t k

SA

5-4110 Boris E. Chertok
h t k

SA

5-4110 
Rockets and People

Boris Chertok

The NASA History Series

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASA History Office 

Office of External Relations

Washington, DC

January 2005

NASA SP-2005-4110

Rockets and People

Volume I
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912–

[Rakety i lyudi. English]

Rockets and people / by Boris E. Chertok ; [edited by] Asif A. Siddiq

p. cm. — (NASA History Series) (NASA SP-2005-4110)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912– 2.Astronautics—

Soviet Union—Biography. 3.Aerospace engineers—Soviet Union—

Biography. 4.Astronautics—Soviet Union—History.

I. Siddiqi,Asif A., 1966– II.Title. III. Series. IV. SP-2005-4110.

TL789.85.C48C4813 2004

629.1′092—dc22

20040
I dedicate this book

to the cherished memory

of my wife and friend,

Yekaterina Semyonova Golubkina.

Contents

Series Introduction by Asif A. Siddiqi ix

Foreword by Lt. Gen.Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (Ret.) xxi

Preface to the English Language Edition xxiii

A Few Notes about Transliteration and Translation xxv

List of Abbreviations xxvii

1 Introduction:A Debt to My Generation 1

2 On the Times and My Contemporaries 5

3 Between Two Aerodromes 29

4 School in the Twenties 41

5 Factory No. 22 57

6 In the Bolkhovitinov Design Bureau and KOSTR 99

7 Arctic Triumphs and Tragedies 117

8 “Everything Real Is Rational...” 139

9 Return to Bolkhovitinov 147

10 On the Eve of War 157

11 At the Beginning of the War 173

12 In the Urals 187

13 15 May 1942 193

14 Back in Moscow 201

15 Moscow—Poznan—Berlin 211

16 May Days in Berlin 223

17 What Is Peenemünde? 239

18 To Thuringia 271

19 Nordhausen—City of Missiles and Death 277

20 Birth of the Institute RABE 287

21 Operation “Ost” 299

22 Special Incidents 309

23 In Search of a Real Boss 319

24 Korolev, Glushko, and Our First Encounters in Germany 325

25 Engine Specialists 333

26 The Institute Nordhausen 345

Index 371

vii

Series Introduction

In an extraordinary century, Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok

lived an extraordinary life. He witnessed and participated in many important technological milestones of the twentieth century, and in these volumes, he recollects

them with clarity, humanity, and humility. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow.Thirty years later, he was one of

the senior designers in charge of the Soviet Union’s crowning achievement as a

space power: the launch of Yuriy Gagarin, the world’s first space voyager. Chertok’s

sixty-year-long career, punctuated by the extraordinary accomplishments of both

Sputnik and Gagarin, and continuing to the many successes and failures of the

Soviet space program, constitutes the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In

these four volumes,Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but

also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society’s quest

to explore the cosmos.

Academician Chertok’s memoirs, forged from experience in the Cold War,

provide a compelling perspective into a past that is indispensable to understanding

the present relationship between the American and Russian space programs. From

the end of the World War II to the present day, the missile and space efforts of the

United States and the Soviet Union (and now, Russia) have been inextricably

linked. As such, although Chertok’s work focuses exclusively on Soviet programs

to explore space, it also prompts us to reconsider the entire history of spaceflight,

both Russian and American.

Chertok’s narrative underlines how, from the beginning of the Cold War, the

rocketry projects of the two nations evolved in independent but parallel paths.

Chertok’s first-hand recollections of the extraordinary Soviet efforts to collect,

catalog, and reproduce German rocket technology after World War II provide a

parallel view to what historian John Gimbel has called the Western “exploitation

and plunder” of German technology after the war.1 Chertok describes how the

Soviet design team under the famous Chief Designer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev

ix

1. John Gimbel, Science,Technology, and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1990).
quickly outgrew German missile technology. By the late 1950s, his team pro

the majestic R-7, the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. Usin

rocket, the Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik satellite on 4 October 

from a launch site in remote central Asia.

The early Soviet accomplishments in space exploration, particularly the l

of Sputnik in 1957 and the remarkable flight of Yuriy Gagarin in 1961, 

benchmarks of the Cold War. Spurred by the Soviet successes, the United 

formed a governmental agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Admin

tion (NASA), to conduct civilian space exploration. As a result of Gag

triumphant flight, in 1961, the Kennedy Administration charged NASA to ac

the goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the 

before the end of the decade.”2 Such an achievement would demonstrate A

can supremacy in the arena of spaceflight at a time when both America

Soviet politicians believed that victory in space would be tantamount to pr

nence on the global stage.The space programs of both countries grew in leap

bounds in the 1960s, but the Americans crossed the finish line first when A

astronauts Neil A.Armstrong and Edwin E.“Buzz”Aldrin, Jr. disembarked o

Moon’s surface in July 1969.

Shadowing Apollo’s success was an absent question:What happened to the 

ets who had succeeded so brilliantly with Sputnik and Gagarin? Unknown to 

the Soviets tried and failed to reach the Moon in a secret program that ca

naught.As a result of that disastrous failure, the Soviet Union pursued a gradu

consistent space station program in the 1970s and 1980s that eventually led 

Mir space station.The Americans developed a reusable space transportation s

known as the Space Shuttle. Despite their seemingly separate paths, the 

programs of the two powers remained dependent on each other for rationa

direction. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, cooperation rep

competition as the two countries embarked on a joint program to establish th

permanent human habitation in space through the International Space Station 

Academician Chertok’s reminiscences are particularly important becau

played key roles in almost every major milestone of the Soviet missile and 

programs, from the beginning of World War II to the dissolution of the 

Union in 1991. During the war, he served on the team that developed the 

Union’s first rocket-powered airplane, the BI. In the immediate aftermath 

war, Chertok, then in his early thirties, played a key role in studying and co

ing captured German rocket technology. In the latter days of the Stalinist e

worked to develop long-range missiles as deputy chief engineer of the 

research institute, the NII-88 (pronounced “nee-88”) near Moscow. In 

x

2. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Documents on International Aspe

Exploration and Uses of Outer Space, 1954–1962, 88th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 18 (Washington, DC: GPO

pp. 202-204.
Korolev’s famous OKB-1 design bureau spun off from the institute and assumed a

leading position in the emerging Soviet space program.As a deputy chief designer

at OKB-1, Chertok continued with his contributions to the most important

Soviet space projects of the day:Vostok,Voskhod, Soyuz, the world’s first space

station Salyut, the Energiya superbooster, and the Buran space shuttle.

Chertok’s emergence from the secret world of the Soviet military-industrial

complex, into his current status as the most recognized living legacy of the Soviet

space program, coincided with the dismantling of the Soviet Union as a political

entity. Throughout most of his career, Chertok’s name remained a state secret.

When he occasionally wrote for the public, he used the pseudonym “Boris

Yevseyev.”3 Like others writing on the Soviet space program during the Cold War,

Chertok was not allowed to reveal any institutional or technical details in his writings.What the state censors permitted for publication said little; one could read a

book several hundred pages long comprised of nothing beyond tedious and long

personal anecdotes between anonymous participants extolling the virtues of the

Communist Party. The formerly immutable limits on free expression in the Soviet

Union irrevocably expanded only after Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985

and the introduction of glasnost’ (openness).

Chertok’s name first appeared in print in the newspaper Izvestiya in an article

commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik in 1987. In a

wide-ranging interview on the creation of Sputnik, Chertok spoke with the

utmost respect for his former boss, the late Korolev. He also eloquently balanced

love for his country with criticisms of the widespread inertia and inefficiency that

characterized late-period Soviet society.4 His first written works in the glasnost’

period, published in early 1988 in the Air Force journal Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika

(Aviation and Cosmonautics), underlined Korolev’s central role in the foundation

and growth of the Soviet space program.5 By this time, it was as if all the patched

up straps that held together a stagnant empire were falling apart one by one; even

as Russia was in the midst of one of its most historic transformations, the floodgates of free expression were transforming the country’s own history. People like

Chertok were now free to speak about their experiences with candor. Readers

could now learn about episodes such as Korolev’s brutal incarceration in the late

1930s, the dramatic story behind the fatal space mission of Soyuz-1 in 1967, and

details of the failed and abandoned Moon project in the 1960s.6 Chertok himself

xi

3. See for example, his article “Chelovek or avtomat?” (Human or Automation?) in the book by M.Vasilyev,

ed., Shagi k zvezdam (Footsteps to the Stars) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1972), pp. 281–287.

4. B. Konovalov,“Ryvok k zvezdam” (Dash to the Stars), Izvestiya, October 1, 1987, p. 3.

5. B. Chertok,“Lider” (Leader),Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika no. 1 (1988): pp. 30–31 and no. 2 (1988): pp. 40–41.

6. For early references to Korolev’s imprisonment, see Ye. Manucharova, “Kharakter glavnogo konstruktora”

(The Character of the Chief Designer), Izvestiya, January 11, 1987, p. 3. For early revelations on Soyuz-1 and the

Moon program, see L. N. Kamanin,“Zvezdy Komarova” (Komarov’s Star), Poisk No. 5 (June 1989): pp. 4–5 and L.

N.Kamanin,“S zemli na lunu i obratno” (From the Earth to the Moon and Back), Poisk no. 12 (July 1989): pp. 7–8.
shed light on a missing piece of history in a series of five articles publish

Izvestiya in early 1992 on the German contribution to the foundation of the 

missile program after World War II.7

Using these works as a starting point,Academician Chertok began working 

memoirs. Originally, he had only intended to write about his experiences fro

postwar years in one volume, maybe two. Readers responded so positively to th

volume,Rakety i liudi (Rockets and People) published in 1994, that Chertok c

ued to write, eventually producing four substantial volumes, published in 1996, 

and 1999, covering the entire history of the Soviet missile and space programs

My initial interest in the memoirs was purely historical: I was fascinated b

wealth of technical arcana in the books, specifically projects and concepts th

remained hidden throughout much of the Cold War. Those interested in 

statistics, and the “nuts and bolts” of history will find much that is useful in 

pages. As I continued to read, however, I became engrossed by the overall rh

of Academician Chertok’s narrative, which gave voice and humanity to a 

ostensibly about mathematics and technology. In his writings, I found a ric

that had been nearly absent in most of the disembodied, clinical, and often 

ulative writing by Westerners studying the Soviet space program. Becau

Chertok’s story-telling skills, his memoir is a much needed corrective t

outdated Western view of Soviet space achievements as a mishmash of p

ganda, self-delusion, and Cold War rhetoric. In Chertok’s story, we mee

people with real dreams who achieved extraordinary successes under very 

cult conditions.

Chertok’s reminiscences are remarkably sharp and descriptive. In being 

reflective, Chertok avoids the kind of solipsistic ruminations that often char

ize memoirs. He is both proud of his country’s accomplishments and will

admit failings with honesty. For example, Chertok juxtaposes accounts o

famous aviation exploits of Soviet pilots in the 1930s,especially those to the A

with the much darker costs of the Great Terror in the late 1930s when S

vicious purges decimated the Soviet aviation industry.

xii

7. Izvestiya correspondent Boris Konovalov prepared these publications, which had the general 

Sovetskikh raketnykh triumfov bylo nemetskoye nachalo” (Soviets Rocket Triumphs Had German Orig

Izvestiya, March 4, 1992, p. 5; March 5, 1992, p. 5; March 6, 1992, p. 5; March 7, 1992, p. 5; and March 

p. 3. Konovalov also published a sixth article on the German contribution to American rocketry. 

amerikanskikh raketnykh triumfov takzhe bylo nemetskoye nachalo” (American Rocket Triumphs A

German Origins), Izvestiya, March 10, 1992, p. 7. Konovalov later synthesized the five original article

longer work that included the reminiscences of other participants in the German mission such as V

Barmin and Vasiliy Mishin. See Boris Konovalov, Tayna Sovetskogo raketnogo oruzhiya (Secrets of Soviet 

Armaments) (Moscow: ZEVS, 1992).

8. Rakety i lyudi (Rockets and People) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1994); Rakety i lyudi: Fili 

Tyuratam (Rockets and People: Fili Podlipki Tyuratam) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1996); Rakety i lyu

achiye dni kholodnoy voyny (Rockets and People: Hot Days of the Cold War) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniy

Rakety i lyudi: lunnaya gonka (Rockets and People: The Moon Race) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 19

four volumes were subsequently translated and published in Germany.
Chertok’s descriptive powers are particularly evident in describing the chaotic

nature of the Soviet mission to recover and collect rocketry equipment in

Germany after World War II. Interspersed with his contemporary diary entries, his

language conveys the combination of joy,confusion,and often anti-climax that the

end of the war presaged for Soviet representatives in Germany. In one breath,

Chertok and his team are looking for hidden caches of German matériel in an

underground mine, while in another they are face to face with the deadly consequences of a soldier who had raped a young German woman (chapter 22).9There

are many such seemingly incongruous anecdotes during Chertok’s time in

Germany, from the experience of visiting the Nazi slave labor camp at Dora soon

after liberation in 1945, to the deportation of hundreds of German scientists to

the USSR in 1946. Chertok’s massive work is of great consequence for another

reason—he cogently provides context. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in

1991, many participants have openly written about their experiences, but few have

successfully placed Soviet space achievements in the broader context of the history

of Soviet science, the history of the Soviet military-industrial complex, or indeed

Soviet history in general.10The volumes of memoirs compiled by the Russian State

Archive of Scientific-Technical Documentation in the early 1990s under the

series, Dorogi v kosmos (Roads to Space), provided an undeniably rich and in-depth

view of the origins of the Soviet space program, but they were, for the most part,

personal narratives, i.e., fish-eye views of the world around them.11 Chertok’s

memoirs are a rare exception in that they strive to locate the Soviet missile and

space program in the fabric of broader social, political, industrial, and scientific

developments in the former Soviet Union.

This combination—Chertok’s participation in the most important Soviet

space achievements, his capacity to lucidly communicate them to the reader, and

xiii

9. For the problem of rape in occupied Germany after the war, see Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in

Germany:A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Cambridge, MA:The Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1995), pp. 69–140.

10. For the two most important histories of the Soviet military-industrial complex, see N. S. Simonov,

Voyenno-promyshlennyy kompleks SSSR v 1920-1950-ye gody: tempy ekonomicheskogo rosta, struktura, organizatsiya

proizvodstva i upravleniye (The Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR in the 1920s to 1950s: Rate of

Economic Growth, Structure, Organization of Production and Control) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1996); and I.V.

Bystrova,Voyenno-promyshlennyy kompleks sssr v gody kholodnoy voyny (vtoraya polovina 40-kh – nachalo 60-kh godov)

[The Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR in the Years of the Cold War (The Late 1940s to the Early

1960s)] (Moscow: IRI RAN, 2000). For a history in English that builds on these seminal works and complements them with original research, see John Barber and Mark Harrison, eds.,The Soviet Defence-Industry Complex

from Stalin to Khrushchev (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan Press, 2000).

11. Yu. A. Mozzhorin et al., eds., Dorogi v kosmos: Vospominaniya veteranov raketno-kosmicheskoy tekhniki i

kosmonavtiki, tom I i II (Roads to Space: Recollections of Veterans of Rocket-Space Technology and Cosmonautics:Volumes I and II) (Moscow: MAI, 1992) and Yu.A. Mozzhorin et al., eds., Nachalo kosmicheskoy ery: vospominaniya veteranov raketno-kosmicheskoy tekhniki i kosmonavtiki: vypusk vtoroy (The Beginning of the Space Era:

Recollections of Veterans of Rocket-Space Technology and Cosmonautics: Second Issue) (Moscow: RNITsKD,

1994). For a poorly translated and edited English version of the series, see John Rhea, ed., Roads to Space: An

Oral History of the Soviet Space Program (New York:Aviation Week Group, 1995).
his skill in providing a broader social context—make this work, in my op

one of the most important memoirs written by a veteran of the Soviet 

program. The series will also be an important contribution to the histo

Soviet science and technology.12

In reading Academician Chertok’s recollections, we should not lose sig

the fact that these chapters, although full of history, have their particular per

tive. In conveying to us the complex vista of the Soviet space program, h

given us one man’s memories of a huge undertaking. Other participants of 

very same events will remember things differently. Soviet space history, lik

discipline of history, exists as a continuous process of revision and restate

Few historians in the twenty-first century would claim to be completely o

tive.13 Memoirists would make even less of a claim to the “truth.” In his 

duction, Chertok acknowledges this, saying,“I . . . must warn the reader t

no way do I have pretensions to the laurels of a scholarly historian. Corresp

ingly, my books are not examples of strict historical research. In any mem

narrative and thought are inevitably subjective.” Chertok ably illus

however, that avoiding the pursuit of scholarly history does not necessarily 

the relevance of his story, especially because it represents the opinion 

influential member of the postwar scientific and technical intelligentsia i

Soviet Union.

Some, for example, might not share Chertok’s strong belief in the pow

scientists and engineers to solve social problems, a view that influenced many 

sought to transform the Soviet Union with modern science after the R

Revolution in 1917. Historians of Soviet science such as Loren Graham 

argued that narrowly technocratic views of social development cost the 

Union dearly.14 Technological hubris was, of course, not unique to the 

scientific community, but absent democratic processes of accountability, 

huge Soviet government projects—such as the construction of the Great D

Dam and the great Siberian railway in the 1970s and 1980s—ended up as 

failures with many adverse social and environmental repercussions.Whethe

agrees or disagrees with Chertok’s views,they are important to understand be

they represent the ideas of a generation who passionately believed in the pow

science to eliminate the ills of society. As such, his memoirs add an imp

xiv

12. For key works on the history of Soviet science and technology, see Kendall E. Bailes,Technology 

ety under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia, 1917–1941 (Princeton, NJ: Pr

University Press, 1978); Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History (Cam

Cambridge University Press, 1993); and Nikolai Krementsov, Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

sity Press, 1997).

13. For the American historical discipline’s relationship to the changing standards of objectivity, s

Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity’ Question and the American Historical Profession (Cambrid

Cambridge University Press, 1988).

14. For technological hubris, see for example, Loren Graham, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer:Te

and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
dimension to understanding the mentalité of the Soviets’ drive to become a

modern, industrialized state in the twentieth century.

Chertok’s memoirs are part of the second generation of publications on Soviet

space history, one that eclipsed the (heavily censored) first generation published

during the Communist era. Memoirs constituted a large part of the second generation. In the 1990s, when it was finally possible to write candidly about Soviet

space history, a wave of personal recollections flooded the market. Not only

Boris Chertok, but also such luminaries as Vasiliy Mishin, Kerim Kerimov, Boris

Gubanov, Yuriy Mozzhorin, Konstantin Feoktistov, Vyacheslav Filin, and others

finally published their reminiscences.15 Official organizational histories and journalistic accounts complemented these memoirs, written by individuals with access

to secret archival documents.Yaroslav Golovanov’s magisterial Korolev: Fakty i Mify

(Korolev: Facts and Myths), as well as key institutional works from the Energiya

corporation and the Russian Military Space Forces, added richly to the canon.16

The diaries of Air Force General Nikolay Kamanin from the 1960s to the early

1970s, published in four volumes in the late 1990s, also gave scholars a candid look

at the vicissitudes of the Soviet human spaceflight program.17

The flood of works in Russian allowed Westerners to publish the first works in

English. Memoirs—for example, from Sergey Khrushchev and Roald Sagdeev—

appeared in their English translations. James Harford published his 1997 biography

of Sergey Korolev based upon extensive interviews with veterans of the Soviet

space program.18 My own book, Challenge to Apollo:The Soviet Union and the Space

xv

15. V. M. Filin, Vospominaniya o lunnom korablye (Recollections on the Lunar Ship) (Moscow: Kultura,

1992); Kerim Kerimov, Dorogi v kosmos (zapiski predsedatelya Gosudarstvennoy komissii) [Roads to Space (Notes

of the Chairman of the State Commission)] (Baku: Azerbaijan, 1995); V. M. Filin, Put k ‘Energii’ (Path to

Energiya) (Moscow: Izdatelskiy Dom ‘GRAAL’,’ 1996);V. P. Mishin, Ot sozdaniya ballisticheskikh raket k raketnokosmicheskomu mashinostroyeniyu (From the Creation of the Ballistic Rocket to Rocket-Space Machine Building) (Moscow: Informatsionno-izdatelskiy tsentr ‘Inform-Znaniye,’ 1998); B. I. Gubanov, Triumf i tragediya

‘energii’: razmyshleniya glavnogo konstruktora (The Triumph and Tragedy of Energiya:The Reflections of a Chief

Designer) (Nizhniy novgorod: NIER, four volumes in 1998–2000); Konstantin Feoktistov, Trayektoriya zhizni:

mezhdu vchera i zavtra (Life’s Trajectory: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow) (Moscow:Vagrius, 2000); N. A.

Anifimov, ed., Tak eto bylo—Memuary Yu. A. Mozzhorin: Mozzhorin v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov (How it

Was—Memoirs of Yu. A. Mozzhorin: Mozzhorin in the Recollections of his Contemporaries) (Moscow:

ZAO ‘Mezhdunarodnaya programma obrazovaniya, 2000).

16. Yaroslav Golovanov, Korolev: fakty i mify (Korolev: Facts and Myths) (Moscow: Nauka, 1994); Yu. P.

Semenov, ed.,Raketno-Kosmicheskaya Korporatsiya “Energiya” imeni S. P. Koroleva (Energiya Rocket-Space Corporation Named After S. P. Korolev) (Korolev: RKK Energiya, 1996); V. V. Favorskiy and I.V. Meshcheryakov, eds.,

Voyenno-kosmicheskiye sily (voyenno-istoricheskiy trud): kniga I [Military-Space Forces (A Military-Historical Work):

Book I] (Moscow:VKS, 1997). Subsequent volumes were published in 1998 and 2001.

17. The first published volume was N. P. Kamanin, Skrytiy kosmos: kniga pervaya, 1960–1963gg. (Hidden

Space: Book One, 1960-1963) (Moscow: Infortekst IF, 1995). Subsequent volumes covering 1964–1966,

1967–1968, and 1969–1978 were published in 1997, 1999, and 2001 respectively.

18. Sergei N. Khrushchev,Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park, PA:The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000); Roald Z. Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist: My Adventures in Nuclear

Fusion and Space From Stalin to Star Wars (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993); James Harford, Korolev: How One

Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
Race, 1945–1974, was an early attempt to synthesize the wealth of informatio

narrate a complete history of the early Soviet human spaceflight program.19 S

Zaloga provided an indispensable counterpoint to these space histories in The 

lin’s Nuclear Sword:The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–

which reconstructed the story of the Soviet efforts to develop strategic weap

With any new field of history that is bursting with information based prim

on recollection and interviews, there are naturally many contradictions and i

sistencies. For example, even on such a seemingly trivial issue as the name 

earliest institute in Soviet-occupied Germany,“Institute RABE,” there is no 

agreement on the reason it was given this title. Chertok’s recollections cont

the recollection of another Soviet veteran, Georgiy Dyadin.21 In another 

many veterans have claimed that artillery general Lev Gaydukov’s meeting 

Stalin in 1945 was a key turning point in the early Soviet missile program; 

apparently entrusted Gaydukov with the responsibility to choose an ind

sector to assign the development of long-range rockets (chapter 23). Lists o

tors to Stalin’s office during that period—declassified only very recently—d

however, show that Gaydukov ever met with Stalin in 1945.22 Similarly, 

Russian sources note that the “Second Main Directorate” of the USSR Co

of Ministers managed Soviet missile development in the early 1950s, when i

this body actually supervised uranium procurement for the A-bomb projec

many cases, memoirs provide different and contradictory information on th

same event (different dates, designations, locations, people involved, etc.).

Academician Chertok’s wonderful memoirs point to a solution to 

discrepancies: a “third generation” of Soviet space history, one that builds o

rich trove of the first and second generations, but is primarily based on doc

tary evidence. During the Soviet era, historians could not write history bas

documents since they could not obtain access to state and design bureau arc

As the Soviet Union began to fall apart, historians such as Georgiy Vetrov 

to take the first steps in document-based history. Vetrov, a former engin

xvi

19. Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo:The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974 (Washingto

NASA SP-2000-4408, 2000).The book was republished as a two-volume work as Sputnik and the Sov

Challenge (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003) and The Soviet Space Race with Apollo (Gai

FL: University Press of Florida, 2003).

20. Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclea

1945–2000 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).

21. G.V. Dyadin, D. N. Filippovykh, and V. I. Ivkin, Pamyatnyye starty (Memorable Launches) (M

TsIPK, 2001), p. 69.

22. A.V. Korotkov, A. D. Chernev, and A. A. Chernobayev, “Alfavitnyi ukazatel posetitelei kreml

kabineta I.V. Stalina” (“Alphabetical List of Visitors to the Kremlin Office of I.V. Stalin”), Istoricheskii ar

4 (1998): p. 50.

23. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Kh

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 172; Golovanov, Korolev, p. 454. For the correct citation 

Second Main Directorate, established on December 27, 1949, see Simonov, Voyenno-promyshlennyy kom

pp. 225-226.
Korolev’s design bureau, eventually compiled and published two extraordinary

collections of primary documents relating to Korolev’s legacy.24 Now that all the

state archives in Moscow—such as the State Archive of the Russian Federation

(GARF), the Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), and the Archive of

the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN)—are open to researchers, more results

of this “third generation” are beginning to appear. German historians such as

Matthias Uhl and Cristoph Mick and those in the United States such as myself

have been fortunate to work in Russian archives.25 For example,we no longer have

to guess about the government’s decision to approve development of the Soyuz

spacecraft, we can see the original VPK decree issued on 4 December 1963.26

Similarly, instead of speculating about the famous decree of 3 August 1964 that

committed the Soviet Union to compete with the American Apollo program, we

can study the actual government document issued on that date.27 Academician

Chertok deserves much credit for opening the doors for future historians, since his

memoirs have guided many to look even deeper.

because of the importance of Academician Chertok’s memoirs,I did not hesitate when Acting Chief of the NASA History Division Stephen Garber invited me

to serve as project editor for the English-language version. Jesco von Puttkamer, a

veteran of the Huntsville team founded by Wernher von Braun,served as the guiding spirit behind the entire project. He was instrumental in setting up the arrangements for cooperation between the two parties; without his passion and

enthusiasm for bringing Chertok’s writings to a broader audience, this endeavor

might not have gone beyond conception. Once the project was initiated, I was

excited to learn that Academician Chertok would be providing entirely new chap

xvii

24. M.V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty (The Creative Legacy of Sergey Pavlovich Korolev: Selected Works and Documents) (Moscow: Nauka,

1980); G. S.Vetrov and B.V. Raushenbakh, eds., S. P. Korolev i ego delo: svet i teni v istorii kosmonavtiki: izbrannyye

trudy i dokumenty (S. P. Korolev and His Cause: Shadow and Light in the History of Cosmonautics) (Moscow:

Nauka,1998).For two other published collections of primary documents,seeV.S.Avduyevskiy and T.M.Eneyev,

eds. M.V. Keldysh: izbrannyye trudy: raketnaya tekhnika i kosmonavtika (M.V. Keldysh: Selected Works: Rocket Technology and Cosmonautics) (Moscow: Nauka, 1988); B.V. Raushenbakh, ed., Materialy po istorii kosmicheskogo

korablya ‘vostok’: k 30-letiyu pervogo poleta cheloveka v kosmicheskoye prostranstvo (Materials on the History of the

‘Vostok’ Space Ship: On the 30th Anniversary of the First Flight of a Human in Space) (Moscow: Nauka, 1991).

25. Matthias Uhl, Stalins V-2: Der Technolgietransfer der deutschen Fernlenkwaffentechnik in die UdSSR und

der Aufbau der sowjetischen Raketenindustrie 1945 bis 1959 (Bonn, Germany: Bernard & Graefe-Verlag, 2001);

Christoph Mick, Forschen für Stalin: Deutsche Fachleute in der sowjetischen Rüstungsindustrie 1945-1958 (Munich:

R. Oldenbourg, 2000); Asif A. Siddiqi, “The Rockets’ Red Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination,

1857–1957,” Ph.D. dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, 2004.

26. “O sozdaniia kompleksa ‘Soyuz’ ” (On the Creation of the Soyuz Complex), December 4, 1963, RGAE,

f. 298, op. 1, d. 3495, ll. 167-292.

27. “Tsentralnyy komitet KPSS i Sovet ministrov SSSR, postanovleniye” (Central Committee KPSS and

SSSR Council of Ministers Decree), August 3, 1964, RGAE, f. 29, op. 1, d. 3441, ll. 299-300. For an Englishlanguage summary, see Asif A. Siddiqi,“A Secret Uncovered:The Soviet Decision to Land Cosmonauts on the

Moon,” Spaceflight 46 (2004): pp. 205-213.
ters for most of the four volumes, updated and corrected from the original 

ian-language editions. In that sense, these English-language versions are the 

updated and final versions of Chertok’s memoirs.

As editor, my work was not to translate, a job that was very capably do

a team at the award-winning TechTrans International, Inc. (TTI) based in H

ton, Texas. At TTI, Documents Control Manager Delila Rollins and 

Sukholutsky expertly and capably supervised the very large project. Cy

Reiser, Laurel Nolen, and Lydia Bryans worked on the actual translations 

skill, insight, and good humor.With the translations in hand, my job was fir

foremost to ensure that the English language version was as faithful to Che

vision as possible.At the same time, I also had to account for stylistic cons

tions for English-language readers who might be put off by literal transla

The process involved communicating directly with Chertok in many case

with his permission, taking liberties to restructure paragraphs and chapt

convey his original spirit. I also provided many explanatory footnotes to 

date points that might not be evident to readers unversed in the intricac

Russian history.

Many at NASA Headquarters contributed to publication of the memoirs

Garber at the NASA History Office managed the project from beginning to 

I personally owe a dept of gratitude to Steve for his insightful comments thr

out the editorial process.We must also thank Steven J. Dick, the current N

Chief Historian, as well as Nadine J.Andreassen,William P. Barry,Todd McI

and Claire Rojstaczer for all their terrific help. In the Printing and Design O

Wes Horne expertly copyedited this book, Paul Clements skillfully laid it ou

Jeffrey McLean carefully saw it through the printing process.

I would also like to thank Dmitry Pieson in Moscow for graciously assist

my communications with Academician Chertok, and Dr. Matthias Uhl for i

of German rockets.

Please note that all footnotes in this volume are mine unless specifically 

as “author’s footnotes.”

A note about the division of material in the volumes. Because of sign

additions and corrections,Academician Chertok has altered somewhat the 

bution of materials.The English language edition follows a more-or-less se

tial narrative storyline rather than one that goes back-and-forth in time. In th

English volume, he describes his childhood, his formative years as an engin

the aviation Plant No. 22 in Fili, his experiences during World War II, an

mission to Germany in 1945–46 to study captured German missile technol

In the second volume, he continues the story with his return to the 

Union, the reproduction of a Soviet version of the German V-2 and the dev

ment of a domestic Soviet rocket industry at the famed NII-88 institute 

Moscow suburb of Podlipki (now called Korolev). He describes the develop

of the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7; the laun

Sputnik; and the first generation probes sent to the Moon.

xviii
In the third volume, he describes the historical launch of the first cosmonaut,

Yuriy Gagarin. He also discusses several different aspects of the burgeoning Soviet

missile and space programs of the early 1960s, including the development of early

ICBMs, reconnaissance satellites, the Cuban missile crisis, the first Soviet communications satellite Molniya-1, the early spectacular missions of the Vostok and

Voskhod programs, the dramatic Luna program to land a probe on the Moon, and

Sergey Korolev’s last days. He then continues into chapters about the early development of the Soyuz spacecraft, with an in-depth discussion of the tragic mission

of Vladimir Komarov.

The fourth and final volume is mostly devoted to the Soviet project to send

cosmonauts to the Moon in the 1960s, covering all aspects of the development of

the giant N-1 rocket. The last portion of this volume covers the origins of the

Salyut and Mir space station programs, ending with a fascinating description of the

massive Energiya-Buran project, developed as a countermeasure to the American

Space Shuttle.

it was my great fortune to meet with Academician Chertok in the summer

of 2003. During the meeting, Chertok, a sprightly ninety-one years old, spoke

passionately and emphatically about his life’s work and remained justifiably proud

of the achievements of the Russian space program. As I left the meeting, I was

reminded of something that Chertok had said in one of his first public interviews

in 1987. In describing the contradictions of Sergey Korolev’s personality, Chertok

had noted:“This realist, this calculating, [and] farsighted individual was, in his soul,

an incorrigible romantic.”28 Such a description would also be an apt encapsulation

of the contradictions of the entire Soviet drive to explore space, one which was

characterized by equal amounts of hard-headed realism and romantic idealism.

Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok has communicated that idea very capably

in his memoirs, and it is my hope that we have managed to do justice to his own

vision by bringing that story to an English-speaking audience.

Asif A. Siddiqi

Series Editor

July 2004

xix

28. Konovalov,“Ryvok k zvezdam.”

Foreword

After years of being beaten to the punch by our Soviet counterparts

during the space race, those of us flying in the Gemini program wondered why

the Soviets did not seem to be responding to the string of Gemini successes in the

mid-1960s.Aleksei Leonov, my counterpart in 1975 as the Russian commander of

the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), had shaken up our early plans for Gemini

by conducting the first spacewalk, what we refer to as extravehicular activity

(EVA), in March 1965. But after Aleksei’s EVA, the Soviet space program was curiously inactive. We flew increasingly long-duration missions. We perfected

rendezvous and docking, and practiced the EVA skills we would need for the

Apollo missions to the Moon.We were sure the Russians were still in the race to

the Moon—but they weren’t doing what they needed to do to get there. The

entire world knew our intentions, but there no longer appeared to be a Soviet

effort to upstage our missions.What was going on? 

After the Leonov EVA, there were no Soviet manned missions for over two

years. In April 1967, the Soviets unveiled a new spacecraft called Soyuz. Despite

the long preparations and all of the past Soviet successes, the first Soyuz mission

was a disaster. It lasted only seventeen orbits, and cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov

was killed when his Soyuz descent module malfunctioned during re-entry and hit

the ground at over 100 miles per hour.The Soviets were so secretive about their

space program at the time that they even rejected a U.S. offer to send a representative to Komarov’s funeral.They told us the ceremony was “private.”This was the

harsh and curious reality of the early days of space exploration.

Our relationship with our former Soviet competitors has changed fundamentally in the last forty years. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this change—

from commanding our ASTP mission to advising on the International Space

Station now being built in orbit. In recent years I have learned that the Soviets

really did want to beat us to the Moon in the 1960s. In fact, they had several

programs designed to upstage Apollo, but their space and missile programs were

starved for cash and torn by competition among their leaders. One of the biggest

setbacks to their space program was the death of Sergei Korolev in January 1966.

Korolev was the leader of OKB-1, the design bureau responsible for virtually all

of the Soviet successes in the early space race.Without Korolev’s leadership and

xxi
ability to get things done in the Soviet bureaucracy, the brilliant folks who w

on the Russian space program were unable to respond effectively to the G

and Apollo programs.

Since the late 1980s, the answers to the questions we had in the 1960

trickled out in the Russian press, in books, and in frank conversations wi

participants.I’ve heard many stories about the bravery,success,and tragedy th

Russian colleagues faced in their space program. The Russians are great 

tellers, and many of the tales about their space program are riveting. But 

Chertok is one of the greatest storytellers of them all.And what a story he 

tell! Chertok played a part in virtually every major event in the developm

the Soviet and Russian space programs. As a former deputy to Koro

OKB-1, Chertok has an insider’s perspective on the space race. He has cont

to work for the same organization, now known as Rocket Space Corpo

Energia, throughout his long and interesting life. In the memoirs translated 

Chertok tells his stories with compassion, humor, and an unflinching eye f

facts.This is far more than the memoir of an interesting life. Chertok has p

great sweep of twentieth century Russian history, and the role of the 

program in that history, into perspective. He has pulled together an incr

detailed narrative with a unique Russian perspective that is written in a de

fully easy style to read.The translators and editors of this English-language v

of Chertok’s memoirs have done a fantastic job of capturing the tone and n

of great Russian storytelling. For anyone who has ever wondered, like m

what was going on in the Soviet space program, this memoir will provi

invaluable and enjoyable insight.

Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (Ret.)

Gemini VI

Gemini IX

Apollo X

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

September 2004

xxii
Preface to the English Language Edition

In 2001, i accepted nasa’s offer to translate my four-volume memoir,

Rockets and People, into English for publication in the United States. By then I had

accumulated a large number of critical remarks and requests from the readers of the

Russian edition. In addition, after three Russian editions had come out, I myself

came to the conclusion that in the new edition I must make additions and changes

that make it easier for the American reader to understand the history of Soviet

cosmonautics.As a result,this new English-language edition is far from being a wordfor-word translation of the Russian edition. I changed the total number of chapters

and their arrangement among the volumes (to more strictly adhere to chronology)

and took into consideration some of my readers’ criticisms as far as the need to add

information and make clarifications to make it easier to understand complex events.

As a result of these changes, the description of the flight of Yuriy Gagarin in the

English-language version has been moved from volume 2 to volume 3. Correspondingly, part of the material in volume 3 of the Russian edition has been

moved to volume 4 in the English version.

Making additions, changes, and revisions to the text proved to be much more

difficult for me than doing a rewrite. By the way, this is true not only of printed

works.The history of aerospace technology abounds with cases where more effort

went into modifying and changing rockets or spacecraft after they had been put

into service than on the development of the prototypes.

To begin creating an improved four-volume edition at my age is a risky undertaking. Throughout 2003 and 2004, the texts of the first two volumes of the

new edition were handed over to NASA. I still hope to finish working on the new

edition of volumes three and four in 2005. Huntsville veteran Jesco von Puttkamer

has rendered me great moral support.

Over the course of e-mail correspondence and personal meetings, he has

convinced me that the work on “Project Chertok” has been met with enthusiasm

in NASA’s historical research department.

I express my sincere gratitude to all those at NASA Headquarters who are

assisting in the publication of my memoirs.

I am particularly grateful to Asif A. Siddiqi, who has agreed to be my editor.

His erudition, command of the Russian language, and profound knowledge of

xxiii
the history of Soviet aviation and cosmonautics are a guarantee against 

ble errors.

Mikhail Turchin has rendered invaluable assistance to “Project Chertok

transcribes my manuscript notes into electronic copy, keeps a list of the ind

als mentioned in each chapter, scans photographs, and handles the transmiss

all the information to NASA. He also edits all the material and gives va

advice on the structure of the books.

I am sincerely grateful to the veterans of cosmonautics whose va

comments have provided a very strong stimulus for working on the new e

of my memoirs.

Boris Chertok

Moscow

October 2004

xxiv
A Few Notes about

Transliteration and Translation

The russian language is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, which consists

of 33 letters.While some of the sounds that these letters symbolize have equivalents

in the English language, many have no equivalent, and two of the letters have no

sound of their own, but instead “soften” or “harden” the preceding letter. Because of

the lack of direct correlation, a number of systems for transliterating Russian (i.e.,

rendering words using the Latin alphabet), have been devised, all of them different.

xxv

aaa  ̆

bbb

vvv

ggg

ddd

y ̆e ye* / e e

y ̄o yë* / ë ë

zh zh zh

zzz

eii  ̄

shortened  ̄ey  ̆ı

kkk

lll

mmm

nnn

ooo

ppp

rrr

sss

ttt

uuu  ̄

fff

kh kh kh

ts ts ts

ch ch ch

sh sh sh

shch shch shch

(hard sign) ′′ ′′

guttural  ̄ey y

(soft sign) ′ ′

ee ̆  ̆ ı

y ̄u yu iu

y ̆a ya ia

* Initially and after vowels

Russian US Board on Library of

Alphabet Pronunciation Geographic Names Congress
For this series, Editor Asif Siddiqi selected a modification of the U.S. Boa

Geographic Names system, also known as the University of Chicago system

felt it better suited for a memoir such as Chertok’s, where the intricacies 

Russian language are less important than accessibility to the reader.The mod

tions are as follows:

• the Russian letters “ ” and “ ” are not transliterated, in order to make 

ing easier;

• Russian letter “ë”is denoted by the English “e”(or “ye”initally and after vow

hence, the transliteration “Korolev”, though it is pronounced “Koroly ̄o

The reader may find some familiar names to be rendered in an unfamilia

This occurs when a name has become known under its phonetic spelling, su

“Yuri” versus the transliterated “Yuriy,” or under a different transliteration sy

such as “Baikonur” (LoC) versus “Baykonur” (USBGN).

In translating Rakety i lyudi, we on the TTI team strove to find the b

between faithfulness to the original text and clear, idiomatic English. For iss

technical nomenclature, we consulted with Asif Siddiqi to determine the stan

for this series.The cultural references, linguistic nuances, and “old sayings” Ch

uses in his memoirs required a different approach from the technical passages

cannot be translated literally: the favorite saying of Flight Mechanic N

Godovikov (chapter 7) would mean nothing to an English speaker if giv

“There was a ball, there is no ball,” but makes perfect sense when translat

“Now you see it, now you don’t.”The jargon used by aircraft engineers and 

engine developers in the 1930s and 1940s posed yet another challenge.At tim

had to do linguistic detective work to come up with a translation that con

both the idea and the “flavor”of the original.Puns and plays on words are exp

in footnotes.Rakety i lyudi has been a very interesting project, and we have en

the challenge of bringing Chertok’s voice to the English-speaking world.

TTI translation team

Houston,TX

October 2004

xxvi
List of Abbreviations

BAO Aerodrome Maintenance Battalion

BON Special Purpose Brigade

ChK or Cheka Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with

Counter-Revolution and Sabotage

DB-A Academy Long-Range Bomber

DVL German Aviation Research Institute

Elektrozavod Electrical Factory

ESBR electric bomb release

FON Special Purpose Faculty

FZU Factory Educational Institution

GAU Main Artillery Directorate

GDL Gas Dynamics Laboratory

GIRD Group for the Study of Reactive Motion

GKChP State Committee on the State of Emergency

GKO State Defense Committee

Glavaviaprom Main Directorate of the Aviation Industry

Gosplan State Planning Commission

GTD gas turbine engine

GTO Ready for Labor and Defense

GTsP State Central Firing Range

GULAG Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps

GURVO Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments

ISS International Space Station

KB Design Bureau

KGB Committee for State Security

KOSTR Design Department for Construction

LII Flight-Research Institute

LIS flight-testing station

MAI Moscow Aviation Institute

MAP Ministry of Aviation Industry

MEI Moscow Power Institute

MEP Ministry of Electronics Industry

xxvii
MGU Moscow State University

MM Ministry of Machine Building

MOM Ministry of General Machine Building

MOP Ministry of Defense Industry

MPSS Ministry of Communications Equipment Industry

MRP Ministry of Radio Industry

MSM Ministry of Medium Machine Building

MSP Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry

MVTU Bauman Moscow Higher Technical Institute

Narkomvoyenmor People’s Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs

NEP New Economic Policy

NII Scientific-Research Institute

NISO Scientific Institute for Aircraft Equipment

NII SKA Scientific-Research Institute for Communications of th

Red Army

NII TP Scientific-Research Institute of Thermal Processes

NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs

NPO Scientific-Production Association

OGPU United State Political Directorate

OBO Electrical Equipment Department

ODON Separate Special Purpose Division

OKB Experimental-Design Bureau

ORM Experimental Rocket Motor

OS final assembly shop

OSO Special Equipment Department

OTK Department of Technical Control

PPZh field camp wives

PUAZO anti-aircraft fire-control equipment

RD reactive engine

RD long-range record

Revvoyensovet Revolutionary Military Council

RKKA Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (Red Army)

RL radio communications link

RNII Reactive Scientific-Research Institute

RSB air-to-air transceiver station

RSDRP Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party

SKB Special Design Bureau

SMERSH Death to Spies

SON fire control radars

Spetskom Special Committee

SPU aircraft intercom system

SVA Soviet Military Administration

SVAG Soviet Military Administration in Germany

xxviii
TEKhNO Department of Technological Preparations

TRD turbojet engine

TsAGI Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute

TsIK Central Executive Committee

TsKB Central Design Bureau

TsSKB Central Specialized Design Bureau

VEI All-Union Electrical Institute

VKP(b) All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks)

VPK Military-Industrial Commission

VRD jet engine

VTsIK All-Russian Central Executive Committee

ZhRD liquid propellant rocket engine

ZIKh M.V. Khrunichev Factory

ZIS I.V. Stalin Automobile Factory

xxix

Chapter 1

Introduction: A Debt to My Generation

On 1 March 2002, I turned ninety. On that occasion, many people not only

congratulated me and wished me health and prosperity, but also insisted that I

continue my literary work on the history of rocket-space science and technology.1

I was eighty years old when I had the audacity to think that I possessed not only

waning engineering capabilities, but also literary skills sufficient to tell about “the

times and about myself.”

I began to work in this field in the hope that Fate’s goodwill would allow my

idea to be realized. Due to my literary inexperience, I assumed that memoirs on

the establishment and development of aviation and, subsequently, rocket-space

technology and the people who created it could be limited to a single book of no

more than five hundred pages.

However, it turns out that when one is producing a literary work aspiring to

historical authenticity, one’s plans for the size and the deadlines fall through, just as

rocket-space systems aspiring to the highest degree of reliability exceed their

budgets and fail to meet their deadlines. And the expenses grow, proportional to

the failure to meet deadlines and the increase in reliability.

Instead of the original idea of a single book, my memoirs and musings took up

four volumes, and together with the publishing house I spent six years instead of

the planned two! Only the fact that the literary work was a success, which neither

the publishing house nor I expected, validated it.

The Moscow publishing house Mashinostroyeniye had already published three

editions of books combined under the single title Rockets and People.The ElbeDnepr publishing house translated and published these books for the German

reader. Unfortunately, in the process of reissuing and translating these books, it

was not possible to make changes and additions for reasons similar to the series

production of technologically complex systems. As a rule, improvements are not

made to works of artistic literature. But for a historical memoir, the author has

1

1. The phrase “rocket-space technology,” though unfamiliar in Western vernacular, is commonly used by

Russians to denote a complete system of elements that include a particular spacecraft, the launch vehicles used

to put them into space, and the various subsystems involved. A comparable term in Western English would be

“space technology.”
the right to make corrections if he is convinced, on his own or with the assi

of his readers, that they are necessary.

I am not a historian, but an engineer who participated directly in the cr

of rocket-space technology from its first timid steps to the triumphant ach

ments of the second half of the twentieth century. Work on the leading ed

the scientific-technical front transformed creatively thinking engineers into 

figures upon whom various academic degrees and titles were conferred. As 

the mass media,including the foreign media,refer to such persons simply as “

tists.” I, however, must warn the reader that in no way do I pretend to we

laurels of a scholarly historian. Correspondingly, my books are not examp

strict historical research. In any memoir, narrative and thought are inev

subjective. When describing historical events and individuals who have be

widely known, the author is in danger of exaggerating his involvement and 

Obviously my memoirs are no exception. But this is simply unavoidable, p

rily because one remembers what one was involved with in the past. For me

on these memoirs was not an amateur project or hobby, but a debt ow

comrades who have departed this life. At the Russian Academy of Scien

served for many years, on a voluntary basis, as deputy to Academician 

Viktorovich Rauschenbach—Chairman of the Commission for the Develop

of the Scientific Legacy of the Pioneers of Space Exploration. After Raus

bach’s death,I was named chairman of this commission. Work in this field no

keeps me busy, but also brings me satisfaction. At times I feel somewhat like 

2

From author’s 

Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok speaking with news correspondents in 1992 at the sit

the former Institute RABE in Bleicherode, Germany. 
machine, acting as an absolutely necessary link between times. There is nothing at

the present and in the future that does not depend on the past. Consequently, my

product has consumer value, for it reveals systemic links between the past and the

present, and may help to predict the future.

I lived through eighty-eight years in the twentieth century. In the three thousand year history of human civilization, this brief segment in time will be noted as

a period of scientific-technical revolution and of breakthroughs into realms of the

macro and micro world that were previously inaccessible to humanity. The scientific-technical revolutions of the twentieth century were intertwined with social

revolutions, many local wars, two hot World Wars, and one forty-year Cold War.

In September 2000, while presenting a paper in Kaluga at the Thirty-fifth

Annual Lectures dedicated to the development of the scientific legacy and ideas of

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskiy, I noted that of primary importance for the

theory of rocket technology were the works of Ivan Vasilyevich Meshcherskiy on

the movement of a body with variable mass and Tsiolkovskiy’s paper, published in

1903, the essence of which is expressed in the formula:

VK = W ln (1 + M0/MK).

Here VK is the maximum flight speed of a rocket, whose engine ejects the gas of

the spent fuel at a rate of W, while M0 and MK are the initial and final mass of the

rocket respectively. During the first decades of the twentieth century, a narrow

circle of lone enthusiasts who dreamed of interplanetary flight were captivated by

the works of Tsiolkovskiy and by analogous, independent works published somewhat later by Hermann Oberth in Germany and Robert Goddard in the United

States. In 1905, the German journal Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics) first

published Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity containing the formula:

E = mc2

From this formula, now known to schoolchildren, it followed that mass is an

enormous,“frozen” quantity of energy.

In spite of their revolutionary importance for science, the appearance of these

two new, very simple formulas did not lead to any revolution in the consciousness

of the world’s scientific community during the first decade of the twentieth

century. It was only forty years later that humanity realized that technological

systems using these fundamental principles of rocket-space and nuclear energy

threatened its very existence.

Examples of discoveries by lone scientists that did not initially cause excitement

but later would stun humanity are not isolated. During the second half of the

twentieth century, the formulas of Tsiolkovskiy and Einstein entered high school

textbooks, and strategic nuclear missile armaments came to determine the political climate on planet Earth.

3
The peoples of the former Soviet Union enriched civilization with scie

technical achievements that have held a deserved place among the pri

victories of science and technology in the twentieth century. In the proc

working on my memoirs, I regretfully became convinced of how many gaps 

are in the history of the gigantic technological systems created in the 

Union after the Second World War. Previously, such gaps were justified by a 

itarian regime of secrecy. Currently, however, it is ideological collapse that t

ens the objective recounting of the history of domestic science and techn

The consignment to oblivion of the history of our science and technol

motivated by the fact that its origins date back to the Stalin epoch or t

period of the “Brezhnev stagnation.”2

The most striking achievements of nuclear, rocket, space, and radar techn

were the results of single-minded actions by Soviet scientists and engine

colossal amount of creative work by the organizers of industry and the scie

technical intelligentsia of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan,Armenia, Ge

Azerbaijan—and to one extent or another all the republics of the former 

Union—was invested in the creation of these systems. The alienation of the p

from the history of their science and technology cannot be justified by any 

logical considerations.

I am part of the generation that suffered irredeemable losses, to whose lot 

twentieth century fell the most arduous of tests. From childhood, a sense o

was inculcated in this generation—a duty to the people, to the Motherland, 

parents, to future generations, and even to all of humanity. I am convinced th

my contemporaries and me, this sense of duty was very steadfast. This was o

the most powerful stimuli for the creation of these memoirs. To a great exten

people about whom I am reminiscing acted out of a sense of duty. I have ou

many of them and will be in debt to them if I do not write about the civ

scientific feats that they accomplished.

4

2. The “Brezhnev Stagnation” refers to the period in the 1970s characterized by economic 

tion,the suppression of political and artistic dissent,and the growth of a massive inefficient burea
Chapter 2

On the Times and My Contemporaries

This chapter should not be considered part of my memoirs,recollections,or reflections, but rather excerpts from the history of rocket-space technology and state

politics that I deemed necessary to cite at the very beginning of my memoirs in

order to move the reader into the “frame of reference” that will facilitate his familiarization with the subsequent content of my works.

Rocket-space technology was not created in a vacuum. It is worth remembering that during the Second World War the Soviet Union produced more airplanes

and artillery systems than our enemy, fascist Germany. At the end of the Second

World War the Soviet Union possessed enormous scientific-technical potential and

defense industry production capacity. After the victory over Germany, American

and Soviet engineers and scientists studied Germany’s developments in the field of

rocket technology. Each of these countries profited from the captured materials in

their own way, and this had a decisive role at the beginning of the postwar phase

of the development of rocket technology. However, all of the subsequent achievements of our cosmonautics are the result of the activity of our own scientists, engineers, and workers.

I will attempt to briefly describe the foundation upon which cosmonautics

was erected and the role of individuals in the history of this field of science

and technology.

In the history of our rocket-space technology, a decisive role belongs to

Academician S. P. Korolev and the Council of Chief Designers created under his

leadership—a body that was unprecedented in the history of world science.

The initial members of the Council were: Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, Chief

Designer of the rocket system as a whole; Valentin Petrovich Glushko,

Chief Designer of rocket engines; Nikolay Alekseyevich Pilyugin, Chief Designer

of the autonomous guidance system; Mikhail Sergeyevich Ryazanskiy, Chief

Designer of radio navigation and radio guidance systems; Vladimir Pavlovich

Barmin, Chief Designer of ground fueling, transport, and launch equipment; and

Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov, Chief Designer of gyroscopic command instruments.

The role played by Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh was also very great. He was

considered the “chief theoretician of cosmonautics” and was actually the organizer

of a school of mathematics that solved many practical problems of rocket dynamics.

5
As the sphere of its activity expanded, the Council was enriched with 

names, and in the ensuing years of the space age its ranks have included A

Mikhaylovich Isayev, Semyon Ariyevich Kosberg, Aleksey Fedorovich Bogom

Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan, Yuriy Sergeyevich Bykov, Armen Sergey

Mnatsakanyan, Nikolay Stepanovich Lidorenko, Fedor Dmitriyevich Tk

Semyon Mikhaylovich Alekseyev, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Khrustalev, Gay 

Severin, and Aleksandr Dmitriyevich Konopatov.

All of these people recognized Korolev as the leader, director, and comm

of Soviet cosmonautics. Each of the individuals listed above had the official t

Chief Designer. Each became the founder of his own school, developing hi

special field of emphasis. The ideas that emerged in the organizations of 

Chief Designers could only have been realized using the scientific potential 

entire nation, with the assistance of powerful industry. Hundreds of factorie

industrial, academic, military, and higher education scientific institutions 

drawn into the Council of Chiefs’ ideological sphere of influence.

Ministers and government officials who were directly involved in rocket

matters did not oppose the authority of the Council of Chiefs. Sometimes

themselves participated in its work. Disposed with real economic and po

power, the ruling echelons of the Soviet state by and large supported the C

cil’s technical proposals.

Later Councils of Chiefs were created using the Korolev Council as a m

These were headed by Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel,Vladimir Nikolayevich Chel

Aleksandr Davidovich Nadiradze, Viktor Petrovich Makeyev, Dmitiriy 

Kozlov, Georgiy Nikolayevich Babakin, and Mikhail Fedorovich Reshetnev

The interconnectedness of these Councils was unavoidable.The Chief D

ers—members of the first Korolev Council enriched by the experience of pr

ing the first rocket systems—began the development of rockets for other 

Designers and entered into new Councils. Glushko created engines for Koro

well as for Chelomey and Yangel; Isayev created engines for Korolev and Mak

Pilyugin created guidance systems for Korolev and then for Yangel, Chelome

Nadiradze; Barmin created launch systems for Korolev,Yangel, and Chelo

rockets.The development of Kuznetsov’s gyroscopic systems proved to be the 

universal.They were used on the majority of Soviet rockets and many spac

It was only a matter of time before the command and measurement com

equipped with the radio systems of Ryazanskiy, Bogomolov, and Mnatsak

became the standard for everyone.

Similar technocratic structures also existed in the nuclear industry (und

leadership of Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov) and in the field of radar (unde

leadership of Aksel Ivanovich Berg, Aleksandr Andreyevich Raspletin, Gr

Vasilyevich Kisunko, and Boris Vasilyevich Bunkin).Their sphere of scientific

nical activity included production, scientific institutions, and military organiza

Long before the Councils of Chief Designers, which directed the product

rocket-space technology, the aviation industry had set up its own system of 

6
and general designers. The name of the chief designer was given to all of the

aircraft created under his leadership as something akin to a trademark.There were

no democratic Councils in aviation similar to the Korolev Council until they

became involved with the development of air-defense and ABM missiles.

By the end of the 1970s, the Soviet Union had the strongest technocratic elite

in the world.While remaining outwardly devoted to the politics of the Communist state, the leaders of this elite did not shy away from criticizing among themselves the obvious shortcomings of the political system, the continuing offenses of

the Cold War, and the persecutions of “dissident” individuals that flared up from

time to time. However, the technocracy undertook no actions to exert political

pressure on the powers that be. The persecution of Andrey Sakharov serves as a

typical example of this. It seems to me that this case demonstrated a lack of skill in

organizing politically that is characteristic of the intelligentsia in general, and the

Russian intelligentsia in particular.

i have tried to remember the outstanding, unique individuals whom I have

worked with and encountered. They were all different, and it is impossible to

impose a certain standard on a Soviet scientist or Chief Designer. For all the diversity of their characters, work styles, and the thematic directions of their activity,

they were characterized by common traits that distinguished their creative work

substantially from the established notions about great scientists of the past. This was

true not only for the people mentioned above, but also for other figures of Soviet

science and technology who were involved in the scientific military-industrial

complex. Perhaps a list of these general traits will, to a certain degree, serve as a

response to the question as to why, despite possessing colossal potential strength,

these individuals never tried to obtain real power in the country. Allow me to present my formulation of these general traits.

1. Technical creative work was a vocation, the meaning of life. Pure science was

viewed not as an end in itself, but as a means for attaining technical results,

and in some cases, results in the interests of state politics.

2. Individual scientific-technical creative work was combined with organizational activity and with the search for the most fruitful work methods for the

teams that each Chief Designer headed. To a greater or lesser degree each

one tried to be an organizer of science.

3. Chief Designers, scientists, and leading specialists were personally responsible to the state for the final results of their creative activity. The greatest

scientists of the past never had such a degree of responsibility. Maxwell,

Einstein, Rutherford, Mendeleyev, Tsiolkovskiy, Zhukovskiy, Oberth, the

Curies, and others, the names of which are firmly ensconced in the history

of science, were also born to create.They accomplished scientific feats, but

they did not have state structures standing over them to monitor their scientific activity and demand compulsory scientific results within strictly regulated deadlines.

7
4. During the Second World War,science was militarized in all the warring 

tries. The development of new armaments—nuclear, missile, aviation

radar—required the participation of the most eminent scientists.The w

states did not spare the means to create new types of weaponry, but dem

practical results within the shortest possible time. In the postwar years sci

were not released from this sort of military service.The circumstances 

Cold War were no less tense than the war years for all those involved 

military-industrial complex.The Iron Curtain compelled us to look in an 

inal and independent way for a solution to the problems that had evolve

possibility of blind imitation, mimicry, and borrowing was virtually exc

This taught scientists and engineers to rely only on the intellectual poten

their own country.

5. Collectivism in scientific work proved to be a completely necessary m

of conducting research and achieving final practical results. The 

outstanding results were achieved at the interfaces of various science

branches of technology.These successes were the result of close colla

tion among scientists from various fields of knowledge. Outsta

accomplishments were achieved only by those scientific schools w

leaders, from the very beginning, could boldly attract other talented p

to their creative efforts who were capable of working under the sp

conditions required for the creation of large systems.

6. Each scientist recognized himself as a member of a gigantic techno

system closely associated with the state and with the ideology of a so

society. Everyone was a true patriot, thinking of nothing except honest 

ice to the Motherland.Their general worldviews differed only in the d

The general requirement for the higher echelons could be reduced 

expression,“Help, but don’t interfere!”

In the twentieth century, the strongest stimulus for the development of 

technology was its military use. Among all the nations of the world, the first 

in this field was Nazi Germany; and then, after World War II, the Soviet Unio

the United States.The names of scientists who were pioneers in rocket and 

technology and the founders of national schools in these fields are well know

recent years their activities have been subjected to serious study, and this has 

reported widely in scientific, historical, and even artistic literature; in movie

through various other mass media.The development of rocket-space techn

however,was determined not only by the activity of scientists,the leaders of d

and science schools, and the heroic feats of cosmonauts and astronauts, but a

a great extent by state policies.

During the Cold War, rocket-space technology became one of the determ

factors in the politics of the leading nations; the struggle for world powe

expressed through strategic nuclear capabilities and supremacy in space.

Theoretically, the government of any nation is a certain abstract entity sta

over society. It is obliged to safeguard the economic and social structure of so

8
depending on the sovereign will of the people, and to be the sole source of power.

However, the interests of the state, its policies, and its forms of power are determined by specific people—the political leaders that are in power, who rely on the

state apparatus, which is not faceless either, but consists of specific people who are

obliged to ensure the realization of strategic, economic, and social doctrines.

When studying the role of the State and its leaders in the history of cosmonautics and rocket technology in the Soviet Union and Russia, it is advisable to take

the year 1933 as the starting point. For the rocket technology and cosmonautics of

our country, this year is marked by an event that had very significant historical

consequences—the state decree concerning the creation of the world’s first

Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII).1

The initiator of this decision was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, the

Deputy People’s Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs (Narkomvoyenmor) and

Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council (Revvoyensovet), who

was responsible for arming the Red Army. Cosmonautics is indebted to him for

bringing together under one roof the theoreticians and practical engineers Yuriy

Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev and Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov; future

Academicians Korolev, Glushko, and Rauschenbach; enthusiasts of solid-fuel

rocket projectiles, the future Katyushas or “guards mortars”, Ivan Terentyevich

Kleymenov and Georgiy Erikhovich Langemak; and many others.At RNII, they

conducted a wide-ranging research program and developed various ballistic and

cruise missiles with various types of engines.

The history of RNII is instructive in the sense that during the first years of

the country’s industrialization the state stimulated the broad-scale organization

of work for this new, promising field of research.Tukhachevskiy, being a prominent military leader in the state system, understood that rocket building had to

be supported first and foremost by leading-edge technology and modern industry, rather than by the enthusiasm of lone individuals dreaming of interplanetary

flights. Therefore, in late 1933, by resolution of the Council of Labor and

Defense, RNII was transferred to the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat

for Heavy Industry, which was headed by Sergo Ordzhonikidze. However, four

years after the creation of the RNII, the totalitarian state executed the initiator

and patron of this field of research, Marshal Tukhachevskiy, and after him the

leadership of RNII: Director Kleymenov and Chief Engineer Langemak. In the

midst of the mass repressions, Ordzhonikidze ended his life by committing

suicide. In 1938, the state took punitive measures against Glushko and Korolev.

9

1. RNII—Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut. The word “reaktivnyy” (literally meaning “reactive”) in

Russian is commonly used to denote “jet propulsion” such as in the phrase “jet propulsion engine.” However,

strictly speaking, the word “reactive” encompasses not only air-breathing jet engines but also rocket engines

which carry all of their own propellants. It was not uncommon in the 1930s and 1940s for the word “reactive”

to denote both jet and rocket propulsion. In the particular case of the RNII,“reactive” was meant primarily to

represent the development of what we now call rocket engines.
The institute’s work was disrupted for a prolonged period of time. In the 

ing period up until 1944, no serious work was performed in the Soviet U

on long-range rockets as weapons, and much less on rockets as a means for 

trating into outer space.

In January 1937, RNII was transferred to the People’s Commissariat o

Defense Industry and renamed Scientific-Research Institute 3 (NII-3).2Two 

later, NII-3 was transferred to the People’s Commissariat of Ammunitions, a

July 1942 it was directly subordinated to the USSR Council of People’s Com

sars and renamed the State Institute of Reactive Technology. In February 194

institute was transferred to the People’s Commissariat of Aviation Industr

named Scientific-Research Institute 1 (NII-1).Twenty-one years later, NII-

transferred to the newly created Ministry of General Machine Building and 

the name Scientific-Research Institute for Thermal Processes (NII TP).3 Fin

the end of the twentieth century, NII TP became part of Rosaviakosmos in 

and in 1993 was renamed the M.V. Keldysh Research Center.

The Soviet State, which was the first in the world to stimulate the pr

development of cosmonautics, actually inhibited the development of large r

technology for six years beginning in 1937.The behavior of leaders in a tot

ian state does not always lend itself to explanation from the standpo

common sense.

it was winston churchill who stimulated the new approach of actively 

ing on pure rocket technology in the USSR. In July 1944, he appealed to 

with the request that English specialists be allowed to inspect the German 

firing range that Red Army troops were about to capture in the territory of P

Our troops had the opportunity to capture the Germans’ most secret wea

about which the English intelligence service knew more than ours.We cou

allow that, and our specialists received an order to inspect everything that cou

inspected by the attacking troops before the English would be allowed in.

I will write in greater detail in other chapters about the activity o

Germans in Poland and subsequent events regarding the Anglo-Soviet se

for German rockets.

Here, I would like to note that Stalin entrusted the inspection activity 

People’s Commissar of Aviation Industry, Aleksey Ivanovich Shakhurin, an

responsibility was in turn placed on NII-1—the former RNII, which was s

dinate to Shakhurin.Aviation generals and aviation scientists were among the 

ership of NII-1 at that time, and it would seem that it was then that the pro

for seizing a new field of research unfolded before the leadership of the av

industry. Stalin himself instructed Shakhurin to do this, rather than Van

10

2. NII-3—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut 3.

3. NII TP—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut teplovykh protsessov.
another powerful People’s Commissar (for Ammunitions) or Ustinov (the People’s

Commissar for Armaments).

After the most difficult war in our history, our government needed at the very

least to catch its breath, but the Cold War did not allow it. It was unrealistic to

begin the development and construction of large rocket systems in a country that

was starving and mutilated by war.The decision to reproduce German rocket technology on German territory—using Russian specialists assisted by German rocket

specialists—was risky, but it turned out to be a very good one. Active work by

Soviet specialists in the field of large rocket technology was transferred to

Germany for two years (from May 1945 through January 1947). Working in

Germany, we reconstructed the history of German rocket technology and correspondingly the role of the Nazi totalitarian regime in the organization of superlarge-scale programs for the production of long-range ballistic missiles.

On 4 May 1945, the troops of Marshal Rokossovskiy occupied, virtually without opposition, the area of the German rocket scientific research center in Peenemünde. The reconstruction of the Germans’ activity in Peenemünde was handled

not by Aviation General Petr Ivanovich Fedorov, as might be expected, but by

Artillery Major General Andrey Illarionovich Sokolov.

Sokolov was one of the first distinguished figures in the history of our rocketspace technology. During the most difficult years of the war, he was the person

authorized to represent the State Defense Committee (GKO) during the introduction of the Katyusha to factories in the Urals and its subsequent production

there.4 Katyusha was the name the army gave to combat vehicles mounted with

multiple solid fuel rocket launchers.This type of rocket armament was developed

as early as 1937 at RNII. One of the primary authors of this development, RNII

Chief Engineer Langemak, was executed.

Vehicle-mounted rocket launchers were not accepted as weaponry until 1941.

It is very likely that this was the only Soviet weapon that stunned the Germans

during the first months of the war. Serial production had to be set up almost from

scratch, and troop units had to be organized for the effective mass use of the new

multiple rocket launcher systems for salvo fire. At Stalin’s initiative, all Katyushas

designated for the front were combined into a new military branch: the Guards

Mortar Unit of the Supreme Command Headquarters. At the end of 1944,Andrey

Sokolov carried out his mission to organize the production of and military acceptance of the “Guards mortars” in the Urals and was appointed Chief of Armaments

and Deputy Commander of the Guards Mortar Units.

The Guards Mortar Units had command of the Katyushas, which were purely

a tactical rocket weapon, but the Germans’ example suggested that there was no

time to waste. They had to seize the initiative to produce strategic rocket

11

4. The GKO—Gosudarstvennyy Komitet Oborony (State Defense Committee)—headed by Stalin, was the

principal state organization that oversaw the Soviet Union’s wartime activities during World War II.
weaponry. Sokolov was instructed to head a State Commission to inspect 

emünde. In Peenemünde, he was not only the representative of the 

Command, but also the plenipotentiary of the Central Committee o

Communist Party. He did not wait for instructions from the governmen

seized the initiative and enacted his own decisions.Thus, in the very first m

after the collapse of Nazi Germany, small unguided rocket projectiles, which 

then called RS’s, led to active work on the creation of large guided miss

long-range ballistic missiles. Upon returning from Germany, Sokolov t

management position as chief of rocket armaments in the Main Artillery D

torate of the Ministry of Defense. Later at NII-4, his activity was of de

importance in the organization of the command measurement complex. 

the catastrophe of 24 October 1960, in which the Commander-in-Chief 

Strategic Rocket Forces was killed (Chief Artillery Marshal Mitrofan Ivan

Nedelin), Sokolov was appointed chairman of the State Commission for f

design tests for the first Yangel rocket: the R-16. Sokolov rehabilitated Yang

his rocket.This was of decisive importance for the fate of Yangel himself a

as his design bureau.

Another figure whose work between 1945 and 1946 had a lasting impa

our cosmonautics was General Lev Mikhaylovich Gaydukov. Gaydukov 

member of the military council of the Guards Mortar Units; in other wor

was a military commissar—a representative of the Central Committee o

Communist Party. Having become familiar with the “partisan” organizatio

the Institute RABE that Isayev and myself had founded in July 1945 in the v

of Bleicherode,he understood that rapid governmental support was needed f

initiative from the very top. During August and September 1945, Gayduko

gearing up for frenetic activity by using his personal connections with C

Committee members and two Deputy Chairmen of the Council of Min

Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Malyshev and Nikolay Aleksandrovich Voznese

Bypassing the all-powerful Lavrentiy Beriya, he was received by Stalin. Gay

reported on the work being conducted in Germany to restore German 

technology and asked Stalin to allow the temporary posting to Germany of k

specialists in rocket technology, the former zeki who worked in the so-

Kazanskaya sharaga.

5 Gaydukov’s list included Korolev, Glushko, Sevruk

another twenty former “enemies of the people.” After returning to Ger

Gaydukov headed the Institute Nordhausen, which pursued several different 

ects. Korolev was appointed Chief Engineer.

If it had not been for General Gaydukov’s exceptional energy and bold 

sionmaking, it is possible that many names—including Korolev, Glushko, Pily

Mishin, Chertok, and Voskresenskiy—would not be listed today amon

pioneers of Russian cosmonautics.

12

5. Zek (prisoner) and Sharaga (prison work camp) were slang terms commonly used during the So
The little Katyushas provided our great rocket-space technology with more than

just two generals. Future chiefs of firing ranges and cosmodromes Vasiliy Ivanovich

Voznyuk and Aleksey Ivanovich Nesterenko came to rocket technology from posts

where they had commanded combat Guards Mortar Units.

The future chief of Scientific-Research Institute 88 (NII-88) and future first

deputy to the Minister of General Machine Building, Georgiy Aleksandrovich

Tyulin, was chief of staff of a Katyusha regiment commanded by General Aleksandr

Fedorovich Tveretskiy. At the end of the war,Tveretskiy was deputy commander

of a Guards Mortar Unit group.Such a position existed because the Guards Mortar

Units were subordinate to the Supreme Command Headquarters. But in 1945,

Tveretskiy was instructed to form the first “special assignment brigade,” which

began the combat launching of A-4 rockets in 1947 and R-1 rockets in 1948 at

the firing range in Kapustin Yar.

Here, I would like to return again to Gaydukov’s feat. Reporting to Stalin, he

requested that someone from among the ministers of the defense industries be

instructed to further develop and produce rocket technology. Stalin did not make

hasty decisions and proposed that Gaydukov himself talk with the ministers and

then prepare the appropriate resolution. Gaydukov met with Boris Vannikov, who

announced that he had quite enough responsibility with the production of the

atomic bomb and that it was absolutely no use talking to him about rockets.The

Minister of Aviation Industry, Aleksey Shakhurin, was preoccupied with the

production of jet aircraft. For him, too, the troubles of unmanned rockets seemed

excessive. Armaments Minister Dmitriy Ustinov thought about it, but before

making a decision sent his first deputy,Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ryabikov,to Germany

to examine everything on site.

Our rocket-space technology was obviously lucky in terms of great Chief

Designers. But we were no less fortunate when it came to talented, brilliant

organizers of state industry. One of the results of the Second World War was not

the waning, but rather the substantial acceleration of science-intensive technologies. The push was beginning for the use of new physical principles in the

creation of weaponry.The statesmen of the victorious powers devoted particular

attention to fundamental scientific research. It was statesmen rather than scientists

who had the primary responsibility for developing strategic doctrines to achieve

national and international military security through the effective use of pure and

applied science. Ustinov was one of the Soviet statesmen who met this challenge.

Ustinov and Chief of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) Marshal Nikolay

Dmitryevich Yakovlev drew up a memorandum for Stalin with proposals for

organizing rocket technology work in occupied Germany and the Soviet Union.

This memorandum, dated 17 April 1946, was signed by Beriya, Malenkov,

Bulganin, Voznesenskiy, Ustinov, and Yakovlev. Of these six, Voznesenskiy, an

outstanding economist and organizer of the national economy during the very

difficult war years and during the period of transition to peacetime life, was

executed in 1950 on Stalin’s orders. In 1953, Beriya was tried and executed. For

13
a certain period of time, Malenkov formally directed rocket affairs, but of t

signers, the actual organizer of the Soviet rocket industry was Ustinov. U

and Ryabikov were among the main authors of the historic Council of Min

resolution No. 1017-419ss, dated 13 May 1946 and signed by Stalin und

stamp Top Secret (Special File).

This decree laid the foundation for the creation of the country’s entire 

industry infrastructure, from the very top state agencies to the scientific res

design, and production organizations and enterprises to the military unit

tested and used the rocket armaments.

The resolution created a higher state agency for rocket technology

“Special Committee”—under the Soviet Council of Ministers chaire

Georgiy Maksimilianovich Malenkov. Not one of the Chief Designer

appointed to the Committee.They simply were not there yet in terms of p

and influence. They had only begun to grow accustomed to one anoth

Germany at the RABE, Nordhausen, and Berlin institutes. Dmitriy Fedor

Ustinov, Minister of Armaments, and Ivan Savelyevich Zubovich, who 

relieved of his duties as Deputy Minister of the Electric Industry, were appo

deputy Chairmen of the Special Committee. The Committee was give

responsibility for the development of the new field and invested with very 

powers.The resolution of 13 May 1946 made projects concerning rocket 

nology the most important state mission, and it was imperative that their e

tion be given top priority. Georgiy Nikolayevich Pashkov, who directe

department for the development and production of armaments in Gosplan, 

mined the distribution of work between the ministries.6 The Ministry of A

ments—with Minister D. F. Ustinov—was appointed the head ministry fo

development and production of rocket projectiles with liquid-propellant en

The Seventh Main Directorate, headed by Sergey Ivanovich Vetoshkin

formed within the ministry. In the city of Kaliningrad in the Moscow regio

State Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 of the Ministry of Armament

created using the infrastructure of artillery factory No. 88.

In the USSR Armed Forces Ministry (the former People’s Commissar

Defense and the future Ministry of Defense), the Directorate of Reactive A

ments was created within the GAU, and a corresponding directorate was c

in the Navy.The military also created the NII-4 of the GAU and the State C

Firing Range (GTsP) to serve all ministries involved with missiles.7

A resolution defined the responsibilities of the other ministries (with the e

tion of the Ministry of Armaments) for the creation of reactive armament

Ministry of Aviation Industry was entrusted with developing and manufac

14

6. Gosplan—Gosudarstvennaya planovaya komissiya (State Planning Committee)—founded in 1921 

Council of People’s Commissars, was in charge of managing allocations for the Soviet economy.

7. GTsP—Gosudarstvennyy tsentralnyy polygon.
liquid-propellant rocket engines and conducting aerodynamic research. The

Ministry of Electrical Industry was responsible for ground-based and onboard

equipment for guidance systems, radio equipment, radar tracking stations, and

ground testing and electrical engineering equipment.The Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry was entrusted with gyroscopic stabilization instruments, shipboard

launch systems, and homing warheads for use against submarine targets. The

Ministry of Machine and Instrument Building was instructed to develop launch

equipment,fueling units,compressors,pumps,all of the lifting and transport equipment, and all the systems comprising the ground equipment. The Ministry of

Chemical Industry was tasked with research and production of liquid propellants

(fuels and oxidizers), catalysts, and plastic articles, paint and lacquer coatings, and

industrial rubber articles. The Ministry of Agricultural Machine Building (the

former Ministry of Ammunition) was tasked with developing explosive devices,

filling warheads with explosives, and manufacturing pyrotechnic compounds.

Main Directorates for Rocket Technology were created in all of these ministries.

Additionally, the Ministry for Higher and Secondary Special Education was

ordered to organize the training of specialists in reactive technology.

The Ministry of Armed Forces was assumed to be the final customer for every

type of combat rockets.At the same time, the Ministry’s specialists were obliged to

participate in their development, the organization of flight tests, the creation of

firing-range tables, standard documentation for troop operation, and the formation

of special troop units.

The resolution of 13 May 1946 can serve as an example of the precise definition of strategic priorities at the highest state level:“Work for the development of

reactive technology shall be considered the most important State mission and all

ministries and organizations shall be obliged to fulfill reactive technology assignments as top-priority.”8 Over the course of many years, very important resolutions

concerning rocket technology signed by Khrushchev and then Brezhnev

borrowed this Stalinist turn of phrase:“. . . shall be considered the most important

State mission.”

Within three months after the resolution, all of the pertinent ministries had

determined the organizations and enterprises responsible for work on rocket technology and the directors of the new enterprises had been appointed.

In August 1946, Lev Robertovich Gonor, Major General of the technical engineering service and one of the first Heroes of Socialist Labor, was appointed

director of the head Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 (NII-88).9 He had spent

the war, from the first day to the last, as director of artillery factories. In 1942, he

heroically defended the Barrikady factory in Stalingrad, and was appointed direc

15

8. The entire text of this important government decree was declassified and first published in I. D. Sergeyev,

ed., Khronika osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya (Chronicle of the Primary

Events in the History of the Strategic Rocket Forces) (Moscow:TsIPK, 1994), pp. 227-234.

9. “Hero of Socialist Labor” was one of the highest awards bestowed upon civilians during the Soviet era.
tor of NII-88 after being released from his post as director of the Bols

factory in Leningrad.

