War Witness: Bombing Berlin in the Dark

Andrey Polyakov - Bomber pilot, junior lieutenant (1945), Russia
We were trained for the front on PO-2 biplanes. We trained day and night. We had 60 hours of flying experience. And then came 1942. No planes, no fuel... We had to fill our biplanes with castor oil. There was no aviation oil and castor oil is oil, after all. When you were at the tail of the plane it smelt like someone was making pancakes, yeah... Next year, at another base we trained to fly day and night the IL-4. It's a night bomber. Finally, I arrived at the 8th corps for long-range aviation. It was 1944 already.
We flew our missions only at night, only at night. In the evenings, we took off and it'd take three hours to get to our target and three hours to get back, because long-range aviation was based about 300 kilometers from the front line. Generally, we targeted naval bases in the Baltic Sea - Koenigsberg, Danzig, Swinemunde, Stettin... and Berlin. I flew to Berlin three times -- April 20th, 25th and 26th. Over Berlin, we lost our 11th crew, Kudryavtsev was its pilot. He and I, we trained at flight school together. It was only his second flight. When we got in position it was very quiet and Berlin was completely dark. Once we dropped our bombs, the searchlights went on and the artillery started firing at us. To hide from the searchlights you need to lose altitude abruptly. You turn the plane on its wing and then off you go. So they lose you. As for fighters, if your gunner or navigator spotted one, you had to hide underneath it. Strictly underneath it! All these maneuvers had to be done very quickly. And so, as soon as we dropped our bombs, I turned around and went down, then I looked to the right and there was a flash: Kudryavtsev was dead. I said to my crew -- watch out, it's our turn now!
It's all about bad luck. Some survived the whole war -- a pal of mine made 147 flights, but they hit him only once, at the end of the war and he had to make an emergency belly landing. But other than that he was fine. We had a saying -- if a pilot made 10 flights without being hit, we would say he was an "old-timer"!
More stories at victory1945.rt.com