frightened and surprised face of one lieutenant who reads in his paper - Afghanistan. He almost cried. I was luckier and ended up in a neighboring republic. A station, a train, a bus and a passing Kamaz and here I am at my first duty station in a small town.
Setting up in a new place
At first, my wife and I were put in a dormitory for bachelors - this is a long wooden one-story panel barracks, in which there was a long corridor at the end of which there was a common toilet with a washbasin - like in a barracks, without hot water, in which huge rats ruled. In order for everything to go well, it was necessary to first drive away these rats with a mop, and then do their business. Fortunately, they soon gave me an apartment in the city, but not in the officer’s town, which had some advantages - it seemed like some kind of civilization, although the alarm messengers banged on the door regularly, as soon as you lathered up in the shower - and then ALARM! The apartment I inherited had been trashed by my predecessor, everything there was broken - even the toilet, and I diligently began to renovate my first home. The garbage was not taken out of this apartment but piled up inside, including food waste and the flies were simply atrocious there. My predecessor in the apartment was simply afraid to go out in case they killed him - he was an Azerbaijani in Armenia.
Commanders
The service did not work out from the very beginning, my immediate superiors did not like me for some reason, and then everything only got worse. Nothing that I passed at school with straight A's was of any use; completely different skills were needed here - the ability to be your own boyfriend, drink vodka and carry out service. Unfortunately for me, everyone compared me with my predecessor as secretary of the Komsomol committee, a broken fellow who had an impudent face, was not a fool to drink and played excellent football with the fighters, and also once took them to dance at the local technical school - taking into account the local specifics it was daz from fantish, and his authority soared to the skies and I looked simply pitiful against his background. To be honest, it was an ordinary bad thing for me - I just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus, I was studying for a completely different branch of the military, and all this technology and organization was a dark forest for me. And I didn’t have a hairy arm, like some people - in general, it was a matter of stitches. To top it all off, in addition to my immediate commanders, the unit commander did not like me yet, and in this situation my career could have been put to rest.
How I carried out the service
Since at the first place of duty I did not enjoy authority with the authorities, I was shoved into all imaginable and inconceivable outfits and duties, and I could hardly stand on my feet often from fatigue - as an assistant to the duty officer in the unit, as a patrol chief, as a vehicle foreman (every other day on a belt) - in general, in fact, there was simply no time to do the PPR, for which I was studying, and I lost all interest in the service, not feeling support from my senior comrades. ALL I spent holidays, weekends, and other New Year's joys in my outfits - at best, in charge in the barracks. The swan song was my flight when I forgot to convey a telephone message to the unit commander, being an assistant on duty - after that I became his personal enemy and he selected individually sophisticated bullying for me, for example, he takes me off duty and calls the chief of staff on duty in my place on a day off. , but that man is cunning and says that he cannot take up arms because he has been drinking, and then a young Georgian lieutenant is called in. Collectors now use these methods to collect debts—they set neighbors and relatives against the debtor. This damn unit commander Babai could just stop me on the street and start digging in like a gopnik - just for no reason, in general, I was completely fed up with crap from him.
Attitude towards political bodies
The ideological war was completely lost. At the end of the USSR era, under Gorbachevism, the attitude towards political workers was the worst - the party very sharply lost its position and respect among officers, the communists began to be blamed for all imaginable and unimaginable troubles, and I had to experience all this on my own skin. Even the deputy chief of the division, which I later ended up in, sent his son not to a political school, but to a command school - he already knew in advance that the political agencies of the khan. The people in the unit hated Gorbachev with all their might, called him Baldy and prophesied a bad end for him. All the officers thought that I was a slacker and that my position was completely unnecessary. The only people in authority were the commanders and technicians who did not get out of their pits and constantly repaired outdated equipment - the struggle for combat readiness. The most authoritative was the former head of the automobile service - who was not dry from drunkenness, but the equipment was always in good working order. My commander used him as an example to everyone, and the first of his virtues was that he was a boozer. All political workers were considered by default to be parasites and slackers. People constantly recalled to the deputy that while he was on duty in the unit, he caught drunkenness on combat duty and reported to the right place - the operational duty officer from the major was made captain. In general, the party was looking in the wrong place last years own life.
"Friendship" with the local population
The attitude of the local population left much to be desired and worsened every month, especially with the development of the Karabakh conflict, but it was still tolerant. But in Georgia, the military didn’t just walk around the city—it was dangerous. I remember how, during a training exercise, the commander caught soldiers who had stolen a bag of stew in glass jars from a neighboring republic, and I was sent to accompany them on the way back in order to return the stolen goods. We had to get to the station by metro - a group of young guys almost killed us there, some elderly Georgian helped us out - he started shouting at them and they moved away from us, after which we managed to get off at the stop and quickly leave the metro - after all, there were older people there in authority, which cannot be said about our youth. But literally a year later, the military could move through the territory of the former fraternal republics only if in columns - individual vehicles were stopped by militants, and the equipment was taken away. and the military, at best, were released in peace - the people there were actively arming themselves, in the border villages in every house there was at least one Kalashnikov assault rifle, which cost 5,000 rubles, by the way - you could buy a car with this money.
to be continued…
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At school I was a dead, thin and sickly mother's son. I almost didn’t go to physical education classes; since childhood I was registered with a dispensary. It’s embarrassing to remember, but I ran last, or second to last in the class, did pull-ups once, and this despite the fact that at school No. 4 (Pervomaisky, Kharkov region) we had the best physical education teacher - Boris Vasilyevich Voloshkin. Sometimes I tried to start doing extra training, but alas, I wasn’t able to do it for a long time, especially when it came to cross-country races of five and eight kilometers.
