"To fight is not a woman's business"
Among the commanders in the Great Patriotic War were real beauties.- I was born in October 1923 of the year. My father is a military sailor, served as a mechanic on submarines, and my brother was the head of a special department of the NKVD. In 1940, we moved to Oranienbaum, where we lived at the Menshikov dacha, this mansion occupied a special department, and our apartment was on the second floor.
I had a boyish character, and already before the war I donated the Voroshilovsky shooter badge, TRP, I was engaged in OSOAVIAHIM.
In 1940, I graduated from high school and entered the first year of the Leningrad Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers fleet. It was a very prestigious institute, 40 people in one place, but study was always easy for me, and I went through the competition. When the war started, I just finished the first course.
On the beginning of the war, I, like everyone, learned from the announcement on the radio. But when we learned that the war had begun, we did not worry, we thought that we would shower them with hats. We thought that we were very well armed, and that the war would continue in just a month, two at most, it was already a long time. And dragged on for four years.
Dad served in Kronstadt, a brother was a military man, they could not go, and his brother had children 1939 and 1940 born, and we decided to evacuate - mother, me and these two children, because my mother would not cope with such babies. We went to the evacuation.
Father, brother and brother's wife were all at the front. The father served in the navy, sank twice, and the brother in the marines was, but everyone returned.
We evacuated one of the last echelons and hit the Penza region, to Zimencino station. Mom got a job as a chef in vocational school number 3, and I had little ones on me. So they lived.
Then I look, the war drags on, I think, I will not sit with the children; immediately went to the military enlistment office and voluntarily filed an application. We were ready to do everything for our Motherland, we did not spare our lives. Somewhere in a month the answer came, and I was sent to the army.
I got into the anti-aircraft artillery troops, 480-th anti-aircraft artillery division, which was based in the area of Arkhangelsk, on the Northern Dvina. Almost no specialty, worked as a telephonist. I worked for about half a year, and then I was sent to a distance measuring post, my eyesight matched optics, not everyone had it.
I became the commander of the distance unit, which served the range finder D1. This rangefinder served in order to catch the target and guide the battery's instruments, azimuth, altitude. There were four people in the department - me and three more girls. For almost the entire war, I was a range finder of anti-aircraft artillery.
480-YARD participated in combat operations on three fronts: Western, Central and Northern, but mainly on the Northern, on the Northern Dvina. Everything weaponThe guns, the foodstuffs that came from the Allies, went through the Northern Dvina, it was the only point there was no more.
What should be said: of course, it is very hard for girls in the army, it is generally overwork, especially for such young ones. Such crap, how much I had to crawl in snow!
There were four batteries in the division, with four guns in each battery. We had to put barrage so that the Nazi planes did not go to the caravans, and they were very bombed, they knew that the only way for caravans was through the Northern Dvina. All forces threw themselves at this — the Junkers, the Messerschmitts, the Focke-Wulfs, all the planes that only existed were thrown in order not to let these caravans pass.
I remember how these caravans died. Caravans approached, some of the products that they could, were overloaded into our minesweepers, small vessels, overloaded and taken to the shore. What will save, what is not. But a lot of ships were dying. I do not know how accurate this is, but they say that out of a hundred only two or three reached their destination. I can not say this is talk, rumor. But death, of course, a lot.
The worst thing that happened was bombing, then they throw empty barrels, barrels fly, howling, it acts on the human psyche. Lighting aerial bombs. Fly at night. Although the northern lights in the north, but still the lighting bombs also threw.
From the Northern Front, the 480 th ERA was transferred to the West, he participated in the crossing of the Dnieper, but I did not get there. I was the editor of the combat sheet, and I was removed from the train, left in place. And it's good that they left, because I would die. The one who was in my place died, all the range-finders died, our entire unit was blown up by a mine. This is the first time, when fate, God took me away from this.
I was transferred to the 160-th anti-aircraft artillery division. There I was also a range finder, then - the 1931 th anti-aircraft artillery regiment of small caliber, all in the North.
There was not a moment of peace, and I dreamed of only one thing - sleep. The Germans flew in groups like cranes, three each, followed by the next. Bombed - the next batch of flies, bombed - the next ...
Just lie down, immediately: "Position No. 1!" You run out, become a range finder. And the range finder is what? No defense against bombs. The range finder was installed not in a trench, but on the contrary, on a meter height, so that there was a review. It was very scary.
- So you said that there were only girls in the distance unit, and the guys themselves served the guns?