During the first postwar years, the apparatus of the Communist Party C

Committee and the KGB began to zealously follow the anti-Semitic moo

Stalin. Gonor was not only a Jew, but a member of the Soviet Jewish Anti-F

Committee.His appointment to the post of director of the main scientific-re

institute could not have passed without the approval of Stalin and Beriya. In 

ary 1947, I arrived from Germany as chief of the guidance department and d

to the chief engineer of the new head institute NII-88. I had been appoint

Ustinov’s orders. During a confidential conversation Gonor warned me:“We 

appointed to leadership posts in the new field at Ustinov’s insistence. O

Germany you did not sense that here, anti-Semitism has been inculcated in

consciousness of the officials of the state apparatus by secret instructions 

above. I worked under Ustinov for many years and I could never accuse h

that syndrome. But even in his own ministry he will not be able to oppos

policy for long.”

Gonor was right. In 1950, Ustinov sent him far from Moscow to Krasno

to be director of an artillery factory. But in January 1953, during the infa

“Doctors’Plot,”Gonor was arrested.10 Ustinov could not save him.What save

was Stalin’s death.

In terms of their historical significance in the field of armaments—durin

war and during the postwar organization of work on a broad spectrum of ro

space technology—I would equate the accomplishments of Dmitriy Ustinov 

the feats of Marshal Zhukov.

The Special Committee on Reactive Technology under the USSR Coun

Ministers, which was created by the resolution of 13 May 1946, was soon reo

ized into Special Committee No. 2 under the Council of Ministers. In all, 

were three Special Committees: No. 1 was the supreme state agency on n

technology and No. 3 was the agency for radar and air defense issues.

In February 1951, Special Committee No. 2 was reorganized into the 

Directorate for Rocket Technology, under the USSR Council of Ministe

1953, it was temporarily combined with the Council of Ministers Main D

torate for the nuclear program. In 1955, a new state agency was formed o

basis of these organizations—the sole Special Committee of the USSR Coun

Ministers—for the three most important strategic and most science-int

programs: nuclear, rocket, and radar.This union, however, did not last long.

Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ryabikov was the de facto head of these committee

1951 through 1957. In the system of all the Special Committees, Vyac

16

10. The “Doctors’ Plot” was orchestrated by Stalin in 1953 to blame nine doctors, six of them Jew

planning to poison the Soviet leadership. Their arrest was a pretext for the future persecution of Jew

Soviet Union. Fortunately, after Stalin’s death in March 1953, all the accused were released.
Aleksandrovich Malyshev and Boris Lvovich Vannikov were the directors of the

nuclear program, Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov was director of the rocket program,

and Valeriy Dmitryevich Kalmykov was director of the radar program.All of these

directors and the personnel of the state apparatus of the Special Committees and

ministries went through a rigorous school of leadership and industrial organization

during the years of World War II, and the post-victory euphoria did not dull their

very acute sense of responsibility to the State.They exercised their state power in

the most advanced sectors of the scientific technical front, with the intensity of the

Cold War increasing each year.

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union suffered enormous material

and human losses on a scale that cannot be compared with that of other countries.

During the postwar years, the most urgent need was to restore the destroyed cities

and towns,to provide the people with the basic conditions for work and to expand

production for the entire domestic economy. In this situation, the development of

science-intensive nuclear, rocket-space, and radio electronic technology diverted

significant resources from many industries that were vitally necessary to the

national economy.

During the first decade after victory, the country’s material, intellectual, and

spiritual resources were expended neither for the sake of political prestige nor to

prove the superiority of socialism, but because the very real threat of nuclear

aggression on the part of the United States hung over our country.The political

leaders of the United States, not without reason, feared the expansion of the

Soviet Union’s hegemony and the weakening of American positions in Europe

and Asia. Striving to eliminate the threat of nuclear aggression and World War III,

the Soviet Union achieved parity with the United States in the basic types of

strategic armaments.The experience of mobilizing industry during the war was

used by prominent state leaders to organize work for the new fields of research

using the method of “progressive-mobilization” economics. It is difficult to name

the actual authors of this new economic system. It was, undoubtedly, a collective

creation that relied on confidence in the heroic labor of the people, on the country’s scientific-technical potential, and on the active political support of the Party’s

Central Committee.

One of the authors of “mobilization economics” was no doubt the outstanding

statesman Academician Nikolay Aleksandrovich Voznesenskiy. During the pre-war

and war years, he was Chairman of the USSR’s Gosplan, a member of the State

Defense Committee, and a candidate member and then full member of the Politburo.His book,War Economy of the USSR during the Period of the Patriotic War (1947)

confirmed the nickname secretly given to him of “economic dictator.” But he was

a progressive dictator. He unwaveringly supported Gaydukov’s rocket initiatives,

and then those of Ryabikov and Ustinov in 1945, and he was one of the authors

of the note addressed to Stalin concerning rocket issues in April 1946, and of the

carefully formulated text of the aforementioned resolution of 13 May 1946.

Voznesenskiy was too noticeable and progressive an individual in the higher lead

17
ership of the country. In 1950, he was executed for the fabricated “Leni

Affair.”11 This was a heavy blow for our economy.

the story of the famed r-7 missile, which was the basis for the Soy

launch vehicle known to everyone in the world, serves as one example of the 

solution of the most difficult scientific-technical problems using progr

“mobilization economics.”

In 1954, under the directorship of S. P. Korolev, who already had exper

producing intermediate-range missiles, the development of the first intercon

tal missile was begun. Tests were prepared for the R-5M missile, which w

carry a nuclear warhead with four to five times the yield of the one dropp

Hiroshima by the Americans. It was natural that such a nuclear device, whic

already been perfected, be the proposed “payload” for the warhead of the firs

intercontinental missile.By design,a missile with such a warhead had a launch 

of 170 metric tons and a range of 8,000 kilometers.The range was specifi

governmental decree as early as 1953.

At that time it was believed that such a nuclear charge was completely suff

to have a sobering effect on the American “hawks.” But on 12 August 1953

Semipalatinsk, tests on a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb were succe

conducted. One of the directors of these tests was Vyacheslav Aleksandr

Malyshev, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Comm

Party (of Bolsheviks) [VKP(b)].12 At that time he was Minister of Me

Machine-Building and subsequently deputy chairman of the Council of Min

When it became clear that, in principle, the problem of the hydrogen bom

solved, Malyshev confronted its creators with the task of reducing its ma

dimensions so that it would be acceptable for the missile that Korolev was d

ing.The effectiveness of the hydrogen bomb was ten times greater than the 

bomb. But no matter how hard they tried at the famed Arzamas-16, the ma

dimensions still greatly exceeded those of the atom bomb.13 The charge fo

atomic warhead had a mass of 1 metric ton, while the hydrogen warhea

around 3.5 metric tons. Nevertheless, on his own initiative (and who was th

ask, as Stalin and Beriya were already gone, and Khrushchev and other me

of the Politburo did not know about this business) Malyshev took this data

directly to Korolev in May 1954, and proposed changing the design of the 

continental missile so that the atomic warhead was replaced with a thermon

warhead—with the compulsory stipulation that the flight range of 8,000 ki

18

11. The “Leningrad Affair” involved a massive purge of powerful Party and government off

Leningrad in the late 1940s that was orchestrated by Stalin in order to weaken Leningrad as a power b

12. VKP(b)—Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya partiya (bolshevikov) [All-Union Communist Party (of 

viks)]—was the full designation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the Lenin and Sta

13. Arzamas-16 was the closed city where one of the Soviet Union’s two major nuclear weapons la

ries was founded.
ters be preserved.The first calculations showed that the mass of the payload had to

be increased from 3 metric tons to 5.5 metric tons while the launch mass of the

rocket had to be increased by 100 metric tons.

The design had to be completely redone. In June 1954, a government resolution was issued concerning the production of R-7 two-stage ballistic missiles,

which satisfied Malyshev’s proposal. According to this resolution, the production

of this missile was a goal of special importance to the State.

Korolev’s designers, and those of allied organizations,“went nuts,” to use a slang

expression. Serious conflicts arose between Korolev and Barmin.14 Now a fundamentally new system would have to be created. Thus, the now world-famous

launch system for the R-7, the modern Soyuz-U, emerged.The deadlines stipulated previously by the government had to be shifted somewhat,but in accord with

Korolev’s famous motto “No later than May!”, the first launch of the R-7 took

place on 15 May 1957.

Since then, two of the first stages of the R-7 have remained the reliable basis

for manned and many other space programs up to the present day.The world owes

gratitude not only to Korolev and the other creators of the R-7 “packet,” but also

to Vyacheslav Malyshev, who in 1954, using the State’s power, obliged Korolev to

redesign the rocket. Unfortunately,Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich himself, the initiator of such a historic turning point in the fate of the first Soviet intercontinental

ballistic missile, did not live to see its first launches.The powerful doses of radiation that he received participating in the tests of the first nuclear devices had taken

a toll on his health.15

as a rule under stalin,the creation of the first scientific-research organizations

and the industrial base for missile production did not take place in a vacuum, but

at the expense of, and frequently to the detriment of, work in the other defense

industry fields. The NII-88 head institute was created on the basis of Artillery

Factory No. 88. Production of anti-aircraft guns was transferred to other factories.

Factory No. 456 in Khimki, which had mastered the production of transport

aircraft even before the war under license to the American firm Douglas, was

appropriated from the aviation industry for use as a design bureau and factory for

liquid-propellant rocket engines. NII-885 was created on the basis of an electromechanical factory to serve as an institute and factory for guidance systems.The

automobile industry was hardest hit. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, the construction of the largest automobile factory in the country had been completed. It was

supposed to produce amphibious vehicles for the infantry, and in the future, allterrain trucks and tractors. In 1951, the factory was handed over to the Ministry

of Armaments for the series production of Korolev’s R-1 and R-2 missiles and

19

14. Academician Vladimir Barmin was the Chief Designer of ground launch complex for the R-7.

15. Malyshev died of cancer in 1957.
their engines. Ustinov personally directed the reconstruction of the factor

organization of the new production, and its staffing. Dnepropetrovsk Factor

586 literally mushroomed.A Council of Ministers resolution, dated 10 April 

called for the design department of the factory to be converted into a S

Design Bureau—OKB-586.16 On 9 July of that year, M. K.Yangel was appo

Chief Designer of OKB-586. In 1991,Yuzhnoye Design Bureau (formerly O

586) was named after Academician M. K.Yangel.

The Soviet leader Stalin, and then Khrushchev and Brezhnev, devoted pa

lar attention and patronage to the development of missile, and subsequently, 

technology at Dnepropetrovsk. The present-day state-owned Yuzhnoye D

Bureau and Yuzhniy factory enable an independent Ukraine to lay claim 

title of “space power,” thanks to Ustinov’s initiatives in the early 1950s.

it is necessary to pay particular attention to the role of Nikita Sergey

Khrushchev in the history of Russian cosmonautics.

There were many contradictions in his activity as General Secretary o

CPSU Central Committee and as head of the government. However, withou

doubt one should recognize his unequivocally positive role in the histo

cosmonautics. As head of state, he not only made the final decisions conce

the production of the first intercontinental missiles, but also, in spite of obje

from the military, personally decided to allocate two R-7s—which were und

ing flight design tests for the Ministry of Defense—for the launch of the firs

ficial satellite. After this success stunned the world, he demanded that Ko

immediately launch a second satellite. In response to the timid objections 

Minister of Defense, he announced that the political success of space fligh

more important to us than ten combat missiles.At that historic stage he was 

In 1959, during a visit to the United States, Khrushchev presented Pre

Eisenhower with the gift of an exact copy of the pennant delivered by an 

rocket to the surface of the moon. In 1961, he very happily accepted congr

tions from heads of state across the world on the occasion of Yuriy Gag

triumphant flight.

The logic of the Cold War required convincing proof about the advant

the social structure in each opposing side. This political requirement adv

science and technology more than a hundred abstract scholarly dissertations

A great service performed by Khrushchev was his skillful use of the first 

tical achievements in cosmonautics to unite society politically and spiri

However, it is worth remembering that, while sparing no resources for the 

opment of space technology, Khrushchev did not dare break the taboo impo

the security agencies on divulging the names of the true authors of our 

20

16. OKB stood for both Osoboye konstruktorskoye byuro (Special Design Bureau) or Opytno-konstru

byuro (Experimental-Design Bureau). In the case of OKB-586, it was the former.
conquests. Academician Kapitsa wrote that the author and organizer of such a

scientific feat as the launch of the first artificial satellite is entirely deserving of the

Nobel Prize.17There is no doubt that worldwide public opinion would have been

positive if the Nobel Committee had awarded this prize to the Chief Designer of

the launch vehicle and first satellite. But the name of the Chief Designer was kept

secret until his death, and the Nobel Prize is not awarded to anonymous authors.

after the launch of the first satellites, the rocket-space industry was forced to

rapidly expand its industrial base and attract new production capacity. It needed to

further improve the coordination of operations for armaments and military technology production for the conventional and new branches of the armed forces.

Obsolete military doctrines needed to be revised.The interaction between industries, and the organization of new and broader cooperation between enterprises

required the restructuring of industrial management.

Khrushchev consistently implemented a policy of developing the rocket-space

industry to the detriment, above all, of the aviation industry. He believed that if the

Soviet Union had intercontinental missiles it did not need heavy long-range

bombers, and he believed the number of intermediate-range combat aircraft and

ground attack aircraft could also be reduced if we learned how to crank out rockets “like sausages.”

One of the first “gifts” to cosmonautics was the handing over of Kuybyshev

Aviation Factory No. 1, also called Progress Factory, to the rocket industry.The

factory was commissioned to take over the series production of the Korolev R-7

intercontinental missiles. In 1962, Progress Factory also took on space technology.

It started its own monopoly in the field of reconnaissance and surveillance spacecraft. Today the Central Specialized Design Bureau (TsSKB) and the Progress

factory are a single enterprise.

In 1951, at Fili in Moscow at the base of the huge Aviation Factory No. 23,

Experimental-Design Bureau 23 (OKB-23) was formed for the development of

heavy bombers. By the late 1950s, OKB-23 Chief Designer Vladimir

Mikhaylovich Myasishchev was producing bombers that, in terms of their parameters, surpassed the American B-52; but in spite of his indisputable achievements,

he was transferred to the post of director of the Central Aero-Hydrodynamics

Institute (TsAGI).The staff of OKB-23 became Branch No. 1 of OKB-52, headed

byV. N. Chelomey, while Factory No. 23, named for M.V. Khrunichev, was transferred in its entirety to the production of missiles and Proton launch vehicles.

Today the Khrunichev State Rocket-Space Scientific Industrial Center is the

largest rocket-space enterprise in Russia and the pride of the Russian Aviation and

Space Agency. One can assume that if the Khrunichev factory had remained in the

21

17. Academician Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984), who won the Nobel Prize in 1978, was one of the

pioneers of Soviet nuclear physics.
aviation industry it would have “gone begging” during the years of the dev

ing market reforms, as did our entire aviation industry, which was once the s

most powerful in the world.

The full list of enterprises that were retooled for rocket-space production i

long. I have cited only the most significant examples.

In 1957, at Khrushchev’s initiative, the defense ministries were converte

State Committees. The primary scientific-research institutes and experim

design bureaus remained under their management, but production—prim

series production—was transferred to regional economic councils.The probl

coordinating the work of all the fields of defense technology turned out to b

acute. In this regard, in December 1957, the CPSU Central Committee an

USSR Council of Ministers decided to create the Commission of the Pres

of the USSR Council of Ministers for Military-Industrial Issues. Subsequent

body was named the State Military-Industrial Commission of the Presidium 

USSR Council of Ministers, and later the State Military-Industrial Commiss

the USSR Cabinet of Ministers.18

The Military-Industrial Commission was tasked with coordinating the w

the State Committees (i.e., the former ministries) and monitoring operatio

the creation and very rapid production cycle of military technology, incl

rocket and space technology, without regard to the departmental affiliation 

executives.The Commission had the right to make rapid decisions on behalf 

State, but did not have its own money.The Ministry of Finance provided reso

to the agencies only per the decisions of the Central Committee and the Co

of Ministers. Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov was appointed the first Chairman 

Military-Industrial Commission, and simultaneously, deputy Chairman o

USSR Council of Ministers.Thus, Ustinov, until then Minister of Armame

charge of artillery and rocket-space technology, became the actual boss o

entire military-industrial complex of the USSR. One must say that his exper

his strong-willed and decisive nature, and his (at times) very strict and ex

temperament were in the right place at the right time.

In March 1963, Ustinov was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Coun

the National Economy. At a later plenary session of the Central Committ

was selected to be Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for Defense 

and a candidate member of the Politburo. Finally, in 1976, the rocketeers’ 

came true—Ustinov was named USSR Minister of Defense, and thereby be

one of the most influential members of the Politburo.

After Ustinov, Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov was appointed chairman o

Military-Industrial Commission. He held that post for 22 years! Smirno

replaced in 1985 by Yuriy Dmitrievich Maslyukov, formerly of Gosplan. S

quently the Military-Industrial Commission was headed by Igor Sergey

22

18. This Commission was more commonly known as the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK).
Belousov, the former Minister of Shipbuilding. During the last phase of this

complex period for our defense industry, the Commission was headed once again

by Maslyukov. The Commission was liquidated in December 1991 after the

collapse of the Soviet Union.

Traditionally, the Military-Industrial Commission oversaw nine ministries,

which corresponded to nine key industries: nuclear (MSM19); aviation (MAP20);

rocket-space (MOM21);shipbuilding (MSP22);radio engineering (MRP23);electronics (MEP24);defense (MOP25);communications equipment (MPSS26);and machinebuilding (for munitions, MM27).

According to data that Oleg Dmitryevich Baklanov cites in a yet-to-bepublished work, by the late 1970s, the military industry, i.e., what we refer to as

the military-industrial complex, was concentrated into 1,770 enterprises under

these nine main ministries, of which 450 were scientific research organizations and

250 experimental-design organizations. A total of 10.45 million individuals

worked in the industry.

In addition, another approximately 546,000 persons were involved in civilian

industries associated with the military-industrial complex (chemical, electrical,

textile, automobile, etc.). In all, in spite of the Cold War, no more than approximately 10 percent of the scientific-technical and industrial potential of the USSR

was working in the interests of the military-industrial complex. This is approximately 12 million persons, or around 30 million persons when counting family

members.This figure does not count the industrial and construction organizations

of the Ministry of Defense, which did not formally enter into the “Big Nine” of

the military-industrial complex.

From the total number of industry personnel involved in defense production,

33.7 percent worked in aerospace; 20.3 percent worked in radio engineering, electronics, and communications; and 9.1 percent worked in shipbuilding. Meanwhile,

the military-industrial complex contributed more than 20 percent of the volume

of the gross nation product.Thus, rocket technology and cosmonautics were far

from being the only concern of the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues.

it would be a simplification to suggest that the rapid development of rocketspace technology during the period of the progressive mobilization economy was

a process devoid of conflict. Not only were there confrontations between design

23

19. MSM—Ministerstvo srednego mashinostroyeniya (Ministry of Medium Machine-Building).

20. MAP—Ministerstvo aviatsionnoy promyshlennosti (Ministry of Aviation Industry).

21. MOM—Ministerstvo obshchego mashinostroyeniya (Ministry of General Machine-Building).

22. MSP—Ministerstvo sudostroitelnoy promyshlennosti (Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry).

23. MRP—Ministerstvo radio promyshlennosti (Ministry of Radio Industry).

24. MEP—Ministerstvi elektronnoy promyshlennosti (Ministry of Electronics Industry).

25. MOP—Ministerstvo oboronnoy promyshlennosti (Ministry of Defense Industry).

26. MPSS—Ministerstvo promyshlennosti sredstv svyazi (Ministry of Communications Equipment Industry).

27. MM—Ministerstvo mashinostroyeniya (Ministry of Machine-Building).
schools, but also embittered debates surrounding the doctrines and strateg

development between the very statesmen endowed with real power.These d

were not antagonistic, since no one was struggling to appropriate or seize 

public property for mercenary aims in the interests of some clan.

A great qualitative advancement that resolved many organizational conflic

the resolution of 1965 under the Brezhnev Politburo concerning the creatio

special Ministry of General Machine-Building (MOM). The name of the 

ministry had nothing in common with the actual content of its work; howe

openly announce to the entire world that in the Soviet Union a rocket

ministry or nuclear industry ministry had been created was considered impe

sible.There was not a problem with aviation or radio engineering,but rocket

was strictly forbidden!

Sergey Aleksandrovich Afanasyev was named Minister of “General Mac

Building.” Afanasyev’s biographical early life is typical of many other d

industry managers.In 1941,he graduated from the Bauman Moscow Higher 

nical Institute (MVTU).28 During the war he was a foreman and designer 

artillery factory, as well as shop chief and deputy chief mechanic.After the w

was transferred to the Ministry of Armaments, where, beginning in 195

headed the Main Technical Directorate. In 1957, he became deputy chairma

beginning in 1958, chairman of the Leningrad Economic Council. In 196

became deputy chairman of the All-Union Council of the National Eco

And then on 2 March 1965, he was appointed MOM minister. He worked 

high-level state post for eighteen years!

Afanasyev left for another ministry—not voluntarily or for reasons of healt

at the will of a member of the Politburo, Minister of Defense Marshal Ustin

1965, unexpectedly for many, Ustinov promoted Afanasyev to the post of m

of the rocket industry and supported him in every possible way. However, h

not forgive him for his opposition in the conflict that we called the “littl

war,” which resulted from disagreements between General Designers Yang

Chelomey on principles of defense doctrine and the development of str

nuclear missile armaments.The “little civil war” began in 1964 under Khrus

and did not end until 1976 when Ustinov, having become Minister of De

ended it.

Ustinov profoundly felt and understood the importance of science for 

security.At one of the meetings on the lunar program, while addressing the 

ident of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Keldysh, he said 

science must be the “headquarters” of government. He also suggested t

Afanasyev, who was beginning his ministerial career. The fact that Afan

succeeded in convincing Brezhnev to transfer to his new ministry not only 

the main rocket-space design bureaus, scientific-research institutes, and 

24

28. MVTU—Moskovskoye vyssheye tekhnicheskoye uchilishche.
production factories from the other State Committees, but also all of the other

allied enterprises as well, should be considered his first personal contribution.

Under Afanasyev, the legendary Council of Chief Designers was placed for the

first time under a single ministry.The Chief Designers were transferred as follows:

Korolev came from the State Committee on Defense Technology; Glushko came

from the State Committee on Aviation Technology;Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy came

from the State Committee on Radio Electronic Technology; Barmin came from

the State Committee on Machine and Instrument Building; Kuznetsov came from

the State Committee on Shipbuilding.

Accordingly, the tens of factories that fulfilled the orders of these Chief Designers as well as other factories were transferred to MOM.

Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin was appointed First Deputy Minister of MOM.

He was very familiar with our history. He participated in the work in Germany,

was a former chief of NII-4, and former Deputy Chairman of the State Committee on Defense Technology.Tyulin was an organizer/scientist, very much a kindred

spirit to Korolev and to all the members of the Council of Chief Designers. He

also enjoyed the support of Ustinov, but in his own subsequent work his relationship with Afanasyev did not improve. During the so-called “small civil war” he and

Afanasyev were on opposite sides of the front.

MOM was given almost all of the duties that NASA had in the United States in

terms of cosmonautics, plus a whole host of other responsibilities, including the

production of all onboard and ground equipment; the weighty responsibility,

together with the Ministry of Defense, of producing strategic nuclear missile forces;

and ensuring the social well-being of all the workers in this branch of industry.

Therefore, Minister Afanasyev and the corresponding deputies had to bear the

responsibility for all unmanned and manned flights, for the N1-L3 lunar program,

had to speak in front of the Central Committee either for or against Chelomey’s

alternative proposal concerning the creation of the UR-700 lunar launch vehicle,

had to sort out the debate between Minister of Defense Andrey Grechko and

Yangel concerning his proposals about the mortar-type launching of strategic

missiles, had to have a new mission control center built in order to be ready for

the Soyuz-Apollo program, and had to keep track of construction progress at

hundreds of other industrial and social facilities from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine to

Ussuriysk in the Russian Far East.

In and of itself, the epic of the major construction of the rocket-space industry deserves separate historical study. The MOM enterprises, which formed

entire towns, created new living conditions in the cities of Korolev, Khimki,

Reutov, Peresvet, Yurg, Nizhnyaya Salda, Zheleznogorsk, Novopolotsk, Miass,

and many others.

Independent of MOM, because it had its own budget, the Ministry of Defense

made a large contribution to the creation of rocket-space “science cities.”The cities

of Leninsk (today Baykonur), Mirnyy (Plesetsk),Yubileynyy, Krasnoznamensk; the

military towns of the command and measurement complex; and finally the

25
grandiose complexes of the engineering and launch sites of the cosmodromes

all primarily the contribution of the Ministry of Defense builders.

Today, our capital and other large cities are filled with advertisements 

the construction and sale of luxury homes for the modern elite of Russi

“only” $1 million you can acquire a very nice apartment. It would be usef

the modern slanderers of our history to remember that, during the period 

1966 through 1990, the rocket-space industry alone built more than 14 m

square meters of residential housing. In terms of modern housing prices 

$1.5 trillion! In addition, MOM alone built schools for the general pub

accommodate 59,300 pupils, kindergartens to accommodate 74,000 chi

hospitals with 8,550 beds, polyclinics accommodating 19,100 visits per 

professional institutes accommodating 14,360 students, clubs and cultural c

accommodating 7,400 individuals, sport complexes, swimming pools, di

saries, pioneer camps, recreational areas, and holiday retreats. Practically all 

was accessible to hundreds of thousands of individuals, creating the nec

psychological frame of mind for the field of cosmonautics and the peoples’ 

in tomorrow.

In light of these facts, one must say that Afanasyev was a unique ministe

his deputies, and the directors of the allied ministries bore personal respons

for a broad range of scientific, technological, political, and social issues that 

critical to the prestige, security, and might of the State.Afanasyev and his de

worked in close contact with many of the scientific institutions of the Acade

Sciences.Virtually every fundamental decision concerning cosmonautics was 

with the participation of the President of the Academy of Sciences.

the experience of working in rocket-space technology shows that s

occurs where and when each individual anywhere in the enormous and com

system always performs his or her duty. In this sense, it is difficult for histo

select leaders in politics, economics, and science.

It would be a mistake to think that statesmen, who possessed an elevated 

of responsibility and who were personally interested in the successes of cosm

tics, always made the optimal decisions. An example of this is the history o

N1-L3 program—the manned expedition to the Moon. The lunar pro

required the expenditure of great resources and the concentration of desig

production capacities under a single painstakingly selected project. Khrus

personally tried to reconcile the technical disagreements between Chief Des

Korolev and Glushko. He did not succeed. Moreover, he supported Chelo

alternative proposals. Khrushchev, and after him Brezhnev, as the Secretaries 

Central Committee; Ustinov, who was responsible for rocket-space techn

Minister Afanasyev; the Ministers of Defense; and all the others comprisin

“Big Nine” of the military-industrial complex were required to obtai

resources for achieving both military-space “strategic parity” and the pe

lunar program from a single state budgetary pocket.

26
In the final analysis, parity was not only achieved, but according to some indicators, we passed the United States in terms of nuclear missile armaments. In any

case, the threat of a third world war was removed.The two superpowers began to

understand that bad peace was better than mutual annihilation. But the initial

economic positions at the start of the Moon race were considerably stronger for

the Americans.

In the early 1970s, we won the nuclear missile race, but lost the moon race.

Statesmen did not support the designers’ proposals to hold on to what had been

begun on the lunar program, modify the N-1 launch vehicle, and gain prestigious

“revenge” by creating a permanent lunar base by the end of the 1970s. It really

would have been possible to achieve this. But every cloud has a silver lining.The

successful landing of Americans on the Moon prompted the rapid acceptance of

the program for creating a series of Salyut long-duration orbital stations, which

served as the scientific-technical basis for the Mir orbital complex.The Mir station,

in turn, initiated the beginning of American operations to construct an even larger

orbital station.

American officials in charge of NASA were convinced that using SovietRussian intellect and the experience gained on Mir, it would be possible to reduce

both the costs of the station and the time required for the program’s implementation.Thus, the International Space Station (ISS) appeared, the total cost of which,

according to predictions, would be significantly higher than the American expenditures on all seven lunar expeditions.29

An outstanding achievement of Soviet rocket-space technology was the

creation of the Energiya-Buran reusable space system.This time, the initiative for

the creation of the system, which is similar in performance to the American Space

Shuttle system, originated not from scientists and designers, but from the top, from

the State, which for prestige and for political purposes, and also out of fear of an

American advantage in a new space system for delivering sudden strikes, spared no

resources on this exceptionally complex program.

The Energiya-Buran system was the largest-scale program in the history of

domestic cosmonautics. More than 1,200 enterprises and organizations and

almost 100 ministries and departments participated in its creation. As a result,

using mobilization economics methods, the Soviet state produced the Energiya

launch vehicle, which in terms of its capabilities had no rivals in the world, since

the Americans had halted work on the Saturn V superheavy launch vehicle after

the lunar expeditions. The Energiya superheavy launch vehicle offered cosmonautics the broadest of possibilities.The Buran space carrier vehicle in its single

unmanned flight also demonstrated advantages over the American Space Shuttle.

The success of the Energiya-Buran program was made possible by the fact that

expenditures on the “nuclear missile shield” were substantially reduced after

27

29. There were seven attempted Apollo lunar landings. One of them,Apollo 13, did not reach the surface.
parity was achieved and treaties had been concluded for the reduction of s

gic offensive arms.

In a struggle for personal power, new statesmen—without asking the pe

sion of their people—destroyed the Soviet Union with a swiftness that no

its most ardent enemies could have dreamed.The collapse of the Soviet Unio

to the creation of “sovereign” states that were not concerned with the f

cosmonautics.They were no longer in the mood for Energiya and Buran. In 

of the efforts of the leading enterprises, which had developed proposals fo

practical use of the very rich resources on hand from the Energiya-Buran sy

all operations were terminated.

russia is the legal heir of the space programs and achievements of the 

Union. Over the last decade of the twentieth century, Russian cosmonautics 

ally had no state support. According to various estimates, the amount of 

funding from the Russian state budget for the rocket-space industry was be

0.05 and 0.01 percent of the amount it received in the mid-1980s.The new 

ian governments that came to power and rapidly replaced one another prov

be incompetent and did not want to assess and claim their very rich intell

and technological legacy. But then they quickly assessed the tremendous va

our natural resources and legalized their plunder with impunity. An enor

safety margin enabled our cosmonautics to survive under conditions of g

systemic crisis; economic crisis; and ideological, moral, and spiritual crises.

The new government leaders were in a great hurry to reject previous po

and social doctrines,and together they discarded our enormous experience in 

planning and the organization of the economy. In exchange, neither a new 

egy nor new prospects appeared. A significant portion of the rocket-space 

prises were organizationally combined under the management of the R

Space Agency (RKA).This saved them from the threat of greed-driven priv

tion and plunder.The aviation industry did not act fast enough to carry out a 

lar self-organization at the State level. Under the threat of the total destruct

the domestic aviation industry, the latest Russian government handed ov

surviving portion of this industry to the space agency.The RKA was conv

into the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RAKA or Rosaviakosmos).30

Modern cosmonautics has acquired vital military strategic importance

military doctrines of the United States for the twenty-first century sti

fundamentally new methods for conducting future “local” wars. Space navig

space “omniscience,” communications, and data transmission and control 

defining role in them. During the times of the Soviet Union, our military-

and missile forces, in terms of their potential capabilities, nearly matched s

American forces.

28

30. In 2004, Rosaviakosmos became the Federal Space Agency.
Chapter 3

Between Two Aerodromes

Almost every type of literary memoir proves that we are products of our childhood. Normally, childhood is defined as ranging from infancy to the early school

years. I am not about to break with literary tradition, and I will confirm this thesis

with an example of my own biography.

My passport and all manner of questionnaires that I have filled out over the

course of at least eighty years claim that I was born 1 March 1912, in the city of

Lódz, Poland.

The “initial conditions” imposed by an individual’s parents and childhood

environment determine the fate of the majority of people. Initial conditions are

the critical factor in solving any problem in the scientific disciplines.There are no

super-powerful computer systems that modern science or the science of the foreseeable future can use to describe the life of a human being. Literary memoirs

solve this problem with an essential simplification of reality and the initial conditions. I will begin the description of my initial conditions, as in classic memoirs,

with my parents.

When I arrived in this world, my father was forty-two and my mother was

thirty-two. I was an only child. My mother, Sofiya Borisovna Yavchunovskaya, was

the third daughter in a wealthy Jewish family in the city of Gomel.1 Her parents,

my grandmother and grandfather, had five daughters. I never met any of my

grandparents. My aunts and uncles, under various circumstances and for various

reasons, unanimously confirmed that of the five Yavchunovskiy daughters, Sofiya,

my future mother, was the most beautiful and capable.

Finding worthy suitors for five daughters who met the strict requirements of

wealthy and conservative parents was not easy. No one doubted that the beautiful

Sofiya would be left wanting. Quite unexpectedly, however, Sofiya Yavchunovskaya

was expelled from her last year of preparatory school for belonging to an illegal

revolutionary organization.To the horror of her family and admirers, she expressed

no remorse for her beliefs, and instead turned into a professional revolutionary.To

be independent, she completed doctor’s assistant and midwifery courses in St.

29

1. Gomel is located in the southeastern portion of present-day Belarus.
Petersburg, and returned home an active member of the Russian Social De

ratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP).2

After the crushing defeat of the revolutionary movement of 1905, sh

threatened with arrest, trial, and—in the best-case scenario—exile to Si

Almost all of her comrades-in-arms had been repressed, and she had gon

hiding, using the connections of her venerable parents and two elder sisters

had married representatives of the hated bourgeois class. Her only salvation w

flee Russia. Relatives quickly found a respectable but quite poor teacher n

Yevsey Menaseyevich Chertok, whom they finally talked into immediate ma

and emigration.

In 1907, teacher Yevsey Chertok and midwife Sofiya Chertok lived peac

for some time in Poland.There, the elder sister of Sofiya’s mother, who had m

a Lódz textile manufacturer, watched over them. However, Poland was not o

the reach of the czarist secret police and my future parents emigrated farther 

In Germany, Father learned bookkeeping and perfected the German lang

and in France my future mama completed her education in medicine and ma

French so that she could study the history of the French Revolution in the 

inal texts. In 1911, my parents returned to the Russian Empire and began to 

in Lódz. My father worked as a bookkeeper in the textile industry. Mother w

as a nurse and finally started to dream of having a baby. She ended any act

but remained a sympathizer of the Mensheviks and the Jewish social demo

party Bund.3 In March 1912, Mother completely switched her energy for ab

ing revolutionary activity over to caring for my health and upbringing.

At the very beginning of the First World War, my parents decided that P

was an unsafe place for their only son, and they moved to Moscow. And 

1914, I became a Muscovite. I remember the red brick, four-story buildi

Olkhovskaya Street near Razgulyay.We lived there until the autumn of 191

The structure of human memory is amazing. I do not remember imp

telephone numbers and often I am not capable of recalling events from the 

ous week. It is my “random-access memory” that cannot perform those o

tions. But my long-term memory still remembers the broad street filled 

jubilant, shouting, and singing demonstrators with a multitude of red flag

father is holding me tightly by the hand and the whole time saying,“Look, 

having a revolution.”This was the February Revolution of 1917.

I vaguely remember the platform at some train station. For some r

soldiers were on the roofs of the freight cars pushing about with bags, an

women were shouting things I couldn’t understand. Mother offered some

30

2. The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party—Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochay

(RSDRP)—was one of the most important political groups who opposed Tsarist rule.The party was est

in 1898, and in 1903 split into two factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

3. The Bund was one of the earliest Jewish socialist political parties and helped to galvanize variou

groups in Russia.
shiny to some man, and he measured out

something for her into a white bag—

maybe flour, or groats.

I was often sick.A significant portion of

Father’s small income went for consultations with luminaries on childhood

diseases. But it was not I who became seriously ill, but Father. He became severely

lame, and I remember the diagnosis was

“water on the knee.” It was very difficult

for him to get to work in the center of

Moscow.Uncle Moisey,the husband of my

mother’s elder sister, came to his aid. He

offered both of my parents work and an

apartment on the far outskirts of

Moscow—beyond the Presnenskaya Gate.

There, at the textile factory, they needed a

good bookkeeper and wanted to set up

some kind of medical attendant’s office,

preferably with a midwife, because there

were no maternity homes in the

surrounding areas. We received a two-room apartment in a one-story wooden

house.The same building housed the factory office, and they set up the medical

nook in the hallway.

There were no city conveniences like running water, a sewer system, or central

heating, but to make up for that, our windows overlooked an apple orchard. Clean

air, nature, and produce—supplied by the closest villages, Mnevniki and

Shelepikha—were far more available here than in Razgulyay.

Our factory-owned house stood right on the bank of the Moscow River,

which at that time was very clean.To the south of the factory were the vegetable

gardens of the peasants from the village Shelepikha, and the potato and rye fields

of the villages Mnevniki and Khoroshevo extended from the northern side.

I am eternally indebted to my parents. In the first place, I am grateful to them

for selecting the place where we lived.They chose wisely.In order to show how the

geography and social environment of the former outskirts of Moscow influenced

my fate, I shall excavate some not yet faded fragments from my memory. I have

selected something that, to my way of thinking, should be of interest to everyone

who is interested in the unique history of Russia and Moscow.

Boys today have hardly taken their first steps before they have gained a knowledge of the different models of automobiles. For me, knowledge of transport

issues began with the temperaments and nicknames of the horses that were the

basis of all the factory’s transport services—trips to Moscow, trips to the villages

for potatoes and vegetables, and the ambulance service delivering the gravely ill

31

From the author’s archives.

The author at the age of two in Lódz,

Poland—1914. 
to the famed Soldatenkovskaya (today

Botkinskaya) hospital. The factory

committee and the governing body of

the Nizhnekhodynskaya textile factory,

where my parents lived and worked,

provided horses during the most difficult

and hungry years to bring joy to the

children of the workers.

On New Year’s Eve in 1919, these

horses brought us, dozens of children,

in sleighs to the first New Year’s party

in Russian history in the Hall of

Columns of the Noblemen’s Club.This

was my first visit to the Hall of Columns

of the future House of Unions. I have

since been in that most popular old

Muscovite hall innumerable times.

Many visits to the Hall of Columns have

been completely erased from my

memory. But some of the events associated with it have been stamped in my

memory forever.

I remember the New Year’s celebration of 1919 in the Hall of Columns clearly after eighty years. Pieces of real 

bread with jam have stuck in my memory just as clearly as the enormous f

that stunned my childhood imagination with its vast assortment of ornamen

radiance of the electric chandeliers, and the music. Indeed, at home, the pr

source of light was kerosene lamps.The factory, located ten kilometers fro

center of the capital,did not have transmission lines from the Moscow electri

until 1922.

For people of the younger generation, it is difficult to imagine that in t

prestigious region of Serebryanyy Bor, in Khoroshevo-Mnevniki, and alon

entire Khoroshevskoye Highway people lived and worked without enjoying 

basic achievements of civilization as gas, electricity, telephones, refrige

running water,and so on.At the factory,all of the machines were driven by a 

diesel engine with a complex system of multi-stage belt transmis

This same diesel engine also provided the factory village with light for a cou

hours in the evening.

The factory workers and their children, with whom I quickly became fr

determined the social microclimate.The Civil War was still going on, and 

course, played “Reds and Whites,” rather than “Cowboys and Indians”. No

wanted to be White. Frequently, when visiting the workers’ dormitories, w

were called “bedrooms,” I heard conversations about the imminent victo

32

From the author’s 

The author, now a young Muscovite,

photographed in 1918 at the age of six
“our side.” Our side was the Red Army, and there were no doubts as to the just

cause of the proletariat. At home, the Sotsialisticheskiy vestnik (Socialist Herald)

sometimes appeared. It was an underground Menshevik newspaper that was

somehow delivered to Mother. She carefully hid it, but that was the very thing

that made me curious.

In all, 300 men worked at the factory, which had its own Communist party cell,

its own factory trade union committee, and even a Pioneer unit.4

I recall that the Pioneers put on a play at the Red Army club at the Presnya

station about the French Revolution. My father chuckled, “What do you know

about this revolution!” But Mother encouraged my social exploits in every way

possible. She was the first to tell me about the times of Robespierre, Marat, and

Danton, and she explained what the Bastille and the guillotine were.

The geographic location contributed to my being a pretty good swimmer by

the time I reached the age of seven, and soon my comrades and I took a liking to

river voyages. We rowed against the rapid current to the mysterious Studenyy

ravine.Archeology students often visited this ravine, which was really cold even on

hot days.They filled their knapsacks with ancient fossils and gladly enlightened us

curious natives about “who was who” hundreds of thousands of years ago.At the

bottom of the ravine was a spring that produced water that was crystal clear and,

as they used to say, even had healing properties.

In 1932, these places were completely wiped out by the construction of the

Karamyshevskaya Dam of the Moscow-Volga Canal.To begin with, they filled in

the ravine. In its place they built a camp surrounded by barbed wire for the prisoners who built the canal. Now a major transportation line runs through these

sites. As we got older, we rowed upriver to Fili, and then to Kuntsev. Our dream

was always to reach Krylatskoye. On its high bank, like a beacon, rose a white bell

tower. It was very difficult to overcome the rapid current with our oars.

I began to read at a young age. During our journeys along the Moscow River

we made rest stops on the willow-thicketed banks.My traveling companions made

a campfire, roasted potatoes, and demanded one of my celebrated readings of the

literature that I used to snatch from my parents’ library for such occasions.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn met with the greatest success,

while Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave rise to aggressive moods:

“Hey—after the revolution in Europe, we’ll deal with the American slaveholders!”

By the time we were ten, my comrades and I got to know the outlying areas,

on bicycles made by the Duks factory.The Duks factory, the future “No. 1” aviation factory, and subsequently the Progress Factory, produced surprisingly durable

road bikes in those years. Skilled workers could afford to buy such a bicycle for

their sons.

33

4. The Pionery (Pioneers) was a nationwide organization that existed during the Soviet era to inculcate

socialist and communist values among youth.
The area surrounding Moscow was amazingly pure ecologically. One 

judge this simply by the fact that our table was never without fish caught 

Moscow River or the factory pond,which was formed by a dam on the Kho

River. During those hungry years of rationing cards, this was a great help.

The Khoroshevskoye Highway, which connected Krasnaya Presnya 

Khoroshevskiy Serebryanyy Bor, passed a kilometer from the factory.This hig

was paved with cobblestones and therefore considered to be an all-weather 

oughfare. At the age of seven, some friends of the same age and I ran off 

highway to watch the few cars that drove by.We secretly hoped we would see 

blow up the powder depots located across the highway next to the Khodyn

radio station towers. I got into a lot of trouble for such absences, sinc

Khoroshevskiy arsenals instilled fear in everyone living in the vicinity.Ther

talk that enemy counterrevolutionaries would sooner or later blow them u

then our factory and every living thing in it would be obliterated.

The interesting thing was that the arsenals really did blow up. It w

summer of 1920 and I had asked for permission once again to “go see ho

radio station operates.” Along the way, I saw smoke and flame of an extr

nary height dancing over the powder depots. People were running towa

shouting: “The depots are burning!” I was a pretty good runner and I to

my heels as fast as my eight-year-old legs could carry me toward the villa

Shelepikha. Behind me it was already rumbling and thundering. The p

running beside me were yelling that we needed to take cover behind the 

tower—there was a very sturdy embankment there.When I reached the 

bank, I ran at full speed to the stone water tower building looming up a

Suddenly flames leapt up in front of me, and a hot wind full of sand and c

of earth hit me in the face.

It seemed as if I had fallen into some sort of pit. Someone’s strong arm p

me out and did not let go of me. Now I tried to break into a run, drawn 

that arm. Only when I heard the cry,“Don’t try to break loose, I’m still not 

to let go of you!” did I recognize Vera, the young worker from the dye shop 

often came to see my mother. In the rushing stream of people we reached th

road bridge by Fili. The guard let everyone across, and finding ourselves o

other Fili bank, we were able to catch our breath. Back where I had run fr

mushroom-shaped column shot high into the air. Out of the cloud, hot clum

some unknown material were flying in various directions. I remember being 

water to drink and eating from the mess-tins of our Red Army soldiers.That 

we slept in their tents.

The next day we were allowed to return. Under Vera’s protection, I a

home. My mother had been convinced that I had died or lay wounded ne

depots. She had rushed to the fire, and according to eyewitness acc

remained alive only because Red Army soldiers stopped her and held he

shelter until the most dangerous phase of the explosions was over. Then 

helped her in fruitless searches, and finally despairing, they drove her h

34
A line had already formed there of people with minor injuries who needed

bandages. Amazingly, no one had been killed or seriously wounded among all

our acquaintances.

Our neighbor—the factory foreman, a former artilleryman—had taken cover

during the explosions with his entire family in the cellar.When the most terrifying part was over, he also attempted to search for my remains.When he saw me

whole and unharmed, with my mother almost beside herself, he offered to give

me a thrashing as a warning. He often used this method on his own five children.

This time his offer was not accepted. But soon another occasion presented the

opportunity for such an educational lesson.

The immediate destruction and fires from the depots in the area blowing up

were surprisingly small. However, thousands of artillery shells of various calibers,

hand grenades, and boxes of cartridges were scattered over a radius of more than

three kilometers. Red Army units mobilized to collect this ammunition that was

so hazardous for the populace and so essential to the army, but they could not

manage to gather and neutralize it all. No one could clearly explain why such a

large amount of artillery shells had been stored at the depots since they had been

in catastrophically short supply during the czarist army’s war with the Germans.

The Red Army was also on hunger rations and was compelled to make use of

booty captured in battles with the Whites.

Sappers, who had blown up whole piles of ordnance in the Studenyy ravine,

enlightened the curious little boys as to “what was what” as far as ammunition

goes. I decided that the war was continuing, and that in any case, it wouldn’t do

any harm to have my own arsenal. Unbeknownst to the grownups, my comrades

and I stashed a couple dozen 3- and 6-inch unexploded shells and bottle-necked

and fragmentation hand grenades under the porch of our house, which was at

the same time my parents’ place of business. Fortunately, the grenades had no

fuses. We learned how to get the explosive out of the ammunition and were

delighted by the lighting effects when we threw it into the campfires that we

made on the riverbank.While putting away gardening tools under the porch, a

grownup discovered our arsenal. The sappers were called immediately, and the

factory cell of the Communist Party demanded an investigation into the possible counterrevolutionary plot to seize power in our area, or at least, at the factory

and in the village of Shelepikha. I confessed our secret plan to my parents: we

had been preparing a gift for the Red Army for the crushing defeat of the White

Poles. The plot scenario faded, but in this case, the neighbor insisted that his

educational method be applied. For the first and last time in my life, my father

gave me a thrashing, using an ordinary office ruler as the implement for the

corporal punishment.

The edge of the antenna field of the Khodynskaya radio station, the largest in

Russia, lay just 2 kilometers from the annihilated powder depots. The steel and

wood towers, which were over 100 meters high, stood at intervals of 100 meters.

Strung between them, on garlands of insulators, hung the sausage-shaped anten

35
nas.A wire net for counterbalance was suspended above the ground. Barbed 

surrounded the entire area, and it was considered closed to the public. How

the factory trade union committee organized tours for workers and schoo

dren to the radio station.

At the station, I got my first glimpse into the work of the powerful w

transmitter sending its dots and dashes into the ether in a series of blinding s

Next, they showed us what they called the accumulator hall.“Twelve thousa

these glass jars produce 24,000 volts. Any contact with them is lethal,” exp

our tour guide. It was frightening, mysterious, and terribly interesting. In an

hall, the high-frequency generators were humming. Here, for the first time, 

the famed machines of Professor Vologdin.5 I later met the Professor himself 

I was a student. I went on at least three tours of the Khodynskaya radio st

trying to understand why it was possible to hear it thousands of versts 

Perhaps living in such close proximity influenced my subsequent passion for 

tricity and radio engineering.

My cousin Mikhail Solomonovich Volfson often came to visit us. He w

years my senior and knew how to hold interesting conversations abou

wonders of technology. He introduced me to the literary genres of adventur

science fiction, which often resulted in conflicts with my parents. As soon 

opportunity arose, I set aside Turgenev’s Sportsman’s Sketches and became abs

in Aelita, Captain Grant’s Children, or one of the books from James Fen

Cooper’s famous Indian series.7 Somehow Father took me to Moscow, and f

first time I found myself at a real movie. It was the Ars movie house on Tve

Street. On the screen I saw the Martian beauty Aelita and was completely stu

Here was my calling in life. It was possible to receive secret signals via radio 

Mars:“Anta, Odeli, Uta!”This meant:“Where are you, son of Earth?”

And so I became mad about radio engineering.This enthusiasm went in ta

with an enthusiasm for airplanes. About five kilometers to the east of our 

was the notorious Khodynka.There, on the day of the coronation of Tsar Ni

II, hundreds of people died in a stampede for free vodka. In the twentieth ce

they filled in the multitude of pits and ditches and it became the Central A

of the Republic. I used to love to go to the airfield with my friends, and 

times alone.After making myself comfortable in the sweet-smelling grass,I’d 

the takeoffs and landings of the airplanes, which looked a lot like bookcases w

shelves were tied together with string.

36

5. Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences Valentin Petrovich Vologdin (1881-1953

famous Russian scientist in the field of radio engineering.

6. “Verst” is an archaic Russian unit for distance. One verst is equal to slightly less than 1 kilomete

7. Aelita, written by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1883-1945), was a science fiction novel o

published in 1923. It tells the story of a Soviet expedition to Mars. In 1924, director Yakov Aleksan

Protazanov (1881-1945) produced a famous film of the same name based on the novel. It was the first 

fiction film made during the Soviet era that depicted spaceflight.
Soon my knowledge of the construction and layout of airplanes became more

substantial.The same Vera who dragged me away from the firestorm of the burning powder depots married a flight mechanic who worked at Khodynka.With his

assistance, I began to study the various types of aircraft.Whenever I saw an airplane

in the sky, I had to make a public announcement of its name. And there were a

multitude of them, single- and two-engine, biplanes, monoplanes, even triplanes,

and all of them were foreign: Junkers, De Havilland, Avro, Fokker, Dornier,

Sopwith,Vickers, Newport. “Just wait,” the flight mechanic assured us, “we will

have ours.” Soon our airplanes appeared at Khodynka.They were very similar to

the De Havillands.These were the first domestic reconnaissance aircraft, the R-1

and R-2.

During this time of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1923, aviation had

already arrived at our factory.8 The meadow on the opposite side of the Moscow

River became the airfield of the Junkers subsidiary factory.The Soviet government

offered the German company Junkers the vacant buildings of the Russko-Baltiyskiy

(Russo-Baltic) factory in the forest tract of Fili. German designer Hugo Junkers

was the first to begin construction of all-metal military aircraft. The Treaty of

Versailles forbade the production of military aircraft on the actual territory of

Germany. It was therefore at this factory in Soviet Russia where the technology

was created for the manufacture of all-metal aircraft. Until then, throughout the

world, airplanes were constructed using wood and textile technology.

Swimming across the river, we had the opportunity to walk right up to the

Junkers standing at the edge of the forest.There was no strict security. In return

for doing small chores and helping the flight mechanics, we young boys were

allowed to look at the airplanes and even touch them with our hands.The Fili

plant had been set up to produce single-engine, two-seater Ju-20 and Ju-21

reconnaissance planes. The Junkers aircraft had the later-classic, cantilevered

monoplane design made completely out of corrugated duralumin.9 Some of the

airplanes were assembled on floats rather than on wheeled landing gear. The

seaplanes were hauled down to the Moscow River on special carriages. The

seaplanes’ takeoffs and landings on the river, which we had imagined to be our

home territory, disrupted the peaceful coexistence of fishermen, Red Army

soldiers bathing their horses in the river, and guests arriving from Moscow for

relaxation and boat outings.

A year or two later, two- and three-engine Junkers appeared at the airfield.

These airplanes also flew in the winter after the landing gear wheels were replaced

with skis.

37

8. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was a program initiated by Lenin in 1921 that called for a mixed

socialist-capitalist economy and significant concessions to the peasantry in Russia.The program was seen as a

temporary response to the ravages of revolution, Civil War, and War Communism.

9. Duralumin, introduced widely in the aviation industry in the 1930s, was an aluminum-based alloy that

was stronger and more resistant to corrosion than aluminum.
In 1923, yet another event took place that gave me reason to consider m

person fully steeped in aviation and announce to my chums that in the fu

would select a flying career.In Moscow,the First Agricultural and Crafts Exhi

opened in the area that today is Gorky Park.The exhibition was a big event 

life of the a nation making the transition from a system of War Communism 

New Economic Policy—NEP, which allowed and even encouraged capi

enterprise in small manufacturing and commerce.Our Nizhnekhodynskaya f

was transferred from the state sector for lease by a private stockholder com

Cloth wares from the factory, expensive for those times, were presented at the 

bition. On one of these occasions my father took me along. He was occupied 

business matters, and I roamed around the exhibition the entire day studyin

tents of northern reindeer herders, the yurts of Central Asian nomads, and th

show houses of average peasants.10 The housing was presented together wi

proprietors, live camels, reindeer, fattened horses, and various and sundry fo

the same time, agricultural produce from every geographical area of the co

was on sale.

But for me, the most interesting sight was the passenger Junkers. On the 

of the Moscow River there was a small line of respectable citizens, who for a 

unknown to me, were seated four at a time in the seaplane. It took off, circle

Moscow, and five minutes later taxied back up to the dock.

At the end of the day, after hunting for my father, I evidently made him f

sorry for me, that after speaking with someone who obviously had connec

he led me to the line for the Junkers.The rest was like a fairy tale. For the firs

in my life, I flew! Afterwards, this first “commercial” flight gave me the gum

to look down on all those who had never flown.

On 21 January 1924, Lenin died. In spite of the regular publication of bu

concerning Lenin’s grave illness, the news of his death was perceived as a 

misfortune in our family and among the factory workers.The grief was sin

remember my mother’s words:“Now everything could be lost.”Father was ca

and asked her not to speak unnecessarily, especially with her many patients. D

the days of mourning, the factory almost came to a standstill. In spite of the in

cold—the temperature fell to -25° C—the majority of the workers went to 

in line at the House of Trade Unions to say goodbye to Lenin.

After some domestic dissension, Mother announced that she must go 

goodbye to the great man, and she took me and other children whose parent

their permission. Bundled up beyond recognition, eight or ten boys led on fo

my mother headed for House of Trade Unions. I remember that we often wa

ourselves by campfires that the Red Army soldiers kept burning along the l

of the entire line.We entered the Hall of Columns after spending six hours 

subzero cold. I recall that someone said,“Let the children come closer.”And 

38

10. Yurts were domed tents used by nomadic groups in central Asia.
the second time in my life I found myself in the Hall of Columns.This time it was

nothing like the New Year’s celebration.

The people moved slowly, trying to get a better look at Lenin lying in the red

coffin. My friend Pashka Lebedev said rather loudly,“Looks like in the portrait.”

In response, someone immediately gave him a whack in the back of the head. My

mother leaned down and whispered to me,“Look, there are Krupskaya, Bukharin,

Zinovyev, and Dzerzhinskiy!”11 But we had already been gently nudged out the

door, and once again found ourselves outside in the freezing cold. The tenkilometer march back home, now in the dark, was an arduous trial, but everyone

returned without frostbite.

Two days later, a newspaper devoted to Lenin’s mourning was posted on the

wall of the factory. It contained my drawing “Lenin in the coffin” and a description of our march to the Hall of Columns.

After Lenin’s death, the Central Committee of the Communist Party

announced the “Lenin enrollment.” All upright workers were called to join the

Party in order to compensate for the loss that it had suffered from the death of

Lenin. The factory’s Party cell proposed that my mother join the Party. “Sofiya

Borisovna selflessly works without regard to the time spent caring for the workers’ health,” announced the secretary of the Party organization. A family council

was convened to discuss this issue. One of my uncles, the husband of Mother’s

younger sister Berta Borisovna, had been a member of the Party since 1917. He

told Mama that she should not be hasty.There was to be a “purge” in the Party

and she might be expelled as a former Menshevik. Being purged from the

party was far worse than simply not being a member. And so, my mother, who

before my birth was an active member of the Russian Social Democratic Party,

remained a non-party woman.

39

11. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (1869-1939) was a leading Russian revolutionary who married

Lenin in 1898. Nikolay Nikolayevich Bukharin (1888-1938) was an influential Bolshevik, Marxist theoretician,

and economist. Grigoriy Yevseyevich Zinovyev (1883-1936) was a revolutionary, Bolshevik, and a central figure

in the Communist Party leadership. Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy (1877-1926) was a member of the

Bolshevik Party’s Central Committee and also headed the Soviet Union’s first security police agency, the

dreaded ChK (Cheka).

Chapter 4

School in the Twenties

In the 1920s, nine-year schools provided comprehensive education.The first four

years were called the first level or primary school.The next three years completed

the compulsory seven-year education.After completing seven years of school you

could enter a technical school, go to work, or continue to study for another two

years. For the last two years, the eighth and ninth grades, each school had its own

emphasis—a specialization enabling graduates to obtain a certificate conferring on

them one profession or another. Factory educational institutions (FZU) also

provided comprehensive education.1 I dreamed of getting into a radio and electrical engineering FZU, or if worst came to worst, an aeronautical engineering FZU.

But there was nothing of the sort in our immediate vicinity.

In autumn 1924, I went straight into the fifth grade of the nine-year school,

having passed the exams for the first level, which I got through thanks to my

parents’ efforts.

Father exhibited a great deal of patience and spent long hours trying to secure

in my memory the fundamentals of Russian grammar and syntax. I persistently

failed to understand the difference between the genitive and accusative cases, and

I hated penmanship, but gladly solved arithmetic problems. I was more enthusiastic about the fundamentals of physics and chemistry than the prescribed reading of

Turgenev’s Sportsman’s Sketches and Tolstoy’s Childhood. My mother kept track of

my literary training. I remember how exasperated she was when she found me in

the garden reading a volume of Pushkin’s selected works edited by Valeriy Bryusov

and published in 1919. It turned out that the rest of the famous poem “The blush

of dawn covered the east . . . ” was quite involved and not at all what one would

find in a primer;and many of Pushkin’s epigrams were absolutely inappropriate for

my age.The book was returned to the airplane mechanic who lived at our factory

with the aforementioned Vera. He was surprised. “Why hide this from children?

Everyone knows that Pushkin was a hooligan.”

Another of Mama’s passions was her desire to teach me French.To this day I

regret that during my childhood,under the influence of my neighborhood friends,

41

1. FZU—Fabrichno-zavodskoye uchebnoye zavedeniye.
I showed no zeal for studying French, and later none for English.As far as Ge

was concerned, my father laid the foundation, combining it with mathemati

Russian lessons.

I was accepted into School No. 70 of the Krasnaya Presnya region. I

located on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya Street.2 Until 1918 that building had been 

pied by a girls’ preparatory school. The teachers of the lower grades, h

shown their loyalty to the Soviet authority, remained in their positions. 

teachers came from the former technical school that had been located next 

The girls’ preparatory school and boys’ technical school, the teachers told u

been schools for the privileged in that area of Moscow. Both buildings, w

were built in the late 1800s, were distinguished by the architectural monu

talism of the classical Russian Empire style and the grand scale of the in

spaces.The extremely wide hallways, spacious classrooms, excellently appo

offices, sumptuous library, and large assembly hall were all now given to w

ers’ children. Incidentally, the class in which I was placed had considerably 

children of the intelligentsia, white-collar workers, and the new NEP 

geoisie than Krasnaya Presnya workers’ children. Bordering the school bu

was a park with ancient linden trees.The park contained sports fields and 

an equestrian school.

Sadovo-Kudrinskaya Street was very garden-like, as was the case with the 

Garden Ring of that era. Linden trees separated all of the buildings from the 

way, the width of which was mostly taken up by the streetcar tracks of Ring 

B.The street noise did not interfere with our activities in the least when w

our windows wide open during pleasant weather. The large territory o

schoolyard bordered on the sprawling Moscow Zoo. Getting a little ahe

myself, I will add that soon thereafter the country’s first planetarium was 

between our school and the School of Higher Marxism, which had taken ov

former technical school building.After the war, the school building was trans

into a scientific-research institute for biophysics that handled the pro

involved with preserving Lenin’s body.

In 1984, while enlightening my grandson Boris, I felt like boasting a bit 

my old school. Driving up in fine fashion in my Volga to the old familiar ent

I tried to gain entry with him into the building. My attempt was cut-off ri

the entrance. I had to change our itinerary and instead showed my grandson 

archs’ Ponds, which in the winter months in the 1920s was one of Moscow

skating rinks.

“After skating to exhaustion I would accompany one of my classmates 

home on Krasina Street,” I explained to my grandson.

“Let’s drive there. Show me,” he proposed unexpectedly.

42

2. This is a northwestern segment of the Sadovoye Koltso or Garden Ring. Now the middle of M

three ring roads, the Garden Ring marked the city limits of pre-Stalinist Moscow.
We rolled out onto the Garden Ring. Turning at Mayakovskaya Square, we

arrived at Krasina Street. I drove very slowly here, convinced that the arch leading

to the courtyard and the familiar building itself would be long gone. But to my

surprise, everything was in place.

“OK, you saw her to her house, and then what?”

“Then I went home.I walked to Kudrinskaya Square,then I waited about thirty

minutes for the bus. For five kopecks I rode the bus to the Silicate Factory on

Khoroshevskiy Highway, and then I walked—or rather, since it was freezing cold,

I ran the two kilometers home.”

“Can we drive there?”

“Let’s see.”

And we set out on the reconstructed Khoroshevskiy Highway to look for the

road to the former Nizhne-Khodynskaya textile factory. When I got lost on

unfamiliar streets, it occurred to me that it was a lot simpler sixty years ago

without an automobile. Now I had to make out the numbered Silikatnyy thoroughfares jammed with trucks.With difficulty I turned onto Karamyshevskaya

Riverside Drive and finally stumbled onto a building site, beyond which I

surmised where our little wooden house on the riverbank had been located in

those days.

“Every day except holidays, I used to make my way from here to the school

that they wouldn’t allow us into today. And in the evening I went back, sometimes on foot if I missed the last bus. If I walked, I went as the crow flies, not

along Khoreshevskiy, but through Krasnaya Presnya, along the Zvenigorodskiy

Highway, and past the Vagankovskiy cemetery. It took me an hour to walk home

from school. Judging by a modern map of Moscow, it’s impossible to drive that

route today.

“And look here. Down there is the river where we used to swim to our heart’s

content in the summer. On the opposite bank there was a sandy beach and over

there, where those factory buildings are standing, was a marvelous meadow.This

was the Junkers airfield and then later, Factory No. 22.”

“And you flew from this tiny, little airfield?”

“I flew, though of course not as a pilot, but as a technician and later as an engineer. It’s too bad I can’t show you the airplanes that I flew on. Not a single

museum has them.”

From the not-so-distant ’80s, let us return to the school days of the 1920s.As I

explained to my grandson, I usually made my way to school on Leyland buses,

which began making runs from Theater Square to Serebryanyy Bor in 1924.This

was the first bus line in Moscow. I was only given money for the trip and for a sixkopeck loaf of French bread.Pupils received free breakfasts until the seventh grade,

so the French bread took the place of lunch. Officially, the school had a liberal arts

and library science emphasis; but the mathematics, physics, and chemistry teachers

had just as much class time as the humanities teachers, and moreover, they showed

initiative in organizing study groups for their subjects.

43
The physics teacher organized a radio study group. Soon the group’s a

extended beyond the confines of school—I became a member of the s

section of the Central Ham Radio Club, which was located on Nikolskaya S

There I saw professor Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bonch-Bruyevich in person f

first time, and ham radio operators and engineers who were already well-k

to me from radio journals: Shaposhnikov, Pavel Nikolayevich Kuksenko, an

Sergeyevich Theremin, inventor of the world’s first electronic musical instru

My next meeting with Kuksenko took place twenty-one years later in the 

of the Minister of Armaments. I will write about the events of this meeting 

chapter “Air Defense Missiles.”

In 1926, at the ham radio club at No. 3 Nikolskaya Street, Lev Sergey

Theremin demonstrated the first electronic musical instrument in the worl

thereminvox—the Voice of Theremin.This concert sparked enormous intere

only among radio aficionados, but also among professional musicians. The 

ence was captivated by the elegant thirty-year-old engineer who literally p

sounds from the air.The wooden box had two antennas: one in the form of a 

the second a rod. Using light, fluid hand movements Theremin changed the 

and volume of the sound.The music emanating from out of nowhere was 

niscent first of a violin, then a flute, then a cello.

The leader of our section told us that Lev Sergeyevich first demonstrat

instrument in 1921 for the Eighth All-Russian Electrical Engineering Co

tion, and then again at the Kremlin for Lenin himself. Not long thereaft

were distressed to learn that there would be no Theremin concerts in Mo

for the time being—he was going abroad. I forgot about Theremin 

long time.

In 1928, I subscribed to the Technical Encyclopedia.This was a costly pu

tion, but my parents, encouraging my passion for engineering, spared no ex

The twenty-six volumes condensed a colossal mass of technical know

encompassing the enormous realm of the applied science and practical techn

of the time. In the last volume I discovered a description and electrical diagr

the thereminvox. It turned out that the box contained a circuit assembled 

eleven electronic tubes. No mention was made about the fate of Theremin h

after he emigrated from the USSR.

Sixty-five years after the concert on Nikolskaya Street, I once again hea

sounds of the thereminvox and saw—it seemed incredible—Theremin in p

The meeting took place in the apartment of Natalya Sergeyevna Korolev

daughter of Sergey Pavlovich Korolev. In honor of her father’s birthday, N

gathered his relatives and colleagues. She used to track down and invite peo

these events who had known Korolev long before he became Chief Des

Only after the gathering at Natasha Koroleva’s home did I find out a bit 

the astounding fate of Theremin. A talented writer or journalist could s

describe Theremin’s active, creative life and—without making anything 

produce a bestseller.

44
Theremin emigrated to the United States from the USSR not against the

wishes of the government, but with its consent. With its assistance, from 1929

through 1938, he organized and headed a company in New York that produced

electronic musical instruments.The company thrived,and Theremin himself,while

remaining a Soviet citizen, became an American millionaire. In America he got

married, but in 1938 was called back to Moscow and immediately arrested.Taking

into consideration his contributions, a special conference sentenced him to eight

years in a labor camp. He was sent not to Kolyma, but to Central Design Bureau

29 (TsKB-29), a sharaga headed by “enemy of the people”Andrey Tupolev.3There

he was tasked with developing the guidance system for an unmanned radiocontrolled aircraft. Convicted prisoner Sergey Korolev was a consultant on the

aircraft’s design.

In 1941, Theremin was evacuated to Omsk along with all of the workers at

TsKB-29. By then, however, the leaders from Lavrentiy Beriya’s department had

found a more urgent subject for Theremin’s talent:they transferred him to a sharaga

to develop equipment for secret communications, eavesdropping, encoding, and

voice recognition.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes the activity of this institution

45

Archives of Natalya Sergeyevna Korolev. Photo by N.A. Syromyatin. 

B. Ye. Chertok enjoying a lesson on the thereminvox with its creator, L.S. Theremin, at the apartment

of N.S. Koroleva, Moscow, 1986.

3. TsKB-29—Tsentralnoye konstruktorskoye byuro 29. Kolyma was the location of the notorious GULAG

camp in eastern Siberia.
in detail in his novel First Circle.Theremin continued to invent until the las

of his ninety-seven-year life!

In and of itself, the meeting with the ninety-three-year-old Theremi

utterly fantastic. He arrived at Natasha’s home on 12 January 1986 wi

thereminvox and proposed that we try out our musical abilities. In 1926, we y

radio enthusiasts had not been allowed to touch Theremin’s marvelous wo

box. Sixty years later, Lev Sergeyeich Theremin himself patiently taught me t

the instrument he had invented in 1920!

let us return from this digression to the 1920s. My parents coul

provide me with enough funds to acquire new, expensive radio parts. W

only enough money for new shoes and clothes (I was growing rapidly) an

new textbooks—and I still needed skates and skis! Father gave me mon

literature on radios separately. I bought all three of the popular radio jo

that were published at that time: Radio Enthusiast, Radio for Everyone, and 

News.4 In order to read serious literature, I headed after school to the re

room at the Lenin Library, which was located in the famous Pashkov H

and from force of habit still often called the Rumyantsev Library. I oft

there late into the evening over the journal Wireless Telegraph and Telephone

Moorcroft’s Electronic Tubes,and novelties of radio engineering literature.5 S

times I did not have enough knowledge to read such works, especially 

they involved higher mathematics!

Beginning in 1923, book fairs were held on Tverskoy Boulevard once a 

There you could acquire the latest literature at lower prices. When I bec

schoolboy, my parents looked over the literature syllabus for the next three 

checked through our home library, and drew up a list of the Russian classi

lacked. After providing me with money,they instructed me to go to Tverskoy B

vard and buy the most inexpensive publications on the list.Imagine their anger 

I revealed that,instead of Hero of Our Times,Rudin,and collected poems of Nek

Blok, and Bryusov, I had bought six small books from a series on theoretical p

published in Berlin.6 During this domestic scandal my older cousin advised my 

to hide the expensive editions of War and Peace and Anna Karenina and eight le

bound volumes of Gogol, lest I exchange them for amateur radio literature. D

the wartime relocations we were unable to keep the unique edition of Tolsto

of the eight volumes of Gogol, only one disappeared. Five of the small volum

the 1923 edition of Theoretical Physics are still in my library, intact to this day.

46

4. In Russian, the titles were Radiolyubitel (Radio Enthusiast),Radio vsyem (Radio for Everyone), and 

radio (Radio News).

5. The Russian title was Telegrafiya i telefoniya bez provodov (Wireless Telegraph and Telephone).

6. Nikolay Alekseyevich Nekrasov (1821-1877), Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok (1880-1921), and 

Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873-1924) were famous Russian poets of the 19th century.The latter two were 

the Russian symbolist movement.
A year later, the domestic scandal recurred. Father noticed the absence of the

three-volume Life of Animals by Alfred Brehm given to me as a birthday present. I

confessed that I had sold the books in order to buy brand new microtubes so that

I could assemble a two-tube receiver.I had urgently needed to make a receiver that

was better than the one that my classmate Sergey Losyakov had devised.

I remember my school years with contentment. Learning was interesting; I had

consuming new interests and a circle of good comrades.The boys were into chess,

physics, and radio engineering. But there were study groups where girls also

thrived. Our chemistry teacher made the potential effects of the chemical industry on our economy sound so fascinating that when he organized a chemistry

study group, almost the entire female contingent of our class joined it. I excelled

in chemistry and was also involved with this study group for two years.The skills

that I gained during that time proved extremely useful to me later.

Another thing we were crazy about was the military.The daughter of one of

the prominent military chiefs of the Moscow Military District studied at my

school. Her father sponsored a military training program for the school. Smallarms groups were formed.We fired small caliber weapons once a week at the military shooting range; and then—at the Khamovnicheskoye range—we fired real

“three-line” rifles.7 At a marksmanship competition, I won what was for those

times an expensive prize—a chess set. The military training course ended with

mastery of the Maxim machine gun and field firing. During the course no time

was wasted on drill training, regimentation, or studying the guard duty manual.

During our last two years, an emphasis was placed on library science. Having

studied the classification of literature in theory, we were expected to put this into

practice in large libraries. I found myself at the military library of the Central

Airfield—once again on the renowned Khodynka.

The liberal arts emphasis required us to read the Russian literary classics and

study art history and the history of the revolutionary movement.“Izo” was what

we called the young architect who spent a great deal of time strolling around

Moscow with us explaining different architectural styles.We went with him to old

churches, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts.We could look at a

building and say without error,“That’s Empire,” or “That’s Baroque . . . Modern

... Russian Classicism,” and so on.The school had the resources to organize field

trips. In the spring of 1928, I visited Leningrad for the first time.

Not only was the reading material in the nine grades completely free of charge

for school children, but so were the expensive long-distance field trips. All eight

classes of our school spent a week getting to know Leningrad. First we went to the

tsars’ palaces and saw the actual “Bronze Horseman.”8 In Kronstadt we visited the

47

7. ‘Three-line’ refers to a subunit of an infantry battalion.

8. The “Bronze Horseman” is a statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg commonly referred to by this

name and the subject of a poem by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837).
cruiser Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya. We shivered with cold in the chambers 

Peter and Paul Fortress and admired the works of the Italian and French arch

On the verge of exhaustion, we made our way to the site of Pushkin’s duel o

Chernaya River and then in the evening, out of fatigue, we fell asleep at the 

in the former imperial Mariynskiy Theater. Leningrad won us over w

grandeur and its history.My love for this city has been preserved from those s

years to this day.

The scope of the humanities we studied in school was not great, but I 

recall with gratitude the teachers who,at the risk of losing their job,digressed 

the instructions and literally sowed “reason, kindness, and the eternal.”9We st

neither Russian nor world history.These subjects simply were not offered. I

we had two years of social science, during which we studied the histo

Communist ideas from Thomas More to Lenin, as well as the worldwide re

tionary movement. Our clever social sciences teacher conducted lessons so 

along with the history of the French Revolution and the Paris Commun

became familiar with the history of the European peoples from Ancient Ro

World War I; and while studying the Decembrist movement and 1905 Revo

in detail we were forced to investigate the history of Russia.10

Many years later I understood what tremendous educational impact ther

direct contact with living history, with genuine works of art and architec

understood that this was because I received a greater dose of the humanitie

Soviet nine-year school in the late 1920s than my sons did in the postwar el

year schools, or my grandson sixty years later! True, they had television, m

cinema, and extensive home libraries at their disposal. However, it is one th

feel for yourself the dampness of the Alekseyevskiy ravelin and quite anoth

look at the Peter and Paul Fortress in the comfort of your home on televisi

Of course, during those five years of school, as far as I can remember, I nev

enough time. On winter evenings you still had to manage to go skating. Patr

Ponds,Iskra on the Presnya,and the Young Pioneers’Stadium were three of the 

where we would meet in our free time.We did more than just skate there. 

were venues for rendezvous and declarations of love. In those strict, puritanical 

it was considered inappropriate for a young man of fourteen or fifteen to wal

in arm with a young woman. But while skating, you could put your arm aro

girl’s waist, whirl around with her on the ice to the point of utter exhaustio

then accompany her home without the least fear of reproach. Such was the co

honor at skating rinks.Skiing competitions were held at Petrovskiy Park.The s

48

9. The line is an excerpt from Nekrasov’s poem “To the Sowers.”

10. The Decembrist movement refers to one of the first attempts to overthrow the Tsarist regime.Th

coup took place in December 1825.

11. The Alekseyevskiy ravelin is the exterior fortification of Peter and Paul Fortress built in 1733 and 

in honor of Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich (1629-1676).A “secret house” was built in 1797 at the ravelin 

used until 1884 as a prison.
of what is now Leningradskiy Prospect between the Dynamo and Aeroport metro

stations was an excellent route. On Sundays it was filled with Moscow’s cross-country skiing elite.The rare cabs and automobiles were no obstacle.

Schoolboys did not shy away from politics, particularly the noisy campaign over

the struggle with Trotskyism.

It was the autumn of 1927. At that time, a fierce battle was going on between

the Stalinists and the Trotskyite opposition. On 7 November, returning from a

demonstration on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, we witnessed an attempt by Trotsky supporters to make a speech on

Mokhovaya Street. They hung out a portrait of Trotsky on the building of the

Central Executive Committee (TsIK), where the Kalinin reception room was

located.12 Zinoviyev was giving a speech from the fourth floor balcony. Suddenly,

soldiers appeared on the balcony and began to tear down the portrait of Trotsky

with long poles. The crowd below broke into a rage. You could not tell who

outnumbered whom, the Trotsky supporters or their opponents. A column of

Trotskyite university students emerged from the gates of Moscow State University

(MGU) singing the “Internationale.”13 On the street a brawl broke out; in the

melee it was difficult to determine who was fighting for whom.

The next day our class,7A,had a lively discussion about ways to fight Trotskyites

entrenched in the school. During recess, shouting “beat the Trotskyites,” we fought

with the neighboring class,7B.Their defenses were ready.The following slogan was

inscribed on the blackboard:“Shoot the kulak,the NEPman,and the bureaucrat!”14

We were met with shouts of “Opportunists,traitors!”After a slight brawl we agreed

to conduct our discussions in a more civilized manner.

by the time we had reached the sixth grade, groups had been formed according to interests. I struck up a friendship with Sergey Losyakov and Slava Kutovoy

that would last for many years. It all started with each of us trying to prove his

superiority in mastering the art of ham radio and his erudition in those fields of

science not included in our school program. Sergey surpassed Slava and me in his

mastery of Einstein’s theory of relativity and Freud’s psychoanalysis.To talk freely

and solder circuits we usually met at Losyakov’s two-room apartment on the broad

Kondratyevskiy Lane, near Belorusskiy train station. Sergey was the only son of a

single mother. His father had abandoned the family when Sergey was six years old.

His mother worked in a railroad accounts department. She managed to make ends

meet, though with difficulty, and was completely devoted to her son. Of the three

of us, only Sergey had his own separate room.

49

12. TsIK—Tsentralnyy Ispolnitelnyy Komitet.

13. MGU—Moskovskiy Gosudarstvennyi Universitet.

14. Kulak was a derisive term used to refer to wealthy peasants after the Revolution.“NEPmen” were those

traders and businessmen who benefited most from the mixed socialist-capitalist policies of the NEP era in the

1920s.The term, like kulak, had strong pejorative connotations when used by those who supported the Bolsheviks.
When we gathered at Slava’s house on Protochnyy Lane, the close quart

his radio nook prevented us from tinkering with a soldering iron, much less d

ing issues of world order. Slava’s father was a Ukrainian man of letters w

vividly expressed nationalist bias. He was eager to show his son’s comrade

much we were missing by not studying Ukrainian literature. Slava’s mother 

literature teacher, also with a pro-Ukrainian bias. Slava’s younger brothe

fluently spoke the languages of both fatherlands, and under coercion ha

mastered French and German. When we met at the Kutovoys’ house, inste

fiddling with the latest single-tube regenerative receiver, we listened to fascin

stories about the works of Taras Shevchenko.15With obvious satisfaction and 

ration, Slava’s father read to us—in Ukrainian—the poetry of Shevchenk

other Ukrainian poets who were unknown to Sergey and myself.

