Stalin's Falcons: the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment

Minerva: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military, Fall-Winter, 2000 by Reina Pennington

In the mean time, Valeriia Khomiakova, who stayed with the 586th at Anisovka, became the first woman in the world to shoot down an enemy aircraft at night. On 24 September, 1942, she destroyed a Ju-88 bomber over Saratov--in a night-time engagement, and on her first combat patrol.(45) This is the first official kill credited to the 586th.(46) Less than two weeks later, Khomiakova was dead--killed during a night flight on 5 October 1942. The circumstances of the untimely death of the first pilot in the 586th to score a kill were never explained in published materials. For example, Raisa Aronova noted in the 1980 edition of her memoirs that "the circumstances of [Khomiakova's] death to this time remain not entirely clear, as far as I know."(47) Only recently did some veterans of the 586th agree to discuss the incident.

Khomiakova had been sent to Moscow on 29 September to receive recognition for her achievement in shooting down the German night bomber. She was interviewed by magazines and newspapers, and met with the Soviet president, M. I. Kalinin. When she arrived back at Anisovka at few days later, she was fatigued from the long journey, Polunina recalled, but she was immediately assigned to night alert duty anyway.(48) Karakorskaia recalled that Khomiakova "was very tired and I could not believe she had been appointed to duty. We had a very bad doctor at the regiment; he was also to blame. I could not believe Kazarinova [put her on alert]."(49) Gridnev related the details of Khomiakova's death, which he said he heard from Prokhorova:

   [Khomiakova] is sitting in the cockpit, strapped in. The engine is warm and
   ready for immediate start. The radio is checked and the ammunition is
   ready. So what did Kazarinova do? ... Kazarinova put [the mechanic]
   Polunina into the plane and said, "let the pilot rest in the dugout." The
   pilot went into the dugout and went to sleep. Then there was the signal to
   takeoff. Polunina started the engine, someone ran to the dugout to wake up
   the pilot, who ran to the plane, jumped in, and then took off. But her
   vision wasn't adapted to the darkness. The night was dark and she could not
   see. She took off blindly and she could not see the direction. There were
   no guidance lights in the direction of takeoff. So she could not hold the
   direction and she crashed into an obstacle, crashed and died.(50)

Several veterans agreed with these basic facts of the story. At the very least, the veterans agreed that Kazarinova demonstrated extremely poor judgment in this matter. What Gridnev found astonishing was that there was no investigation of the accident. "Prokhorova raised her voice against Kazarinova about this and demanded that she be brought to account. The other pilots were silent." Gridnev said that "they wrote it up as if the death occurred in battle. They made the case as a combat loss, and such losses were not investigated. And so they could not be blamed legally."(51) Even so, according to Gridnev, "General Gromadin removed Kazarinova after that, and ordered Osipenko to bring her to investigation ... Osipenko put Kazarinova on his staff, but she should have been imprisoned because of the accident, because she was responsible for the death of Khomiakova. But Osipenko took her, half-secretly, nobody knew about this, to the staff."(52) Makunina confirms that Kazarinova was recalled to Moscow to work on the staff of PVO.(53) Some of the other veterans also believe that Kazarinova was considered to be at fault for the accident. For example, even Polunina says that "Kazarinova and Kulikova were both punished after the death of Khomiakova, but Kazarinova was removed and Kulikova was not."(54) This is in contradiction to the published sources--including one written by Makunina (but edited by Militsiia Kazarinova, the sister of Tamara Kazarinova)--which state Kazarinova was removed from command for health reasons.(55) It seems apparent that Kazarinova was lacking in military judgment and would not have made a good wartime commander.