Tag #114096 - Interview #95052 (Alexander Grin)

We were located far from the front line. Later we were called ‘Long-range aviation’ and became a reserve of the chief commandment. We rarely took part in front line operations. We were sent to the locations of another one of Stalin’s blows. [Editor’s note: 10 subsequent decisive blows on German troops during World War II resulting in the expulsion of Germans from the territory of the Soviet Union. The Soviet propaganda referred to the authorship of Stalin in the development of the strategy of those combat actions and they were called Stalin’s blows.] Our commander was Marshall of Aviation Golovanov. We didn’t get closer than 200 to 300 kilometers from the front line. There were airdromes where we were deployed, but they weren’t always properly equipped; sometimes they were field air fields. The Land Lease provided the so-called ‘net’ to us. [Editor’s note: the system of USA lease or transfer of weapons, ammunition, food and other logistics resources to the countries of anti-Hitler coalition during WWII. The US Congress adopted the Land Lease law in 1941.] It could be placed on the field ground and planes could take off or land on it. We were in the vicinity of Stalingrad till winter.

In winter 1943 we relocated to Ukraine, to the town of Gorlovka in the vicinity of Donetsk liberated from fascists [about 900 km from Moscow]. We flew to drop bombs across Ukraine and Poland. There was one plane in the division equipped with photographic equipment to take photographs of the combat site after the bombardment to control the correctness of fulfillment of combat tasks. There were squadrons or regiments flying on tasks. Besides, each crew wrote a report upon return from tasks, and photographs served as proof of the accuracy of such reports. As far as I understood there were no lies written in reports. Lying might have been punished by the tribunal, penal battalions or execution.