After finishing the seventh grade, Slava transferred to a different school.T

after the eighth and ninth grades, the students acquired the specialty of electr

Sergey, Slava, and I remained friends. During our subsequent years as m

engineers and then respectable scientists and family men, we went on vac

together, celebrated anniversaries, and yes, tried unsuccessfully to teach 

another some sense. Both Sergey Losyakov and Slava Kutovoy acquired 

Ph.D.’s in technical sciences. Until his final days, Sergey was a professor i

Department of Radio-Controlled Devices at the Moscow Institute of R

Engineering and Electronics. His boyhood passion never changed.

I saw Slava Kutovoy off to his final journey in the summer of 2001. 

accompanied by scientists from the Institute of Engines, where until the las

of his life he was the most highly respected specialist on the injection, atomiz

and combustion of fuel in diesel engines for tanks.

After this sad digression, the time machine again returns me to the 1920

In the eighth and ninth grades, during the lessons on various subjects, a 

tice was established whereby during the lessons on various subjects the te

would seat the boys and the girls in pairs, underscoring the fact that, unlike 

times when there were separate schools for boys and girls, schools under 

authority were “unified and for the workers.”

Mathematics teacher Mariya Nikolayevna Yakhontova was in charge o

class. She fostered in us a love for mathematics and strove to arrange the pu

pairs so that the young people were indifferent to each other and all their 

tion was devoted to mathematics. During mathematics lessons I sat with the 

up, taciturn Nadya Sukhotskaya, who never asked for prompting, and in ever

possible demonstrated her complete indifference not only to me, but to all b

general. In German class, I sat next to the class monitor, Zhenya Taratuta. Sh

from a family of pre-revolutionary intellectuals. She had spoken German 

childhood, honestly fought for discipline during lessons, and fearlessly def

50

15. Taras Hryhorovich Shevchenko (1814-1961) was a famous Ukrainian poet and playwright.
the honor of our class during intra-school competitions. Having her as a neighbor

worked to my advantage in mastering German. Zhenya Taratuta did not finish

school.At the beginning of her last academic year, fulminant tuberculosis took the

life of the most advanced and—in the opinion of our teachers—the most promising young woman of our class.

Freedom reigned during literature lessons. The tall, handsome, bearded and

dark-haired Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskiy seated his pupils according to

“ladies’ choice.” He read us his own poems, which were far from the prescribed

syllabus, all the while attentively noting how the female contingent of the class

reacted to them.

When it was announced that we were free to sit anywhere, Zoya Sudnik,

generally recognized as the prettiest girl in the class, sat next to me. She was

Polish. Our observant and sharp-tongued teacher did not pass up the opportunity

to say to me:“Chertok, you now have the responsibility for the literary success of

the beautiful Pole.”We had already read Gogol’s Taras Bulba in the seventh grade,

so I wasn’t shaken.16

I said,“Andrey’s fate does not threaten me.The beautiful Pole and I have already

mastered range rifle firing together and Taras Bulba doesn’t have a pass to the

Khamovnicheskoye range.”

I never had enough time to read all the literature in the syllabus. Aleksandr

Aleksandrovich knew this and did not miss his chance to put me in my place.

“Your charming neighbor will not enhance the fighting efficiency of our Red

Army with her rifle. But Zoya has gotten through three volumes of War and

Peace ahead of schedule and I hope that she will help you to get a decent grade

in my class.”

Soon our literature teacher got his chance to check whether his instructions

regarding War and Peace had been fulfilled.

In the winter of 1928, in search of earnings and glory, I decided on a venture.

I had gotten an idea for a fundamentally new radio receiver from the German

journal Radio für Alle (Radio for Everyone), but having neither the time nor the

means to manufacture a receiver that really worked, I decided to develop the

circuitry and design on paper only.The description of the two-tube reflex receiver

that I invented was very detailed. I attached its external view to a separate sheet in

accordance with all the canons of design of that era. Completing the detailed article, I cited a list of European radio stations that anyone who reproduced my

circuitry could successfully receive.I sent all of this to the editorial staff of the journal Radio for Everyone.

On a sunny spring morning on my way to school, I passed a newspaper kiosk

on Kudrinskaya Square and saw my drawing in living color on the cover of Radio

51

16. Taras Bulba is the story of a Cossack,Taras Bulba, and his sons Ostap and Andrey. Andrey betrays the

Cossacks for the love of a beautiful Polish woman and Taras kills him.
for Everyone. Shelling out every kopeck I had, I bought two copies of the jo

In class, it wasn’t so much the content of the article as the very fact of its ap

ance that caused a sensation. It became the object of admiration, jests, and p

cal jokes. During our first class, mathematics, we were supposed to be called 

the blackboard to be grilled on the binomial theorem.When Mariya Nikola

entered the room and began to look around at her inexplicably excited clas

Nirenburg, the class wit, stood up and announced:

“Mariya Nikolayevna! We have a request. Rather than test our knowled

the great Newton’s binomial theorem today, let’s listen to the report of a sc

who, though not yet great, is one of our own.”

Nirenburg strode to the teacher’s desk and placed a copy of Radio for E

one in front of the perplexed and formidable grande dame of our class, w

we secretly called Maryasha.17 To our surprise, she began thoughtfully to p

the journal.

“Chertok! To the blackboard!”

The class fell silent.The command performance by the hero of the day, in 

of the collective appeal, did not bode well. Chertok would start swimmi

Newton’s theorem, and in the best-case scenario Maryasha would give him 

and tell him that the article would get him no special treatment when it ca

evaluating his knowledge of the subject at hand.

“You will draw a diagram of your reflex receiver without referring to the jo

explaining to all of us its operating principle and why you call it a reflex receiv

This was so unexpected that I stood speechless for a minute in front of the 

silence of the class.

Gradually, the same inspiration came over me that I had experienced w

had thought up and drawn the diagram of the receiver at home. I spoke for 

thirty minutes.To everyone’s surprise, Maryasha began to pose questions abo

electronic tube specifications and the variable capacitor design.When the bel

she explained,“That’s it.Today during second period I am not going to call a

to the board—I’ll waste time again on examples of the binomial theorem. 

Tuesday there will be a test for everyone.And a week from now, if the wea

good, we will take a field trip to Barvikha!”The class applauded, but durin

break it was Nirenburg who was showered with gratitude for his successful 

tive, not me.

After two hours of mathematics the schedule called for literature class.As 

as the teacher had taken his seat,my neighbor Zoya,inspired by Nirenburg’s e

ple, leaped up and approached our teacher with my journal.Without a trac

smile, she loudly pronounced,“Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, instead of my repo

‘The Image of Natasha Rostovaya’,I propose that we listen to the new writer 

our class. Here is his article.”The class fell silent. Our teacher, after leafing th

52

17. Russian diminutive form connoting familiarity
the journal, returned it, commenting,“I see that today it is going to be difficult for

you to transport yourselves back to the time of War and Peace. I excuse you, Zoya,

from your report, but a week from today you and the new writer will present a

report together on ‘Natasha and Prince Andrey.’ Meanwhile, today I will deviate

from the syllabus and tell you about Russian Symbolists.”

The class broke into applause.We already knew about our teacher’s penchant

for the Symbolists; he was a bit of a poet himself. For two hours, holding our

breath, we listened to what was for those times a forbidden lecture about the

poetry of Balmont, Belyy, early Blok, and Bryusov.18

With their initiatives, Nirenburg and Zoya had eclipsed my glory for the time

being. But the following week, the school newspaper Iskra (Spark) was posted on

the wall. In the traditional “Comic Quiz” section the following question appeared:

“How do you use radio tube reflexes to change a “D” to an “A” in mathematics

and literature?”

Three months later I received an honorarium of sixty rubles, which for those

times was not much at all, but it was my first paycheck in the field of science.This

article was the crown of my radio engineering activities during those years.

In the spring of 1929, having completed nine grades, we were triumphantly

given certificates attesting to the successful completion of comprehensive school.

We were released into a life where each of us was faced with selecting our own

path.We of course all dreamed of going straight into an institute of higher learning.The resources that School No. 70 had given me did not go to waste.

Forty years later,after meeting with several former classmates,we calculated that

our class alone had produced four doctors of science,five candidates of science,and

three or four production managers. Only three girls became professional librarians; the others had obtained higher pedagogical, civil engineering, or literary

education. One of our classmates even graduated from the conservatory as a

pianist. Everyone whom we recalled from the graduating class of 1929 had sooner

or later obtained higher education. Three did not return from the front during

World War II.

My entry into school coincided with the end of the Russian State’s general

systemic crisis (1914-1923). Industrial production during the crisis period was

one-fifth of the production level for 1913, and agricultural production two-thirds.

Six years later, when we finished school, industrial production had already

surpassed the 1913 level.The country’s integrity was restored and the backward

peasant nation had begun moving headlong toward achieving the status of a great

industrial power.

A universal, burgeoning passion for technology and precise science had already

begun in those years. Seven to ten individuals competed for each opening in the

53

18. Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) and Andrey Belyy (1880-1934; his real name was Boris

Nikolayevich Bugayev) were famous Russian Symbolist poets.
technical institutes of higher learning. Entrance exams were not the only b

to admission. In addition to the usual admissions board, a sort of screening 

was at work. Such boards were supposed to ensure that the vast majority of 

admitted were workers who had served at least three years in an industrial in

ship,members of a trade union,or children of pure proletarian lineage.Next 

ity was given to peasants, and white-collar workers and their children 

admitted to the remaining positions.

According to the “social lineage” chart, I was the son of a white-collar w

and had virtually no hope of being accepted the first time around. Neverthe

applied to enter the MVTU school of electrical engineering. Out of na

assuming that my radio engineering works might play some role, I wrote 

them in detail in my autobiographical essay, citing the three inventor’s certi

I had already received and my journal publication. I passed the exams, but 

rally did not fit into the social lineage chart. A member of the acceptance b

who was specially designated to interview applicants, explained this to me 

frankly:“Work about three years and come back.We’ll accept you as a work

not as the son of a white-collar worker.”

Of all the working-class specializations, the most attractive to me was e

cian.The Krasnaya Presnya silicate factory was the closest to our house. Equ

with imported processing equipment, it began to produce white silicate b

was accepted at the factory as an electrician on a probationary basis.Finding m

placed under the charge of a stern senior electrician, a Latvian who spoke 

ian poorly, I probably would have been taken on as an apprentice. But sudde

turned out that the factory had acquired a German power shovel with el

drives.The company sent a German fitter to assemble the machine and put 

operation. The German didn’t know Russian and he needed an assistant 

understood him. My reserves of German vocabulary from my school days p

to be sufficient for this man to say sehr gut (very well), and after working wit

for a month, I received a high evaluation as a “foreign specialist.”Thus, I sk

over the humiliating (in terms of self-esteem and income) apprentice leve

became a fourth-class electrician on a seven-class scale.

The work of an electrician at a brick factory proved to be anything bu

Silicate brick was manufactured from a mixture of sand and unslaked lim

sand was added using the German power shovel. It chomped into a mount

sand that in the winter had served as the favorite and sole venue for alpine s

Carts loaded with sand were raised by a cable drive along a trestle to high t

where the sand was mixed with the lime.The electrician’s duties included, a

other things, splicing the steel cable, which frequently broke.To this day I re

ber how many times I cursed that cable when I had to splice the frayed steel 

with bare hands in an icy winter wind, while following all the safety regula

The wires pricked my numbed, disobedient fingers until they bled.

Troubleshooting a failure in the electric drives of the ball mills that pulv

the lime was even less pleasant.The acrid cloud of lime dust made it impossi

54
breathe without a respirator, which prevented you from closely examining the

tangle of wires in the distribution boxes. One false move and the shock made you

remember the rubber gloves and galoshes that were mandatory for such work. But

no galoshes were available and the thick gloves prevented you from adjusting the

delicate mechanisms of the switches manufactured by the Swedish company Asea.

I learned to talk back at the comments of our excessively faultfinding foreman,

who was always drunk by the end of the workday. As punishment, under the

ridicule of the other electricians, I was sent to run power lines on the poles in the

workers’ settlements and to do the dirtiest electrical work of all: repair the lighting

network in the dormitories. However, after a year in the school of hard knocks I

became a full member of the workers’ collective, a member of the trade union, and

proved that I was fully capable of sustaining myself.

Soon, my comrades from my former boyhood expeditions began to campaign

for me.Their parents were quitting work at the textile factory (they had set up a

boat crossing over the Moscow River) and were now working in Fili at Factory

No. 22.They had found jobs for their own sons there too.They promised to pull

strings for me.

More and more I gazed longingly at the opposite bank of the river.There at the

airfield factory, along a forest clearing, stood a row of new, two-engine TB-1

bombers. In the autumn of 1929, a TB-1 named “Land of the Soviets” completed

a Moscow-New York flight.The entire country followed this flight with tremendous excitement.The names of the pilots, S. A. Shestakov and F.Ye. Bolotov, the

navigator, B. F. Sterligov, and the flight engineer, D.V. Fufayev, appeared regularly

in the newspapers from August through October.

In the autumn of 1930, the brick factory authorities conferred on me the title

of “jobhopper”when I left that factory and was accepted at Factory No.22,named

after the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution.

55

Chapter 5

Factory No. 22

I worked at Factory No. 22 for eight years. In August 1930, I was hired to work

in the electrical shop of the equipment department (OBO) as a class-four electrician.1 In August 1938, I was already the chief of a design brigade for airborne

weapons and special equipment. For those times, this was a senior engineering

position. But I still did not have a higher education diploma, so I left in September to complete my studies at an institute.

I had managed to get through four years at the Moscow Power Engineering

Institute (MEI) while continuing my work at the factory. The fifth year, the last

one, required daily attendance. I promised Boris Nikolayevich Tarasevich, the

factory director, that I would return in a year and do my degree thesis on the

cutting-edge subject of a new high-speed dive-bomber. I was guaranteed work in

the factory design bureau with a substantial raise in pay, and I was even promised

an apartment. However, I did not return to Factory No. 22 a year later.

Thirty years would go by before I would pass through that same entrance gate

to the territory formerly occupied by Factory No. 22, which is now the M.V.

Khrunichev Factory (ZIKh).2 Since then, I have often gone to ZIKh on spacerelated business, and each time it reminds me of my days there as a young man.

After that brief orientation, I will begin with the history of Factory No. 22,

which I did not yet know when I went to work there.

the aircraft factory in fili traces its roots back to 1923. Everything started

with the unfinished buildings of the Russian-Baltic carriage works that lay forgotten in a forest tract.In 1923,the German company Junkers started to develop these

buildings.According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany did not have the right to

build combat aircraft on its own soil.

At that time, Junkers was the only one in the world that had mastered the technology for building all-metal aircraft. Hugo Junkers had already developed and was

building all-metal aircraft out of corrugated Duralumin before World War I, but

57

1. OBO—Elektrotekh Otdela Oborudovaniya.

2. ZIKh—Zavod imeni M.V. Khrunicheva (ZIKh), or literally,“Factory named after M.V. Khrunichev.”
they did not manage to see action. According to the contract with the 

government, the Germans were obliged to arrange for the construction not o

all-metal combat airplanes, but also aircraft engines. However, engine produ

simply never started.This was one of the pretexts for breaking off the relatio

In 1926, the Soviet government abrogated the concessionary contract wi

Germans.The few Soviet specialists remaining at the factory were faced wi

task of using German experience and mastering the series production of th

domestic all-metal airplanes developed at the Central Aerohydrodynamic In

(TsAGI) by Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev. These were two-seat reconnai

ANT-3 (R-3) aircraft and ANT-5 (I-4) fighters.

With difficulty, Fedor Malakhov, the factory’s first director, assembled a 

of forty designers and production engineers who began to rework the Tu

aircraft drawings for series production.

The factory equipment and buildings were in a sorry state.With the on

winter, the workers built campfires right in the shops to keep warm becau

heating still did not work.The workers lived in neighboring villages. Musc

rode to work on the train and slogged from the Fili station through kilom

of mud.The streetcar line from Dorogomilov to the factory was not built 

1929. Forty-four years old, with light brown hair and a powerful physique, 

tor Malakhov rallied his work force under the slogan “Working People, Bu

Air Fleet!”

At the initiative of Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military C

(Revvoyensovet) Mikhail Tukhachevskiy and Air Force Commander Petr Baran

decision was made to build a gigantic aircraft factory at Fili.The factory was s

dinate to People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Kliment Voro

They assigned it the number “22” and named it after the tenth anniversary 

October Revolution.Construction of new production buildings,hangars,dor

ries, and multi-story apartment blocks was underway on a grand scale.

In the summer of 1928, Tupolev R-3s and I-4s began to take off from 

factory airfield instead of Junkers.They were flown by the first factory test 

Yakov Moiseyev and Petr Lozovskiy. The same year, the factory design b

which was named KOSTR (Design Department for Construction), also beg

release drawings of the TB-1 (ANT-4) aircraft for series production.3TsAGI

experimental design factory had built only two of them.

At that time the TB-1 was the best all-metal, heavy, two-engine bomber 

world. Its low-wing cantilever monoplane design subsequently became the ba

the development of long-range heavy bombers in the USSR and elsewhere.B

engineers do not hide the fact that their first Flying Fortresses and Superfor

trace their genealogy to the TB-1 design. Americans first saw the TB-1 ai

dubbed “Land of the Soviets” (Strany sovetov) on 30 October 1929 in New Y

58

3. KOSTR—Konstruktorskiy Otdel Stroitelstva.
The famous flight tour of the unarmed series-produced bomber—from

Moscow to the Russian Far East to Japan to the United States—lasted sixty-nine

days.This was the first flight in history from Russia to America.The Americans

enthusiastically greeted the aircraft’s crew: commander S.A. Shestakov, co-pilot F.

Ye. Bolotov, navigator S.A. Sterligov, and flight mechanic D.V. Fufayev.

In all, 212 TB-1 airplanes were built. This was good training for our aircraft

industry in terms of the organization and technology required for the production

of all-metal airplanes. I saw this aircraft in 1930 when it returned from the United

States for repairs at the factory. The silver surface of the Duralumin skin was

completely covered with the scribbled autographs of enthusiastic Americans. An

inscription in Russian stuck in my mind:“I,a Russian tsarist gendarme,am thrilled

with this feat of my people.”The signature was illegible.

The TB-1 was series-produced at Factory No.22 until the beginning of 1932 and

remained standard equipment until 1936.It was used by the Main Directorate of the

Northern Sea Routes (Glavsevmorput). On 5 March 1934, pilot A.V. Lyapidevskiy

flew crewmembers of the stranded Chelyuskin expedition from an ice floe to the

mainland. He was the first to receive the title,“Hero of the Soviet Union.”4

When I came to work at the factory, the new Tupolev R-6 was going onto the

assembly line. According to its design, this was to have been a long-range reconnaissance aircraft and “air cruiser” for escorting bombers and for air battles. Factory

No. 22 released fifty of these aircraft and then turned their production over to

another factory.

Production of the first Tupolev ANT-9 passenger airplanes began at Factory No.

22 in 1930. This was a three-engine, nine-seat aircraft with a two-man crew. In

contrast to the Junkers and Fokker passenger aircraft of that time, it had a more

spacious cabin, comfortable wicker seats, and even a buffet. In 1929, with eight

passengers onboard an ANT-9 dubbed “Wings of the Soviets” (Krylya Sovetov),

Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gromov completed a remarkable series of flights: Moscow

to Travemünde, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Marseille, London, Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw

back to Moscow—a distance of 9,000 kilometers in 53 flight hours.The factory

released more than seventy ANT-9s.Their production was halted in 1932.

The release of hundreds of heavy TB-3 (ANT-6) bombers brought the greatest

fame to Factory No. 22.At that time, this aircraft was Tupolev’s most outstanding

work.The TB-3 was the first four-engine, cantilever monoplane in the world, built

as a further development of the TB-1 design.The design of four engines built into

cantilevered wings was later used as the model for many aircraft in other countries.

The first TB-3s had a speed of 200 kilometers per hour and a range of 1,400 kilo

59

4. The goal of the Chelyuskin expedition was to travel from the Barents Sea through the Arctic Ocean all

the way to the Sea of Japan during a single navigational season.The crew was, however, stranded in a heavy ice

floe in the Chukchi Sea on 13 February 1934, and was later saved in a daring rescue that was widely publicized

in the Soviet Union.The “Hero of the Soviet Union” was a famous national award instituted on 16 April 1934

given to both military and civilian persons for heroism in service to the USSR.
meters.They were capable of carrying 3 metric tons of bombs. Five machin

turrets were included to protect the bomber against fighter planes. Reconstru

and new construction was underway at the factory to produce a spacious

final assembly shop; hangars; and painting facilities for the airplanes.

It seems to me that with the torrent of one new aviation achievemen

another, much in aviation history has been undeservedly forgotten. In the 1

the Soviet Union attempted to create the most powerful strategic milita

force, with the TB-3 heavy bomber as its foundation. Over a period of five 

the young aircraft industry produced more than 800 of these aircraft. This 

place during a time of peace, which was also a time of hunger; the majority 

country’s population was in acute need of foodstuffs and the most fundam

necessities of civilized life.

I would like to tell the history of the TB-3 heavy bomber in greater det

three reasons. First, the mastery of the large-scale series production of an a

that, at that time, outstripped the technological level of aircraft constructi

Europe and the United States, was an indicator of the effectiveness of “mobili

economics” for a country that lagged behind in its scientific and technical dev

ment.The mastering of TB-3 production technology shows that the motto of 

years to Catch Up and Pass Up the leading capitalist countries was not empty 

aganda, but was based on the Soviet society’s creative upsurge. In this regar

history of the TB-3 anticipates the history of the creation of our domestic n

missile shield.There was a thirty-five-year break between these two technol

and economic feats of the Soviet people, but the historical analogy is instruc

Second,it was not the fate of the TB-3 heavy bomber to serve the global mi

political assignment that the nuclear missile forces fulfilled. By the beginn

World War II, the airplane was hopelessly obsolete. However, it brought fa

the Soviet Union with its conquest of the North Pole, just as twenty years lat

modified R-7 intercontinental missile stunned the world with the first sat

and first manned spaceflight.

60

From the author’s 

TB-3 (ANT-6) heavy bomber, 1933.
Third, and finally, the TB-3 played a decisive role in my own personal life.

The history of the TB-3 goes back to 1925.The Leningrad Special Technical

Bureau developed heavy, remote-controlled naval torpedoes that were supposed to

be dropped from an aircraft and then controlled by radio.TsAGI, which was effectively directed by Andrey Tupolev, received the assignment to develop the aircraft.5

To begin with, they tried to use a TB-1 equipped with floats instead of wheeled

landing gear as the torpedo launcher. However, the full-scale, radio-controlled

torpedoes proved to be too heavy for the TB-1, and its flight range did not satisfy

the naval command.

The design work on a four-engine modification of the TB-1 at TsAGI was

completed in 1929, and as early as 22 December 1930, Mikhail Gromov executed

the first flight. During that flight, Gromov just barely avoided an accident on the

ground. The throttle levers that the pilot used to control the engines’ RPM

became deformed and vibrated. During takeoff, the right engines pulled so much

harder than the left engines that the airplane turned toward the hangars. With

tremendous effort, using the rudder, Gromov successfully avoided a collision and

took off.There were also many other problems that were corrected during the test

process, which continued until February 1931.

In the early 1930s, during the production of the heavy bombers, the Moscowbased Central Design Bureau (TsKB) in the Khodynka region and the K.A.Kalinin

Design Bureau in Kharkov competed with Tupolev’s design bureau (KB).The Air

Force Command was going to select one of these design bureaus and then make a

decision on the design to be used for the large-scale series production of bombers.

However, in those years General Secretary of the Communist Party I.V. Stalin

and Peoples’ Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs K.Ye.Voroshilov made the

final decision. Tupolev and TsAGI had a significant advantage. Factory No. 22,

which served as Tupolev’s main production facility, had already mastered the technology for the large-scale series production of Tupolev all-metal TB-1 bombers,the

R-6 “air cruiser,” and the ANT-9 passenger plane. On its own,TsAGI had manufactured only two TB-3 aircraft for state tests.Without wasting time, they needed to

hand over the drawings and begin preparation for production at Factory No. 22.

Air Force Commander P. I. Baranov did not hesitate, but now it was up to

Stalin. In June 1931, Stalin,Voroshilov, and the other Politburo members arrived at

the former Khodynka, which was now the central airfield of the country.The Air

Force NII, which conducted the state tests on all combat airplanes, used this

airfield. Without its final report, not a single airplane could be released into

production. At the airfield, the Politburo members were shown all the aircraft

prototypes that were competing to be accepted as armaments. Air Force NII test

pilots flew demonstration flights. The highlight of the program was the Tupolev

61

5. Tupolev was technically not chief of TsAGI, but chief of its main design department: the Aviation, Marine

Aviation, and Experimental Design Department (AGOS).
TB-3. Stalin climbed into the aircraft. Its dimensions and weaponry mad

proper impression, and he wanted to see how this hunk flew.

It turned out that only two pilots, Gromov from the Air Force NI

Volkovoinov from TsAGI, had mastered control of the airplane. But Gromo

ill and Volkovoinov was out of town. After consulting with Air Force NII 

Turzhanskiy, Air Force Commander Baranov decided to take a risk and entru

TB-3 flight demonstration to pilots Kozlov and Zalevskiy, who had never b

flown that airplane. It was a very big risk; the future fate of the airplane li

hung in the air. However, the new pilots coped with the task brilliantly.After 

minute flight, they landed safely on the very edge of the airfield. Stalin wa

the reason for the delay in the flight.The length of the flight was explained b

fact that Kozlov and Zalevskiy were learning to control the aircraft to keep 

crashing it while landing.

The decision to begin series production was approved and the aircra

accepted as an armament, though with serious reservations. Flight tests 

begun with American Curtiss engines, which were soon replaced with Ge

BMW-VI engines under the condition that our industry would master 

licensed variant, the M-17 engine.

I began to work at Factory No. 22 when the first domestic M-17 “fl

engines”were just being mastered.In a popular march,we sang that we had a 

ing engine instead of a heart. M-17 engines could literally make this claim

problem for the engine designers was the torsion vibrations in the crank

These vibrations caused the deterioration of the shafts and fire in the en

which could cause a fire in the airplane if the crew did not shut down the e

and close the emergency fuel cut-off valve in time. But every cloud has a 

lining.The M-17 engine failures taught pilots how to land with only thre

sometimes two engines. Updated M-17s were not introduced until 1932, bu

were not powerful enough for the TB-3 in its further modernized state.

In 1933,Aleksandr Mikulin’s AM-34 engines were introduced.The TB-3’

altitude speed increased, but its other parameters did not improve. The a

engines required boosting, the introduction of a reduction gear to reduce the 

tion of the large propellers, and supercharging to increase speed at altitude.

the AM-34FRN engine was introduced.

The series-produced version of the TB-3 with these engines, with a takeof

of 20 metric tons, an eight-man crew, and a bomb payload of 1,000 kilogram

a range of up to 2,200 kilometers. Its speed at an altitude of 3,000 meters wa

220 kilometers per hour. These specifications might provoke no more th

ironic smile in today’s readers,but I would remind the reader that in the early 

the military doctrine of air power was under the powerful influence of 

General Giulio Douhet’s theory.Douhet asserted that the emergence of the ai

revolutionized all military strategy, and he placed absolute significance on str

bombers. Douhet’s theory depended on the creation of powerful, independe

forces capable of deciding the outcome of a war through independent action

62
At a lecture for the factory’s managerial staff in 1932, I heard an instructor from

the Air Force Academy assert that hundreds of TB-3 bombers flying in a solid

formation would protect one another against fighters. Dropping thousands of

high-explosive and incendiary bombs, they would ensure strategic success. General

victory would be guaranteed.

During the production process, in addition to replacing the engines, the TB-3

aircraft underwent other updates that entailed changes to its weapons,bomb payload,

and chassis design.TB-3 airplanes set several world records for altitude while carrying large loads.The arctic version of the aircraft became world-renowned after the

landing of Ivan Dmitriyevich Papanin’s expedition on the North Pole in 1937.6

Factory No. 22 produced more than 800 TB-3 bombers between 1932 and

1937. In 1939, the aircraft gained fame in combat at Khalkhin-Gol.7 This was the

last successful use of the TB-3.At the beginning of World War II, German fighter

planes annihilated the TB-3 bombers with impunity.TB-3s flying in formation at

low altitude, each equipped with five small-caliber machine guns, proved powerless

when under attack by maneuverable Messerschmitt-109 fighters armed with rapidfiring guns. Douhet’s doctrine also failed to vindicate itself when a large number of

American Flying Fortresses appeared on the scene.They delivered sensitive strikes

against German cities in the rear, but could not break the German war machine.

The infantry forces and tactical air force of the USSR accomplished this goal.

By the way,if we had started World War II rather than the Germans,and in 1937

rather than in 1939, it is possible that 600–700 TB-3s might have saved the world

from Nazi aggression. But in 1937 Stalin was too carried away with the struggle

against “enemies of the people.”This saved Hitler.

but let’s return to the history of the factory. In 1927, Sergey Petrovich

Gorbunov, a twenty-five-year-old graduate of the N.Ye. Zhukovskiy Red Army

Air Force Academy, was appointed chief of the factory technical bureau—which

today would be called the chief production engineer’s department. He had already

done practical work at the factory when the Germans were there in 1924. During

his studies at the Academy he demonstrated brilliant capabilities. Sergey Gorbunov

could have become an outstanding aircraft designer. Before he entered the

academy, Gorbunov was a Komsomol secretary, and then secretary of the Party

organization in Zaraysk uyezd, Ryazan province.8 He was a delegate to the Third

63

6. Pananin and three others established the first drifting base near the North Pole in 1937–38.

7. The Khalkin-Gol engagement, also known as the Nomonhan incident, was a major confrontation

between Soviet and Japanese forces in Mongolia.

8. Komsomol, which stood for Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodezhi (Young Communist League of the Soviet

Union), was a massive Communist youth organization established during the Soviet era. Most major institutions

in Soviet society, such as Factory No. 22, had their own Komsomol organizations. Such entities were involved in

fostering social and youthful activities that celebrated Communist rule. Komsomol organizations also had significant influence over personnel appointments at factories since they were asked to provide character references

for workers. Uyezd is the Russian word for an administrative unit within a province.
Komsomol Convention and heard Lenin’s famous speech.9 It is possible that hi

rations for organizational work got the upper hand. He was at the factory da

night. He developed plans for capital reconstruction and new construction.A

time there were not many design institutes. Gorbunov, Malakhov, and a 

group of enthusiasts designed the giant aircraft factory on their own.

In 1929, Gorbunov became chief engineer, and in 1930, technical directo

introduced what were then new ideas for aircraft construction—line produ

closed-cycle shops, and laboratory tests of new technologies. He created an 

dantly equipped laboratory for general factory use,along with shop test benche

he regularly held conferences on quality with representatives from military un

In 1930, the factory was made subordinate to People’s Commissar for H

Industry Sergo Ordzhonikidze. At his suggestion, the entire aircraft industr

combined into a single entity called Aviatrest. In August 1931, Ordzhon

appointed Malakhov chief of Aviatrest. At the same time, at age 29, S

Gorbunov became director of the largest aircraft factory in Europe. Gorbuno

fated to be the sovereign factory director for only two years. I will take the l

of saying that those were the best years in the pre-war history of the fa

During those years Gorbunov also managed to meddle with my fate.

In August 1930, before the final staffing had been completed in the pers

department at Factory No. 22, I was interviewed by the chief of the OBO d

ment, who was interested in my work history, general educational trainin

knowledge of the fundamentals of electrical engineering. Each applicant had s

interviews with the directors of the production departments and shops. If a gro

technical school or FZU graduates was sent to the factory, or applicants trans

from other enterprises, a chief engineer or technical director conducted the 

view. The director himself personally interviewed each young specialist wh

graduated from an institute of higher learning and wanted to work at the fact

The day after my interview, I received a photo ID pass, a time card, a caf

lunch card, and something especially valuable at that time—a pair of wo

coveralls that fit me perfectly, with many pockets.The chief of the electric 

explained that I would be the duty electrician for the factory for at least 

months on a three-shift team.

A duty electrician’s work required that he learn the general layout of the fa

and the technological processes of each shop. I quickly gained an idea o

airplanes were built.Working the second and night shifts enabled me to atten

observe the production processes in each shop, get to know people, and hear 

complaints about equipment or their praise of new gadgets. More than any

the round-the-clock mechanical shops kept the duty electricians hopping.

Hundreds of new, imported metal-working stands were grouped accord

the sort of production operations they performed.An unmanned section of 

64

9. This is a reference to Lenin’s speech,“The Tasks of the Komsomol,” given on 2 October 1920.
machines turned out almost the entire

list of standard hardware: screws, bolts,

and nuts.10 The stands had a multi-step

belt drive driven by a common transmission, which in turn was driven by

the only electric motor on the entire

line. If the electric motor’s drive belt

broke, a line of five to eight machines

shut down. The shop foreman would

then storm around the factory in search

of the duty electrician, whose job it was

to sew together and retighten the belt,

start up the transmission for the entire

line, check the lubrication of the bearings, and see whether the electric motor

was overloaded.The shop foreman also

noted in the duty logbook how long

the stoppage lasted. If the total stoppage

time over the course of a month

exceeded the norm, this had a substantial impact on your paycheck.

It was much more pleasant to do business with the milling machines section.

The Wanderer milling machines had individual electric drives with their own

circuit breakers.11 Work on the milling machines was considered women’s work.

The female milling machine operators beat out their male counterparts in terms

of the cleanliness of their machines and entire workplace. In terms of productivity, however, especially on the night shift, the women lost. For a respite, the

cleverest millers learned how to select an operating mode that would trip the

circuit breaker relay.Then a meeting with the duty electrician was unavoidable.

A mutual exchange of pleasantries about the accident might end with an

instructive admonition, or even an agreement to meet at the factory stadium

where we trained to pass the physical fitness tests to receive “Ready for Labor

and Defense” (GTO) pins.12

It was primarily the old guard of workers who worked on the various models

of lathes at the factory. Lathe operators tried to outdo each other and receive

orders for the most complex operations.They knew how to correct simple electrical failures themselves if the lathe had an individual drive, and they did not

bother the electricians without good reason.

65

10. Pitler was a machine tool manufacturer.

11. By the mid-1930s, the German company Wanderer Werke AG was the largest milling machine manufacturer in Europe.

12. GTO—Gotov v Trudu i Oborone.

ZIKh museum archives.

Sergey Petrovich Gorbunov, the stalwart young

director of Factory No. 22, shown in 1931.
The fuselage, center wing section, and wing shops thundered with the 

hundreds of pneumatic hammers.The manufacture of a single all-metal air

required the pounding of hundreds of thousands of rivets.The corrugated ex

skin made of Duralumin was secured to the truss-like structure of longeron

and frames using covered rivets.The longerons along the length of the wing 

riveted using tubes in special building cradles. The covered, “blind” meth

riveting required the participation of two persons—a skilled driller/riveter, a

assistant who supported the rivet that could not be seen in the long tube. 

the riveted structures of the entire center wing section, wing, and fuselage 

assembled in the cradles. Riveting entailed such bursts of noise that it wa

possible to communicate with gestures.The primary concern of the electrici

these shops was to provide all the cradles with portable lights and make sur

the insulation on the electric drill cords was in good condition.The worke

not been instructed in electrical safety engineering. It was the duty of the e

cians to make sure that the 220 volts of tension did not stun the riveters wo

at the cradles.We were not always successful.

Once during the evening shift, a young fellow came to me in the duty 

carrying a young woman in his arms—his riveting assistant. She had been sh

by a damaged electric drill, lost consciousness, and fell from the cradle. For 

reason the first aid station was not open and the young man decided that the p

responsible for the electrical malfunction was obliged to help. Like all electr

I had taken an exam on rendering first aid to a shock victim, and according 

the rules, for the first time in my life, I started to revive her using artificial re

tion. After about fifteen minutes, the young woman came to, and the stra

young man,overcome with joy,began to hug me.“Hug her,not me,”I advised 

“I can’t—she’s really strict—she’d never forgive me,” he objected. Several tim

I passed by the center wing section shop, when our shifts coincided, I saw th

working with great concentration on the building cradle.When the guy saw m

would smile affably,but the young woman pretended that she didn’t notice any

The danger of shock dropped as we replaced the electric drills with pneu

ones.A complete switch to pneumatic drills was finished in a year. The char

istic howling of compressed air escaping from hundreds of drills joined the 

der of the pneumatic hammers.

The supply shops and chassis and frame shops caused a lot less trouble f

duty electricians. Skilled metal workers, tinsmiths, and welders worked in th

As a believer enters God’s temple, so I entered the final assembly shops w

combination of joy and trembling. Here it was clean, quiet, and bright.The a

mechanics and assemblers were considered to be the worker aristocracy.Th

not call the duty electricians for trivial problems.They had their own aircraft 

tricians who could also cope with the routine repair of auxiliary equipmen

electric tools.

The airfield flight mechanics stood at the highest level in the worker h

chy. The preparation of an airplane for release to the military represen

66
and factory flight tests depended on them. Nikolay Nikolayevich Godovikov

was the director of flight mechanics. There were legends about his ability to

find defects in the propeller group by ear. From the nightshift duty electricians,

he demanded failure-free operation of the powerful lights where the aircraft

were parked outdoors and portable lights that could reach any place inside

the aircraft.

During the first months on the job as the duty electrician, I gradually

became steeped in the technology-worship prevalent at the factory. The shop

walls were plastered with the slogans Technology Solves Everything!,Technology for the Masses!, Every Worker Should Be a Rationalizer and an Inventor!

and What Have You Done to Master Technology? These slogans were not just

empty appeals. They found a very lively response among the mass of young

workers. Each proposal for improving production methods was quickly

reviewed by the shop boards, and if it was accepted, it was encouraged with

tangible material goods. Shock-worker and Stakhanovite cards were introduced, granting their holders the right to attend the best cafeteria.13 A coupon

was issued enabling those individuals to acquire clothing that was otherwise

virtually impossible to obtain. Tangible monetary prizes were issued for especially valuable proposals.

I soon succeeded in this field. I made several suggestions about switching from

transmissions to individual drives for the machines. Not a single machine had yet

been converted along the lines of my proposal, but I had already gained possession of my very own shock-worker card. Soon I received an inventor’s certificate

for a photoelectric circuit breaker for electrical devices and was accepted into the

USSR Society of Inventors. Some time later, I proposed that the building cradles

be equipped with distribution sockets for plugging in drills and lights.This idea

was accepted. Then I proposed that the voltage of the portable lighting be

reduced to a safe level.The latter suggestion was far from novel, but it was not

implemented at first because 12-volt lamps were not available. Having obtained

the authority of the Komsomol committee, I assembled a delegation that set out

for Elektrozavod in Moscow.14 We were able to demonstrate to our Komsomol

counterparts at Elektrozavod how vital their 12-volt lamp production was to the

aircraft industry.They very rapidly arranged for the release of the lamps, which

were in short supply, and step-down transformers. For this coup I was awarded a

coupon for a leather jacket. During the civil war, black leather jackets had been

in fashion among Cheka agents and Red Army commanders.15 During the NEP

67

13. The Stakhanovite movement of the mid-1930s was a publicity campaign fostered by the Soviet government to increase productivity in factories. It was named after Aleksey Stakhanov, a Soviet coal miner who, it was

claimed, used innovative work methods to greatly increase his personal productivity.

14. Elektrozavod—Electrical Factory.

15. The ChK or Cheka was the first Soviet security police organization and a predecessor to the more

famous KGB.
years this fashion had spread to the proletarian youth. I was very proud 

jacket that I had honestly earned.

In the spring of 1931, there was a movement to transfer shops and even 

vidual teams of workers to a self-financing operating basis.The Komsomol com

tee took the initiative and organized self-financing teams of young work

several shops.Such a team was also formed in our electrical shop and they inc

me on the team. Our eight-man team was given the critical assignment of p

ing, within a very short time frame, all the electrical equipment for the auto

canteen being built for the factory, which included four dining halls and a r

rant for Stakhanovites. We were supposed to put into operation a multitu

electrical processing equipment, lighting, ventilation, etc. We labored wi

increased workload, and together with the construction crew, met the deadl

put Moscow’s second canteen into operation.

Because of our team’s labor victory, they sent me as part of a delegation 

Factory No. 22 to a rally of shock workers from young Muscovite self-fina

teams at the House of Trade Unions in the Hall of Columns. Moscow Kom

leader Sasha Lukyanov asked our delegation to present a report about our ac

plishments.They called on me to speak from the podium. My third time 

Hall of Columns I received the opportunity to pontificate at the top of my 

about the labor triumphs of the Factory No. 22 Komsomol members and o

self-financing team in particular.

I probably overdid it. My voice cracked. Later they told me that I squeake

suddenly instead of normal speech there was high-pitched childlike babblin

hall fell silent and then thundered with laughter.Without losing his cool,Luk

started to applaud and the audience affably joined in. I regained my comp

and encouraged by a shout from the audience, “Come on, keep going, do

shy!” I finished my fiery speech in a normal voice. Under repeated appl

proudly left the podium. Back at our company they had to make fun of me:“

idea.They’ll forget all the other speeches, but the fame of Factory No. 22 is 

to spread all over Moscow.”

Fame did not come easy.To run the power and lighting cables we ma

chiseled grooves and holes in the concrete walls. My left hand swelled 

being hit with the heavy hammer. Sometimes I missed and hit it rather tha

chisel.The fingers of both hands were permanently coated with the black 

that we used to separate the high-voltage cables.“Now when you enter the 

tute, they won’t even have to look at any questionnaire information—it’s 

ous that you are a real proletarian,” Mama joked as she applied salv

bandaged my work injuries.

It would be two more years before I could realize my dream to ent

school of electrical engineering. However, if I had had the time back th

make the most fantastic predictions concerning my fate, I never would 

dreamed that seventy years later, sitting in a luxurious restaurant on the third 

of that same canteen, Academician Chertok, Hero of Socialist Labor, hol

68
many orders and honored titles, that is to say, I, would be delivering a speech

before the elite of the former Soviet military-industrial complex reminiscing

about my work as an electrician.

It was April 2002 and I had been invited to an evening celebration in honor of

the seventieth birthday of Oleg Dmitriyevich Baklanov.

Baklanov’s career path had taken him from foreman at the Kharkov InstrumentBuilding Factory to minister in the rocket-space sector, and then CC CPSU

Secretary of the Defense Industry. It was likely that after the collapse of the USSR

he would have occupied high posts in the government of the new Russia.

However, his participation in the GKChP putsch, which attempted to wrest power

from Mikhail Gorbachev before Boris Yeltsin could seize it, precluded the possibility of a subsequent political career.16 Baklanov has remained a symbolic figure

for the former elite of the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex. When

compared to the catastrophic degradation of the defense industry in the period of

criminal market reforms, the Soviet past seems great and heroic.And there is nothing surprising about that.

In the first-class restaurant,the assembled crowd included former defense ministers, the former chairman of the military-industrial complex and deputy chairman

of the USSR Council of Ministers, the former minister of the once powerful shipbuilding industry, pilots, cosmonauts, and many others who could rightfully

consider themselves the true creators of the former superpower’s might.

I began my toast by commenting that we were in a building that was opened

the year our birthday boy was born. I provided this testimony as one who participated in the construction of the historic canteen and in the construction at

Factory No. 22 of an air force that even then, seventy years ago, was the most

powerful in the world.The thunderous applause that followed my toast, with its

nostalgic remembrances of the former canteen, reminded me of the first applause

I had earned after its construction at the Hall of Columns.Then I was twenty years

old and now I was ninety! You couldn’t dream this up if you tried!

the country was enduring a difficult period of transformation from being

technically backward and primarily agrarian to being industrially developed.The

government supported and encouraged all measures to shorten the time required

to complete new aircraft in every possible way.

In June 1931, the newspaper Pravda published a USSR TsIK decree on the

awarding of Orders of Lenin to a group of workers from our factory.Among them

were Malakhov and Gorbunov. They received awards for fulfilling the five-year

plan in two and a half years! The slogan Technology Solves Everything! was joined

69

16. The GKChP was the State Committee on the State of Emergency, which orchestrated the coup against

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. Its members included First Deputy Chairman of the Defense

Council O. D. Baklanov, KGB Chairman V.A. Kryuchkov, Prime Minister V. S. Pavlov, Minister of Internal Affairs

V. K. Pugo, Defense Minister D.T.Yazov, and acting President of the USSR G. I.Yanayev.
by the new slogan Personnel Who Mastered Technology During a Peri

Socialist Reconstruction Solve Everything!

Halfway through 1931, KOSTR began to develop drawings for the 

production of the TB-3 airplane. KOSTR handed the drawings over to TEK

the process preparation department.17 Here, the drawings were divided up ac

ing to the appropriate shop; process documentation and instructions were 

oped at PRIPO—the department that designed appliances, construction cr

and all manner of engineering riggings.18

Political hoopla surrounded the program designed to produce hundre

TB-3s. Voroshilov came to the factory twice. In one of the shops they 

conferred on him the title Honorary Riveter, Class Five.

In the spring of 1931,VKP(b) Central Committee Secretary Pavel Petr

Postyshev attended the factory Komsomol conference. He spoke with a ch

teristic okaniye, and called for the factory Komsomol to lead a moveme

“Catch up with and pass up the leading capitalist nations in technolog

science.”19 Postyshev said, “The aircraft industry is the one that is capab

pulling with it the other industries that lag so far behind the world stan

Only you young people are capable of this great historical feat.” I am citin

gist of Postyshev’s speech from memory. It was received with sincere, yo

enthusiasm. I was introduced to Postyshev as part of a group of especially d

guished youth. Twenty-five years later, we learned of Postyshev’s tragic f

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev’s speech.20 He was liquidated as an enemy 

people in 1939 without any publicity.

Between 1929 and 1933, the extremely complicated problem of crea

domestic material and technical basis for aviation was being solved in pra

The decisions of the Politburo and Party conventions stemmed from the po

ity of a military attack by capitalist nations on the world’s first proletarian 

Competent, rational military intellectuals who had the power and the rig

make decisions developed the doctrine for the Air Force’s development an

during that time. They included, first and foremost, Mikhail Nikolay

Tukhachevskiy, Petr Ionovich Baranov,Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis, and the e

the Air Force Academy instructors.

The design workforces united around Tupolev at TsAGI did not just 

airplanes.Tupolev used the specialists from his work force to organize the ma

ment of the aircraft industry, which set its sights on the massive producti

heavy airplanes.“Personnel Who Mastered Technology” really would solve a 

70

17. TEKhNO—Otdel Tekhnologicheskoy podgotovki (Department of Technological Preparations).

18. PRIPO—Otdel Proyektirovavshiy Prisposobleniya, Stapeli i Vsevozmoshnuyu Tekhnologicheskuyuostna

19. Okaniye refers to a Russian regional accent in which an unstressed (short) “o” is pronounced as a 

(long) “o.”

20. In his famous speech in 1956 at the Twentieth Party Congress, Khrushchev for the first time 

exposed Stalin’s crimes.
lem on a historical scale. In the aircraft industry’s upper echelons of power, managerial staffs were rearranged. All aircraft factories were subordinated to

Ordzhonikidze. He started off by convincing first Voroshilov and then Stalin to

release Baranov from the Red Army Air Force command and make him head of

the First Main Directorate of the All-Russian Council of the National Economy

(VSNKh), which managed the aircraft industry, and at the same time appoint him

First Deputy People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry. Baranov’s deputy, Alksnis,

took his place as head of the Air Force in 1931.

The strengthening of the upper management structures did not eliminate the

main problem: the rate of development in the aircraft industry was being held up

by an acute shortage of personnel.There were not enough workers, skilled workers, designers, and engineers. An unusual situation developed at our factory:

construction workers built new, turnkey shops earmarked for the production of

TB-3s, but there was no one to work in them.The personnel department hired

dozens of new workers everyday.These were primarily young people who had fled

the hard life of the villages and had absolutely no clue what factory work or work

discipline was, much less aviation technology.Two-month courses were set up to

provide them with accelerated training.After this they were distributed among the

job openings.The low skill level of the new workers caused a sharp reduction in

quality and a drop in productivity, directly threatening a breakdown in the

projected rates of TB-3 series production.

Having received a green, poorly trained bunch of workers, the shop chiefs

demanded skilled workers, production engineers, designers, technicians, and engineers. It was not possible to train such leaders over the course of two or three

months right in the shops.The personnel training problem needed to be solved at

heretofore unprecedented rates.Baranov promised to assist Gorbunov in every way

possible with the placement of specialists who were graduates of the Air Force

Academy,the new aviation institute,and technical institutes.But this took time and

more time! Having become head of the factory,Gorbunov turned to the Party and

Komsomol committees, demanding that all means at their disposal be used to help

educate the young workers. He also demanded that they set up their own system

for training managerial personnel.

That same August 1931, the new secretary of the factory Komsomol committee,

Petya Petukhov, approached me. He was a man who was quick to start up unexpected initiatives and ardent about the reorganization of personnel. Behind his

back they called him Petushok.21 Petushok was overflowing with new ideas. His

predecessor, the intelligent and serene Sasha Vasilyev, was promoted to the post of

secretary of the Frunze district committee of the Komsomol; he was destined for

the Moscow committee.Vasilyev frequently came to the factory and did not always

support Petushok’s intrepid actions.

71

21. Russian word for young rooster.
Alluding to the authority of Postyshev, Vasilyev, and Gorbunov, Pet

announced that TB-3 production was a matter of honor for the factory Kom

But holding rallies would not help matters. He proposed that I become his d

and at the same time hold the position of production-economic depar

manager that had been instituted in the committee. “Your task,” Pet

persuaded me, “in the development of the TB-3 is essentially to becom

Komsomol deputy to the technical director. It’s guys our age who should de

this airplane.That means we should be production managers! You’re an inv

You’re a quick study and you know all the shop leaders.You’ll take those 

secretaries in hand. Come on, you can always go back to the electrical shop

I had only worked at the factory for a year and a half. I earned good p

the self-financing team. In a year I would complete my three-year stin

worker and I had dreamed of entering the Moscow Power Engine

Institute’s school of electrophysics. Surely they would admit a worker, inv

and Komsomol member who already had a start in a factory. I did not doub

I justified my refusal pointing out that a mere class-5 electrician wou

ejected with a bang from the Komsomol for the inevitable failure of such a 

ical assignment. Petushok did not back down and promised me a seriou

with the Party committee.

Two days later the chief of the electrical shop, the terror of all social ac

approached me. He announced that after work I should report to the direct

That evening Gorbunov received me immediately. I did not know w

needed to see me,much less in his office one-on-one.He stared straight at me 

his intent, dark eyes.The straight, handsome lines of his face were accentuat

the side parting in his thick, dark, carefully combed hair. The sky-blue g

patches of his dark blue military tunic displayed the diamond-shaped insign

his high military rank of brigade engineer.A brand-new Order of Lenin sp

on his chest. People had told me,“We have a young, strict, well-built, and 

some director.” Now I was convinced they were right.

Petushok had set up my meeting with Gorbunov. He had calculated cor

that the director’s authority would overcome my stubbornness. Gorbuno

that I would receive an engineering education in three to four year

intended to create a higher technical institute affiliated with the factory. 

ble workers who had completed their comprehensive education would ob

higher education without leaving the factory. My first task was to fami

myself with the specific production plans and the key tasks of the main 

Next I needed to organize Komsomol activities so that they would reach 

young worker.

“I don’t want to deal with a faceless mass of young people and a bawling b

of Party cell shop secretaries,” said Gorbunov.“There are talented people in 

shop and we need to identify them. They should be role models in ter

productivity, innovation, and quality. Let the young convince the young. 

work we need to keep as many people as possible in technical schools. Fin

72
showcase people who knew nothing yesterday and today have become experts in

their own job—shock workers. Fedor Shpak, the factory chief of production, will

give you all the help you need. He will talk with the shop chiefs.”Within thirty

minutes, the young director had charmed and convinced me. He was a man who

radiated energy rather than verbosity when he spoke with you.

The following day I was no longer an electrician, but a high-level Komsomol

worker. Shpak acquainted me with production planning and provided me with

graphic charts that modern science refers to as networks. Before my conversation

with Shpak I arrogantly thought that I knew what was going on in every shop.

Now I was convinced that I was a complete ignoramus. Shpak showed me the

most critical places and patiently explained where the primary focus of Komsomol

enthusiasm needed to be directed. I had to alter my whole way of life.

I was often at the factory for all three shifts. I had to meet with someone after

a shift, conduct shop meetings with the young workers, discuss the content of the

factory newspapers that were posted on the wall or the technical training

programs, participate in executive production meetings, report my activities to the

Komsomol committee, and travel to the Komsomol district committee and to other

enterprises to exchange experience.

Gorbunov really tried to set up a factory institute that provided an education

similar to that of a higher technical institute. For the sake of respectability he called

it the special-purpose faculty or FON.22 Almost all active Party and Komsomol

members attended lectures on higher mathematics, physics, strength of materials,

and philosophy four times a week in a semiconscious state until nine o’clock in

the evening.

Training was under way at full speed in the shops, and parts and assemblies for

the TB-3 were already being manufactured. In order to gain some idea of the new

airplane,I was sent to KOSTR.Larisa Dobrovolskaya,the secretary of the KOSTR

Komsomol, managed a group involved with interior special equipment. With her

assistance, I became acquainted for the first time with the airplane’s design and

general layout. For me these were also my first lessons in reading the working

drawings of aircraft designs and my first acquaintance with the general system of

drawing documentation used in aircraft construction.

Often I had neither the strength nor the time to make my way home across the

Moscow River, and I would spent the night in the Komsomol commune—in those

days they had a sort of dormitory.

In spite of this stressful pace of factory life, we somehow found time to visit

theaters and movies together. Such outings, distracting us from the bustle and

burdens of life, rallied and unified the active Komsomol members. Vishnevskiy’s

Optimistic Tragedy at the Chamber Theater, Pogodin’s Poem about an Axe at the

Theater of the Revolution, Katayev’s Onward,Time! at the experimental theater,

73

22. FON—Fakultet Osobogo Naznacheniya.
and the film Vstrechnyy all stuck in our memories.23 Artists renowned throu

the country considered it an honor to come to our factory. For such occas

temporary stage was set up in the new final assembly shop. Opera singers w

give inspired performances of classical arias before an audience of several thou

seated amongst half-assembled bombers.

Of the factory’s 12,000 young laborers and white-collar workers, ha

already become members of the Komsomol organization.The committee he

the Komsomol enjoyed great authority among the masses of young wo

Compared with the Komsomol, the factory’s Party organization was relatively 

a fact explained by the age demographic and workers’ brief period of servic

old Bolsheviks viewed the Komsomol’s emergence out from under Party infl

as a dangerous phenomenon. They alluded to Trotsky, who had flirted wi

youth under the slogan Youth Is the Barometer of the Revolution.

Party committee secretary Aralov was one of the factory veterans wh

worked there since the time of the Junkers company. He was promoted t

responsible post by the Party organizations of the shops, which saw him as o

their own, a man who had emerged from the working masses, who knew 

production, and who understood the needs of the workers. Aralov was resp

of the Komsomol initiatives. Most of the members of the Komsomol comm

including myself, were always invited to the Party committee meetings.We 

prepared for them in advance so that we could participate in the discussi

issues that worried the young workers rather than just listen passively.

At one of these Party committee meetings,Aralov proposed to all the Kom

committee members and secretaries of the leading shops that they join the Pa

his words, this was supposed to ensure Party influence and enable the actions 

active Komsomol members to be monitored.So it was that in 1931 I became a c

date and in 1932 a member of the VKP(b).

One day in early 1932,I was summoned to the Party committee during w

which was quite unusual. The active members of the Party and Komsomol 

assembled. District committee secretary (at that time it was the Frunze di

Ruben had come to see us.We had seen him at the factory on a number of 

sions, and moreover, I had also been in the district committee buildin

Zubovskiy Boulevard when I was received into the Party.A woman unkno

us accompanied Ruben. She was tall with short hair and wore a dark, English

suit. She appeared to be over forty years old, and had the aura of a strict s

matron—the terror of girls’ preparatory schools.

Ruben said that we had been assembled at his request to familiarize our

with a secret Politburo resolution. He read a brief excerpt from the docu

74

23. Vsevolod Vitalyevich Vishnevskiy (1900–51) was a famous Soviet playwright whose play “Op

Tragedy” opened in 1933. Pogodin was the pseudonym of Nikolay Fedorovich Stukalov (1900–62), 

famous Russian playwright.Valentin Petrovich Katayev (1897–1986) was a Russian novelist and playwri

was famous for many satirical works on post-Revolutionary conditions in the Soviet Union.
signed by Stalin.The resolution stated that for the defense of the nation, Factory

No. 22 had no less significance than an army corps.To strengthen the factory leadership and ensure control of its work by the Central Committee, the Politburo had

deemed it necessary to introduce the position of Central Committee Party organizer.This position was also given the responsibilities of the factory Party committee secretary. By decision of the Politburo, Olga Aleksandrovna Mitkevich was

appointed VKP(b) Central Committee Party Organizer for Factory No. 22.

“As regards Party committee secretary comrade Aralov, he is being transferred

to work at our district committee,” concluded Ruben.

This report was totally unexpected for Aralov and for everyone assembled there.

“Are there any questions?” asked Ruben.

Everyone was dumbfounded and silent. Suddenly our Komsomol secretary,

Petukhov, got up and demanded:

“Tell us about yourself!”

Mitkevich (now we knew who Ruben had brought with him) stood up, and

serenely moving her intent gaze from one person to another, began to speak.

She was born in 1889 to a broken family of the nobility. She had taken part

in the revolutionary movement since 1903. In 1905, she joined the Russian

Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP) (Bolsheviks) and began the illegal

life of a member of an underground organization. She studied at the Moscow

Commercial Institute and later graduated from the chemistry section of the

Moscow Higher Courses for Women. In 1917, she participated in the October

battles in Moscow.

During the conflict with Denikin she was named commissar of the Eighth

Army, Thirteenth Division.24 As a member of the Red Army, she marched from

Voronezh to Groznyy. In 1920, she was transferred from military fronts to

economic ones. She worked in the Donets Basin, Nikolayev, and Kharkov. She

managed a mining office and was director of a textile factory in Yaroslavl. In April

1927, as a member of a Soviet delegation, she took part in the first Pacific

Conference of Labor Unions in Canton. She spent a long period of time in China

as a representative of the Comintern Executive Committee.25 She participated in

the Party committee congress in China. In 1930, she was called back to Moscow

from China. Now she was deputy head of the Party organization department

(Orgotdel) within the Central Committee.

“And by decision of the Politburo I have been sent to you at the factory. I am

counting on your help.”And with that, Mitkevich ended her speech.

75

24. Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872–1947) was the Russian general who led the anti-Bolshevik “White”

forces on the southern front during the Russian Civil War (1918–20).

25. The Comintern (Communist International) was an international organization dedicated to fostering

Communist leadership among socialist movements across the world. Lenin founded the organization in 1919 as

the “Third International.”The Comintern gained strength through the 1920s but noticeably weakened in influence by World War II.
We dispersed from our meeting convinced

there would be subsequent personnel reassignments. I told Dobrovolskaya my thought that a

woman invested with Stalin’s confidence must

promote other women.

“There were only two women at the meeting today, and Mitkevich gazed especially

intently at you,” I remarked.

“Judging by her biography, Mitkevich will

be a real commissar for us,” replied Larisa.“It

is difficult to predict how she will use her

military experience. Too bad she doesn’t

possess the feminine charm of the heroine in

Optimistic Tragedy.”

Indeed, in outward appearance, Olga Mitkevich and Alisa Koonen, whom we had recently

seen on stage at the Chamber Theater in the role

of a female commissar,had nothing in common.

Mitkevich began to make personnel changes

in the Party leadership very quickly. New

people arrived from the Central and Moscow

Committee staffs and even from the Institute of

the Red Professoriate.They replaced the secretaries of the Party organizati

the main shops. New faces appeared on the Party committee staff.

Next it was time for changes in the Komsomol. Mitkevich replaced fa

Komsomol leader Petya Petukhov with Nikolay Bogdanov, whom she brough

from the Moscow Committee. Bogdanov decided that the main shops need

have Komsomol cell secretaries who were freed of all other obligations. He re

the committee staff, took over the managerial duties of the production d

ment, and proposed that I be the secretary of the largest shop organization

final assembly shop (OS).26 I was well acquainted with the shop and the youn

gladly received me.

My transfer from general factory activity to work in the OS shop coin

with a rush to produce the first TB-3 airplanes. Even at the beginning of the 

work was already intense but steady, as Shpak had scheduled it. At the e

March, Gorbunov called a meeting at which he announced that Baranov ha

called him. At Stalin’s instructions, Baranov had requested that several TB-

made ready for an air review on 1 May 1932. Not a single one of the airplan

yet made it to the assembly shop, and in just a little over a month they 

expected to fly over Red Square! Nothing like this had ever happened! We a

76

26. OS—Tsekha Okonchatelnoy Sborki.

ZIKh museum 

Olga Aleksandrovna Mitkevich, R

Army veteran commander, VKP(

Central Committee Party Organiz

and director of Factory No. 22 f

1933 to 1935.
to assemble and make three flights ready for the review: nine aircraft total and a

tenth as backup.KOSTR was given the assignment to urgently simplify everything

possible. Get rid of the armaments, remove the side fuel tanks in the wings and any

equipment for night flights, and whatever else.

The rush job throughout the entire factory was unusual even for veterans who

had seen all kinds of production spurts. By the time it reached the OS, shop chief

Morozov, who was always very calm and unflappable, had carefully thought

through the assembly process, prepared a closed cycle team, and assigned the individuals responsible for each aircraft. When the assemblies began to arrive at the OS

shop, the assemblers worked around the clock.A week before the May Day celebration, they started performing test flights over the factory airfield. All the

airplanes took off and landed without incident although the pilots were not at all

accustomed to these behemoths. On the eve of the celebration, all ten aircraft were

transported to Khodynka, the Central Airfield.

On May Day, a column from our factory traditionally led a festive stream of

demonstrators from the Frunze district.We were the first to enter Red Square after

the troops had finished marching through. Numerous biplanes and sesquiplanes—

reconnaissance planes and fighters—rumbled overhead. Next, several squadrons of

TB-1s flew by. We tried not to hurry. Where were our TB-3s? We had already

come alongside Lenin’s Tomb when we let out a frenzied “Hurrah!” Stalin himself

was greeting us and pointing to the sky.Overhead a rumble such as had never been

heard before came rolling in from the direction of Tverskaya Street. It was very

risky to fly nine four-engine giants in precise formation, in rows of three, at an

altitude of no more than 500 meters. I saw neither Lenin’s Tomb nor the reviewing stand nor the military attachés who were later mentioned in the newspapers.

I felt a lump rise in my throat out of sheer delight.I slapped someone on the shoulder and someone slapped me.We were all pushed and asked to move on quickly. I

saw that fellow marchers throughout the shop column were wiping away tears.These

were tears of joy that were impossible to conceal. I, too, needed a handkerchief.

OS Komsomol members initiated the establishment of a factory flight school and

glider and parachute clubs. With Gorbunov’s active support, a full-fledged flight

school began operation in 1931.The chief of the school, Semyon Zalmanov, was

a very energetic member of the Komsomol committee. Along with him and the

new secretary, we assembled a noisy Komsomol committee delegation and burst in

to see Hero of the Civil War, Army Commander Eydeman. At that time he was

chairman of the powerful Osoaviakhim, the All-Union Society for the Promotion

of Aviation and Chemical Defense.He oversaw hundreds of flight,glider,and parachute schools. Many graduates of these schools filled openings at aviation institutes, having received good flight training.

Eydeman granted our request for two U-2 training planes (subsequently the

famed Po-2). In addition, he instructed the well-known pilot and parachutist

Moshkovskiy to be the sponsor of our parachute club, and he sent sport parachute

instructor Lyamin to work there permanently.There was no end to the number of

77
people who wanted to fly. Petr Lozovskiy, the factory test pilot, was an inst

at the school on a volunteer basis.

The school trained pilots without taking them away from the production 

The Komsomol Committee devoted particular attention to the flight sc

supporting the initiative of the school’s chief in every possible way. Zalm

enjoyed particular favor with Gorbunov, who found the means to acquire 

suits, parachutes, training planes, and everything that a flight school needed. B

end of 1933, the school had trained more than forty amateur pilots. Many 

school’s graduates became professional pilots.

One of the factory school graduates was Aleksey Godovikov, the s

Nikolay Godovikov, to whom I said farewell forever before his flight in the N

across the North Pole to the United States on 12 August 1937.Aleksey Godo

died in 1942 in a ram attack on an enemy Ju-88 bomber. Not far from Aca

cian Korolev Street, where I live, is Godovikov Street, named in memory o

and Hero of the Soviet Union A. N. Godovikov. He died during a war whe

death of pilots was seen as an unavoidable law of nature.

the factory flight school was also touched by tragic events. On a ho

day in 1931, during a demonstration flight executing an aerobatics maneuver 

I-4 fighter plane, Petr Lozovskiy didn’t pull out of a spin and crashed straigh

the ground.The death of the pilot, the favorite of the Komsomol members, stu

us all.The very existence of the flight school was threatened. By then the s

already had Osoaviakhim staff instructors. Gorbunov stood up for the school, 

continued to train young pilots.

More accessible and popular than aviation was sport parachuting. Para

jumping from a special tower and then from airplanes became a real craze. 

a leader in the Komsomol organization of the OS shop, it was my duty to 

a role model to entice the shop’s Komsomol masses into the parachuting sc

The school’s parachuting classes began under the leadership of Lyamin, wh

made more than 500 jumps, including delayed jumps.After learning how to 

a parachute and executing several jumps from the tower, we went on 

around in a U-2, impatiently waiting for the real jumps to begin from an 

tude of 800 meters.

We gathered for the first jumps on a Sunday at the factory airfield. L

himself had lined up the first five to jump.I was fourth on his list.The airfield 

mechanic jumped first. Second was a female Komsomol activist from our sho

third to jump was a shock worker—an aircraft assembler.The first two jumps 

off without a hitch. On the third jump, the parachute failed to open. Comp

shaken, we ran to the site where our comrade had fallen. He was lying in t

grass on the bank of the Moscow River. His right hand tightly clutched th

of the main parachute, which he simply had not pulled. What kept him 

pulling the ring? Lyamin cautiously freed the ring from his firmly clinche

warm fingers.We helped him put on our dead comrade’s parachute. He pers

78
the pilot to take off right then and there, and he jumped, demonstrating that the

parachute was completely functional.

Classes at the school were called off.A month passed before we once again gathered at the factory airfield and jumps were permitted to continue. Lyamin decided

to make a ranging jump to allow for a correction for the stiff wind.As the airplane

took off and reached the site he had selected, the wind intensified.After the parachutist jumped, we saw that he was being carried away to the far corner of the

airfield toward the Karamyshevskaya Dam. He came down in the middle of the

river.The parachute canopy covered him completely, preventing him from breathing, and his flight suit pulled him to the bottom.

Several of the prison laborers at the dam rushed to the water.One even managed

to enter the water and started to swim.The guards’ shouts of “Back!” and the firing

of warning shots followed.We ran to the bank at the same time a launch was leaving the factory pier. By the time they had dragged Lyamin out, brought him to

shore,and freed him from his parachute gear,about a half hour had passed.He could

not be saved.After this event, the parachute school virtually ceased to exist.

Central Committee Party Organizer Olga Mitkevich and Factory Director

Gorbunov often made rounds through the shops and held production meetings.

Production of the TB-3 was at a fever pitch. A large number of changes in the

design and equipment makeup had been made. They changed the number of

wheels on the landing gear from two to four; they changed the material of the

landing gear half-axle and the engine mount frames. I have already mentioned the

replacement of the M-17 engines with a modified version of the more powerful

M-34.They altered the glazing of the Mosselprom—their name for the navigator’s

cockpit in the nose of the TB-3.27 The TsAGI designers called the nose section

“Arkhangelskiy’s snout.”28 They also decided to remove the two retractable

machine gun turrets on the underside that TsAGI workers called “Nadashkevich’s

trousers.”29 They replaced the low-power external electric generator that had a

wind turbine with a generator that was driven from an aircraft engine.There were

many other changes, including alterations made in response to the negative assessments that poured in from the Air Force in abundance.

During a routine quality conference, Gorbunov stated that, compared with

the standard set by TsAGI, our factory’s aircraft were overweight by 800–900

kilograms. Such a loss of bomb payload could not be tolerated. Therefore,

among other measures, he announced a weight-reduction competition.A prize

of 100 rubles per kilogram was set, if a suggestion was accepted. Soon KOSTR

and other factory services were flooded with a stream of suggestions. Over a

79

27. The cockpit was named after the Mosselprom building in Moscow, which had a distinctive, angular

design with many windows.

28. The nose section was named after Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Arkhangelskiy, a designer under Tupolev.

29. The turrets were named after Aleksandr Vasilyevich Nadashkevich, the leader of airborne weapons development working under Tupolev.
period of six months, the airplanes managed to “slim down” by a little 

than 800 kilograms.

The transfer of our production—bombers ready for Air Force aviation u

took place at the factory airfield in a rather humdrum fashion. Crews from 

tary units conducted the technical acceptance over a period of two to three 

On hot days,they found time to swim in the Moscow River.In the end the a

flew away to military airfields without any particular fanfare.The majority 

west—to the Kiev and Byelorussian districts.

During the summer of 1932, when the handover of several dozen aircraft 

Special Far East Military District was coming up, Mitkevich proposed t

Komsomol leadership that the humdrum handover process be turned into celebr

to mark the transfer of our powerful airplanes to the heroic Soviet Air Force p

The hero of the first legendary Moscow-to-New York flight, pilot Shes

was in charge of the aircraft acceptance. He commanded an Air Force form

of TB-1 bombers in the Far East. Now they were going to replace the TB-1

TB-3s. By the time the Far East contingent arrived, the eighteen aircra

logged extra test flight time and had undergone supplementary inspectio

eliminate any defects that could possibly be found.

The handover festivities opened with a rally at the airfield.After the first a

inspection, Shestakov and his crews were invited to a fun-filled picnic 

included boating on the Moscow River.The pilots from the Far East spent s

days becoming familiar with their new airplanes and doing the paperwork f

acceptance. Mitkevich introduced Shestakov to a team of Komsomol member

had supervised the airplanes for the Far East. I took advantage of this oppor

to tell him that the factory was storing the “Land of the Soviets” airplane th

returned from America completely covered with American autograph

Shestakov’s great chagrin, no one could tell him exactly where the airplan

Not just then,but also in subsequent years,we fecklessly lost material evidenc

had ever-increasing historical value. Our museums of aviation history cannot 

our descendants the “Land of the Soviets” and many other Soviet airplane

have entered world aviation history.

The aircraft handover festivities ended with a magnificent banquet i

canteen. Early the next morning we accompanied Shestakov and his crews 

airfield.The airplanes took off one after another, fell into formations of thre

departed for the east.The TB-3s could manage the distance to Khabarovsk 

four stopovers. Mitkevich reported to us that she had received a telegram 

Shestakov thanking us for the warm reception and the powerful airplanes.

the super-intense rates of industrialization during the period between 193

1933 required that vast human resources be lured into the ranks of industry.Un

and often barely literate people were pumped out of the villages. In spite of so

competitions, the introduction of ranks for shock workers and Stakhanovite

moral and material incentives, labor discipline and production quality remaine

80
One of the severe measures taken to improve discipline in industry was the law

of 1932 on waste and absenteeism.According to this law, if one was more than 20

minutes late to work, one was fired. Persons guilty of absenteeism and waste were

prosecuted. Even taking a smoke break during the workday was considered the

same as tardiness if it exceeded 20 minutes. Such severe laws were far from necessary at our factory. Administrative measures, keen interest in technical training,

effective incentives, and the active involvement of social organizations maintained

a spirit of factory patriotism in our work force.The overwhelming majority of our

people worked enthusiastically.

In the first weeks after the law was made public, many innocent people suffered

when it was applied out of the zealous desire to set an example. There was a

Komsomol member, a fitter in the propeller group named Igor; I forget his last

name. He possessed the talent of a real inventor. Many of his suggestions concerning the assembly and design process for the TB-3 airplane were implemented. His

last suggestion, which brought him fame throughout the factory and a substantial

prize, was to simplify the complex system for the manual control of engine revolutions and power.They used to cite this suggestion at all kinds of meetings as an

example of the inexhaustible potential of a worker’s creativity. One not-so-fine

day, I was taken aback when the shop chief told me,“Our renowned inventor was

absent a half day. I am obliged to fire him, and if they go after him, he’ll be prosecuted.This is your Komsomol member.That’s why I’m filling you in.”The stunned

Igor explained everything to me very simply. “Yesterday I got married.We celebrated. I just overslept. My wedding night . . . you understand.”

I decided to go to the director and tell him the whole situation. Gorbunov

heard me out, the whole time staring off somewhere to the side. For a long time

he was silent and then he snapped,“We didn’t make this law and it’s not up to us

to abolish it.” Without wasting any time I headed to the Party committee.

Mitkevich said, “The director is obliged to set an example for the execution of

laws, no matter how cruel they might be. I can promise that they will not prosecute Igor.Today you will convene an open Komsomol shop meeting. Igor must be

dropped from the Komsomol. Show by this example that the law is the law for

everyone. And explain to Igor that in around three or four months, after he has

worked somewhere at a construction site without violations,if he feels like coming

back to the factory, we will take him.” Igor did not return. We lost a man who

really had a divine spark.

In spite of all the difficulties, by spring of 1933 the TB-3 had been put onto the

production line. During the military parade on 1 May 1933, squadrons of TB-3s

flew over Moscow at an altitude of 800 meters, rousing an elated hurrah from the

hundreds of thousands of spectators and a stressed reaction among the military

attachés invited to Red Square. In the British Parliament’s House of Commons,

Harold Balfour came out with a special inquiry,“I have read the Russian newspaper Izvestiya dated 4 May, which contains a description of the May Day celebration in Moscow.There is a photo of the Russian parade in which the number of

81
four-engine Tupolev aircraft in the field of view exceeds 158,and there were 

ably some that didn’t fit in the shot. Unfortunately, this photograph cann

considered a fake. The Russians have demonstrated not only the might of 

fleet of bombers but also the capabilities of their industry.”

In August 1933, by decree of the USSR TsIK Presidium, the factor

awarded the Order of Lenin for mastering the construction of special heavy a

and for the effective organization of factory operations. At that time this 

great honor. Orders of Lenin and the Red Star were awarded to eighteen 

most distinguished workers, including Gorbunov and Godovikov, who rec

Orders of the Red Star, and Mitkevich, who received an Order of Lenin.A 

meeting was held in Fili Park for this event. RKKA Air Force Chief Ya. I.A

spoke at the meeting.30 In their speeches Alksnis and Voroshilov both appea

the aircraft industry workers to produce aircraft and engines that were super

foreign ones. In 1933, the TB-3 had no equals in terms of carrying capacit

in terms of speed and altitude, it could have been much better were it not f

lagging of our engine industry.

That same August 1933,Aviation Day was celebrated for the first time.This 

bration was used to the full extent to inspire young workers to new produ

feats. At all of our mass events we said that the Land of the Soviets must 

airplanes that will fly “higher, faster and further than all others.” Factory No. 2

aircraft industry’s best factory, would bear direct responsibility for realizing thi

The factory experienced a boom period. Traveling out to regiona

Moscow-area rallies and conferences, we always felt that a special respec

shown to the delegates of Factory No. 22.The continuous, single-minded 

relations campaign was working.The new organization secretaries who join

Party leadership in the main shops, Mitkevich’s people, had created an atmos

of unity and a continuous, festive labor upsurge. During this period Gorbuno

Mitkevich enjoyed deserved authority. For us in the Komsomol, they were te

and idols—models whose lives we should copy.

Unexpectedly, these idols struck a blow to their own authority. In the b

ning, whispered rumors had circulated about an intimate relationship be

the director and the Central Committee Party organizer. In Komsomol c

Gorbunov’s authority and cult of personality were so great that the first re

was,“Nonsense and gossip—it can’t be. Gorbunov has a young, beautiful wi

friend from Komsomol work in Zaraysk. Mitkevich is not so much a woma

Party commissar with a long record that predates the revolution. She is fou

years his senior. If he does something crazy, she should have enough self-c

and common sense not to give cause for all kinds of gossip.”

But the gossip and rumors turned out to be true. Gorbunov left his wi

apartment in the factory settlement in Fili and moved in with Mitkevich

82

30. RKKA—Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army).
lived in a new government house on the riverside.This was quite incredible, especially since Gorbunov was exceedingly scrupulous in matters concerning nepotism

at the factory.His younger brother Vladimir,who was later involved in the production of LaGG (Lavochin, Gorbunov, and Gudkov) fighters, complained that Sergey

had not hired him just because he had feared accusations of nepotism.

This impasse was quite suddenly broken. Gorbunov died in the crash of an

R-6 airplane.This model of aircraft was obsolete. KOSTR came up with the idea

to convert it into a transport/passenger plane.The factory manufactured a single

prototype. They removed all the aircraft’s weaponry. Eight passenger seats were

placed in the fuselage.The crew cabin was glassed in.The airplane made its first

test flights in the area of our airfield. Unexpectedly, the order came to install additional fuel tanks to prepare the R-6 for long-range flight.

