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Rockets and People
This group consisted of eight or ten individuals, including Smirnov and
Chistyakov.We formed a troika that was given the special assignment of studying
German aircraft instruments, autopilots, special equipment, weaponry, radar, radio
navigation, and communications. The range of issues was very broad, but it was
exceptionally interesting for each of us.
On 20 April, I was invited to the Sokolniki regional military commissariat.
Here, after checking my name on a secret list, the officer explained that I should
immediately obtain a uniform, including shoulder boards with two bars and one
major’s star. In the record of service I was listed as “untrained private” and now
suddenly I was already a major! “We’re dressing a lot of you civilians now, and right
off the bat you get high ranks,” was the somewhat pained remark of the colonel,
who was decorated with medals and stripes for the wounds he had received.
Without any red tape, I received a full officer’s uniform, including an officer’s
belt, map case, an excellent overcoat, and a TT pistol with two clips. Our light
industry was still functioning surprisingly well for those difficult times! Forty years
later my officer’s belt is a special treasure for my grandson.And the cutoff skirt of
my overcoat still serves to keep my automobile engine warm when it’s parked in
the winter.
In the early morning of 23 April, our group took off from the M.V. Frunze
Central Airfield, the same old Khodynka that I had known so well since my childhood
and subsequent work there.We departed on a Douglas C-47 cargo plane.At
that time it was the most popular transport plane. We were flying to the First
Byelorussian Army Group! Our movement orders stated: “To perform a special
assignment for the GKO.”
An hour later we became distracted from our conversations and thoughts about
the mission ahead of us and were pressed up against the windows. Soon we were
over Minsk. From an altitude of about 3,000 meters, the interiors of the houses
were quite visible—almost all of the homes were without roofs. Viewed from
above in an airplane, destroyed cities look entirely different than from the ground
when you are in the midst of the rubble.As surprising as it is, the view from above
has a much greater impact and is far more depressing. Perhaps this is because from
up high you can immediately grasp the scale of the catastrophe—the destruction
of a large city.
Two hours later we were over Warsaw—a picture even more horrible than
Minsk. Perhaps it was because of the black soot at the sites where fires had raged.
Beyond Warsaw we saw the intricate patterns of tank tracks on the untilled fields.
We landed in Poznan to refuel. Here at the airfield we observed a meeting of
the Polish government delegation that had flown in from London. After Poznan
we did not tear ourselves away from the windows. Fortunately, the weather was
excellent. We passed over forests, farms, and white village cottages with red tile
roofs. Surprisingly, in the big cities almost all of the houses were roofless, while
from above, the villages and various farms seemed untouched. And if columns of
all sorts of vehicles had not been crawling over the light-colored roads, if there had
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