After school, I worked for almost a year at the Pervomaisky bakery, and in the summer of 1987 I entered the Leningrad Agricultural Institute (hereinafter referred to as LSHI). I had to go into the army in the spring of 1988, and I thought with horror about its approach. My dad was a bright-headed man, he didn’t like physical education, he didn’t have a hand in my physical education, he could have freed me from the army, but he said that it would be useful for me to serve.
The farewell took place in dormitory No. 1 of the Leningrad Agricultural Institute, my roommates Serega Petrosyan and Alik Kurbanov, as well as their friends - almost all Armenians by nationality - prepared royal dishes: kebabs, lula kebab, dolma. Mom was very surprised by all this, she expected that she would have to stand at the stove all day, but when she went into the room in the morning, the guys sent her to rest. The farewell was fun, we walked around the city of Pushkin until the morning (the LSHI is located there). Mom collected a few things for me, and she bought me one of the cheapest machines, showing it to me, she said that I would lose it anyway.
On the morning of June 24, 1988, a bus took me along with other conscripts to the city of Leningrad on Obukhovskaya Defense Avenue to the recreation center of the Pigment plant. After a couple of hours, we were divided into teams and allowed to walk until 16:00. There were about thirty people in my team No. 895, me and three other guys went into a store, where we bought two bottles of Stolichnaya vodka and settled down for a drink and a snack near the Volodarsky Bridge. Ships sailed along the Neva, and we were extremely pleased to enjoy the last days of freedom on this sunny day. In the evening, our team was sent to the station for the train to Moscow, the brave mustachioed captain did not say where they were taking us. We were traveling in a general carriage, there were an awful lot of people, I slept on the third bunk. In Moscow it became known that they were taking us to Samarkand, and it would take three days to get there.
A whole day passed in Moscow waiting, which seemed like an eternity. The Kazan station was dirty, the only thing that distracted me was the USSR - Holland European Championship match. Our team lost, people in the waiting room were cursing, drinking beer and vodka. Almost at midnight we boarded the train to Samarkand. The carriage is communal, smelly, packed, my seat is really better than on the train to Moscow, I’m on the top bunk. On the second day of the journey, terrible heat sets in, the carriage is filled with faces of unknown nationalities, garbage is everywhere, people go to the toilet without closing the door, sometimes directly on the floor.
We drank beer and vodka for the entire three days of the journey, despite the protests of the captain accompanying us. Of the entire team, he is especially angry with me and another guy, promising some kind of “green town”. In Kazakhstan, they hit the railway. station, they consist of two reinforced concrete slabs and one trailer, and around there are sands along which numerous crowds of camels roam. At one of the stations I saw bottles of milk from a Kazakh woman, I wanted it terribly, it turned out that it was not cow’s milk, but kumiss. He spat and gave it to the only Uzbek in our team. The second day of the journey was terribly long, in the evening a man in a dressing gown entered the carriage and offered everyone to buy sherbet from him. In the absence of tea, of course, you don’t want it. Then he decided to take us on a tour of history. He says, you see the ruins, he lived there great shah, he had a hundred wives, he ate sherbet every day, and he stood for each one. In response, he was rude, meaning that we were going to the army, and not to go on a date with girls. However, he was not offended and went to another carriage.
In Uzbekistan at night the train stood for a long time at the Chardzhou station, perhaps this is the only station that I will remember for the rest of my life from this trip. Here they almost took away my last savings, threatening me with a knife. It’s good that other guys came out and together we fought back against the young Uzbeks. Then a policeman came and dealt with our captain, and he once again made it clear to me that there was nothing in sight for me other than a “green town.”
Finally, on the morning of June 28, 1988, we arrive in Samarkand. Already at the station, while the captain went to inquire about transport, local residents surrounded us and bought clothes from us, caps, belts, everything that we would no longer need. The captain came, swears, says that we will get there by trolleybus. We drove for a long time and everyone got fried. Finally, a long, high metal fence, this is a communications training brigade.
We were taken straight to the bathhouse, here we took off our clothes, washed ourselves, a doctor examined us, and gave us a new uniform. Having changed clothes, we look at ourselves in the mirrors, not without horror. The uniform is very beautiful and comfortable, the jacket is cotton. like paratroopers, ankle boots with laces, but everything hangs on us, everything is out of size, a Panama hat, for example, 60, boots instead of 44 - 45. They took us to the educational building, where they sat us at desks. The commanders of the training units came for us one by one. Everyone was sorted out, we were left with one guy in an empty classroom, only an hour later a senior lieutenant came after us, looking more like an ataman of robbers, a thug with a huge mustache, a holster with a pistol hanging like a cowboy, with him a senior warrant officer who at first glance looked completely ordinary . They put us in an old Izh and drove us to the “green town”, the captain’s promises begin to come true.
