Red Sky, Black Death is the memoir of Anna Yegorova, a female combat pilot for the Soviet Union during WWII. She flew the U-2 as a liaison pilot and later the Il-2 Sturmovik as a ground attack pilot. After hundreds of combat missions over the front, she was shot down, severely wounded, and captured by the Germans. She endured months in a prisoner of war camp/concentration camp, and was eventually liberated. Immediately after her liberation, she was imprisoned by the NKVD and interrogated as a traitor. Though she soon secured her own release, her troubles with the NKVD and KGB continued to dog her for many years.
The book itself arrived in a plastic wrap in mint condition. I wasn't sure what quality to expect since Slavica is a small press that I'd never heard of, but it seems to be a very high quality paperback with no discernible issues with the cover or the binding. The photographs in the center of the book are the standard high gloss you usually get with memoirs so nothing unusual there. A neat feature of the book is that you get a map pocket in the back with a map of the Eastern front. The map seems to be standard paper though. I think it would have been nicer if it had been maybe laminated or put on thicker cardstock or something to make it more robust, but it's still a neat feature nonetheless, and it'll certainly come in handy when reading the book if you're not overly familiar with the Eastern front.
Though I've been waiting for this book to come out in English for some time, I was only cautiously optimistic about it. I've read Soviet memoirs of the war before, and I've found them to be uniformly of lower quality than the Western ones that I've read. There always seems to be a gloomy fatalism that permeates them, a lack of candor and honesty when discussing anything that vaguely relates to the political situation on the ground, and quite frankly it seems to me that it's hard to translate turns of phrase and complicated ideas from Russian into English. It often seems that the whole thought process of Russians in general is very foreign to a modern American reader. So, I was very surprised when this book turned out to be the best aviation memoir I've ever read.
The book tells Anna Yegorova's story from her origins in a small peasant village in Russia to her work in Moscow helping to build the Moscow underground, to her pilot training, and finally to her wartime and post-wartime experiences. The first thing that struck me about the book was the vibrancy of Anna's voice. The woman is just so full of life and so full of memorable anecdotes, and the translator and editor do a fantastic job of bringing that to the forefront. The early part of the book is quite endearing and uplifting as she describes her upbringing in a small peasant village, her relationship with her older brother, and her love of flight. Things take a slightly more ominous turn when her brother is arrested and sent to a Gulag for ten years and as a result she is kicked out of her flying school. She talks openly and honestly about how devastating this was for her, how confused she was, and how angry she was. This is the kind of candor about the harshness of the Soviet system that I have found so lacking in previous memoirs!
When the war begins, Anna ends up volunteering for a liaison squadron flying U-2s. Even if she hadn't moved on to the Il-2, her flights in the U-2 would have been worthy of a memoir in and of themselves. She describes daredevil flights at low altitude over enemy territory, being bounced by 109s in a completely unarmed biplane, crash landings, ferrying around generals, guiding herself through blizzards, and even having a few close encounters with German infantry where she only just manages to escape by the skin of her teeth.
Eventually, Anna managed to secure for herself a transfer to an attack regiment (ShAP) flying the Il-2 Sturmovik. After a lengthy training period, she describes many combat missions flying ground attack over the Eastern front. Throughout it all though, she maintains a focus on the men who served with her in the regiment, and she fills the book with touching anecdotes about each of the men she served with. Even more than the combat, this is really the core of the book - showing the camaraderie and friendship that existed between members of her regiment during the war.
In my mind, the most important contribution Anna makes with her memoir is that she manages to humanize the Soviet combat pilot in a way that a Western audience can easily connect with. You understand her as a person. You understand her hopes and fears, her love and grief. Reading this memoir gives the reader a clear differentiation between the Soviet soldier, who was not at all different from the American soldier, and the Stalinist government that commanded them. Throughout, Anna and many of her friends, fellow pilots, and family members are victims of the Stalinist regime. Her husband had been sent to a Gulag in the 30s, just like her brother. She herself had endured interrogations by SMERSH and later the KGB. But none of that dampened her resolve, or the resolve of other victims of the Soviet regime to fight against the Nazis, free their homeland, and keep their families safe. It's an interesting differentiation that I think is hard for many of us to make, looking at it from the outside.
I cannot recommend this book more highly. It is an entertaining read, a poignant account of a female combat pilot, and an important tool for understanding more clearly the experiences of Soviet soldiers on the Eastern front.
