On the square in front of the international airport Krasnodar “Pashkovsky” near the monument to the famous combat pilot of the era of the great Patriotic war, Evdokia bershanskaya appeared an exact copy of the legendary PO-2. It is on these little biplanes flew women’s 588 th night bomber aviation regiment. Fragile girls the Germans called “night witches” – the enemy-aircraft guns with searchlights were not designed for such equipment, and a nimble plane safely escaped.
As you know, the female aviation regiment was based at one time Pashkovskiy airport is now a modern airport. And on the eve of Victory Day employees of the main air Harbor of Krasnodar decided in such an unusual way to tell the residents and guests of the regional capital of historical fact. The plane was assembled according to the drawings a team of eight people. The work took several months. And all details were made by hand, only the chassis inherited from the real PO-2.
the Prototype was a combat aircraft with the inscription “Revenge for military friends Tanya Makarova and Vera Belik!”, which flew in the war pilots, – told correspondent “RG” honored worker of Krasnodar airport Sergey Kirsanov. – Found drawings and began implementation of the idea. The plane body is made of a wooden frame, sheathed with plywood and covered with percale (thin cotton cloth). Instead of the production engine M-11 set of five-cylinder motorcycle “Ural” – the Golden hands of our technicians, he was unrecognizable and now looks very similar to the one that stayed in the aircraft model. But the most difficult part was the wings 10 and 11 meters, made of wood and duralumin. Here we were rescued by the personnel of the base DOSAAF.
an Exact copy of the plane added to the stand with archive images bomber regiment and a description of the exploits of the “night witches”. In October 1941, the instructor-pilot with a decade of experience Evdokia Bershanskaya together with the famous Soviet aviatrix Marina Raskova began the formation of a female air unit. The selection is conducted strictly, therefore, held many exciting moments before the girls-volunteers hands welcome a written answer: “Credited”.
The 588 th night bomber regiment (later transformed into the 46th guards night bomber aviation regiment with the honorary name of the Taman) was truly unique. Girls (the average age of the personnel 18-20 years) for a few months he mastered flying. Trained for 12 hours a day – not only during the day and night. Among the soldiers jokingly called their “Darkinym regiment” – named bershanskaya. However, six months later, the joking subsided: of pilots has shown that in combat is not worse than men, and are even more accurate.
during world war II a brave girl dropped to the position of the German fascist invaders almost three million pounds of bombs, 26 thousand incendiary shells, destroyed and damaged 17 crossings of the enemy, 9 trains, 46 warehouses. 23 girls of the regiment were awarded the highest award – Hero of the Soviet Union, five of them posthumously.
And it was all done on the biplane, used before the war as a training aircraft. Without radio and brospinal, can protect the crew from bullets with a low-powered motor, it could fly only by night.
Way
a copy of the PO-2 will stand at the airport before the parade of Victory, then it will hide in the hangar the next Day to Win again to represent the residents and guests of Krasnodar.
