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In May 1942, when I was 17 and a half years old [the recruitment age was 18], the military registry office summoned me. They said, ‘Sit down and write a volunteer application to the army’. Who would dare to refuse those orders at that time! They sentenced people for desertion and then nobody would ever find justice. I was recruited to the 17th squadron of the Civil Aviation near the railway station in Frunze where they trained navigators/radio operators on aircraft. All cadets had finished the 9th grade at school. Later this squadron was renamed into a radio operator school. We lived in a barrack. There was poor food: sprat soup and boiled cereals. Those who came from Frunze rarely got leave to go home. We were given uniforms: boots, trousers and overcoats. There were two groups of 25 cadets each at school. There was military order. Our commander was first sergeant of the training unit and had been at war. For some reason he became furious with us and made our life as hard as we could imagine. He was to train us in drilling.
We had wonderful teachers in other military disciplines who were navigators and radio operators of the Civil Aviation. This was a privileged group. There weren’t many pilots at that time, and they told us that they knew all of them in the Civil Aviation. We also had flying training on DS-3 [Douglas], American aircraft with which our Civil Aviation was equipped before the war. There were also German Junkers planes furnished from the vicinity of Stalingrad. Near Stalingrad [present-day Volgograd, 800 km from Moscow] many planes left from many airfields. Later the Tashkent aviation plant got a license to manufacture those DS-3 planes, but they became Li-2, of course. They replaced passenger seats with steel benches and installed machine guns on them.
We finished our training in May 1943 and went to the headquarters in Moscow by train. We were accommodated in a military unit, the 1st air transportation division of the civil military aviation, near Vnukovo airport [domestic flights airport about 75 km southwest of Moscow]. I went there a couple of years ago and there were still two-storied barracks there where we lived. The pilots flew former passenger planes modified to become military aircraft. They transported people and loads to partisan units, for example. I can tell you a few anecdotes. When we came there planes were flying to Berlin on low altitudes or they would have been knocked down, lighted the landing spot with a torch and moved our intelligence men from there. They also transported the wounded from partisan units. Lighter planes were based near the front line, but ours were heavy planes and they flew directly from Moscow. There was a division of planes. Our division was a military unit, though it belonged to the Civil Fleet.
We had wonderful teachers in other military disciplines who were navigators and radio operators of the Civil Aviation. This was a privileged group. There weren’t many pilots at that time, and they told us that they knew all of them in the Civil Aviation. We also had flying training on DS-3 [Douglas], American aircraft with which our Civil Aviation was equipped before the war. There were also German Junkers planes furnished from the vicinity of Stalingrad. Near Stalingrad [present-day Volgograd, 800 km from Moscow] many planes left from many airfields. Later the Tashkent aviation plant got a license to manufacture those DS-3 planes, but they became Li-2, of course. They replaced passenger seats with steel benches and installed machine guns on them.
We finished our training in May 1943 and went to the headquarters in Moscow by train. We were accommodated in a military unit, the 1st air transportation division of the civil military aviation, near Vnukovo airport [domestic flights airport about 75 km southwest of Moscow]. I went there a couple of years ago and there were still two-storied barracks there where we lived. The pilots flew former passenger planes modified to become military aircraft. They transported people and loads to partisan units, for example. I can tell you a few anecdotes. When we came there planes were flying to Berlin on low altitudes or they would have been knocked down, lighted the landing spot with a torch and moved our intelligence men from there. They also transported the wounded from partisan units. Lighter planes were based near the front line, but ours were heavy planes and they flew directly from Moscow. There was a division of planes. Our division was a military unit, though it belonged to the Civil Fleet.
Period
Year
1942
Interview
Alexander Grin
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