Back in Saratov, their own women’s 586 Air Defense Fighter Regiment, from which they were all so eager to escape, suddenly gained nationwide renown. It owed this to Lera Khomyakova, a friend of Belyaeva’s since their days in the Central Flying Club, when both of them had for many years participated in the Tushino Air Show. During a night sortie Lera shot down a German bomber that was targeting Saratov.
On September 23, 1942, Khomyakova’s mechanic, Katya Polunina, turned twenty-one. Her friends wished her a happy birthday but did not otherwise celebrate because the situation was just too grim. “It is as if I can see the map right now before my eyes. The little red flags marking the front line passed three times through Stalingrad to the Volga,” Polunina recalled.252 They did not know that on September 22 the Germans had broken through to the central crossing, making it virtually impossible to bring in reinforcements and supplies, or that a large part of the city was already in enemy hands. Even so they, like the rest of the country, saw the likelihood that Stalingrad would fall and the war cross the Volga as potentially a disaster. Polunina did nevertheless receive a splendid birthday present from her pilot.
Early on September 24 Zhenya Prokhorova, commander of the Second Squadron, took off with her wingmate, Lera Khomyakova, on an emergency mission: air observation posts had reported a formation of enemy bombers approaching the Volga crossing. A searchlight picked out a Junkers Ju 88, its gunner began shooting at the Soviet fighters, but it was immediately shot down.253
At first it was unclear whether this kill belonged to Zhenya or Lera, but Zhenya landed first, climbed out of the plane in tears, and yelled at her armorer that her weapons had jammed. When Lera Khomyakova landed, she reported she had made two runs at the Junkers and her machine guns and cannon had fired faultlessly.
The Ju 88 she had brought down at night was the first German bomber to be destroyed near Saratov, the first to be shot down by their regiment, and she had become the first woman to shoot down a bomber in a night battle. Only a few of the pilots had received any kind of training in flying night fighters after arriving in Engels.
Lera was told by observers that she must have killed the pilot with her first burst of gunfire. The German plane had gone into a dive, but Lera had continued firing. As the Junkers was on the outward leg of its mission, it was blown up by its own payload of bombs when it crashed into the ground. Lera excitedly described the battle in a detailed letter to her family on September 26: “He fired at me twice but missed. I was alive and uninjured, but do you know, my dears, I did not at first think I had shot him down. Once I hit him, his plane did not catch fire but banked right and then went into a very steep dive. I fired a few more bursts at him but then it was time to pull out of the dive. ‘There,’ I thought, ‘I shot from too far away and did not see it through. I leveled out too early. He has got away.’” Lera’s friends in the regiment congratulated her more demonstratively than male pilots probably would. “I landed and my mechanic Polunina ran up and kissed me. She said, ‘You darling, you’ve just shot down a Heinkel!’” Immediately all the others ran up to kiss her.254
Lera herself only really believed it when she flew with the regiment’s commander to the site where the German bomber had crashed. She could not forget the sight for a long time afterward. The dead crew members were scattered around in different positions next to their parachutes, which had failed to open. They had bailed out, but not had sufficient height. “The aircraft, such a huge hulk, was scattered in pieces and there were several unexploded bombs.” They took the German parachutes, of course, which were highly prized because the silk could be used in different ways.
Lera’s superiors were delighted. In the section of the canteen reserved for the upper ranks, tables were laid and glasses filled with vodka.255 Lera, who often complained about not getting enough to eat, told her family what a great breakfast and watermelon she had. Right there, as she breakfasted, she was handed 2,000 rubles for her kill (“On the orders of Comrade Stalin”). That was a great help for her family. Reporters came flocking, including the poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. Institutions in Saratov and Engels sent her congratulatory telegrams and she was promoted. On October 5 she wrote to her family about her trip to Moscow, where she had been awarded the Military Order of the Red Banner by Mikhail Kalinin.
Mechanic Yelena Karakorskaya was also in Moscow on regimental business. She recalls bumping into Lera in the street. Lera “was so happy. She had been presented with her medal by Kalinin.” “I’ve got some great photos,” she said. “When we get back to the regiment I’ll show you.”256 Karakorskaya returned to the regiment on October 5 and Lera got back the same evening. They did not get a chance to talk because Lera had immediately to stand in on night watch for another pilot who had a headache. Mechanic Klavdia Volkova recalled that, going on duty that evening, Lera complained of being terribly tired and said she really hated having to go out and sit on the alert. She forgot a glove, went back for it, and then went to the plane, started the engine and taxied to the runway.
That night Karakorskaya had a nightmare, which she felt afterward was an omen. Irrespective of whether or not they were rational members of the Komsomol, all these young women believed in fate’s terrible power. “Lera and I were standing on Gorky Street dressed in black opera cloaks trimmed with silver fox fur. The image immediately changed to one of mourning. Lera was dead and I was covering her with a greatcoat.” When she woke in the morning, Karakorskaya heard that Lera Khomyakova had not returned from her night mission.
There had been no air raids since September 14. All was quiet and the crews slept on hay while waiting for an alarm. It was not only to Karakorskaya that Lera failed to talk in detail about her trip to Moscow. She fell asleep in mid-sentence trying to tell her other friends. When the air-raid alert came she took off together with Tamara Pamyatnykh. There was no sign of the enemy in the air and Pamyatnykh soon returned to base. Lera did not. Tamara Pamyatnykh recalled they turned on the searchlights to illuminate the runway and went out looking for her in a car but found nothing.257 It turned out they needed to look little further than the start. “In the morning a telephonist coiling up wire called out, ‘Girls, here is your pilot!’”258 They found the wreckage of her plane and Lera Khomyakova nearby, lying dead on the other side of the road among the sunflowers. “I ran there and saw everything,” a traumatized Katya Polunina recalled.
According to the official air division account of October 9, 1942, Senior Lieutenant Khomyakova lost her sense of direction at takeoff due to a lack of landmarks at night and banked right.259 Continuing to bank, she veered 270 degrees and lost control of the aircraft, crashing into the ground.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Mum,” Lera had written home in December 1941. “I fly carefully and the high-speed fighter is a reliable plane.” Her mother would often take out and, until the end of her days, re-read this letter, along with forty-nine others Lera had sent her. Lera’s friend and commanding officer, Zhenya Prokhorova, who shared a dug-out with her, wrote to her family that she was buried at 1600 hours on October 7 with full military honors.
As was usual in the Soviet Union, someone had to be punished for the death of a combatant who had so recently become a celebrity, even if it was not really anybody’s fault. The scapegoats in this instance were Kazarinova, who was stripped of her position as commander of the regiment, and the regiment’s commissar, Kulikova.260
Tamara Kazarinova’s removal from the post of commander of 586 Regiment ended its time as the only women’s fighter regiment in the Soviet Union, and probably in world history. Zhenya Prokhorova’s lack of Communist credentials ruled her out and no other suitable female military pilot could be found to replace Kazarinova. Instead the replacement was Major Alexander Gridnev, a good pilot and a good man. When asked how long he would be staying with the regiment, he replied, “Forever.”261 He identified the future of the regiment and its members with his own future, but saw no reason to keep it exclusively female. To Gridnev, what mattered was the combat readiness of the unit entrusted to him.
He set to work, tightening discipline and improving their training. Within a short time he reported that the regiment was ready to undertake duties in the air defense of Voronezh. Vacancies in the regiment were filled by women pilots retrained to fly fighters, but also by men. 586 Fighter Wing became an exemplary combat unit, but 586 Women’s Fighter Regiment ceased to exist.