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Gary Gibson
Mr. Janky
English 1301-03
September 18, 2014
Yegorovas Short Flight
One day, when I was watching a YouTube playlist about war stories I had come across a video
created by FRANKIEonPCin1080p about one of the toughest women in the Red Army Air Force. Her
name was Anna Yegorova. Man, I wished that I had seen her that day that she was shoot down.
It was in the month of August 1944, it would be a day that would shape the days to come for the
young Russian women. This mission was to attack and destroy German forces at the Magnuszew
bridgehead near Warsaw, Poland. The airstrip was ready for the 805th Attack Aviation Regiment to
takeoff. The Ilyushin-2 (Il-2) was fully fueled and rearmed for young Yegorova; the commanding squad
leader in this regiment of all male pilot unit.
She had just started to walk on the runway followed be her comrades. They all made there ways
to they airplanes as Yegorova was doing so herself along with her gunner. The gunner climbed in the
plane first while Yegorova followed. The engine fired up, the parallels started to turn, then they started
the taxi trip from the grass to the airstrip. As the plane had reached it take of speed of about of one
eighty, Yegorova started to pull up for the take-off with about a quarter of the airstrip left. Because she
was the first to take off and the leader, it was her duty to lead the diamond formation. Following her
was the six other planes in her squadron. Now that the take-off had been completed, along with the
diamond formation, now the next step had to kick in to gear; the adjustment in the altitude.

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The fighters were flying at their max altitude within about six minutes. Yegorova was now flying
high above the clouds; about another half hour would past before a shot would be fired. As her and her
squadron was coming up to her mission, they started for the dive. Fliegerabwehrkanonen (FLAK), had
now started to light up the air. Black burst of smoke cloud were frankly, quite noticeable; when a FLAK
Shell had explode right next to the back of the plane killing her rear gunner, took out the radio and
miraculously caught the plane on fire.
It was a choice that she had to make, return to base and abort the mission or continue on with
the mission despite the damage done to the plane. When the rest of the men saw that she had chosen
the second option, they knew it was Anna Alexandrovna Timofeyeva-Yegorova instincts kicking in. None
of the men were in shock when she continued on with her dive. Smoke was coming out of her engine
proving that she had a minor fire in her engine. Firing her guns while continued her dive and started to
pull up while her squadron did the same. Completing the first past she and destroying three targets. Her
and her squadron would do this same thing over and over again until, they were all low on ammunition
and fuel and believed they had destroyed the majority of the German army base.
The battle was now over but, Yegorova the squadron that still remained need to travel back.
Passing now back over the same FLAK zone that they had come through. Another FLAK shell was now
come straight towards her and she didnt even know it. The shell exploded right underneath her
creating a concussion that sent her flying out of the top of the plane. Knocking her out for a few
seconds, she awoke about one thousand feet of the ground and pulled her parachute. She still hit the
ground at sixty-seven miles an hour, right in front of a German patrol. The German patrol was a little
out of their minds because they had just seen the sky rain a women. Upon the German patrol found that
she was still moving they took her as a Prisoner of War.

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Work Cited
Timofeyeva-Yegorova, Anna. trans. Margarita Ponomaryova, Kim Green. ed. Kim Green. Red Sky, Black
Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot's Memoir of the Eastern Front. Bloomington, IN: Slavica
Publishers, 2009.