On 5 September 1933, this airplane set off for the Crimea carrying Gorbunov,

Glavaviaprom Chief Baranov, Council of Ministers Civil Aviation Directorate Chief

Goltsman, his deputy Petrov, Gosplan Presidium member Zarzar, and Baranov’s

wife, who had asked her husband to take her with him to visit their children vacationing in the Crimea.31 Glavaviaprom senior pilot Dorfman and flight mechanic

Plotnikov piloted the plane.The weather that day was not suitable for flying, but

Baranov insisted on departing. At nine o’clock in the morning, the overloaded

aircraft headed south.Twenty minutes after departure, the airplane crashed in the

Moscow suburb of Podolsk.All of the passengers and crew were killed.According

to the findings of the aviation board, the cloudy conditions forced the plane to fly

very close the ground.The aircraft had no instruments or radio equipment for flying

blind. Dorfman was forced to fly the plane so that he did not lose sight of the

ground.While flying over Podolsk, the aircraft’s landing gear ripped the wire of an

amateur radio antenna off the tall poles to which it had been secured and dragged

it behind.Then the aileron of the left wing grazed the top of a tall willow.The left

wing panel fell off, the airplane’s nose hit the ground, and the plane disintegrated.

The news of the death of Gorbunov, Baranov, and the civil aviation leaders

stunned the work force. On the morning of 6 September, a sorrowful meeting was

held at the factory. There were words shared by a man from Gorbunov’s home

district of Zaraysk, future CPSU Central Committee Secretary and future

Academician B.N.Ponomarev. At the meeting,an appeal was made to the government to change the factory’s name to the S. P. Gorbunov Factory. Now, instead of

Factory Named After the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution, it would

be called Gorbunov Factory No. 22. Gorbunov’s name was also conferred on the

Palace of Culture and a street in the Kuntsevo area of Moscow. The dead were

laid in state in the Hall of Columns. Baranov and Goltsman were buried in Red

Square.The others were buried at Donskoye Cemetery.

83

31. Glavaviaprom (Chief Directorate of the Aviation Industry) was formed in December 1931 to oversee the

entire Soviet aviation industry.
It was up to Ordzhonikidze to propose a new director candidate for the 

try’s best aircraft factory. Everyone expected Mitkevich to tell us about po

candidates. Someone who had mingled with officials from the People’s Com

sariat of Heavy Industry (Narkomtyazhprom) shared the rumor that M

Moiseyevich Kaganovich, brother of Politburo member Lazar Moisey

Kaganovich, would be the director.The rumor proved false. Mikhail Kagan

was appointed to replace the deceased Baranov as Glavaviaprom chief. At th

of 1933, Olga Mitkevich herself was appointed director of Gorbunov Factor

22. For experienced workers in the aircraft industry, this was a second shock

respected Mitkevich as an intelligent, strong-willed, and strict Party leade

experienced aircraft builders could not imagine her in the role of directin

largest aircraft factory in Europe. Moreover, general opinion had it that her i

diate superior, Mikhail Kaganovich, was also an aircraft industry dilettante.

Those most aggressively disposed toward the director on account of her l

credentials in aviation technology were the test pilots, airfield flight mech

factory flight-testing station (LIS) specialists, and old foremen of the final ass

shop.32They had not minced words with Gorbunov when he first came on th

when the low quality of the shops’ work or delays in providing components 

perated them.The tardiness and absenteeism law was a direct threat to the air

free spirits. Mechanics felt no compunction when they got a chance to b

while in the sweet-scented grass or swim in the river on a hot day before c

ing back into an airplane that had become scorching hot in the sun. For 

Mitkevich personified a Party that had intensified their stress and invented a 

brutal law. Head flight mechanic Nikolay Godovikov tried to suppress the 

zealous critics, but was not always successful in this.

When the weather was not suitable for flying or simply for other reason

pilots and flight mechanics thought up various practical jokes. Dobrovo

related to us how they tried to make her the object of their ingenu

January 1932.

The chief of KOSTR got a call from the airfield requesting that he sen

designer Dobrovolskaya to explain a drawing that she had signed. Her dra

had absolutely nothing to do with the activity of the flight station.“But yo

expect anything from these degenerates,” said her boss.

Possessing an attractive appearance and flushed from the freezing col

young woman entered the smoke-filled room where the airfield elite was s

ing the breeze. Known for his weakness for pure alcohol, Khrisantov, the LIS 

and a former military pilot, turned to the flight mechanic.“Barabanov, look 

a beauty they sent at your request! Explain what the deal is.”

Flight mechanic Barabanov, a man who loved all kinds of practical 

explained,“There was a design defect in the aircraft, but the trouble is that 

84

32. LIS—Letno Ispytatelnoy Stantsii.
forgot the number. A propeller got stuck on the skid. But we looked into it

ourselves and fixed it.We can go out to the flight field and check!”

The assembled company could not contain themselves and burst into gleeful

laughter.The joke was so old it had a beard, and Dobrovolskaya herself felt like

laughing, but she stood firm.“At the next quality conference, I will without fail,

ask for the floor to recount how successfully you eliminate design errors.” She

turned and left, slamming the door behind her.

One who loved practical jokes and awkward situations even more was the new

LIS Party organization secretary, Klevanskiy.When he heard about the “propeller

and skid” episode he was amused, but he persuaded Dobrovolskaya not to speak

at the conference. If one were to tell such a story in front of Mitkevich, who

knows, she might in all seriousness ask,“Can you show me how a propeller can

get stuck on a skid?” Klevanskiy warned the flight mechanics that if Mitkevich

were to make a routine visit to the airfield and somebody got it into his head to

complain to her about quality with jokes like that, he would see to it that they

were fired.

Test pilots, flight mechanics, and engine mechanics did not display a friendly

attitude toward the Party and Komsomol leadership. Calls for mastering technology, for socialist competition,“using all 420 minutes in a shift”—none of this was

for them. Mitkevich, who had a great deal of experience taming the obstinate

masses, understood that for the post of LIS Party leader she needed to find an

individual who would command trust and respect by the force of his or her

special human qualities.

She had hunted down Klevanskiy at the Moscow Komsomol committee. He had

a well-developed sense of humor and always had jokes, proverbial sayings, anecdotes, and funny stories in reserve.When the timing was right they could defuse

the most strained situation. He rallied the LIS work force, eliminated drinking

binges, increased discipline, and achieved a high evaluation for his activity from the

Party committee. However, Klevanskiy stunned us all.

The Party leadership headed by Stalin did not permit any slackening of intraParty tension. Under the slogan of a struggle against the vestiges of capitalism in

the economy and in the peoples’ consciousness, the leadership demanded heightened vigilance; they called for the exposure of harmful activity perpetrated by the

bourgeois technical intelligentsia,Trotskyites, and those “deviating to the right.”33

In addition to learning the technology of their own job, Party members were also

required to systematically expose the ideology of hostile classes. A campaign to

purge the Party under slogans of freeing its ranks of alien and degenerate elements

followed the general appeals.The atmosphere of the widespread labor boom was

poisoned by the need “to expose, stigmatize, and uproot.”

85

33. The “Right Deviation” was one of the last major Party factions to oppose Stalin before he assumed

absolute power in the late 1920s.
The factory Party organization still did not know that Klevanskiy’s fat

prominent economic planner, had been expelled from the Party for his tie

the Trotskyites.The exclusion of his son “for failure to provide information

preordained. Klevanskiy, the soul of Party/Komsomol society, the merry op

shot himself. In his suicide note, Klevanskiy wrote that he could not live if he 

expelled from the Party. Klevanskiy’s suicide stirred up a campaign to e

“hidden class enemies” in all of the factory’s organizations. This campaig

affected my subsequent fate.

Among various sorts of statements, the Party committee received a denu

tion wherein the author asserted that I had concealed the truth about my p

when I joined the Party. It stated that my parents lived abroad, that my moth

an active member of the Menshevik party, and that during the NEP yea

father was a bookkeeper in a private enterprise.

A Party purge was looming ahead, and it was proposed that in my situ

this personal matter be dealt with so that it would not reach the pu

commission, in which case the factory Party committee would be consi

guilty—Why hadn’t they been aware of this? Why did they wait for the pu

commission? Outflanking the Party committee, Bogdanov convened an en

session of the Komsomol committee and gave a speech exposing me.“Cher

not a class enemy, but we cannot tolerate anyone in our ranks who 

completely candid and who hides his past.” The majority of those who 

were people with whom I had almost no contact on the job. My close com

sat in dispirited silence.

In my own defense, I said that my mother had left the Menshevik party 

years before I was born.My father had worked at a state-owned factory that th

had leased to a private company in 1922.All the workers and office workers ha

their jobs. My father had not been deprived of his right to vote, and they had 

recommended that my mother join the VKP(b) during the Lenin enrollment

told my parents’ entire history in detail to Wasserman in 1931 before I was re

as a VKP(b) candidate. He was the standard of the Party conscience and a m

technical leader with a prerevolutionary record dating from 1905 in what wa

the OBO department.After attentively hearing me out and consulting with the 

Party cell secretary,Wasserman said that I should not expand on that subject in 

in the meeting. “Your parents are honest people.You do excellent work.Yo

shock worker and an inventor.The fact that you were born in Poland has been 

ten in all the questionnaires, and everyone who needs to, knows this.”

Having succinctly recounted this history, I concluded by saying that I 

not imagine life outside the Komsomol and the Party.The majority voted f

expulsion from the Komsomol ranks, but my close comrades voted for a 

reprimand and a warning. Formally, I was expelled from the Komsomo

remained a member of the Party.This took place during very troubled tim

the factory. Gorbunov had died, and Mitkevich had not yet been appointe

situation was put on the back burner.At home, without holding back, I to

86
parents what had happened. Without warning me, my mother headed for Fili

and had a meeting with Mitkevich. Neither one of them told me then about

this encounter.

The Party committee finally found the time to discuss the Komsomol committee decision and unanimously voted for me to receive a “severe reprimand with a

warning.”This was also to be “noted on my registration form.” In a private decision, it was recommended that I be transferred to a job in my specialty. Mitkevich

gave instructions placing me in the same OS shop where just the day before I had

been the Komsomol boss.

And so I once again became an electrician; no longer an industrial electrician,

but one who worked on avionics. My fall from grace and my brush with expulsion from the Party was a very painful experience at the time. Many years later, I

assessed everything that had happened not as a blow, but as a gift of fate.

They knew me well in the shop, and for “re-education” they sent me to Lidiya

Petrovna Kozlovskaya’s female shock-worker team. This team’s job was to wire

ignition systems.They were releasing them to flight mechanics on the airfield to

be checked out on working engines.

Kozlovskaya was happy.“Finally I have at least one male subordinate, and one

of the former leaders, to boot.” She kept her young female subordinates in a state

of fear. Incidentally, it was not just subordinates who were afraid of Kozlovskaya.

She had been hired by the factory after several years in a “correctional” camp on

the infamous Solovetskiye Islands.34 The labor discipline and quality of work in

Kozlovskaya’s team was exemplary. It was hard to believe that she had a criminal

past. She made very sure that every member of her team devoted 420 minutes per

shift to production. Always “together,” affable, and sociable with her shop

comrades, she even knew how to win over carping bosses.

The most spirited troublemakers, the airfield flight mechanics, who carped

about every piddling thing to the foremen and assembly shop team leaders, were

careful not to clash with Kozlovskaya. She said exactly what she thought about

unfair faultfinding, using language that would make a veteran engine mechanic’s

jaw drop. If somebody still needed to be taught a thing or two, she had developed

a high-voltage shock technique using the manual magneto used to start up aircraft

engines.When work was being done inside the spacious fuselage of a TB-3, the

opportunity presented itself to unexpectedly touch an offender with an ignition

wire.The sparking 20,000-volt discharge made a hole in his clothing, and while it

didn’t cause burns, it did give a brief jolt to the nerves.

A portrait of Kozlovskaya stood out vividly on the Honor Board, and in 1935

she was awarded the Red Banner Order of Labor. It is probable that the personnel department where the biographical data from questionnaires were stored and

the people whom Kozlovskaya trusted knew about her criminal past. Her parents

87

34. The Solovetskiye islands,located in the White Sea,were home to one of the more notorious GULAG camps.
had been very wealthy and as a child she had grown accustomed to luxur

revolution took away everything.

Having lost everything, including her parents, Kozlovskaya became an 

member in a gang of robbers. Naturally gifted with organizational skills a

enterprising nature, she soon became the gang leader. Answering for s

crimes, she was threatened with the death penalty, but considering her age an

fact that she had no prior convictions, the court sentenced her instead to 

years in prison. During her stay at the correctional labor camp on the Solove

Islands, Kozlovskaya’s capabilities enabled her to obtain an early release w

reference attesting to her rehabilitation. She was even given the right to w

an aircraft factory.

On one of the hot days when the next batch of aircraft was being released

waiting to present the completed wiring of the electrical equipment to the q

control department (OTK) controller. Usually, a former Baltic Fleet sailor, w

we called Sasha-Bosun, conducted the acceptance process. He would car

examine the aesthetics of how the cable bundles were run and check the se

of the clamps holding them against the corrugated construction of the skin.

Instead of Sasha-Bosun, Kozlovskaya climbed into the roomy fuselage.Wi

was an unknown woman wearing a civil aviation uniform tunic. Kozlov

introduced the shapely, young, green-eyed woman saying,“This is our new 

ity control foreman, Katya Golubkina.” Kozlovskaya immediately noticed th

new controller had conquered me at first glance.“Chertok will explain every

to you,” she told Golubkina, and left the plane.

I began my interrogation and learned that Katya had just graduated fro

aviation technical school with a specialty in aircraft special equipment.The

her to work at Factory No. 22. Here she had ended up working for the ch

the final assembly shop quality control department, Nikolay Nikolay

Godovikov, who had assigned her to do quality control on Kozlovskaya’s te

After a week, controller Golubkina announced to Kozlovskaya that she w

not sign the form on the ignition system wiring until the faults she had note

been eliminated. In order to meet deadlines, the team had to work overti

correct the defects and again present its work for release.The disputed situ

ended late in the evening and I asked the faultfinding controller for permiss

walk her home.

It turned out that Katya lived with her brother and cousin in the studio o

deceased aunt, sculptor Anna Semenovna Golubkina. Anna Golubkina bega

creative activity in her native city of Zaraysk. She studied in Moscow 

St. Petersburg, and also in Paris under the renowned Rodin.The Soviet go

ment presented her with a studio in the Arbat area on Great Levshinskiy 

Anna Semenovna died suddenly in 1927. Her nieces and nephews becam

heirs and proprietors of her many sculptures and her studio.The oldest of 

Vera Golubkina, turned to Boris Ponomarev, a man from her home distr

Zaraysk who held a senior Party post, asking for his assistance to create an 

88
Semenovna Golubkina Memorial

Sculpture Museum in her Moscow

studio.All of her relatives signed a declaration for the gratuitous transfer of all of

the artwork created by Anna Golubkina

to the Soviet state. The USSR AllUnion Central Executive Committee

(VTsIK) established personal pensions

for Golubkina’s minor relatives, and Vera

Golubkina was named the director of

the new museum. Katya, who had

moved from Zaraysk to Moscow to help

set up the museum, entered Tushinskiy

Technical School. After three years of

study she ended up at Factory No. 22.

Three years later, after our first meeting

in the TB-3, senior control foreman

Yekaterina Semenovna Golubkina

became my wife.That is why the TB-3

bomber had a decisive impact on my

personal life.

To a great extent,my work on ignition systems and aircraft electrical equipment

determined my subsequent engineering fate. I had to release an aircraft ignition

system at our factory airfield to the flight mechanics, military representatives, and

crews who had accepted the airplanes.We had a lot of trouble with this system.

Our industry had only just started to put a magneto, a complex instrument, into

production. Until then, all aircraft engines had been equipped with magnetos

produced by the Swiss firm Scintilla or the German firm Bosch. If an engine

contained our magneto, the flight mechanics complained that it was unreliable and

didn’t generate a powerful enough spark.

Perhaps influenced by those conversations, I decided that it was time to stop

using such a complex and capricious assembly as a magneto, and to put an end to

the Scintilla and Bosch monopoly.Today, I myself am surprised at the daring and

naiveté of this 21-year-old electrician.Through my ham radio activity, I had heard

a lot about the remarkable properties of piezoelectric crystals. However, the quartz

crystals that were already widely used back then provided such a paltry amount of

electricity that there was no chance of using them to produce a spark in a spark

plug. I had read in some radio journal about the miraculous properties of potassium

sodium tartrate crystals.35 These crystals had an electrical effect almost 1,000 times

89

From the author’s archives.

The author’s wife, Yekaterina Semenovna

Golubkina (Katya), Zaraysk, 1929.

35. Such crystals are also known as Seignette salt or Rochelle salt after Pierre Seignette from La Rochelle,

France, the first to produce it in the late seventeenth century.
greater than quartz crystals. I began to look for literature. I stumbled onto a 

let that had just been published, Seignette Electricity.

36 I tried feverishly to tak

in—there was a lot of physics there that I did not fully understand (after all

had only a comprehensive education—in everything else I was self-taught)

understood the main principle. Potassium sodium tartrate was going to c

revolution in ignition technology.This was the beginning of the end for the 

the magneto and the European firms’ monopolies.Within a week I had devis

entire system,and on my day off I had drawn it in India ink on Whatman pap

on tracing paper, and had also written up a description in the prescribed form

“the invention of the century.”That was the factory inventors’ council assessm

A month later, I received a certificate of application and six months la

inventor’s certificate. Next came a copy of an expert’s positive findings, w

contained the following:

In contrast with all the existing electrical ignition systems of the fuel-

mixture in the cylinders of internal combustion engines, the propo

method is based on generating an electric spark in a cylinder’s spark p

using a direct piezoelectric effect rather than a magneto, storage battery

dynamo . ... Numerous experiments have shown that potassium sodi

tartrate crystals provide the greatest piezoelectric effect.This effect, which 

enormous compared with all piezoelectric crystals, is used in the propo

method for the electrical ignition of the fuel-air mixture in an inter

combustion engine.

The proposed method has the following advantages over existing on

Specifically, it is simple. Consequently, because of the absence of rotat

magnets, windings, collectors, and other elements, there is a great degree 

operational reliability, which in turn simplifies the electrical circuit. Its li

weight and compactness due to the absence of the bulky magnet system 

storage battery are exceedingly valuable for aircraft engines.The instrumen

simplicity and low manufacturing cost make the proposed method m

economically advantageous. (Expert V. M. Malyshka, Editor A.A. Denisov

There were other positive reviews, but this was sufficient for me to beg

search for the miracle-working potassium sodium tartrate crystals, which until 

had never laid hands on. I was only familiar with their properties through liter

a rush job tore me away from my absorption with the new principles o

tion.This one entailed wiring the bomb release system and installing radio sy

in the airplanes.They transferred me to a general special equipment and wea

90

36. The discipline of Seignette electricity is more commonly known as ferroelectricity, a term that 

widespread after World War II.
team.We were faced with starting up production of navigational electrical equipment and a state-of-the-art (for those times) electrical bomb-release system.

Bombs weighing up to 100 kilograms were placed inside the TB-3 fuselage in

special cassette bomb racks. Heavier bombs were suspended under the wing center

section and the wing so as not to interfere with the opening of the bomb bay

doors and the dropping of the interior bombs.The bomb rack’s mechanical lock

needed to be opened in order to drop the bombs.The navigator performed this

operation using the bomb release, which was connected to the lock of each bomb

rack through a system of several steel cables. Looking through a sight, the navigator would instruct the pilot how to fly in for the bombing run, and at the calculated moment, he would pull the handle of the mechanical bomb release with all

his might. Dropping all of the bombs required the application of considerable

physical force, alternately turning the handle back and forth. In so doing, the cable

drive opened the locks of the bomb racks one after another.The navigator had to

know how to drop the bombs one at a time and how to execute stick bombing.

Stick bombing required that various time intervals be maintained between drops.

Salvo bombing required that all the bombs be dropped simultaneously. Performing these operations using a mechanical cable drive was very difficult.When the

cables got stretched, the dropping process became fouled up. Sometimes all of the

navigator’s calculations were in vain and the bombs did not hit the target.

In 1932, at the request of the Air Force, an electric bomb release was developed.

Instead of cables, this model had bundles of wires running to the bomb holders.

The mechanical locks in the bomb holders were equipped with a pyrotechnic

device.An electrical impulse detonated a pyrotechnic cartridge, and the explosion

generated gases that thrust a piston to open the bomb rack lock.

The bomb release invented by the Special Design Bureau and transferred for series

production to the Aviapribor Factory was an extremely complex electromechanical

device.The first electric bomb releases (ESBRs) barely passed testing at the Air Force

NII, and the batches that we received were subject to malfunctions and failures that

threw the LIS workers into a rage during a test drop of dummy bombs.37

The aircraft radio systems added new troubles for the special equipment shop

section. Our powerful bomber aircraft did not begin to receive air-to-air transceiver radio stations (RSB) and intercom systems (SPU) providing communications between the seven crewmembers until 1933.38

The landing at our airfield of a TB-3 equipped with a top-secret autopilot caused

another sensation.The pneumatic autopilot was frightening in its complexity and

so it was never introduced on series produced airplanes.The first radio compasses

and radio range beacon signal receivers were also installed on commanders’

airplanes for night-time navigation and for flying under difficult conditions.

91

37. ESBR—Elektrosbrasyvatel.

38. RSB—Radiostantsii Samoleta-Bombardirovshchika; SPU—Samoletnoye Peregovornoye Ustroystvo.
All of this new equipment added so many failures that the airfield was co

with dozens of aircraft that had not passed the acceptance process. I was prom

to the position of radio engineer and was responsible for installing, tunin

releasing radio equipment.

in january and february of 1934, the Seventeenth Bolshevik Party Co

took place. It was declared the “Congress of Victors.”According to all indic

the Second Five-Year Plan had been fulfilled ahead of schedule. Stalin’s poli

converting the nation from a backward agrarian country into a mighty ind

power received the Congress’ unanimous support. Mitkevich was a congres

delegate from the Moscow municipal organization. She reported the results 

Congress and her impressions at a Party meeting.

I was in disfavor and did not attend the Party meetings. But soon at the ai

while Mitkevich was making her routine rounds, having assembled the for

and team leaders, she reamed us out about the delays in releasing the airp

Citing the congressional resolutions, she demanded the most heroic efforts 

all of us to clear the flight field.After Mitkevich’s general talk, she pulled me 

and asked why I had not appealed the Party committee’s decision to repri

me. She explained, “The thing is that the purging commission will not tak

risk of removing such a recent and severe pronouncement.They would be 

likely to simply expel you from the Party.”

Now I had something new to worry about. Having studied the procedu

appealing the decisions of a primary organization, I proceeded step by step

was the district troika for the review of personnel matters.39 Its decisio

approved by the district committee office located in the famous buildin

Zubovskiy Boulevard. This proved to be insufficient, and I appeared befo

greater Moscow troika on Old Square.To the three old Bolsheviks, I appea

be an inexperienced baby. Having moralized, they magnanimously replace

line “severe reprimand with a warning and notation . . .” with simply “severe 

mand.” After familiarizing itself with all the protocols and hearing my conf

and the laudatory testimonials of the non-Party foremen, the purging comm

finally cleared me, rescinding the Party’s punishment.

Now, whenever I wasn’t working, I was busy with the problem of inven

simple and reliable electric bomb release. It is difficult to explain how the 

bulb comes on in an inventor’s head. First and foremost, he must desire at al

to think up something that does not yet exist or replace an existing thing 

something much better.The second condition is competence. He must ha

absolute understanding of the end product and knowledge of the subject 

invention. I would call the third condition the erudition that saves the inv

from inventing the “perpetual motion machine.”All the while, the inventor 

92

39. Here, troika denotes a committee of three.
to be able to critically assess his proposed alternative before going into foolish

raptures about his own genius. Finally, when everything is already clear to the

inventor, when everything has been written and calculated, when the invention

has even gone before a panel of experts and there are no doubts as to its innovation and advantages, that is when the most difficult stages begin: realization,

experimental modification, and introduction.Therein lies the fundamental difference between the creative work of an inventor and engineer and that of a poet

or artist.

I referred to my proposed electric bomb release as “the electronic.” In place of

the complex electromechanical clockwork used for the selection of time intervals

during stick bombing, I devised an electronic time relay with a broad range for

regulating the initiation time. I also needed to think up a circuit to convert the

time relay to a pulse generator. In place of the highly complex mechanism used

for selecting the required bomb racks, I used the simple and inexpensive switch

used in an automatic phone switchboard.When everything, including a mercuryvapor thyratron, was assembled and soldered together on a sheet of plywood, it

began to work.A factory military representative reported about my initiative to the

armaments department of the Air Force Directorate.

After explanations at Varvarka, where the Air Force Directorate headed by

Alksnis was located at the time, they sent me, with the appropriate reference, to the

building on Red Square that housed the Directorate of Military Inventions.A few

days later, Directorate Chief Glukhov sent for me and reported that Tukhachevskiy

himself had approved funding for the development and manufacture of experimental prototypes of the bomb release system according to an agreement that the

Air Force Directorate was to conclude.

in august 1934, having endured the competitive examination, I finally became

a student at the V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MEI). For

material reasons, I did not want to quit work, and I began my studies in night

school without leaving production. MEI had split off from MVTU about three

years earlier and was scattered among various buildings in the area of Koroviy Brod

and Radio Street.The subway was still just being built.After 420 minutes on my

shift, I made the hour-and-a-half journey from Fili to MEI, satisfying my hunger

on the streetcars on the way.

Classes in the night school began at six o’clock and finished at ten o’clock. Each

student had already worked in industry for three to four years. From our personal

life experience, we were convinced of how important it was to gain systematic

knowledge in the fundamentals of science. It was precisely this desire to rise above

everyday mundane cares that made us listen attentively to lectures, not fall asleep

during seminars, and introduce improvements to our laboratory work. Our professors and instructors understood that they were not dealing with school kids,

but rather with skilled workers, technicians, and designer-practitioners. A distinct

community of interests was established in the educational process.We would let

93
down our hair a little during the short breaks. By all indications we were a

but we used to literally stand on our heads,in spite of appeals from the dean’s 

not to act like hooligans and to conduct ourselves with more restraint.

At the end of the year, having become acclimated to the institute, I disco

the scientific-research work section, which was fulfilling various orders for i

try. After brief negotiations, the chief of the large electric machine labo

agreed to set up a small special laboratory in his area to develop my elec

bomb release.This work had nothing whatsoever to do with powerful ele

machines, but it was attractive because of the contract with what was the

highly prestigious and influential Air Force Directorate.

At the request of the Directorate of Military Inventions, I was detached 

the factory to the Air Force Directorate and headed the MEI special labor

Besides me, the laboratory staff included one mechanic.The mechanic had 

they call “golden hands.” He was over fifty years old and dealt with me in a p

izing manner. He started off by recommending to me that I not show up 

laboratory every day at all. He would take care of everything himself, and if I 

just explain where those bombs hang that are supposed to be dropped, eithe

at a time or all at once. Ultimately, we found a common language. In the da

we worked together in a small room that had a sign on the door reading S

Laboratory: Entry Strictly Forbidden. In the evening I switched to another 

ing and buried myself in student cares.

During this period I had to visit many scientific institutions in Moscow 

Leningrad for consultations and to order new parts. I had meetings with 

interesting people. My dealings with them brought forth new ideas and some

made me reconsider previous endeavors.

In the electronic devices laboratory of the All-Union Electrical Engine

Institute (VEI), at the Svetlana and Krasnaya Zarya factories, in the offices 

Air Force Directorate, and at the Institute of Telemechanics, I met people 

gave advice and helped me selflessly.40 As it happened, three or four years 

once again needed to meet with some of these people. Svetlana director Ya

VEI laboratory chief Olekhnovich; Air Force Directorate military eng

Vazinger; and Glukhov, chief of the Directorate of Military Inventions—th

disappeared in 1937.When I was told,“He doesn’t work here anymore,” I u

stood that I shouldn’t ask any more questions.

I needed a thyratron that was particularly resistant to changes in tempe

that was being developed at the Leningrad Telemechanics NII. This was a 

filled with argon. Having received the necessary letters from the Departm

Military Inventions of the People’s Commissariat of Military and Naval Af

headed for Leningrad to get a thyratron, and at the same time, to have con

tions concerning potassium sodium tartrate.

94

40. VEI—Vsesoyuznoy elektronicheskogo institut.
In spite of my lack of status in terms of age and service, the letters from highlevel military officials were effective.The letters were printed on the letterhead of

the Directorate of Military Inventions under the auspices of the Red Army Chief

of Armaments.Anyone to whom such letters were addressed knew that the Chief

of Armaments was the deputy to People’s Commissar Marshal Tukhachevskiy.Thus,

the directors of institutes and factories whose offices I began to visit in search of

components for my bomb release mechanism never once refused my requests.

The thyratron developer,Yegorov-Kuzmin, a well-known specialist at that time,

spent two days testing the suitability of his thyratron for my design. He provided

me with a pair of ready-made thyratrons and promised to manufacture another five

that were more reliable.

It was during this trip that I met with the young Kurchatov.41This meeting was

accidental. If Kurchatov had not become a world-famous scientist twenty years

later, I would not have mentioned our meeting, just as I am omitting hundreds of

other meetings. But let me begin at the beginning.

The Leningrad Telemechanics NII was located in Lesnyy, next to the Physics

Technical Institute. At my request, Yegorov-Kuzmin took it upon himself to

accompany me to the Institute to find the right people for me to consult with

regarding piezoelectric crystals for my proposed new ignition system. He

introduced me to someone in some office. I presented Kurchatov’s Seignette

Electricity monograph and explained that I only needed a consultation. They

began a search for the authors. It was soon determined that one of the authors,

Nemenov, was not available at all, and Igor Kurchatov was away, but would be

in the next day.

The next day a meeting actually took place. They did not invite me to see

Kurchatov in the laboratory. He came out and talked to me in the lobby.The tall,

well-proportioned, dark-haired, very modestly dressed man regarded me thoughtfully with his serene, dark eyes. He was curious as to who I was and why I needed

a consultation.

I had already become quite an expert in all kinds of explanations before panels

of experts and specialists at various levels. Pulling a tattered electrical diagram out

of my folder, I began to explain the principle and advantages of the proposed ignition method.When my presentation had reached the crux of the matter—potassium sodium tartrate crystal—Kurchatov interrupted me. He had understood

everything a lot sooner than I had anticipated when I was preparing my verbose

report. He asked,“So this device is supposed to operate trouble-free on an aircraft

or an automobile engine and withstand first heat, then cold? Is that it?” I

confirmed that, yes, that was it.

I am not able to reproduce from memory the verbatim verdict that he

pronounced on my already universally recognized invention. But this was the gist.

95

41. Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (1903–60) was, of course, the so-called “father” of the Soviet A-bomb.
The committee on inventions was quite correct to have given me an inve

certificate in recognition of my priority for the practical use of the piezoel

effect in aircraft and automobile technology. In principle, he did not hav

objections to the fundamental possibilities for such usage. But the subse

practical realization of a laboratory prototype was senseless. Potassium so

tartrate crystals were very unstable and sensitive to changes in temperatur

humidity. My proposal was premature. When new piezoelectric ma

emerged, then it would make sense to work on realizing this idea. But at pr

it would only be compromised.

Kurchatov praised the principle and buried my hopes to realize my inve

He did this without any malice, and calmly assured me that the time for 

oping such a system was still to come. I wasn’t too distraught. During that p

I had been so submerged in the development of my bomb release device 

had gradually cooled off toward the piezoelectric ignition system. It wasn’t 

I needed to write lists of my inventions on questionnaires that I dug th

papers in search of the number of my inventor’s certificate.And indeed, I s

have pursued it. Kurchatov was right.Ten or twelve years later, new materia

emerge—piezoceramics. Now, at home, anybody can light a gas stove wit

spark from a trouble-free piezoelectric igniter. I never had the sense to g

inventor’s certificate for a kitchen range igniter. When I told my grandso

story while explaining the operating principle of the kitchen stove spark ig

all he could say was,“Oh, Grampa, Grampa.”

The names of the developers of our nuclear weaponry and of all the sci

that dealt with the problems of nuclear science were kept safely classified un

early 1950s. Even missile specialists such as myself, who had high-level clea

for secret projects,did not know for a while who was involved and what was 

on in the nuclear kingdom. Only after the official announcement in August 

concerning the unveiling of our atomic bomb did I hear the name Kurc

Soon thereafter, Korolev and Mishin received an invitation to one of the r

atomic tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. Upon his return, Korolev, full of im

sions, told us that “Black Beard”—Academician Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov

managing all the problems. At that time he had already been named a H

Socialist Labor twice.

Only after this did I finally recall that I had met with a certain Kurchatov 

worked at the Leningrad Physics and Technical Institute.At home, in my h

books, I tracked down the thin monograph Seignette Electricity by author

Kurchatov and L. M. Nemenov, which had miraculously remained intact 

many moves. Everything added up.This was the very Kurchatov with whom 

obtained a consultation regarding my invention in 1934.

meanwhile at the factory, a sensation of international scale was i

making. In November 1934, the International Air Show opened in Paris. E

versions of the TB-3 were prepared to fly to the show in Paris. All the wea

96
was removed from them. New radio equipment was installed.The pilots’ and flight

mechanics’ panels were replaced with ones that were more elegant. Every conceivable surface of the interior equipment was chromed or covered with frosted lacquer.

In a word, our dismal, dark green bomb hauler was converted into a comfortable

orange and sky-blue airplane with the most up-to-date navigational equipment.

Olga Mitkevich, the leader of the Soviet delegation, a former Comintern

worker with a command of three European languages, and the director of the

largest aircraft factory in Europe, roused tremendous interest in all levels of French

society. For the French communists, this was a wonderful source of visual agitation

and propaganda. The Soviet pavilion enjoyed the greatest attention. Mitkevich

conducted numerous press conferences, visited workers’ clubs, and met with the

representatives of business circles. These were the finest hours of her life. But

twentieth-century Russian history did not tolerate talented female leaders.

On 1 December, in Leningrad, Kirov was assassinated.42 Mitkevich understood

that this murder would have serious consequences for the Party and the nation.

She cut short her stay in Paris and returned immediately to Moscow.

In the winter of 1935, at Mitkevich’s direction, I was called to the factory. I had

been included in a commission to determine the causes for the mass failures in the

bomb-release system. Aleksandr Nadashkevich, director of aircraft weaponry

development at the Tupolev design bureau, was appointed commission chairman.

Mitkevich herself assembled the entire commission at the factory airfield. She

showed us the flight field crammed with dozens of aircraft and said,“We cannot

release these planes because the bombs either don’t drop when they are supposed

to or they drop spontaneously. Do something! The factory’s schedule has been

disrupted. Never before has there been such a disgrace. In this commission I have

assembled developers, theoreticians, and practitioners.Are you really not capable of

understanding what needs to be done? Chertok, you’re inventing a new device,

but that will take a while. Figure out what to do with these planes today. Help the

factory!” Now it wasn’t the formidable Central Committee Party organizer

addressing us, but a factory director who was in trouble.You could hear notes of

despair in her appeal.

Always elegantly attired, with a professorial goatee, Nadashkevich had a reputation as a prominent specialist in aircraft weaponry. Having picked out three practical workers, among whom I found myself, he said,“Guys! Inspect all the wiring.

From the distributor units on the electric release to each pyrocartridge.We will find

the defects.”

With two master electricians, Mayorov and Eyger, and a team of installers, we

went from airplane to airplane and tested circuit continuity and probed each wire

and each terminal box.We replaced several electric releases.We wrapped a bunch

97

42. Sergey Mironovich Kirov (1886–1934) was the popular Leningrad Communist Party leader whose

assassination in December 1934 led to a series of events that culminated with the Great Purges in 1937–38.
of bare spots with insulation and rejected batches of pyrocartridges.The tr

was that pyrocartridge reliability and safety were theoretically difficult to ac

for the single-wire system of aircraft electrical equipment. Nevertheles

scrupulous preventative repairs helped.About two weeks later the airplanes 

to fly off to troop units.

I returned to my special laboratory, having earned the gratitude of N

Godovikov, who at that time was OTK chief, and for whom the disruption 

production plan due to the low quality of the produced aircraft had been very 

That meeting at the airfield with Olga Mitkevich turned out to be the 

was the beginning of dark days of repression, not only against monarchists 

were innocent of Kirov’s assassination, but also against many Party me

who were suspected of sympathies toward Kirov. The problem was that 

Seventeenth Party Congress, many delegates had talked about promoting Ki

General Secretary. Mitkevich was among them.The time had come to dea

all those suspected of being excessively sympathetic to Kirov.

The situation at the factory was grave. Party organization leaders, who th

Mitkevich’s intercessions had been transferred to the factory from the C

Committee offices and the Moscow Committee, disappeared from the shop

by one.Next,the arrests began even among the factory’s leading specialists.In 

1935,Mitkevich fell ill.It was announced that she had been removed from he

as director and sent for studies at the N.Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy

I made a slip and mentioned to my mother that Mitkevich was not our 

tor any more. To my surprise, she took this news very hard. For the first 

Mother told me about her meeting with Mitkevich regarding my fate. Durin

single meeting they discovered that they had mutual acquaintances through u

ground activity. According to Mother, Mitkevich was quite an extraord

outstanding woman. “Such people ennoble the Party. But there are too f

them,” she said.

During her studies at the Air Force Academy, Mitkevich tried to interce

behalf of many so-called “enemies of the people.” She considered them 

honest people who were devoted to the Party. In 1937, she once again be

gravely ill. It is known that she sent a letter to Stalin and Beriya from the h

tal. She was arrested immediately upon leaving the hospital. I am not aw

her subsequent fate. Mitkevich was rehabilitated posthumously afte

Twentieth Party Congress. I was unable to determine the circumstances, 

or date of her death.

98
Chapter 6

In the Bolkhovitinov Design Bureau and KOSTR

At the end of 1933, an action committee of leading scientists from the N. Ye.

Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy developed the design for a long-range,heavy fourengine bomber that in the near future was to replace the TB-3, which was becoming obsolete. Given the achievements in aircraft technology, it was proposed that a

bomber be produced that would be a qualitatively new step in aircraft construction. It was to reach a speed of up to 330 kilometers per hour, fly at an altitude of

6,000–7,000 meters, and carry up to 5,000 kilograms of bombs with a maximum

range of 5,000 kilometers.

Air Force Chief Alksnis approached Mitkevich, proposing that a special design

bureau be set up at Factory No. 22 to develop the Akademiya long-range bomber,

known also as the DB-A.1 Glavaviaprom, Tukhachevskiy, and Ordzhonikidze

approved the proposal, and the factory’s own experimental design bureau was

established. In contrast with the series production KOSTR, they called this design

bureau KB-22, or the Bolkhovitinov KB. This was the last large enterprise that

Mitkevich succeeded in setting up at Alksnis’s initiative. For many years it played a

major role in the history of rocket technology.

In late 1934, my electronic bomb release had begun to look like a finished product. I was in a great hurry, chasing after two hares.The first was my attempt to submit

the device for state tests at the Air Force NII to obtain a “red book”—the official findings regarding clearance for flight tests.The second was my fervent desire to climb Mt.

Elbrus during the summer of 1935 with Katya. Both hares got away from me.

While performing routine tests involving the detonation of dozens of pyrocartridges, the chairman of the factory inventors’ society appeared in my special laboratory with a small group of active members, and behind them, two high-ranking

military engineers, Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov and Mikhail Mikhaylovich

Shishmarev.In their presence,I was presented an “Honorable Inventor of the USSR”

lapel pin.The high-ranking guests had familiarized themselves with my invention

and asked me questions,not so much about the technology as about bombing tactics,

which they argued about between themselves.From their conversation,I understood

99

1. DB-A—Dalnego bombardirovshchika ‘Akademiya’ (Academy Long-Range Bomber).
that “the higher we aspire for our birds to fly,”the more difficult it is to achieve 

sion bombing. It was quite hopeless for high-altitude, high-speed bombers 

small targets such as bridges,buildings,or ships.New methods were needed for 

ing and for combining the sight and bomb release mechanism into a single sy

In short,they proposed that I transfer without delay to work at the new KB and 

the special equipment team.The team had been almost completely staffed, b

not yet have a leader.They were designing a new bomber and needed to exerc

maximum initiative and inventiveness in order to increase to the maximum 

the aircraft’s defense capabilities under fighter attack and its bombing precision

suggested that we get to work immediately.The new bomber, the future prid

glory of our Air Force,was supposed to take off by March 1935! Bolkhovitinov 

it upon himself to arrange everything required for the ESBR tests at the Air 

NII and also assigned me an assistant. As far as bonuses for the invention 

concerned,he was also able to arrange everything through the Air Force Direc

I asked for twenty-four hours to think things over. I was faced with prov

a very difficult explanation to Katya about our Elbrus plans, to MEI conce

the liquidation of the special laboratory, and to the mechanic about fi

himself another job. Katya took it as a matter of course that the developm

the new bomber was more important for me than climbing Mt. Elbrus, b

decided to go ahead with her plans. I suggested to the mechanic that he tr

with me to the factory and he agreed. At MEI they threw a fit and anno

that they would demand payment for breach of contract in the event th

contract work was discontinued.

Twenty-four hours later, I met the team entrusted to me.There were alrea

individuals on the team: four engineers, three technician/designers, two dr

and a copyist.With the exception of the female drafters and copyist, this w

first time any of them had worked in aircraft design—right in a new KB.Th

their full trust in me despite the fact that I, a second-year student, was suppo

teach them what was what. Bolkhovitinov had already called them togethe

told them that the team chief would be a skilled and experienced employ

Factory No. 22: Chertok.

My experience in industry and the general creative atmosphere of Bolkhov

KB helped me to acclimate myself to my new role of design team leader. A

bled here was a fellowship of diverse aviation enthusiasts, but they were al

minded in their desire to break up Tupolev’s monopoly on heavy ai

Bolkhovitinov and the scientists who had come with him—Air Force Aca

professors—differed from most production workers in their unusual degr

culture and democracy.This trait created an atmosphere of good will, openne

mutual assistance.There was no shouting or even conversations in an elevated 

there was invariable civility, equal treatment regardless of rank, and respect f

opinions of others. Such was the psychological climate in our young work fo

Two engineer/electricians on my team,Anatoliy Buzukov and Yefim Spr

were developing the electrical system of the future aircraft. Both had exper

100
with electrical equipment in industrial shops, and they considered the airplane a

simple task. Semyon Gavrilovich Chizhikov, a former model maker at a foundry,

graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute. He fearlessly designed the instrument

panels and installation of the onboard equipment. I took on the task of developing the electrical system diagrams for the weapons and ignition, and issuing drawings for all the cable assemblies. Zhenya Ibershteyn proved to be indispensable for

acquiring the documentation for all purchased instruments and equipment. We

developed requirements for the new aircraft and made business contacts with the

Moscow factories Lepse,Aviapribor, and Elektrosvet; with the Air Force Academy

Department of Special Equipment; with the Teplopribor and Elektropribor factories in Leningrad; and with radio factories in Moscow and Gorky.

Right from the start, I became so immersed in this gripping, interesting work

that I could barely tear myself away to Shchelkovo, where they were conferring

about the testing of my electronic bomb-release device.The military testers dampened my enthusiasm with their findings.After listing the merits and shortcomings,

they recommended that instead of a single central device for heavy bombers,

several simpler, local devices should be developed for each caliber of bomb. In this

vein, they hinted that it would soon be time to withdraw the TB-3 from service,

and that there was still time to develop new heavy aircraft.

In Leningrad at the Elektropribor Factory, I first saw the American electrical

sight produced by Sperry, as well as Elektropribor’s own development: the vector

sight. We agreed to develop the vector sight, combining it with an effector—

an electronic bomb release. A young engineer from Elektropribor, Sergey

Farmakovskiy, persuaded me to do this. Fifty years later, I would often meet with

Doctor of Technical Science, Professor Sergey Fedorovich Farmakovskiy. We

directed regular meetings with scientists at the Academy of Sciences to discuss

problems of navigation and motion control, and we had even more scientific interests in common at that time than in the years of our youth.

after returning to the bolkhovitinov kb at Fili after a business trip,I would

fall into a regime of endless workdays with no days off.A struggle was going on, not

only over the speed of the future aircraft, but also over the speed of its creation.

Three military engineers first class comprised the KB’s nerve center—

Bolkhovitinov, Shishmarev, and Kuritskes. It was risky for Bolkhovitinov, who was

named chief designer,to take on the production of a heavy aircraft that would compete

with Tupolev’s ANT-6 without having the industrial experience of an aircraft builder

under his belt. His striving for innovation was manifest particularly in the unrealized

project of a superheavy aircraft that would be able to deploy tanks.2 Bolkhovitinov was

absolutely decent, technically erudite, and competent in design problems.

101

2. Author’s note: They attempted to develop such an aircraft at the Air Force Academy without factory

participation.
Kuritskes was a universally recognized authority in the field of aircraft ae

namics. He had a negative attitude about the modernization of the TB-3

believed that a qualitative leap needed to be taken immediately—having said 

should go on to B. B was his dream—a bomber that, in terms of all its 

parameters, surpassed the Boeing Flying Fortress. Kuritskes understood th

begin with they needed to win over a factory and rally a work force in the p

of working on A. But this was dirty work and not something which he, a th

liked to do.

The most experienced man in this trinity was Shishmarev. He had already 

airplanes that had been accepted as standard armaments.These were the R-

famous R-5 reconnaissance planes. I had many occasions to become convin

his thorough engineering intuition.When people came to him for consult

he would—after reflecting briefly and drawing sketches—selflessly give 

pected and original recommendations that raised no objections.

All three men shared the psychological trait of originality of engine

thought.They cultivated in their work force this ability to think in nontradi

ways, sometimes to the great consternation of process engineers and produ

workers.The unorthodoxy and originality of thought in the production p

disrupted schedules in the factory shops.

The Bolkhovitinov KB occupied the design hall,the series production KO

having moved to a new location. In the beginning, even Bolkhovitinov di

have a separate office. He, Kuritskes, and Shishmarev shared space behind 

partition. There, team leaders and lead engineers regularly gathered to d

common problems and orient each person toward a single, final goal. Some

we had fiery discussions.With the aid of a slide rule, Bolkhovitinov accep

rejected proposals affecting weight characteristics and safety factors. Ku

guarded the aerodynamic contours and objected to any proposals that threa

to increase drag. With his inventiveness, Shishmarev demonstrated his abil

escape from dead-end situations.

There was no occasion for boredom at these meetings. I got to know 

military engineers from the Academy there: Pesotskiy, Kan, and Frolov. But 

of all, I was brought in touch with those who, like me, were workers wh

transferred to the KB from factory shops and departments or who were se

personnel departments.

Factory engineer-designers Saburov, Kirichenko, Alshvang, Arkhidyako

Gorelik, and Isayev bore the primary burden of issuing technical working 

mentation which, after a brief modification process, went straight to the fa

shops.The one-to-one scale wooden mockup of the aircraft was a great h

our work. It was used to work out the layout of the pilots’ and navigator’s 

pits, the field of view, and the area of engagement, as well as to resolve deba

ergonomics. Before the final release of the drawings into production, a spec

Force Directorate mockup commission inspected and approved the mockup

this, changes to the layout were forbidden.

102
Alksnis headed the first mockup commission, on which I was one of the developers’ representatives. Until then, I had seen Alksnis only one time, at an all-factory

meeting in 1932.

Our military chiefs had a high opinion of Alksnis. In Bolkhovitinov’s opinion,

Alksnis, the head of the Air Force since 1931, displayed rare persistence in the

complex tasks of building an air fleet. He did not strictly limit himself to the military command sphere.Alksnis devoted great attention to drawing up proposals for

the development of aircraft technology. He monitored its testing, organized longrange flights, and introduced military specialists into industry. He considered it

necessary to personally head the mockup commission, enabling him to establish

direct contact with the leading specialists of aircraft KBs.

Well-known Air Force NII test pilots Nyukhtikov, Stefanovskiy, and Air Force

Chief Navigator Sterligov joined Alksnis on the DB-A mockup commission.

Before the mockup inspection, Bolkhovitinov made a general speech about the

main features of the aircraft. He spoke quietly and calmly, as one accustomed to

reading lectures at the Academy.

“The DB-A has a flight weight of 24 metric tons, 6 tons greater than the

TB-3. As a result, the bomb load can be increased and the range increased up to

8,000 km.The DB-A has a smooth, rather than corrugated skin, and very importantly, after takeoff, the landing gear can be retracted into a special fairing or

“trousers.”We have designed for a speed of at least 330 km/h at an altitude of up

to 8,000 m. In contrast with the TB-3, the aircraft’s fuselage has a load-bearing

monocoque construction—the entire skin contributes to its strength.The frames

have no-load bearing bars partitioning the interior space.Therefore, the aircraft is

very spacious and convenient for cargo transport.”

Having attentively listened to Bolkhovitinov’s account of the basic specifications

of the new bomber,Alksnis began to size it up first-hand. He sat in the pilot’s and

copilot’s seats, crawled through the hatch into the navigator’s cockpit, which, given

his heroic stature, was no easy feat, and meticulously interrogated us—the aircraft

creators—sometimes asking the most unexpected questions. It seemed to us that

he found the most fault with the degree of comfort afforded the pilots during

prolonged flight, with the radio communications equipment, and with the defensive weaponry.Later,during a mockup commission meeting,he raised the last issue

with Bolkhovitinov specifically:“The bomber should have powerful guns, to the

extent possible, leaving no blind spots that would enable the safe approach of

fighter aircraft. On your aircraft the rear and especially the lower hemispheres are

poorly protected.This is a shortcoming of the TB-3. Although both the DB-A’s

altitude and speed are much greater, all the same, fighter aircraft will very soon be

100–150 kilometers/hour faster.”

Over dinner, which was always held after the mockup commission’s work was

completed, the conversation turned to the role of heavy bombers.They did not

forget to mention Douhet’s doctrine. In this regard someone asked Alksnis if he

would approve the production of Tupolev’s six-engine, superheavy TB-4 bomber.

103
This airplane had four engines located in nacelles distributed over the win

and two engines installed on either side of the fuselage.It was a giant with no 

in the world until the construction of the ANT-20 (Maxim Gorky). A

responded extremely negatively about getting carried away with these slow 

moths and asked Bolkhovitinov to prepare proposals for a higher-speed, h

altitude, and longer-range aircraft than the DB-A. Nevertheless, over the cou

this dinner we gave toasts to the successful flight of the DB-A. On 2 May 

the DB-A completed its first flight.

The summer holidays freed me from my evening journeys to the institut

colleagues and I usually spent the evening hours in the still-bustling factory 

An additional commitment for me was my involvement with the rowing sc

I got hooked on this rigorous sport in 1934, when I saw the captivating ra

shells on the Moscow River near the Borodinskiy Bridge. Katya rowed stro

the women’s quad at the Wings of the Soviets sports club. I couldn’t be ou

by my beloved in this sport. In 1935, I was stroke in the men’s quad.The in

tor complained that the women’s crew had fallen apart because stroke Golu

had decided to conquer Mt. Elbrus. Now the club pinned its hope on the 

quad, filled out with the broad-shouldered, strapping men of Factory No. 2

the production of the first two db-a aircraft coincided with a ru

to introduce a new Tupolev aircraft into series production—the SB (AN

high-speed bomber. The shops were freed from the large-scale TB-3 assem

and learned to deal with the production process for the relatively small SB

104

From the author’s 

A DB-A bomber that incurred a broken landing gear strut during flight testing, photographed in 1
usual production of the TB-3, which had caught the fancy of the entire work

force, was temporarily halted.

They assembled the first SBs in the OS shop, which had stood empty after the

release of the last TB-3s.The assemblers, accustomed to working inside the TB-3s’

spacious fuselages and thick wings, had a difficult time adapting to the SB’s tight

layout. One evening in the shop I met with Kozlovskaya, who together with Katya

was studying diagrams of the new aircraft. Katya, singed by the mountain sun, had

returned with a “Mountaineer of the USSR” pin for scaling Mt. Elbrus. She had

been dazzled by the beauty and grandeur of the Caucasus. I gave my word that

next year, without fail, we would go to the mountains together.With her trademark directness, Kozlovskaya commented on the difficulties of installing equipment in the SB and did not miss the chance to pass on what flight mechanic

Barabanov, who had participated in the flight testing of the first series-produced

SB, had said.“Flying in an SB is a lot like kissing a tigress—it’s all fear and no fun.”

In the summer of 1935, the OS shop started work on the second DB-A. By

this time, the shop was full of the light blue SBs.The most nerve-wracking operation after assembling the SB was checking out its retracting landing gear.They

put the aircraft on trestles and repeated the landing gear retraction and lowering

operation over and over. During this operation the electrohydraulic system

howled like sirens.

The lead designer of the SB aircraft was Tupolev’s deputy, Aleksandr

Arkhangelskiy. In order to introduce the SB into production as quickly as possible,Tupolev transferred Arkhangelskiy to the factory along with a large workforce

of designers. Arkhangelskiy’s KB was located a floor below Bolkhovitinov’s

bureau.We joked that this had been done because Tupolev had decided to undermine us from below, not yet having the capability to attack us from above.

The SB aircraft was classified as a tactical bomber. It had streamlined, even

elegant contours which were unusual for Tupolev’s airplanes. It had a fully

retractable landing gear and a smooth skin with flush rivets.The SB reached a speed

of 450 kilometers per hour and an altitude of 10,000 meters. Soon the SB created

a sensation when it appeared in the sky over Spain during the Civil War.There for

the first time planes produced by Factory No. 22 were widely used in combat.

My second meeting with Alksnis,also at the Bolkhovitinov KB,took place in early

1936. Alksnis arrived with the specifications for the American Boeing long-range

bomber,the B-17 Flying Fortress.Its flight tests had already begun.Bolkhovitinov and

Kuritskes arranged various design drawings of our next bomber, referred to as B, on

the desk for comparison.The specifications were to our advantage. But the deadlines!

“The B-17 is already flying,” Alksnis said, “when will your ‘B’ fly?” Bolkhovitinov

replied that if Factory No.22 undertook this project with all due speed,then B could

be produced in two years.The factory workforce of designers, process engineers, and

production workers would go on to prove that we were capable of this feat.

Our strategic offensive air forces included a fleet of more than 800 four-engine

TB-3s. In 1936, these airplanes were already obsolete and needed to be removed as

105
standard armaments and used only for military transport, or at most, for air

operations. However, during the first days of the war, in the general conf

squadrons of TB-3s were fecklessly hurled against attacking German columns

became easy and safe prey for Me-109s.By that time,Me-109s were equipped 

20-millimeter guns and had a maximum speed of 570 kilometers per ho

compared to the 7.62-millimeter machine guns on the TB-3s, whose max

speed was 250 kilometers per hour! Even the new Tupolev TB-7, which 

reach speeds up to 430 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 8,600 meters, 

not break away from Me-109s at middle altitudes. Our DB-As were also inc

of flying away from Messerschmitts at low altitudes.

The bombers could be saved at a high altitude, where bombing acc

sharply deteriorated, or under cover provided by our own fighters. Our fig

however, were not capable of accompanying the heavy bombers round-trip

fighting along the way.The flight range for bombers by 1935 had reached 

kilometers (for the Boeing B-17), but the range for fighters was barely 600 

meters.That is why the discussion was extremely heated as to whether ther

a need for a large bomber fleet comprised of heavy and long-range bom

Subsequent events showed that, in and of themselves, bombers were not capa

providing supremacy in the air given a well-organized anti-aircraft defense. M

over, the strategic bombing of Germany did not have a decisive influence o

course of the war. Douhet’s theory did not prove its value during World W

Supremacy in the air was gained using fast, well-armed, high-speed fighters; 

speed bombers; dive-bombers; and ground attack aircraft.

The discussion then at Fili with Alksnis three and a half years before the b

ning of World War II essentially had to do with the role of the strategic air 

in a future war. For some reason, the fact that a war was inevitable did not d

any of us.We all believed that this was the natural development of the hist

process of the world’s first proletarian dictatorship’s struggle with the hostile

talist world.

Bolkhovitinov and those around him, and for that matter the entire Air 

leadership, understood that the 800-plus TB-3s had seen their day and th

future was for aircraft like the Flying Fortress, the American giant with four 1

horsepower engines and a takeoff weight of 26,760 kilograms. It was armed 

thirteen large-caliber (12.7-millimeter) machine guns and carried over 2,700 

grams of bombs at a range of 2,730 kilometers.The crew included five gu

who were supposed to provide 360-degree protection against fighters.The 

tion was that when a large number of these Fortresses were flying in form

supporting one another, they would create a curtain of fire that was impene

to fighters.That was the reasoning of the Americans who designed the B-1

that is what our theoreticians thought.

Agreeing that the obsolete TB-3s needed to be replaced and that ther

clearly no need for such monsters as the TB-4, Alksnis then spoke in fav

combining the properties of a bomber and a fighter.This was the first time 

106
heard this. His wish was not met with enthusiasm in our company. And as far as

aircraft B was concerned, he said that we needed to consult with Glavaviaprom

since Tupolev was now building the TB-7 (ANT-42).We were hardly in a position

to have several models of heavy bombers in series production.

The TB-7 was constantly plaguing our thoughts. It was a thorn in our side.

Besides Tupolev being Tupolev, he was also very close to Mikhail Kaganovich and

Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who at that time, together with Alksnis, primarily determined which aircraft would be put into series production. Nobody opposed the

construction of one or two experimental aircraft. On the contrary, KBs were

multiplying in the mid-1930s, and each had its own conception of air supremacy

on which it based this or that type of aircraft. But the road to a series production

factory, much less to acceptance as a standard armament, was much more complicated and more difficult than developing an aircraft in one or two years that fit the

latest trends in the capricious world of aircraft design.

At the factory, our new DB-A aircraft was nicknamed Annushka. Its assembly

ran behind schedule, reflecting the young design collective’s lack of production

process experience. In the OS shop we had to fit many parts on site.The fitters’

wealth of experience smoothed over the young designers’ mistakes.

The semiretractable landing gear mechanism, Isayev’s first independent work in

the world of aviation, required various modifications.The enormous wheels were

supposed to be synchronously pulled under the fairings of the special “trousers” to

their supports, and in reverse, they were to be reliably locked in place and a signal

sent indicating readiness for landing. A hydraulic system controlled the landing

gear’s retraction and lowering. Compressed air from tanks, which could be filled

using a special compressor, produced pressure in the power cylinders. In case of a

hydraulics failure, a manual winch provided an emergency lowering system.

Nikolay Godovikov had attempted to lower the landing gear manually and said

that you need to take a strongman with you into the air. Isayev himself was not

equal to the task, either.

107

From the author’s archives.

Model of the TB-4 heavy bomber designed by A. N. Tupolev, photographed in the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy

Museum.
Before coming to Bolkovitinov KB, Isayev had had nothing to do with 

tion. He had tried being a mining engineer in the coal mines and a buil

Magnitogorsk and Zaporozhstal, before deciding that his future was in av

technology. He submitted his factory acceptance application to Director 

Mitkevich. She sent the future renowned rocket engine chief designer for 

views at the Bolkhovitinov KB. Bolkhovitinov believed in him, and 

Shishmarev’s supervision, entrusted him with the development of the la

gear for the DB-A. In the OS shop, the testers of the series-produced SB, de

strating the speed and ease with which the landing gear of this aircraft retr

bad-mouthed Annushka quite a bit because she could not learn to pull th

up into the fairings quickly. Isayev devised various ways of installing home

terminal contacts. He repeatedly altered the design of the manual w

Chizhikov designed a special signal panel showing the position of the la

gear. Process engineers struggled with the system’s pressure inte

Bolkhovitinov himself checked the strength analyses of the landing gear 

Highly experienced factory mechanics brought their own insights and mod

tions to the table.

At the airfield, the grueling process had begun of running the engines, a

ing the variable-pitch propellers, calibrating the gas gauge, and making e

modifications to the exhaust manifolds. The exhaust pipes burned on the 

Mikulin M-34FRN augmented, geared, and supercharged engines. They 

constantly being modified.

My workday started at the airfield.Together with engineers from other 

ries, I took advantage of the engine testing to check and adjust the voltage 

lizers and radio equipment.

Factory test pilot Nikolay Grigorievich Kastanayev, who just barely squ

into the SB’s tight cockpit, patiently waited for our plane to be ready for i

flight. Finally it was time for flight tests and landing runs. During one o

approaches the landing gear broke.This was a critical situation and the firs

we heard Isayev’s expression, “I should blow my brains out!” Depending o

situation, Isayev used the exclamation “blow one’s brains out” as an express

extreme disappointment,delight,indignation,or anger.It all depended on his 

In 1940, we went on vacation with Isayev to Koktebel.While playing cro

he got into a bitter dispute with his opponent and threatened to “blow his 

out.” In November 1941, while we were freezing on the platform of the s

train that was taking us from Moscow to the Urals, Isayev fired a burst fro

aircraft machine gun into the night sky, hoping to “blow the brains out” of 

Messerschmitts. On 15 May 1942, after Bakhchivandzhi’s first flight on t

aircraft,when the landing gear strut broke during landing,he exclaimed,“Blo

brains out! Just like Annushka five years ago.” Even when he had becom

second ranking chief designer of rocket engines after Glushko, he continu

“blow brains out” on the occasion of any serious error in the dozens of syste

the liquid-propellant rocket engines produced at his famous KB.

108
Winter set in, and for Annushka’s flight tests we had to switch the landing gear

to skis. The first flights went well—if you don’t count the usual leaks in the

engines’ lubrication systems.

I participated in the flights, checking the new, high-powered aircraft radio

station along with the radio engineer Traskin from the Gorkovskiy Radio Factory.

The primary radio equipment was located in the tail section of the spacious fuselage, in the sound-proof radio operator’s cockpit.The transmitters and receivers of

that time were crammed with dozens of electronic tubes that were very sensitive

to the jolts and vibrations generated by the aircraft’s engines during takeoffs and

landings.To protect the equipment from overloads, we suspended all the instruments containing tubes in spring shock absorbers. Nevertheless, during a rough

landing, the heavy transmitter would hit against the frame. In these cases Traskin

would replace the powerful transmitting tube.

After ten flights or so, the aircraft was broken in. During the frosty days of

February 1936 they scheduled a show of new aircraft technology at the airfield

in Monino. Having brilliantly demonstrated Annushka’s rate of climb and maneuverability, Kastanayev decided to end the show by making an impression on the

high-ranking military leaders in attendance. He came up with the idea of executing a low-altitude fly-by of the reviewing stand where Tukhachevskiy,Alksnis, and

many other high-ranking chiefs were sitting. Once he had gained altitude, he

began to dive at the airfield to gain high speed. Suddenly one of his landing-gear

skis, which were drawn up to the fairings, turned 90 degrees under the effect of

the approach flow.The aircraft now had an uncontrollable elevator that threatened

to drive it into the ground.

I will not presume to describe the feelings that seized the spectators—the

aircraft creators—at such moments. I wanted to close my eyes tightly so that I

would not see the horrible end. Seconds remained before the inevitable crash, but

suddenly the engines revved down and the aircraft began to cock its nose. Its speed

decreased sharply. At the very ground the ski grudgingly went back into place.

Now Kastanayev was headed for a wall of pine trees. But he managed to give it

the gas and accelerated into a climb. He flew right over the forest, circled, safely

landed, and taxied to a stop.

During the investigation of this critical incident, they discovered that the

shock-absorbing cord that held the tip of the ski against the aircraft had not been

designed for the torque generated by dynamic pressure. Isayev had personally

selected and calculated the diameter of the cord. Reporting to Bolkhovitinov, he

explained, “Blow my brains out! I calculated on a slide rule and slipped up by

one mark.”

The aircraft was saved thanks to Kastanayev’s composure and exceptional physical strength.He pulled the control wheel toward his body with tremendous effort,

using the elevator to overcome the nose-down moment generated by the skis. He

succeeded. By spring, the factory tests were completed and flights for the state test

program and record-breaking flights had begun.At that time, setting world records

109
was more than just a matter of prestige for aircraft designers and pilots. Each 

aircraft had to set some kind of record. Annushka had set many Soviet and 

world records. Nikolay Grigoriyevich Kastanayev, Georgiy Filippovich Bayd

and Mikhail Aleksandrovich Nyukhtikov completed record-breaking flights.

1936 May Day parade, our Annushka flew full speed over Red Square. Kasta

executed a steep ascending banking turn.This gripping spectacle provoked a 

of delight. Once again, as in 1932 when the first TB-3s flew over the square

a lump in my throat from sheer joy.Now I was walking not at the head of a fa

column with workers from the vanguard OS shop, but somewhere in the m

with a crowd of design intelligentsia.

at factory no. 22, after Mitkevich’s departure, acting directors came and 

without leaving a mark. In the summer of 1936, Boris Nikolayevich Tara

took over as chief engineer.Since the factory was lacking a strong director,he 

all the power himself.Tarasevich had been director of the Kolomensk Locom

Building Factory until 1930. In 1930, he was arrested and convicted f

involvement in the “Industrial Party Affair.”

In the history of Russia throughout the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and 

Soviet times, the Industrial Party was the only organization of the technical 

ligentsia that professed truly technocratic principles.The leader of the Ind

Party, a scientist and thermal engineer with a worldwide reputation, Pro

Leonid Ramzin, sincerely believed that the nation’s power should be in the 

of scientists, engineers, and industrial leaders.The Industrial Party carried o

direct sabotage. Its members dreamed of replacing the dictatorship of the 

tariat with a dictatorship of scientists, engineers, and industrialists.

They dealt with the Industrial Party members humanely (for those time

cunningly. They gathered together all those who were sentenced to long p

terms and proposed that they work under the leadership of their chief ideo

Leonid Ramzin, in a special closed institute for thermal engineering focus

the creation of new types of steam boilers. Here Ramzin developed the desi

a straight-through boiler, which was called the Ramzin boiler.The intellect 

Industrial Party members was used with a high degree of efficiency.

In view of the fact that the convicts worked with complete devotion on 

of the government of the proletarian dictatorship, they were freed and assign

managerial work.That is how one of the members of the Industrial Party, a f

“saboteur and servant of world imperialism,” was entrusted with the tec

leadership of Factory No. 22.

Our short, gray-haired, slightly balding, agile, and very lively chief eng

began to introduce order and very strict discipline—not into the ranks o

workers, but among the technical intelligentsia. He sometimes flaunte

allegedly anti-Soviet past. “I have already recovered from that case of influ

That’s why you can complain about me and accuse me as much as you wan

remember that I will not tolerate idlers, illiterates, or demagogues.”

110
Tarasevich quickly showed what a real factory chief engineer was, not to

mention one who had obtained the authority of a director.He politely disregarded

Party and social organizations and lavishly dispensed reprimands for blatant errors

in the work of designers, process engineers, and shop chiefs. He placed people in

managerial positions only after assessing their professional qualities and technical

competency, showing no regard for Party membership.

Differences of opinion immediately arose between Bolkhovitinov and

Tarasevich concerning DB-A series production.The factory had been assigned a

very heavy schedule for SB production. In addition, they were demanding that

TB-3 production start up again.Tupolev had already started his public relations

campaign to prepare the TB-7 (ANT-42) for series production. Tarasevich

convinced Glavaviaprom, where Chief Designer Tupolev was also chief engineer,

that DB-A series production should be set up at the Kazan Aircraft Factory.The

decision was made and sanctioned by the People’s Commissariat for Heavy

Industry. They proposed that Bolkhovitinov and his entire workforce transfer

to Kazan.

This was a heavy blow to our young KB. Bolkhovitinov could not refuse—that

would have meant the refusal to introduce an aircraft into series production.All of

the KB workers received orders to leave for Kazan,initially for a prolonged temporary duty, and from then on, we would see.

Our nerve center immediately fell apart. Kuritskes, Shishmarev, and the other

Academy instructors would not agree to leave the Academy.After a long conversation, Bolkhovitinov agreed not to take me to Kazan—I needed to finish my

studies at the institute. Another twenty employees refused to go to Kazan due to

family circumstances. In autumn 1936, the Bolkhovitinov KB at Factory No. 22

ceased to exist. Tarasevich transferred the KB’s remaining staff to KOSTR, the

series production KB. I was appointed chief of a special equipment and weaponry

team and once again was the leader of a new workforce. But this time it had

already been formed and had worked for an extended time in series production.

My activity began with a factory-wide reprimand ordered by Tarasevich for the

unauthorized alteration of the design of an SB relay regulator fixture. I had introduced the alteration at the request of a military representative.

“I am in charge here, not the military rep,”Tarasevich explained to me. “The

military rep liked it that way and you stopped work in the shop. For each change

please think seven times and then get my approval.This is series production, not

Bolkhovitinov’s band of freewheelers.” My subordinates smiled cunningly. They

liked the fact that their innovating chief had immediately been put in his place.

The fewer changes, the better!

But there was one more entity in charge of the SB series—Arkhangelskiy’s KB.

They had the right to issue changes on behalf of the chief designer.All the changes

came to our KOSTR.After receiving the chief designer’s changes, each team chief

reported personally to Tarasevich. He was the only one who, after speaking with

Arkhangelskiy,could decide the series into which the change would be introduced.

111
After the spirit of romance and creative enthusiasm that had permeate

atmosphere in the Bolkhovitinov KB, work in the KOSTR seemed borin

commonplace. However, here I was schooled in the discipline of designin

large-scale series production and also in the system for drafting managemen

experience, which no institute in the world provides, was very beneficial 

when we were putting our first missiles into series production.And of course 

were flight incidents, which injected a little excitement into our monot

work with series production drawings. LIS had not run out of practical j

hatching risky schemes. I will tell you about one such incident.

The Spanish Civil War began in the summer of 1936. During this confli

Soviet Union rendered assistance to the army of Spain’s antifascist Repu

government with military advisors,“volunteers,” and weapons.The Repu

Army did not actually have its own air force. German and Italian pilots 

Messerschmitts and Junkers fought on the side of General Franco. Soviet v

teers in Chaikas (I-153s) and Ishaks (I-16s) fought on the Republican 

These were fighters produced by Polikarpov in the early 1930s.They were 

rior to the Messerschmitt-109 in speed and weaponry. Factory No. 22 rec

a combat assignment to strengthen the Republican Air Force by increasin

production and manufacturing dozens of SBs for Spain.This required the a

to be modified so that it could be packed in dismantled form into a 

wooden container, and upon arrival on site, be quickly assembled under 

conditions.This was a super rush job. During the flight acceptance tests, 

lems arose that threatened to hold up the airplanes’ shipment to Odessa, w

they would go by sea to Spain.

One of the military representatives particularly annoyed LIS when fillin

the acceptance documents. His formal attitude and constant nitpicking even 

riated Tarasevich, who appealed to the chief of military acceptance.“Which o

us is the saboteur?”Tarasevich asked,“I, who was convicted in 1930, or your 

tary engineer second class, whose whims keep our planes from leaving for Sp

The LIS degenerates and hooligans, as they used to call them in KO

thought up a risky scheme.They proposed that the capricious military rep h

take a seat in the navigator’s cockpit and satisfy himself that firing from the fo

firing position machine gun in flight was completely trouble-free.The milita

really did fire in flight, having no qualms about wasting cartridges, and he rep

to the pilot over the intercom that he was accepting the aircraft, and they 

now go in for a landing.Then the pilot suddenly announced that the landin

lowering device had failed. He would be forced to land the plane on its belly 

the landing gear retracted. In this case, the rep could not stay in the forward 

pit. During landing it was certain that “in the best case scenario your legs w

injured, and in the worst . . . .”To make a long story short, the pilot made a 

112

3. Chaika (seagull) and Ishak (donkey).
sion and ordered the obstinate military rep to open the lower emergency hatch

and, at his command, jump and parachute to safety. Up till then, no one had any

experience parachuting from an SB. The unfortunate military rep was badly

injured when he jumped out of the airplane and broke his leg upon landing.

Relieved of his passenger, the pilot maneuvered over the airfield as though to help

lower the landing gear.When he had made sure that the ambulance had reached

the parachute of the military rep, he lowered the landing gear and safely landed.

The military rep was laid up in the hospital for about three months.The handover

of the airplanes proceeded without delay.

At first,only a few individuals knew that the landing gear had actually been fully

operational. A third crew member—the flight mechanic, who sat in the center

wing section in the gunner/radio operator’s seat—confirmed that during attempts

to lower the landing gear the electric motor of the hydraulic pump was humming

loudly.Several more witnesses appeared at LIS saying that this was not the first time

the electric motor had hummed, even without a command to lower the landing

gear.The pilot who had ejected the military rep suggested,“Let an electrician fly

and figure out what’s going on there.”

To establish the truth, Tarasevich suggested that I fly. I prepared cables and

instruments,and with the help of factory electricians we installed everything in the

rear gunner/radio operator cockpit. Before the flight, the pilot was obviously

disappointed that I could not be confined in the forward navigator’s cockpit.The

flight mechanic refused to fly in the forward cockpit. He justified this by saying

that the designer would mess up somehow and the landing gear wouldn’t extend,

and he had no desire to parachute out of a high-speed aircraft,all the more so since

he had never even jumped from a tower.

We flew without a flight mechanic. During the flight, I did not find any

malfunctions or humming. However, the pilot was in no hurry to land and proved

to me that flying on an SB was “all fear and no fun.” After landing, Godovikov,

with whom I was on good terms, disclosed to me the cause of the landing gear

“failure.”“Thank God,the military rep survived,but his nitpicking was making our

life impossible.You think up something to tell Tarasevich.” Godovikov was the

kindest person. He was really upset when he found out about the escapades of the

LIS flight mechanics after the military rep had already been dispatched to the

hospital. Katya, who was working as a foreman in quality control, was subordinate

to Godovikov.“I can’t imagine a better boss than Nikolay Nikolayevich,” she used

to say. In my report to Tarasevich, I said that everything was fully operational and

that we had been unable to reproduce the incident that occurred previously.

Evidently it was a very rare instance of a foreign particle getting under the electric motor’s switching contacts.

after our intense work, Katya and I spent our days off and two evenings a

week at the Wings of the Soviets boathouse near the Borodinskiy Bridge. Katya

once again took her place as stroke sweeping in a four.Rowing proved to be a very

113
rigorous and hotly contested sport. In August during competitions, Katya’s 

won first place in Moscow in their class, while my crew only managed to ho

for third place.

In order to move up from a training quad to a racing shell, we had to train 

other day and, in October, again enter the All-Moscow competitions. But 

already given Katya my word a year before that we would make a trip to the m

tains. In spite of our coaches’ protests, we both announced that we were dro

off our teams until the following year and set off for the mountain camp. Fro

standpoint of tourism and mountain climbing adventures, there was nothing p

ularly outstanding about the trip that we made to the Caucasus in autumn 193

trip left me with truly beautiful memories of nature,“the only thing better 

mountain is more mountains,”as well as wounded masculine pride.Katya,the o

of a “Mountaineer of the USSR”pin,felt considerably more confident in the m

tains than I. We traversed from Kabardino-Balkariya to Svanetiya together w

group of Austrian mountain climbers.They had hired a guide who loaded all o

backpacks onto his donkey.When we had climbed to an altitude of around 

meters, it felt like our backpacks had doubled in weight. A gallant Au

approached Katya and suggested that she place her backpack on the donkey.

“In our mountains only fops use donkeys,” she announced, but no one 

translate the word “fop” into German. In the pass, a Svan carrying an antedi

Berdan rifle met us, and under his protection, we safely made our way to M

the capital of mountainous Svanetiya. In 1996, if anyone had tried to retrac

route, passing through Kabardino-Balkariya, Svanetiya, Georgia, and Abkh

the chances of returning safe and sound would have been slim due to the in

tional armed conflicts in that region.

For the Bolkhovitinov KB, 1936 ended with the tortuous work on the 

production of the DB-A in Kazan.The mood in the collective was pessim

The series was limited to six aircraft, justified by the need for preliminary 

trials. Glavaviaprom was trying to buy time in order to begin the ANT-42 

tests (this was the TB-7, later renamed the Pe-8). This aircraft surpasse

DB-A on all parameters.At an altitude of 8,000 meters, it could reach spe

excess of 400 kilometers per hour. The new four-engine bomber actuall

five engines—an engine with a compressor that supercharged the four en

for altitude performance and could supply air to the pressurized crew cabin

installed on the center wing section. Subsequently they did away with thi

engine, having installed Mikulin AM-34FRNV self-supercharging engine

TB-7 had powerful defensive weaponry. Based on all tactical flight param

the ANT-42 surpassed the Boeing Flying Fortress which appeared a year 

The creation of such an aircraft was a very great achievement for Tup

collective and the Soviet aircraft industry.

Bolkhovitinov understood that the DB-A could not compete with the T

He began work on two new unusual designs: the “I” fighter and the “S” 

speed fighter-bomber. Isayev designed the “I” as a twin-fuselage, tw

114
aircraft with remote controlled machine guns to protect the rear hemisphere.

There were two ShKAS machine guns and new 20-millimeter ShVAK aircraft

guns for frontal attacks.4

Isayev was very absorbed by this project. He subsequently pulled me into the

development of the remote control for the rear hemisphere moveable machine

gun pair. I had long dreamed of developing a remote-controlled machine gun

mounting using slaving systems.This problem had been solved on naval ships. It

was time for aviation to adapt a similar technology.

The matter never reached the point of practical realization. Several years were

needed for development and the war intervened. But in the process of working on

the system, which interested Bolkhovitinov very much, I became closely

acquainted with the developers of slaving systems,Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan

and David Veniaminovich Svecharnik.Andronik Iosifyan was already well known

at that time for his unusual design of an “electric helicopter.” My first acquaintance

with Iosifyan in 1936 turned into many years of collaboration and friendship that

continued until the end of his life.5

The KB devoted primary attention to the design of “S”—the paired-engine

aircraft.The innovation of the “S” was the mounting of two engines one behind

the other.The long shaft of the rear engine passed between a V-shaped split in the

cylinders of the front engine.The two propellers, each one operated by its own

engine, rotated in different directions.This configuration reduced head resistance

by the resistance value of one engine, enabling a twenty-five percent increase in

speed over the conventional two-engine configuration. The “S” design reached

speeds of 700 kilometers per hour at a range of 700 kilometers.

