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51 Death of the Commander On July 7, 1944, our troops liberated the town of Kovel1 from the Hitlerite invaders . We transferred to an aerodrome in that region, where I was ordered to fly a reconnaissance mission. I was to fly along the roads with a film camera and record the enemy's concentration there. On the way, I made a detour to a neighboring airfield to pick up my fighter escort. A pair of fighters awaited me there with their propellers already turning. They took off while I circled the field. I immediately contacted their leader on the radio. ''I'm going to be conducting visual reconnaissance and taking some pictures. Please stay close by and cover me, OK? Acknowledge." Instead of replying "Roger" or repeating back my directive, the leader paused, then said in a hoarse, sarcastic tenor: "Hey, you 'humpback!' Why are you tweeting like some common dame?" After another pause, the leader added, swearing irritably, "To think you're in a Shturmovik! It's disgusting to listen to you!" The insulting "common dame" comment got my goat at first, and I had to restrain myself from firing back an angry retort. They had no idea they were taking orders from a woman, I realized. I began to see the humor in the situation. On the way home after the mission, I contacted the vectoring station and reported on the situation in the area I had reconnoitered. A familiar officer from our division replied, "111ank you, Annushka!' The fighters went mad. They started performing all sorts of aerobatics around my plane! One of them would barrel roll, the other would do a wingover . When they finally calmed down, they flew alongside my "Ilyushina," saluted me from their cockpits, and waved. As we flew by their airfield, I bade the fighters farewell: "Thanks, Brothers! Go ahead and land. I can take it from here." But my bodyguards escorted me all the way to my aerodrome. They circled the field as I landed, and only then waggled their wings goodbye and disappeared over the horizon. As I reported on the mission to the regimental commander, I noticed everyone was grinning. All of a sudden, they burst into hearty laughter. 1 A city in northwestern Ukraine, not far from the Polish border. Kovel has belonged to Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine at various points in its history. 172 RED SKY, BLACK DEATH "Lieutenant Yegorova's started bringing her fiances right here to the air base," commented Karev warm-heartedly. The pilots laughed, and so did 1. After all, 1'd made it home without a scratch, mission accomplished. *** Our army passed through Polesye,2 on our way to liberate the longsuffering Polish people. Narrow fields of unharvested rye flashed by beneath my wings. Roads snaked from hut to hut like ribbons. I came upon tiny hamlets with Catholic churches, houses with shingle-covered roofs, and wooden crosses at every crossroads. On the way to attack the enemy's reserves near the city of Chelm, I heard the regimental commander's voice on the radio: "Yegorova! Look right of course - there's artillery hidden in the undergrowth. Unload all your guns on those rats!" I banked steeply to the right, pushed over into a dive, and, spying the artillery, opened fire. Anti-aircraft guns roared to life. "Vakhramov," ordered the commander, ignoring the code, "Hit the battery with your guided missiles!" Closer to Chelm, a motorized column of tanks, trucks, armored transports , and tanks of fuel crept along the road. "Maneuver, fellows, maneuver!" the flight leader reminded us, with a turn leading us toward the attack. "Aim. Fire!" Smoke curled toward our planes from the ground, as small-caliber fire and four-barrel Oerlikons started their rat-a-tat chatter. I so wanted to turn back and open fire on them, but they had already slid by, and an armored vehicle was looming temptingly in my sights. We climbed higher for bombing, the sky densely pockmarked with black explosions. We ignored them and dropped our bombs. It was time to pull out of the dive, but the flight leader continued his headlong plunge toward the earth. Amid a sudden salvo of artillery fire, Kozin's plane seemed to linger for a moment, and then flash bright with flames. His Shturmovik tumbled into the swarm of military vehicles and sent up a massive pillar of fire. It's impossible to find words for the feeling that enveloped us at that moment . In...

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