A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II by Anne Noggle Page B

throttled back to save on fuel and took
advantage of the tail wind to make it to land. It was night, and I had to
land in an area that had been mined by the Germans; the land was
uneven, torn by explosions. I landed at minimum speed to reduce the
landing roll. When we came to a stop, I was so happy and relieved that
I jumped out of the cockpit and immediately fell into a deep trench!
Fortune had smiled on me again.
    When we were flying in the northern Caucasus, we would take off
in clear weather and often return in dense fog that reached from the
ground up to fifty meters. We found the location of the airdrome by
orientation, for we knew all the terrain landmarks. On those foggy
nights, the ground personnel would shoot a red flare to indicate the
landing strip and a green one if they thought the aircraft was not in
position to land. Landing in thick fog, I would enter that milky sheet,
and when the cockpit began to darken, it was a sign that the land was
close. Then I would pull the nose up and sink to the ground for a
landing.
    In Belorussia the Soviet troops began their major offensive on all
fronts, pushing the enemy to the west. The front-line troops advanced
very fast, and small numbers of enemy troops were encircled and
scattered in the Belorussian woods. They were hiding there and were
trying to fight back the attacks of the Soviet army. Our new location
was a clearing in the woods, and when we landed, some of the girls went into the forest and saw very closely-nose to nose-German
tanks masked among the trees! Our aircraft were short of fuel because the logistical battalion had been detained. But we had to leave
because at any moment we could be attacked by the tanks, so we flew
away. The situation itself was ridiculous. Here we were, encircled by
the German tanks, while their tanks were encircled by the advancing
Soviet army!

    What did we all think then, the girls from the flying regiments?
Was the war a woman's business? Of course not. But then we didn't
think about that. We defended our fair motherland, our people whom
the fascists had trampled. We won the greatest victory of the twentieth century! I never dreamed to see the victory. We sensed it, but by
then I had a feeling I would not live to see it. Now having gone
through that hell it has become priceless to me as never before.
    There is an opinion about women in combat that a woman stops
being a woman after bombing, destroying, and killing; that she becomes crude and tough. This is not true; we all remained kind, compassionate, and loving. We became even more womanly, more caring
of our children, our parents, and the land that has nourished us.
    After the war our regiment was released, and we all wanted to fly
in civil aviation. I applied to the medical board, but I could not pass
the medical examination. I had undermined my physical and mental
health at the front; I was completely exhausted by the four years of
war and combat. There was a period when we went without a day off
for one hundred days.
    I have always been a devoted Communist, and I have worked for
the benefit of my people.
    Lieutenant Polina Gelman,
navigator
    Hero of the Soviet Union
    When the war broke out I was a sergeant, and when I retired I was a
major. I didn't fly after the war, but I still served. My pilot, Dusya
Nosal, was killed, and the night she was killed I didn't fly with her.
She was training another young navigator, and the navigator brought
the plane back. Dusya was the first woman pilot to become a Hero of
the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. My next pilot was
Maguba Syetlanova, a Tartar.
    We flew one after another over the target every three minutes. The
Germans liked to sleep at night, and they were very angry with the
planes. They spread the rumor throughout the army that these were neither women nor men but
night witches. When our army
advanced again, the civilians
said to us that we were very attractive and that the