The idea of pairing the engines, which was realized on the “S,” was used in

the design of the “B” bomber. Instead of the conventional four-engine aircraft

configuration, with the engines in wing nacelles, the design called for two sets

of paired engines, with a speed in excess of 550 kilometers per hour and a maximum altitude of up to 11 kilometers.

In spite of these new designs, Annushka’s modernization continued. They

installed boosted M-34FRN engines with turbo compressors and variable-pitch

propellers. Instead of pulling the landing gear up into “trousers,” it was fully

retracted. The turret in the center portion of the fuselage was equipped with a

ShVAK machine gun and a drive.Two machine guns providing a 360-degree field

of fire were installed in the cockpits under the center section of the wings.The

crewmembers increased from six to eleven. These substantial improvements did

not help, however.Tupolev’s TB-7 began to fly in the spring of 1937, and based on

all parameters, immediately moved far, far ahead of our Annushka.

115

4. The ShKAS was the Shpitalniy-Komarnitskiy rapid-fire aircraft machine gun, and the ShVAK was the

Shpitalniy-Vladimirov rapid-fire aircraft machine gun.

5. Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan (1905–93) served as chief designer of VNII EM, the organization that

designed Soviet weather and remote sensing satellites such as Meteor.

Chapter 7

Arctic Triumphs and Tragedies

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, exciting events took place in connection with

the exploration of the Arctic.The Arctic was still an area where heroism could

be fully displayed. The press and radio widely publicized the work of Arctic

stations and expeditions, particularly emphasizing the romance associated with

conquering the Arctic. The enormous significance of the Arctic regions to the

economy of the Soviet Union was so obvious that no one questioned the expenditures necessary to open them up.1 Events associated with Arctic explorations

aroused passionate feelings in the most diverse social strata. The excitement

generated by every Arctic adventure was also of great political significance.

Public attention was somewhat distracted from the difficulties of daily life, the

repressions, and the food crisis that had developed as a result of collectivization

in the countryside.

The successes in opening up the Arctic raised the Soviet Union’s international

prestige.The intelligentsia, isolated from cultural and scientific interaction with the

outside world, saw in Arctic research a hope for international collaboration. Society was united in the fact that the Arctic must be Soviet.

This outward appearance of solidarity was very advantageous for the Stalinist

leadership. The heroic feats of icebreaker crews, polar pilots, and men who

wintered at Arctic stations; the record-setting flights of Soviet aircraft; and the

rescue of expeditions in distress were a graphic demonstration of the unity of our

whole society for the common goals of mankind.

The headlines of all the newspapers—and the radio broadcasts,which were only

just becoming popular—reported on the rescue of the Italian Nobile expedition

by the icebreakers Krasin and Malygin in 1928, as well as the international Arctic

expedition of a German Zeppelin in 1931, and the voyage of the icebreaker

Aleksandr Sibiryakov, which in 1932 completed the first nonstop voyage from the

White Sea to the Bering Sea along the North Sea Route.

117

1. The Soviet Union had both economic and strategic interests in the Arctic.The Northern Sea route that

links Murmansk with Vladivostok was the shortest sea lane between the European and Far Eastern regions of

the Soviet Union and also provided easy access to northern Siberia. Additionally, the Arctic contains vast

untapped hydrocarbon reserves.
The Main Directorate of the North Sea Route,Glavsevmorput, was establish

1932. It was directly subordinate to the Council of Peoples’ Commissars. 

Yulyevich Shmidt, a well-known scientist and leader of polar expedition

appointed director of Glavsevmorput. His deputy and chief of polar aviatio

Mark Ivanovich Shevelev. In 1933, Shmidt attempted a nonstop voyage o

North Sea Route from Murmansk to Vladivostok in the steamship Chelyusk

February 1934, the ship was trapped and crushed by ice in the Chukchi Sea, a

many passengers, including women and children, were taking refuge on an ic

People of all social strata feared the fate of the expedition, and were thrilled b

heroism of the pilots who saved every last inhabitant of the Shmidt ice camp

The Soviet pilots who participated in the rescue of the Chelyuskin d

victims were the first in the USSR to receive the title Hero of the Soviet U

Arctic pilot Sigizmund Aleksandrovich Levanevskiy was also among th

heroes. He came to fame in 1933 by rescuing American pilot Jimmy Mattern

was trying to complete a solo round-the-world flight and crashed his plan

the Anadyr Range.2 Levanevskiy transported Mattern back to the United S

In the spring of 1935, Levanevskiy approached the government with a pro

to organize a transpolar flight from Moscow over the North Pole to the U

States. He proposed using the Tupolev ANT-25 aircraft in which pilot M

Gromov had set a world record for the longest nonstop flight. The Coun

Labor and Defense adopted a resolution to arrange for a flight from Mosc

San Francisco. On 3 August, Levanevskiy, copilot Baydukov, and nav

Levchenko took off in the ANT-25 aircraft from the Air Force NII’s airfi

Shchelkovo, intending to land 63 hours later in San Francisco.The entire 

followed the flight preparation and the flight itself with enormous inter

successful flight would help establish closer political and economic relation

America. According to foreign press assessments, this flight promised to b

most dangerous and the most remarkable in the history of aviation.

Ten hours after takeoff, having flown only as far as the Barents Sea, the 

requested permission to terminate the flight on the designated route and retu

the nearest airfield due to a defect in an oil line. Oil had spilled over the 

flowed down onto the cockpit canopy, and leaked into the cockpit.

The failure of the flight was a heavy blow to the prestige of the Soviet U

Stalin decided to personally hear a report from the crew about the causes 

failure and their suggestions for the rehabilitation of our aviation. Durin

meeting with Stalin, Levanevskiy suddenly announced,“I don’t trust Tupol

my opinion,Tupolev is a saboteur. I will never fly one of his airplanes again

details of the discussion concerning the causes of the emergency, of course, 

made it into print, but aviation circles learned about Levanevskiy’s decla

118

2. The Anadyr Range is located in the extreme northeast of Siberian Russia. Its easternmost part 

the Chukchi Peninsula near the Bering Sea.
from meeting participant Baydukov,who was soon appointed chief pilot at Factory

No. 22.

At the instruction of Air Force Commander Alksnis, Baydukov combined his

work as a factory pilot with the testing of the ANT-25 aircraft that the Tupolev

designers and mechanics had modified at the Central Airfield in Khodynka.

Tupolev and his supporter Alksnis believed that the defect involving the oil leak

was accidental,and they were convinced that in the near future the ANT-25 would

be the only aircraft capable of executing a flight from Moscow to the United States

over the Pole.

The work to finish the Tupolev aircraft was very intensive, in spite of the fact

that at their previous meeting Stalin had instructed Levanevskiy to travel the

United States and select and purchase an airplane that would be substantially more

reliable than the single-engine RD (ANT-25).3 Stalin told Levanevskiy, “No

matter how expensive your chosen airplane is, we will pay any amount of money.”

I cite this quote from Stalin from Baydukov’s memoirs.4

119

Archives of Y. P. Salnikov.

The pilots awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for the Chelyuskin rescue in 1934. Standing,

left to right: N. P. Kamanin, I. Doronin, V. S. Molokov, S. A. Levanevskiy, A. V. Lyapidevskiy; sitting,

M. T. Slepnev, M. M. Gromov, M. V. Vodopyanov.

3. RD—Rekord dalnosti (Long-Range Record).

4. Author’s note: Georgiy Baydukov, Komandarm krylatykh (Winged Army Commander) (Moscow: Zvonnitsa,

2002), p. 233.
Levanevskiy and Levchenko departed for America. They did not succe

finding an aircraft that was suitable for such long-range flights, but they b

three hydroplanes.

Now it wasn’t Levanevskiy, but Baydukov who could make accusations of 

tage, if not against Tupolev himself, then against his coworkers. They had 

responsible for optimizing and preparing the aircraft.

This he did not do. By then, Baydukov’s father had already been repre

They had not touched the younger Baydukov, acting on the principle tha

son is not responsible for the fa

They observed this principle until 

The black mark placed on 

aviation by Levanevskiy’s failed 

had to be erased as soon as possibl

On 20 June 1936, in a mo

ANT-25, a crew comprised of Ch

Baydukov, and Belyakov execu

9,734-kilometer flight over the no

the Soviet Union in a time of 56 

and 20 minutes.This was an outsta

flight in the history of Soviet avi

The crew landed on the island of 

(now named Chkalov) then ret

from the Far East with stopove

festive receptions along the way b

Moscow. On this notable occasi

command came “from the top” t

Baydukov’s father,who was in one 

NKVD’s camps, and bring him 

son’s native Omsk.They found him among prisoners building the railroad b

line from Khabarovsk to Komsomolsk. Baydukov barely recognized his ha

father, who had been strictly warned never to tell anyone anything abou

camp. Georgiy Baydukov, through his participation in the heroic flight, sav

own father from death in the camp.

research was being conducted in the Soviet sector of the Arctic on a 

never before seen. After setting up continuously operating bases—we

stations on the mainland and northernmost islands—the problem of esta

ing permanent stations in the central portion of the Arctic became mor

more pressing. In the opinion of scientists, the “weather kitchen” of the 

120

From the author’s archives.

Soviet aviator Sigizmund Aleksandrovich

Levanevskiy, photographed in 1937.

5. In Russian/Soviet language and culture, it has been common to use the word “repressed” to de

arrest, incarceration, and often execution of citizens during the Stalinist era.
Arctic Ocean basin was located there. But how were they to deliver the personnel to the Pole who could man the Arctic stations, along with their scientific

equipment, food stores, radio stations, tents, and fuel for many months of work?

This was one of the main problems.

One of the first to use the TB-3 aircraft in the Arctic and attempt the delivery

of an expedition to the North Pole region was polar pilot Mikhail Vasilyevich

Vodopyanov. He was one of the seven Heroes of the Soviet Union who received

this title for rescuing the victims of the Chelyuskin disaster.

In those years, proposals from famous pilots made directly to Stalin or highranking government officials were accepted sooner than the initiatives of Peoples’

Commissars or scientists. Shmidt and Shevelev decisively supported Vodopyanov’s

proposal. Factory No. 22 received the assignment from Glavaviaprom to manufacture at least four TB-3 aircraft with special Arctic modifications. In mid-1936,

KOSTR began to issue the drawings.We made modifications after consulting with

the polar crews. Thereby we became acquainted with Vodopyanov, Babushkin,

Mazuruk,Alekseyev, Golovin, and Moshkovskiy.

The radio equipment was completely updated.We installed a new radio station

in the tail section, in the insulated radio operator’s cockpit. It could operate not

only with the aircraft’s electric system but also with an emergency autonomous

electric generator, which served as a source of energy when the plane was on the

ground.True, the generator’s startup reliability in the cold left a lot to be desired.

Due to fire hazard, the crew was directed to use it only after deplaning.

A fixed-loop radio compass and a receiver for beacon navigation were installed

in the nose section. Radio communications could be conducted using two types

of antennas: a rigid antenna extended over the fuselage for use when the aircraft

were standing on the ground;and an extendable,weighted antenna reeled out from

a special winch in flight.The pilots’ cockpits and the machine gun turret hatches,

which were open to the wind, were glazed to prevent drafts in the fuselage. Engineers devoted particular attention to making the transition from wheels to skis a

simple process.The operation would have to be conducted not in a heated factory,

but in winter conditions at a northern airfield.Absolute reliability had to be guaranteed.The aircraft were painted a bright orange color for the best visibility against

the snow cover.

The workers labored over the arctic version of the TB-3 with the same enthusiasm as their shop comrades who labored over the SBs for the Spanish antifascists.

During January and February 1937, the four orange giants were to undergo

test flights and acceptance by Chief of Polar Aviation Shevelev. He arrived with

a Glavsevmorput radio engineer—a tall, gray-eyed blond—who demonstrated

enviable knowledge of the specifics of polar conditions for radio communications. He criticized parts of the radio equipment layout and demanded alterations. My designers and the factory assemblers were offended by this young

radio operator for the lecturing that he did with the aplomb of an experienced

polar explorer.

121
And this was how in the spring of 1937, I met for the first time with 

Mikhaylovich Konoplev, the future chief designer of R-16 intercontinental 

ance systems. Our subsequent close collaboration continued until his tragic 

on 24 October 1960.6

Four aircraft were ferried to the Central Airfield for further preparation b

their flight to the North. I can boast that I was part of a flight to the North 

that being the initial 6-kilometer segment from Fili to Khodynka.

On 22 March 1937,one by one,the airplanes took off from the Central Ai

N-170, with pilots Vodopyanov and Babushkin; N-171, with pilot Mol

N-172, with pilot Alekseyev; and N-169, with pilot Mazuruk. N-166 had 

off three hours before them. This was one of our factory’s R-6s that had 

transferred to polar aviation.7 Its pilot was Pavel Georgiyevich Golovin. He w

act as an ice scout in the Arctic.

With that,Arctic activity at the factory was temporarily finished.We wait

news of the landing of our airplanes on the North Pole.

The first Soviet pilot to fly over the North Pole was Golovin in N-16

celebrated; Factory No. 22’s reconnaissance plane was the first to fly over the 

This took place on 5 May. On 21 May 1937, the TB-3 N-170 that we man

tured was the first to land on the ice floe that became known throughou

world as the Papaninskaya.

8

The world did not learn of this historical event until twelve hours aft

landing! The reason was our low degree of equipment reliability. While N

Vodopyanov’s airplane carrying expedition chief Shmidt, was on its way t

Pole, the entire world followed radio reports on the flight’s progress.When N

reached the Pole, Shmidt radioed, “We’re descending, we’ll look for a pla

land.”After this,communication with the expedition broke off.The aircraft d

respond to calls from ground stations. Could there really have been an

tragedy in the Arctic and did we have to organize a rescue expedition once 

The whole world and every amateur short-wave radio operator knew 

airplane’s call sign, but nobody had received anything during the twelve 

since the last radiogram.

The reason was all very simple.The thermal mode of the transformer (m

generator) converting the 12-volt voltage of the onboard network into high 

age to power the transmitter was not designed for prolonged operation

possible that it had some sort of manufacturing defect.To make a long story 

the transformer burned out.

122

6. The worst disaster in the history of rocketry occurrred on 24 October 1960, when over a hundr

neers, administrators, and soldiers were killed during prelaunch preparations of the R-16 intercontinent

tic missile. The disaster is more commonly known in the West as the “Nedelin disaster” after the 

commander, Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, who was killed during the explosion.

7. The R-6 (or ANT-7) was a reconnaissance/escort fighter version of the ANT-4 bomber.

8. Papaninskaya was named after Arctic expedition leader Ivan Dmitriyevich Papanin (1897–1974)
The bomber radio station (RSB), which was manufactured especially for this

Arctic expedition, and which had undergone a triple acceptance and flight test

process, was dead.The aircraft had no backup.After celebrating their safe landing and

shouting “hoorah,” the Papanin team quickly unloaded the radio operator Krenkel’s

radio unit.This radio station was supposed to maintain contact with the world the

entire time Papanin’s station, dubbed North Pole, was in operation. But even Ernest

Teodorovich Krenkel,the legendary radio operator of the Chelyuskin epic,was unable

to quickly set up communications.During the flight,the radio station’s storage batteries had frozen.They had to start up the small gasoline-powered generator and use the

charging current to warm up the batteries.The generator didn’t start up immediately

and then coughed and sputtered for a long time. It was half a day later before Shmidt

reported to Moscow that they had landed safely.Now Moscow could make the decision whether or not to send the remaining three airplanes to the ice floe.

in this large system for coordinating the mission that was supposed to be reliable, radio communications proved to be one of the weakest links. Unfortunately,

the celebratory commotion in the wake of the polar conquests prevented us from

analyzing this incident and drawing conclusions from it.

In a ceremony on 6 June 1937, Shmidt gave the command to raise the flag of

the USSR over the first station, North Pole-1. One by one, the four TB-3s safely

took off from the ice floe.A festive reception awaited them in Moscow.

Official reports of the uncovering of “an anti-Soviet Trotskyite military organization” threw a pall over the nationwide rejoicing. High-ranking military officers

Tukhachevskiy, Kork,Yakir, Uborevich, Putna, Eydeman, Primakov, and Feldman

were accused of organizing a fascist military plot, preparing to overthrow Soviet

power through armed uprising and defeat of the USSR in an ensuing war, espionage and sabotage, and forming terrorist groups to annihilate Party leaders and

the government. The affair, which was fabricated by Yezhov’s department, was

reviewed on 11 June 1937 at a special session of the Supreme Court comprising

Budennyy, Blyukher, and Alksnis, and chaired by Ulrikh.9The Court sentenced all

of the accused to be shot to death. Subsequently, Blyukher and Alksnis were also

shot to death. The “officers’ affair” was the beginning of a campaign of massive

repressions in 1938.

in newspaper articles and radio broadcasts, dispiriting demands for vigilance and the unmasking of Trotskyite espionage activity were intermingled with

reports about the achievements of our aviation. The reports about new and

outstanding flights were breaths of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere.

123

9. Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov (1895–1939) was chief of the Soviet security police (NKVD) from 1936 to

1938, during the most severe period of the Great Purges, also known as the Yezhovshchina. Marshal Semyon

Mikhaylovich Budenny (1883–1938), Marshal Vasiliy Konstantinovich Blyukher (1890–1938), and General

Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis (1897–1938) were all famous Soviet armed forces officers.
On 18 June 1937, the transpolar flight of Chkalov, Baydukov, and Bel

began. Sixty-three hours and 25 minutes later, the ANT-25 landed in the U

States at Pearson Field near the city of Vancouver,Washington.This flight o

the shortest route over the Arctic ice from the USSR to the United State

celebration of this historic event had hardly subsided before the world heard 

the beginning of the next transpolar flight.

On 12 July 1937, in the same type of Tupolev single-engine aircraft, Gr

Danilin, and Yumashev departed for the United States from the Air Force 

airfield in Shchelkovo.After flying for 62 hours and 17 minutes they landed 

in the vicinity of Los Angeles, having broken the world records for nonstop 

along both a straight line and a broken line.

I witnessed the public jubilation when the heroic pilots paraded throug

streets of Moscow after their return from the United States, and I would sa

the festive receptions for the Chkalov and Gromov crews was comparable 

public rejoicing that took place on 12 April 1961.10

Officially, our factory had nothing to do with the transpolar flights b

Chkalov and Gromov crews. But Georgiy Baydukov, whom Chkalov persis

called Yegor, was the copilot in Chkalov’s crew. As I have already menti

Baydukov was a test pilot at our factory in 1937. He not only tested the s

produced SBs, but also participated in DB-A flights along with Kastanaye

Nyukhtikov. In May 1937, Baydukov and Kastanayev set two speed records o

DB-A with a 5-ton load at ranges of 1,000 kilometers and 2,000 kilometer

it had never occurred to Viktor Bolkhovitinov, our KB chief, or any 

other specialists who worked with him in Moscow or Kazan, to conduct a 

over the Pole in an aircraft that had not yet been made sufficiently reliable.

I cannot in all certainty answer the question as to who was the first to com

with such an idea. According to the memoirs of Baydukov and Vodopyanov, 

was very favorably disposed toward Levanevskiy, in spite of the fact that h

relatives in Poland and his brother was a Polish military pilot. It is possibl

Stalin was giving him his due for his past service during the Civil War, f

popularity in the United States after rescuing Mattern, or for his courage 

first attempt to complete a transpolar flight from Moscow to San Francisco.

Before Chkalov took off for the United States over the Pole, Levanevski

among those summoned to the Politburo. Stalin well remembered Levanev

failed attempt to complete a transpolar flight in an ANT-25 in August 193

he was also well aware of the cause of the failure.

Baydukov had not forgotten that Levanevskiy originated the idea of 

over the Pole. He suggested that Levanevskiy introduce himse

Bolkhovitinov and have a look at the DB-A. Bolkhovitinov was immed

124

10. On 12 April 1961,Yuriy Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space.
called from Kazan and instructed to show Levanevskiy the airplane.After being

introduced to Levanevskiy, Bolkhovitinov gathered his few remaining compatriots at Factory No. 22, including me. He was very against the idea of using the

only DB-A that had undergone flight tests for a transpolar flight.When I told

him about the modifications we had made on the TB-3 for the arctic version

and estimated that it would take at least two months, his mood darkened. He

said,“In any event, we will not get the airplane back. And how long will it be

before we have another one?”

Bolkhovitinov also considered Tupolev’s attitude toward the use of the DB-A

for a transpolar flight. Tupolev did not support the idea of the DB-A, period.

Moreover, after the incident at the meeting with Stalin,Tupolev had a very negative attitude toward Levanevskiy. At that time Tupolev was not only a chief

designer, but was also the acting deputy chief of the Main Directorate of Aviation

Industry within the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Preparation for the

proposed flight was impossible without the aviation industry’s assistance.

Bolkhovitinov had every reason not to agree, but word had it that secret pressure

from the top came from Stalin himself.

In early June, the DB-A developers met for the first time with Levanevskiy at

the factory airfield.At that time I was still unaware of Levanevskiy’s difficult military biography. Sporting stylish clothes, with a thoughtful and intent gaze, he gave

the impression of a well-bred aristocrat. During preparation for takeoff, he was

very reserved and taciturn. Obviously Bolkhovitinov’s stance pained him.

125

From the author’s archives.

Factory No. 22 Chief V. F. Bolkhovitinov (far left), consulting with S. A. Levanevskiy (far right),

August 1937.
As the aircraft was being fueled and prepared, Bolkhovitinov, tightly but

into the military uniform of a brigade commander (in modern terms, that 

sponds to major general), was somber, and slowly meandered through the s

scented grass of the airfield, lost in thoughts.The demonstration flight was ass

to Kastanayev. He emerged from the flight mechanics’ hut along with Godo

Serious and unsmiling, both men approached Bolkhovitinov, briefly disc

something, and then climbed into the aircraft.

After a short takeoff run, Kastanayev lifted off, gained altitude, and then d

gain speed toward the village of Mnevniki and made a very steep, banking 

over the airfield.After deafening us with the roar of the four boosted engin

once again climbed steeply upward.The aircraft was empty and fueled only 

demonstration. It was easy for Kastanayev to execute showy maneuvers that 

not typical for a heavy bomber.

Observing the flight, Levanevskiy was transformed.We never expected s

wild reaction from our taciturn guest. The airplane had not yet landed

Levanevskiy was beaming, radiating delight, and literally throwing hims

Bolkhovitinov.“You’ve got to, got to give me this plane! We’ve got to show 

the Americans! They’ve never even dreamed of such a plane!” I was unable to 

what else was said between Levanevskiy and Bolkhovitinov.

We know that the following day Levanevskiy was at the Kremlin. Next

also summoned Bolkhovitinov. A day later in Tarasevich’s office, Bolkhov

gathered a team of designers and informed them that the governmen

approved Levanevskiy’s request and was permitting him to fly the Moscow–N

Pole–Alaska route.

We were subsequently called up and mobilized to adapt the DB-A for a 

polar flight.We were given one-and-a-half months for the entire work.

The assignment was quite an honor. But if Bolkhovitinov was un

because he, the chief designer, was being deprived of his only DB-A airc

was upset for a completely different reason. Preparation for the Arctic ex

tion, and now yet another flight, were depriving me of the opportunity to 

my third year of studies without taking incompletes. The semester ha

begun, I had four difficult exams ahead of me, and I was at risk of being con

to barracks. Nevertheless, I hurried to take my exams in philosophy and ma

parts before my total confinement. I still needed to take the electrical eng

ing and vector calculus exams. Professors Krug and Shpilreyn, the patriar

electrical engineering and vector analysis respectively, were not lenient 

exams. A profound knowledge of the subject matter was required. Tara

promised me a note of excuse.

Bolkhovitinov and the design unit deputy, Saburov, relocated to the fact

rush job was begun to issue the drawings transforming the armed bomber 

peaceful transport aircraft that would deliver gifts via the shortest route ov

Pole: caviar for President Franklin Roosevelt and expensive furs from the R

North for his wife Eleanor.

126
The moniker “patron” had already stuck to Bolkhovitinov.Word had it that the

first person to call him that behind his back was Isayev.“Our patron has started to

change his tune,” said military engineer Frolov, who was flight test lead.“He has

already sat down with me to consider how it would look if they convert Annushka

into a cargo/passenger plane.”

But it would be a long time before a cargo/passenger version for transpolar

routes appeared on the scene. Based on preliminary calculations, if all of the

weaponry was removed, then the weight of the empty aircraft would be 16 tons.

In order to ensure a range of at least 8,000 kilometers, the aircraft would have to

hold 16.5 tons of gasoline and 900 kilograms of oil.The crew, along with equipment and food supplies, would add up to 1.5 tons plus a minimum of miscellaneous baggage—in total, we had already exceeded 35 tons for the takeoff weight.

Given the 840 horsepower for each M-34FRN engine at an altitude of 4,000

meters, this was the takeoff weight limit. But the first step is the hardest.

My group in the so-called “ground crew” was in the most difficult situation. In

order to issue the electrical diagrams and installation drawings for the new equipment, we needed the initial data from the other factories involved.They still did

not know anything about the decision that had been made. During the very first

days, authorized representatives from Glavaviaprom and the Air Force were detailed

to us on temporary duty. I only had to mention my difficulties in passing before

everything I needed started to appear. The chief developers of all the factories

received instructions to consider our jobs top priority.

Together with Chizhikov and the engineers of the Gorky and Moscow radio

factories, we designed instruments and radio equipment.The new powerful Omega

radio station was installed in the tail section in the specially insulated radio operator’s cockpit.The Omega could operate on short and long waves in telegraph and

telephone mode. In the navigator’s cockpit, the sights, bomb release devices,

machine gun, and forward gunner were removed.They decided to place the flight

radio operator there along with the navigator. In the navigator’s cockpit we

installed a second, lighter radio station without the long wave range, and we

equipped the radio operator’s seat.

The crew consisted of Levanevskiy and a specially created flight staff. It was

clear who the pilots would be: Levanevskiy and Kastanayev.Two flight mechanics

were needed for the four engines, which could be accessed through the thick

wings.The first flight mechanic was Grigoriy Pobezhimov, who had traveled with

Levanevskiy to the United States to procure airplanes. Pobezhimov was an experienced polar flight mechanic, but he was not familiar with the DB-A and had no

experience with M-34FRN engines.

Kastanayev recommended Godovikov as a candidate. He told Bolkhovitinov

that he was the only man among the factory workers who knew that airplane

inside and out. He had a wonderful feel for the engines, could instantly figure out

the quirky lubrication systems and fuel lines, and if necessary would crawl into the

most inaccessible place.

127
Nikolay Nikolayevich Godovikov did not want to fly. He aspired neith

fame nor to new awards. In his forty-four years, he had already received the 

of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star.What is more, he had already been 

United States with Vladimir Gorbunov in 1934. But the main thing was th

loved his family, which included seven children. But Godovikov could not r

He understood that he would be the only one in the crew who knew all 

aircraft’s mechanisms and was capable of performing the duties not only of 

mechanic, but also of flight engineer. He was actively engaged in the modifi

process and helped us redesign the flight mechanics’ instrument panels and 

fuel gauges. He also spent a great deal of time mastering a new gadget: electr

analyzers. These instruments made it possible to monitor the makeup o

exhaust gases in order to select the most efficient operating mode.

Crew navigator Viktor Levchenko rendered a great deal of assistance i

installation of the navigation equipment.The design of the astrodome for the 

heading indicator required the most attention. Next, we mastered the Am

Fairchild radio compass.The radio compass indicators had leads to the navi

pilot, and copilot workstations.

The last person to join the crew was Leonid Lvovich Kerber. Due to his p

ularly nonproletarian origins—he was the son of a Russian Navy vice-adm

Kerber had been unable to enter an institute in order to obtain a higher edu

in radio or electrical engineering. By the time he had reached thirty-four ye

age, this talented self-taught individual had gone through on-the-job trainin

military telephone operator,a Central Airfield communications radio operato

an aircraft special equipment team leader at the Tupolev KB. Kerber’s best 

ence came from Amik Avetovich Yengibaryan, one of Tupolev’s specialists, w

he had promoted to a high-level post in Glavaviaprom.

Amik Yengibaryan himself was a colorful figure in the new field of avion

strong-willed, energetic leader in the rapidly developing field, he tracke

aircraft’s preparation for the flight and helped us out in every way possible. 

ducing Kerber to Bolkhovitinov,Yengibaryan said,“This man can do every

If necessary, he can even replace the navigator. Besides being a brilliant radio 

ator, he is also a specialist in all aircraft electrical equipment.”

I was quickly convinced of the truth of this testimonial. Buzukov and I 

iarized Kerber with a diagram of the aircraft’s electrical equipment. He gr

everything instantly, at the same time demonstrating a good sense of humor 

he was dissatisfied with something or other.

Kerber, Buzukov, and I devoted a great deal of attention to the reliability 

electrical power system. The system, developed at the Lepse Factory

comprised of two generators installed on internal motors, buffer batterie

generator regulators, which stabilized the voltage and switched the batter

charging mode when the motors reached high RPMs. We joked that 

Factory representative Goldobenkov, who fussed over the regulators the w

time, would “regulate” them to death.

128
After twenty days and nights of work at the factory, the aircraft, painted unusually with a dark-blue fuselage and red wings, was ferried to the Shchelkovo airfield

of the Air Force NII and assigned the polar aircraft number N-209.This number

was to enter the history of Arctic exploration forever.

the entire “ground crew” headed by Bolkhovitinov—flight planners, engine

mechanics, designers, and even drafters—were housed in the NII service buildings, which had been converted into a design bureau and dormitory with full

room and board.

Levanevskiy was urgently summoned to Sevastopol for the acceptance tests of

three hydroplanes arriving from the United States. Kastanayev performed the first

flights of N-209 in Shchelkovo without him.

The propeller-engine units gave Frolov, the lead engineer for the aircraft’s

general flight tests, the most trouble—the exhaust manifold pipes caught on fire,

the fuel consumption exceeded the design value, and the gas analyzers indicated

unintelligible readings. During all the ground and flight tests, the engines had to

be used sparingly because of their limited service life,which amounted to 100 total

hours. Given a planned flight duration of 35 hours, there was very little time left

over for control flights and ground adjustments.

Maks Arkadyevich Tayts, the leader of the flight plan group, was a TsAGI

employee. He grumbled that his slide rules were smoking from the continuous

corrections and recalculations that he had to make, including computation of the

distance margin based upon the dry weight of the structure and changes in the

baggage makeup, emergency food supplies, and fuel and lubricant data, as well as

changes resulting from meteorologists’ recommendations regarding route and altitude selection.The flight plan group also had to provide for reserves based upon

meteorologists’ predictions of the most unfavorable conditions that could occur.

But who could say what the most unfavorable conditions would be in August

beyond the Pole? As of yet there were no statistics.The meteorologists’ recommendations boiled down to one thing: the closer you are to autumn, the worse the

weather—fly as early as possible.

After two weeks of work on breaking in the aircraft, and control flights from

the Shchelkovo airfield, our first incident occurred. Kerber did not show up at

the usual time. Twenty-four hours later they introduced us to the new

crewmember who would be taking his place, radio operator Nikolay Galkovskiy.

Time had already taught us not to ask questions concerning such incidents.11

Galkovskiy worked in the Air Force NII. He was the flagship radio operator in

the holiday air parades in Moscow and had participated in flights throughout

Europe. In September he was to begin his studies at the N. E. Zhukovskiy Air

Force Academy.

129

11. Leonid Lvovich Kerber (1903–93) was arrested and jailed by the NKVD in 1938.
Godovikov, Frolov, electrical system foreman Mayorov, and I were very up

the time remaining,it was going to be difficult for a new crew member to mast

aircraft. Kerber had managed to make some alterations based on his own exper

The last nonstop control flight over the route Moscow-Melitopol-Mos

distance of more than 2,000 kilometers, was scheduled for 28 July. Galko

having a total of three days experience with the N-209, asked me to particip

the flight to perform joint checks on all the radio equipment. I was the

included in the crew of this control flight.

Kastanayev occupied the commanding pilot’s seat on the left side for the 

route. Levanevskiy, sporting a pressed suit, snow-white shirt and bright necktie

ing and joyful, strolled around the aircraft observing the crew members in a

From time to time he would sit down in the co-pilot’s seat and see what it w

to steer the plane. During the entire flight, Godovikov and Pobezhimov wen

engine to engine scrutinizing their operation. I spent most of the flight in t

section in the radio operator’s cockpit checking all the station operating modes 

Galkovskiy worked in the navigator’s cockpit with Levchenko the entire trip.

We had good weather at an altitude of 3,000 meters as far as Melitopol.W

we turned around to head home, Godovikov laid out dinner, which con

primarily of caviar and chocolate. I was a little greedy and was punishe

oncoming front of thunderstorms caused strong turbulence and forced us to 

to an altitude of over 5,000 meters. Levanevskiy, having noticed that I was c

not feeling well, made me put on my oxygen mask. Meanwhile, in spite 

cold, he continued to saunter around in his elegant suit.

Having checked the emission of the Omega transmitter in all wavelengths 

25 meters to 1,200 meters, I suggested to Galkovskiy that he move back to th

but he did not have time. Levchenko was making him learn how to dete

location based on the intersection of radio direction-finder bearings. Some

with the orientation procedure wasn’t clicking.

After this flight,Tupolev came to check out the state of preparations.He lis

to Tayts, Yengibaryan and his engineer/engine mechanic Rodzevich, wh

helped our team adjust the engine-propeller unit. He posed several questio

Bolkhovitinov and Kastanayev. Levanevskiy did not participate in this meeti

The N-209 was scheduled to take off on 12 August. On the eve of depa

in order to facilitate takeoff, the aircraft was towed onto the concrete slope 

which all aircraft heavily loaded with fuel for long-range trips started. O

morning of 12 August,the fueling process and the bustle of the last hours of p

ration began. Godovikov, Pobezhimov, and Galkovskiy were almost constan

the airplane.Together with the testing leader, they were checking the last pa

gear, the emergency supply of food, warm clothes, firearms, and the lifeboat

Frolov let it slip that the day before, Levanevskiy had demanded that all m

of baggage and supplies be thrown out so that the plane could be filled with 

tional fuel. They rolled the aircraft onto the dynamometer scales. The t

weight exceeded the permissible limit of 35 metric tons.

130
By the middle of the day,reporters,numerous cameramen,and well-wishers had

arrived. A crowd of reporters surrounded Levanevskiy. Bolkhovitinov, with dark

circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, was discussing something with

Kastanayev and brushed aside the reporters.The anxious Godovikov argued with

a group of factory engine mechanics and designers. I headed over to the airplane

on the slope, intending to hand over to Godovikov or Galkovskiy the flashlights

that had been tossed out along with other, supposedly unnecessary, baggage.

A tall serviceman was strolling near the airplane. He held a little boy about nine

years old by the hand and, pointing to the airplane, explained something to him.

As I drew closer and saw the four diamond-shaped insignias on his gorget patches,

I finally realized that it was Alksnis.The meticulous reporters sensed something,

but none of them approached and annoyed the RKKA Air Force Commander-inChief with questions.

After saying good-bye to the crowd, the first to approach the airplane was

Godovikov. He appeared perplexed.When he saw me, he took the package, but he

didn’t seem to hear what I said about the flashlights.

“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Godovikov uttered his favorite saying, and

after shaking hands, started climbing into the airplane.12

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12. Author’s note: “Now you see it, now you don’t” is a saying originating from Chinese magicians who

used to wander throughout pre-Revolutionary Russia doing sleight of hand tricks with a ball. In aviation slang,

it refers to a defect that appears and then suddenly disappears.This never became part of rocketeer slang. It was

a different time.

Photo by I. Shagin.

The crew of N-209, photographed on 12 August 1937 before their attempted transpolar flight to

the United States. From second left to right: N. Kostaneyev, S. Levanevskiy, G. Pobezhimov,

N. Godovikov, V. Levchenko.
“Good bye and good luck, Nikolay Nikolayevich!” I shouted. Godo

waved, turned back around, and disappeared into the fuselage.

Then he suddenly appeared in the dark entry hatch doorway; and after s

ing,“Farewell, Boris. Now you see it, now you don’t!” he finally vanished.

That is how I remember my unhappy farewell with Godovikov. I believ

he was convinced of the unfortunate outcome of the flight. How the rem

crew members approached and said their goodbyes, I do not recall.The e

and happy Levanevskiy was the last one to climb into the aircraft.

Bolkhovitinov came to an agreement with the pilots that Kastanayev woul

off and fly the aircraft for the first several hours. The concrete strip was cl

Everyone dispersed from the aircraft. One after another the propellers began 

tantly to spin.Finally all four were working.Red Army soldiers ran up to the w

and pulled out the chocks.The engines began to roar and the airplane rolled 

the slope.It ran down the runway for an unbearably long time.It seemed like 

reached the forest before it tore away from the concrete. Kastanayev manag

take off at the very end of the runway. It was 6:15 p.m.Then someone wh

timed it announced that the takeoff run lasted 37 seconds.The N-209 slowl

up over the forest leaving behind a smoke trail from the far right engine.

After such constant stress we didn’t know where to go or what to do 

ourselves now. No one left the field. After a while Alksnis received the first 

ogram. He read it aloud:

Ya—RL.13 19:40. Crossed Mother Volga, cruising speed 205 kilometers.A

tude 820 meters. I hear Moscow well on wavelength 32.8. All OK. Cr

feels fine.

“Good radiogram,” said Alksnis. He took his son, who had been clingi

him, by the hand, and giving no further instructions, left the airfield.

From Shchelkovo, the primary N-209 “ground crew” staff went to the Air 

communications center located at the Central Airfield. Here, Nikolay Shelim

Force Deputy Chief of Communications, was responsible for radio commu

tions with the N-209.Thirty sleepless hours still lay ahead of us before Levanev

airplane was to land in Alaska.A festive reception awaited him in Fairbanks.

I will not describe in detail everything that happened during those hou

that regard there have been many publications concerning the subsequent f

the N-209.14

132

13. RL—Radioliniya (Radio communications link).

14. For the best Russian-language work on the mission, see Yu. P. Salnikov,Zhizn otdannaya Arktike: 

Sovetskogo Soyuza S. A. Levanevskom (A Life Devoted to the Arctic: On Hero of the Soviet Unio

Levanevskiy) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1984). For English language works, see John McCannon, Red Arc

Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932–1939 (New York: Oxford University Pres

Pier Horensma, The Soviet Arctic (London: Routledge, 1991).
We tried not to bother the communications operators. In the middle of the

following day, they showed Bolkhovitinov a radiogram signed by Levchenko and

Galkovskiy reporting the following:

Latitude 87° 55′. Longitude 58°. Flying over clouds, crossing fronts.Altitude

6,000.We have head winds. All OK. Hardware operating excellently. Crew

feels fine. 12:32.

Bolkhovitinov woke up the dozing Tayts, and together they got out their slide

rules and began to calculate how much fuel would be used if the entire route were

flown at an altitude of 6,000 meters with a headwind.

At 1:40 p.m. on 13 August, the entire crew signed the last radiogram, the

complete text of which was received in Moscow:

We are flying over the Pole. Going has been difficult. Constant heavy cloud

cover since the middle of the Barents Sea.Altitude 6,000 meters, temperature

-35°C. Cockpit windows covered with frost. Strong head wind. Report

weather on other side of Pole.All OK.

When I heard that the temperature was -35°C, I shivered and began to consult

with my comrades about the possibility of instruments failing and storage batteries cooling down. Chizhikov and Alshvang confirmed my apprehensions. In their

opinion, ice plugs could form in the tubes of the pressure gauges, altimeters,

speedometers, and fuel gauges.

Our conversations were interrupted by a new radiogram, which the duty officer placed in front of Bolkhovitinov.

RL. 14:32. Far right engine failed due to lubrication system malfunction.

Flying on three engines.Altitude 4,600 with solid cloud cover.

This was radiogram number nineteen. “Who signed?” asked Bolkhovitinov.

“Galkovskiy,” answered the communicator.

Someone requested that this be clarified, to inquire—but that no longer

made sense. There was nothing we could do to help, except recommend

that they go to a lower altitude. An altitude of 4,600 meters for three engines

was the limit, provided the aircraft did not ice over. But icing was inevitable

when the aircraft’s body, cooled to -35°C, hit the moisture-saturated clouds.

They needed to go as low as possible and thaw out. Bolkhovitinov agreed to

a descent to 2,000 meters. At that altitude, according to calculations, the

lightened aircraft could hold out even on two engines. That advice was sent

to Galkovskiy.

Whether he received our radiogram still remains a mystery. Communications with the aircraft were broken off. Yakutsk, Cape Shmidt, and Alaska

133
reported the reception on RL wave of broken, indecipherable messages. 

difficult to assess their authenticity.

Several hours later, a certain emptiness fell upon Bolkhovitinov and all 

Even flight headquarters no longer needed us. It was up to the govern

commission and headquarters to organize the search and rescue of the crew, i

were still alive.We went our separate ways on the morning of 14 August. B

time, even all of the unrealistic time limits for flying to Alaska had run out.

I slept around the clock and appeared at the factory intending to request 

to settle my academic debts. Instead of this, the deputy chief engineer, smile

proposed, “I can give you another twenty-four hours to dry out some cru

bread.15 But tomorrow we are receiving three polar expedition airplan

repairs.They are going to fly search missions. Until we release them, the fa

isn’t going to release you.”

We really did have to switch over to a barracks-like situation.The chaoti

of organizing the search for the N-209 crew had begun.

On 15 August, all the central Soviet newspapers published the decision 

government commission on the deployment of search missions:

As reported yesterday, the flight of Hero of the Soviet Union comr

S.A. Levanevskiy on the aircraft “USSR N-209” took place under very di

cult atmospheric conditions. Due to high-altitude unbroken cloud cover, 

aircraft had to fly at a very high altitude—as high as 6,000 meters. At 2

PM one of its engines failed and the aircraft had to descend to an altitude 

4,600 meters. Since that time no complete radiograms have been receiv

from the aircraft. From the telegram excerpts we have received, it appe

that the aircraft continued its course for some time. One can surmise th

forced to fly in the clouds, the aircraft might have been subjected to ici

which might have led to a forced landing on the ice.The ice conditions 

the polar region and beyond it are comparatively favorable for such a lan

ing.All polar radio stations are listening continuously on the aircraft’s wa

length. Several times radio stations have heard activity on the wavelength 

comrade Levanevskiy’s aircraft, but due to the weak signal they have be

unable to receive anything authentic.

The N-209 crew has been provided with food stores for one-and-a-h

months, as well as tents, sleeping bags, warm clothing, and firearms.

Having discussed the situation, the government commission has und

taken a series of measures to render immediate aid. This aid has be

organized in two areas: in the Eastern and Western sectors of the Arctic.T

following measures are being taken in the Eastern sector from 

Chukotka Peninsula:

134

15. The phrase was said jokingly as a warning of impending “prison” conditions.
1. The icebreaker Krasin, located at the shore of the Chukchi Sea, has

been ordered to head immediately for Cape Shmidt, where the

Glavsevmorput base is located,to take on board three aircraft with crews

and fuel, and head to the area of Point Barrow in Alaska. From there, it

is to go as far north as the ice will allow, where it will serve as a base.

2. The steamship Mikoyan, located in the Bering Sea, has been ordered to

head for the Krasin with a full cargo of coal.

3. The two-engine hydroplane USSR N-2 piloted by Zudkov, located in

Nogayevo Bay, has been ordered to head immediately for Uelen and

from there to the site of the Krasin.

In the Western sector, using the air base on Rudolph Island and Papanin’s

“North Pole” station, the following instructions have been given:

1. Prepare for the departure of the three ANT-6 aircraft that had returned

to Moscow from the Pole. These aircraft, under the command of

Heroes of the Soviet Union comrades Vodopyanov, Molokov, and

Alekseyev,are heading for Rudolph Island,and from there to the North

Pole region.

2. Papanin’s polar station, located on the zero meridian at a latitude of 87°

20′, will be converted into an air base—the point of origination for

flights. Fuel will be transported from Rudolph Island on the ANT-6

aircraft. Comrade Papanin responded to an inquiry by the commission,

stating that his field is completely intact and aircraft landings are possible.

3. Hero of the Soviet Union comrade Golovin and pilot Gratsianskiy were

given orders to fly the two-engine USSR N-206 and USSR N-207 to

Dickson Island and to be on call to fly to the North, to either Western

sector or the Eastern sector of the Arctic, depending on the need.

The entire network of radio and weather stations is continuing operation.16

We prepared the three TB-3s that had already been to the Pole. I participated

in their test flight.The last airplane was ferried to the Central Airfield on the day

of the celebration of International Youth Day.Alekseyev piloted the plane.We flew

low over Petrovskiy Park and Tverskaya Street filled with those commemorating

the event, then turned back and landed at Khodynka. Shevelev commanded these

three heavy airplanes. It was a month before they reached Rudolph Island. From

there, after another three weeks Vodopyanov made several fruitless flights to the

center of the Arctic.

The disappearance of the N-209 was a tragedy that was widely reported in the

world press. Dozens of proposals continued to pour in to the authorities about

how best to conduct the search. Enthusiasts and Arctic researchers from the

135

16. Text of the government commission’s decision cited from Yu. N. Salnikov’s book Zhizn otdannaya Arktike

(A Life Devoted to the Arctic) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1984).
United States and Canada participated actively in the searches for Levan

and his crew.Through its embassy in the United States, the Soviet govern

financed the procurement of airplanes and expenditures for a search cond

from Alaska.American newspapers wrote that the scope of the measures tak

rescue the N-209 crew in terms of their dramatic nature and grand 

surpassed all historic precedent.

In early 1938, searches for the N-209 were renewed from Alaska. In the s

Moshkovskiy, flying our TB-3, examined the icy expanses west of Franz J

Land and between that archipelago and the North Pole.

what more could have been done in those times? Streets, ships, schoo

technical institutes were named in honor of Levanevskiy, Kastanayev

Godovikov.To this day, the Arctic has not given up its secret. Journalists, histo

and mere enthusiasts have conducted enterprising research into the possible 

and sites of the loss of N-209.

In 1987, the management of the Moscow House of Scientists proposed 

chair a conference devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of the flight.The m

proved to be very impressive. Presenting their own scenarios were 

Nyukhtikov, who tested the DB-A; polar pilot Mazuruk; journalist Yuriy Sal

who had gathered comprehensive materials concerning the flight; and av

engineer Yakubovich, who recalculated the aircraft parameters under conditi

icing.Yakubovich calculated the N-209’s flight range limit after the failure 

far right engine. The detailed calculations showed that given an emergenc

flight, it was possible on three engines to reach the nearest shore of Alaska

hypotheses based on stories formerly told by Alaskan Eskimos,who allegedly 

the noise of an aircraft, concurred with this. Salnikov, while in the United 

even took a trip to Alaska. No traces of the aircraft have ever been found o

shore and neighboring islands. If one assumes that the flight continued with 

deviations from the shortest route to dry land before the fuel ran out, the

aircraft sank in the coastal waters.

I am still convinced that the scenario we discussed a week after takeoff 

most plausible. Having lost altitude, the aircraft quickly iced over.The icy c

could have weighed several tons. The aircraft’s aerodynamics changed. Th

could have jammed the rudder and the aircraft could have become uncontro

Instead of a smooth descent, the aircraft began to fall rapidly. It is possibl

incredible efforts at the very surface managed to correct the aircraft. Duri

attempt to land on wheels on the pack ice the aircraft was damaged

Galkovskiy was injured or killed.Without a radio operator, they were una

restore communications using the radio station in the tail section, even if som

in the crew had survived. If the aircraft had heavily iced over, it might have b

up while still in the air.

I support the scenario that the catastrophe took place one to two hour

the last radiogram. Judging by the time, this happened at a distance of 500 to 

136
kilometers south of the Pole in the American sector of the Arctic. In the spring of

1938, the sea currents and the direction of the ice drift were already well known.

One could assert with great probability that if the aircraft did not sink when it

crashed, then it was carried along with the ice toward Greenland and from there

to the Atlantic Ocean.The unexpectedly rapid drift of the ice floe on which the

polar station North Pole-1 was located confirmed this hypothesis. In February

1938, the four members of the Papanin expedition might have perished off the

shores of Greenland if rescue ships had not managed to reach them in time. A

detailed description of the searches for Levanevskiy during the period from 13

August 1937 until the end of 1938 is contained in Yu. P. Salnikov’s book A Life

Devoted to the Arctic.17

In the Soviet press and radio broadcasts of 1937–38, the enthusiastic accounts

of heroic feats by our pilots and polar explorers shared the spotlight with reports

of uncovering hidden Trotskyites and other “enemies of the People.” During those

years the majority of my acquaintances and I had no idea of the actual scale of the

arrests. After the trial and execution of the officers headed by Tukhachevskiy, the

names of other “enemies of the People” were not officially reported. In October

1937, Tupolev, along with many of his closest collaborators, was arrested. In

November 1937, Air Force Commander Alksnis, who had just been decorated and

treated with much favor by Stalin, suddenly disappeared.

after the rush jobs to prepare the rescue aircraft were over,I resumed my studies at the night school of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. My night

student classmates had not lost their sense of humor, and they recommended that

I immediately “go get lost in the ice” on one of the search aircraft. Only dozens

of years later did I become aware that it was only by pure chance that I did not

share the fate of many repressed individuals that I knew. The operation of the

NKVD apparatus at that time also had misfires.

August 1937 has remained in my memory as the month of the tragic loss of the

N-209.Among the crew, the man I was most fond of was Godovikov. But over the

month of the continuous joint preparation at the hot airfield, others had also

become my good friends.

The feat of Levanevskiy and his crew has remained forever in the history of

Arctic flights.

For the 1930s, the North Pole scientific-research station on the Arctic ice floe,

the first transpolar flights from Moscow to the United States by the crews of

Chkalov and Gromov, and Levanevskiy’s flight ending in tragedy were great and

heroic feats in the schema of history. Sixty-five years after these flights, a group of

experienced Russian test pilots decided to repeat the trans-Arctic routes of 1937.

Honored USSR test pilot and Hero of Russia Anatoliy Nikolayevich Kvochur,

137

17. Politicheskaya Literatura publishing house, 1984.
with the support of the Air Force Command, obtained the permission o

Russian government for a flight by two Su-30 fighters from Moscow to th

The flight range of the fighters was to have been ensured by in-flight ref

using an Il-78 tanker airplane. This would not have been a sensation fo

twenty-first century, but proof of the fact that Russia still had aircraft techn

and pilots who were prepared to take risks not for the sake of money and 

but for the prestige of their country.

But it turned out that such a flight could be spoiled in our time for ridic

reasons. The U.S. government did not object to three Russian military a

flying into its territory, but it could not guarantee the return of these aircr

Russia. It turns out that the aircraft could be seized and handed over to a c

Swiss company called Noga. Since 1992, the Russian government had owe

company either $50 million or $70 million for the delivery of baby food

governments in Russia had changed, and each one had verbally recognize

laws of the free market. But the debt, which exceeded $100 million when in

was factored in, had not been repaid because the budget did not contain a 

item to indemnify losses to companies that had suffered from the looting of 

getary money—plunder which had gone unpunished. According to the de

of an international court of arbitration, Noga was granted the right to 

Russian state property to recoup its losses if this property was on the territ

a country that recognized the international arbitration decision.Thus, accord

the laws of 2002, if two Su-30 fighters and an Il-78 tanker flew safely ov

Arctic to the United States, they would be confiscated and handed over t

ownership of a baby food company. From the great and heroic to the ridic

required not a single step, but sixty-five years!

138
Chapter 8

“Everything Real Is Rational ...”

In accord with the 1937 curriculum at MEI, we took a compulsory course in

philosophy. At the conclusion of the course they held departmental theoretical

conferences. At one such conference I presented a report on the philosophical

significance of Einstein’s theory of relativity. My opponent was Germogen

Pospelov, known as “Sonny Boy.”

We never even got to the substance of the matter, having grappled at the very

beginning with Hegel’s renowned thesis: “Everything real is rational, and everything rational is real.” After lambasting me from strictly materialistic positions,

Sonny Boy cited another quotation from Hegel: “In its development, the real is

revealed as necessity.” Hence, a conclusion was drawn which at that time was

uncontestable—that being that everything our wise leader and teacher did was

rational and necessary.

I recall that we even argued about how rational and necessary it was to perform

heroic feats in the Arctic and then secondarily demonstrate heroism by rescuing

the primary heroes.

After the reports that the search missions for the N-209 had been terminated,

the rumor circulated that Levanevskiy had not died at all, but had landed in either

Norway or Sweden and asked for political asylum. In the atmosphere of terror and

with the absence of trustworthy information, such rumors were natural. Many

wanted very badly for the crew to be alive.The students were more open in their

conversation in the evenings than at work.They teased,“You’d better start drying

out bread crusts again.This time for your ties with Levanevskiy.”

To this day I cannot understand the logic of the NKVD. Almost the entire

primary staff of the Tupolev KB workforce that had supported the triumphant

flights of Chkalov and Gromov to the United States was repressed. Meanwhile, in

spite of the glaring loss of the N-209, not a single person from our Bolkhovitinov

KB collective was touched.

During this same time, two engineers who had nothing to do with the Arctic

project disappeared from teams subordinate to me in the KOSTR. Both engineers,

the Ovchinnikov brothers, had enjoyed deserved prestige in the design work force.

The elder, Ivan Ovchinnikov, was an electrical engineer. In addition to his qualification as a general industrial electrical engineer, he had also obtained qualifica139
tion in avionics. He was considered the bane of the TsAGI electricians becau

found many errors in their work and never passed up an opportunity to cr

them about this.When I came to KOSTR as his boss, Ivan, being older and h

more work experience, was extremely helpful to me.

The younger, Anatoliy Ovchinnikov, came to Factory No. 22 after gradu

from the new Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). The tall, dark-haired An

always elegantly attired and smiling benevolently, was an adornment to the 

contingent of our team. In the summer of 1938, Katya and I rented a room 

dachas in Bakovka.1 Here we met Anatoliy Ovchinnikov, who was staying 

neighborhood with his wife.This beautiful couple was simply adorable.

Both Ovchinnikov brothers were arrested.The agent who searched their 

at work warned us, his coworkers, not to inquire about the fate of the ar

enemies of the people.

Almost all of the old Party members at the factory were arrested.To play i

the personnel department started to purge the entire workforce, thoro

researching their questionnaires to look for any kind of blemish. Before 

fired, each purged individual was called to the special “Room No. 16.”The

was informed of the decision to dismiss him due to some suspicion of po

unreliability.There were several hundred such suspects.Even the former “sabo

Tarasevich revolted and announced that there was a saboteur in room No. 16 

was taking away the factory’s best personnel. And to everyone’s surprise, 

where at the top they listened to Tarasevich.The rumor passed through the fa

that the fearsome inspector from that room was arrested.

But before that happened, my wife Katya was summoned to Room N

There they explained to her that during the years 1922–25, her father, Se

Semenovich Golubkin, had owned a garden plot in Zaraysk and had used 

labor. Because of this, he was deprived of his voting rights. But Se

Semenovich had two sisters.Anna Semenovna Golubkina became a famous 

tor, and upon the order of the Bolshevik party, she had created a beautiful b

Karl Marx. Aleksandra Semenovna Golubkina was well known in Zaraysk 

experienced physician’s assistant.The fact was that Katya was raised not by he

mother, who was only sixteen years older than her first daughter, but by her 

Aleksandra Semenovna.According to the data of the Zaraysk office of the N

right after the revolution Aleksandra Semenovna recruited her brother int

anti-Lenin party of the Social Revolutionary (SR) socialists, who defende

interests of the peasants.According to the logic of Room No. 16, that mean

Yekaterina Golubkina had grown up in a family of SRs—a party that had 

banned back in 1920. With that sort of genealogy, there was no plac

Yekaterina Golubkina at the largest aircraft factory in the nation.

140

1. Dachas are summer homes in the country.They can range from rustic to well-appointed, depen

the status of the owner.
True, there were mitigating circumstances. Anna Semenovna Golubkina, the

natural sister of Katya’s father, was a well-known Soviet Russian sculptor. By

decree of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee, all of her

closest relatives had been granted personal pensions.This same decree had opened

Anna Golubkina’s studio as a memorial museum in Moscow.The second mitigating circumstance was that Katya’s husband, Boris Chertok, was a Party member

and esteemed inventor.

By virtue of these good reasons, she would not be fired, but to get out of harm’s

way they asked that she submit a statement of resignation of her own volition. Not

wanting to get me, or anyone else who might stand up for her, involved in this

incident, Katya wrote the statement without leaving Room No. 16.

among the thousands of incidents associated with the repressions,there was

one with a happy ending, where the arrest saved a life. In July, Kerber had been

removed from the N-209 crew so that he could be arrested in August.After taking

an abridged course in the infernal science of the “GULAG Archipelago,” he

returned to his favorite work in Tupolev’s collective.2 By that time, the entire

primary staff of the KB’s work force had been arrested along with their head, the

world-famous “ANT.”3 At the Tupolev Special Design Bureau 29 (TsKB-29) on

Gorokhovskaya Street, now called Radio Street, they set up a relatively comfortable special prison, with design halls and a factory for experimental designs, where

the imprisoned specialists worked.

Kerber wrote his memoirs about the life, work, and customs in the prison that

they called the sharashka.

4 In spite of all the tragic elements of the events

described, Kerber’s memoirs are overflowing with his characteristic optimism and

sense of humor.5

During the time of the Khrushchev thaw, when all the prisoners of the

sharashka were rehabilitated, I met with Kerber, who had come to see Korolev.

After talking shop for a bit, we turned to our recollections of the N-209. I asked

Kerber what he thought about the fact that, in contrast to thousands of other

repressed individuals, he should be thankful to the NKVD agents for arresting

him in August 1937. If they had delayed this action, he, Kerber, would not have

escaped an icy grave in the Arctic. He categorically disagreed with me.“If I had

flown, that would not have happened,” stated Kerber so flatly that I stopped opening old wounds. In 1987, Kerber came to the Moscow House of Scientists for an

141

2. GULAG—Glavnoye Upravleniye ispravitelno-trudovykh LAGerey (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor

Camps)—was the system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The term ‘GULAG Archipelago’ was

coined by the Nobel Prize-winning Soviet dissident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenytsin (1918–)

3. Tupolev’s initials were “ANT”, which formed part of the designation of his aircraft

4. Sharashka is the diminutive form of sharaga.

5. L. L. Kerber, Stalin’s Aviation Gulag: A Memoir of Andrei Tupolev and the Purge Era (Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).
evening devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of the flight and loss of the N

Even fifty years later he remained of the same opinion—if he had flown, the 

would have ended successfully.

In 1993, as I attended the funeral service of former radio operator, Docto

Professor Leonid Lvovich Kerber, I thought about how self-assured he was

still maintained the same opinion—he would not have been able to ensure th

ure-free operation of one of the engines.The NKVD agents saved Kerber 

death in the Arctic and thereby granted him an additional fifty-six years of 

That same August of 1937, Air Force Commander-in-Chief Alksni

arrested. My meeting with him at the Shchelkovo airfield on 12 August w

last.The punitive agencies dealt swiftly and mercilessly with the Red Army

command cadres. According to the official information of unclassified refe

publications,Alksnis’ life was cut short in 1938. In spite of his subsequent re

itation, no information has been reported as to the date or site of his shooti

between 1929 and 1937, Soviet aviation made qualitative and quant

leaps. Over a period of only eight years, the following aircraft that attai

world-wide reputation were developed, put into series production, and acc

as standard armaments of the Air Force and civilian aviation: the TB-3 (AN

SB (ANT-40), DB-3 (TsKB-30), TB-7 (ANT-42), and DB-A (limited pr

tion) bombers; the R-5 and R-6 reconnaissance aircraft; the I-16, I-15, and 

fighters; and a U-2 (Po-2) trainer. In addition, many aircraft were produc

only one or two prototypes without going into series production becau

aviation industry lacked the capacity.Among these were the ANT-25, the M

Gorky, the TB-4, and many other aircraft that were epochal in terms of 

outstanding parameters.

All in all, the 1930s, which started with our aviation lagging far behind th

of achievement abroad, brought much fame to Soviet designers, and even m

Soviet pilots.

The names Tukhachevskiy and Alksnis influenced the “adolescence”of the 

designers’ teams that ensured victory in World War II seven years later.These 

talented and visionary leaders who cared about the integrated and compreh

development of an air fleet, who maintained close contact with the aircraf

and industry, and who did much to improve the combat training of pilots an

mastery of new fields of technology.

Long before the appearance of missile launchers among the infantry t

airplanes were armed with missiles.This was an unqualified contribution of t

Force military leaders of those years.They were the first to appreciate the 

opments of the Leningrad-based Gas Dynamics Laboratory and RNII. Air

received missile armaments four years before the infantry forces.

By late 1937, our Air Force had 8,000 aircraft of all classes, including 

heavy and high-speed bombers—more than half of which were produc

Factory No. 22. In Moscow, Kazan, Kuybyshev,Voronezh, Komsomolsk-on-A

142
Gorkiy, Rybinsk, Kiev, and other cities, large aviation industry enterprises were

built.Their status reflected the level of technical progress at that time. However,

during the period when the Soviet Union really could have caught up with and

passed by the industrially developed countries, mass repressions dealt a very heavy

blow against scientific and technical progress.

In this regard, I will speak one more time about the role of the individual in our

history. Alksnis was the first one, five years before the attack of Nazi Germany, who

prophetically pointed out the danger of an aggressor’s surprise attack on airfields at

the very beginning of a military action, in order to gain complete supremacy in the

air. In 1936,Alksnis wrote to People’s Commissar Voroshilov:“Air Force airfields are

the primary target of an enemy air attack in the first hours of a war.”

The Germans proved Alksnis’ case, destroying our airplanes on our airfields in

the very first hours of the war. Several thousand (to this day there are no precise

numbers) of our airplanes were put out of commission in the first days of the war,

while German losses were negligible. After this, cities, strategic centers, and

infantry troops were left defenseless against German aviation, which gained

absolute air supremacy without a fight.

After Alksnis’ arrest, Aleksandr Dmitriyevich Loktionov was appointed Air

Force Chief in December 1937. Until then he had commanded the Central Asian

Military District. Two years later, in November 1939,Ya.V. Smushkevich—twotime Hero of the Soviet Union, former aviation brigade commander, hero of the

war in Spain, and veteran of battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River and the Karelian

Isthmus—became head of the Air Force.

Within his own narrow circle, Bolkhovitinov, who regularly associated with

high-ranking Air Force commanders, used to say: “There is an atmosphere of

complete incomprehension, but a certain enlightenment is setting in. Smushkevich

is a combat pilot with great prospects and a grasp of the future. It is interesting and

useful to meet with him.”

The testimonials about Smushkevich that I and some of my coworkers heard

from Bolkhovitinov have been confirmed by the memoirs of Aleksey Shakhurin,

who was appointed People’s Commissar of the Aviation Industry in 1940. He

wrote:“Among the many high-ranking aviation commanders that fate threw me

together with, I never met a man who possessed such courage, such boldness of

judgment, such charm, as Smushkevich.”6 Smushkevich bravely and persistently

defended his opinion even in meetings with Stalin. In Shakhurin’s opinion, these

meetings determined the program for the expansion of aircraft production that

played a major role in the war. Smushkevich headed the Air Force for less than a

year and was then executed.

In the autumn of 1940, Pavel Vasilyevich Rychagov was appointed chief of the

Air Force. He was a fighter pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union who also distin-

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6. A. I. Shakhurin, Krylya pobedy (Wings of Victory), 2nd ed. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1985), pp. 14–15.
guished himself in battle in Spain, Lake Khasan, and in the war with Finlan

had not finished flight school until the early 1930s, and could not comprehen

diversity and complexity of problems facing “the best aviation in the world”o

eve of the war.That approximates what the respectable Air Force Academy p

soriate thought of their high-ranking chief. Rychagov met the same fate 

preceding Air Force chiefs.

Finally, in April 1941, Pavel Fedorovich Zhigarev was appointed Air 

Chief. He was the first Commander-in-Chief who had graduated from the 

Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. Before his appointment, he had been Chief 

Air Force Directorate of Combat Training.

The Stalinist leadership understood very well how critically important sc

was in maintaining the nation’s economic and political sovereignty and en

the historical interests of its peoples.And yet it acted as if it were striving to 

that “everything real is irrational.”The intellectual advantage that the USSR 

had up until 1937–38 gradually disappeared as a result of the extermination 

military intelligentsia’s most progressive thinkers.This was one cause leading 

heavy military defeats that we suffered in 1941 and 1942.

During the three and a half years before the war, the Air Force had replace

chiefs! Only Alksnis lasted longer than five years in that post. He alone ha

opportunity to implement a specific strategic doctrine, remain in close c

with airplane designers, and know what to require from them. In the imm

period before World War II, there was virtually no one who had the sense o

responsibility required to seriously and competently consider and implemen

policy regarding the most important types of weaponry. One after anothe

military leaders of the Air Force were replaced, along with thousands of l

ranking, experienced commanders, down to the commanders of aviation 

ments and squadrons.

After the death of Baranov, the arrests of Tupolev and Deputy Pe

Commissar Mikhail Kaganovich, and the mysterious suicide of 

Ordzhonikidze, the rhythmic work of the factories became disorganized, an

development of new experimental and promising designs proceeded largely 

own accord, without strict monitoring by military contractors.Tupolev’s TsK

was now subordinate to Lavrentiy Beriya, and he, supposedly on Stalin’s in

tions, was dictating to the designers what aircraft they should develop.This p

for managing the Tupolev collective is very vividly described in Kerber’s me

concerning his work in the sharashka, which I mentioned previously.

the sad experience of the N-209 flight demonstrated the necessity of re

radio communication for aviation. The repressions significantly weakened 

144

7. The Soviet engagement with Japan in 1938 ended with the Battle of Khasan near Russia’s bord

China and North Korea.
our communications technology and radio engineering. During the war with

Finland,scandalous inadequacies had appeared in our communications equipment,

despite our scientists’ achievements in the field of radio engineering.

At the beginning of World War II, we recognized how far behind the Germans

we were in terms of our radio communications—both in general and with particular regard to aviation.Aircraft transceiver stations were complex and of poor quality. They primarily used short- and medium-wave ranges. Radio stations were

installed only in squadron commanders’ airplanes. For example, by 1 January 1940,

in the Moscow Military District, radio stations were installed in only 43 out of 583

fighter aircraft.The primary forms of communication in the air were signal flares

and rocking the wings. Ground radio support systems for flying in difficult meteorological conditions and at night were just being developed. The lack of radio

facilities on the ground and in the air during the first year of the war contributed

to additional losses. In many cases, it was impossible to direct flights during air

battles or guide aircraft back to their home airfield at night or in bad weather.

Aircraft control via radio within a group, guidance from the ground, and elementary radio navigation did not appear until after the war had started. I am dwelling

on this problem because I dealt directly with aviation radio communications

during the war.

In general assemblies of the Academy of Sciences, I often sit next to my

comrade from my student years—Academician Pospelov.While digging through

old papers, I found his notes on the philosophy of Hegel.After returning them to

their author fifty years later, I asked what he now thought on that subject.“It’s all

rubbish!” replied Germogen Sergeyevich Pospelov—academician, general, and

specialist in the design of artificial intelligence systems.

Using an example from my biography, Germogen defined the problem of artificial intelligence in his own way.

“Our living intellect sprang from a chaos, into which nature was trying to bring

systemic order.We have not succeeded in creating artificial intelligence because we

desire to exclude chance as the primary property of chaos and establish a strict,

causal sequence in decision-making. At the same time, some chance incidents

precipitating from a systemic conformity with law are fortunate. Remember 1937

when, after the loss of Levanevskiy, all of our classmates and I were convinced that

you would be repressed.After all, you were the lead engineer for aircraft electrical

equipment.According to NKVD logic back then, you should have had to do time.

This would not be chance, but conformity with law. The fact that they did not

touch you and we are now peacefully conversing is indeed a chance incident that

is characteristic of chaos.”

145

Chapter 9

Return to Bolkhovitinov

In the autumn of 1938, I became a full-time student and was completely freed

from my industrial cares.

The MEI’s professors and instructors for the different career specialties had close

ties with industry.The activity of many instructors was combined with scientificresearch work in industrial institutes and design bureaus. Our seminars and even

our exams were sometimes like heated discussions.

Professor Andrey Nikolayevich Larionov taught a course on special electric

machines. At his direction, I completed a course project in which I designed an

alternating current generator stimulated by permanent magnets. Larionov was the

chief developer of the electric power plant for the Maxim Gorky,the largest aircraft

in the world, which tragically crashed. Larionov’s scientific interests far exceeded

the limited framework of his academic course on special electric machines. His

contractors from the Tupolev KB lived and worked on the same street where he

lectured us. But since they were now prisoners, he no longer had access to them

and there was no opportunity for collaboration with them. He dreamed of the

further practical development of his ideas for using high-frequency, high-voltage,

alternating-current electric generators on airplanes. In me he discovered an ardent

admirer of these ideas.

I had not lost contact with Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov, who spent the

greater part of his time in Kazan after the loss of N-209. He reassured me that I

would always be assured of work in his experimental design bureau if I did not

return to Factory No. 22. Bolkhovitinov felt certain that his collective would be

returned to Moscow or its immediate vicinity sometime in 1939.

Our patron’s friends and compatriots at the academy had not stopped working

on the design for the new high-speed,long-range bomber,referred to as B.In spite

of the change of authority, there was still a glimmer of hope in the People’s

Commissariat of Aviation Industry and in high-level military circles that the funds

would be found for the development of a new heavy aircraft, especially since the

Americans and the Brits were not just maintaining, but developing this area.

Our patron, of course, was not an ordinary chief designer.Working in Kazan, he

directed the diploma projects of MAI students and N.Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force

Academy cadets. In so doing, he selected and proposed the most insane ideas.

147
When I mentioned the alternating current (AC) system to him in passing, 

up. A new idea! He guaranteed his support. Bolkhovitinov always found ti

listen to and discuss an innovative idea. I never heard him say,“Rubbish, no

will come of that.” No one ever approached him with “rubbish.”

I assured Larionov that it would be possible to find funding to design a

system for a heavy aircraft.As I set about this work, I asked him to be my dip

project advisor. He agreed, and we began to develop the generator.

After that, it was like a fairy tale.

In early 1939, Bolkhovitinov really did return from Kazan. The entir

settled down in Khimki at Factory No. 84.This factory had mastered the 

production of two-engine transport aircraft under license from the American 

Douglas.Although the aircraft was a very precise copy of the Douglas DC-3, 

nevertheless called the Li-2, from the first two letters of the surname of 

Lisunov, who was the chief engineer at Factory No. 84.

As soon as Bolkhovitinov settled down at Khimki, I was included on hi

working an abbreviated workweek. I was tasked with developing the new bom

entire system of AC electrical equipment.At that point the aircraft was in the 

rudimentary form, but according to the design, it was supposed to becom

farthest- and highest-flying, fastest, and best-armed bomber in the world.

The Bolkhovitinov KB did not take root at Factory No. 84. For a s

production factory reproducing an American aircraft, the Bolkhovitinov K

an alien organization.1 Our patron did not like to wander the corridors of p

and solicit elementary favors for his work force.There,where people elbowed 

way around, it would have been easy for him to be forced out and shoved 

When there were unexpected attacks from subordinates on the need to 

some matter or other to the attention of the People’s Commissariat, he lov

cool off particularly enthusiastic individuals with sayings such as,“He who 

hurry, let him hurry. But we will be working.” Nevertheless, he got a de

through to build a new factory, No. 293, next to Factory No. 84.

And so, in Khimki we gained a new construction site, and Bolkhov

became Director and Chief Designer of Factory No. 293 of the People’s Com

sariat of Aviation Industry.The new site had previously been home to Foto

organization that did aerial photography.The design teams managed to bar

into Fotolet’s modest wooden buildings, so they began construction of the ex

mental factory right next to them.The new factory had already begun to o

in early 1940.

It is not in our power to see the future. Neither Bolkhovitinov, nor we, h

workers who had begun to work at the new Factory No. 293 constructio

could imagine that twenty years later, missile systems capable of reliably sho

down aircraft flying considerably higher and faster than the airplanes of our d

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1. Bolkhovitinov’s KB was focused on design while the factory itself was geared towards productio
would be produced on this same site.2 All of the most recognized aviation technology designers,including enthusiasts of Bolkhovitinov’s most cutting-edge ideas,

believed that missile flights were for those who dreamed of interplanetary journeys. Our task for the next ten years was to use the propeller and internal combustion engine as effectively as possible!

Getting down to our new work, I commandeered a small room in an old Fotolet building and obtained the right to establish contracts for the development and

supply of elements for an alternating current system for the future bomber.

I selected the electric machine laboratory of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Electrical Engineering Institute (VEI) as my primary supplier.The laboratory’s scientific

director was Academician Klavdiy Ippolitovich Shenfer, a world-class specialist in

the field of electric machines. During our first meeting, he immediately appreciated both the problematic nature and the great potential of the subject. Shenfer

refused to personally participate in the work, explaining that he was loaded down

with research on asynchronous electric machines, but he proposed that I give a

report for the “youthful” contingent of the laboratory.The laboratory engineers,

especially machine designer Boris Dmitriyevich Sadovskiy and machine design

specialist Teodor Soroker, were very interested in my proposals. A year after our

joint collaboration had begun,I was convinced that their creative input would give

my fuzzy dream real definition. The laboratory collective developed generators,

electric motors, dynamos, drive mechanisms in the form of reduction gears with

built-in motors, remote switches, and many other devices.

Looking from today’s perspective at the system we conceived in 1938, one must

admit that on the whole it was an interesting and absorbing technical adventure.

We were faced with solving hundreds of very difficult technical problems, some of

which to this day have yet to be satisfactorily realized.

Having selected a triple-phase alternating current system with a frequency of

500 Hz and a voltage of 48 V, we spent a long time inventing stabilization methods.We devised and tested a voltage stabilizer relatively quickly. Frequency stabilization gave rise, so it seemed, to insurmountable difficulties.The generators were

driven by aircraft engines, the RPMs of which varied over a very broad range.

Given a nominal frequency of 500 Hz, the frequency of the current at the generator output had to be maintained with an error no greater than ±10 Hz.

How were we to achieve this? We studied a multitude of ideas.We settled on a

hydraulic converter, which, having a variable RPM rate to the input shaft, ensured

a strictly constant rotation rate at the output.

The most surprising aspect of this story was that primary prototypes of the main

assemblies were not only designed, but also fabricated and tested in the laboratory.

149

2. Plant No. 293 eventually housed OKB-2 (or later MKB Fakel), the organization that, under General

Designer Petr Dmitriyevich Grushin,designed and built several generations of the Soviet Union’s best anti-aircraft

and anti-ballistic missiles, including the missile system that shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 aircraft in 1960.
Soon my small workroom at Fotolet was filled with the company’s green 

Their contents were articles made almost completely out of iron and coppe

neighbors on the other side of the wall were Aleksey Mikhaylovich Isayev a

team. Once after the latest batch of green cases was loaded into my room, 

dropped in on me and said,“Now I understand why the floor in our build

sagging. No two ways about it, we’ll need a superheavy bomber to lift you

system into the air, but there won’t be any room for bombs!”

By this time, Isayev had staffed his team with outstanding young engi

which he called his “Wunderkinder.” Each had been given a nickname in pl

name and surname, but none of us were offended.The spirit of creative en

asm enhanced with good helpings of optimism and humor spread from his d

hall throughout all of Fotolet.This jolly band was loaded down with conti

alterations of the “I” fighter design.The mechanisms of the movable wing fl

the “S” aircraft kept them even busier.This equipment was designed to redu

wing surface after takeoff and increase acceleration. During landing, the fla

engaged to reduce the landing speed.

The first “S” aircraft was manufactured in Kazan. During the flight tests, w

were conducted at the Flight-Research Institute (LII), this short-range bo

piloted by test pilot Boris Kudrin reached a speed of 570 kilometers/hour.A

time, that was the speed limit for fighters. However, the flight tests showed th

paired engines and mechanized wing required extensive modifications. No

the series-production factories wanted to get involved with the compl

entailed in the production of this aircraft.

In late 1939, I finally sat down to draw up my diploma project. In the pro

criticized the shortcomings of existing electric power supply systems and pro

a new promising AC system for heavy aircraft.My project’s strong suit was its 

ences to electrical machines developed “per the author’s specifications” fo

future system and photographs of the finished all-purpose electric drive m

nisms. My advisor, Professor Larionov, announced that he had read the proj

though it were an engrossing novel. He said it was too bad that it was sta

Secret. Such work deserved broad publication.

Having defended my project and received my diploma “with distincti

nevertheless did not leave MEI. In the autumn of 1940, I was accepted 

post-graduate program “without leaving production.”At the recommendat

department head Academician Viktor Sergeyevich Kulebakin, I was to pre

course on “aircraft special equipment” at the night school during the 194

academic year. I spent a great deal of time traveling the legs of a triangle

my home on the Moscow River to Factory No. 293 in Khimki to MEI an

in Lefortovo.

In April 1939, I became a father. Katya had not yet returned to work an

submerged herself in maternal cares, trying as much as possible to free me 

domestic concerns. It is amazing, but at that time, for some reason, in spite 

the very difficult everyday conditions, there was enough time for everything

150
Having submerged myself in the problems of Factory No. 293, I discovered that

our patron had created a special group of weapons experts who were working on

purely mechanical remote-control methods, despite his enthusiasm for the electric

remote-control of machine guns and guns using the slaving systems I had

proposed.Young engineer Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin stood out in this group. He

developed something similar to a modern-day manipulator with a manual control.

The gunner,located under an airtight transparent dome,was supposed to guide the

gun or machine gun located several meters away using a purely mechanical manipulator.The kinematics of the remote manipulator were very clever. Mishin began

his creative path with this work. He was the future compatriot of Chief Designer

Sergey Pavlovich Korolev.3

They didn’t manage to bring the manipulator developed in 1940 up to full standard.To compensate,the factory acquired several ShKAS aircraft machine guns and

a pair of brand new ShVAK large-caliber aircraft machine guns for future use. In

the autumn of 1941, Mishin mounted them on swiveling gun carriages, which we

hoisted onto an open rail car to ward off possible attacks by German aircraft during

our relocation from Khimki to the Urals.