- Yes, the guns were served by the guys. But if during the bombing of a system any number went out, then the girls became. And so - only the guys, especially the charging ones, the 16 projectile weighs kg, the girl just won't lift him, but they still became, worked.
- Did your battery manage to knock down someone?
- It was possible. Rarely, but it was possible. You understand, the goal was somehow - to put a barrier fire.
And the planes ... I remember the first time I saw a German. In my opinion, it was some kind of scout plane. He was shot down, one pilot jumped out, fell a hundred meters from our battery. Well, here, when he was shot down, there was a break, everyone rushed to run to him. We thought we would tear it apart, but they took our youth away from us, took away all the best years ... We ran up to this Fritz - a kid. I remember white hair, freckles and red eyes, maybe from tension. We think now we will give it as it should; when we saw him - so miserable, the boy of our age, and somehow we felt sorry for him. We took him another pot of porridge brought. Then a special department took him, we don’t know about his fate. So I saw the first German.
What else? We stood in a swamp, away from the village. There is one battery, through the 50-100 m - the second battery, through 50-100 m - the third battery, the fourth. And everyone is shooting at these planes.
Especially tormented life, there were no conditions, and women needed because there were some conditions, but there was nothing. We walked like this: wadded trousers, padded jacket, a cap with ear-flaps, a raincoat-tent, in the summer - tarpaulin boots, a skirt and a tunic. By the way, when I was demobilized, it was in this burnt-out, faded skirt, tunic and tarpaulin boots. This is very well shown in the movie "The Dawns Here Are Quiet". My husband and I, when we looked, wept: it was our life that was shown. The same swamps, the same conditions. I also wrote letters to my mother. Mom writes me: “I am so glad that you are far from the front. I am very glad that you got into such conditions. ” I didn’t write that it was the most hell, always wrote: “Mommy, everything is fine.” And actually they stood in the swamps, no comfort, wooden booms.
Wooden houses, bunks in meters and a half from each other. Here on these bunks there were several people in these cockpits. And the north is cold. And most importantly - we did not get enough sleep; we did not have rest either at night or at night. When I was demobilized, the only dream was to sleep off. She could walk like this, close her eyes on the go and sleep for a minute.
- you were in the Komsomol?
- Of course, but in 1942, I joined the party at the front. I am a member of the city party organization and do not throw out the party card.
- What about the novels at the front? The battery commander did not have a constant girlfriend?
- Not. What are you, what is there! We were on fire all the time. There, the only thing you think is whether you will survive or not survive. You stand on the open area, the bombs are flying, fragments. How to escape from them? No way you can save yourself: little fragments, and that’s it, you died! How much is left and my girlfriends there ...
We had a commissioner, Borisov, a very likeable young man, everyone loved him very much, and I served under his leadership for a year and a half. We did not know what love is, but I felt that he really liked me. He graduated from the Kharkov school before the war, and when the institute of commissars was abolished, he left for retraining and started writing from there, but I didn’t even think to write a correspondence with him: commander and commander, we were too far from it. Then I was summoned by the battalion commander, his friend, Vanka Smolensky, and he says: “You don't write letters to the captain?” I say: “Why am I going to write, I don't want to.” Then he made me, and I began to write: "Hello, Comrade Captain ...". That's how we corresponded for a year and a half, he became the commander of the battery on the Western Front, and his battery was mostly girls, a 50-60 man, and everyone was in love with him. At the end of the war, his unit in Lviv stood, and the Commander of the 78 th Air Defense Division called me up. Says: "You have a call, you are called to Lviv." I say: "I will not go, I will go where my mother evacuated."
I went to my mother. After a while I receive a telegram, a letter: "I miss, I wait." And I had a boy, a childhood friend, he served in the Far East, and I corresponded with him, I just thought about him. When she came to her mother, she probably spent a month in this Zimencino, suddenly a telegram: “I am leaving.” And he came here for a visit, and my father already corresponded with the commissioner, and my father says to me: “Well, you, that guy are a children's home-carer, that you will think about him. And this is really a guy, captain. ” I looked at my father, he immediately in my eyes: "So, you're not a girl back." I was brought up very much in such a spirit that God forbid. I say: "How ?!" - "And so."
So I say then: “If so, I am getting married,” and left with him. Then a papa husband wrote a thankful letter.
In the books they write about PPH - there was no such thing. Maybe only the big chiefs of staff, the major divisions, who had the conditions, and we had nothing of that.
- How, then fed?