We were silent in the back seat the whole way, we only said thank you once, when we stopped for a short time at a barrel of kvass and the “starley” treated us. We left the city, everything was deserted, the colors were faded, the sun was unbearably hot. The windows are open in the car, but the heat is still felt. We approach some kind of concrete fence, a soldier stands on the corner waving a towel, the “old man” curses and presses on the gas. Three hundred meters later, another soldier stood at the fence and also waved a towel; it turned out that these were signalmen posted by the sergeants in case the company commander returned. “Starley” was already swearing in the barracks; it turned out that he was the commander of the separate company to which we were brought. Upon his departure, the sergeants watched TV, which is not allowed to be done without his knowledge.
The place where the company is located turned out to be a training ground. We are part of a communications brigade, the area is surrounded by a concrete fence, inside there are several brick buildings and quite a large number of trees and bushes, and behind the fence there are sands, canyons and camel thorn. That’s why our place is called “green town”. Our fate is sad; more than half of us go to Afghanistan after graduation. Next to our training company there was a communications brigade, a tank regiment and an airborne regiment, as well as a dump of Soviet military equipment destroyed by the Mujahideen.
Sergeant Chernetsov with a condescending smile examines our personal belongings, something is thrown out right away, spoons and mugs are taken to the dining room. I was assigned to the fifth platoon, commanded for now by the commander of the second squad, Junior Sergeant Lebedev, the commander of the first squad, Sergeant Rudevich, was on a business trip somewhere, went for the next reinforcement, and the platoon commander was there too. The first days there were no reinforcements, everything was somehow calm, the barracks was half empty, there were no classes. The first outfits at the checkpoint, the educational building, and the orderlies seemed too light, and only the outfit for the canteen caused disgust. Morning exercise consisted of running in only shorts to Victory Park, where young trees had recently been planted, taking buckets and pouring three or four buckets under each tree. The heat was much more annoying; on other days it reached 48 degrees in the shade.
Even in the first days, they explained to us that we need to wash our feet well, wash our socks, and we cannot drink tap water (there is no sewage system in Samarkand, so dysentery is a very common disease here). Still, there are smart people who don’t wash their socks, their feet get fungus, and the stench is terrible. Instead of water, every morning we fill our 1.5 liter plastic flasks with hot tea (for 900 liters of water, 15 kg of camel thorn and 100 grams of green tea). The leftovers are brought to the barracks, where they are poured into decanters (they stood on trays on each bedside table, along with four glasses). Those who could not resist and drank tap water spent several days in agony, and the first night in endless running to the toilet. The toilet was located about two hundred meters from the barracks, and not everyone managed to reach it, and such a soldier would shit his pants. You wake up in the morning, and someone is already sitting to dry, fortunately all this happened quickly, in the morning in about two hours, in the afternoon in 30 - 40 minutes. Soon only a few could not stand it and tried to drink raw water (mostly guys from the Baltic states), it was a shame, what if you couldn’t make it.
One positive thing that I immediately liked was the afternoon nap. This is a necessity here, since very quickly after 12 o’clock you can get sunstroke; before 15 o’clock it was the worst time. The food we were given was disgusting; what we could always eat were potatoes, buckwheat porridge, boiled eggs, bread, butter, fruit, tea and compote. At first, there is a constant feeling of hunger, especially among people from the Baltic states. I remember how one Estonian Paul Kõvamaa, every day after his lunch nap, went to the store of a tank regiment and bought himself five or six cakes. It is unknown where he managed to hide the money, perhaps with his fellow countryman, almost demobilized, in charge of the pigsty of the communications brigade. By the way, he soon stopped working completely and moved to live in a pigsty, he was being trained to succeed him in this place.
On the very first day, when I found out the address of the unit, my head began to spin, it was here that a year ago my classmate Edik Desyatnik, to whom I wrote letters here, served. This happens. And my sergeant Rudevich served with him in the same platoon. Rudevich appeared one evening when I joined the squad for the educational building. A sergeant I don’t know, in full dress uniform, with a bow and a satisfied, impudent smile, comes up the stairs. After my report, he hit me in the chest with his fist and asked what platoon I was in, another blow and he said how lucky I was, since I was in his platoon. One more blow and I already believe it. This happened in early July, the company was already fully equipped, and they began to prepare us to take the oath.