Factory No. 293 was located three kilometers from the Khimki railroad station.

During the autumn and winter, we made our way to the factory on public transportation. The same familiar faces were always waiting in line for the bus. One

time, a young man dressed in unseasonably light and natty attire appeared among

the passengers. A stylish felt hat that did not cover his high forehead was jauntily

perched on his large head. His open face shone with a barely perceptible smile. It

seemed that the line and conversations on the bus did not distract him from his

own private thoughts, which brought a smile to his face.

I encountered this young man several times in our patron’s reception area, and

then he appeared in our Fotolet buildings. We found out that this was the new

director of the mechanisms group,Aleksandr Yakovlevich Bereznyak.4 Isayev’s wise

guys had jealously protected their monopoly on the development of new mechanisms. One of them commented,“This Bereznyak is a real enigma. He smiles like

the Mona Lisa.”

The mystery surrounding the appearance of Bereznyak in our circle was soon

uncovered. Bolkhovitinov had been the advisor for MAI student Bereznyak’s

diploma project, which he had brilliantly defended in 1938.The project involved

paired engines located in tandem on the fuselage, similar to the paired engines on

our “S” aircraft.

Bolkhovitinov decided to test the paired-engine idea with the assistance of this

talented student. Bereznyak made many original suggestions for the design of the

151

3. Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin (1917–2001) served as Korolev’s principal deputy for twenty years before

succeeding him in 1966.

4. Aleksandr Yakovlevich Bereznyak (1912–1974) served as Chief Designer of OKB-2-155 (later MKB

Raduga) from 1951–1974, overseeing the development of many generations of tactical missiles.
one-seat aircraft. One suggestion was evaporative cooling of the engines, wh

water was not circulated through radiators, but evaporated and vented int

atmosphere.The water supply was sufficient for one hour of flight.To reduce 

ance, the fuselage had a modified windshield.The pilot was located under the 

ing of the cockpit canopy, which was raised over the fuselage before landin

design, the aircraft was capable of reaching a speed of 940 kilometers/hour 

altitude of around 7,000 meters.Such an aircraft could break the world speed r

of 709 kilometers/hour. Every world record would then belong to Soviet avi

The project was reported to Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich, who ha

been appointed Deputy Chief Air Force Corps Commander. He had rec

personal instructions from People’s Commissar of Defense Voroshilov to s

proposals on the possibility of a Soviet pilot breaking the world speed recor

Soviet aircraft. The Air Force command consulted with Professor Vla

Sergeyevich Pyshnov, who kept no secrets from Bolkhovitinov (Pyshno

Bolkhovitinov were married to sisters). As a result, Bereznyak was se

Bolkhovitinov for a detailed study of the project.

At that time, Bolkhovitinov’s experimental-design bureau had moved 

Kazan to Khimki, on the outskirts of Moscow. A fight for survival was goi

and they were not in the mood for world speed records.A series of five DB

Kazan had not been completed; the flight tests for the paired-engine “S” a

had begun with difficulty; the “I” fighter design kept having to be redone; an

heavy bomber B was only in the beginning stages. For the sake of the B, 

interrupted my furious activity on the alternating current system.

Bereznyak took the plunge and took over leadership of the team. I

evenings he continued to select diagrams and do calculations for the cutting-

high-speed aircraft.We were having problems, as before, with the pairing o

piston engines. The engine-propeller unit with co-axial propellers requ

prolonged modification process.The greatest doubts, however, related to the 

dynamics.They believed that speeds approaching the speed of sound were 

ally unattainable using piston engine-propeller designs. The young eng

Berznyak had of course already heard and read about rockets and rocket en

but no one had yet dared to develop proposals that completely rejected the 

the piston engine on an aircraft.

In 1956,chance brought Bereznyak and me to Kislovodsk.At that time,Bere

was the chief designer at the cruise missile OKB on the Moscow Sea.5We end

at the Caucasus resort at the same time, but in different sanitariums. Having 

mined the schedule for our therapeutic procedures, we set out for the trad

Kislovodsk activities of climbing the Maloye and Bolshoye Sedlo and hiking 

152

5. The Moscow Sea is commonly known as the Ivankovo Reservoir, formed by the damming of t

River at the village of Ivankovo in Kalinin (now Tver) Oblast.At the time of the visit in 1956, Berezn

Chief Designer of OKB-2-155, an aviation industry design bureau that was a branch of the Mikoyan-G

design bureau (OKB-155) that designed the famous MiG jet fighters.
the long tourist path.6 While discussing our past, present, and future plans, I asked

Bereznyak when he first got the idea to give up on piston engine-propeller units in

his design and install only liquid-propellant rocket engines on the aircraft.

“You know,” he said, “I can’t answer that question precisely.Where and when

did it first happen? There wasn’t an exact time and place.This idea kind of came

over me spontaneously. In thoughts and on paper, I drew and added all sorts of

layouts, sometimes stupid ones. The liquid-propellant rocket engine had already

been invented some time ago and it seemed very simple.There wasn’t any intelligible information on turbojet engines, just ideas. I finally managed to break

through to Likhobory, where I first saw a liquid-propellant rocket engine on a

bench.7 Its shape reminded me of a bottle.When I understood what a voracious

bottle it was, and how much fuel it burned, I decided to just give it up and forget

about it. But there wasn’t anything else. Nothing at all!”

A stop at a snack bar during our tiring hike interrupted further elaboration of the

idea for the famous BI.8 To restore our strength we each had a glass of thick sour

cream,washed it down with dry wine,and dreamed of one day sitting down and writing our memoirs.At that time we felt it would be a shame to waste time on history.

in the spring of 1939, after the difficult sessions of the past academic year,

Germogen Pospelov talked me into vacationing in Koktebel to restore our

strength before our diploma projects. Koktebel had two advantages. First, there was

an MEI boarding house there where students could stay for next to nothing.

Second, Koktebel was the best place on the entire Black Sea coast.

I left Katya and our four-month-old son in Udelnaya, the home of her mother

Kseyniya Timofeyevna, who doted on her first grandson. Pospelov swore to Katya

that he would keep a strict eye on me—and if she would not allow me to go to

Koktebel, then as a sign of masculine solidarity, he would not go either.

In the summer of 1939, I spent a wonderful month with Pospelov in Koktebel

swimming and rock climbing along the Karadag. Our group also included chemistry student Mikhail Gavrilovich Slinko. Many years later, the three of us would

become members of the USSR Academy of Sciences.At general Academy meetings we never missed an opportunity to tease one another about various things—

our senile condition; the unattainable, beautiful “shores of Tavrida”; the radiant

cliffs of Karadag in our student days; and our contact with the literary Bohemia

residing at the legendary dacha of the poet Voloshin.9

153

6. The Russian word sedlo literally means ‘saddle.’The Maloye (or Small) and Bolshoye (or Big) Sedlo refer

to two mountains in the vicinity of Kislovodsk.

7. The Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII) was located at the site of a tractor factory

in Likhobory.

8. The BI (for Bereznyak-Isayev) was the first Soviet fighter with a liquid-fuel rocket engine.

9. Maksimilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (1877–1932) was a famous Russian poet influenced by the French

Symbolists and Impressionists.
At work in the spring of 1940, I was going on about fabulous Koktebel 

presence of Isayev. Right then and there Isayev asked me to get him passes 

MEI boarding house for his entire team.

nowadays, i am astonished by the confidence that we had then i

complete safety and our calm perception of the events that had shaken the w

On 1 September 1939,World War II began. In March 1940, our ignominiou

with Finland ended. Over the course of two months in the summer of 194

Netherlands, Belgium, and France capitulated to Nazi Germany. The Ge

occupied Norway, and Soviet troops marched into Lithuania, Latvia, and Es

In all of Europe, only England was opposing Hitler’s Germany. And under 

circumstances, Isayev and I were enthusiastically discussing the problems of 

a group vacation in the Crimea.

To clear our conscience we went to consult with our patron. He c

responded to our request, having reasoned that it had been a trying year, th

needed to unwind, and he reassured us,“We will be going to war. But it wo

for another two years or so.And what we’ll use—that’s another matter. But, 

event you won’t finish either the B or the “I” in a month.” Our patron was a

yachtsman and was himself getting ready for a sailing vacation. He couldn’t s

I talked Katya into joining us, leaving one-and-a-half-year-old Valentin in th

of his grandmother. Isayev did not risk inviting his wife Tatyana to the Cr

Their first child,Vanya, was only four months old.

And so, during our country’s last peaceful summer, Katya and I vacation

Koktebel with Isayev, his design team, and Semyon Gavrilovich Chizhikov

was tagging along with us. He had left Factory No. 22 in due course along 

Bolkhovitinov’s work force.

In Koktebel, Isayev introduced us to his friend Yuriy Beklemishev, know

as the writer Yuriy Krymov. His story Tanker Derbent had enjoyed great su

Krymov was vacationing there at the dacha of poet Maksimilian Voloshin, w

had been converted into a home for Soviet writers. Krymov confided th

had taken the pseudonym in memory of the wonderful time he had sp

Koktebel and the Crimean adventures he had enjoyed together with Is

Interrupting each other, the two of them regaled us with stories about 

escapades during the time of their not-so-long-ago youth. Both of them 

brilliant storytellers.

With magnificent humor they told us about their attempt in 1925 to sail 

Koktebel to the islands of Tahiti. Their sea voyage in a sailboat ended w

border patrol cutter intercepted them several kilometers from the Crimean 

They were both arrested and spent a week in an uncomfortable prison cel

their parents managed to free them. Krymov promised to write a semi-hum

154

10. Krym is the Russian word for Crimea.
semi-satirical story about these and other interesting adventures from the 1920s.

But alas,Yuriy Krymov died on the front in 1941.

It wasn’t until our time in Koktebel that I first heard Isayev’s revelation of how

difficult it had been for him to get the job with Bolkhovitinov.The Factory No.

22 personnel department rejected him because of his specialty—he had a degree

in mining engineering. Then he wrote a moving application addressed to

“respected comrade director,” in which he assured the director that the risk was

small, and that he would become an aircraft engineer within a year. In late 1934,

the “respected director” was Olga Mitkevich. Isayev’s application touched her with

its directness and its expression of a passionate desire to work in aviation.

Mitkevich gave the order to hire Isayev and send him to the Bolkhovitinov in his

new experimental-design bureau.With this one single decision, Mitkevich made

an important contribution to rocket technology.11

We took difficult hikes along the rocky shore,got to know all the bays,and swam

all the way to the Zolotyye vorota.

12 We played hotly contested croquet and volleyball matches. However, thoughts of our abandoned projects were always with us.

The “I” fighter, for which Isayev considered himself responsible, contained a

multitude of original designs. His primary contribution was the pairing of two

engines that used pusher rather than tractor propellers.The pilot’s cockpit, armed

with two guns and two large-caliber machine guns, was located in front of the

paired pusher engines. Two beams replaced the fuselage. A remote-controlled

machine gun was mounted between them behind the tail assembly. Isayev hoped

that I would fulfill my promise for the remote control of this machine gun from the

pilot’s cockpit. I really had promised, but how was the pilot going to be able to aim

at an enemy attacking from the rear? I could not come up with anything.And to

top it off, my brain was busy with the heavy bomber B and alternating current.

We did not receive any newspapers and there was no radio in the boarding

house. We got all our news from Chizhikov, who was spending his time with

acquaintances at the neighboring military academy boarding house. One time he

met us with a report that the Battle of Britain had begun. Soviet radio, citing

German sources, broadcast news of vast fires and destruction in London.

Krymov was the first to give in.“Carefree swimming in the warm sea and basking in the sun when such things are going on—I can’t do it. If Hitler makes short

work of England, then we can’t avoid war,” he predicted.

We also gave in and left Koktebel three days early.

155

11. Aleksey Mikhaylovich Isayev (1908–71) later became the Chief Designer of OKB-2 (or KB Khimmash),

the organization that designed rocket engines for many famous Soviet spacecraft (including Vostok,Voskhod, and

Soyuz), anti-aircraft missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

12. The Zolotyye vorota (Golden Gates) was a structure built in the eleventh century at the entrance to the

city of Kiev (in present day Ukraine).Although the original structure no longers stands, a museum with a reproduction of the original was built during Soviet times.

Chapter 10

On the Eve of War

In the autumn of 1940, the enthusiasm of the Factory No. 293 collective, which

had increased after our summer vacation, diminished noticeably. Our patron

Bolkhovitinov,who had returned from sailing around large lakes and reservoirs,did

not assign any new tasks that captured our imagination.When we dropped in on

him to discuss routine matters, he shared his melancholy thoughts, but we did not

receive any new directives.

After many years of anti-fascist agitation and propaganda, it was difficult to

resign oneself to the stream of reports about the victorious Nazi blitzkriegs in

Europe.The Germans had already captured Paris. Now we all feared for the fate

of Britain. No one was indifferent.We were invariably and sincerely sympathetic

to the British in our debates over reports from Europe about the air battle for

Britain.We switched back and forth between discussing the problems of the air

battle for Britain and analyzing the capabilities of our aviation. It was evident that

the majority of our combat aircraft were inferior to those of the Germans in speed,

engine power, weaponry, and equipment for night flights.

Now that the history of World War II has been thoroughly studied, one must

give credit to the Germans for their efforts to mislead us regarding their true intentions. In 1940, Hitler had already planned Operation Barbarossa and had determined the dates for attacking the Soviet Union.At the same time, our delegations

had been invited to Germany.They had visited military factories and concluded

agreements for the sale of weapons prototypes, machine tools, and optical instruments.Among other things, the Germans allowed a commission of Soviet specialists to inspect their aircraft factories.The Soviet commission procured prototypes

of combat aircraft.The aircraft were sent to the Air Force NII for flight tests and

for industry specialists to familiarize themselves with them.All of the aircraft were

fully equipped with weapons, state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and ultra

short-wave and short-wave radio communications.

During the war it was precisely these types of aircraft that made up the

Luftwaffe’s primary strike force. The latest models were the Messerschmitt-109

and 110, the Junkers-88 and 52, the Dornier-215; the experimental Heinkel-100,

which was not yet accepted as a standard armament; and several aerobatic training aircraft.

157
The Germans were completely convinced of their superiority.They calc

that if we got it into our heads to imitate their technical achievements, th

would waste several years mastering them and putting them into productio

during that time they would finish us off.

We conducted the inspection of the German technology as a group, w

rushing.Above all I was interested in the electrical equipment, navigational i

ments, radio system, bomb releases, and sights.The other equipment specialis

I were envious of the meticulousness and neatness of the interior layou

instrument panels, and the consoles. The electric bomb-release produced b

firm Siemens-Apparatebau had,as we would now say,a magnificent design—

completely different from the one I had been laboring on for almost two y

The bombers were equipped with electric autopilots.The first time we sa

Askania electrohydraulic control-surface actuators we could not even guess how 

worked. Six years later, I would be faced with mastering the production of s

control-surface actuators—no longer for aircraft, but for long-range rockets.A

as we switched on the onboard radio stations, we were convinced of the reli

of their air-to-air communications.The majority of our current fleet of aircra

no radio communications whatsoever, neither air-to-air, nor air-to-ground.

Back home at the central airfield of the Air Force Scientific-Testing Institute

into Larisa Dobrovolskaya, the former KOSTR Komsomol secretary at Factor

22, where she was now directing a large design team. On such an occasion, it w

be impossible not to reminisce about our romantic Komsomol days.

Sharing her impressions of German technology, Larisa displayed her fem

powers of observation,“All the tiny details were so thoroughly thought ou

German scrupulousness that we won’t have time to reproduce them on moc

much less in operating models.And look, everything is fitted so that there is 

ing to get caught on in flight or during emergency evacuation of the aircraft 

you need to jump with a parachute.”

Dobrovolskaya continued,“But we have achievements. Now on every air

we are installing tubes under the wings for rocket projectiles.Now military ac

ance will not register a single aircraft without electric wiring and actuat

launch rocket projectiles. For the time being, evidently, the Germans don’

anything like our rocket projectiles.”

At the far edge of the airfield stood a pair of dark green four-engine T

These were the same airplanes into whose production we had poured so 

youthful enthusiasm six years ago.We sadly noted that these behemoths, with 

retracting landing gear reminiscent of the talons of a bird of prey, could be

easy and safe spoils for the German airplanes we had so thoroughly inspected

first-hand knowledge of German technology showed that the Soviet Air 

one of the most powerful in the world, was experiencing a crisis and was in

to the German Luftwaffe.

Our collective was not the only one at a thematic crossroads. Many s

production factories were in the same situation.The production of obsolete a

158
developed during 1935–36 continued. New models were being put into production with tremendous difficulty after prolonged flight tests. Many factories were

busy mastering new equipment procured abroad in large quantities.The directors

paid more attention to special machine tools, multi-ton presses, trip hammers, and

testing equipment than to the aircraft themselves. Pe-2 dive-bombers, Il-2 lowflying attack aircraft, and Yak-1, MiG-3, and LaGG-1 fighters had only just broken

through into series production.

stalin, who was very interested in aviation technology, decided after the

series of repressions to once again strengthen the leadership of the aviation industry. In January 1940, Aleksey Ivanovich Shakhurin was appointed People’s

Commissar of Aviation Industry. Between 1933 and 1937, Shakhurin had worked

at the N. E. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. He was secretary of the Academy’s

Science Council and Deputy Chairman of the Society of Inventors.Bolkhovitinov

knew Shakhurin well and we expected that the new People’s Commissar would

give us the proper attention. Bolkhovitinov met repeatedly with Shakhurin.After

these meetings he told us that Shakhurin reported to Stalin almost every day—but

hardly at all about our work.

In the autumn of 1940, I often visited the People’s Commissariat of Aviation

Industry on Ulanskiy Lane. It reminded me of a stirred-up anthill. In 1939, the

aviation industry released no more than twenty-five airplanes per day. Most were

obsolete, but the industry had at least mastered their series production. Stalin

demanded that Shakhurin increase production to seventy to eighty aircraft per day,

primarily by introducing new models.

Increasing the capacity of the aviation industry to produce more than 20,000

combat aircraft per year was a task that specialists considered very difficult, but not

impossible.The war had shown that even larger numbers were needed. Four years

later in 1944, under considerably more difficult conditions than we could imagine,

our industry manufactured 40,241 combat aircraft. For Russia in the year 2002 that

number is a fantasy.At the air show in August 2002,the Russian Air Force Commander-in-Chief joyfully announced that in 2003 our Air Force would receive twenty

new fighters! The aircraft of 2002 are of course many times more complex and

expensive than their World War II predecessors—but not by a scale of one thousand! 

The tough demands from the top and the cries of the factory representatives

completely deprived the most hardened bureaucrats of their peace. Repeated

calculations showed that the required production numbers could not be attained

before 1943. No one considered that the war would start considerably sooner, or

that they would be faced with solving the problem under conditions that were

many times more difficult and immeasurably more severe.

The People’s Commissar’s concern about immediately finishing the new aircraft

by Petlyakov,Ilyushin,Yakovlev,and Mikoyan and putting them into series production shoved our designs, which were exotic for those times, to the background.

The idea of using alternating current, which I introduced for discussion at other

159
design bureaus and at the offices of the People’s Commissariat, met with sy

thetic understanding; but the conversations usually ended thus:“We are not 

this now. Did you see the German technology? While they are busy with En

we should jump ahead of them.We have a maximum of one to two years fo

Your alternating current requires three to five.And then, where will it be u

on one of those autumn days, Isayev and Bereznyak dropped into the 

where my comrades and I were working surrounded by boxes full of altern

current machines. Apologizing for the intrusion, Isayev requested that my s

dinates go to the design hall where his team was assembled.

This proposal was made in typical Isayev style:“Why don’t you go on ove

play with my kids for a while?”When my subordinates left, Bereznyak un

some Whatman paper. A drawing that had numerous erasures showed two 

of a small glider with noble outlines. I was surprised at the dimensions o

glider.The wingspan was 6 meters, and the length from the pointed nose 

tail was only 4.5 meters. Four barrels were drawn above the forward fairing

guns and two machine guns. Not having detected an engine with a prope

remarked that this was a strange glider.The area of the wings was very smal

“You’re right.This isn’t a glider at all,”said Isayev.“OK,it’s Sasha’s turn to e

everything, and then I’ll tell you why we are here. Swear that you won’t tell a

about this conversation. Even our patron mustn’t know anything about this y

Bereznyak said that this would be a fundamentally new rocket-powered 

ceptor aircraft. It would have a liquid-propellant rocket engine installed in th

The diameter of the nozzle would be only 300 millimeters, and so the airc

the picture would be taken for a glider. Its entire mass would be no greate

1,500 kilograms. This was half as much as a Messerschmitt-109. The max

speed would be 1,000 kilometers/hour,and perhaps greater.That would all d

on the thrust of the engine. One had not yet been definitively selected. I

meantime, they had been promised an engine with a thrust of 1200 kgf. If 

boosted to 1500 kgf, then the thrust would be equal to the weight of the ai

This was almost a vertical takeoff. Its insane climbing capability would b

primary characteristic of this interceptor. As soon as an enemy bomber app

at a distance of one to two flight minutes, the interceptor would take off and 

with lightning speed with at least twice the speed of its opponent. It would 

only enough fuel for one attack.The engine would work for no longer tha

to three minutes.It would then return to the airfield and land in glide mode.

the bomber’s speed of up to 600 kilometers/hour at an altitude of 5,000 m

the interceptor would reach it one minute after takeoff if the pilot did not lo

target. The entire structure would be wood—plywood. The only dura

permitted would be used for the assemblies and brackets.The landing gear w

be lowered and retracted using compressed air.

“As an exception, the cylinders have to be made of metal,” joked Berez

Here Isayev interjected, “Sasha is dreaming of making even the guns o

160
plywood, but I won’t allow him.We are mounting two ShVAKs on a wooden gun

carriage. Such an aircraft doesn’t need a factory. It will be made at all the furniture

mills.Extraordinary low price and simplicity! Fifty furniture mills will put together

twenty airplanes each in a year—that’s already 1,000! Imagine, 1,000 interceptors

around Moscow! Even if every other one misses, 500 bombers will still be brought

down.That’s what the Brits need now!”

Aleksey was carried away. He spoke so fervently and eloquently that I was taken

by the prospect of plywood interceptors taking off at lightning speed from dozens

of airfields against squadrons of heavy bombers.

“All of this is great, but why have you come here?” I asked. “There is simply

nothing for me to do here. Provide a battery to light up the instruments and a

firing actuator.That’s a day’s work for my drafters.”

“That’s not it at all,” objected Isayev.“First, at night the interceptor pilot needs

to understand where to fly in order to break out to the point of attack over the

shortest route. Second, he can’t make a mistake during his return. He won’t have

fuel to maneuver for a repeated landing approach if he misses or can’t find his

airfield. He might also get lost in the daytime in clouds.This aircraft is not capable of waiting in the air. His mission is to take off, attack, destroy, and immediately land.”

I was supposed to devise an enemy detection and attack guidance system and

navigation instruments for returning to the airfield. It was 1940, and they were

proposing that I figure out the guidance system that would used in surface-to-air

missiles about ten years later.

After several days, Bereznyak showed me his calculations with diagrams of the

interception of enemy aircraft. The rocket-powered interceptor was supposed to

take off as soon as an enemy aircraft entered its coverage zone—presumably 10–12

kilometers away.The attack would take place at any altitude up to 10 kilometers

and continue for absolutely no more than two minutes. At that point the aircraft

had not been designed to sustain an attack for even that much time.

“We will begin with just 90 seconds, and then we will increase it,” said

Bereznyak.“But we need to design the guidance system for pursuit, in case the

enemy manages to break out of the coverage zone of our interceptors’

base airfield.”

The interception diagrams were beautiful and convincing.The flight trajectories of our interceptors aimed right at the burning bombers.After the attack, the

interceptors were supposed to calmly return to their airfield, for which 5–8

minutes of their planned flight time had been set aside.

I asked for a copy of the top secret graphics to think over. My previous work

had to do with developing equipment for bombers. My knowledge in the field of

air defense systems was therefore quite superficial. Even when working on the “I”

fighter, we had not devoted attention to target location and guidance issues.This

was also the weak side of the military contractors’ technical specifications requirements.At that time, the attention devoted to developing new navigation and guid

161
ance systems for blind flight was disproportionately less than that paid t

creation of the actual aircraft and engines.

I began my search among acquaintances at the Air Force NII. Chief of th

Force NII special services group Sergey Alekseyevich Danilin—with whom 

been acquainted since the time of DB-A production and the N-209 flight—

his deputy, radio engineer G.A. Uger, listened to me with great interest.And 

in a very correct manner, they expressed their very skeptical thoughts conce

the rocket-powered interceptor’s flight trajectories, which I had spread out b

them. They did not call the aircraft’s dynamic properties into que

Bolkhovitinov was highly regarded in military circles.They had already he

rocket engines. But the existing resources of the air observation and aircraft d

tion and tracking services were, in their opinion, completely unsuitable fo

interceptor. Optical, acoustic, and thermal means were immediately rejected

radio engineering could lead the interceptor into the zone of visual contac

the enemy. Subsequent action would depend on the pilot.

The idea of using radar facilities for Air Force aircraft had already been 

sively developed in 1940.The lessons of the Battle of Britain had confirme

need to provide aircraft with a means of navigation in night battle condition

well-known fixed-loop radio compasses that we had used on our long-

bombers, radio beacons, and the hyperbolic radio navigation systems that had 

developed were not suitable for this purpose.

By that time,through the efforts of the scientists and engineers of the Leni

Physics and Technical Institute, NII-9, NIISKA, and other organizations, ex

mental ground-based radar stations had been set up.1 Danilin and Uger advis

to familiarize myself with this brand-new, ground-based radio engineering.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Studying the radar equipment that had on

appeared in our midst, I not only absorbed new ideas, but also met some 

interesting people who were radar enthusiasts and fanatics. Several years later

the occasion to work with some of them again, this time in a new field d

purely with rockets. In that sense, the meetings in 1940 proved to be very u

In radio engineering circles, there was a rivalry between proponents of 

and continuous emission methods. Powerful transmitting tubes—magnetron

Klystrons—were developed.Their names had only just been introduced into 

tific terminology.

In 1940, the first experimental radar stations were established—Redu

RUS-2. Great changes in the country’s air defense occurred because o

RUS-2 station. But how was all this to be linked with our interceptor? We d

know who would be capable of creating onboard systems.

It was precisely at this time that the Air Force NII first formulated the re

ments for an onboard enemy aircraft detection station.At the radio industry N

162

1. NIISKA stood for Scientific-Research Institute of Communications of the Red Army.
future NII-20, they told me the approximate mass of such a station. According to

preliminary calculations, the complete set with power sources, cables, and antennas

weighed 500 kilograms. Neither our interceptor nor any other fighter could bear

such weight.At the institute,they assumed that testing of the station would begin on

the Pe-2 aircraft. It was not simply a matter of kilograms. It was simply impossible

for a fighter pilot to simultaneously pilot the airplane, control the detection station,

and fire weapons.The onboard station required greater attention than the enemy!

in the spring of 1941, Bereznyak, who had been following my research, said

that he and Isayev had had several talks with the patron. Ultimately they had had

a meeting of the minds and were now conducting their work openly and full

steam ahead. I was expected to give a report regarding the development of a guidance and navigation system.

I do not remember whether it was March or April 1941 when I gave my report

to Bolkhovitinov, Bereznyak, and Isayev on that subject. Having told them about

the status of work conducted in that field,I concluded that in the next two to three

years it would be unrealistic to create an onboard radio guidance system for such

an interceptor given the limitations that we were applying in terms of mass and

configuration. The maximum that could be done immediately would be to

develop a radio system for landing that simplified the search for the home airfield.

For the time being,we needed to design a compact radio station for guidance from

the ground.

To Bereznyak and Isayev’s displeasure, Bolkhovitinov reacted very calmly to

this. He said that we had run ahead and there was nothing surprising in the fact

that radio engineering was not yet ready to service such airplanes.We needed to

start flying as soon as possible to demonstrate the absolute necessity of a fundamentally new intercept guidance and control system.

In the meantime, there was a more urgent problem for me. It was proposed that

I set aside all my current work, study the startup and control system of the liquidpropellant rocket engine,automate everything that could be automated, and devise

reliable methods for engine ignition and the monitoring of engine operation.

Once I had received these instructions, I searched for Langemak and Glushko’s

book, Rockets:Their Construction and Use, which I had acquired back in 1936.2

During my earlier reading of this book, I had been interested in the section on

solid-propellant rockets. In 1937, Factory No. 22’s KOSTR developed drawings

for the installation of rockets on the SB aircraft. The chapter “Construction of

Solid-Propellant Rockets” was written by Langemak. Now I studied the chapter

“Construction of a Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engine,” written by Glushko. I

found no other literature on liquid-propellant rocket engines in the libraries to

which I had access, and nothing about automating their guidance.

163

2. G. E. Langemak and V. P. Glushko, Rakety, Ikh Ustroystvo I Primeneniye (Moscow: ONTI, 1935).
Bolkhovitinov advised,“Go to NII-3 and do some investigating there.” He 

sent me on my way after signing a letter addressed to institute chief Andrey Ko

Thereby, I visited NII-3 for the first time in the early spring of 1941. 

letters on the wall of the main building facing Mikhalkovskoye Highway 

“Institute of Agricultural Machine Building.” I felt no trembling or even r

for this institution.At that time, it was not for me to know that I was visiti

the first time a piece of real estate that would enter the history of cosmon

All of our rocket-space technology historians consider it obligatory to mentio

founding role of RNII, the Reactive Scientific-Research Institute, in the ori

domestic cosmonautics. In order to avoid sending the reader off in search o

ous and contradictory publications, I will give a brief history of RNII—NI

my own interpretation.3

On 21 September 1933,Mikhail Tukhachevskiy issued an order from the U

Revvoyensovet on the organization of the Reactive Scientific-Research Ins

RNII was the first state scientific-research and experimental design organi

in the world to combine different trends in the theoretical and practical dev

ment of problems of rocket technology. Only one-and-a-half months lat

resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense, RNII was transferred fro

authority of the People’s Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs t

People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry.

RNII was established on the basis of two organizations: the Leningrad 

Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) and the Moscow Group for the Study of Re

Motion.The domestic pioneers of rocket technology were associated with 

small groups of early trailblazers.

GDL was created in Moscow in 1921 to develop the inventions of N

Tikhomirov.After moving to Leningrad it was named the Gas-Dynamics La

tory. Nikolay Tikhomirov had proposed using the reaction of gases obtained d

the combustion of explosive substances for “self-propelled mines for the wat

air.” GDL activity was concentrated on creating smokeless solid-propellant p

tiles and the technology needed to manufacture their explosive charges.Vla

Artemyev was Tikhomirov’s close collaborator and co-author in the develop

of the first solid-propellant rockets. He designed the first smokeless powder 

and authored many inventions in the field of solid-propellant rockets.

In 1930, after the death of Tikhomirov, military engineer and artilleryman 

Petropavlovskiy was appointed GDL director. Petropavlovskiy was also a pro

at the Military Technical Academy, and he actively promoted the idea of 

weaponry among his students. At his initiative, GDL developed launchers f

firing of rockets in the form of simple openwork tubes secured under the 

of an aircraft.

164

3. Between September 1933 and January 1937, the institute was known as RNII. In January 193

renamed NII-3, a designation it retained until July 1942.
Petropavlovskiy became seriously ill in late 1932, and died in 1933. Ivan

Kleymenov was appointed as the new GDL chief.Before coming to work at GDL,

he had studied in the physics and mathematics department at Moscow University,

and from there had been sent to the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. Upon

graduation from the Academy, Kleymenov received the GDL appointment and

took up the baton for the development of smokeless solid-propellant rockets for

aircraft and multi-barreled rocket launchers.

Along with Kleymenov and Artemyev, one of the main leaders in the development of rockets at GDL was Georgiy Langemak. Like Petropavlovskiy and

Kleymenov, he had volunteered for service in the Red Army during the civil war,

and then was sent to study.After graduation from the Military Technical Academy,

he selected internal ballistics as his specialty.

Valentin Glushko arrived at GDL in 1929 upon graduation from Leningrad

University. One of the youngest employees at GDL, he had been captivated with

ideas of cosmonautics since his youth.At GDL, Glushko set up a subsection for the

development of electric and liquid-propellant rocket engines and liquid-propellant

rockets.He developed a unique electro-thermal rocket engine and the first domestic liquid-propellant rocket engine using high-boiling propellant.4 Glushko is now

rightly considered by many to be the founder of the Russian school of liquidpropellant rocket engines.5

In 1930, GDL achieved its first practical results during the range testing of 82-

and 132-millimeter rockets. In 1932, Mikhail Tukhachevskiy,Revvoyensovet Deputy

Chairman and Red Army Chief of Armaments, was present when the first official

in-air firings of RS-82 missiles from an I-4 aircraft armed with six launchers

successfully took place. Solid-propellant reactive systems facilitating the takeoff of

TB-1 and TB-3 aircraft were also being successfully developed. Vyacheslav

Dudakov conducted this aircraft-related work at GDL.

By early 1933, around 200 individuals were working at GDL, which was

directly subordinate to the Military Research Committee under the USSR

Revvoyensovet.

It would be considerably later before Moscow’s rocket technology enthusiasts

were united. In the autumn of 1931, the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion

(GIRD) was formed under the auspices of Osoaviakhim, a large social organization.

GIRD’s first director was Fridrikh Tsander—a scientist, inventor, and romantic

who dreamed of interplanetary flight. Tsander was captivated by the problems

entailed in flights to other planets, the movement of spacecraft in a planet’s gravitational field, and determining the trajectories and duration of flights. He was also

165

4. High-boiling propellants, which were Glusko’s specialty, are a subset of liquid propellants that do not

require special cooling equipment to maintain them at normal temperatures; as such, they are also known as

storable propellants.

5. Valentin Petrovich Glushko (1908-1989) founded and headed OKB-456 (later NPO Energomash), the

developer of the most important and powerful rocket engines in the Soviet Union.
involved in developing the theory and design layouts of different engines th

not need atmospheric oxygen.Tsander was a typical scientist—an enthusiast 

dreamer. He was also completely devoted to the ideas of interplanetary trav

In 1932, Sergey Korolev replaced Tsander as director of GIRD.Tsander n

good therapy at a sanatorium. Korolev managed to get him a pass to Kislov

which for those times was not a simple feat. Tsander became ill in Kislov

however, and died suddenly in March 1933. Twenty-three years later, Ko

finally managed to track down Tsander’s gravesite in Kislovodsk, and in 1

gravestone with a bust of Tsander was placed there on the occasion of what w

have been his seventieth birthday.

Other talented engineers who experimented with the first Soviet l

propellant rockets at the Moscow GIRD included Yuriy Pobedonostsev, M

Tikhonravov, Vladimir Vetchinkin, Yevgeniy Shchetinkov. Korolev deve

designs for stratospheric aircraft with liquid-propellant rocket engines

Tikhonravov directed a team that designed the first hybrid-propellant rocke

oxygen-gasoline propellant rockets. Pobedonostsev was involved with the 

lems of ramjet engines. In 1932,Andrey Kostikov came to work at GIRD, h

graduated from the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. He joined in o

work of Pobedonostsev’s and Tikhonravov’s teams.

The Moscow GIRD, which had around sixty employees, was funded b

Osoaviakhim presidium and RKKA Directorate for Military Inventions. In 

meetings were held in Leningrad between GDL employees and GIRD l

Korolev,Tsander,Tikhonravov, and Pobedonostsev. RKKA senior armamen

cials who were familiar with the work of GDL and GIRD were firmly conv

of the need to combine the two organizations and create a Reactive Scie

Research Institute. In those years, organizational decisions aimed at strength

166

NASA Histo

Above is the 09 rocket built by the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD) in 1933. T

which was successfully fired in August 1933, was the first Soviet rocket to use liquid propella

GIRD members included Fridrikh Tsander, Sergey Korolev, and Mikhail Tikhonravov, three imp

pioneers of Soviet rocketry and spaceflight.
defensive capability were made rapidly.Accordingly, they appropriated the grounds

of the Agricultural Machine Building Institute in Moscow, found living accommodations for the Leningraders, and allocated sizeable resources for construction

and to equip the laboratory of the new institute.

gdl director kleymenov was appointed chief of the RNII, and Moscow

GIRD chief Korolev was appointed his deputy. Because the young Korolev’s

technical interests diverged from those of the RNII leadership, Langemak was

soon appointed instead to be the Institute’s deputy chief. Langemak was also the

chairman of a technical advisory board which was the official scientific leadership of RNII. The advisory board was comprised of Glushko, Korolev,

Pobedonostsev,Tikhonravov, and Dudakov.Although many types of rocket technology were being developed, the preference for production was given to operational solid-propellant rockets and their launchers. Kleymenov, Langemak, and

Artemyev, who had all transferred to RNII from GDL, already had a great deal

of experience developing and producing such solid propellant rockets. By late

1937, RS-82 and RS-132 missiles had been developed under their leadership.

The Air Force had accepted these missiles as standard armaments for I-16, I-15,

I-153, and SB aircraft.

The RNII department under Glushko’s leadership was involved with nitric acid

liquid-propellant rocket engines. Glushko’s collective continued to develop liquidpropellant rocket engines under the index ORM.6 D. Shitov,V. Galkovskiy, and S.

Rovinskiy joined Glushko’s department.Among their developments were singlechamber and double-chamber engines with a thrust as high as 600 kgf using nitric

acid/tetra nitro methane and nitric acid/kerosene propellant. Between 1934 and

1937, the ORM-65 nitric acid/kerosene engine was developed for Korolev’s 212

cruise missile and RP-318-1 rocket glider. Korolev headed the winged-missile

department.These were like airborne torpedoes designed to be launched from TB3s. But Korolev’s primary work at RNII was the design and construction of a

rocket glider. Tikhonravov developed oxygen/alcohol liquid-propellant rocket

engines and liquid-propellant rockets. Kostikov also worked in this department.

Pobedonostsev first worked on ramjet engines, and then joined the work on solidpropellant rockets. RNII (named NII-3 after January 1937) made history with the

legendary Katyushas, the combat artillery rocket launchers used during World War

II. NII-3’s central role in the development of this new type of weapon was indisputable.After RNII was established, its work was given the necessary framework,

and joint operations began with the aviation sector and with the Main Artillery

Directorate (GAU).

In the 1930s, only the Soviet and German governments were supporting work

on a broad spectrum of rocket-related subjects. From 1932–1935, the Germans

167

6. ORM—Opytnyy Raketnyy Motor (Experimental Rocket Engine).
lagged behind us considerably, especially in the area of rockets. Beginni

1935, however, the Germans started to catch up and then pass us in the dev

ment of liquid-propellant rocket engines, especially in those using ox

alcohol components.

During the tragic years of 1937–38, NII-3 lost its leadership. Kleymeno

Langemak were arrested in 1937 and shot to death in January 1938. Military 

neer Boris Slonimer, who had returned from Spain, was appointed chief. Ko

was appointed chief engineer and deputy chief.

In 1938, Glushko and then Korolev were arrested. In late 1939, they rem

Slonimer from his post. Chief Engineer Kostikov became the sole direc

NII-3. He was given free reign in all areas of research—the scientific tec

advisory board no longer directed the institute. Repressions against the lead

had created a stifling psychological situation at the institute, crushing initiativ

bold creative quests. But it was amazing to see the great intellectual poten

the RNII collective! People found in themselves the strength to throw off 

depression and get back to their feverishly intense work.How many similar d

were played out in those years!

Solid propellant rockets were accepted as a standard armament for av

and set up for series production.The Air Force rated the weapons highly

new field required the leadership’s attention and reinforcement. Ko

assigned Pobedonostsev to supervise the work. One must give credit to 

Aleksandrovich. During that difficult time, he appreciated the promise th

missiles held and did much to give them a second wind after Lange

death. Pobedonostsev, as much as he could, also supported work on li

propellant rocket engines, assigning them to Leonid Dushkin. Ko

assigned to Tikhonravov both Korolev’s reactive aircraft and the conti

work on oxygen/kerosene liquid-propellant rocket engines and li

propellant rockets.

in spite of the success in aviation, the development of ground-based 

propellant launchers for the infantry lagged behind.Vasiliy Aborenkov, senior 

tary representative of GAU at RNII, played a large role in the developmen

final acceptance of the Katyusha rocket launchers as standard armaments fo

infantry. Under strong pressure from Aborenkov, the scale of these oper

expanded substantially. Military engineers Shvarts and Sorkin joined the 

being conducted on projectiles, while Gvay, Pavlenko, Galkovskiy, and P

began working on self-propelled launchers.In 1939,the first self-propelled la

ers were manufactured using the ZIS-6 automobile.

In 1939, NII-3 was transferred to the People’s Commissariat for Ammu

directed by Boris Vannikov.

Its departmental affiliation gave rocket projectile issues priority over l

propellant rocket engines, liquid-propellant rockets, and rocket-powered ai

Tikhonravov, the proponent of liquid-propellant rockets, did not have the o

168
tunity to prove their relevance as weapons by that time.Work on oxygen liquidpropellant rocket engines, which Tikhonravov was trying to bring back, was not

given the proper support.It should be mentioned that our intelligence services had

no information concerning the scope of work being conducted on liquidpropellant engines and rockets in Germany.The Germans were building what was

for that time a vast rocket center in Peenemünde. The primary mission of this

center was to develop long-range, liquid-propellant guided rockets.The parameters of the liquid-propellant rocket engines being developed between 1935 and

1940 at NII-3 could not compare in any way with what the Germans were brandishing during that time at Peenemünde. Before the war we had ceded leadership

in the development of liquid-propellant guided rockets.

Yet in the area of small, solid-propellant rocket projectiles we were far ahead of

the Germans. This innovation, however, was not put into mass production for

combat use until the onset of war.

High-ranking military leaders—the Deputy People’s Commissars for Defense;

the rapidly changing General Staff Chiefs, B. M. Shaposhnikov, K. A. Meretskov,

and later also G. K. Zhukov; and the People’s Commissar for Defense, S. K.

Timoshenko—did not imagine the tactical capabilities of this new weapon and did

not devise any plans for its use in the future war.

Usually all innovations in the field of weaponry were reported to Stalin. But

Stalin had no information about infantry rocket projectiles before 1941. Artillery

Marshal Kulik, as Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense for Artillery, was responsible for the activity of the Main Artillery Directorate—for evaluating and accepting new rocket launcher systems as standard armament. It was his duty to report

personally to Stalin, and if not to him, then to People’s Commissar Timoshenko.

But Kulik had underestimated this new weapon. Aborenkov was completely

convinced of the effectiveness of rocket projectiles from his experience with their

use in aviation. He went over the head of his superior, Marshal Kulik, and reported

this development in a memorandum to Stalin. Aborenkov risked, if not his head,

then certainly his career. One must give him credit for his daring.

In his memoirs, G. K. Zhukov recalls that soon after his appointment as chief of

the General Staff, Stalin asked him if he was familiar with vehicle-mounted rocket

launchers. Zhukov responded that he had only heard of them, but not seen them.

Stalin said,“Well, then one of these days soon you’ll have to go with Timoshenko,

Kulik, and Aborenkov to the firing range and watch them fire.”7 At that time

Aborenkov was a division chief at GAU. Someone of his rank was not supposed

to have any dealings with Stalin, which makes it all the more interesting that Stalin

knew about him.

I learned how Stalin’s instructions were fulfilled from the stories and notes of

the direct participants in the development and production of Katyushas. One of

169

7. G. K. Zhukov,Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya (Memoirs and Reflections) (Moscow:Voyenizdat, 1974),Vol. 1.
those who knew the subsequent events was Major General Pavel Trubac

Leningrad Mining Institute and Artillery Academy graduate who was sent to 

after completing his studies in 1940. From his first days of service at GAU, h

directly involved in the testing, production, and acceptance of rocket launch

standard armaments for the infantry. I made his acquaintance in 1945 in Ger

At that time he was a colonel-engineer.8 Later, Trubachev became a m

regional engineer at NII-88, at Korolev’s OKB-1, and department chief 

Main Directorate of Rocket Armaments. I had the chance to interact unoff

with the retired Pavel Yefimovich at the Pirogovskiy Reservoir, where we bot

garden plots.This is what he said about Stalin’s assignment.

In March 1941, under Aborenkov’s leadership, they had conducted succ

range firings.There were no doubts as to reliability and effectiveness of the 

cle-mounted, multi-barreled rocket launchers. However, a demonstration 

rocket projectiles to the higher command was put off time after time.The de

stration was finally held on 15 June 1941.

Minister of Defense Timoshenko wanted a demonstration of new ar

armaments to be conducted at the firing range.The preparations for this u

taking took much longer than had been anticipated because the distinguished 

designers at the firing range were striving to present the new guns and mor

the best light at the demonstration. The rocket launchers were mounte

ZIS-6 vehicle chassis at NII-3. The demonstration included a large numb

artillery exhibits, and the plain outward appearance of the two trucks di

inspire much confidence. Standing by each artillery piece was its chief des

sometimes along with the factory director and military representatives.They 

all prepared to report to the People’s Commissar of Defense not only the t

advantages of their new model, but also its readiness for mass production.

Two BM-13 launchers,each with twenty-four projectiles,stood modestly 

side of the main exhibits. They were not accompanied by a chief design

authorized industrial representative, since Colonel Aborenkov and the NII-3 

neers and workmen had taken the trouble completely on themselves to prepa

launchers for inspection.

The demonstration of the rocket weaponry was the last item on the sch

The effect of the drumfire and the howling of forty-eight flying projectiles 

a staggering impression on the marshals and generals. Clouds of dust rose u

flames raged in the area of the target. It seemed that nothing living could 

withstood such an artillery strike.

Timoshenko addressed Kulik harshly, “Why have you kept silent an

reported on such a weapon?” Kulik excused himself by pointing out th

weapon had not been fully developed and troop tests had not yet been cond

170

8. Those officers in the Soviet armed forces who had received a higher engineering degree combin

rank with the title ‘Engineer.’
In his memoirs, trying to explain the delay in accepting many new models as

standard armaments, Zhukov was forced to admit that Marshal Kulik had not

appreciated the capabilities of the rocket artillery before the war. However, a similar reproach could also have been leveled at Air Force Commander Rychagov,who

did not appreciate the potential of Il-2 low-flying attack aircraft, and also at many

other high-ranking military leaders, who in similar cases preferred to receive

instructions personally from Stalin.According to the testimony of Galkovskiy, one

of the test participants, Zhukov was not present at the demonstration of these

firings. Perhaps that is why in his memoirs he did not revisit the events that

followed the conversation with Stalin about the Katyushas.

After the demonstration,Timoshenko and Aborenkov demonstrated the necessary persistence and speed in putting the weapons into operation. Twenty-four

hours before Nazi Germany attacked, a resolution was issued, signed by Stalin, for

the series production of rockets and launchers.

now let us return once again to events in which I was a direct participant.

When I entered the main building of NII-3 for the first time, I did not know

its history and I had no gift of foresight to appreciate the historic role of the wide

staircase leading to the offices of the institute directors. Fifty years later, millions of

television viewers would see the building façade and this staircase in historic documentary films.This building was, at various times, the workplace of people whose

names would not be revealed as part of the history of cosmonautics until decades

later. Not knowing the past and not foreseeing the future, I calmly entered the

office of the chief of the institute in March 1941.

Kostikov hospitably stood up and came out from behind his director’s desk. He

was wearing a military uniform with four bars on the gorget patches,which corresponded to the rank of a colonel-engineer. Smiling warmly, he said that he would

keep no secrets from Bolkhovitinov and his representatives. At his command,

Dushkin’s deputy, engineer Vladimir Shtokolov, led me to his laboratory and

showed me the liquid-propellant rocket engine test-firing bench.

From talking with Shtokolov, I understood that the engine that could be

mounted on Bereznyak’s airplane did not yet exist. Experimental work was underway, and I had shown up at the right time so that together we could work out

startup, control, and in-flight guidance procedures for the future engine. During

my subsequent visits to NII-3, we discussed the already defined tasks of designing

the electric ignition, the remote control of the pressure in the combustion chamber, and the fuel and oxidant lines. I immediately rejected the idea of using a

vacuum photocell device to signal the presence of the starter flame.While acceptable for laboratory experiments, in a combat aircraft this primitive, amateur device

could only compromise the noble ideas of electronic automation.

Shtokolov let me in on a secret: the liquid-propellant rocket engine was much

more likely to explode than a solid-propellant engine. If an excess of propellant

components accumulates in the chamber before ignition begins, they will ignite

171
with a violent bang or they will explode,destroying the chamber and spilling 

acid over the nearby instruments. It would be a good thing to come up w

safety system to protect against such an eventuality.

Visiting NII-3, I became acquainted with L.S. Dushkin, the chief special

liquid-propellant rocket engines; A.V. Pallo, the chief tester; and other engi

They were very calm about the explosive nature of the liquid-propellant 

engines. I already considered myself an experienced aircraft engineer, and 

attitude toward the rocket engine seemed,at the very least,to be strange.For 

the engine literally had a “mind of its own.” Each test—if the engine star

all—brought so many surprises that it seemed impossible to predict the en

behavior after the next modification.

Compared with “the song of the propeller” and the usual roar of multi-cy

gasoline engines, the deafening, howling flame of a liquid-propellant rocket e

inspired no affection whatsoever.Each time the engine was activated,a rust-co

cloud of nitric acid vapor would explode from the nozzle.Our eyes teared ou

stung as if hit by an arctic blast, we continually felt like sneezing and cough

was obviously dangerous to inhale the rust-colored atmosphere, and I ha

imprudence to allude to this. Pallo said that the vapor was nothing compared 

the explosion of a rocket engine.That was when it was really harmful.

Pallo had previously worked as an aircraft flight mechanic.When I started 

ing about aircraft engines, his eyes got a look of nostalgia. Beside their 

merits, propeller engines had a pleasant smell.We recalled the noble scents o

tion gasoline and hot engine oil, which at any airfield in any weather provid

no less pleasure than the fragrance of good eau de cologne.

As calmly as I could, I related to Bolkhovitinov my first impressions 

rocket engine. He said that Kostikov and Dushkin had promised him tha

would modify the engine so that it was suitable for installation in an airc

three to four months. During that time, we ourselves still needed to fabrica

airplane and test fly it in glider mode.

Bereznyak and Isayev received my suggestions for automating the startu

without enthusiasm. It turned out that Dushkin’s designers had developed a 

mentary model of the turbo-pump assembly that fed fuel and oxidant int

combustion chamber.A new feed system needed to be devised, and consequ

a different automatic device needed to be developed.

The turbopump feed in Dushkin’s engine permitted a thrust of no more 

600 kgf, and we needed at least 1,200 kgf. No electric automatic device was 

ble of doubling thrust! “I have an idea,” said Isayev,“but we will have to red

and redo the layout of the entire aircraft.Tomorrow, Sunday, I will work a

and Monday we will go see the patron.”

That was Sunday, 22 June 1941.A new time of reckoning was beginning

172
Chapter 11

At the Beginning of the War

In the spring of 1941, there was no more hope for the series production of DBA bombers.A sixteen-aircraft series was set up at the Kazan aircraft factory, but the

DB-A did not survive the competition with the Tupolev TB-7 in terms of flight

performance. Tupolev’s “enemy of the people” status notwithstanding, the TB-7

(Pe-8) was still allowed into series production. By late 1940, after twelve aircraft

had been released, work on our Annushka had been halted.

In spite of a series of modifications that experienced designers Zalman Itskovich

and Ilya Flerov had made, the “S” aircraft did not stand up to competition with

Petlyakov’s Pe-2. After the Pe-2 multi-purpose dive-bomber was accepted as a

standard armament, there was no more hope of series production for the “S.”

The subsequent development of the two tandem engines led to the design of

the “I” aircraft—a two-beam configuration dive-bomber with paired pushing

engines. Isayev, who was selected by Bolkhovitinov to head this work along with

Itskovich and Air Force Academy professor Dzyuba, introduced a multitude of

innovations to the design,including the development of the first pilot ejection seat.

I invented many unusual electric drive circuits for the remote control of weapons.

After Isayev and Bereznyak got caught up in work with the rocket-powered interceptor, work on the “I” slowed down; after 22 June it was halted altogether.

Having restored the joint work with the Air Force Academy professoriate that

was disrupted in 1937 by his transfer to Kazan, Bolkhovitinov revived his idea for

a fast, high-altitude, long-range bomber. Provisionally, in place of “B,” he assigned

it the new designation “D.” This design would be a four-engine, high-speed

bomber with two paired engines with tractor and pusher propellers. The crew

would be located in pressurized cockpits.The aircraft was to be controlled using

electric drives.

It was for this aircraft that I worked on an AC electric equipment system;

devised remote control circuits for the control surfaces, flaps, guns, and machine

guns; and hoped to resuscitate the electronic bomb release.

By the summer of 1941, everything to do with the design of the “D” bomber

was still on the drawing board only, except for my work on alternating current.

Generators using permanent magnets, every imaginable type of AC electric drive,

reduction gears, and voltage and frequency stabilizers gradually filled up every bit

173
of free space in my special equipment department, prompting my neighbors 

cramped building to joke and gripe to Bolkhovitinov and myself, “A

resources allocated for the ‘D’ went towards alternating current, there is no

left over for the aircraft itself.”

the latest design of the liquid-propellant rocket engine fighter-intercepto

been approved by Bolkhovitinov and included as “non-essential” in the sch

of operations in April 1941.

Bolkhovitinov allocated a separate room for the small team of develope

this preliminary design, which had been assigned the designation “BI.” Co

Engineer Volkov, the factory’s chief engineer, who like many other “av

wolves” had considered the work of Isayev and Bereznyak to be a ch

escapade, set aside a 25-square-meter room for them.1 There they began to 

on the preliminary design. On the morning of 21 June 1941, I found Isaye

Bereznyak in a heated argument in that “secret” room. I wanted to coordina

proposals for the automatic-startup control unit for the liquid-propellant 

engine that had been developed after discussions with Shtokolov at RNII–N

I also needed to know the latest version of the weaponry in order to desig

electric circuit. Was it four machine guns or two ShVAK guns? Bere

informed me that all the machine guns needed to be thrown out and to desi

two ShVAK guns with ninety rounds each. As far as the liquid-propellant 

engine startup circuit, I could forget everything that I had agreed on 

Shtokolov. Dushkin’s turbopump assembly was in the most deplorable stat

there was virtually no hope of getting it developed in the coming year.

Isayev announced that he would recalculate everything at home that da

the next day,Sunday.On Monday we would start over on a preliminary desig

would not require a turbopump assembly.We then parted company, to meet 

on Monday.

On Saturday evening I left for Udelnaya.Two-year-old Valentin felt mor

at the home of his maternal grandmother in the fresh atmosphere of the pine 

than on the factory grounds where we lived with my parents.

The morning of Sunday, 22 June carried with it the promise of a hot, sunn

Katya and I were about to hike to some nearby ponds for a swim and to 

Valentin his first introduction to cold water. Just before we left, one of our n

bors shouted,“A government announcement is going to be broadcast at noon

lingered.All the inhabitants of the nearby dachas gathered by the black “dish”

broadcast network, the Rekord loudspeaker. Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Mol

short speech split time into two epochs:“before the war” and “during the w

“Our cause is just. . . .The enemy will be defeated. . . .Victory will be 

These words did not carry any specific instructions as to what each citizen w

174

1. “Aviation wolves” refers to older, experienced aviators.
do. It was clear—our peaceful life was over. Now we needed to do something

immediately to fulfill the promise,“Victory will be ours.” On that summer day, we

each had our personal joys, happiness, and sorrows. For all of us, everything

personal was suddenly put off and immediately replaced by a single, common

misfortune and concern: the war.

Unable to comprehend,Valyushka looked at his distraught mama and papa.2

“When are we going to the ponds?”

“What swimming? . . .what ponds?!” I thought. I was convinced that the

Germans would begin bombing Moscow that very night.We decided to dig slit

trenches for shelter. After discussing the engineering required for such defensive

measures, I set out for Khimki. The electric commuter trains were unusually

crowded. Dacha residents and people returning from weekend recreation streamed

into Moscow.

When I finally arrived at the factory,a crowd of familiar faces was already standing at the entrance.The people gathered there were discussing where the authorities were and what needed to be done now. It was clear to each of them that it

no longer made sense to work on the “S” and “I”, much less the “D.”

We waited until evening for the arrival of our patron, Bolkhovitinov.A motorcycle with a popping engine rolled up to the gates. Isayev was driving, and clasping him from behind was the patron himself with his tunic unbuttoned.Without

asking permission,everyone entered his spacious office.Bolkhovitinov then told us

very calmly, in his usual quiet voice, that we needed to revise our plans immediately.The most important work now would be the liquid-propellant rocket engine

interceptor. Beginning tomorrow, everyone who was not called up for the army

would have to adapt to a barracks-like environment. He turned to his deputies—

they needed to arrange for beds in the shops and KB, make sure that food was

provided three times a day, equip reliable bomb shelters, and intensify security.

The following day, Isayev told his close comrades about his Sunday trip to get the

patron. Isayev had labored almost all night over the aircraft’s new layout. He decided

to throw out the turbopump assembly and introduce a mechanism to feed propellant components to the engine using compressed air. He needed to determine the

total amount of compressed air and the number of tanks, find space for them, recalculate the center of mass, replace the tanks with stronger ones, recheck the weight,

and—by morning, when it seemed that everything would work out, he fell asleep.

Molotov’s speech woke him up.When he heard the terrible news, Isayev filled

up the motorcycle parked by his house and hurried off to Bolkhovitinov’s dacha

located on the bank of the Moscow-Volga Canal. When he arrived, he learned

from the household that Viktor Fedorovich had left that morning in his yacht for

the Pestovskoye, Yakhromskoye, or Klyazminskoye Reservoir. He had no radio

receiver in his yacht.What to do? Isayev made himself comfortable on the reser

175

2. Valyushka is a diminutive form of Valentin.
voir banks and continued to improve on the previous night’s design while 

ing the arrival of the patron.

When the suntanned yachtsman finally arrived, Isayev overwhelmed him 

the latest news. He suggested that they ride over to the People’s Commissa

see Commissar Shakhurin and propose that they immediately make ro

powered interceptors. Bolkhovitinov changed his clothes in order to appear b

the People’s Commissar in full uniform, took his place on the back of the m

cycle, and tore off with Isayev to Moscow’s Ulanskiy Lane.

The People’s Commissariat was humming like a swarming beehive. Shak

found five minutes to receive Bolkhovitinov. The People’s Commissar pro

that the preliminary design be completed in a week and then submitted to h

review. It was not until they were on the road from the People’s Commissa

Khimki that Isayev explained to the patron that we needed to start the prelim

design from scratch. If we did without the turbopump assembly, however, it w

be a lighter machine, it would require less fuel, everything would be simple

the amount of time required would be reduced.All we needed from Kostiko

Dushkin was the “bottle.”3

Beginning that Tuesday, everyone who did not live near the factory in K

really did switch over to a barracks-like regime. The preliminary design fo

interceptor was completed in twelve days.According to the design, the aircra

a wingspan of only 6.5 meters and a length of 6.4 meters.The landing gea

fully retractable using a pneumatic drive.The takeoff weight was 1,650 kilog

of which 710 kilograms was nitric acid and kerosene.

Kostikov and Dushkin were not at all enthusiastic about doing away wi

turbopump assembly and switching to a pressurized feed, but ultimately 

agreed. It took two days to compose a letter to the People’s Commissar list

the advantages and the minimum steps required to build the aircraft over a p

of three to four months.A month was set aside for state tests, and a decision o

startup of series production would be made in November.While agreeing o

dates, disputes arose as to whether such an aircraft would be needed in six m

By then the war would be over,“victory would be ours.”

The letter was signed by Bolkhovitinov, Kostikov, Dushkin, Isayev, Berez

and the military representatives of NII-3 and Factory No. 293.

On 9 July the letter was in Shakhurin’s hands. Shakhurin personally rep

the proposal to Stalin, and the following day Bolkhovitinov, Kostikov, Isaye

Bereznyak were summoned to the Kremlin, where they drew up a draft reso

of the recently created State Committee of Defense (GKO). Stalin signed the 

lution a day later. Shakhurin prepared a similar order, which allocated one m

for the construction of the first aircraft for flight testing. This shocked us 

factory.As yet there was not a single drawing in production.

176

3. Here, Chertok is referring to the engine combustion chamber.
At RNII, the experimental engine had still not developed more than 600 kgf

of thrust, while the preliminary design required 1100 kgf.

Bolkhovitinov, passing on the words of Shakhurin, said,“There’s a war on.We

need to have a different attitude toward deadlines.” Shakhurin had nevertheless

added five days in the final version of the order.

It was good that the aircraft had an all-wood design. Construction began without detailed drawings.The primary elements were traced actual size onto plywood.

This was what they called template engineering. Joiners from the nearby furniture

mill worked as though they had been building airplanes all their lives.They just

needed to know what the designer wanted, and had no need whatsoever for drawings. But the steel tanks for the compressed air, the durable welded tanks for the

nitric acid and kerosene, the pressure regulators, pipelines, valves, rudder control,

landing gear, instruments, and basic electrical equipment all required deadlines for

design and fabrication.

The war had flared up in a completely unexpected way.No one spoke any more

about victory before the end of the year. Combat fighters appeared at the Khimki

airfield in late June, and in July it became one of the air defense centers covering

Moscow from the northwest.

On 22 July, I was given twenty-four hours leave to see my family. It was

precisely that evening that German aviation carried out the first large air attack

against Moscow.The air raid alarm caught me in Petrovskiy Park near the Dinamo

metro station. I hurried on foot on Khoroshevskoye Highway and did not take

cover in the metro. Dozens of searchlights crossed their beams on gleaming points.

In the evening sky,hundreds of anti-aircraft projectiles were bursting in flames.The

thunder of cannon fire was all around and the ground was strewn with shrapnel,

but not a single bomb exploded in the vicinity.When I finally arrived in total darkness at my parents’home,the attack was still going on.I found my parents,together

with the factory workers, in the trenches—an open shelter on the shore of a pond.

Unseen anti-aircraft guns continued to thunder, searchlights swept the sky, and

somewhere over Khodynka a glow had flared up; but as I pictured it, the German

bombardment had not been successful. The Moscow air defense service had

managed to ward off the first air attack.

My parents and their neighbors in the shelter were completely overwhelmed by

the thunder of the anti-aircraft guns and the light effects of the first air attack. Not

a single bomb fell in the vicinity, but the first glows in the area of Khodynka and

Fili raised the question, what if these bombs fall on us? Observing the night-time

battle of hundreds of anti-aircraft guns with an invisible enemy, I tried to imagine

what our rocket-powered BI interceptors would be capable of doing under those

conditions. No guidance system and no night-time airfield detection facilities for

landing! Even if they were to give us a reliable engine and we were to “shape up”

the entire aircraft, it would have very little chance of encountering the enemy after

a night takeoff and even less chance of landing intact.We were ahead of the times

with our rocket-powered aircraft.

177
On 1 September, five days late according to the deadline set by Shakh

order, the first BI was sent to LII to begin flight tests. Strictly speaking, it w

an airplane but a glider. It did not have an engine. Kostikov and Dushkin ha

risked sending us the unmodified and frequently exploding assembly.

Test pilot Boris Kudrin was assigned to perform the testing of the BI 

aircraft. He had previously tested the paired engine aircraft, and had been th

pilot for Bolkhovitinov’s team. The tests began with takeoff runs on the a

behind a towing aircraft.

during these first days of september, the entire factory work force, e

for individuals who were directly involved with the beginning of flight test

mobilized to build anti-tank trenches near the village of Chernaya Gryaz alon

Leningrad Highway. On both sides of our area, as far as the eyes could see, 

sands of women and teenagers were digging the earth.The few men who had 

granted a deferment from mobilization felt awkward.We worked there from 

up to sun down with two short breaks for food. During this time, the factory 

organization reported the latest news about the battle in Smolensk. Th

successes of the Red Army, which had liberated Yelnya on 6 September, gav

to an explosion of enthusiasm.Why put up fortifications around Moscow 

enemy has already been stopped? We believed that the fascists would no

driven to the west. But our joy was short-lived.

Having returned to the factory from the earthworks, I found out wha

happened at the LII airfield. Our team, which had prepared the aircraft, did no

it in the hangar after arriving that morning. It turned out that the day b

Deputy People’s Commissar for Experimental Aircraft Construction Alek

Sergeyevich Yakovlev had come. Behind his back the other chief designers 

him ASYa.4When he had seen Bolkhovitinov’s airplane, he expressed interest 

results of the wind tunnel tests. It turned out that the aircraft had not been 

TsAGI “tube.”Yakovlev arranged for the single existing glider to be towed i

diately to TsAGI for testing in the new wind tunnel. Fortunately, it was lo

quite near the airfield.

Bereznyak and Isayev were indignant, having seen in the incident A

anti-Bolkhovitinov intrigues. For the sake of fairness, it must be said 

Yakovlev’s order proved to be beneficial.The wind tunnel tests were cond

under the direction of twenty-five-year-old lead engineer Byushgens.Th

his first association with rocket technology. Forty-five years later Academ

Georgiy Sergeyevich Byushgens, Hero of Socialist Labor, recipient of the 

Prize, Professor N.E. Zhukovskiy Prize laureate, and holder of many o

presented his findings on the gas-dynamics and aerodynamics of the 

orbital shuttle.

178

4. ‘ASYa’ is a play on the feminine name Asya, a diminutive form of both Anastasiya and Aleksandr
On 15 November 1988, in a purely automatic unmanned mode, Buran was

inserted into space by the Energiya rocket. Controlled by its onboard rocket

engines, it made two orbits around the Earth. After 206 minutes of flight time,

having splendidly executed all the difficult aspects of controlled descent into the

atmosphere, it appeared precisely over the landing strip, touched down, and did a

landing run of 1,620 meters with a lateral wind of 17 meters/second; the measurement deviated from the theoretical design point by only 3 meters laterally and

10 meters longitudinally!

Fourteen years after this flight, which brilliantly proved the enormous potential

capabilities of the systemic combination of rocket, aircraft, and radio electronic

technology, Academician Byushgens said in an interview for the newspaper

Izvestiya, “The path to (flight) safety is through the complete automation of the

flight during all phases— from movement along the takeoff strip and ascent to

landing. The human being is needed only for monitoring purposes. The Buran

spacecraft flew unmanned around the Earth and touched down precisely at the

beginning of the strip, which was only 30 meters wide.”

The BI wind tunnel tests showed insufficient directional stability. In flight, the

aircraft could yaw off its heading. In spite of Isayev and Bereznyak’s impatience,

Bolkhovitinov gave instructions to build up the rudder along the trailing edge, put

two circular plates on the horizontal fin, and enlarge the skid fairing. In historical

photographs taken in 1942,one can clearly see the two vertical plates that appeared

after the wind tunnel tests. Finally, Kudrin took off in the glider, without engine

or guns,and towed by a Pe-2 bomber.At an altitude of 3,000 meters Kudrin disengaged and switched over to glider mode. He was an experienced glider pilot.

Engineless flight was not a novelty to him.

In all, fifteen BI glider test flights were executed with the assistance of a

towing aircraft. Kudrin and other pilots who flew the glider confirmed that the

interceptor could return to its own or another nearby airfield in glider mode

after its rocket engine was shut down at an altitude of 3,000–5,000 meters, as

had been conceived. The flight tests coincided with a certain calmness on the

central front. Muscovites had become accustomed to air raid sirens and obediently descended into the metro, the nearest bomb shelter, or trenches that had

been dug in vacant lots.

In late September, having visited my parents, I learned that my older cousin

Misha—who had volunteered to serve at the front, leaving the office of People’s

Commissar I. F.Tevosyan—had been wounded in the battle of Smolensk and was

in the hospital. He had sent a letter, full of optimism and faith in our victory, but

had also predicted that our next big war would be with China. I did not have the

occasion to debate with him. A month later he returned to the front and died

near Vyazma.

My parents took the news of Misha’s death very hard. Before the conclusion of

the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” which allowed the Germans to begin World War

II by invading Poland, my mother from time to time received news from her older

179
sister Fruma Borisovna and nephew Solomon who lived in Lódz.5 “All of ou

tives in Poland will be wiped out by the Germans,” she predicted.“Misha i

the first of our relatives who has died at the front.You have worked all thi

on airplanes, but where are they? Why is Moscow being bombed and not Be

How could I answer her? Could I say that we were making a miracle—a 

plane that would at least save Moscow? But I did not have enough confiden

A new German offensive against Moscow began on 30 September.Holdin

breath each morning, we listened attentively to the reports from the 

Information Bureau (Sovinformbyuro). An awful chill ran up my spine when 

mentioned such nearby cities as Kaluga, Gzhatsk, Medyn, Mozhaysk

Volokolamsk.We gathered around maps and interpreted the Sovinformbyuro r

our own way. Each day it became more clear that Moscow was under a 

frontal assault by the Germans, who were going around it from the north an

south. The Moscow-Volga Canal formed a water boundary covering the c

180

From the author’s 

Participants in the development of the first BI rocket-propelled aircraft. Shown sitting (left to 

S. G. Chizhikov, V. A. Shtokolov, L. S Dushkin, K. D. Bushuyev, G. G. Goloventsova, B. Ye. Ch

A. A. Tolstov. Shown standing: Z. M. Gvozdev, I. I. Raykov. A model of the BI rocket-plane can 

seen in front of them. Among the men, Bushuyev and Chertok would go on to be extremely in

tial designers in the Soviet space program.

5. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 23 August 1939 was negotiated by German Min

Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop and USSR People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Vy

Mikhaylovich Molotov. Among other things, the Pact laid the blueprint for the Soviet occupation o

Lithuania, and Estonia.
from the northwest. In the event of a swift breach by the Nazi tank armies, we in

Khimki—along with our factory and all the work that had been done on the BI

aircraft—would find ourselves on the “German side.”

Increasingly alarming information was coming to us from Moscow about the

evacuation of one military factory after another.After one of these routine distressing reports Isayev had a confidential conversation with me. He proposed that we

create a guerrilla detachment. Isayev spoke with great enthusiasm, as if he were

proposing that we take part in a recreational hike.This conversation took place on

the eve of the Nazis’ breach of the Mozhaysk and Volokolamsk lines.

On 15 October, the State Committee of Defense ordered the emergency evacuation of all central Party and State institutions from Moscow.The next day, 16

October, was the beginning of the mass evacuation that went down in the unofficial history of the war as “the Moscow panic.” On that day, the People’s

Commissariats, the leaders of all central institutions, and all factory directors

received a very strict order to evacuate east by any means available to new relocation sites for their institutions and enterprises.

Not having warned any of their subordinates, Bolkhovitinov and chief engineer Volkov disappeared on 16 October. Later we found out that they had not

been cowards, but had been following an order by Shakhurin, who had

summoned the directors and chief designers to the People’s Commissariat and

then ordered them to immediately leave Moscow without returning to their

respective workplaces. Bolkhovitinov and Volkov had traveled to the population

center specified by Shakhurin: Bilimbay, which was 60 kilometers west of

Sverdlovsk in the Urals. Like the other directors, they would have to make

arrangements with local authorities to begin receiving the evacuated enterprises

so that operations could immediately be continued.

The next day the Moscow panic had reached Khimki, but we had not yet

received an official order to evacuate the factory.

Blow up and destroy everything and join the guerrillas—that was my frame of

mind as I set off on 17 October for Moscow, hoping that my wife Katya, who had

been in Udelnaya, had come to the Golubkina Museum to stay with her cousin

Vera, the museum director.Actually, having heard about the panic, Katya had tied

all her things into a bundle, grabbed our son, and rushed to the station. One by

one, overcrowded trains left Moscow and rushed on with no stops. They even

coupled metro cars into the trains. But not one was traveling to Moscow! Finally,

some overcrowded train headed for Moscow stopped in Udelnaya.

With the help of her mother and sister, Katya and Valentin squeezed into the

jam-packed railroad car. Somehow Katya, carrying her enormous bundle and

two-year-old son, managed to make her way from the train station to Bolshoy

Levshinskiy Lane. That is where I found them. But Polya Zvereva was there

before me. She was the former wife of Sergey Gorbunov. Several years after his

death, she had married a well-known test pilot who had worked at LII. On the

day of panic, she had remembered her fellow Zaraysk natives, had come to the

181
Golubkin family, and proposed that they evacuate on the LII and TsAGI s

trains to Novosibirsk. Meanwhile,Vera announced that she would not aba

the museum; she was not ready for evacuation. Let Katya and her son take a

tage of this opportunity.

I agreed with this proposal. In secret I told Katya that Isayev and I were 

ing the guerrillas and asked her to quickly trim my long lightweight overc

that it would be easier for me to maneuver. For some reason she did not 

my request.

Once I had returned to Khimki, I felt the need to inform the Party org

about Isayev’s guerrilla initiative and receive his approval to sign up with a v

teer detachment. Instead of support, I was promised a very severe Party repri

for this unauthorized initiative. But, nevertheless, they took into consideratio

“sincere patriotic impulse” and I received the assignment of convincing non

member Isayev to put any guerrilla thoughts out of his head.They had just 

informed that we were getting a special train for evacuation.We were oblige

to burn or blow up anything, but to carefully dismantle and pack all va

equipment, property, and documentation.All personnel and their families w

leave in the next few days for the village of Bilimbay in the Urals and contin

work there.

All those who had families in Moscow were ordered to quickly bring th

Khimki in preparation for evacuation. Instead of fleeing to the east, we 

supposed to quickly bring our relatives toward the advancing Germans. By 

miracle, I managed to intercept Katya and Valentin on the platform o

Kazanskiy train station. They were waiting for the special train to take th

Novosibirsk. Fortunately, the delivery of the railroad cars had been delaye

returned once again to the Golubkina Museum. My parents had also come 

They had had to make their way there on a cart.“The closer to the front, the 

orderly it is,” I reassured them.

On the road to Khimki, we heard through a loudspeaker the appeal of C

Committee and Moscow Party Committee Secretary Shcherbakov to the ca

residents,“We will fight for Moscow tenaciously and bitterly until the last d

blood.”6 Home guards armed with rifles moved along Leningrad Highway t

the front. There were no tanks or artillery in those columns. A train ca

wounded moved through the Khimki station, headed for Moscow. Woul

fortifications that we had dug stop the Germans? And what if they didn’t? 

the anti-tank hedgehogs on all of the roads leading into Moscow capable of 

ing off an avalanche of Nazi German troops? 

After our “guerrilla plot” was uncovered, Isayev announced to the Party o

izer that he would “blow his brains out” if, due to his stupidity, we ended up 

clutches of the Germans with no weapons.

182

6. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Shcherbakov (1901-45) was a candidate member of the Politburo in 194
Day and night we took down machine tools and lubricated, covered, and

packed everything that we could into cases.We marked, inventoried, and loaded

them. My comrades and I managed, in spite of the protests of the special train staff,

to pack and load all of our AC machine models.The heated goods wagons were

equipped with plank beds, iron stoves, and firewood.

Mama tried to abandon us all and run away to work at any hospital to care for

the wounded. Father restrained her.

I managed to get my family to Khimki in time. On 20 October, Moscow and

the areas adjacent entered a state of siege.Traffic on the streets was placed under

strict control. A State Committee of Defense resolution stated: “Violators of the

order shall immediately be called to account before a military tribunal, and agents

provocateurs, spies, and other enemy agents calling for the violation of the order

shall be shot on the spot.”

We coupled an “air-defense flatcar” into our train. On it we mounted the same

aircraft machine guns and guns that Isayev wanted to use for the guerrilla war. My

family was in the heated goods wagon, together with the Mishin, Chizhikov, and

Buzukov families.During the trip everyone was provided with white bread,butter,

and groats. In “our” wagon, having pooled all the stores, we were convinced that

we would not go hungry in the next two weeks.

Our special train was one of the last to evacuate the factories of the Moscow

suburbs. On 25 October, the special train left Khimki and slowly chugged across

the Moscow-Volga Canal bridge.The forward German units were located that day

on the Kalinin-Yakhroma-Klin line and were approaching Tula and Kashira.

Before our departure, I had conversations with the pilots from our combat airfield

who had a better view from above. I got the impression that the Germans were

played out and that the offensive was on the verge of being halted.

We moved eastward very slowly, always yielding the way to trains heading the

other direction. Special trains carrying Red Army soldiers, well outfitted in lightcolored knee-length sheepskin coats, were moving westward. “Where are you

from?” we asked them at stations where we were getting boiling water.“Siberian

troops!” the soldiers cheerfully responded. These were real warriors, unlike the

Muscovite home guards.

The stations were full of factory personnel being evacuated to the east. Families were traveling with the bare necessities, while also carrying all the machine

tools and supplies from the factories.We encountered many acquaintances on that

trip. It seemed that all of Moscow would move to the east to colonize the Urals,

Siberia, and Central Asia.

Streaming toward us heading west were flatcars filled with tanks and guns of

various calibers.They gladdened us and gave us hope. Our special train made its

way east during those rare windows of opportunity that opened in the stream of

weapons and troops rushing westward on a green light to Moscow.

We did not make it to Kazan until 1 November. Here we finally heard the latest

news about the course of the battle for Moscow.“It seems that the offensive against

183
Moscow has stopped,” we told each other hopefully. Indeed, in the last d

October the Soviet troops’ defense along the Western front had stabilized.

We arrived in Bilimbay on the morning of 7 November.A temperature of –

greeted us. In spite of the holiday—the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Oc

Revolution—an all-hands rush job was announced to unload the special trai

local authority temporarily housed all the new arrivals in “God’s Temple

church), right on the cold stone floor.While the women made arrangemen

their children in the church and set up household, all the men began to ha

equipment to the iron foundry that had been placed at our disposal.Accord

the testimony of local residents, the factory had been built during the ti

Catherine the Great.The work force of the Kamov-Mil helicopter design b

and the Privalov assembly factory, which manufactured equipment for air

troops, had arrived here several days before us.

