Penalty sky
The concept of penal battalions and companies appeared at the end of July 1942, when the order was issued by the People’s Commissar of Defense I. Stalin No. XXUMX, better known in the world as the order “Not one step back!”. The document itself dealt mainly with the formation of infantry penal battalions and companies. To avoid being unfounded, the text of the order itself should be given in terms of creating penal divisions: “To the military councils of the fronts and, above all, the commanders of fronts ... to form within the front from one to three (depending on the situation) penal battalions (eight hundred people) where to send medium and senior commanders and relevant political workers of all branches of the armed forces ... Military councils of armies and, above all, army commanders ... to form within the army from five to ten (depending on the situation) penal companies ( that fifty to two hundred people in each), where to send the ordinary soldiers and junior commanders ... ».
As can be seen from the text of the order number XXUMX we are talking about the creation of infantry units, which sent representatives of all the armed forces, including aircraft. However, the training of pilots and aircraft technicians required much more time than the training of, say, tankers or gunners. The commanders of the Air Armies were well aware of how irrational it was to send skilled aviators to rifle penal units, where they, not being masters of ground combat, could easily be killed or wounded without good for a common cause.
It is clear that the idea of leaving the flawed pilots and workers from among the aerotechnical personnel directly in the Air Forces was in the air. It is not surprising that the command of several air groups at once appealed to the commanders of the fronts with the proposal to create fighter aviation units. But since such a question was beyond the competence of the front commanders, they, in turn, forwarded these petitions directly to the Headquarters.
The order for the creation of penal air divisions in all air armies was issued in 1942. It was based on a special directive from 4 of August of 1942 of the Headquarters of the Main Headquarters, signed personally by Stalin and Chief of the General Staff A. Vasilevsky, issued for the development and specification of the general provisions of the order No. XXUMX. However, even earlier, three weeks prior to the appearance of this directive, legal documents appeared in the air armies, developed at their own peril and risk directly in the army headquarters and on the basis of which penal aviation divisions subsequently existed. Thus, the appearance of the directive of 227 August actually became the legalization of the highest authority of the already existing state of affairs.
According to the developed position, the aviators were sent to the aviation aviation units independently of their previous position on the basis of the order of the division commander, which, in turn, was then subject to clearance by order of the Air Army personnel. The return from the penalty box was also carried out only on the proposal of the division commander and was issued by order at the level of army command.
It is known about the existence of three types of penal air divisions: assault (armed with IL-2), fighter (on LaGG-3 and Yak-1, soon replaced by Yak-7) and light bomber, night (on Y-2, which after their death Designer Polikarpov N.N. began to be called Po-2). All squadrons of penalty box were taken out for staff in direct submission to the division commander. The time spent in the penal aviation units was not determined by three months or “first blood”, as in similar rifle, mechanized units or in unique cavalry penal squadrons. The duration of stay for pilots was measured by the number of combat sorties, and for aircraft technicians - by the quality of trained aircraft. Pilots and vehicles were not presented with state and government awards, in contrast to rifle penal units, in which this was possible. The planes shot down by the penalty boxers, as well as the targets covered by the bombers and the attack aircraft, were recorded in the general list of the air unit to which the penal unit was assigned. Wounding was not considered a pretext for returning to the drill squadron. But the percentage of the deaths of the pilots in the penal air divisions only slightly exceeded the average level of losses in ordinary units, despite the fact that the guilty received the most difficult and dangerous tasks to complete.
Penalty air units were headed by five "full-time" drill commanders - the unit commander himself, the deputy commander, commissar, senior adjutant and technician. The rest of the composition is completely formed from the penalty box. It is curious that, on the basis of the evolving situation, the command often resorted to a kind of “castling” between penal and regular units. For example, a navigator-penalty box could be temporarily transferred to a regular crew and vice versa. Often this happened with the arrow-scorers on the "celestial slug" U-2.
One eloquent fact as an illustration of the activities of aviators penal aviation parts. Penalty Mukhamedzian Sharipov, a former battalion commissar (later reinstated in rank), made ninety-four combat sorties within one month. And by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. XXUMX, the Order of the Patriotic War of the II degree was presented for fifty combat sorties, to the Order of the Patriotic War I degree for sixty, regardless of the time period for which these sorties were carried out. But for Sharipov and his comrades in misfortune, the best reward was the return to the “own” part, the restoration of the former rank and the return of the deposited rewards.
The provision of the personnel of the fighter units was determined by several orders of the USSR People's Commissar of Defense under the numbers: 0299, 0489 and 0490. According to these orders, products, uniforms and front hundred grams were provided according to the norms of ordinary combatant units. But the pay was determined solely by his position in the penalty unit, and not the one that this or that person occupied, serving in the "normal" part. But what did not get the penalty box compared with the builders, so it is field money, that is, surcharges to the salary for each day spent at the front. Service in the penalty part was not counted as the time required for submission to the next military rank. Penalties received awards were obliged to deposit in the personnel department of the front or the army. They did not receive any monetary reward for the downed planes or the destroyed targets, which was assigned to ordinary pilots.