Every day during drill training, we read the text of the oath one hundred and twenty-five times. Hot. On July 17 we take the oath, although not in full dress, because it hasn’t been sewn onto us yet. By order of Rudevich, everyone took a photograph with a machine gun and the cover text, although in other platoons this was optional. I was glad about this order, now I look at myself, the young “siskin,” with pleasure. On the day of taking the oath, we were fed very well, the only time in all that time. We slept from 2 pm to 7:30 pm, movie in the evening. A food truck arrived and we bought cakes and sweets. The parents of two soldiers, Uzbek Sherali Otokhanov and Muscovite Misha Kutotelov, came to take the oath; his father worked in construction in Uzbekistan. The Muscovite was brought a lot of sweets, cookies, and Java cigarettes, so the holiday turned out to be quite good.
It was all over the next day. Classes, shouting, running around, bustle, weapons, sewing on uniforms. Everyone runs or marches. The very first forced marches made me understand that you can’t stop here, you run with your teeth clenched, since it’s simply impossible to open your mouth from the sand and dust. And this is how the soldier’s poet described these impressions:
Heat and wind and sand
And boots worth two pounds -
Your first forced march in your life
I won't forget for a long time
Salty sweat runs from my face,
Everything in me is already tired,
And there is no end to the kilometers,
But there is still little air.
Lack of will, laziness, excessive sleep,
The smoke of the first cigarette...
My first forced march in my life
He will remind me of this.
And I remember with shame,
How tormented by weakness,
I could hardly keep up the pace
Breathing on other people's backs...
I had to start shaving, even though I only have fluff. Again, the edging on the head also needs to be shaved. Salary 8 rubles 63 kopecks, more than half for shoe polish, filing material, pens, envelopes, paper. I really love Saturday - a filmmaker arrives, places the camera on the street next to the barracks, the whole company sits staring at old films, and I go out to the training ground, dig a hole in the warm sand and look at the big bear. After all, it was visible from the balcony of my house in Pervomaisky. This is how I communicated with my parents.
The shouting and swearing intensify every day, training, competitions between platoons. Working on a volleyball court seems like heaven. The classrooms are stuffy, you want to sleep, but we learn the rules. Despite the fact that there is a tropospheric radio station in the classrooms, which we have to study, we didn’t even turn it on for two months. “Youths”, “pipettes”, “lancepups”, as they called us. All this is for our benefit, because we seem to be future squad commanders. If we did something badly during the day, at night the sergeant puts on sports shoes and sends our platoon out to run through the canyons and crawl over camel thorns. On days like these, the “hang up” command itself is a nightmare. This may be followed by the “lift” or “crocodile pose”, this is when your legs and arms rest on the edges of the bed and you hang over it. So about twenty times, soon it becomes fun, not sad.
It’s surprising that I don’t go to the medical unit, my head doesn’t hurt, and I even enjoy military training classes. Most of the cadets have developed a fungus on their feet, now before lights out we bring polished boots and washed socks to the sergeant. Speaking of boots, I had size 45 and caused me some discomfort due to the larger size. One night they replaced them with old ones, but size 44. This is understandable, the demobilizers were preparing to go home. They find old boots in a warehouse, and at night they replace them in the training department, where everything is new. Panama hats also began to be stolen, and this happened to me too. While I was sitting in the toilet, someone took it off my head and ran, I shouted after him that it was size 60, but would that stop anyone? The foreman gave me an old size 55 Panama hat, all faded, smeared with glue, with scars. The sergeants simply did not get off me, forcing me to wash my Panama hat and remove all its demobilization “beauty”.
On July 20, we saw a tornado in the distance, the sergeants said that once it also passed 10-15 kilometers from us, and our parade ground was completely littered with garbage. And on September 14th I saw a strong storm in the desert. Not only was nothing visible, but the wind that blew from the mountains was very cold. The downpour on September 21st was a completely unusual event for me. It was towards evening, at first the sky became cloudy, then small drops of rain began to fall, and then it “fell” with all its force, the whole company poured out into the street and stood in the rain, despite the thunderstorm. Just as unexpectedly, the sky brightened and the sunset unfolded in all its beauty before us. Bright red in the east, ultramarine blue in the west, and lilac in the north and south. The smell was just like ours at home.
I often write letters home, to my grandmother, to the class teacher, to many acquaintances and classmates (Edik Desyatnik, Oleg Katargin, Gena Skakun, Alik, Sasha Poleshchuk), and of course to the girls, most of all I wrote to my institute friend Rositsa Gelkova (Bulgarian) and Angela Rzhevskaya (from Cossack Lopani, whom I met in the eighth grade at a tourist camp). I wrote a lot of them especially during the period when I was left to guard the classroom in full dress uniform.
For several days, due to renovations in the kitchen, food is prepared in field kitchens, the food is amazing, smoky. On July 28, for the first time we practice in the canyons in full combat gear. “We attack”, “retreat”, “occupy lines”. Quite interesting, they shoot at us from machine guns with blank cartridges, then hand-to-hand combat. I had a lot of fun, because I’ve loved war games since childhood. They brought tea to the training ground, which made me enjoy it even more. Later, on command, we put on gas masks and ran towards an area unknown to us. Some of us pulled out the valves, and we were driven into a room into which tear gas was fired. So those who removed the gas mask valves walked around with red eyes and their faces itched.