“Ancient technology from the times of Peter the Great,” said Volkov, wh

already had a look around when we saw him. Fulfilling Shakhurin’s order, h

Bolkhovitinov had left from Moscow in an “MK, ” wearing the same su

uniforms they had arrived in.The journey by automobile over Russian ro

that time had lasted fifteen days.They had still managed to reach the site b

the special train arrived, and had fought off others contending for the bulk 

space at the factory as well as prepared the church for people to settle there b

they would be resettled in the wooden cottages of the local residents.

My mother got to work immediately. On the very first day, she found the 

hospital and was taken on right then as the head nurse. From the hospit

brought improbable news about a military parade in Red Square on 7 Nove

Having wound up on a team of “riggers” from our department, my com

and I had the opportunity to see our future worksite while transferring the 

and machine tools.The factory had ceased to operate long before the war. 

with the severe cold, the factory grounds sprinkled with the first snow m

depressing impression. The windows were knocked out and the frames b

open.We saw neither gates nor doors.The cupola furnaces and even some 

casting structures were crammed with “salamanders.” In the courtyard and 

the hole-riddled roof were heaps of slag, petrified in the frost, and tons of 

metal of all sorts. Bolkhovitinov had found a builder somewhere, and the tw

worked in a small office to draw up something like a remodeling design b

time we arrived. We were faced with converting this foundry graveyard in

aircraft factory.

Bilimbay was a large village which had developed at one time near the fo

on the bank of the rapid Chusovaya River.We needed to retrain the former m

lurgists into aircraft builders. But only women and old folks remained in Bili

behind the tightly closed, desolate gates of their homes.All the young people 

in the army.

On one of the first days of the off-loading operations, Bereznyak sud

appeared. But what a sight! His natty, lightweight overcoat and felt hat 

184
covered with spots and his ears were bandaged. It turned out that on 16 October,

he had received a critical assignment from Bolkhovitinov: he and a small group

were to immediately travel out to the village of Bilimbay as our advance guard.

First they rode on an open flatcar and got drenched in the rain.Beyond Kazan they

were stricken by cold. Bereznyak’s team, dressed in light clothing next to German

tanks, were taken for prisoners of war.After many days of tribulation, they finally

made it to Bilimbay, but it was already too late to fulfill the critical assignment.

We began with clearing and improving the grounds.We broke up into teams of

loaders, riggers, carpenters, and glaziers. First of all we cleaned up the first floor for

the installation of the machine tools.The second floor was set aside for the assembly shops,design bureau,and laboratories.We worked an average of twelve to fourteen hours each day. Our greatest enemy was the cold. By early December, the

temperature had plummeted to -40°C. In such bitter cold one had to wear

mittens, and it was impossible to do any work other than by using a crowbar and

sledgehammer. By December the main dirty work had been completed.

Our Party secretary, Neyman, returned from a visit to the local Party regional

committee, panting with excitement, and reported the latest news about our

troops going on the offensive near Moscow.All of us in the depths of our souls had

dreamed of such a miracle. Now that it had happened, the joy increased our

strength and made us throw ourselves into our marathon project.

I was tasked with designing and assembling the factory’s electrical equipment

and lighting. Semyon Chizhikov headed the team of glaziers.The electricians and

glaziers could not work in mittens. Every twenty minutes we ran to the scorching

hot stoves, warmed our numbed fingers, and quickly returned to our work site.

Isayev headed one of the most physically grueling jobs, clearing the area for

construction and delivering the machine tools to their installation site.Once,when

we met up for our routine hand-warming by a makeshift stove, I did not miss the

opportunity to comment,“Moscow got by without our guerrilla detachment.”

“Yes, you’re right! It seems Moscow was saved from the German tanks. Now

we must save it from being destroyed by German bombers.”

He pulled on his nicely warmed mittens, lifted the heavy crowbar, and

commanded his team:“You’ve warmed yourselves by the fire. Let’s go.We’ll warm

ourselves building our assembly shop.”The team amicably threw themselves at the

next heap of old metallurgical slag.

In December, our stores of provisions were used up. The primary source for

sustaining essential activity was 600 grams of bread per person and hot bilimbaikha.

Bilimbaikha was what we called brown noodles cooked in boiling water without

any fat. A plate for our first course, a plate for our second course—we dined on

this in a barracks structure that we called the “Great Urals Restaurant.” Alcohol

was a help. It was distributed in small doses among the workers.We saved it and

would from time to time exchange it with the locals for milk or meat.

They soon managed to set up something akin to a kindergarten at the local

school, giving the majority of the women the opportunity to work. Katya was

185
included in a team that set up a “test station.”This fancy name was given 

primitive stand they set up on the bank of an artificial lake formed by a fa

dam on a Chusovaya tributary.The stand was a contraption welded from iron 

and enclosed by plywood in which the wingless aircraft fuselage, includin

pilot’s cockpit, would be placed. The primary contents of the fuselage we

tanks of nitric acid, kerosene, and compressed air.The tail of the fuselage co

ing the engine was pointed toward the lake.The idea was that in the event of 

ble during the firing tests, everything tainted with nitric acid would fall in

water.The water was covered with a thick layer of ice. For secrecy, the stan

screened from curious onlookers by a tall fence.They started by performed 

tests rather than firing tests. The snow cover around the bench took on a 

brown tint.

Nitric acid fumes saturated the clothing of those who had worked at the 

When Katya returned from work,her hole-riddled quilted jacket also filled the 

of our cottage with that noble scent. My parents had taken up residence elsew

The local residents did not take in more than two to three evacuees per hous

During the very difficult last months of 1941, news about the crushing 

of the Germans near Moscow was moral support. In the depths of our souls

of us who had deserted Moscow during her most tragic days believed and w

Now people started to ask,“Did we need to evacuate Moscow?”

Only when we returned to Moscow did we understand how likely it had 

that the Khimki region would be captured.At the end of November, the fig

had already proceeded east of Kryukov and the Yakhromskoye Reservoir, w

our patron had been sailing his yacht on the first day of the war. Only a 

twenty-minute drive had separated the German tanks from Khimki.

But the miracle in which we so firmly believed came to pass.

186
Chapter 12

In the Urals

By New Year’s we had restored the boiler house and heating system, and heat was

flowing into all the workrooms.As a top priority, my team had finished the electrical equipment and run the lighting.The machine tools were humming on the

first floor. On the second floor, the designers could work at their drawing boards

free of quilted jackets and mittens. In the assembly shop they began fabricating

three aircraft simultaneously in molding lofts.

I formed three groups from our small staff of personnel. Anatoliy Buzukov

made the aircraft’s general circuit diagram; Semyon Chizhikov designed and fabricated the pilot’s instrument panel; Larisa Pervova converted the aircraft engine

spark plugs into glow plugs for the ignition of the liquid-propellant rocket engine.

The engineers not only designed and drew, but made what they had devised with

their own hands.

Having been relieved of my worries about industrial electrical equipment, I was

sent off “from Europe to Asia” on a temporary assignment.That’s how we referred

to my sixty-kilometer trip across the Ural Mountain Range. On the road to

Sverdlovsk we crossed the boundary between the two continents, which was

marked by a stone obelisk. Many scientific organizations had been evacuated from

Moscow and Leningrad to Sverdlovsk. I tried to restore contact with the radio

engineering organizations, but I achieved no concrete results.

With great chagrin, Bolkhovitinov reported that our factory test pilot, Boris

Kudrin, was in the hospital.The Air Force NII Command, which was located at

the Koltsovo Airfield near Sverdlovsk, had attached a new test pilot to us—Captain

Grigoriy Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi.The pilot was soon introduced to us, and

we all liked him immediately.

Each of the team leaders was tasked with personally familiarizing the pilot in

detail about the aircraft’s construction. Bereznyak and Isayev began first. It took

them two whole days.Once he was free of them,Bakhchi,as Bereznyak christened

him, landed with me. He did not doubt the reliability of our aircraft and showed

an extremely respectful attitude toward us designers. My comrades and I did not

sense in him any of the arrogance characteristic of many test pilots.

At Bakhchi’s request, Chizhikov switched two instruments on the instrument

panel, and Buzukov moved an instrument panel light to a different location.

187
Working together on the control stick, we selected and added the firing c

actuator buttons, the toggle switches activating the engine start valves, an

ignition button.

Bakhchi astounded us by several times by flying in from Koltsovo in a 

sport airplane, landing on the snow-covered ice of the lake, and taxiing right 

the test stand. In his black leather raglan coat, flight helmet, and chrome l

boots sunken into the snow, he seemed like an emissary from a distant world

the warm airfields around Moscow. During my first days in his company, 

amazed by Bakhchi’s confidence in our work. He seemed to be convincing u

we were creating the airplane of the future, instead of us convincing him.

Concentrated nitric acid came into contact with and mercilessly des

cables, parts of the electrical equipment, and the wooden structure of the ai

When the tanks were being filled for the bench tests, its reddish-brown 

burned our lungs.Acid leaks occurred at the joints of the pipelines, in the v

and at the engine inlet.Achieving reliable seals remained one of the most di

problems in rocket technology for decades. But for Bakhchi back in 19

seemed that the suffocating scent of nitric acid fumes was more pleasant th

de cologne.

Bakhchivandzhi was still young. He had served at the Air Force NII since 

They entrusted him with the high-altitude testing of aircraft. During the firs

of the war,many Air Force NII test pilots became combat pilots.Bakhchi too

in air battles in a fighter squadron during the first months and shot dow

enemy aircraft. After the losses of uniquely qualified Air Force NII test 

became great, the Air Force Command changed its mind. In August 1941

began to call back the surviving test pilots from the front. The testing o

aircraft technology—both domestic and some that was beginning to arrive 

the allies—continued near Sverdlovsk, where the Air Force NII had been e

ated from the suburban Moscow area of Shchelkovo. Before we met him, Ba

had already flown in an American Cobra. He was touched by the BI’s simp

when compared to the complex, heavy Cobra. It was interesting to hear Bak

unconventional musings about airplanes.We were won over by his intellect, 

simplicity, total lack of pretentiousness, and continuous internal visualizati

flight situations. For him, test flights were not work but a way of life. Here 

pilot “by the grace of God.”

While discussing routine BI control problems and the flight test pro

Bakhchi contributed interesting ideas enriched by his combat experience.Th

of radio communications for air battle control was, in his words, one of the 

est points in our fighter aviation.

At the end of January, the stand by the frozen lake was put into operatio

began to deafen the neighborhood with the characteristic roar of the l

propellant rocket engine.The engine creators sent Arvid Vladimirovich Pa

temporary duty from Sverdlovsk to work at the stand in Bilimbay. I onl

Kostikov, Pobedonostsev, and Dushkin in Bilimbay one time. Bolkhovitino

188
Bereznyak, who had visited RNII in Sverdlovsk, were told that new assignments

had come up and that improvement of the Katyusha had become their main priority.The interceptor’s engine and the propulsion system required joint optimization

during the testing and operational development process before a decision could be

made as to its clearance for flight.

The firing test, conducted on the lake on 20 February 1942, almost deprived us

of our test pilot on his birthday. According to the test program, Bakhchivandzhi

himself was to have started up and shut down the stand-mounted engine while

sitting in a makeshift pilot’s seat.During Bakhchi’s first combat training test session,

conducted under Pallo’s direction, the engine exploded. The nozzle went flying

out over the frozen lake.The combustion chamber struck against the tanks, and

nitric acid gushed from the ruptured pressurized pipelines. Bakhchi received a

violent blow to the head—his leather jacket was covered with reddish-brown

spots. Pallo’s glasses saved his eyes, but the acid burned his face. Both were immediately taken to the hospital. Bakhchi recovered quickly.Traces of the severe burn

remained on Arvid Pallo’s face for the rest of his life.

during the very difficult winter months of 1942, an attempt was made

to begin work on yet another exotic rocket aircraft design.The engine design for

this aircraft was fundamentally different than the liquid-propellant rocket engine.

Neither hunger nor cold could halt the initiatives springing up among the

collective, even when we went out to cut timber. In the profoundly intense cold

of January 1942, when the temperature dropped to –50°C, the most difficult problem was supplying wood.The local residents could not keep the evacuees living

among them warm.The procurement of wood became as much of a compulsory

activity as our primary work. Our workrooms, which had literally risen up out of

the factory’s ashes in three months,had heat.Childless bachelors preferred to spend

the night at their work sites.At night, the design hall was converted into a spacious

common bedroom.

We suddenly became severely overcrowded. After assembling the senior staff,

Bolkhovitinov announced to us that the People’s Commissar had decided to

include the workforce of Arkhip Mikhaylovich Lyulka, director of Special

Design Bureau 1 (SKB-1) attached to the S. M. Kirov Factory in Leningrad.The

subject matter that Lyulka was involved with was similar to our new field

of rocketry.

As early as 1935, Lyulka had developed the design for a turbojet engine

(TRD).1 “This is an alternative to the direction we are taking in the development of rocket aircraft,” Bolkhovitinov told us,“We need to be very considerate to these new people who have evacuated from besieged Leningrad with

189

1. TRD—Turboreaktivniy Dvigatel (Turbo-Reactive Engine). In this particular sense, the phrase is more

appropriately translated into English as ‘turbojet’ rather than ‘turbo-reactive.’
great difficulty. Not only did they manage to get their people out, but the

saved the work they had done on an experimental engine with a thr

500 kilograms.”

Lyulka theoretically designed a gas-turbine engine (GTD) in 1938 a

Kharkov Aviation Institute.The first RD-1 engine was developed in Lening

the Kirov Factory’s SKB-1,which Lyulka directed.Bench tests were to have b

in 1941,but the war and subsequent blockade of Leningrad had dashed their 

Long before the war, Bolkhovitinov was interested in work being done on 

ous designs of air-breathing jets (VRD).2 He understood that the engine pro

unit of piston engines fundamentally limited flight speed and altitude. As so

the opportunity presented itself, Bolkhovitinov had turned to Shakhurin wi

request to evacuate Lyulka from Leningrad. Shakhurin arranged this wit

Leningrad authorities and Lyulka and his surviving personnel were saved.

In Bilimbay we led a semi-starved existence. However, we heard from Ly

rescued Leningraders what real hunger was.They ate the brown bilimbaikha 

to the last drop of the broth that we found barely edible.They did not drop a 

crumb of bread.

Lyulka’s workforce included several automatic control specialists. Bolkhov

suggested transferring them to me.Lyulka agreed under the condition that I w

develop equipment to regulate and control the turbojet engine. I spent thre

learning the principles of the turbojet engine. Lyulka personally explained 

the difference between the two classes of reactive engines—liquid-prop

rocket engines and turbojet engines. He did not disparage liquid-propellant 

engines, which had to carry their own fuel and oxidizer. But with gentle h

alternating Russian speech with melodious Ukrainian, of which he had a b

ful command,Arkhip Lyulka proved that everything had its place while tellin

about the turbojet engine.

The air-breathing turbojet engine uses the oxygen of the air that enters th

the aircraft’s air intake from the atmosphere.The air is compressed by a com

sor and then passes through combustion chambers where gasoline, or bett

kerosene, is injected. The gas formed during combustion passes throug

turbine, turning the compressor, and is ejected through the nozzle.This is n

dazzling bright flame of the liquid-propellant rocket engine, but hot gas th

already been depleted in the turbine and which is almost invisible in the day

Once I had become familiar with the principles of turbojet engines an

ideas for regulating them, I came to the conclusion that the immediate pro

related to the automatic regulation of the turbojet engine needed to be 

without any electrical devices, at least for the time being. I thought that we s

instead use the capabilities of purely mechanical and pneumohydraulic auto

190

2. VRD—Vozdushno-reaktivniy dvigatel (Air-Reactive Engine). In Western technical vernacular, the

of engines are known as ‘air-breathing jet engines’ or simply ‘jet engines.’
mechanisms. Lyulka did not agree, and the debate was carried over to

Bolkhovitinov. Ultimately, I was relieved of the work on the regulation of turbojet engines, and Lyulka’s engineers worked on this independently.

Lyulka spent eighteen months in Bilimbay, before transferring to Moscow in

1943. He soon thereafter received his own production base beside the Yauza River.

The opening of new factories was a rare occurrence during the war. During the

first postwar years, our engine-building industry reproduced captured German

JUMO-004 and BMW-003 engines for the first Soviet jet aircraft. By 1948,

Lyulka’s work force was building domestic turbojet engines that were more

powerful than the captured engines.3

One of the paradoxes of the history of technology is that liquid-propellant

rocket engines using special oxidizers were developed and broadly applied much

earlier than reactive (now referred to as jet) engines using a “free” oxidizer—the

oxygen of the Earth’s atmosphere.

during that difficult year of 1942, our collective’s priority was to produce

a reliable engine system for the BI aircraft. Lyulka’s engines seemed to be for the

distant future, while the exploding liquid-propellant rocket engine was in the here

and now.

Bolkhovitinov and Isayev had flown to Kazan for several days. Our patron had,

with difficulty, obtained permission to visit the NKVD’s special prison attached to

Factory No. 16 in Kazan.There they met with Valentin Petrovich Glushko. Upon

their return, Isayev enthusiastically told us about their meeting. He said that their

two days with the imprisoned Glushko and his associates had taught them more

about the liquid-propellant rocket engine than the entire preceding period of dealing with the RNII.

“These zeki live better than we do,” Isayev told us.“They have benches, laboratories, and production facilities that we wouldn’t even dream about. They are

under guard, so they weren’t able to talk openly about their life. On the other

hand, they are fed better than we are, who are free.The most important thing is

that their engines work much more reliably.”

This first encounter with Glushko in Kazan in the winter of 1942 determined

Isayev’s subsequent fate.To the end of his days,he remained true to the decision made

at that time regarding the development of reliable liquid-propellant rocket engines.

Upon his return from evacuation, Isayev set up a special engine-design bureau.

A postwar temporary assignment to Germany profoundly influenced Isayev’s engineering career. He became a leader in the design of liquid-propellant rocket

engines for air defense, missile defense, submarines, spacecraft, and many other

applications.The collective that he founded inherited Isayev’s marvelous enthusi

191

3. Lyulka served as Chief (and later General) Designer of OKB-165 (or KB Saturn) from 1946-84. During

that time, he oversaw the development of many generations of Soviet jet engines for civil and military aviation.
asm.The notion of a school of rocket engine construction is indelibly linked 

his name.

the winter of 1941–42 in bilimbay was the most severe of all the prew

wartime winters. First there was the strenuous physical labor to build the fa

in temperatures of –50°C (-58°F).Then there was the construction of the air

and the operational development and firing tests on the engines. All of this 

place under conditions of food rationing that put us on the edge of surviva

amazing that under such arduous conditions no one complained of illnesse

were normal for peacetime.

But illnesses inherent to wars did occur. Somewhere near Sverdlovsk, 

troop units had formed,and an epidemic of typhus erupted.Mama volunteer

the team that went out to fight the epidemic. She could not protect herse

ten days later they brought her back to Bilimbay with a fever of over 

(104°F). By the time I ran over to the hospital she no longer recognized me 

father.The female physician who was attending her told us that more tha

typhus patient lying in the cold barracks owed their life to my mother. But sh

completely disregarded her own safety. When she realized that she had 

infected, she requested that she be taken quickly to Bilimbay so that she cou

goodbye to her husband and son.“But we didn’t make it in time,”the doctor 

“If only we’d had just a couple more hours.”

Mama died on 27 March 1942. At her funeral, the head physician sai

medical personnel were performing feats not only on the front but also in th

“The selfless labor of Sofiya Borisovna is a living example of that.” Her deat

a terrible blow to my father and me.

A week after my mother’s funeral, my father and I found out about 

painful losses among our relatives. In Sverdlovsk we found our cousin M

Altshuler, whom our family called Nasik. He was a railroad engineer who w

age. Nasik and his wife, both only half alive, had managed to get out of Leni

by traveling over the ice of Lake Ladoga. He told us how his father, a math

ics professor, his mother, my father’s sister, and his younger brother, my nam

had died of hunger in Leningrad.

192
Chapter 13

15 May 1942

In April, we sensed that spring might even be coming to the Urals.We sent our

first aircraft on two trucks to the Air Force NII air base in Koltsovo.They assembled it and placed it in the hangar, enclosed it behind a tarpaulin, and posted a

sentry. Only those involved in its flight preparation passed behind the tarpaulin.

Even before our evacuation, Bolkhovitinov had appointed the calm, very business-like Aleksey Yakovlevich Roslyakov to be the lead engineer from our factory

supervising the preparation of the BI flight tests. Mikhail Ivanovich Tarakanovskiy

was appointed lead engineer from the Air Force NII. He already had a wealth of

experience as an aircraft engineer and tester.

When the tests started, all those involved moved into the Air Force NII dormitory in Koltsovo. They began hauling the aircraft behind a truck by towrope

around the airfield for a “shaking” test. One of the landing gear struts broke.They

repaired it. They performed a filling test and found an acid leak in a valve.

They drained off the acid and repaired the valve.There were a few minor negative remarks.

On 25 April 1942, an order was issued to create a State Testing Commission.

Air Force Academy professor General Vladimir Sergeyevich Pyshnov was appointed

chairman of the commission.The State Commission approved the program, which

called for testing to begin with takeoff runs over the airfield and liftoffs to an altitude of 1–2 meters.

On 30 April, Bakhchi performed the engine’s first fire tests at the airfield.This

was a sensation for the military pilots who had not understood why such a large

number of engineers and high-ranking military officials were bustling about such

a tiny little bird of a glider.

On 2 May, Bakhchi executed the first takeoff run of the BI with a working

engine rather than being towed behind a truck. By this time it was evening.

Darkness had fallen, and the bright shaft of fire and the roar exploding from the

tail of the tiny aircraft made an extraordinary impression. During the takeoff run,

Bakhchi made sure that the tail would lift up when the speed was increased, then

revved the engine—the aircraft became airborne. It flew at an altitude of 1 meter

for around 50 meters and landed smoothly. During inspection, a steaming gush

of acid was found. Once again repair was required. Bakhchi climbed out of the

193
cockpit after the liftoff flight, then announced, “The airplane can be c

for flight.”

After the takeoff runs and liftoffs there were repairs, adjustments, and rep

leak checks.They tuned the altitude recorder, air speed recorder, acceleration 

recorder, and control position recorder, then weighed and balanced the airc

The first flight was scheduled for 12 May.They were aiming for good vis

throughout the flight from takeoff to landing. But we had no luck wit

weather—it rained.

The aircraft had no radio equipment, not to mention the fact that “black b

did not yet exist. Nor was there a single radar at the airfield.We relied comp

on visual control from the ground, a post-landing report from the pilot, an

processing of the recordings made by the delicate recorders installed o

aircraft—if, God willing, they remained intact.

State Commission Chairman Pyshnov conducted a session during which 

reviewed the bench test results, the reports on the takeoff runs and liftoffs, an

remarks of lead engineers Roslyakov and Tarakanovskiy.They reviewed the 

diagram drawn on a sheet of Whatman paper. Bakhchi reported that he was 

for the flight.

Finally,on the advice of the meteorological service,they scheduled the flig

12:00 p.m. on 15 May. But by that time, low clouds had once again obscure

entire sky.We cursed the weather and empathized with the hundreds of cu

onlookers who, in spite of the secrecy, had climbed onto the roofs of hanga

houses and up into trees, hoping to find out why the airfield had fallen silent 

morning.All other flights had been canceled.For the first time,combat aircra

used Koltsovo as a stopover airfield on flights from Siberian factories to the 

were prohibited to land.

After many days of intense work, the wait for a break in the weather cre

nervous atmosphere. Bakhchi was also nervous.At 4:00 p.m.,Air Force NII 

P. I. Fedorov, who was no less nervous than the rest of us, suggested 

Bakhchivandzhi take off in a training airplane to determine the airfield vis

and reference points from the air.Twenty minutes later Bakhchi returned fro

flight and reported,“The weather is breaking up. I can fly!”

The day was fading away. It was now or never. They inspected the plan

again.Arvid Pallo sniffed for acid fumes more carefully than anyone else. Eve

reported his readiness status according to procedure. Bolkhovitinov emb

Bakhchi and gave him the traditional Russian kiss on both cheeks.

The pilot adroitly climbed into the cockpit and began to settle himse

ran his hand over the throttle one more time, rocked the control stick fo

and backward, and moved the pedals. Everyone dispersed from the air

except Pallo, who wanted to check one last time that there were no leaks. E

thing was dry on the exterior. Bakhchi calmly said, “Away from the tail

closed the cockpit canopy; he then switched on the propellant componen

and ignition.

194
We all crowded together about fifty meters from the aircraft. Each of us had

seen the engine work numerous times on the stand and in takeoff runs here at the

airfield, but everyone flinched when the blinding flame exploded from the tail of

the tiny airplane. Apparently the nervous tension from the prolonged wait was

having its effect.

The roar of the engine over the quiet airfield and the bright flame heralded the

beginning of a new era. On 15 May 1942, hundreds of people observed as the

airplane began its rapid run down the takeoff strip. It easily became airborne and

gained altitude very quickly.With its engine firing, the aircraft made a 90-degree

turn to one side, then the other, just managing to make the transition from a steep

climb to horizontal flight—then the flame disappeared.

Roslyakov, standing beside me, glanced at the stopped chronometer: “65

seconds.The fuel was used up.”

The BI landed, having approached the ground headlong with its engine no

longer running.This was Bakhchi’s first landing in that mode. It was a rough one.

One landing gear strut broke and a wheel came off and went rolling over the

airfield. Bakhchi managed to get out of the cockpit and climb down from the

airplane before Fedorov and Bolkhovitinov drove up with a fire truck and ambulance. Bakhchi was very upset about the bad landing. Good grief, how awful—the

landing gear broke. In spite of his protests, the crowd that had run up to him

immediately started to lift him up and carry him in celebration.

Later that evening, we all gathered for a celebration dinner at the spacious Air

Force NII dining hall. Fedorov, Bolkhovitinov, and Pyshnov sat at the head of the

table together with Bakhchivandzhi. Opening what was for those times a luxurious banquet, Fedorov congratulated Bolkhovitinov, Bakhchi, and all of us on our

tremendous success. The results of all the flight recorders had already been

processed.The entire flight had lasted 3 minutes 9 seconds.The aircraft had reached

an altitude of 840 meters in 60 seconds with a maximum speed of 400 kilometers/hour and a maximum rate of climb of 23 meters/second.

195

NASA History Office.

BI-1 rocketplane.
A day later there was a ceremonial reception and meeting in the ass

shop of our factory in Bilimbay.A banner hung over the presidium table:“G

ings Captain Bakhchivandzhi, a pilot who has made a flight into the fu

Fedorov and Pyshnov sent an optimistic report to the Air Force Comman

People’s Commissar Shakhurin. A GKO decision followed calling fo

construction of a series of twenty BI aircraft, with the correction of all k

defects and full armament.

Our team was elated, even more so because of summer’s arrival.Accord

the signs observed by the locals, it would be a warm one. But I was not de

to spend the summer in the Urals. Having basically solved the liquid-prop

rocket engine’s ignition and control problems, Bolkhovitinov returned t

idea of radio-controlled guidance for the interceptor. He wanted to solv

problem for the next series, and I was ordered to return to Moscow.The Pe

Commissariats and scientific organizations were gradually reassembling 

their evacuation.

My family, orphaned after the death of Mama, remained in Bilimbay. It too

two days to get to Moscow flying on military airplanes with stopovers. I d

return to Bilimbay and did not take part in the subsequent BI flight tests. Bu

is how the events developed there.

Bolkhovitinov freed Isayev from his involvement with the engine

follow-up on the interceptor and made him responsible for the entire pr

sion system.Taking advantage of his consultations with Glushko, who work

the special prison in Kazan, Isayev was to try to make a complete break fro

Dushkin-Kostikov engines. Our patron considered this all the more imp

because Kostikov was preparing proposals for his own aircraft with a li

propellant rocket engine and was not interested in transferring a series o

able engines to us.

Bakhchivandzhi’s second flight was not executed until 10 January 1943 

second model of the BI aircraft. It was winter and the wheels had been rep

with skis.The liquid-propellant rocket engine had been regulated for a thr

800 kilograms.The aircraft reached an altitude of 1,100 meters in 63 second

speed of 400 kilometers/hour. The landing on skis went well. Sud

Bakhchivandzhi was summoned to Moscow to review our rivals’ desig

mockup—an experimental interceptor with the designation “302.” It had 

proposed that this interceptor contain two Dushkin engines, plus a ramjet e

to increase range.1

The BI’s third flight was assigned to Lieutenant Colonel Kons

Afanasyevich Gruzdev. During this flight the engine had a maximum thr

1,100 kilograms and the aircraft reached an altitude of 2,190 meters 

196

1. Unlike the BI, the ‘302’ experimental rocket-aircraft was never successfully flown.The project w

tually cancelled in 1944.
seconds, having reached a speed in excess of 675 kilometers/hour. During the

takeoff, the aircraft’s left ski tore off.There was no radio on the airplane, and it

was not possible to communicate to the pilot that landing posed the threat of

an accident. Gruzdev went in for a landing completely unaware of what had

happened. Nevertheless, the experienced pilot made contact with the ground

so smoothly, that having touched it with only one ski, he understood immediately that there was a problem with the other one.When the aircraft had slowed

down it gently turned and rested on its wing.

On 11 and 14 March, having returned from Moscow, Bakhchi executed the

fourth and fifth flights.The aircraft could now reach an altitude of 4,000 meters

after the engine had run for 80 seconds, with a maximum climb rate of 82

meters/second. During the sixth flight on 21 March, a third model of the BI flew

into the air for the first time.The tests were conducted with the aircraft carrying

the full battle scale of ammunition at maximum thrust.

The objective of the seventh flight on 27 March was to reach maximum speed

in horizontal flight. Fedorov, Bolkhovitinov, Bereznyak, and Isayev were present, as

they were for each flight.When we met in Moscow, Isayev told me that everyone

expected a world speed record to be set during the flight.The abrupt, steep takeoff with a transition to horizontal flight lasted 78 seconds. The characteristic

reddish-brown vapor let them know that the engine had shut down. A small

cumulus cloud impaired visibility for a couple seconds.And then something totally

inexplicable happened—the aircraft flew out of the cloud with its nose down and

plunged to the ground in a steep, steady dive.

I did not witness this flight.According to others’ accounts, there was no cloud

and the aircraft shifted from horizontal flight at maximum speed into a dive at an

angle of around 45 degrees and literally stabbed into the ground 6 kilometers from

the airfield. I learned about Bakhchivandzhi’s death when I was at the People’s

Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry. They had immediately received the news

from Koltsovo.

For me, 27 March became a black day. It was the date of my mother’s death.A

year later,to the day,Bakhchivandzhi died.And twenty-five years later on that same

day, Gagarin died. I have always considered myself a diehard atheist and materialist who does not believe in any omens or inauspicious dates. But after these coincidences, I have an internal fear with the approach of every 27 March that I will

receive bad news.

After that accident, BI flights were discontinued. Gruzdev, the second pilot

to have flown in a BI, also died soon thereafter during a routine flight in an

Aerocobra fighter received from the Americans.

Experienced test pilots Bakhchivandzhi and Gruzdev were called from the aviation front to the deep rear to perform their testing work.They had survived dozens

of air battles, always emerging as victors. Gruzdev’s death resulted from the failure

of American technology.The Cobra was pretty, but they had failed to perform the

proper engineering follow-up required to make it a reliably operating fighter.

197
Bakhchivandzhi died having executed a “flight into the future.”There was 

in this “future” ahead of us that was unknown and dangerous.

The special commission that investigated the BI catastrophe was not able to 

mine its true cause.They estimated that the aircraft had reached a speed close t

kilometers/hour.The true air speed was never documented;the flight recorder

destroyed in the crash and there were no precise ground measurements. It is 

remembering that at that time the official world speed record was 709.2 ki

ters/hour.The commission determined that the aircraft did not break up in t

They could only hypothesize that during high speeds in flight new pheno

occur which affect controllability and loads on the controls. Four years late

conducted in the new TsAGI wind tunnels confirmed the possibility of an a

being dragged into a dive at speeds of around 800–1,000 kilometers/hour.

Bakhchivandzhi was the first Soviet man to take off directly from the E

surface using the thrust of a liquid-propellant rocket engine. After the war, 

we were in Germany, we discovered that Willy Messerschmitt had built the 

163 fighter at about that same time with a liquid-propellant rocket e

produced by the Walther company. Only a small number of these airplanes 

manufactured, and they did not take part in any air battles. But the Me-16

not the first.The very first aircraft to take off aided only by a rocket engin

the He-176 aircraft produced by Ernst Heinkel’s company.2

For a long time, Bakhchivandzhi was remembered only within the n

circle of those who took part in the events of those distant war years. His tes

friends have done much to preserve his memory. In 1973, thirty years aft

death, Bakhchivandzhi was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.A b

bust of the pilot was placed at Sverdlovsk Airport—the former Koltsovo m

airfield. In 1984, a monument to Bakhchivandzhi was erected in his home

the Cossack village of Brinkovskaya on the Kuban River.

The history of rocket technology has linked Bakhchivandzhi and Gagarin

men were propelled into the air by a rocket engine. Both died in airplane c

at the age of thirty-four—on 27 March. In both incidents, separated by tw

five years, the investigating commissions could not determine the true cau

the pilots’ deaths. In the case of Bakhchivandzhi there was no radio. Gagari

Seregin’s airplane had a modern aircraft radio, but the real causes of their 

remain unsolved.

I knew both pilots and can affirm that they were extraordinary people. G

was never in combat; he never had the occasion to bring down the ene

mortal battle. But it fell to his lot to be the Earth’s first cosmonaut and th

endure the test of fame, which few pass. Gagarin passed. In our dealings 

198

2. An He-176 aircraft completed the world’s first rocket-powered flight in 1939. A Soviet rocke

designed by the young Sergey Korolev, the RP-318-1, performed the first Soviet rocket-powered flight 

although it did not take off under its own power. In 1942, Bolkhovitinov’s BI rocket-plane became 

Soviet rocket-plane to take off using its own engine.
Bakhchivandzhi, he also never overplayed his role. He did not consider himself a

celebrity pilot of higher standing than the aircraft designers. He did not have a

trace of conceit.This was also true of Gagarin, in spite of the fact that his worldwide fame gave him license to conduct himself otherwise.

To what extent were the creators of new technology guilty of these catastrophes? The death of test pilots is just as possible as the death of pilots in air battles.

But their opponent was the unknown—that very “flight into the future” about

which we knew very little. Bakhchi died during the war in an air battle against an

enemy that was still unknown to science—transonic speed. Such air battles continued for many years after the final victory on the war fronts.The creators of the

new technology were guilty of what they did not understand.This is the law of

historical progress.

199

Chapter 14

Back in Moscow

In the summer of 1942, Moscow lived by the laws of a city near the front lines.A

strict curfew was observed. Red Army soldiers patrolled the streets. Passes were

affixed to the windshields of cars. Strips of paper crisscrossed the windows of

houses; the blackout was compulsory. In the evening, hundreds of barrage balloons

floated over the city.1 The use of ration card coupons was strictly enforced and

required for purchases in the stores and dining halls. Our existence was far from

luxurious, but none of the dozens of people that I met were going hungry.At any

rate, it was much worse in Bilimbay.

The streets, especially in the center of the city, were kept clean. One did not see

the trash, rubble, or traces of fires typical for cities subjected to bombing.The main

form of crime was the pickpocketing of ration cards, mainly by hungry teenagers.

But one never heard of armed attacks for the purpose of seizing ration cards.The

20 November 1941 order declaring a state of siege did the job.

The Germans had been pushed back 150–200 kilometers from Moscow. Airraid sirens often sounded as darkness fell, but there were no signs of panic. The

operation of the Metro and above-ground transport was interrupted only during

air raid warnings. Metro stations were used as bomb shelters. During the first

month of the war, all private radio receivers were turned over to special government storehouses. To make up for this, wired radio relays operated twenty-four

hours a day without interruption.The black dishes were found in every apartment.

Powerful loudspeakers hung in the streets and squares. The daily Sovinformbyuro

reports provided no comfort: the Leningrad blockade continued in the north, the

battle of Stalingrad was raging in the south, and Europe was under Hitler’s control.

But the British were staunchly holding their ground and had successfully repelled

air attacks.America was aiding us with airplanes, canned meat, and powdered eggs.

We really sensed this, and were comforted that we were not alone in the world.

By all objective indicators it was a very difficult time. But surprisingly, in this very

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1. Barrage balloons were huge balloons raised up low over the city to discourage low flights and precision

bombing by attacking aircraft. Each balloon was normally hooked to a wagon with a cable that was strong

enough to damage an aircraft upon impact.
difficult situation, our certainty about our ultimate victory and the secur

Moscow was simply understood.This mood distinguished the hungry Musc

of the summer of 1942 from the satisfied Muscovites in October 1941.

On 16 October 1941,all the People’s Commissars and senior staff of the go

ment institutions had abandoned Moscow in a terrible hurry. In the summ

1942 they tried to forget about that. Once again all branches of the defense i

try and the restructuring of all non-military industries was being directed 

Moscow under the slogan All for the Front, All for Victory. At the Pe

Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry I could see that all the offices were occ

There were typewriters chattering in the reception rooms.The hallways were 

again filled with clerks,hurrying to deliver reports,and messengers sent from d

factories, gray-faced from the fatigue of travel.

without any red tape, I was provided with a night pass and ration card

ordered to go, without delay, to our abandoned factory in Khimki and set u

production of remote-controlled onboard radio stations and suitable c

knobs. I was to work out ways to protect the onboard receivers against int

ence from spark ignition.They disregarded my objections that this was not m

of expertise and that I had flown here specifically with the assignment to com

with a radio control system for the BI interceptor.“A war is going on, ever

is precious.Your BI is still to come, but we need radio communications in 

not tomorrow,but today—yesterday even.We already have fighters that are as 

as the Germans’, but our radio communications are deplorable!”

At the Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment (NISO), which was t

with helping me, I met many old acquaintances who had already returned 

a brief evacuation.2 Among those who worked there were Sergey Losyako

old school chum; his chief,Veniamin Smirnov; engineers and avionics sp

ists Nikolay Chistyakov and Viktor Milshteyn; and radio communic

systems developer Yuriy Bykov.They were all subordinate to the extraor

ily dynamic and energetic chief engineer Nikolay Ryazantsev. I received 

in the form of advice, drawings, and individual pieces of equipment from 

and captured materials.

By late summer, at the same Factory No. 293 we had abandoned in Oc

1941, a special equipment department (OSO) was already in operation. Jac

all-trades Sokolov and his team of two mechanics and one lathe operator we

production division. Three designers and two drafters drew from early mo

until late in the evening,and after my inspection they redid the greater part o

labors.Two radio engineers darted about Moscow and combat airfields try

equip the laboratory with instruments and models of real radio stations. I co

ered the five-man “special purpose” team our main accomplishment.This 

202

2. NISO—Nauchnyy institut samoletnogo oboroduvaniya.
which consisted of an engineer, two technicians, and two mechanics with “golden

hands,” was tasked with making forays to frontline airfields for the practical application and commissioning of our achievements. This did not require long trips.

Aviation units taking part directly in the air war were located 30–50 kilometers

from Moscow. I went along to one of these airfields near Kalinin so that I could

hear with my own ears the effectiveness of our measures.The test was very simple;

it involved two squadrons of Yaks.3 All of the aircraft in one squadron were

equipped with ignition-shielded wires, noise filters, and remote-controlled radio

stations.The fighters in the other squadron had the same radio stations, but had no

noise protection. After both squadrons had taken off, the commander gave heading change instructions from the control post. He transmitted codes, asked how

they were understood, and requested a response.

The squadron with the optimized radio communications executed all the

commands concisely, answered questions the first time they were asked, and went

in for a landing precisely upon command. The second squadron, by contrast,

responded,“Did not copy that; say again.”Their maneuvers did not always correspond to the commands, and toward the end, the commander took the microphone from the communications officer and let loose the kind of Russian

expressions that overcome any radio noise; the squadron returned for its landing.

Bolstered by frontline flight rations,our team worked around the clock after this

test to optimize the equipment of the regiment’s airplanes. One of the tasks of this

aviation unit was to escort and cover the low-flying attack aircraft that were regularly attacking the enemy’s nearby rear areas.After returning from a raid with the

upgraded equipment, the escort pilots reported,“It’s a whole new ballgame! We’ve

even stopped cursing now, since we can understand everything.” For the first time

they returned without losses.

When all the work was finished,we were officially thanked in front of the ranks.

We then returned to our Khimki airfield, having been provided with both “dry”

and “wet” rations.

In November 1942, a landing force arrived in Khimki from Bilimbay to prepare

for their return from evacuation.The victory at Stalingrad had for the time being

overshadowed rumors of failures on other fronts. Design bureaus, NIIs, factories,

and people who had fled from Moscow in the panic of October 1941 were trying

to return. Under the leadership of Chief Engineer Nikolay Volkov, restoration

work was being conducted throughout the factory.

Lyulka’s deputy, Eduard Eduardovich Luss, headed one of the first groups

returning to Moscow from Bilimbay. My family also returned with this group in

February 1943.Worn out more from the return trip in 1943 than she had been by

the evacuation in 1941, Katya arrived with Valentin and my father, who had aged

terribly.The problem of accommodations became very acute.While alone, I had

203

3. Yak aircraft were built by the Yakovlev design bureau.
preferred to live at work using a folding cot.With great difficulty we mana

semi-legally—to settle temporarily in separate rooms on Novoslobodskaya S

Our four-year-old son, Valentin, was once again transferred to the care 

grandmother in Udelnaya.

Katya became involved in the feverish activity of the “external expedi

department, which is what we called the team that traveled out to frontline 

tion units. Father went to work at our factory as a transport department shi

clerk. He quickly lost his strength, however. He became ill and died on 19 M

eight days before the anniversary of my mother’s death.

After the death of Bakhchivandzhi, our patron Bolkhovitinov return

Khimki from Bilimbay. Having familiarized himself with my activity in the 

of combat aviation, he said that the work was useful, but it wasn’t what we ne

He repeated the parting request he had made when he sent me off to Mo

“First, set up work on guiding the interceptor toward the enemy. Second, we 

have the most state-of-the-art measurement equipment for the new test-

stands for the liquid-propellant rocket engine that we will build here soon.

as the aircraft is concerned, we will redo it.We will increase the engine’s thru

time to do away with the high-pressure tanks and return to the turbopump 

engine. Isayev should be getting back in touch with Glushko and use his 

204

From the author’s 

Engineers from the special equipment department of Factory No. 293. Standing: third from ri

Chertok—department chief. Moscow. Khimki, 1943. 
experience. RNII has obviously botched its aircraft design. As soon as we get

started with our firing tests, Shakhurin is going to visit us and we will discuss the

idea of combining RNII with our factory, with new management of course.We

will not be under Kostikov!”

Isayev returned to Khimki full of enthusiasm about creating our own

production and testing base for liquid-propellant rocket engines. He could not

conceal from his friends the secrets revealed to him by the higher-ups in confidential conversations. He and Bereznyak had taken part in Bolkhovitinov’s

meeting with Shakhurin. In Isayev’s words, the patron assured him that the fate

of RNII had been decided beforehand.The institute would switch to aviation,

and it would have new management—from aviation. Shakhurin frequently met

with Stalin and would select a suitable moment to raise the issue. It was almost

certain that he would receive Stalin’s approval for the reorganization of

RNII–NII-3.

inspired by such a prospect,I once again began to work with NISO.Smirnov

and Losyakov drove me to the Central Airfield. A Pe-2 aircraft shrouded by a

tarpaulin was standing at the edge of the flight field where the United State Political Directorate (OGPU) separate special purpose division (ODON) camps had

once been located.4 When, after much effort, we managed to find a crew, dismiss

the guard, and uncover the aircraft, I saw that it was covered with the most random

assortment of antennas sticking up all over it. Having sworn me to secrecy in my

dealings with radio specialists from other organizations, they told me that they

were testing a decimeter-range onboard radar developed at NISO based on the

ideas of Gerts Aronovich Levin.

Meanwhile, there were two problems. The first was weight. If the radar was

installed on the aircraft, the ammunition reserves would have to be reduced by 500

kilograms.The second problem was the “key effect.”When the radar was activated,

if someone came near the aircraft with a bunch of keys in his pocket, then the

displays started to flicker!

“Well, that’s good. It means your radar is highly sensitive,” I hastily complimented the inventors.

“It’s too sensitive,” explained Smirnov. “The thing is, if you put your hand in

your pocket and start to jingle your keys, then it’s impossible to understand what’s

going on with the displays.That’s the ‘key effect’!”

After spending the entire day on my boyhood home turf of Khodynka, I realized that this development would not yield a system for our BI in the foreseeable

future. Sensing my pessimism, Sergey Losyakov cheered me up by saying that he

205

4. The OGPU—Obyedinenoye Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravleniye (United State Political Directorate)—existed between 1924-34, and then mutated into several intermediate agencies before becoming the

KGB in 1954.
had recently met with our mutual classmate Abo Kadyshevich.Abo had grad

from the physics department at Moscow State University and had been kept 

the department. He had some interesting thoughts and designs.

I tracked down Kadyshevich—who in his time had been the chess cham

of our School No.70—to get his take on the radar problems.He contributed 

very original thoughts.“You don’t need to put a heavy, complex radar set on

the aircraft.You need to shift the guidance tasks to the ground.” He had st

the American SCR-584 radar sets, which we had recently received for air d

through the lend-lease program.5 He considered this an excellent set fo

laying.The Americans had passed us by, and had probably passed the Germ

well. If this radar set were optimized, it could simultaneously track an interc

and a target.The set could also be used to guide a fighter to a landing airfield 

an attack.

Kadyshevich was a talented physicist. From the standpoint of pure physi

suggested that the weight of the aircraft equipment for such a setup would 

more than 10 kilograms.

“This is not fantasy. My friend, radio engineer Roman Popov, is already w

ing on real layouts and equipment.”

A month later, Roman Popov and Abo Kadyshevich were working at Fa

No. 293 in the OSO department.A special radio laboratory had been creat

them within the OSO structure.We started to prepare lists for Bolkhovitin

radio engineers that were to be sent to us to develop the aircraft coordinate 

locator, or ROKS, as we called our new idea.

The idea interested many radio specialists. Even the all-powerful (at that 

Aksel Ivanovich Berg, who had heard about our idea, came to Khimki to 

with Bolkhovitinov.6 He was interested not so much in the radio engineer

in the aircraft that was the reason we had cooked up all this soup. He was 

decisive individual, a lover of new ideas, who without hesitation support

With his help we received the American SCR station. We had some tr

accommodating the military personnel that accompanied the station.Three 

cers and five Red Army soldiers had to be housed and fed according to 

frontline standards. All of the organizational problems were quickly straigh

out. Once he had received five specialists, Roman Popov, who proved to 

talented engineer and good organizer, swore that it would take no longer th

months before he would be able demonstrate the new idea. If we did not h

rocket-powered airplane by that time, we could test the principles us

conventional fighter.

206

5. The Lend-Lease Act, passed by U.S. Congress in March 1941, allowed the U.S. government 

exchange, and provide equipment to any country fighting against the Axis powers.The Soviet Union 

of the principal beneficiaries of the Lend-Lease Act.

6. Academician Aksel Ivanovich Berg (1893-1979), later a deputy minister of defense, was the mo

ential radar expert in the Soviet Union.
an order was issued to convert NII-3 into NII-1, and soon afterward I was

“removed” from Khimki and transferred to Likhobory, to the post of avionics

department chief. It was a shame to part with my cozy special equipment department at Factory No. 293 and the work at combat airfields. In Khimki, I left behind

the branch under Roman Popov developing the ROKS system and the group

expanded by Isayev that was servicing measurement equipment and electrical ignition systems.7

In 1944, Pobedonostsev helped me establish good relationships with the NII-3

staff. He first introduced me to Tikhonravov, Artemyev, and to the few original

creators of the Katyusha still remaining at the institute. They opened up for me

certain pages of the pre-history of our rocket technology. But the names of

Korolev and Glushko were still not mentioned at NII-1 during this time.

At NII-1, during my first year of activity, I successfully combined the avionics

teams of Factory No. 293 and NII-3. My new department received two men who

are now firmly ensconced in the history of our great rocket technology and

cosmonautics. Nikolay Pilyugin, who had worked on instruments for autopilots,

transferred from LII to NII-1 immediately after it was formed.8 Leonid Voskresenskiy from the Nitrogen Institute transferred to NII-3 even before it was reorganized. At the beginning of the war, he developed anti-tank incendiary grenades at

the Nitrogen Institute. Upon coming to NII-3, Voskresenskiy began work on

pneumohydraulic systems for the liquid-propellant rocket engine.9

One of the first creative achievements of the new department was developing

a unified avionics system for liquid-propellant rocket engines for aircraft. After

flying off to Germany in April 1945, I found out that Voskresenskiy and I had been

awarded combat Orders of the Red Star for this work.

The medals were presented to us in the Kremlin only after our return from

Germany in 1947. Immediately after receiving them, we headed to Tverskaya

Street—in those days Gorky Street—to the Aragvi restaurant.Voskresenskiy went

up to the director and asked whether he knew Comrade Chertok, who had just

been at the Kremlin.The restaurant director was very sorry that he did not know

him but was happy to make his acquaintance. After that introduction, we were

afforded the honor of having a banquet set up for us in a separate dining hall. I

also recall this evening because it seems it was the last time that all of us who had

just returned from Germany—Korolev, Pobedonostsev, Tikhonravov, Pilyugin,

207

7. In February 1944, the former NII-3 (at Likhobory) was completely reorganized.The institute was briefly

known as NIRA before becoming NII-1. As part of this reorganization, Bolkhovitinov’s design bureau, the

OKB-293 (at Khimki) where Chertok worked, was attached to NII-1 as its Branch No. 1.This 1944 reorganization of NII-3 into NII-1 focused the resources of the Soviet aviation industry toward the development of jet

and rocket engines.

8. Nikolay Alekseyevich Pilyugin (1908-1982) later became an Academician and chief designer of Soviet

missile guidance systems.

9. Leonid Aleksandrovich Voskresenskiy (1913-1965) later became deputy chief designer under Sergey

Korolev at OKB-1.
Voskresenskiy, Mishin, and I—were in military uniform. We had all come 

NII-1, where in July 1944 a real rocket euphoria had begun after inform

about the Germans’ work on long-range ballistic missiles was received.

since about mid-summer 1944, Pobedonostsev,Tikhonravov, Pilyugin, M

and I, plus five other specialists in various fields attached to us, devoted much 

to studying captured German technology. From fragments brought from 

German firing range in Poland, and based on prisoner of war testimony and 

ligence materials, we reconstructed the appearance of the rocket that was t

an important role in the initial history of rocket technology.

Germany’s secret “vengeance weapon,” the V-2, inflicted a very dam

blow against our institute in Moscow before the Germans first began laun

them against London. General Fedorov wanted to take part personally i

search for remains of the German technology in Poland.The airplane tha

flying him to Poland crashed near Kiev.Twelve people died along with Fedo

Among them was Roman Popov. Popov’s death practically killed our R

development.Ten years later, I found that the ideas Popov was developing 

anticipated to a certain extent the principles used to create the Mosco

defense radar systems in the 1950s.The chief conceptualizer of these system

Aleksandr Raspletin.11

My activity at NII-1 virtually ended on 23 April 1945 when Bolkhovitino

me “briefly”to Germany as part of General Petrov’s “special purpose commis

I did not return to NII-1.

Thus ended nearly a decade of work, with brief interruptions, in V

Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov’s collective. Returning to those times, I invariably 

Bolkhovitinov, whom we always referred to as “patron”, with a mixed se

vexation and gratitude. I recall with gratitude that he instilled a camar

among his creative team, regardless of their ranks. Chief Designer Bolkhov

was never an overbearing, threatening chief. He was our elder comrade, who

authorities had vested with the necessary rights and duties for those times.W

not fear him—we simply loved him.The sense of vexation is associated with 

obvious unfairness toward scientist-designers such as Bolkhovitinov. In order 

a full-fledged “chief” or “general,” in addition to having a certain amount of 

one had to have more of what is commonly called “exceptional organiza

capabilities.”

Bolkhovitinov loved talented people, and in contrast with others, was not 

that his pupils were capable of surpassing their teacher and eclipsing his 

Isayev, Bereznyak, Mishin, and Pilyugin—Bolkhovitinov’s former compatrio

208

10. Petr Ivanovich Fedorov (1898–1945) was Director of the reorganized NII-1 in 1944–45. He w

with twelve others in a plane crash on 7 February 1945.

11. Academician Aleksandr Andreyevich Raspletin (1908–67) was the Chief/General Designe

famous KB-1 from 1955–1967 and oversaw the development of the first Soviet air defense systems.
subordinates—became “chiefs” themselves. To a great extent they owe their

successes to the Bolkhovitinov school.

One of the qualities that was cultivated in that school was the ability to

ponder—and during work’s daily hustle and bustle—to synthesize individual facts

and events, striving to understand the forces that drove the development of

science and technology. However, none of my friends from the war years could

imagine the scientific revolution that was about to take place with our direct

participation.Although the most unusual ideas were encouraged in our team, the

fantastic idea of creating a combat missile capable of flying across the ocean never

occurred to anyone.

209

Chapter 15

Moscow—Poznan—Berlin

In early April 1945, military actions raged across a significant portion of Germany.

Soviet troops were on a forced march from the east and the allied troops were

advancing from the west.

In the central sector of the Soviet-German front, the troops of the First

Byelorussian Army Group under the command of Marshal G. K. Zhukov were

conducting combat operations on the left bank of the Oder.The primary concentration of this army group was already located 60–70 kilometers from Berlin. The

troops of the Second Byelorussian Army Group under the command of Marshal

K. K. Rokossovskiy were delivering the main thrust from the area of Stettin

(Szczecin) with a subsequent breakout to the shores of Pomeranian Bay on the

Baltic Sea.1

The atmosphere at NII-1 of the People’s Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry

in Likhobory where I worked was extremely exciting. It was not just the euphoria of imminent victory that had seized the entire population and the sensation of

stepping out into the bright light after four agonizing years of war. We now had

our own special interests in Germany.

By studying materials that had been recovered from the German rocket firing

range in Poland near Debica, as well as intelligence data, the scant reports from our

British allies,and testimonies and accounts provided by a few prisoners of war who

had information, we had been able in general terms to get an idea of the scope of

the work that the Germans had conducted on a new type of weapon—the longrange guided missile.

Subsequent events showed that we had been very close to putting together a

fundamentally correct description of the V-1 and V-2 “vengeance weapons.” It

was evident that neither we nor our allies had developed similar weapons, either

in terms of the parameters achieved or the production scale.We were extremely

interested in the problems of guidance technology, the instrument design, the

actual parameters and control systems for powerful rocket engines, and the role of

radio-control. All of our specialists—the rocket specialists, engine specialists, and

211

1. Szczecin is located in northwest Poland where the Oder river meets the Baltic Sea.
guidance specialists—who had only reached the initial stages of rocket tec

ogy in developing the Katyusha, the BI-1 rocket-powered airplane, and the 

rockets of the RNII were stirred by the questions:What was their experim

base? and, How did they manage to create such a powerful liquid-prop

rocket engine?

We already knew for certain that the primary German center for the dev

ment of rocket weaponry was located on the Baltic Sea coast, on Usedom I

Rokossovskiy’s armies were rushing there. But we had to get there befo

possible destruction of this center by our “fellow Slavs,” who had no clue 

valuable these instruments, benches, laboratories, and papers could be to sp

ists. Indeed, all of this could simply be blown up, burned, or destroyed 

Germans themselves did not destroy everything before the Red Army arriv

On this matter I appealed more than once to our immediate super

Professor and General Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov. Aleksey Mikhayl

Isayev approached him with these same questions. We all attacked the 

NII-1 chief, Air Force Lieutenant General Yakov Lvovich Bibikov.2 He 

sufficiently competent engineer to understand how important a mission 

to obtain the captured material, not only in the form of machine tools, w

our production workers cared about most of all, but also in the form of 

lectual output. However, somewhere in the multi-runged hierarchy o

bureaucratic ladder of our People’s Commissariat of the Aircraft Industr

military intelligence of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, the 

Committee of Defense (GKO), military headquarters, and God only k

where else, something didn’t work.

The troops of the Western allies had already forced their way across the R

they had routed the enemy’s grouping in the Ruhr Valley and broken out 

Elbe.Who knew—if the Germans showed them no resistance and threw al

forces only at the Eastern front, then perhaps all the captured rocket mat

including those at Peenemünde and the laboratories and factories in Berlin, w

end up in the hands of the Americans and Brits. But at our People’s Commis

and among aircraft specialists in general, there was no particular inter

unmanned guided missiles or “guided projectiles”, as artillerymen called them

jet aircraft—that was a different matter! Our pilots had already encountere

Me-262 with two turbojet engines in air battles.This aircraft was considered 

technological achievement that we needed to capture immediately and thoro

study, especially with regard to the JUMO engine.After A. S.Yakovlev’s arti

Pravda, which caused a lot of stir and described German work in the field 

aviation as the death throes of Nazi engineering thought, there had been a s

ing process. Being Deputy People’s Commissar of the Aviation Industry and 

212

2. Bibikov had been appointed to head NII-1 after the previous director, Petr Ivanovich Fedorov, d

plane crash in February 1945.
close to Stalin,Yakovlev wanted this article to answer the question,“Why don’t we

have such engines and aircraft?,” especially since he was clearly hostile toward both

our work on the BI and Arkhip Mikhaylovich Lyulka’s work on the first domestic version of the turbojet engine.

We needed to quickly find a roundabout way to get to the front and be the first

to seize the intellectual war spoils of rocket technology.We understood that the

future of our program depended on what we would see, find, and then be able to

test back home. Using our connections at the “friendly” institutes of our aircraft

agency, I decided to act without waiting for a resolution on the matter of the affiliation and departmental jurisdiction of the “guided projectiles.”3

I had close ties with the Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment (NISO) from

my work during the previous war years. My old school chum Sergey Nikolayevich

Losyakov, future professor and prominent radio receiver specialist, worked there. I

was closely acquainted with the leading engineers—all talented and extremely

likeable—in the new fields of aviation radar, radio communications, remote measurements, and avionics: Veniamin Ivanovich Smirnov, Nikolay Iosifovich

Chistyakov, Viktor Naumovich Milshteyn, and Yuriy Sergeyevich Bykov. They

would all become professors in charge of departments.Alas, many of them are no

longer with us. During those war years I was very indebted to them for fresh technical ideas, engineering optimism, and moral support in the face of the many difficult technical problems.

In 1944, the NISO director was Gerts Aronovich Levin, one of the country’s

leading radio specialists and a pioneer of radio communications theory. His

scientific authority was indisputable. But his ethnicity clearly did not suit one of

the high-ranking directors, and he was therefore replaced by Air Force General

Nikolay Ivanovich Petrov.4 The general was well received both by People’s

Commissar of the Aircraft Industry Shakhurin and by Air Force Directorate

Chief Novikov.

With the help of my friends, it was not particularly difficult to explain to

General Petrov how important it was to be the first to seize the captured materials, to prevent them from being trampled by the advancing armies or split up and

hauled away to the quarters of various agencies. Experienced with such problems,

he immediately grasped how vital it was not to pass up this chance, even at the

price of a certain risk.

And so, on 16 or 17 April, Bibikov and Bolkhovitinov summoned me and

announced that I would be part of NISO chief General Petrov’s group that by

GKO decision was being granted authority to inspect, study, and when necessary

seize German aircraft radar and instrument prototypes and materials.

213

3. The Soviet government was in the midst of a debate over assigning the development of long-range guided

missiles to one among several competing ministries (or people’s commissariats).

4. Levin was Jewish.
This group consisted of eight or ten individuals, including Smirnov 

Chistyakov.We formed a troika that was given the special assignment of stu

German aircraft instruments, autopilots, special equipment, weaponry, radar

navigation, and communications. The range of issues was very broad, but 

exceptionally interesting for each of us.

On 20 April, I was invited to the Sokolniki regional military commis

Here, after checking my name on a secret list, the officer explained that I s

immediately obtain a uniform, including shoulder boards with two bars an

major’s star. In the record of service I was listed as “untrained private” and 

suddenly I was already a major! “We’re dressing a lot of you civilians now,and 

off the bat you get high ranks,” was the somewhat pained remark of the co

who was decorated with medals and stripes for the wounds he had received

Without any red tape, I received a full officer’s uniform, including an of

belt, map case, an excellent overcoat, and a TT pistol with two clips. Our 

industry was still functioning surprisingly well for those difficult times! Forty 

later my officer’s belt is a special treasure for my grandson.And the cutoff sk

my overcoat still serves to keep my automobile engine warm when it’s park

the winter.

In the early morning of 23 April, our group took off from the M.V. F

Central Airfield, the same old Khodynka that I had known so well since my 

hood and subsequent work there.We departed on a Douglas C-47 cargo pla

that time it was the most popular transport plane. We were flying to the 

Byelorussian Army Group! Our movement orders stated: “To perform a s

assignment for the GKO.”

An hour later we became distracted from our conversations and thoughts 

the mission ahead of us and were pressed up against the windows. Soon we 

over Minsk. From an altitude of about 3,000 meters, the interiors of the h

were quite visible—almost all of the homes were without roofs. Viewed 

above in an airplane, destroyed cities look entirely different than from the g

when you are in the midst of the rubble.As surprising as it is, the view from 

has a much greater impact and is far more depressing. Perhaps this is because 

up high you can immediately grasp the scale of the catastrophe—the destru

of a large city.

Two hours later we were over Warsaw—a picture even more horrible 

Minsk. Perhaps it was because of the black soot at the sites where fires had 

Beyond Warsaw we saw the intricate patterns of tank tracks on the untilled 

We landed in Poznan to refuel. Here at the airfield we observed a meet

the Polish government delegation that had flown in from London. After P

we did not tear ourselves away from the windows. Fortunately, the weathe

excellent. We passed over forests, farms, and white village cottages with re

roofs. Surprisingly, in the big cities almost all of the houses were roofless, 

from above, the villages and various farms seemed untouched. And if colum

all sorts of vehicles had not been crawling over the light-colored roads, if the

214
not been a thick network of tank tracks on the ground, you would not have realized that a moving artillery barrage had just rolled through here, one of the last

operations of World War II.

the assault on berlin was in full swing when we crossed the German border.

Before that trip, I had flown a great deal from Moscow over various routes, and I

have flown even more since then. But it is difficult, especially now after so many

years, to describe the feeling that I experienced during that flight. For me, in terms

of emotion, this flight was unique.

I was thirty-three years old—about the same age as everyone on that flight,

except for General Petrov, who was ten years our senior.We flew out of Moscow,

where I had lived since I was two years old, and where my father had quite

recently died of dystrophy.We flew over Smolensk. Somewhere down there my

older cousin Misha, the darling of the entire family, had been killed. He had

worked for People’s Commissar Tevosyan and therefore had a deferment. He also

had two sons, and had still volunteered. He was wounded, and after he was released

from the hospital, he returned to the front and died near Smolensk.We flew over

Poland where I was born. I didn’t feel any particular closeness to Poland although

I knew from my parents’ stories about my escapades there up through the age of

two. But somewhere here below us, in Auschwitz or the Warsaw ghetto, my other

cousin, Solomon Zlatin, and his entire family had been annihilated. He had left

Moscow for Poland to join his mother, my aunt Fruma Borisovna, back in 1921,

immediately after the end of the war with Poland.The last time I saw them was

on the platform of the Belorusskiy (at that time it was still the Aleksandrovskiy)

train station, when my parents took me along to see them off. Fruma Borisovna,

my mother’s older sister, had helped my parents a great deal when they had settled

in Lódz and were enduring financial difficulties after wandering around Europe as

emigrants.Then her only son, Solomon; his beautiful wife, Lyuba; and their fiveyear-old son, Yasha, returned home. Yes, and I was also linked to Poland by

Sigismund Levanevskiy, to whose tragic flight I devoted more than a year of

intense labor.And how much more effort was spent preparing the expeditions to

search for the airplane that had become known worldwide by its number, N-209.

And now we were flying over Germany, who had shattered all of our pre-war

plans, hopes, and way of thinking.

Later on, I directly participated in what would be historical events for humanity, events that changed the history of the world: the launch of the first artificial

satellite; the first launch of a human being,Yuriy Gagarin, into space; the creation

and launch of the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the moon;and the creation

of the first intercontinental missiles capable of carrying a warhead with a yield of

tens of megatons to America. But never have I had such a feeling of oneness with

human history than on the day of that flight at the end of the war. Perhaps it was

because I had been burdened with enormous worries and responsibilities during

the previous and subsequent events of historical significance. I always had to be

215
taking care of business, keeping track of 

thing, taking readings, mulling over resu

they occurred, and deciding what to do 

next few minutes, hours, and days. He

the airplane flying to Germany on 23 

1945, neither my fellow travelers nor I 

troubled by anything concrete or urgen

understood that we would encounter 

thing completely new, unusual, and unp

dented even after four years of war. B

would be somewhere over there, in a dif

country, where we were flying withou

visas or passports, by right of victory.

Toward evening we landed at a temp

airfield near Strausberg. Once we had ju

out of our airplane there, the atmospher

combat airfield at war immediately surrou

us. Low-flying Il-2 attack aircraft were con

ously taking off and landing. I had prev

visited combat airfields and had observed air battles more than once durin

war, but this was the first time I had seen such an assembly line process: tak

landings, refueling, the racking of bombs and rockets—and all of this done qu

continuously, in a very business-like manner.We saw no fighter cover in th

They were all “on business” over Berlin.

While the general was tracking down the officers in charge of the army g

logistical unit, we were mingling with the crews and asking them about 

encounters with the new “Messers.”

Night fell. In the west, the glow of fires was bright and the continuous ru

of the war, muffled by the distance, was approaching—or so it seemed. F

General Petrov appeared. He distributed us among three jeeps, and we set o

Strausberg.We reached the officer’s mess hall first.There we found unusual 

liness, bright light, and waitresses in snow-white aprons and hats.

Where were we? Could mortal combat really be going on just twenty ki

ters from here? They fed us a tasty meal according to the standards for fro

army officers. The sergeant major then showed us our accommoda

Chistyakov, Smirnov, and I asked to be together. He took us to a two-story c

and said that beds for three had just been prepared on the second floor.

And so the three Soviet engineer majors climbed to the second floo

German house whose owners had fled.We were immediately overwhelmed b

comfort. It was hardly necessary for the rear service to care particularly 

providing beds and toilets for officers.The entire household was unharmed, 

we determined, “top notch.” We cast lots. Chistyakov and Smirnov go

bedroom with the wide double bed and adjoining bathroom and toilet. F

216

From the author’s archives.

Boris Ye. Chertok, photographed in

Germany, 1945.
part, I got the study with a sofa made up with crisp, clean sheets. In the study, a

portrait of Hitler still hung on the wall, and on the desk was a photograph of an

officer of undeterminable rank with his wife clinging to him.

Before going to bed, wanting to jot down my first impressions, I sat at the writing desk and pulled open the top drawer. Good grief! The former proprietor of

the study had left his Iron Cross (German medal for meritorious combat service)

and Walther pistol with a full ammunition clip in the drawer.With these spoils in

hand, I immediately paid a visit to my comrades, who were wallowing in their

snow-white feather beds. For them it was quite unusual to use feather beds instead

of ordinary blankets.

“Give the pistol to our general,” advised Smirnov,“and hand over the medal

to Smersh.”5

In the morning, the general briefed us about the plan of action. Our first task was

to perform a thorough inspection of “DVL,” the German Luftwaffe research center

in Adlershof.6 But Adlershof had not yet been taken.In the meantime we had to find

maps, and we conversed with the army group’s intelligence representatives.

The general was pleased with my gift.The Walther pistol was much lighter than

our TT. The Smersh representative showed no enthusiasm when he took the

German medal.“We have quite enough of these,” he commented.

The army group’s intelligence service officers did not brief us so much as try to

understand what we were interested in and what they needed to look for.They

were competent combat officers, but clearly were not in the habit of dealing with

scientific-technical intelligence matters.We were one of the first official echelons

within the military for scientific-technical intelligence, which previously had been

completely uncoordinated within the combat armies. Subsequently, many detachments of civilian specialists were sent to the occupied zones of Germany and called

“trade union” or “civilian” officers.

The Smersh military intelligence representative posed the following question to

us at a meeting:“The Germans have issued leaflets that say that we will not take

Berlin, and that we will receive such a blow that there won’t be any bones to

gather. The Führer has a secret weapon in store so that the Red Army will be

completely annihilated on German soil.What could that weapon be?”

Indeed, what could it be? If it were the V-2, then no matter how many of them

Hitler had “in store,” this weapon would not bother the Red Army.This much was

clear to us. Chemical weapons? using them in any form on German soil would

now be more dangerous to the Germans than to us.

We decided that this was pure propaganda.And it turned out we were right. In

the United States, Germany, and the USSR, a new, top-secret weapon really was

217

5. The organization SMERSH—Smert Shpionam (Death to Spies)—was the armed forces counter-intelligence agency whose primary task from 1943 to 1946 was to uncover spies and saboteurs in the military, screen

all liberated Soviet POWs, and protect military factories 

6. DVL—Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (German Aviation Research Institute).
being developed—an atomic weapon. But even we, who had access to top-

materials, knew virtually nothing about it until 6 August 1945, when the a

bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Back then, we did not know that just a stone’s throw away, a group of sp

ists from Kurchatov’s team was already preparing to search for German a

secrets.This team had the highest authority, for at that time the main chief 

atomic operations was Lavrentiy Beriya himself, and other related special com

tees were being directed by powerful organizers such as Vannikov and Mal

We did not know that in addition to the allied armies heading toward our 

from the west, there were also special missions being sent out to seize Ge

rocket technology and rocket specialists, search for nuclear physicists, and 

everything that had been done in Germany on the new scientific frontiers—

and foremost in the fields of guided missiles, nuclear fission, and radar.

We received “directives” and instructions thought up by God knows who

as: “While inspecting German factories and laboratories, don’t get carried 

with intellectual achievements, but first and foremost compile a list of the 

and number of machine tools, industrial engineering equipment, and instrum

As far as documentation and specialists are concerned, that is a matter o

judgement, and initiative will not be prohibited.”

from 24 through 26 april, the troops of the First Byelorussian Army Group 

breaking through the perimeter of the Berlin defensive region, practically u

with the troops of the First Ukrainian Army Group; they had surrounde

entire Berlin grouping. On 25 April, we heard about the meeting of Sovie

American troops on the Elbe in the vicinity of Torgau.

We intensively studied maps and routes for two days, and gathered the add

of factories and companies of interest to us in the greater Berlin area. Fina

28 April we began our sorties along the roads to Adlershof in Berlin.

In those days, the roads in Germany east of Berlin were overflowing wit

streams coming from opposite directions. Heading westward, toward Berlin

Studebakers filled with soldiers and goods, all sorts of trucks, and columns of 

but joyous and animated soldiers on foot.“To Berlin” was emblazoned on 

trucks, and artillery pieces in all colors of paint. Eastward bound were truck

horse-drawn vans with red crosses evacuating the wounded to the nearest h

tals.Along the road were many medical battalions and army hospitals.

Crowds of the liberated of all nationalities streamed in disarray towar

oncoming army ranks.We received many shouts of greeting. French, Czech

Belgians stood out in particular when they saw our jeeps carrying Soviet of

A woman with a French flag jumped down from a carriage being pulled by 

young lads and practically threw herself under the wheels of our car just to 

our hands, and overflowing with the joy of freedom, she shouted,“Vive la r

Our “herdsmen” were driving pedigreed black and white cows straight 

the roads. How were they going to get across Poland? There were many h

218
drawn carriages carrying luggage of all kinds. Each amateur conveyance was traveling under its national flag. Sullenly, slowly, and silently, gray-green columns of

prisoners of war plodded toward the east. Blankets, brushes, and briefcases on ropes

hung all around them, and sometimes a loaf of bread dangled in a string bag.We

were surprised that there were only four or five of our soldiers guarding several

hundred German prisoners who had just come from battle.

Adlershof, located in southeast Berlin, is part of Köpenick.We remembered

from magazine articles that this was an industrial workers’ area where German

communists and “Red Front” military detachments had been prominent. The

streets and houses had remained intact. Everything appeared to be quite homey.

But many buildings already housed Soviet military institutions: “General

Petrov’s unit”—arrows pointing to the military commandant. Troop units also

took up positions without any identifying marks.There were directional arrows

on posts that read “Berlin Center,” “Buchow,” “to Kostrzyn,” “to Frankfurt.”

These were used both for advancing and evacuating to the rear. Posted in the

intersections were our female traffic controllers, who were surprisingly attractive during those spring days, wearing the shoulder boards of lieutenants junior

grade, white gloves, and beautifully fitting uniforms. They were waving traffic

on or stopping it, smiling, and giving directions. As we soon found out, they

even knew German.

There were so many vehicles—lots of Studebakers and Dodges, damaged tanks

and self-propelled guns. Here the Germans had already lived through the worst.

There wasn’t any firing in their area; bombs and shells weren’t exploding. The

smoke and thunder were elsewhere, closer to the city center. German women had

gathered in groups around soldiers, having grown bolder, and were bombarding

them with questions.

Our placards alternated with the German ones: “A beaten German is a

bootlicker and a scoundrel. Don’t trust him, soldier,” “Kapitulieren? Niemals!”

(Capitulate? Never!),“Red Army soldiers do not wage war with the civilian population—this degrades the warrior’s honor,” “Berlin bleibt deutsch!” (Berlin will

remain German).

An excerpt from Stalin’s orders:“History shows that Hitlers come and go, but

states and peoples remain.”

Two days later, we were moved out of the Strausberg area, which was jampacked with rear services and frontline aviation, to a location close to the surprisingly comfortable Buchow.With five officers of our “spoils” team, we settled into

what was, by our Soviet standards, a quite magnificent villa.

In spite of its proximity to Berlin—Adlershof was twenty-five kilometers

away—Buchow was completely preserved. This was yet another inexplicable

phenomenon of the war.When the Germans went to Moscow in 1941, all of the

surrounding towns and villages in their path were destroyed. The well-tended

appearance of this idyllic resort did not match our programmed conceptions about

war and about the condition of the Nazi “lair” after four years of war. Here were

219
comfortable hotels and pristine, though mostly empty, stores and cafes—and 

this on the slopes of wooded hills on the shore of a lake. It was particularly 

cult for us to understand why, three days after German units had withdraw

Red Army tank units had entered the town without a fight,Germans had app

and were cleaning up and washing the streets! Lilacs were blooming in the ga

of the numerous villas and the returning residents were tending their lawn

rose bushes right where the Soviet officers were staying.

Later we would see many such “oases” throughout the entire territo

Germany, and significantly more of these than destroyed cities. Sometim

seemed that all of Germany was a chain of excellent autobahns connecting 

scrubbed, very comfortable towns and villages, or “Dörfer.” But even i

villages,almost every house had a sewer line,hot and cold water,and electric 

in the kitchen.

A couple of months later, we had almost forgotten that in Moscow each 

lived in a communal apartment with one tiny bathroom for eight to ten peo

wood stove in the kitchen, no bathtub, and a single sink with cold water for e

one.And here, among these “Fritzes,” only workers from the east, prisoners o

and convicts in correction camps understood what barracks were!

finally we began our thorough inspection of the buildings of Adlersho

fighting here had not been very intense—all of the buildings were intact. 

entryway beyond the spacious bicycle stand, on large wall panels, were 

keys, and more keys—all numbered with German attention to detail. E

thing was intact!

DIARY ENTRY. 29–30 April 1945.

We are inspecting DVL. Administrative building. Archives, papers, perso

documents—in safes. How do you open a safe? The sergeant and sold

detailed to us from the BAO already have experience.7 The soldier hold

large chisel against the safe doors.The sergeant, a “non-combatant” well o

forty, delivers a precise, powerful blow with a heavy sledgehammer. Usu

it opens the first time. Sometimes if the safe is especially “difficult,” it ta

three or four blows.The safes are full of reports with a red stripe,“Geheim

(Secret) or “Streng Geheim!” (Top Secret). We leaf through the page

reports, reports about all kinds of tests.

“DVL”—this is, after all, the equivalent of our TsAGI, LII, and Air Fo

NII all rolled into one.There is neither the time, nor the physical capabi

to read and study them.

The general has ordered us to list everything, load it into boxes, and se

it by plane to Moscow. But where are we going to get as many boxes as 

220

7. BAO—Batalyon Aerodromnogo Obsluzhivaniya (Aerodrome Maintenance Battalion).
need? It turns out that the rear services and BAO do have them, and can

organize everything! But there isn’t even time to make a list of the reports.

Now let me confess: I sinned. I concealed one report and have kept it to this

day.This was the work of Dr. Magnus on the damping gyroscope—an angular

velocity sensor. But I’ll talk about that later. Now I will continue to cite from

my diary:

Laboratory building.The aeronavigation laboratory is filled with benches

for testing onboard instruments.The photochemical laboratory, the laboratory where materials are tested for strength and fatigue, vibration benches.A

bombing and firing sights laboratory, accelerometer calibration units. And

what magnificent drafting and designing equipment! I am envious of the

German designers’ workstations.Aside from the nice Kuhlman drafting unit,

the swivel chair, and comfortable desk with lots of drawers, it is full of details,

and everything has its place. Oh, this German love for details and this exactness, which has engrained such top-notch work into the culture.

The thing that every laboratory needs the most and that is in the shortest

supply is the Siemens four-mirror oscillograph. There we found various

models: two-, four-, and six-mirror models. Without them, conducting

research on rapidly occurring dynamic processes is impossible.This is a new

epoch in the technology of measurements and engineering research. In

Moscow, at NII-1 we had only one six-mirror oscillograph for the entire

institute.And these Germans had so many! No, we no longer felt the hatred

or the thirst for vengeance that had boiled in each of us earlier. Now it was

even a pity to break open these high quality steel laboratory doors and to

entrust these diligent but not very careful soldiers with packing priceless

precision instruments into boxes.

But faster, faster—all of Berlin is waiting for us! I am stepping over the

dead body of a young German panzerfaust operator that has not yet been

cleared away.8 I am on my way with my detachment from the BAO to open

the next safe.

