to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office
to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office
to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
At the Beginning of the War<br />
from the northwest. In the event of a swift breach by the Nazi tank armies, we in<br />
Khimki—along with our fac<strong>to</strong>ry and all the work that had been done on the BI<br />
aircraft—would find ourselves on the “German side.”<br />
Increasingly alarming information was coming <strong>to</strong> us from Moscow about the<br />
evacuation of one military fac<strong>to</strong>ry after another.After one of these routine distressing<br />
reports Isayev had a confidential conversation with me. He proposed that we<br />
create a guerrilla detachment. Isayev spoke with great enthusiasm, as if he were<br />
proposing that we take part in a recreational hike.This conversation <strong>to</strong>ok place on<br />
the eve of the Nazis’ breach of the Mozhaysk and Volokolamsk lines.<br />
On 15 Oc<strong>to</strong>ber, the State Committee of Defense ordered the emergency evacuation<br />
of all central Party and State institutions from Moscow. The <strong>next</strong> day, 16<br />
Oc<strong>to</strong>ber, was the beginning of the mass evacuation that went down in the unofficial<br />
his<strong>to</strong>ry of the war as “the Moscow panic.” On that day, the People’s<br />
Commissariats, the leaders of all central institutions, and all fac<strong>to</strong>ry direc<strong>to</strong>rs<br />
received a very strict order <strong>to</strong> evacuate east by any means available <strong>to</strong> new relocation<br />
sites for their institutions and enterprises.<br />
Not having warned any of their subordinates, Bolkhovitinov and chief engineer<br />
Volkov disappeared on 16 Oc<strong>to</strong>ber. Later we found out that they had not<br />
been cowards, but had been following an order by Shakhurin, who had<br />
summoned the direc<strong>to</strong>rs and chief designers <strong>to</strong> the People’s Commissariat and<br />
then ordered them <strong>to</strong> immediately leave Moscow without returning <strong>to</strong> their<br />
respective workplaces. Bolkhovitinov and Volkov had traveled <strong>to</strong> the population<br />
center specified by Shakhurin: Bilimbay, which was 60 kilometers west of<br />
Sverdlovsk in the Urals. Like the other direc<strong>to</strong>rs, they would have <strong>to</strong> make<br />
arrangements with local authorities <strong>to</strong> begin receiving the evacuated enterprises<br />
so that operations could immediately be continued.<br />
The <strong>next</strong> day the Moscow panic had reached Khimki, but we had not yet<br />
received an official order <strong>to</strong> evacuate the fac<strong>to</strong>ry.<br />
Blow up and destroy everything and join the guerrillas—that was my frame of<br />
mind as I set off on 17 Oc<strong>to</strong>ber for Moscow, hoping that my wife Katya, who had<br />
been in Udelnaya, had come <strong>to</strong> the Golubkina Museum <strong>to</strong> stay with her cousin<br />
Vera, the museum direc<strong>to</strong>r. Actually, having heard about the panic, Katya had tied<br />
all her things in<strong>to</strong> a bundle, grabbed our son, and rushed <strong>to</strong> the station. One by<br />
one, overcrowded trains left Moscow and rushed on with no s<strong>to</strong>ps. They even<br />
coupled metro cars in<strong>to</strong> the trains. But not one was traveling <strong>to</strong> Moscow! Finally,<br />
some overcrowded train headed for Moscow s<strong>to</strong>pped in Udelnaya.<br />
With the help of her mother and sister, Katya and Valentin squeezed in<strong>to</strong> the<br />
jam-packed railroad car. Somehow Katya, carrying her enormous bundle and<br />
two-year-old son, managed <strong>to</strong> make her way from the train station <strong>to</strong> Bolshoy<br />
Levshinskiy Lane. That is where I found them. But Polya Zvereva was there<br />
before me. She was the former wife of Sergey Gorbunov. Several years after his<br />
death, she had married a well-known test pilot who had worked at LII. On the<br />
day of panic, she had remembered her fellow Zaraysk natives, had come <strong>to</strong> the<br />
181