For dessert after lunch and dinner, they began to serve grapes, peaches, and apples, which significantly brightened up the stay in the dining room. From the beginning of August, special training began - studying the radio station, as well as shooting, forced marches, and even more running through the canyons. The sergeant assures me that the days in “training” will seem like the best days of my army service. Relations with him have improved somewhat, since I am not the last soldier, I am trying to be even better. On September 11, I asked to be fired, although I was let go in mid-August, but I wanted it for my birthday. I asked my parents to send me a transfer of 10-15 rubles, I want to call them at home and at the same time treat myself to some goodies.
On August 29, we went to harvest our gardens for the first time—we grow onions here, mainly for overseas units. I really enjoyed harvesting onions; first of all, I remembered my grandfather with his vegetable garden, they fed me lunch right in the field, it was very tasty, they brought unlimited quantities of watermelons, melons, and tomatoes. Later we often went to such harvests, sometimes we were able to enjoy excellent grapes straight from the vine. One day we passed by a lake; the water in it was like a swimming pool, clean, transparent, with a bluish tint. On the way back we persuaded the sergeants to go swimming. However, no one was able to go into the water further than waist-deep, it was terribly cold. It turns out that the lake is formed by springs and water from the mountains, which are not far from us. In September and early October, almost until the exams, we went to harvest tomatoes, grapes, and quinces.
One day I saw real donkeys for the first time, real in the sense that the ones I saw in zoos were not at all similar to those seen in Samarkand. A grandfather came to one of the soldiers, they said from a neighboring area, and brought him several chuvals of all sorts of goodness; there were enough flatbreads with meat for lunch for our entire company. We noticed the donkeys when they began to make a terrible roar, apparently they had not “smelled” their owner for a long time. At this moment we were preparing to line up for lunch, the whole company poured out of the gate, we looked at these animals from afar, as they tried to gnaw or kick. Only one Uzbek approached them, speaking in his native language, the donkeys calmed down, and he stroked them and pulled them by the ears. The stench from them was terrible, and at the end one of the donkeys dumped a large pile of manure.
I still enjoy all the military activities. All this is extremely exciting. On August 31st we jumped from a huge canyon, it didn’t matter that everywhere you could feel sand on your body, but the flight itself was pleasant. The night alarm upset me. After all, our company consisted of more than a hundred cadets, there was only one weapons room, very cramped. On alert, we lined up near the barracks half an hour later, it’s a shame. The next day they pushed us even harder, but it didn’t affect the result. We had a lot of delays, and I thought with horror about whether we would actually be sent to Afghanistan, or if a war would break out.
One of the cadets who slowed down the entire platoon was Roman Pulyaevsky, a native of Kaluga. A small, hunched, sickly young man, wearing glasses with significant short-sightedness, he graduated from school with a gold medal, but we all did not understand why he ended up in the army. He had a hard time with any exercises, drill, work at the radio station. They laughed at him, called him names, by the end of the “training” he became a real psycho, he tried to jump out of the window, and what awaited him in the new part was completely unknown.
The main irritants of the entire company were the cadets from my platoon: Kazakh Marat Ospanov, native of Tashkent Alexander Kim, and native of Donetsk Sergei Shevchuk. This trio terrorized everyone, even the sergeants sometimes could not cope with them. And only after they beat Vladimir Perfilyev, when the threat of disbat arose, they calmed down and became quiet, but with a hidden grudge against everyone. Only once Sergei Shevchuk and his fellow countryman from the city of Yenakievo Sergei Karlash allowed themselves a prank on Miner's Day. They convinced Sergeant Rudevich that they could not help but get drunk that day, they promised that they would drink together, and they would bring chashmas for the sergeants. They got so drunk that they didn’t get up for the morning roll call, luckily there were no officers yet. They slept during classes, and so that they could not be seen, we covered them with new greatcoats, folded in the classroom two days before.
Unexpectedly, I discovered the opportunity to brew tea, at first modestly for myself and two friends, and then the sergeant found out about it. I thought there would be trouble, because we made a boiler from two blades, and boiled water in a half-liter jar, which I learned is very dangerous only after this boiler exploded one day and splashed boiling water on my forehead, so I walked around with a bandage on my head for two days. The sergeant, however, not only did not scold us, but also encouraged us, and the guys on leave bought a porcelain teapot and a boiler. And now, during radio station study classes, I made tea from time to time. By the end of September, my friend Tolik Khitry and I already had a whole warehouse with sugar, tea leaves, condensed milk, jams, and candies. All this was stored in the fan unit of the radio station. I remember how in October I was very impatiently waiting for a parcel with normal tea and instant coffee.
Gradually, other cadets and even sergeants of other platoons became interested in my tea drinking. I remember an Azerbaijani from Nakhichevan, Sardar Mamedov, who brought me homemade lemon for tea, which was simply an incredible event for two days. How the guys brought tea, sugar, sweets from dismissal. Gradually, rumors about my teahouse reached the new company commander, who went by the nickname “Chapai.” He had a mustache like Chapaev and crooked legs like a cavalryman; one day he came into our classroom and swept our entire tea room into his office. A week later, however, everything was bought new, only now we had to be more careful during our tea parties.
