THE LAST OF STALIN’S FLYING GIRLS
Galina Pavlovna Brok was born and raised in Moscow, where her father ran a factory.
She was very athletic as a child, talented at many sports including volleyball, swimming, skating and skiing.
Galina planned to go to university but was thwarted when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. The attack was known as Operation Barbarossa.
Moscow was immediately bombarded.
Galina remembered coming out of a cinema with her girlfriends when an air raid siren started. The girls were ushered into an underground station by a policeman.
The station was full of terrified women, children, and elderly people. The girls immediately walked out and went to a military office to sign up – even though an air raid was going on.
“We were athletic and strong and very brave. We were maybe too brave – showing off.”
Galina volunteered for the Women’s Aviation Group in order to help defend her country. This had been founded by pilot Marina Raskova, who had persuaded Joseph Stalin that women could fight as well as men. It would eventually comprise three all-women air regiments.
Galina immediately had her head shaved. Marina had said, “War is not the time for hairstyles.”
Prior to the war, Marina was a celebrity in Soviet Russia, famed for her long-distance flying feats. She was the Eastern European equivalent of Amelia Earhart.
Galina was given men’s military boots four times too large for her. She also had a man’s jacket. The pockets were so low she couldn’t reach them.
She kicked up such a fuss that very soon Galina was supplied with a boy’s jacket (which fitted her) and the correct size boots.
Galina was evacuated east to the Volga city of Samara with 300 other raw recruits, where her flight training took place. The women lived in extremely primitive conditions.
They slept in a freezing, filthy horse stables. There was a frozen pile of manure next to where Galina was allocated to sleep and another one in the bathroom.
Undeterred, Galina went off to find shovels and crowbars, and led the women in removing these unwanted piles. It took them a few hours – but her resilience, determination and leadership skills had already been noticed by her superiors.
By 1943 so many pilots were being killed, that some women were upgraded to train on the Petlyakov PE-2 dive bomber, the pride of the Soviet air force. It was known as the ‘Peshkas’. Galina was one of just nine women selected.
She grew to love her plane, nicknaming it ‘Prawn’. “Like a beautiful bird of prey – but hard to fly.”
This plane was designed for a crew of three, but due to troop shortages was usually flown by just two people. This meant multi-tasking – very dangerous whilst attacking enemy forces.
Galina was a navigator. This meant she was the radio operator as well as the bombardier.
Another of her jobs was to push her pilot as hard as she could in the back on take-off, so that the pilot could (just) reach the instruments.
Galina had maps to help her navigate, but quickly realised they bore no relation to what she could see on the ground. The Germans had cut down forests and destroyed whole villages and towns.
Galina was assigned to the 587th Regiment. The 588th became better known, nicknamed the ‘Night Witches’. They were exactly the same except the latter flew without parachutes as their planes were so cramped.
Galina said her plane was so uncomfortable that she sat on her parachute, using it as a cushion.
Collectively, the three all-women regiments were known as the 125th Borisov Guards Bomber Aviation Group.
It’s founder, Marina Raskova, was killed in action in 1943. After that, every member of the bomb group flew with a picture of Marina in their pocket.
Just before the women went into action, they were inspected by an officer called Georgy Beltsov. He was extremely handsome and the other women were very attracted to him.
Not Galina. “I didn’t want to look at him. I was focused on going to the front.”
That same night, there was a dance to mark their departure. Beltsov sought Galina out and asked for a dance. She told him to find somebody else – and she went home early.
Georgy persevered. When she had gone, he sent her a letter wishing her luck. In it, he included a photograph of a small white stone bear. He wrote, ‘This is our talisman. Please always carry this photo with you when you fly. It will keep you safe.”
She did – and it did!
Galina wrote to thank him. Emboldened, Georgy wrote her three letters a day.
Galina flew her first combat mission on the 23rd of June 1944. The pilot was Antonia Bondareva-Spitsina.
