Harry Kellogg III: The Red Sky: The Second Battle of Britain

Two fighters dashed towards me like black vultures. For some reason I took them for our Yaks until their machine guns started spitting tracers. The Amerikosi were extremely insolent and took no care for their own defense. They attacked from different directions without effect. One of them overshot and filled my sights. I pressed the firing triggers and nothing happened. I was out of ammunition. I was saved by my fighter cover who even shot one of the bastards down.

A few missions later we witnessed a heroic sight. It was during a dogfight with the Spanish that pilot Rykhlin put on quite a show. He was hit by a tank shell, his own fault for flying too low. As he turned towards Toulouse he was pounced on by 4 P51s of the new Spanish air force. He had no chance to but to accept combat. Knowing the power of the front firing guns of the Sturmovik two of the Mustangs slowed down to attack from the rear. They were so confident that they even lowered their landing gear to slow down even more.

Rykhlin put his plane in a tight turn and unexpectedly they found themselves facing those guns. Both fell very quickly from the fire power display that tore their planes apart. The other two were driven off smoking by the already wounded aerial gunner Efremenko. This victory was won by a pilot who was only flying his second combat mission. [6] Over Fields of Fire By Timofeeva-Egorova Pg. 105

We flew mission after mission from then on and it was exhausting. We had many losses. We hit airfields, ammo dumps, enemy troops even bombed ships on the ocean. This kind of pace was only possible with preparation by us and the supply section.

Soon we lost our flight leader, a fearless pilot and an honest and gallant man, Tit Kirillovich Pokrovskiy. Why him we wondered? But on we flew with the second in command taking over. He just exploded in mid-air from a lucky shot by some anti-aircraft barge probably manned by some heartless British pig. By the time he became our flight leader he had been shot down 2 times by.

We flew on stunned and we lost our fighter cover as they became embroiled in a fight at higher altitude. Then we saw them… Spifires trying to take off lined up oh so nicely right in front of us. “Smash the bastards!” Pasha was yelling into the air over and over again. We poured every piece of lead and anything that would explode into them. We lost five of our own but that squadron was no more… just piles of smoking rubble. For the second sortie that day we were led by the Moscovite Timofeevich Karev. There was no better leader and he had instigated a change.

His idea was to maneuver within the flight. We were now constantly changing positions and altitudes within certain limits. This kept us more alert and hindered the attacking fighters and ack ack gunners. No more strict formations and easy pickings. With our constant changing of speed and altitude it made life hell for the gunners on the ground and for the stalking fighters above. Once again our survival rate increased.

This is our little secret, but on the way back I still had two bombs. We were not supposed to land with bombs and there were some fighters on our tail. I saw a landing craft below and just couldn’t help myself. I pulled the emergency release and wiggled my wings back and forth to make sure the bombs fell. Mostly by chance I hit the boat squarely. Feeling lucky and somewhat ashamed of my lucky hit I decided to tell no one.

One of the fighters radioed that I had sunk a landing craft full of soldiers and tanks so my secret was out and I received a decoration.

The Regimental Commander lined us up and asked for volunteers. We all stepped forward. “No, no that won’t work he laughed.” I was one that was eventually picked. Our mission was to lay a smoke screen just in front of the British lines. No bombs no rear gunner just smoke cylinders. We had to fly for 7 kilometers in strict formation at low altitude. After the General had briefed us on the plan we were offered a chance to refuse the mission. Not one of the 19 did.

A sea of fire met us. Shells were bursting all around and I pressed myself into my armored seat back. The seconds counted down so slowly. Finally the plane ahead of me began to smoke. Thankfully it was only the smoke canister doing its job. I counted to three and turned mine on. It took so long to fly that 7 kilometers. Finally our mission was done. As we were landing a call came from the commanding General.

“Attention Hunchbacks!”

“Hunchbacks” meant us—it was the frontline name given to the Sturmovik.

“All pilots who flew the mission are awarded the Order of the Red Banner.”

Our hearts were bursting with pride as we landed and to the cheers of our comrades.

Later we found out that the smoke screen had worked and we had broken through the Blue Line. Moving towards the enemy it made him blind and allowed our troops to advance unmolested until they were virtually on top of the enemy. The Spanish fled in panic. They do not like to fight close in. The Soviet loves it.

One day I was summoned to regimental command post and ordered to lead a flight. I was one of only a handful of experienced pilots that were not killed or wounded.

Many considered it a suicide mission. We were to attack an anti-aircraft battery. Not the troops or equipment that they were protecting but the guns themselves. Normally we tried to avoid the ack-ack for obvious reasons. I knew we had to fly around the other flack units so we had to take a broad swing over the ocean. I hate to fly over water. Can’t swim and our life jackets were almost useless. Our target was another flack unit further in the rear. We were to assigned to destroy it.

We leaped over two other lines of flack units and dove on our targets and dropped our bombs then we gained altitude and came back with our cannons blazing. I saw vehicles exploding, infantry running and gun emplacements disappearing in balls of flame. Take that you bastards for everything you had done and for everything we suffered. Panicked vehicles were running over their own men in their haste to find a hiding place.

By hitting a unit so far back from the front it caught them by surprise. We made the best of it strafing again and again until we were out of bullets and bombs. Ah the destruction man can deliver to our fellow man is unnatural. Nothing but a hurricane or wild fire causes such destruction in such a concentrated area.

I looked around and my wingman was nowhere to be found. He had gone down in the marshes. We spotted them when they shot a red flare. I banked my wings and made a steep turn and indicating that I would be back and to sit tight. I marked the spot in my mind and went back to base. After landing I reported to the commander and then I got in a trusty Po-2 and headed back to the marshes and picked Zoubov and his gunner up.

He told us he had been damaged by ack-ack and then was finished off by a fighter. He admitted later that he thought I was bad luck when I first came to the regiment, but no more. “All my doubts disappeared when we saw you above us and you picked us up. I beg your pardon… most sincerely comrade.”

I was forced to go to navigation school. One of my fellow students was V. Kalougin know far and wide for ramming two bombers in two days when he ran out of ammunition. The first one he chopped off its wing with his propeller and the next day took down another by ramming its tail assembly. He of course was a legend.

One of our best weapons for killing tanks was PTABs. These were small armor piercing bombs that each Sturmovik would drop by the hundreds. Each plane could hold up to 250 of these little bomblets and they would easily go through the top armor of any tank on the battle field. We simply flew over them at low level and released the PTABs. They spewed out of their cassettes like a farmer sowing seeds, only these seeds sowed destruction for the capitalist pigs below.