On September 9, I was assigned to fill out several 9/11 leave cards for cadets in my platoon, including mine. Already on September 8, I received two birthday packages and a postal order, for which I had to go to Samarkand to the communications training brigade. In addition to sweets, cookies and condensed milk, the parents sent socks, handkerchiefs, notebooks, envelopes and other small items in the parcel. It all smelled awfully like home.
On September 11th I went on leave. Together with our comrades, we did not wait for a car or a bus on the road, but went straight through the sands. Forty minutes later we entered the suburbs. He amazed me with the clay walls of the fences of private houses, tall like a fortress, bars on the windows, and a large amount of grapes. We took a bus to the center of Samarkand. First of all, we went to the market; it was a complete surprise for me that we were treated to melons, watermelons, peaches, and flatbreads. Flatbreads with meat cost three pieces per ruble, but they gave us four. Right there at the market we washed the fruit and enjoyed refreshment. We walked a little and came to the city park, around it there were several summer cafes with large cauldrons, where Uzbeks were preparing pilaf. As a birthday boy, I decided to treat my comrades to pilaf. For 5 rubles we were given a huge tray of pilaf, cucumber and tomato salad, a large porcelain teapot with boiling water and a small one with green tea. On another tray they brought us watermelon and melon cut into pieces. An hour later we hardly got up from the table. Walking around Samarkand, we went into a bookstore, where I was shocked by the abundance of books in Russian, which were considered in short supply here in Ukraine, and even in Leningrad.
On this day we ended up in the old part of Samarkand, one of the Uzbeks led us to the Shakhi-Zinda necropolis. After Leningrad, it’s hard to surprise me with anything, but what was revealed to my eyes was so unique and unprecedented that I squinted my eyes for a long time in delight. Eleven mausoleums, many of which had azure (blue) domes, high portals covered with majolica, and patterned vaults. We climbed a huge, majestic staircase and entered the twilight of ancient buildings. They say that in Samarkand there are no other monuments that surpass Shahi-Zinda in elegance and variety of forms.
I saw an absolutely amazing panorama of Samarkand from the dilapidated Bibi Khanym mosque, built by Timur in 1404 after his victorious campaign in India. It is interesting that even during Timur’s lifetime it began to collapse; stars are visible under its destroyed domes; it was not without reason that it was called the “Milky Way”. Under its majestic and high walls, we felt like little insects.
The last place we visited that day was the Guri-Emir mausoleum. Timur, his sons, astronomer Ulugbek and others are buried here. Most of us felt great excitement, awe in front of the names that are known throughout the world. It’s so quiet and calm here, sparsely populated, that you feel afraid that you find yourself in a completely different world, in different centuries. We walked silently through the halls, between the massive, high vaults, the mosaic dazzled in our eyes, the near fainting state was broken only by the cold inside the mausoleum.
I didn’t get through to home that day; surprisingly, the connection was only with Tashkent and Moscow, the boy who called to Moscow waited 30 minutes for a connection, so I didn’t talk to my parents. After fifteen hours we returned to the city park, and happily stood on the site where the local ensemble was playing. And at 5 p.m. we sat in a cafe, drank strong natural coffee, ate ice cream, smoked local Blue Domes cigarettes, and an hour later we left the city.
And already on September 15 they started taking us seriously. The work began at night, the officers said that this was all due to the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Now there was no longer any need to send us to Afghanistan; they said that they would send us only at our own request. Therefore, it is necessary to make real signalmen out of us. Our radios, located not in cars, but in a building, could not withstand daytime temperatures, so training on the R-410 took place at night. During the day we assembled and disassembled our antennas. It must be said that tropospheric radio stations look very impressive, the diameter of one antenna is 7.5 or 5.5 meters. And the height of the antenna reached 24 meters. True, they never really explained to us why our army needed such thugs; only one thing was clear: during a nuclear explosion, the quality of our communications improved, and it was impossible to intercept its narrow beam.
Another tank regiment and an airborne regiment came to our neighborhood. Now they endlessly wandered around our town, and shooting was often heard from the direction of their deployment. While we were practicing an attack at the training ground, a T-72 thug suddenly came to our rear from the depths of the canyon, so the “shuravis” decided to joke with us, the panic was very serious, and to be honest, I was really scared, since they said that those who had come out of Out of boredom, Afghan tankers and paratroopers drank a lot of chashma (fortified wine made from grape pulp) and used drugs. Once at the training ground we saw a training battle, two groups of tankers and paratroopers fought in it, it was a terrible picture, accompanied by the roar of tank engines, terrible obscenities, and columns of dust. We stood spellbound, I realized that we were just children against them.
