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Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Purgin Nikolai Ivanovich

Pilot in the 820th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment

I began to understand somewhere around my third mission. I remember that mission quite well...You know, all flights are the same; there is nothing remarkable about them: you take off, assemble, arrive at the target, attack following the leader, and leave. The missions you remember are the ones on which something out of the ordinary happens. This one time, I took off and my right landing gear had not been serviced. According to the aircraft manual, this was considered an error, and I had every right to turn around. But I was young and thought, if I return they will call me a coward. Ok then, I thought, I will catch up to the group and everything will be fine. Of course, while I was thinking about  my landing gear I lost speed and fell behind. I was a lone straggler – the group was up ahead on the horizon. Back when our flight had formed up, the commander said that after the attack we would turn right and head back to our territory. I decided to keep to the right and cut the corner to catch up to them. They arrived at the target, but it was covered by German fighters. After the attack, the leader turned left, and I lost them. I still needed to drop my bombs, so I went south, found the Germans, and dropped my bombs. I saw two fighters coming to meet me: crosses, swastikas, and yellow-green camouflage. Real predators! Well, I thought these were probably the same fighters that my comrades had told me about. I sped up and descended, trying to get away from them heading east in the direction of Belgorod. The first fighter engaged me – I don't know at what distance but I think around 50 meters. I only saw the fountains of flame on its wings spitting shells from its Oerlikon guns. My canopy was breached, and I instinctively squeezed the stick forward striking my head on the canopy...

You know what electric welding smells like? That's exactly what it smelled like in the cockpit! The map pouch, which was on a small leather strap slung over my shoulder, was pulled out of the cockpit, and the strap dragged me towards the canopy. With difficulty, I managed to cut the strap. The pilot of the attacking fighter glanced at me as he flew past. His attack finished my landing gear off for good. I realized that I could not outrun them, so I reduced my speed and began to maneuver. My altitude was already about 20 meters. I figured the second one was about to attack, and that's exactly what happened. Again he landed a solid hit. But the plane was still under control and not on fire just full of holes. The second fighter hit me, flew past – and just watched. I turned back to the left, but the fighters continued into their own territory. Why didn't they follow after me? Because the Germans had camera mounted guns. They didn't need to prove whether they had shot a plane down or not. They had both hit me and both counted it as a downed plane. I turned to the north. I thought, “I will go to Kursk, then turn east towards the Oskol river and find my base there.”

As I was flying, looking at the ground I saw Germans, then our troops, and then Germans again. Continuing on for a bit, I thought about whether or not I should land. I saw two Ils flying so I joined up with them. I figured that I could land at the airfield and sort things out. We turned right, to the east. I saw the Oskol, got my bearings, and landed on the airfield. I wanted to decelerate slowly, but the wheels rolled once, twice and then stopped. It turned out I had two punctured tires and broken landing gear. The plane was totaled so badly that they wrote the plane off. The only parts that weren't hit were my engine and fuel tank. I watched as the commander of the regiment walked up the the plane, “Wow, they slaughtered you.”

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About the author:

Artyom Drabkin ( born 25.07.1971) — Russian public figure, leader of internet project  «I remember»,  author of collections of memoirs of soviet veterans of World War II,  series of veterans interviews «Soldiers' Diaries» and «Trench Truth».  Script writer of documentary movie series.