They fought in the Battle of Konigsberg (now known as Kaliningrad), the most easterly of all German cities. The city became a devastated ruin. Galina saw it as revenge for the German destruction of Stalingrad. “That’s war. We were destroying them and conquering them because they were trying to destroy us. They occupied our cities and towns.”
Galina was also involved in the bombing of the port of Pillau (now known as Baltiysk) and the Latvian town of Libow (Liepaja).
During their missions, they had a couple of close shaves. On one occasion they smelled petrol in the cockpit. Antonia noticed a hole in the fuel tank. She bent down to examine it and a German shell shot through the plane, right where her head had been just moments before.
The shell narrowly missed Galina too. Antonia laughed about Galina afterwards. “Even after the mission, her mouth was screwed up in a funny way.”
Another time, their engine cut out. They became easy prey to a couple of German fighters who harried them aggressively – “With terrible smiles on their faces.” However, the German pilots showed unexpected gallantry by letting the Russians get away safely.
Galina and Antonia once had a midair collision and were forced to crash land with their unexploded bombs on board. Luckily, they landed safely in a sandy trench.
The squadron lived in appalling conditions, in dug outs with only an oil drum fire. There was no running water and the women had to heat it in cans before drinking it.
Each time they made their ‘accommodation’ more habitable, they were moved to a different airfield.
The Germans were not the only ones to show some gallantry. On one occasion, Russian fighters dropped a teddy bear on the 587th regiment. A message was attached. It read, ‘Dear young girls, we have just learned we are escorting you. Don’t be frightened, we will do everything to defend you and fight for you with the last drop of blood. Thank you.”
The two women, Galina and Antonia, completed 36 successful missions together.
The whole of the 587th Regiment flew 1,100 missions. At the end of the war, Joseph Stalin wrote each surviving member a personalized thank you letter.
Not all members of the Bomber Regiment celebrated the victory. Many were concerned with how many civilian lives had been lost due to their actions.
In a later interview, a member of the Night Witches (588th Regiment), Tatyana Sumarokova said, “In Soviet years, nobody ever talked about these things. It is so personal – and everyone was suffering in their hearts.”
During the Second World War, just over one thousand women had flown in the Red Airforce.
A total of 800,000 women fought in the Red Army.
When hostilities were finished, Galina was based at Penevezhis in Lithuania.
Georgy Beltsov, now promoted to General, came to find her. He brought with him the sandstone bear – and asked Galina to marry him.
Galina refused. She said she wanted to go to university.
Georgy burst into tears. “I waited the whole war for you. You, with your soldier’s boots – You are tramping on the soul of a man who is devoted to you.”
Galina relented. “I was shocked. It was a cold shower that sobered me up. I decided to change my mind.”
Galina and Georgy were hastily married. There was so many shortages they couldn’t get any food for their wedding breakfast. In the end, they acquired a goose, swapping it for some underwear.
They would have three children.
When Galina was demobbed from the Red Airforce, she was just twenty years old.
Galina also fulfilled her ambition of going to university. She went to Moscow State University, from where she eventually got a PhD in History.
After that, Galina became the Head of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute’s history department – a job she held throughout her working life.
However, simultaneously, Galina was working for the KGB.
Georgy became Head of an aviation school in Moscow.
Georgy died in 2005. They had been married sixty years. She said they only ever had one quarrel – when she accused him of spending too much time at work.
In later years, Galina was always present at events held to commemorate Russian (USSR) victory in the Second World War. Young members of the military were desperate to hear her stories. She said that for her, Victory Day was a mixture of, “Glory, triumph and grief.”
“I was young. We were sent to the military and we went to funeral after funeral. We were jumping from our planes. We were burning. Women died.”
In 2020, Galina was invited to brunch with President Vladimir Putin.
That same year, she moved to Mytischi, a city just outside Moscow, created especially for military veterans. There in her home, she kept beside her the photograph of the small white bear.
She had six state honours and was awarded eighteen medals.
It was in Mytischi that Galina died. She was the last surviving member of all three of Stalin’s all-women air force regiments.
RIP – Russians In Planes