On September 21, I was appointed as an instructor in our platoon, since I mastered the radio station faster than anyone, and the standard for setting it up was one of the best in the company. At night I sat in the classroom, and the cadets of my platoon came to me one by one. Having worked for the required minutes, he went to bed, and another one came in his place. Before lunch I was supposed to sleep, and during these days I dreamed of home, parents, my bakery, classmates, Pushkin, Leningrad. After lunch, as usual, we drank tea in the classroom, and in the evening, a fellow countryman, Igor Cherkashin, arrived from the communications brigade. Before the army he lived in the village. Oktyabrskoye, Kharkov district. His parents sent him a package containing lard and garlic, and they enjoyed it heartily.
By the way, Igor turned out to be a great original, given his build, he managed to run AWOL to the city several times, met a girl in Samarkand and married her. Moreover, he did this because he did not want to leave to serve in another place. His father-in-law was quite rich, had a Niva, a good house and apartment, I don’t know what happened to them then, but Igor was quite happy. After a week's vacation, he went AWOL with his young wife, and then, as luck would have it, the operational duty officer from the communications brigade arrived, checked the availability of personnel, and decided to wait for Igor. He got a hard time, firstly, several of the most disgusting outfits for the kitchen, secondly, drill training in the OVZK and a gas mask on the parade ground, thirdly, rubbing the “take-off” (the strip in the barracks between two carpet paths). I remember now, the whole platoon did not sleep until one in the morning, waiting for Igor to work everything out, to laugh and find out how the young wife was doing and what was better. He came in, puffing, wet with sweat, only waved his hand at our laughter, muttered something under his breath, but the next day he went AWOL again.
At night it became very cold, a strong Afghan wind was blowing from the south, in the morning it was even colder, and we already went out for exercise in uniform number three, and sometimes fully dressed. On October 7, we received an overcoat, I got a very good one, tailored just for me, incredibly long. This was helped by the company sergeant major, who unexpectedly showed concern for me. To others he simply threw what he had, but he took me into his quarters, picked me up for a long time and told me that a long overcoat is very good, it won’t be cold, and if you have to run in it, then you need to sew hooks on the floors of the overcoat and attach them to belts I remember we were really looking forward to October 15, when it would be possible to put on our overcoats, since the cold was getting stronger day by day, and the sun did not linger in the sky for very long.
On October 10, we began preparing for the exams, began taking them on November 10, and finished on November 24. I passed physical training without difficulty, again I had to compete with a machine gun, a side-by-side assault rifle, a gas mask, I was tired of drill and the regulations, mainly from endless training. The exams were taken by officers from Moscow. The most successful exam was in my specialty; I passed the standard for working at the station at the “excellent” level for officers. Already on October 14, after endless forced marches, shooting and overcoming obstacles, I could not even write a single normal letter.
The last rest before the exam was the celebrations on November 7-8. For two days in a row we stared at the TV and walked around in dress uniform, which was very uncomfortable. Suddenly, after lunch, we were asked to help peel potatoes for dinner; the platoon was so bored with any work that they peeled them in one hour. The nature in Samarkand has become simply terrible, the trees are bare, the sky is ultramarine, everything else is just yellow-brown.
On one of these days we took the last exam. We were alerted at five in the morning, and we ran with all our equipment for about eight kilometers, drowning in the sand, cursing the cold weather and the authorities. Soon we stopped at a ravine overgrown with bushes, here an order was read to us, that the French landing force had captured the bridge, and we needed to recapture it. We are prepared for the attack, we are running to the place where this bridge is located. New team, the enemy used explosive agents, put on gas masks, and run for another kilometer. Someone is trying to rip off the valves, but the officers stop us and say that the valves need to be returned to their place, the gases will actually be used. The bridge was engulfed in flames and black smoke from burning tires. As soon as the first platoon reached the line of the bridge, deafening shots from machine guns and machine guns were heard, and packets burst and exploded. We had just begun to get used to the shots when a Ural with machine gunners drove alongside the roar, shooting at us from three meters away, followed by an armored personnel carrier. The demobilization noise was loud, and I even became deaf. We took the bridge, and they gave us a new task - to turn around in a chain and take the line of the enemy’s trenches. We turned around, the officers are trying to straighten our line, but this fails, and the Moscow officers turn us back to our original lines. The second time nothing happened, but then we were frightened by tanks and armored personnel carriers moving towards us. It turned out that this was an old equipment damaged in Afghanistan, attached to cables and moved using electric winches. It was not so much their appearance that frightened me, but the noise that the pile of rusty iron made.
After the exams, I received a III class specialist badge, and also secretly learned that I was being assigned to the Western Direction, i.e. it could be abroad. On November 27, the sending of cadets from our company to the troops began. Five decided to go to Afghanistan, most of them to the middle zone, almost twenty people to the western direction, but only two from our company will go abroad to Poland, me and Zhenya Kudryashov. On December 5, 1988, we left our training ground and went in the back of a Ural car to the communications brigade in Samarkand to be sent to another unit. “Ural” really didn’t arrive right away, so 4 km. We, in full dress uniform, made a forced march to Samarkand.