A disability pension received as a result of an injury, to the penalty box was calculated on the basis of the position that a person held before he got into the penalty part. Pensions are also accrued to the families of the lost soldiers-penal officers, based on the salary of their last position in the usual part, that is, on a general basis.
Military historians have repeatedly drawn the attention of front-line soldiers and amateur researchers to the confusion of two concepts - penalty boxers and convicts, followed by a postponement of the sentence. The convicts were sent not only to the penal units, they were often left directly in their air units, where they served their sentences. Usually, according to the verdict of the tribunal, the fighters with the current postponement of the execution of the sentence were sent to the radio arrows on the attack planes, so it was the place of suicide bombers. These convicts were not considered penalties. So the future commander of the Soviet air defense A.L. Kadomtsev, was sentenced by the tribunal for ten years for the breakdown of the Yak-1 fighter during a landing. And although the fighter was restored in two days, the sentence remained in effect until the end of the war, and Captain Kadomtsev, already as a private soldier, was sent to serve in the bomber regiment. Penalties for their crimes, both imaginary and real, were paid with blood in infantry and airborne penal battalions.
Penalty units in aviation did not last long. The existence of the penal squadrons was extremely incredulous and with the utmost suspicion were treated by the political directorate and special officials. And although the front-line soldiers, in most cases, did not like either political workers, or, especially, special people, in that they were at one and the same time. Many ordinary pilots did not trust the penalty box, believing that only reliable and proven fighters should take to the air. And those who were at fault were sent to the infantry, where, by the way, there was the highest percentage of casualties of all the arms. However, the existence of airframes in all air armies is a documented fact. Yes, and distrust of the penalty pilots was groundless. Many of them subsequently became Heroes of the Soviet Union, well-known generals and marshals emerged from their ranks. Former penal aviation pilots honored the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, for example, Alexei Reshetov and Ivan Zanin. Although it happened so that the owners of the Golden Star went to the penalty parts (Georgy Kostylev and Philip Gerasimov).
For a long time, many front-line pilots denied the fact of the existence of fighter air units. Even the deserved test-pilots, Heroes of the Soviet Union S.А. Mikoyan and A.A. Shcherbakov. Although they admitted that they had seen with their own eyes a copy of the Bids directive, which prescribed the creation of fighter units (squadrons), they themselves had never encountered them at the front. In their opinion, the directive was signed in a hurry, ill-conceived, and that is why it was never implemented. Honored veterans believe that soon Stalin was explained all the dangers of this undertaking, since no one could prevent the pilots who had been sentenced and practically sentenced to death to the flight to the side of the enemy.
However, this is an objection. First, the information about the existence of the penalty parts of the information has never really spread. And secondly, how much is the flight to the enemy possible in combat conditions? Soviet aircraft for the Germans were the goal that needed to be destroyed. And the “penalty” is a plane or “normal” the Germans did not know and could not know, they simply attacked it. The chances of success of such a flight seem very dubious, the pilots were waiting for almost certain death. By the way, for the entire period of existence of the aviation aviation parts, the transfer of penalty pilots to the side of the enemy has never been fixed. Although opportunities for trying to combat pilots was even more than enough.
You should be wary of the stories told by the front-line soldiers themselves, either by chance or through their own fault, who ended up in penal divisions. Do not forget about one psychological peculiarity of people well described in Vasily Terkin: “Let them be confined at least a hundred times, We are ready for that ...”. To impart, to embellish a real event, and then to submit it in such a way that even direct participants only opened their mouths with admiration - this was the highest “aerobatics”. Such oral stories, bikes were often the only entertainment in the heavy, monotonous front-line everyday life. And the good storytellers were at a special price.
Of course, it is an obvious exaggeration to ascribe some remarkable successes and special courage to the penal pilots. In fact, the pilots of the penal detachments solved their tasks with the same courage as the combatant pilots flew selflessly, trying to atone for the blame and return to their unit quickly. However, it is also impossible to blame the front-line soldiers for lying, untruth, fantasies on the “theme”. These people suffered their stories-tales, paid for them with blood, and many with health. They are with us all in the calculation. But we are still indebted to them. And we will pay the debt only when we tell the whole truth about the people - both the dead and those who survived that terrible war.
Information sources:
-http: //svpressa.ru/war/article/24951/
-http: //www.aviaport.ru/digest/2009/06/03/174074.html? bb
-http://old.redstar.ru/2008/01/16_01/4_01.html
-http: //erich-bubbi.ucoz.ru/forum/6-245-1
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