Anna Yegorova

Early years

Anna Yegorova was born into a peasant family in the village Volodovo (now in Tver Oblast). She had sixteen siblings, eight of whom died in infancy. Her father Alexander Yegorov fought in the First World War and then in the Russian Civil War (on the Bolshevist side). Combat stress and other hardships deteriorated his health and in 1925 he died, at 49 years old. After seven years of school, Yegorova joined Mosmetrostroy, where she worked as a steelman and then as a tiler on the construction of Krasnye Vorota station. Work for Mosmetrostroy allowed her to fly in the Mosmetrostroy aero club. In 1938 she was recommended to the Ulyanovsk flying school and entered it but soon was expelled because her elder brother was arrested as an "enemy of the people". She worked as an bookkeeper's assistant at a weaving factory in Smolensk while tutoring members of the factory's aero club. She was recommended to the Kherson flying school and was successfully graduated in 1939 (following the advice of the chairman of the Smolensk Oblast Communist Party committee, she was silent about her connection to an "enemy of the people"). She became a flight instructor in the Kalinin (now Tver) municipal aero club.

Military career

After the German invasion Anna Yegorova volunteered for the frontline service. In 1941–42, she flew 236 reconnaissance and delivery missions for the 130th Air Liaison Squadron in a wooden biplane, the Polikarpov Po-2 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for distinguished service. After an aircrash which she reported to her commanding officer to be her fault, she was transferred to a training air regiment. In 1943 she was recruited to the 805th Attack Aviation Regiment and flew 41 missions in the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik, including battles above the Taman Peninsula, Crimea and Poland. During these campaigns she flew in formations of four to six aircraft.

During an August 1944 mission when she was in formation of 15 aircraft to attack German forces at the Magnuszew bridgehead near Warsaw, Yegorova's plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Her gunner was killed, and the plane was heavily damaged. Rolling inverted, Yegorova was burned as she left the plane at a low altitude; her parachute only partially opened and she suffered broken bones and other internal injuries on hitting the ground. She was given first aid by her German captors, then taken to a prisoner of war camp where her wounds were tended by Dr. Georgy Sinyakov. Back at her air base, Yegorova was presumed dead and 'posthumously' recommended for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union but this resulted in awarding Order of the Patriotic War 1st class.

On 31 January 1945, Soviet forces overran the Küstrin prisoner camp where she was being held. Yegorova was interrogated as a potential traitor continuously for eleven days at an NKVD filtration camp for returning Soviet prisoners. After others vouched for her injuries and her conduct, she was released but invalided out of the Soviet Air Forces for medical reasons in 1945.

After the War

After her retirement Anna Yegorova married Vyacheslav Timofeev, the commander of her last air division, and became a housewife. Against the advice of physicians she bore two sons: Pyotr and Igor. Because of her former POW status her membership in the Communist Party was terminated. She was not expelled, but her membership card was forfeited "for the failure to pay the membership due during five months". She struggled to be reinstated and succeeded only after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Anna Yegorova was the subject of a feature article in the Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1961, and in 1965, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Honours and awards