In Samarkand in the evening we took the train to Ashgabat, again 1.5 days in a dirty general carriage on the third berth. We again drove through Chardzhou, and also passed through the towns of Mary and the town of Tedzhent. We had the following saying in the Turkestan Military District: “There are three holes in KTurkVO - Tedzhent, Kushka and Mary.” They said that no one wants to serve there. In Tedzhent we are on the railway. stations bought melons and watermelons. The captain who accompanied us said that they are the most delicious here. He himself is an Uzbek, and served in the same garrison in Poland, where I will end up. He bought several dozen melons. The huge pale yellow and brown melons were very tasty. One melon weighed more than ten kilograms and cost about two rubles. Watermelons no more than 1.5 rubles. The rest of the trip was spent in endless trips to the toilet.
On December 6, we arrived in Ashgabat and were placed in the steppe; there were bare, ugly mountains around us, the field camp was dirty, and there were several groups of soldiers in it, waiting to be sent abroad. We lived in tents, the cold was terrible, one potbelly stove did not save us at night, so we don’t have the best memories of our time in the camp. The Turkmen themselves treated us from the point of view of a successful business. Our camp was surrounded by barbed wire, we were not allowed to leave its territory, but our rations tasted so bad that we were forced to buy food from the Turkmens. They sold us everything for one ruble; they didn’t know any other price. This was the cost of one small roughly baked flatbread without meat, a bottle of lemonade, a pack of Bulgarian cigarettes, a pack of cookies. Finally, after lunch on December 8, we flew on a military transport plane to Kyiv. We landed at night and were taken to spend the night in KAMAZ trucks at a military unit, where warm wooden barracks and the remains of dinner were waiting for us. The next evening we flew on a Tu-154 plane to Poland. It was an ordinary civilian plane, it was immediately filled with our disgusting soldier smell, after all these several days in field camps, without a bathhouse, without a change of linen, it was terrible. The flight attendant girls stoically endured this and with charming smiles brought it to us. mineral water and lemonade.
Our plane landed at the military airfield in Legnica, where the headquarters of the Western Group of Forces was located. We expected a quick distribution in parts. However, when asked by the doctor about diseases in the places where we served, one of the soldiers spoke about frequent diarrhea due to poor water quality. We were taken to the medical unit, swabs were taken, and we expected the results until lunch. The captain cursed because, because of one idiot, not only forty privates, but also him, had their ass picked.
It soon became clear that we were not sick with anything, we were distributed to garrisons, and now seven of us were going in a GAZ-66 to a communications brigade near the village of Kenshtitsa. The road was long and bumpy in some places where the paving stones remained. All the way I looked at the agricultural fields, clean, without weeds. Unusually well-maintained roads, a large number of small small tractors, without a roof, with huge trailers, loaded to the brim with hay or sacks. Smiling Poles, farms with a variety of different birds, the houses above are somewhat shabby, but two-story, large in size, on foundations made of wild stone. At one of the stops, the captain bought us two packs of cigarettes, called “Club” cigarettes, which is like our cheap “Dymok” cigarettes. We were brought to the garrison again in the evening, the operational duty officer sent us to dinner and sent us to our battalions. I liked the dining room, it was large, bright, delicious Polish, white bread, mashed potatoes, fried fish, good tea and unusually tasty butter.
I spent the night in the first company of my 846th separate tropospheric battalion of the Supreme High Command. Of course, they didn’t touch me, but what I heard didn’t make me very happy. Someone was walking around the entire floor, someone was being educated, in the room where I slept there were many empty beds and here the young soldiers of the 1st company “passed” driving.
In the morning I woke up terribly tired, most of the young soldiers of the first company looked the same. The exercise also took place with the greatest difficulty, mainly because of the long and wide bars, which I could not immediately pass without skill. My failure did not bother the sergeants of the 1st company, since I was not yet their subordinate, but others suffered, they tried several times to follow the “road of life,” but all to no avail. Breakfast was amazing delicious porridge and tea, but all again without the mood, I expected a quick distribution, and then worse. Zhenya Kudryashov was with me all this time and we just looked at each other, but did not discuss our future.
After breakfast, the company was formed, everyone was assigned to work, one old-timer and I were sent to sweep the company yard. Despite the fact that it was already December, no one saw snow here.
Chopyk Evgeniy – Ivano-Frankivsk
Radionov Vasily – Zhitomirskaya
Lyashuk Vasily
Zhulanov Vladmir
Duka Vasily
Grishin Vyacheslav
For my service, I received 59 letters from my parents, 46 letters from my grandmother, as well as 82 letters from friends from the institute, classmates, class teacher Lidia Alekseevna Galitskaya and others. Of these, 18 letters were from Rzhevskaya Angela.
Of the letters I sent, I know only those that I wrote home, because... My mother saved them. I wrote 67 letters from Samarkand, and 41 from Poland.
Was in outfits: orderly in company - 6; company duty officer - 9; fleet duty officers – 15; checkpoint duty officers – 9; on patrol – 1; in the dining room – 15; guard – 11; bathhouse attendants – 2; club duty officer – 1; in the Druzhba cafe - 1.
I watched 37 films and read 12 books.