- When I came to the front in 1942, I was fed very badly. We were hungry, not fed up. Bread was given a brick, a loaf, it was then a kilogram or 800 grams, and I could sit down and eat it in one sitting. At the beginning of 1943, we started getting bacon, bacon, which was lend-lease to us. And then something else: in the North - elk, elk. Sometimes they were killed, although it was forbidden, but they were killed, and it went into a common pot.
From the year of 1943, we began to eat more or less normally, but still we did not eat enough. Bread is still not enough. Suppose, in turn, workers went to the kitchen, and everyone wanted to go to the kitchen workers, so that at least there to eat enough.
I remember that my future husband often assigned me to the kitchen workers. I even cried: no one could cut wood with me, they gave a log, one, the other, the third, I needed to saw, and no one sawed with me because I did not know how to do it. Then he asked him: “Why, comrade captain, do you appoint me to the kitchen so often?” He said: “To have more food you eat there, I know that it is not enough.”
At first they did not eat enough. I remember shooting going on, and next to us was a colony of prisoners who grew turnips, we released one person, and with a bag there - to tear a turnip. That's the way out of the situation.
Well, still minesweepers who went to these caravans, they brought something from there — either sugar, or a bar of chocolate — and they gave it to us girls. We were given 100 grams of alcohol every day and a shag, I gave it all to the guys, and they gave me their ration of sugar. And these guys, sailors, who are from minesweepers, who give what to whom, who to alcohol, who to shag, they give you in return.
I had a girlfriend, a medical instructor, she gave me vitamins. They were in such boxes so that I kept my teeth. In the North, everyone suffered with scurvy, and I drank these pills.
We also picked berries, cranberries there, lingonberries ...
“Were you supplied with women's underwear?”
- Not. Underwear sewed themselves. There were parachutes on which lighting bombs were thrown off, silk was like that, and we used to make handkerchiefs, sometimes you could make a shirt for yourself, a bra.
And also footwear: it’s good that I have a 39 size leg, so also the boots fit 40 size and 41 size. And the girls had 35 size. I served with girls from the Komi ASSR, they are so short, light-skinned, even in the bathhouse, when you go, you look - they are all so pink, and I am dark. So, they have 35 size of shoes, and in the army the smallest 40 size.
We first had shoes with windings. Anxiety, and you shake the winding, the tears flow, not a damn thing, and we were trained to quickly get up and get dressed. How many times from the foreman fell, how many tears shed.
And then, when I was given the title - corporal at first, then - junior sergeant, then - sergeant, it became easier. Not everyone could shout at you anymore. I was already on a par with them, only the foreman was older. Then, it seems, they also wanted to assign me the rank of “foreman”, but I was demobilized.
- Have you ever met with foreign sailors from convoys?
- It happened. We were sometimes taken to Arkhangelsk, several people would be taken away and taken away, there was such an outlet, and that was where we met with American sailors. They went ashore, all in leather jackets, dressed as expected, and all of them had canned meat on 5-10. The civilian population was starving, so they could meet with a woman for the stew.
- After the war, there was no disregard for the women who were at the front? Have you come across this?
- I somehow did not notice. It was easy for me in this sense: my husband and I were from one part, I was among the military all the time, so I did not notice it.
- Any favors in connection with critical days?
- Nothing, no relief. The fighter and the fighter, nobody cared. I dreamed of getting sick in the war so that I could lie down in the medical unit for at least one day. No, she was not sick, and when she was demobilized, she got married, then I started — either a sore throat, or flu, or a stomach. The husband then says to me: “I married a healthy martyr, so that the offspring would be good, and in the end some kind of ruin would come”. But then it all went away. But during the war there was no disease, despite the fact that in the North, snow, frost - there was nothing. And then it all spilled out ...
- At that time, they lived for today or dreamed, how will it be then?
- Dreamed. How the war will end, what a life will be. They wanted to get married, start a family, graduate, get a specialty.
- What was your attitude towards the Germans?
- Disgusting. Fascists, bastards. They came to our territory, what did they need? Fierce hatred was for them. We defended the homeland.
- How did you see Stalin in this regard?
“They saw it wonderful, saw strength in it, support.” Generalissimo. We went to the battle for the Motherland, for Stalin. Stalin was on the lips of all.
- After the war, you were tormented by dreams?
- Of course. Especially when comrades, friends died, it was very hard. Such a ridiculous death, this is not something that you go to the embrasure of a machine gun, and here a little fragment - once, and you are not. He fell into the temple, in the head, broke the artery, died before his eyes ...
- Do you think this is a woman's business - to fight?
- No, not a woman's business. A woman is called in essence, in character to be homely. A woman must be a woman. She must give birth to sons, build a house, plant a garden. This is all done.
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