My middle-aged sergeant has lagged behind. It turns out that he has

pulled the body of the German soldier out of the passageway, laid him on his

back next to the wall, and placed his unused panzerfaust beside him.

“He’s just a kid,” he said as if trying to justify himself,“like my youngest.

If he had stayed home with his mama, he would still be alive.”

“And do you still have an elder son?” I asked.

“I had one, comrade major.A fighter pilot. He died in 1943 in the Battle

of Kursk.”

221

8. A panzerfaust (“armor fist”) was a German recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher.
With no further discussion, we sat down on the boxes, took off our gar

son caps, and lit up a cigarette.

The electric instrument laboratory was fantastic! There were so ma

unique (for us) instruments of all types and ranges from the world-renown

German firms Siemens, Siemens und Halske, Rohde & Schwarz, a

the Dutch firms Philips, Hartmann-Braun, and Lorentz! And again

photographic enlargers, slide projectors, movie projectors, chemicals, bu

stationary cameras, cine-theodolites, phototheodolites, and optics of inco

prehensible purpose...

We christened a separate building the electrophysics building because 

its contents. Electronic low- and high-frequency frequency meters, w

meters, precision noise meters, octave filters, harmonic analyzers, nonlin

distortion factor meters, motor generators and dynamotors for various vo

ages, even the scarce cathode ray (now called electronic) oscillographs.T

richest building of all was the one containing radio and acoustical measu

ment equipment.

We are writing the addresses of our firms on the boxes:“P.O.Box”so-an

so.9 But what will really happen to this stuff? Who will meet the airpla

in Moscow?”

After much time had passed, I indeed never found a single report from 

mass of secret and top-secret reports that I had sent from Adlershof.They 

dispersed over LII, TsAGI, NISO, and other aircraft industry institutions. 

about one-tenth of the instruments that we had sent ended up at NII-1, pr

ing a justifiable reaction from my immediate chief. At NII-1 in Likhobory

began preparing the next, independent expedition to Germany. This tim

their own airplane.

222

9. In the Soviet era,enterprises engaged in sensitive activities were frequently identified simply by po

box numbers.
Chapter 16

May Days in Berlin

Well here it was, 1 May. How could we pore over reports in Adlershof? In spite of

strict warnings not to poke our noses into the city center, the three majors and a

driver with an automatic weapon decided to make their way to the Reichstag

under the pretext of looking for the Askania factory in Friedrichshafen.

We had left the outskirts and now saw heaps of ruins. It was an apotheosis of

destruction—piles of broken stone, brick, and stucco—very broad streets and

extremely narrow thoroughfares.This was primarily the work of Allied aviation.

The destruction in the center of Berlin had been going on for over two years,

and the Germans had arranged for equipment to clear the streets so that the city

did not suffocate in obstructing ruins.The closer one was to the center, the more

fires and damaged and burned tanks we saw. Here were two tanks side by side—

one Russian, one German, leaning up against one another, both black and burned

out. Somewhere nearby you could hear the explosions of grenades.And over there

were German men and women digging in the ruins and carrying things away.

Chistyakov wanted to orient himself using a compass because there were no street

names. We shot ahead onto a straight section, having already lost our bearings.

Suddenly a middle-aged German almost threw himself under our vehicle.“There,

up ahead, the bridge was blown up.” We thanked him. Perhaps he saved these

Soviet officers’ lives.What force ripped him away from his handcart in the ruins

and threw him toward our car? 

Suddenly there was a crowd—a line of people waiting for water and bread, our

field kitchens. Finally we made it to the Tiergarten (zoo).All around were mangled

anti-aircraft guns and dead bodies that no one had managed to clear away.

The Reichstag! A red flag flapped in the breeze in the midst of a sculpture

group. Smoke rose from the Reichstag.We didn’t have a camera. I had gotten a

Leica camera in Adlershof, but there weren’t any film cartridges.We were silent.

But it really made our flight from Moscow worthwhile to see a red flag flying over

the smoking Reichstag!

Suddenly there was a deafening burst nearby from a large-caliber anti-aircraft

gun.We numbly looked and saw that a German gun crew had fired a round toward

the Reichstag.Surprisingly,the Germans were so busy firing on our tanks that they

did not notice our Jeep some 100 meters away.

223
Our driver Vasiliy was a lot more experienced than these eccentrics to w

he had been attached. In spite of his rank, he shouted, “Comrade Majors

should we die for nothing? Quickly, let’s get out of here!” So that’s what we 

drive right back into the chaos of destruction, past the Brandenburg Gate, 

out understanding very well where the front lines were. On 1 May, there 

essentially no boundaries. The shattered garrison units that had defended 

were resisting bitterly.They fought desperately in spite of the obvious futilit

A dust-covered lieutenant colonel with a bandaged head and a group o

wielding automatic weapons stopped us.

“Where are you coming from?”

Without batting an eye, Smirnov said,“From the Tiergarten.”

“But the Germans are there!”

“But not many of them.”

The combat officer evidently took us for intelligence officers and with a g

of vexation waved us away. Having commanded his soldiers,“Let’s go,” he 

off to the sounds of the nearby fighting. Returning that evening th

Karlshorst, we stopped at the headquarters of a random unit to get someth

eat and some gasoline.

Here we heard the following communiqué: “Today, 1 May, by the end 

day, Nazi units consisting of more than 1,500 men surrendered, having lo

battle at the Reichstag building. But individual groups of SS officers, who 

withdrawn to sections in the Reichstag basement, continue to resist.”

224

From the author’s 

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, photographed in the summer of 1946. Mercedes shown is being 

by Boris Ye. Chertok. 
Late that evening we made our way to “our” Buchow. Here we were able to

dine well—we were even allowed 100 grams of vodka—and before we went to

bed we could take a bath! “This is out of this world!” I said.

“No, it’s not—it’s in Europe!” someone corrected me.We agreed to get up a

little earlier than usual and go to the Reichstag again the next day.

On 2 May, having stocked up with dry rations, we once again “dashed” from

Buchow to Berlin, this time along a reconnoitered road.

We entered the Reichstag, but it was more like a stream of soldiers and officers

had carried us in. Bursts from automatic weapons still resounded from somewhere

inside. Grubby soldiers who had made it out of the lower floors warned,“They’re

still down there in the basement.” But upstairs, along the staircase decorated with

smashed sculptures, a frenzied event was underway—they were autographing the

walls of the Reichstag. And there were so many signatures! We could barely find

free space.We had to help each other and stand on each other’s shoulders so that,

after we had found something to write with, we could sign the following:“Majors

Smirnov,Chertok,and Chistyakov from Moscow.”I don’t remember now whether

we put down our initials.But we signed and then we circled this memorial inscription twice for good measure. I remember an inscription below our autographs:

“Ivan the Russian has brought order to Germany. Ivan Kochetov.”

On the steps of the Reichstag and in the square, soldiers were taking group

photographs everywhere.What a photo we missed! 

While we were at the Reichstag, very close by at the imperial chancellery the

Nazi leaders were rejecting the demand for unconditional surrender. We didn’t

know this,of course,and when we were getting ready for the trip back to Buchow,

225

From the author’s archives.

Reichstag. Berlin, 1946.
we sensed something was wrong. A cannonade roared with unusual for

around—it was difficult even to determine a direction that was quieter.They 

executing the order to wipe out the Berlin resistance as quickly as possible.

Our driver, a soldier who had gone through the war from the very beginn

Moscow,complained for the umpteenth time,“With you,Comrade Majors,s

ity will get us killed a day before total peace.” But we nevertheless made ou

to the familiar avenue and finally there,we once again saw the traffic controlle

“our” resting tanks.We then found the already familiar road to Buchow.

That evening we decided that we still needed to cover our debt from th

before and make our way to the Askania factory, since our visit had been hin

by the ongoing battles and events at the Reichstag.

We had heard a lot about Askania when we were still in Moscow.We ha

found traces of the company’s multifaceted activity at DVL.And here we w

the factory, though, not surprisingly, it was difficult to find.The regional com

dant, who had just been appointed on 1 May, was a frontline soldier, a co

infantry lieutenant colonel. But he was already an active mayor—on his righ

was a band inscribed,“Bürgermeister.” Having heard us out, he quickly pulle

a map of the area and clearly explained where to look for the factory. It se

that he knew the area well. But he was surprised:“But that’s a very small fa

It’s only one of Askania’s divisions.”

Indeed, the entire factory was located inside a small two-story brick bu

and two wooden barracks-like buildings.The administration that had remain

place explained that they had just moved there about a year-and-a-half previ

Nevertheless, the factory was very interesting. It manufactured altitude gyro

heading gyro assemblies for the V-1,and had also begun to master the new re

controlled gyromagnetic compasses based on American models.

“What is this—an exact copy of the Sperry?” we asked.

“Yes, we’re studying American technology we gather from airplanes tha

been shot down.We have to admit that they are far ahead of us when it com

remote-controlled instruments.”

Per our assignment, we inspected and listed the machinery.We particularly 

the precision drilling machine with the broad range of speeds from 500 to 1

RPMs and very smooth control.

The night of 2 May, we slept very peacefully at our cozy villa in Bucho

some point after midnight, chaotic firing caused me to jump up. I looked o

window. Searchlights were sweeping the sky and rockets were being fired. 

the trails of tracer shells and heard bursts of automatic weapons.

What was this? I grabbed my pistol. My comrades had already run ou

the courtyard. We found Red Army soldiers simply firing into the air. “W

going on?”

“What do you mean, what’s going on? The war is over!”

Well, how could we not join in on such a salute? For the first time I use

TT pistol, emptying the entire magazine into the air.

226
“It wouldn’t be bad to toast such an occasion, but we don’t have anything,” we

complained to each other.

But the ubiquitous soldiers!

“Comrade Majors, what do you mean you don’t have anything?! Hand me

a glass.”

Instantly they hauled out glasses and poured each of us 50 grams of pure alcohol. In celebration we gulped it down— it almost took our breath away. It’s a good

thing that the soldiers immediately splashed water into our glasses. They had

thought of everything.

And that is how we celebrated the end of the war, even before the official end,

along with the entire Berlin garrison.

On 3 May,we received information to the effect that we must not postpone our

inspection of the western part of Berlin because this portion might be handed over

to the three Allies by the end of the month and then we would have no access or

restricted access there.At this point there was not a single allied soldier there.

In the morning, having again noted down the Spandau-Tremen route, we set

out in our Jeep through the center of Berlin, which we had already mastered.

Again the already familiar picture—up until the point where we entered the

city center there were lots of people with handcarts and all sorts of luggage.

There were tanks and shifting troop units. Once again we entered the ruins of

the city center. The Germans had set up chains of people to sort through the

rubble; they were passing stones from one person to another among the formless shells of buildings. Clouds of dust were everywhere. This was the road to

Nauen. At one time a ham radio operator’s greatest dream had been to pick up

Nauen—one of the strongest long-wave radio broadcast stations in Europe—on

his homemade receiver.

Nauen is about twenty-five kilometers northwest of Berlin, but we did not get

there.On a country highway,almost at our destination,our military driver suddenly

slammed on his brakes, grabbed an automatic weapon, and shouted,“Germans!”

What Germans? It’s peacetime now—capitulation. But our Vasiliy was right.We

jumped into a ditch and watched as a gray-green column of Germans, armed and

in full gear, stretched along the road intersecting our autobahn.The soldiers moved

quickly. From time to time they raised their automatic weapons and fired a burst,

aiming who knows where—they seemed to be aiming at us.We didn’t understand

what was going on until tanks began to thunder along the highway behind us,

nearly crushing our Jeep. They were T-34s, so familiar to us. Belching fire, they

moved to cut across the path of the gray-green column.And behind them—standing upright and firing on the march—came Red Army soldiers.A captain with a

pistol jumped down into the ditch with us. “Where are you from?”We tried to

explain, but he only threw up his hands,“Don’t you see? the Germans are fleeing

Berlin.They could finish you off just for the hell of it. Now, go to the colonel.

Over there on the highway, in the inn—that’s our headquarters.They’ll figure out

what to do with you there!”

227
We had ended up in the crossfire of one of the tragic and last fatal skirm

of the war.The Germans had wanted to break through to the West—it would 

been better if they hadn’t tried. It was terrible to watch our tanks and in

come from behind and gun them down almost point blank.They were su

ingly submissive and hardly returned fire. Along the highway where we 

standing, another column in Studebakers moved calmly toward Berlin as if 

ing had happened. Before their eyes a battle was going on, but they were tra

their own road.This battle had nothing to do with them.

Out of nowhere, the captain appeared again, waving his pistol excitedl

swearing a blue streak. He jumped into our Jeep and commanded,“Drive 

division headquarters.”

We drove to the “inn.” It turned out to be a roadside restaurant named B

fast at the Tavern.The colonel, evidently the division commander, was sittin

large table set with all kinds of bottles and hors d’oeuvres.Another ten or so 

tary men, who were clearly off-duty, sat at the table.

The captain approached,saluted,and reported,“During our operation we 

these guys in a Jeep.”We presented our documents to the colonel and exp

who we were and why we were there in Tremen looking for a factory wher

made instruments for the V-2.The colonel gave our documents a cursory g

then broke out laughing.“You’re alive, and thank God. And I’m not going 

you look for any factory now! You see what kind of skirmishes there can b

down and have a drink and a bite to eat with us in honor of the victory.” 

say that we protested very much.

We returned to our quarters after dark without having found any Sie

factory in Tremen.The next day, we found a beautiful Siemens factory in 

dau. This was the Siemens Apparatebau (apparatus construction) multi

modern building that had suffered absolutely no bombing damage. It w

aircraft equipment factory.The entrance was open and there was no one 

checkpoint. All of the doors to the shops on the various floors were ope

walked around—there wasn’t a soul anywhere. Everything was spread out o

workbenches and machine tools. Everyone, without taking or hiding any

had left their workstations and run away without taking or hiding anythin

began to feel so uneasy that we walked around the completely empty shop

our pistols drawn.

Suddenly we heard a shout from somewhere below,“Hände hoch!” (hand

followed by a burst of automatic gunfire.We ran down the staircase from the 

floor and saw an officer wearing captain’s shoulder boards facing two trem

Germans in civilian clothes.

“What happened?”

“I just arrested them.They probably wanted to blow up the factory.”

Chistyakov took it upon himself to talk with the detainees.They explaine

the Bürgermeister had sent them to guard the factory until the occupying au

ties showed up.

228
“They’re lying. I have my eye on them. Let’s go down to the basement. I’ll let

them have it with my automatic and we’ll be done with it.”The captain spoke so

clearly that the Germans understood without interpretation.

“Wait, Captain, why do that? They don’t have any weapons or explosives. Come

on, let’s take them to the commandant’s office.”

“I don’t have time to mess with them now. And I don’t advise you to walk

around like that. I can take your weapons away from each of you! I’m a Smersh

representative!”

But we persuaded him. He finally threw up his hands and went back to his

captured vehicle, in which we saw what was probably a “captured” woman.

The Germans whom we had saved turned out to be workers at the factory, and

we made them guide us through the shops.We saw the most interesting thing on

the first floor, in the factory’s accounting and cashier’s office—the entire floor was

strewn with a thick layer of Reichsmarks scattered helter-skelter.How many thousands or millions were there! We kicked them about with our boots like autumn

leaves, and without picking anything up, hurried off to look around the factory. I

was doggedly searching for traces of the production of V-2 gyro instruments which

had been manufactured by Siemens, the remains of which had been found in

Poland as recently as 1944.We found nothing, however, that was not purely related

to aircraft production.

On 6 May,we had to leave our cozy but remote Buchow and resettle into semiresidential, barracks-type buildings in the immediate area of Adlershof. Here it was

not nearly as comfortable. But the main thing was that our officers’ mess was not

at all the same.The large mess hall, it seems, had been set up especially for “trade

union” officers. It was staffed not by dazzling Muscovite waitresses, but by young

229

From the author’s archives. Photo by V. I. Smirnov.

N. I. Chistyakov (right) and B. Ye. Chertok at the bank of the Spree River on the outskirts of Berlin,

May 1945.
women who had been liberated from various camps and were awaiting their 

of repatriation.At that time, neither they nor we knew what awaited them.

A kind of semi-starvation existence began. During our expeditions a

Berlin, we therefore had no qualms about stopping for a visit at units wher

fed “starving” Muscovites pretty well.

In the ensuing days, we continued to investigate the Askania facility.The fa

had a broad spectrum of interesting items and competed with Siemens fo

interest. We discovered another large factory and design bureau in Marie

Here I finally found intact actuators for the V-2, as well as similar actuato

aircraft autopilots. Sets of autopilot equipment intended for delivery were a

bled on the test stands.With astonishment, we discovered shops with subm

periscopes, periscope range finders, bombsights, and anti-aircraft fire c

equipment (PUAZO).1 There were special cockpits equipped for crew tr

and testing where blind flight conditions were simulated.There was a rather 

shop that was involved with purely optical production. Optical glass pol

machines stood next to the finished products—virtual mountains of lenses o

ous diameters up to 50 centimeters! The test laboratories were excel

equipped.They contained pressure chambers, thermal vacuum chambers, vib

stands, and rainfall simulators. Every area was equipped with all-purpos

special-purpose measurement instruments and also with our dream instrumen

Siemens multi-mirror oscillograph!

On 8 May we inspected another Askania factory in Friedenau. Here w

with the firm’s technical director. He drew a diagram (since there was no r

made diagram available) of the polarized relay for the V-2 actuator and told m

their company had the most advanced instrumentation and machinery in Eu

He boasted in particular about their unique set of jig-boring machines and 

cal benches.

During later journeys, interagency squabbles began. The first took plac

same day, 8 May, when we approached the Kreiselgeräte factory.2 There was 

out front—Saburov’s unit. What unit? Was Saburov a Gosplan representativ

the entry checkpoint there were two men wielding automatic weapons.“Com

officers, we cannot allow you to enter.”After some wrangling, one of the me

and brought back a lieutenant colonel—a “trade union” officer like us.We 

duced ourselves. He apologized that he could not admit aviation represen

since the factory had been transferred to the shipbuilding industry. He we

somewhere, then returned with permission for us to enter.

This was Zinoviy Moiseyevich Tsetsior.We soon made friends with him 

for many years he remained our compatriot in the development of gyros

230

1. PUAZO—Pribory Upravleniya Artilleriyskim Zenitnym Ognem.

2. Kreiselgeräte is the German word for ‘gyroscope.’

3. Maksim Zakharovich Saburov (1900–77) was the Chairman of Gosplan, the State Planning Com

in 1949-55.
instruments for rockets. Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov was in command at the

factory. He permitted us to inspect the gyro-stabilized platforms that had already

been put into series production. According to the German Kreiselgerät specialists, they had received an order two years ago from Peenemünde for guided

projectiles. Only the senior officials, who had defected to the West, knew precisely

which ones were used there.Viktor Ivanovich, the future chief designer of gyroscopic instruments for rockets and spacecraft, academician, and two-time Hero of

Socialist Labor, was at that time a lanky colonel in a soldier’s tunic that was obviously too short for him. He enthusiastically told us about the design of the gyro

platform and especially about the transverse and longitudinal acceleration integrators mounted on it. Kuznetsov explained,“Yes, this is a state-of-the-art product. We already make pretty good instruments for ships—but for rockets? And

with these dimensions?!”

DIARY ENTRY. 9 May 1945.

Our visit to the Telefunken factory in Zehlendorf was very interesting.

Originally it was a radio tube factory, but in the last few years it has

switched almost completely to radar. In contrast to many other enterprises

here we found almost all of the personnel,including chief engineer Wilki and

his immediate staff. Chistyakov and I already spoke German rather briskly.

For that reason we did not need an interpreter. Wilki and the production

chief showed us the factory and laboratory. Wilki directed research in the

field of centimetric waves. His laboratory, which is not located within this

factory, has been conducting a thorough study of American and British radar

installed on aircraft as well as radar sights for bombing and reconnaissance.

According to the assessments of the German specialists,the Americans and

Brits have been very successful in the field of radar—especially in submarine

warfare.Their aircraft detect periscopes from tens of kilometers away. In this

regard, they have also worked a great deal on instruments to alert submarine

crews that they have been illuminated by aircraft radar.

At the factory, they were involved in the series production of aircraft radar

using American and British experience.The radar manufacturing shops were

well equipped with electronic monitoring instruments.The factory turned

out to be relatively new.They finished building it in 1939. In all, counting

the Ostarbeiter, some 6,000–7,000 people worked there.4 Of that number,

3,000 were engineers and technicians. They experienced no shortage of

materials or supplies.

The Lorentz and Blaupunkt companies provided large television screens

for the radar and receivers.“But you didn’t study Soviet radar?”

231

4. Ostarbeiter, literally “East workers,” referred to workers, including prisoners of war, from Eastern Europe

who were used as slave labor in Germany.
According to information from our military, they did not find radar o

single one of your airplanes. And among the captured materials that th

were able to provide us during our troops’ offensive, there was also noth

of interest.We decided that the Russians had safeguarded this technology 

well that it did not fall into the hands of our military.”

I think that he spoke of “safeguarding” to be polite. In actual fact, they h

surmised that during the war we had virtually no aircraft radar and ra

sights.Wilki said that last year they had been fed very poorly.They got a to

of 250 grams of bread per day and 200 grams of meat in the dining hall.V

little sugar and fat.At the same time, as a rule, workers were fed better th

engineers. Foreign workers worked at the factory, including Russians a

French. Supposedly (although we did not believe it) the Russians were 

the same as the Germans. It is true, they did not have the right to live 

private apartments, and they spent the night in a camp. He felt it necess

to add, “In my opinion, all the atrocities are the result of the SS. They 

animals, not people.”

“Did you hear anything about the extermination camps—Maidan

Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald? About the extermination 

6 million Jews? 

“No, I don’t know anything about that.”

“Do you know what a ‘gas wagon’ is?”

“No, I’ve never heard of it.”

As best we could, we explained to the German specialists the design a

purpose of the gas chambers and gas wagons. On their faces we could det

neither surprise,nor any other emotions.They listened very attentively.On

again the comment was,“It’s all the SS and Gestapo.”

We wore them out with questions about other firms and studies. Like 

radio and electronics specialists, they were well informed about related fir

and developments and told us that Telefunken and Lorentz were involv

primarily in radar technology for air defense purposes, while Askania a

Siemens were involved in remote control. Over the past six months, ma

directors along with staff and laboratories had been moved to Thuringia a

Westphalia.They knew that the secret weapon, the “vengeance rocket,” w

being made in Peenemünde.None of them had ever been there—it was v

secret. But other divisions of Telefunken were building ground-based rad

and stations for the radio control of rockets.

The tube shops were excellently equipped. Here they were mak

magnetron tubes with a pulse power of up to 100 kilowatts!

When asked who was considered the most prominent among the spec

ists in the field of vacuum tubes, Wilki responded, “Germany is proud 

Professor Manfred von Ardenne.This is a man with big ideas. He was a gr

engineer and visionary.”

“Why do you say ‘was’?”

232
“The past two years he was working on some new idea—a new secret

weapon.We don’t know anything about it. I think it is at the Postal Ministry

or the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

We were very familiar with the name Manfred von Ardenne from prewar literature on vacuum tubes. Much later we found out that he had been in Dahlem

collaborating with German physicists who were working on the atomic bomb.

The U.S., British, and Soviet intelligence services were hunting for a lot more

information about Ardenne and his activities.When the Americans took prisoner

practically the entire German elite involved in work on the atomic bomb, von

Ardenne was not among them. He turned up in the Soviet Union and worked

very productively for many years at the Sukhumi Institute of the Ministry of

Medium Machine-Building.5 He was treated respectfully and high government

awards were conferred on him.

That is how we first heard about the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Dahlem. Later,

while exchanging impressions about everything that we had seen at Telefunken and

then at Lorentz, we mused how, in spite of the strictest secrecy, scientific knowledge

and its progress are ultimately shared between countries.Thoughts are transmitted

between scientists over some sort of telepathic channel. Not only did we all toil

separately, but we believed, and quite rightly, that the Germans were our mortal

enemies. Our allies, out of consideration for secrecy, hardly shared their work with

us. Nevertheless, with the exception of small lapses, parallel developments were

taking place in the scientific fields of radar, nuclear energy, and rocket technology.

In front of the entryway, a large crowd of workers, primarily women,

surrounded us. I must say that after G. K. Zhukov’s very strict orders

concerning discipline and prohibiting offensive behavior toward the population, especially women (Zhukov promised a military tribunal for rape, and

his were not empty words), the Germans had grown bolder.What is more,

there was a rumor that these three majors, after spending almost the whole

day with the factory management, had even shared their rations.That means

you can safely talk with them.

“Gentlemen officers, we would like to know—what’s waiting for us? Are

they going to send us off to Siberia?”

“Nobody is getting ready to arrest you,nor take you prisoner.As for active

Nazis, your Bürgermeister is going to sort them out.”

“No, you misunderstood us.When are you going to give us work? And

who will pay us now? You mean you don’t need the equipment that we

know how to make?”

233

5. Sukhumi is located on the Black Sea in the Abkhazian region of Georgia. The Ministry of Medium

Machine-Building (Minsredmash) was the predecessor to the present day Ministry of Atomic Energy.
Yes, these were difficult questions to answer just five days after taking Be

Of course we promised that everything would be looked into; they had a 

factory and so they would not remain without work.

However, the Telefunken factory in Zehlendorf soon ended up in the A

can zone of West Berlin, so we never found out if the women who attacked 

9 May 1945 were provided with work.

DIARY ENTRY. 10 May 1945.

We barely managed to make our way to the Lorentz company in Temp

hof.There was a large crowd of women and children.They stood silen

looking through a high lattice fence separating the façade of the build

standing in the interior of the courtyard,away from the street. Our soldi

with automatic weapons guarded the entryway and in the courtyard w

several Jeeps with officers scurrying about between them loading ca

board packages.When we had managed to pass through, after long nego

ations, we determined that it was not secret radar instruments that had be

hidden in the Lorentz basement, but over a hundred barrels of fr

preserved in alcohol—some sort of base product for all kinds of liqueu

To be on the safe side, the first wave of the assaulting Red Army soldi

who had discovered this basement had filled the darkness with bursts fr

their automatic weapons before investigating its contents.A curious liq

began flowing from the perforated barrels. When subsequent echelons 

attackers realized what was in the basement, the liquid was already ank

deep. Nevertheless, they feverishly filled all sorts of military-issue conta

ers with the precious nectar.

The garrison authorities found out about the disorder only after 

emboldened women and youth had started to “help” the Red Army soldi

showing them that, in addition to liqueur and wine, Lorentz also had a st

of chocolate products made by the renowned Sarotti company.And in fa

it was Sarotti that had given up its basement to Lorentz and not the ot

way around. It was this, and not Lorentz’s output, that was tempting the lo

residents. Given their half-starved existence, the possibility of obtaining 

finest quality chocolate overcame any fear of the enemy, who were right 

the basement drinking a mixture of wines ladled out of broken barrels. U

the arrival of the garrison patrol, they had quite a party.

Now order had been established and chocolate and wine was be

distributed only with the permission of the commandant’s office and 

Bürgermeister. But the crowd standing in the street was counting on 

kind-hearted nature of the officers who were carrying out the boxes a

packets of chocolate, powdered milk, and bags of powdered sugar. I must 

that they were convinced of Russian generosity.To begin with, we also w

down to the basement, which was illuminated with flashlights.After mak

sure that our imitation leather boots were watertight, and on the advice 

234
the duty officer from the commandant’s office, we sampled the beverage

from a barrel that contained either oranges or peaches preserved in alcohol.

Of course, we immediately admitted that we had never drunk such a beverage. It was truly the “drink of the gods”. But we didn’t have anything in

which to take some with us.We were limited to packets of powdered sugar,

cocoa, and powdered milk to enrich our breakfasts in hungry Adlershof.

Even before our visit, the factory itself had been taken over by the “trade

union” officers of Moscow’s radio factories.They had also appropriated from

the basement, but did not interfere with our inspection.We talked with the

German specialists for about two hours.They showed us transmitters for 3-

and 9-centimeter range radars. It was interesting that the laboratory, which

specialized in the development of television receivers, was quickly reoriented

for instruments with large radar observation cathode ray tubes.

The factory produced ground-based radio stations with large rotating

antennas for guiding aircraft to their airfields.We ascertained that in practice these radar stations were also used to control air battles in the direct

coverage zone. We were surprised by the number of circular scanning

stations with large screens that made it possible to see hostile aircraft and

distinguish them from one’s own. The Germans claimed that they had

already produced around one hundred of these stations. It was hard to

believe, considering the exceptional complexity and labor intensity of the

system. Development of the Freya radar began as early as 1938. It enabled

the detection of an aircraft at a distance of up to 120 kilometers. The

Würzburg radar with a spherical antenna was developed to control antiaircraft fire. Night fighters homed in on the target using the powerful

“Würzburg Giant” radar station. At the beginning of the war, all of the

German radar technology was in the decimeter range.The German engineers advised us,“Our war with the Brits was fought not only on the battlefield and in the air, but also in laboratories.They had already achieved great

success as early as 1942 thanks to their daring switch to the centimeter

range.At that time we did not have the same tube technology.”

After spending quite a while talking with the German radio specialists, as we

were leaving the “drunken” Lorentz radio factory, we stopped in to report to the

colonel who had given us permission to conduct an inspection. Our formal presentation turned into a prolonged conversation and exchange of impressions. It

turned out that the colonel was a “trade union” officer just as we were.

He was Aleksandr Ivanovich Shokin, representing the GKO Council on

Radar. At that time I had no way of knowing that I had met with the future

deputy minister of the radio engineering industry, who would become the 

minister of the electronic industry. I would have the occasion to meet with him

more than once in the latter period of his hypostases, almost up until his demise

in 1986.

235
At that time in Berlin he said bitterly that, in spite of serious scientific ach

ments, our radio engineering and electronics industry was undoubtedly p

developed compared with what we were seeing here. On this visit, as during 

our visits to German factories and laboratories,we were stunned by the abun

of instruments—both universal and special-purpose, especially in comparis

their scarcity at home.Vacuum-tube voltmeters, oscillographs, audio-signal g

ators, filters of all kinds, standard amplifiers, wave meters, frequency meters

etc.—and all of it was high quality. Instrument models that we had consi

precious before the war were continually showing up here. Not one of our 

tutes, factories, or laboratories could even imagine such abundance.

But indeed the war of the laboratories was not only a war of pure inte

Each “intellect” had to be armed with the most advanced instruments for 

tific research.This required a well-developed instrumentation industry.

Alas, even today, fifty years after the war, we do not fully appreciate the str

of the research scientist’s laboratory weaponry, much less that of the engineer

dentally, one of the burning topics for the past ten years, our scandalous lag b

in the field of personal computers, has not only economic but also ideol

roots: indifference to the specific needs of the human being as an individual, 

in the opinion of the country’s senior leadership, above all, we had to be ah

the “entire planet” in the smelting of steel and iron, in coal mining, oil produ

and in the number of tractors and machine tools produced.

These garish indicators got through to the dullest bureaucrats at the h

levels of the Party-State hierarchy, but for the longest time they did not co

hend why it was necessary to lead or at least be on the level of an average ca

istic country in terms of providing measurement technology, not to me

expensive computers.And when it suddenly occurred to us, it turned out th

were one of the most backward countries in the world in that field.

Well, these are modern issues, but back then in Berlin and its surrounding 

we continued to collect worthwhile literature and send it to Moscow. 

insisted that we send back a wide variety of measurement technology.

Measurement equipment was my weakness during our collection of “spo

carefully prepared the cases containing instruments that had been retrieved by 

Army soldiers from the aerodrome maintenance battalion, then and waite

“my” airplane to deliver them to “my” institute.

By the middle of May, our troika—reinforced by several more specialists 

NISO and LII, including Professor Sergey Nikolayevich Losyakov, had alread

together a more or less clear picture of the instrument and radio indus

Greater Berlin. Our list contained more than thirty enterprises, each of w

surpassed our own in terms of technology and production.The most inter

were the laboratories and factories of Askania,Telefunken, Lorentz, Siemens,

Blaupunkt, and Loewe Radio.

For us it was a novelty that the company List, which specialized only 

development and mass-production of multi-pin plug connectors, existe

236
flourished among the Germans. They had produced hundreds of thousands of

connectors for German aircraft and rockets.The concept was very simple, but the

engineering and production involved were fundamentally new to us.This innovation developed in response to the extreme complexity of the electrical circuits

used in flying vehicles.The connectors enhanced rapid assembly and allowed electrical components to be connected and disconnected reliably during the repair and

testing of individual compartments.

The very term shteker, or plug connector, made its way into the Russian

language from the Germans after the war. Throughout history much has been

transferred to the victors from the vanquished. Only after the war did we come to

appreciate what a tremendous technical role such a seemingly simple device as the

plug and socket connector was destined to play in aircraft and rocket technology!

The Germans spent years developing reliable connectors, and introduced into

aircraft and rocket technology the standard List shteker, which had from two to

thirty pins.We needed three years to reproduce connectors that were as reliable.

However, during our first years of mastering rocket technology they gave us a lot

of trouble.

Now our industry produces connectors—both tiny and enormous, airtight,

onboard and ground-based—to connect and remotely disconnect more than one

hundred electric circuits. Despite all of these achievements, the problem of

connector technology remains one of the most complex in the entire world.This

is why there are booths at every international aerospace exhibition advertising

hundreds of modifications of quick and reliable cable connectors. Dozens of

powerful companies in many countries produce them by the millions.

We were interested not only in individual factories, but also in the organization and structure of the instrument and radar industry. German companies

worked on a lot of technical problems on their own initiative, without waiting

for instructions “from the top.”They did not need the decisions of the Gosplan

or People’s Commissariats, without which not a single factory of ours could

produce anything. Before the war, the electric measuring technology, instrument, and radio industries had developed rapidly to conquer the entire European

market, and their products had successfully competed with those of the United

States. The companies Hartmann-Braun, Telefunken, Anschütz, Siemens,

Lorentz, AEG, Rohde & Schwarz, Askania, and Karl Zeiss enjoyed worldwide

fame long before World War II.This created a solid technological base, which we

simply did not have in these industries on the required scale at the beginning of

the war.

Our general-purpose electrical instrument industry, our aircraft industry, and

also our nautical instrumentation industry were all housed in just a few buildings

in Moscow and Leningrad (Elektropribor,Teplopribor, and Svetlana in Leningrad;

Aviapribor, the Lepse Factory, Elektrozavod, and Manometr in Moscow).

It is revealing that when we began to reproduce technology for the V-2 rocket

after the war and develop our own new rockets, we found out that in our coun

237
try there was only one factory, Krasnaya Zarya in Leningrad, that was a

manufacture such a mundane device as the multi-contact electrical rel

Germany,Telefunken had three such factories and Siemens had at least two.T

one of the reasons that German weapons production did not drop, but con

ously increased until mid-1944, despite the continuous bombing that Allied 

tion inflicted on German cities.

238
Chapter 17

What Is Peenemünde?

I flew into Peenemünde on 1 June 1945.The wealth of measurement instruments

that I had gathered in Berlin and then delivered to Moscow had prevented me

from visiting this legendary rocket center immediately after the troops of the

Second Byelorussian Army Group had entered there. But every dark cloud has a

silver lining. We managed to organize a special flight of our B-25 Boston from

Berlin to Peenemünde. My traveling companion was Veniamin Smirnov, with

whom I had flown to Germany. In Berlin we had inspected many enterprises and

together we had hunkered down in a ditch, ready to defend ourselves against the

German troops forcing their way out of Berlin.

What fascinating collisions history was suddenly producing! Soviet specialists

with officers’ ranks were leaving Berlin, where only twenty days earlier the document stipulating the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany had been signed,

to fly to Peenemünde on an American bomber piloted by a man who tested the

first Soviet rocket-powered aircraft, the BI-1.At that time, I still did not realize that

I was flying to the site on the shore of the Baltic Sea that would become the

launching pad for the beginning of the twentieth century’s great missile race.

Dozens of nations from all continents would be drawn into this race, and by the

end of the century almost every army in the world would acquire missile

weaponry in one form or another.

We are proud of our fellow countrymen Tsiolkovskiy, Kondratyuk, and

Tsander for their work on the theory of rocket flight. The Americans posthumously recognized the theoretical and experimental work of prominent scientist

and inventor Robert Goddard. The Germans and Austrians are proud of the

works of Hermann Oberth and Eugen Sänger.These lone pioneers who dreamed

of interplanetary flight were the inspiration for those who took on the official

responsibility for the practical development of long-range ballistic missiles.

However, the first authentic, operational long-range guided missiles were developed in Peenemünde not for interplanetary journeys, but first and foremost to

destroy London.

These days, reports about “missile attacks” on the frontlines of small, localized

wars surprises no one. Missile attacks are now common even in numerous interethnic clashes. I don’t believe I will be mistaken in predicting that lightweight,

239
“portable” guided missiles will be as accessible as Kalashnikovs to terrorists, 

teurs, and guerrillas at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

But in those days we could not imagine the prospects of such a historica

in weapons technology.We were drawn to Peenemünde purely by our profes

engineering curiosity and a sense of duty to our country. I had been som

prepared for what I might see from the detailed impressions of Aleksey Isaye

Arvid Pallo, who had flown into Berlin from Peenemünde just the week b

But when,at our request,the airplane flew over the entire island,I was so deli

by everything that I saw that even a half century later, I still see the broad be

the white caps of the surging surf, and the forested hills in my memory. I 

want to tear my eyes away from the sights of this wonderful natural preserv

landscape contrasted sharply with the ruins of Berlin which we had grown a

tomed to over the past month.Among the pines at Peenemünde we could s

outlines of buildings and the enormous iron structures of raised drawbridges,

with some other structures that I couldn’t make out from the air; they were c

production facilities.A network of roads, practically concealed by the shade 

pines,connected the entire island.To the right,the forests reached into the di

and one could see patches of lakes.To the left was the gray sea.We flew again 

the developed area of the island, and saw attractive white, pink, and multico

villas and hotels peeked out from under the green of the pine trees. Simply 

looked like a resort.

From the air, we saw no traces of the brutal bombings that the Brit

reported to us.The airfield that received our Boston proved fully suitable. 

been designed for the landing of high-speed bombers. Our arrival had 

expected and we were driven immediately to the Schwabes Hotel after we la

Seeing the areas surrounding Peenemünde, everybody’s first impression h

to do with rocket technology than the natural beauty of the Baltic coast.T

where the elite of the German rocket specialists had lived, worked, and p

Now the best of the hotels—the Schwabes Hotel—housed the headquarte

Peenemünde research headed by Major General Andrey Illarionovich So

who during the war had been the deputy commander of the Guards Mortar 

While they were looking for people in Moscow who would supervise Ge

rocket technology, the Main Artillery Directorate entrusted Sokolov with s

ing and safeguarding Peenemünde. One has to give him credit—he organize

work very well.1

Virtually no competent German specialists remained on Usedom I

General Sokolov’s group had gathered several ill-informed specialists from a

the local residents.With their help and with the speculations of Soviet engi

they compiled a report on Peenemünde’s former state before our army arri

240

1. Andrey Illarionovich Sokolov (1910-1976) later headed NII-4, the most influential ballistic 

research institute within the Soviet military.
“former” being the key word.Allied aviation had damaged most of the buildings

and laboratories, but they had not been totally destroyed. The firing rigs were

bigger than anything we could have imagined.

Near the rigs, the Germans had built bunkers which had remained in good

condition. From the bunkers they controlled and observed the testing of engines

and rockets. The facilities in total occupied several tens of hectares which were

connected by excellent roads.Tens of kilometers of power,measurement,and signal

cables had been run in cable ducts that the Germans had not had time

to dismantle.

All of the equipment down to the last instrument—even the machine tools in

the large factory whose building was almost untouched—had been dismantled and

removed. What they did not manage to evacuate before the arrival of Marshal

Rokossovskiy’s troops had been rendered useless by SS Sonderkommandos.

2

To a significant degree, General Sokolov had managed to restore the old order

in the residential area of the Zinnowitz resort.Arvid Pallo had already prepared me

for this. Back in Berlin he had warned me that Peenemünde was on par with fashionable prewar resorts. It was as if there had been no war with all its horrors.

At the Schwabes Hotel restaurant they served a table d’hôte for the entire officer

staff. It was covered with a snow-white tablecloth and each place was set with

numerous utensils, clearly exceeding the number of dishes. The deft waiters

presented the plates with a modest appetizer so that the hotel’s logo was positioned

in front of us just so.

None of the officers dared sit down at the table d’hôte until the general had

entered. Then began a ceremony known to us only from the movies. A line of

waiters in black suits, white shirts, and bow ties, led by the maître d’hôtel, marched

in solemn procession around the table, beginning with the general, and then

proceeded around by rank. In this process the first waiter ladled soup, the second

placed a potato, the third showered the plates with greens, the fourth drizzled on

piquant gravy, and finally the fifth trickled about 30 grams of alcohol into one of

the numerous goblets. Each person diluted his drink with water according to his

own taste. To some extent this entire spectacle revived the protocol that had

reigned at the Schwabes Hotel when distinguished guests had visited

Peenemünde.According to the maître d’hôtel,almost all of the top brass of the Nazi

Reich had stayed there, except for Hitler himself.“But, of course,” added the maître

d’hôtel, “at that time I served the best wines. When Dornberger and von Braun

evacuated Peenemünde, they took all the food and wine stores with them.” We

were introduced to the general in the dining hall and, with honor, upheld the rules

of etiquette prescribed for “high society”, in spite of the provocative smiles and

remarks of the old residents.

241

2. Sonderkommandos were special detachments of prisoners at Nazi death camps that the SS organized to aid

the killing process.
I need to write about Peenemünde from a historical standpoint. Fo

reason I have singled out only the basic results of the work in Peenemünde

doing, I have used “sources” that we found in Germany and information 

memoirs published later by individuals who participated directly in the 

in Peenemünde.

The inspection of Peenemünde in May and June 1945 showed that the 

scope of work on rocket technology in Germany was far superior to wh

had imagined. We Soviet specialists needed to investigate the entire volu

work that had been done in Germany in the field of rocket technology. 

was just as important to obtain information on the history of these develop

and the methods used by German scientists and engineers to solve many 

cult problems, such as those involved with the development of long-

guided ballistic missiles.

Before 1945, neither we, the Americans, nor the Brits had been able to de

liquid-propellant rocket engines with a thrust greater than 1.5 metric tons.T

that had been developed were not very reliable, had not gone into series pr

tion, and were not used to develop any new type of weapon. By that 

however, the Germans had successfully developed and mastered a liquid-p

lant rocket engine with a thrust of up to 27 metric tons—more than eig

times greater! What is more, they had produced these engines in large-scale 

production by the thousands! And the automatic guidance system! It wa

thing to fundamentally and theoretically show that for the given level of tec

ogy it was possible to control a missile’s flight and consequently the engine 

in flight at a range of 300 kilometers; it was a quite another thing to put thi

practice and bring the entire system up to a level suitable for acceptance 

operational armament!

As a result of World War II, at least three new scientific and technical ach

ments emerged, which to a great extent revolutionized previous ideas on st

and tactics for possible future wars.These achievements were automatically g

missiles, radar technology, and nuclear weapons.The first two did not requi

discovery of any new laws of physics. Nuclear technology was another sto

development was spurred by the discovery of new laws of nature and new 

tific methods involving penetration into the atomic world and the nature 

fundamental principles of matter.

These three new forces, like genies, were released from laboratories d

World War II. Historically, the obvious and undoubtedly objective fact that 

tary technology is the strongest stimulus for the development of a society’s i

trial power and the progress of civilization as a whole seems paradoxical

shocking.The fact that the foundation of modern cosmonautics was the sci

and technical creativity of the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Unio

the United States has also been obvious for a long time.

What role did German scientists and Germany’s military-industrial com

during World War II play in the future development of cosmonautics? We ob

242
much of the information needed to answer that question during our first months

of postwar work in Germany. Our sources were the facilities that we inspected, the

onsite study of examples of rocket technology, the accounts of German specialists,

and the historical reports that they drew up at our tasking.

The history of German rocket technology does not start with Peenemünde.

Practical work to implement pioneering theories about interplanetary travel began

with the development of primitive rocket engines as early as 1929.The evolution

of amateurish research by lone enthusiasts into large-scale activity to develop

rocket-powered flying vehicles began after military agencies had assessed the

outlook for missile weaponry.

According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had been forbidden to develop

and produce new types of aircraft, artillery, and other weapons technology that had

been known during World War I as offensive systems. Missile weaponry had not

been included on the list of banned weapons. The authors of the Treaty of

Versailles had not even considered the possibility of using missiles as offensive

weapons. The top army leaders in Germany, however, believed that the work

started by the romantics of interplanetary travel could have real applications in

warfare. One of the first German generals to render real support to the amateur

work of rocket enthusiasts was Karl Emil Becker,author of the widely known textbook Lehrbuch der Ballistik (Ballistics Textbook) and head of the directorate for

infantry artillery weaponry. Becker formed a special subdivision for rocket technology, which in 1934 was headed by Walter Dornberger, a thirty-nine-year-old

artillery captain. One of Dornberger’s first subordinates was the twenty-two-yearold engineer Wernher von Braun, who was well known for his scientific study

Konstruktive, theoretische und experimentelle Beitraege zu dem Problem der Fluessigkeitsrakete (Constructive,Theoretical, and Experimental Contributions to the Problem

of the Liquid Rocket), published in 1931.3 Dornberger and von Braun’s focused

work to develop long-range, liquid-propellant ballistic missiles began at an artillery

range in Kummersdorf near Berlin. The first experimental missiles were assigned

the ordinal designations, A-1 and A-2.

In 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power, all restrictions placed on the armaments of

Germany by the Treaty of Versailles were discarded. The Nazis openly encouraged

industry to work energetically to restore Germany’s military might. In 1935, von

Braun and Dornberger approached the Directorate of Armaments with a design

for a liquid-propellant missile capable of achieving a firing range of 50 kilometers.

To optimize the guidance system, the Germans developed an experimental missile

under the designation A-3. A launch pad for the missile was set up on the small

island of Greifswalder-Oie in the Baltic Sea.

243

3. Wernher von Braun, Konstruktive, theoretische und experimentelle Beitraege zu dem Problem der Fluessigkeitsrakete. Ph. D. dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitaet of Berlin, 16 April 1934, subsequently reprinted in

Raketentechnik und Raumfahrtforschung, Sonderheft 1. Frankfurt: Umschau Verlag, n.d.
For the first time in the history of rocket technology, a gyro-stabilized pla

was tested on a missile.All four A-3 flight tests proved unsuccessful due to failu

the control system.But the tests did produce a fundamental milestone:the first 

cal guided launch of a freestanding missile on a launch platform. Dornberge

von Braun understood that the experimental base in Kummersdorf was not su

for work on the scale that they had conceived, and they began to look for a ne

for the construction of a large scientific-research center combined with a test 

In early 1936, Dornberger, now a colonel, was appointed director of m

development for the German armed forces. Dornberger and von Braun pro

to the senior army leadership that a missile with a range of more than 200 

meters be developed under the designation A-4. They would need to cr

powerful scientific-research and testing center to develop and test the miss

In August 1936, the Germans decided to begin construction of the m

testing center on Usedom Island on the Baltic coast, next to the reso

Zinnowitz and near the fishing village of Peenemünde. Dornberger was n

chief of the entire test range, which consisted of two parts: Peenemünd

(East), the unit under the command of the infantry forces; and Peenem

Westen (West), which was transferred to the Luftwaffe (Air Force). Twenty

year-old von Braun was appointed to the high post of technical direct

Peenemünde-Ost.The rapid construction of the center began in the fall of 

In 1937, the first ninety employees moved to Peenemünde to the infa

research center.Development,research,and testing were conducted simultane

with the construction, which was more or less complete after three year

company that carried out the primary construction operations in Peenem

was headed by the future President of the Federal Republic of Germany, He

Lübke.4 Even in 1945, after the brutal bombardments of the war, we had no r

to complain about the quality of the construction.

In Europe, preparations for war were underway, but none of the Allied i

gence services, including the celebrated British intelligence, had imagine

objectives and scale of work being conducted at the Peenemünde center.

On 1 September 1939,World War II began. In November 1939, an unk

anti-fascist dropped a detailed report concerning the scope, objectives, and 

of the Peenemünde center into the mailbox of the British Embassy in Os

that time, more than 3,000 individuals were working in Peenemünde, not in

ing the construction workers. It is astounding that it took four years fo

British to react!

In March 1940, the first firing tests began on chambers of the 25-metr

thrust, liquid-propellant rocket engine intended for the A-4.This was the firs

the Germans used a turbopump feed to deliver alcohol and liquid oxygen in

244

4. Lübke served as Bundespräsident (Federal President) of the Federal Republic of Germany (West G

between 1959 and 1969.
combustion chamber instead of the pressurized system using compressed nitrogen

that was used on the first engines in Kummersdorf.

With the onset of World War II, the scope of the research and development

activity at Peenemünde rapidly expanded. New services were created and a large

number of new specialists needed to be recruited and quickly mobilized to the

center, many being summoned from the army.The schools of higher education in

Darmstadt, Berlin, Dresden, Hannover, and later Vienna and Prague were also

enlisted to support the research activity at Peenemünde and conducted their work

on assignment from there.

From 1937 through 1940, the Germans invested more than 550 million

Reichsmarks into the construction of the Peenemünde center, an enormous sum

for that time. All of Germany’s leading electrical and radio engineering firms

provided the center with special testing equipment and the latest measurement

instruments. Despite our anti-fascist views, we had to credit the directors of the

operations, first and foremost Dornberger and von Braun, for the energy and

confidence with which they acted.

As a matter of fact, it wasn’t just the enthusiasm and organizational capabilities of the Peenemünde directors.They understood perfectly well that the enthusiasm and brilliant capabilities of lone scientists were far from sufficient. What

was needed was a clear conception of the scale of operations needed to achieve

set objectives, and the determination to create the strongest state-supported

scientific-technical, production, and military-testing infrastructure possible.All of

this was conceived prior to the war, then refined and implemented during the

hostilities under the conditions of Hitler’s totalitarian regime, which spared no

expense to develop the proposed secret weapon of mass destruction.There was

no need to account for the project before parliamentarians. To a significant

degree, this contributed to the success of the new endeavor.

On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union.While certain of a rapid

victory on the eastern front, Hitler was troubled by Britain’s tenacity. On 20

August 1941, at his “Wolf’s Den” headquarters in East Prussia, he received Colonel

Doctor Dornberger,Doctor von Braun,and the lead specialist for the development

of missile guidance systems, Doctor Steinhoff. There was no need for the new

missile weaponry for the Blitzkrieg against the East, since the Germans would be

in Leningrad within a month and Moscow no later than October.Why then such

attention to missile specialists? Dornberger and von Braun familiarized Hitler with

the current status of their work on the A-4 missile, which had a range of up to 300

kilometers. They also discussed the potential for new missiles that would have

intercontinental ranges. As a result of this meeting, Hitler gave the programs at

Peenemünde the highest priority.

In autumn 1941, roused by this support from the highest level, the work force

at Peenemünde began to speed up the design process for two-stage and perhaps

even three-stage A-9,A-10, and A-11 systems. But the basis was to have been the

A-4 design.

245
The infantry command believed it had a monopoly on missile weaponr

the Air Force also found a place at Peenemünde.The western part of Peenem

Westen became the center for the flight optimization of the Fiesler Fi-103 

bombs with pulsejet engines. Equipped with a primitive autopilot, these w

missiles gathered speed on launching rails and took off horizontally, continu

fly aided by their engine at a maximum altitude of 3,000 meters and a max

speed of 300 kilometers/hour. The Fi-103, which later gained fame as th

reached a range of 250 kilometers. Its warhead, which had a maximum yi

500 kilograms of TNT, was intended to hit targets such as large cities.Their d

sion was tens of kilometers.

After a series of failures, the first completely successful firing rig test of th

rocket engine took place on 18 May 1942.The engine generated a thrust of 

metric tons over a period of 60 seconds. I will remind the reader that thre

before that event, on 15 May 1942, the pilot Bakhchivandzhi flew in ou

rocket-powered aircraft, which had the most powerful Soviet liquid-prop

rocket engine at that time—with a thrust of 1200 kgf. Our liquid-propellant 

engines did not exceed 1200 kgf until 1948! We could soothe our wounded 

only with the fact that the United States’ own liquid-propellant rocket en

hadn’t even reached that amount of thrust yet.

The successful test-firing of the A-4 was followed by rocket explo

during the first attempts at flight optimization. Finally, on 3 October 194

A-4 completed its first successful flight.With a launch mass of 13 metri

and an equivalent “payload” of 980 kilograms, the rocket flew 190 kilom

reaching an altitude of 85.5 kilometers at the apogee of its trajectory.Afte

first success of the A-4 program, the first tests of the winged Fi-103, the 

V-1, were also successful.

In April 1943, the A-4 was successfully tested at a maximum range of 330 

meters. Having later been given the name V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe Zwei—Veng

Weapon Two), the A-4 rocket program and the V-1 were competing. Meanwh

the Eastern Front there was no Blitzkrieg.The rout of the Germans near Stali

was followed by another defeat at the Battle of Kursk.The German Air For

longer had overwhelming air superiority on the Eastern Front and proved inc

of withstanding the air raids by British and American bombers against German 

In addition to their exceptional efforts on the A-4 project, they started w

Peenemünde on the design of an automatically guided air defense missile, 

the codename Wasserfall.This liquid-propellant rocket was part of a radar det

and guidance system targeting enemy aircraft. The onboard control system 

homing devices during the final flight segment.The A-4 was used to test s

control principles for the Wasserfall.

In 1943, there were more than 15,000 dedicated personnel working at 

emünde. New firing rigs made it possible to conduct firing tests on engine

thrusts from 100 kilograms to 100 metric tons.Peenemünde aerodynamics sp

ists prided themselves on having the largest wind tunnel in Europe, created 

246
period of just eighteen months; the largest factory for the production of liquid

oxygen; and spacious and excellently equipped design halls. Launching areas for

rockets and launch control bunkers were provided during the earliest days of

construction on Usedom Island. Correspondingly, the entire path of possible

launches along a line running north-to-northeast was equipped with monitoring

and observation facilities.

By late 1943, the struggle had once again heated up in military circles over the

priorities for the development of new types of armaments.Almost all of the senior

military leaders supported the Luftwaffe’s Ju-88 program, which called for the mass

production of medium bombers to support frontline operations by striking enemy

cities and strategically important targets.The Luftwaffe’s leadership understood very

well that the organization of large-scale series production of the A-4 could interfere with the fulfillment of the numerous industrial orders for the Ju-88 program.

The Luftwaffe undoubtedly had weighty claims to the highest priority because the

new bombers were sent directly to the front,to active aviation units.The A-4 rockets would also be used to attack Britain,but it was bombers that were the real weak

point in the German Air Force. It was natural that a struggle over priorities heated

up between these two programs.

By the end of the war, the new secret weapon had been given the highest priority among all the orders to industry and transportation.Dornberger,von Braun,and

the infantry forces leadership that supported them pushed the Ju-88 program into

the background. This substantially reduced the combat capabilities of German

bomber aviation. At that time, British and American aviation was destroying one

German city after another, and Germany did not have the strength to deliver counterstrikes. There were not enough high-speed, high-altitude bombers with the

necessary range.They pinned all their hopes for such a strike on the V-2 vengeance

weapon—the A-4. Such a turn in favor of the Peenemünde programs during a

period when Germany was at the brink of military catastrophe on the Eastern

Front and losing the Battle of Britain can only be explained by the blind faith that

Hitler and his immediate entourage had in the miraculous force of the new missile

weaponry as a means of mass destruction and a new means of air defense. It was

precisely faith and by no means a certainty.This faith not only accelerated Hitler’s

defeat, but to a certain degree helped eliminate the terrible threat of the Germans

creating an atomic bomb before the end of the war.The scale of work on the A-4

and the need for large quantities of particularly scarce materials for its mass production indirectly prevented the Germans from creating a nuclear weapon.

After the war, the renowned German physicist and Nobel Prize laureate

Wernher Heisenberg recalled, “In September 1941, we saw the path that had

opened up before us—and it led to the atomic bomb.”

In his book The Virus House, British researcher and journalist David Irving writes:

In June 1940, when battle had ceased in France and occupation reigned for

four years, Germany’s positions in the nuclear race were very impressive and

247
even frightening: Germany did not have large stores of heavy water, but 

make up for this she seized the only heavy water factory in the world; 

became the holder of thousands of tons of very pure uranium compou

and established control over an almost completed cyclotron; she had at 

disposal cadres of physicists, chemists, and engineers not yet robbed of th

vitality by all-out war; and her chemical industry was the most powerful 

the world.”5

If the Germans had managed to create an atomic bomb before the Ame

and then put two or three bombs into two or three of the many hundreds o

rockets launched at Britain, the world today might look completely differen

It is surprising that the primary reasons for the slow pace of work o

German atomic project were not technical.The lack of progress resulted i

from conflicts among high-level scientists and the regime’s arrogant and c

scending attitude toward a discipline that lacked rocket science’s active prom

From the first days of the war, the German economy was consumed by the i

diate needs of one blitzkrieg after another.The Germans’ early military succe

Europe and the Soviet Union led the Germans to believe in the complete su

ority of their military technology.And if that was the case, then why spend 

and divert efforts to new labor-intensive developments and scientific research 

ects aimed at creating an even more perfect weapon?

But that was not the single cause of the German physicists’ failure. O

point I concur with the very competent research of David Irving, who wr

The Virus House, “In late 1940, German physicists had not foreseen any s

difficulties on the way to the military use of atomic energy. . . . Having rej

graphite in January 1941, German scientists committed a fatal mistake. Now 

well known.” This error worked to the advantage of missile specialists be

there clearly was not enough graphite in Germany for both fields of end

We and the Americans also used graphite control surfaces to control missi

until the mid-1950s. Now it is well known that it is better to use other m

ods instead of control vanes of any material. But more than ten years of p

ent work by specialists from the USSR and United States were requir

switch to this method.

Irving writes,

Who knows how the situation would have turned out if the mistake h

been corrected in a timely manner. This mistake, which was fatal for 

German atomic project, proved to be fortunate for humankind. It beca

the main obstacle and hindered the Germans from creating a critical re

248

5. David Irving, The Virus House (London: Kimber, 1967). The American edition was David Irv

German Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967).
tor using graphite and uranium, in other words, the same type of reactor as

the first operating reactor in the world, which the Americans created two

years later . . .

As far as one can tell from the published research, neither Russian nor American postwar researchers have fully appreciated how the Peenemünde rocketeers’

invention of graphite control surfaces saved humankind.The Germans were forced

to use up their extremely limited stores of pure graphite.

in august 1945, when we were in Thuringia, we heard on the radio about the

dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We first of all tried to

understand what they were talking about.

There were no Soviet specialists among us at that time who had the slightest

involvement in atomic research. Nevertheless, our knowledge of physics helped

us, in a group discussion, to assume that the Americans had succeeded in creating

a bomb by converting part of the mass of a substance into energy, in accordance

with Einstein’s famous formula: E = mc2

.There and then, we started to question

Helmut Gröttrup about what had been known in Peenemünde regarding

German work on the creation of an atomic bomb. To what extent were the

German directors of the long-range missile program—in particular Dornberger,

von Braun, or their closest assistants—familiar with the possibilities of creating an

atomic bomb? Long conversations with Gröttrup enabled us to understand that

work on some sort of super-powerful explosive had been conducted in Germany.

Gröttrup was well acquainted with the names Heisenberg and von Ardenne,

which I mentioned as possible scientists who could have been working on an

atomic bomb. Moreover, he said that in the summer of 1943 the Peenemünde

directors had, under great secrecy, talked about some new powerful explosive. For

the specialists at Peenemünde this was very important.They understood that the

ordinary TNT used in A-4 warheads—in quantities of 700–800 kilograms per

warhead—would produce an effect no greater than a conventional 1,000 kilogram bomb dropped from an airplane.

British and American aviation had already dropped countless such bombs on

German cities. Nevertheless, Germany had continued to fight and had even

expanded its development of new weapons. Gröttrup recalled that he had heard

about the new explosive when von Braun had been sent to Berlin to consult

with the infantry command about the prospects of increasing the power of

missile warheads.

Upon his return, von Braun did not say with whom he had met in Berlin.

Gröttrup,smiling,recalled that it had been nice to hear from his boss that the theoretical physicists, despite the very interesting problem they were working on, had

absolutely no engineering experience—in contrast to the missile specialists, they

could not imagine how they needed to organize their work in order to transition

from naked theory to “living” objects.

249
In addition, and Gröttrup said this frankly, German physics and scienc

whole had been severely weakened as early as 1937. More than forty perc

the professors had been removed from their university positions for disl

to the regime or for non-Aryan bloodlines. In this regard, German scienc

not well served, the persecution of scientists cost Germany dearly. But e

thing having to do with rocket technology was virtually unaffected becau

surprising as it may seem, Gröttrup could not recall any persecution o

specialists over the entire period of work at Peenemünde, except for one 

dent with the Gestapo.

The dismissive attitude of the military and political leaders of Germany t

the atomic project contrasted sharply with their close attention to the 

conducted in Peenemünde.This is despite the fact that Wernher Heisenber

June 1942 conference with Albert Speer, the senior Reich official who to a 

extent determined Germany’s economy, spoke plainly and directly about the 

tary use of atomic energy and explained how the atomic bomb could be 

cated.6 For military leaders, evidently, the authority of world-famous ph

Heisenberg was not sufficient for the atomic project to be given the same 

ity as guided missiles and flying bombs.

Heisenberg’s report did not make the proper impression on Field Marshal E

Milch, who was responsible for aircraft armaments. Milch shortly thereafter au

ized series production of the new “vengeance weapon,” the V-1 flying bomb, 

not giving Heisenberg the support he needed.The well-known “General’s s

cism” emerged with regard to the new incomprehensible sciences.The V-1 w

brainchild of aviation and the V-2 was the weapon of the infantry troops.Th

clear, intelligible, and obvious—you could look at it, put your hands on i

converting mass into energy—this was abstraction. Better to wait!

But serious technical problems continued to occur even in work that had 

conducted at Peenemünde on a broad scale. I have already mentioned that th

launch that could be described as a success took place on 3 October 1942.In 

of construction, this was the fourth A-4 rocket. Oberth himself, who w

Peenemünde at that time, congratulated von Braun and the other rocket dev

ers.The engine and the control system worked comparatively normally for th

time. On the occasion of the long-awaited success, a banquet was held 

Schwabes Hotel. A huge boulder with the inscription “On 3 October 194

stone fell from my heart—Wernher von Braun” was placed near the launch 

(We had heard this story, but none of us paid any attention to the stone wh

were visiting Peenemünde).A series of failures followed afterward, however.

were explosions during launch, explosions in the air, and failures of control s

actuators, gyroscopes, propellant and oxidant line valves, and the onboard e

cal power circuits.

250

6. Speer was the Nazi Minister of Armaments and War Production in 1942-45.
In late 1941, the armaments ministry expressed interest in the large-scale series

production of the A-4. In this regard, a large number of mutually exclusive missile

variants were proposed, the majority of which were rejected on paper. Such a large

number of specialists were drawn into this work that the optimization of the A-4

was greatly slowed down. Nevertheless, experimental launches of the A-4 continued, and the number of launches reached in 1943. During the launches, engineers

identified and corrected the primary shortcomings of the engine, fuel supply

system, and instrumentation.They began serious work on achieving the required

firing precision.

In early 1943, the Germans discovered a great lag in the development of

ground equipment and ground services for monitoring and supporting the

flight tests. Simultaneously, troop units began experimental launches in which

they not only had to master the new weapon, but also work out sighting methods to ensure firing accuracy. This research on ballistics and firing accuracy

required the development of special onboard and ground-based radio equipment. In addition, optical devices were stationed on the flight path to monitor

the trajectory. The launches exposed many shortcomings in the electrical

circuits and control system equipment design. Successful launches at a nominal

range of up to 287 kilometers alternated with explosions, fires in the tail

section, and control system failures.

The missile was extremely unreliable—it had not been brought up to standard,

and required substantial improvements. But as the situation on the fronts deteriorated, with the adventurism characteristic of Hitler, the political and military leadership of the Reich pinned their hopes all the more on this new weapon.

After the Battle of Stalingrad and the Germans’ defeat in the Battle of Kursk,

the Eastern Front was so unstable that a missile such as the A-4 could not be used

to stop the Red Army’s advance. Britain was another story. In the absence of a

second front, the Germans could count on using the coastline of the North Sea

or English Channel to create stationary launching areas to fire against Britain.

There was a glimmer of hope that the British, having concentrated their attention on their own territory, would not dare participate in assault landing operations, while the Americans would not undertake anything alone.The Führer gave

outlandish instructions to begin launching 1,000 flying bombs and missiles

against Britain per day. After that the number of launches would gradually

increase to 5,000 per day!

In May 1943, the question of priority between the V-1 (Fi-103) flying bomb

and the V-2 (A-4) missile was to have been resolved. By that time there had been

more than twenty-five A-4 launches, the last of which had been successful. In

terms of striking accuracy and range, the flying bomb and the A-4 missile were

approximately identical. Both weapons were suitable for striking targets the size of

a large city.In this regard,London was difficult to miss.But British air defense units

had learned to fight very effectively against the slow and low-flying V-1 flying

bombs (cruise missiles in today’s terminology). Anti-aircraft artillery and air

251
defense fighters shot them down, and they ran into barrage balloons. New B

radar facilities made it possible to detect V-1s long before they reached Lo

The Wehrmacht leaders understood that they could hardly break Britain by la

ing around one thousand V-1s per month, each having only an 800 kilo

warhead, of which barely forty percent reached the target. In total during th

around 12,000 V-1s were fired against Britain.

The V-2 was another matter.The British air defense were powerless again

missile. Its flight speed and altitude precluded any possibility of warni

announcement of an air-raid alert.

The Germans needed to set up the large-scale series production of the 

When Peenemünde was first being established, it was assumed that A-4 m

would be produced there on the island, or at least assembled after productio

tested there.To this end, a high-capacity production facility was built and 

equipped with various production equipment and testing instruments. It 

became clear, however, that Peenemünde could not accommodate the req

scale of production and production line processes.The factory that had been 

in Peenemünde was therefore converted into an experimental Versuc

(VW—Research Factory). A total of approximately one hundred rockets 

assembled there.

In July 1943, Hitler once again personally received the Peenemünde dire

He announced that the rocket program had become the top priority for the 

Wehrmacht and for German industry.Such a task required the development of 

nology and the organization of mass production. In Thuringia, in the vicin

Nordhausen, construction began on an enormous subterranean factory w

projected production capacity of thirty A-4 missiles every twenty-four hour

factory was called Mittelwerk. By mid-1944 it was already producing up t

A-4 missiles per month.

252

NASA Histo

V-1 rocket. 
The construction and production of A-4 missiles at Mittelwerk near Nordhausen

was perhaps one of the darkest and most tragic pages in the history of German

rocket technology. Foreign workers, prisoners of war, and concentration camp

prisoners were used to build and produce the missiles under the supervision of

German specialists and Gestapo overseers.

Before work began underground, the workers were brought to the Dora

concentration camp, which had been set up especially for this purpose next to a

picturesque wooded mountain. Inside the mountain factory, the most rigid

regime was established—the slightest violation of order and discipline was

punished by death. Smoke billowed from the chimney of the crematorium at the

Dora camp around the clock. Camp workers died from beatings, torture, diseases,

exhaustion, and execution for the slightest suspicion of sabotage.Very few of the

Dora prisoners who worked on the top-secret vengeance weapon would get out

alive. Nevertheless, an underground center of the anti-Nazi resistance was active

at the camp.

Nine thousand skilled German workers were sent to Mittelwerk as

conscripted workers by the companies AEG, Siemens, Rheinmetall Borsig,

Dynamit AG, Krupp, and Thiessen-Hitton.The Gestapo sent more than 30,000

prisoners from various concentration camps.The camp underground committee, which consisted of Russians, Czechs, French, and communist Germans,

organized sabotage at the factory under the motto The Slower You Work,The

Closer to Peace! The prisoners found ways to make the most delicate rocket

assemblies useless.

The Gestapo managed to pick up the scent of the underground anti-Nazi

committee, which was led by German communist Albert Kuntz. Among those

arrested and thrown into the Gestapo torture chamber for interrogation were

French officers, Polish partisans, Czech scientists, German communists, and

Soviet prisoners of war.The names of these heroes of the rocket underground

remain unknown to us. But the sabotage continued in spite of the reprisals and

executions. There were also anti-Nazis among the German workers in the

subterranean factory. One of them, the skilled metal worker Joseph Zilinskiy,

who had worked at Peenemünde before being sent to Mittelwerk, managed to

establish contact with Soviet prisoners of war. He was seized by the Gestapo and

thrown into a cell in the Nordhausen barracks. He was to be hanged, but during

a British and American aviation attack the barracks was bombed. He managed

to escape and hid until the end of the war. People such as Zilinskiy, who by some

miracle survived, have enabled us to learn the terrible details of the Nazi’s

subterranean missile production.

In October 1992, I visited a memorial museum created on the territory of the

Dora camp.The young people working in this museum had gathered very interesting material about the camp’s history, the construction of Mittelwerk, and the

heroes of the resistance.They were searching for the names of the heroes of sabotage at Mittelwerk and Dora victims.

253
The first meetings at Nordhausen and then in Bleicherode with Ge

specialists enabled us to find out the primary specifications (listed as follows) 

series production A-4 missiles that were produced at the subterranean factor

then delivered directly to troop units:

Launch weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.9–13 metric tons

Maximum engine thrust on the ground . . . . . . . 26 metric tons

Maximum engine thrust at high altitude . . . . . . 30 metric tons

Total length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.9 meters

Diameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 meters

Warhead mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900–1000 kg

Maximum flight range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250–300 km

Propellant mass (80 percent ethyl alcohol) . . . . . 3.6 metric tons

Oxidizer mass (liquid oxygen) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 metric tons

Engine operation time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64–65 seconds

Maximum speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1500 meters/second

Maximum altitude above the ground . . . . . . . . . 95 km

Speed at contact with target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 meters/second

In spite of the free labor coerced from prisoners, the cost of the A-4 wa

300,000 Reichsmarks! Per missile! And this only included cost of the pr

lant and oxidizer and the pay for troop units; it did not include the cost 

ground equipment.

In September 1944, the Germans began firing A-4 missiles on London, a

as liberated Paris and Antwerp.The V-2 attacks caused great terror among the 

The missiles closed in without any warning noise and were like bolts fro

blue. The approaching missile with its fiery exhaust could only be observ

accident, several seconds before it exploded. Immediately after the combat 

the V-2 had started, the Brits conducted reconnaissance and then organiz

attacks against the rocket launchers, which were difficult to camouflage.The

no other way to fight against V-2 missiles. Launch positions proved to be the 

est link of the missile strategy.

In the 1970s, the United States devoted intense attention to developing m

railroad launchers for the Midgetman missile and, before that, the Minuteman

USSR also developed intercontinental missile launch variants using railroad r

stock. But mobile railroad launchers as protection against air attacks had been 

oped by the Germans as early as 1944 in Peenemünde.The A-4 missile was to 

been launched from a simple rack mounted on a railroad flatcar.The mobile lau

consisted of alcohol and liquid oxygen tanks, launch equipment, and the equip

needed to perform pre-launch checks. However, the Germans did not succe

bringing the mobile launchers to the point of combat-readiness. All of the 

launches were conducted from launch “tables” at fixed positions.The missiles 

transported there and set up using a special erector, the so-called Meillerwagen.

254
The 485th Front Artillery Division

was created for the combat use of the

A-4.According to information provided

by Dr.-Ing. Hans Kammler, the SS

Lieutenant General responsible for all

V-weapon control points, they had

managed to launch up to fifteen missiles

per day in September 1944 when he was

commanding an “artillery corps.” As

they gained mastery of the missile technology, they shortened the pre-launch

preparation cycle. On 30 October,

twenty-nine missiles were launched. On

26 November and again on 26 December, the Germans launched a record

thirty-three missiles!

According to information that is

evidently close to authentic, from 5

September through 31 December 1944, a

total of 1,561 A-4 missiles were launched.

Of these, 447 were launched against London and forty-three were launched against

Noordwijk and Ipswijk, the garrison and assembly bases in the Netherlands that

supported the Allied deployment on the long-awaited second front.

Beginning in early 1945, bombing raids and the advance of British and

American troops deprived the Germans of the most advantageous positions for

firing on London.The majority of the missiles were then directed against targets

in continental Europe.The Germans launched 924 rockets against supply bases

in Antwerp; 27 against Liège; 24 against Lille; 19 against Paris and the Meuse

valley; and 2 against Diest. In their memoirs, various World War II Allied

commanders make no mention of substantial Allied military losses caused by

missile attacks. As the rockets often missed their targets by tens of kilometers,

they ended up damaging civilian morale much more than the Allied economy

or armed forces.

According to various sources, the 2,000 missiles launched against London over

a seven-month period killed over 2,700 people.There is no other reliable information from other locations concerning the casualties of A-4 rocket fire.But if you

extrapolate based on the London statistics for the average number of deaths per

launch, then one can assume that approximately 7,500 deaths resulted from the

A-4 missiles.Those who were burned in the crematorium of the Dora camp or

annihilated during the construction of Peenemünde and the rocket firing range in

Poland should be added to these direct victims of missile technology combat operations, along with the anti-Nazis who suffered in the torture chambers and were

executed.Their number far exceeds those who died as a direct result of the A-4’s

255

Dr. Matthias Uhl.

Three V-2 rockets being prepared for launch. 
use as a weapon. Such are the tragic pages of the history of the first opera

long-range, guided ballistic missile.

What were the Allied and Soviet intelligence services doing during these 

One can forgive our intelligence service for their ignorance of the scope of 

ations in Germany on missile armaments.The service had been crushed tw

first under Yezhov, and then again under Beriya. But the celebrated W

intelligence services had also overlooked a secret project that engaged tens of 

sands of German civilians and military specialists. Orders from Peenemünd

Mittelwerk were fulfilled by dozens of companies scattered throughout the 

country. Experimental launches of missiles into the Baltic Sea had been cond

since 1940 and at the firing range in Poland since 1943.

It seems improbable,but nevertheless,before May 1943 neither reports pro

by agents, nor information from prisoners of war, nor air reconnaissance, no

other type of intelligence gathering had provided reliable information abo

true scale of operations to develop the new secret weapon.

There is a plausible legend that in May 1943, in London, a meticulous 

photograph interpreter, Royal Air Force officer Constance “Babs” Babin

Smith, discovered a small aircraft without a pilot’s cockpit in one of the p

of Usedom Island. This was the Fiesler-103 flying bomb, later called th

Other aerial photos taken afterward revealed the A-4 “little cigars.” Only 

did the British General Staff begin to analyze related information provid

agents in France, Poland, Norway, and Sweden. From these agents, the B

learned that in December 1943 they could expect an attack on Britain by 

weapons—flying bombs, and some sort of enormous rocket. Aerial p

graphic reconnaissance had already detected 138 possible launch pads o

northern coast of France and the Netherlands. The British obtained p

graphs of launch pads and other information from the French about the 

ence of special troop units for the maintenance of a special purpose we

These materials, which British intelligence did not assimilate until three

a-half years after the previously mentioned letter from anti-fascist eng

Kumerov, finally compelled the British to act. The skeptics who had 

convinced that the intelligence reports were nothing more than rocket hy

finally came around.

Comparing all of this information on the as yet unknown rocket weapon 

information on the Germans’ work on the “uranium project,” the B

wondered if there was a link between these two operations. Churchill had 

fully informed about the Americans’ work on the atomic bomb. Moreov

believed that British scientists should be sent to the United States to work o

problem in order pre-empt the Germans at all costs.But what if these flying b

or these “cigars” detected in the photographs were linked with the Germans

on an atomic bomb? It was dangerous to investigate further, and Churchill a

to a bombing strike against Peenemünde.The Royal Air Force developed a d

enting tactic—for many weeks before the strike, British and American pilot

256
over Usedom on their return from bombing runs on Berlin. The island’s air

defense was given strict orders not to open fire and not to send fighters into the

air so as not to attract the enemy’s attention to the top-secret island.This continued until 17 August 1943.

On the eve of the Peenemünde attack, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir

Arthur Travers Harris summoned the officers responsible for the upcoming operation and warned them about the particular responsibility of the crews and the

extraordinary importance of destroying this target.“If the attack is not successful,

it will be repeated the following night. In that case, however, it will not be possible to avoid great losses.”

The first waves of bombers flew over Usedom in the late evening of 17

August 1943 without dropping a single bomb. The Germans below did not

even sound the air-raid alarm. Suddenly flares lit up over the northern end of

the island.This was the beginning of the first and most powerful bombing strike

of the entire history of Peenemünde. Five hundred and ninety-seven fourengined bombers rained down thousands of high-explosive and incendiary

bombs on the prohibited area and nearby settlement. One wave of bombers

followed another, carpet-bombing the production buildings, test-rig facilities,

and laboratory buildings.A total of 1.5 million kilograms of high-explosive and

incendiary bombs were dropped. The local air defense proved powerless but

night fighter aircraft urgently called in from Berlin shot down 47 American

B-25 Flying Fortresses.

Seven hundred and thirty-five Peenemünde residents were killed—among them

were many leading specialists, including chief engine designer Dr. Walter Thiel.

After hearing of the scale of the attack, Luftwaffe Deputy Commander Colonel

General Jeschonnek, who was directly responsible for the air defense system of that

area, committed suicide. But Dornberger and von Braun did not lose heart.They

assured the chief of Himmler’s security service, SS Obergruppenführer Ernst

Kaltenbrunner, that the Peenemünde survivors would be able to overcome the

aftermath of the catastrophe. Operations were slowed down but not halted.The air

war against Peenemünde confirmed again that it was quite impossible to stop

experimental weapons development operations using conventional aviation

bombers, even such powerful ones.

This example of the Peenemünde team’s tenacity was one more piece of

evidence against Douhet’s celebrated doctrine which counted on the use

of conventional means of air attack.

As a result of the Peenemünde bombing in August 1943, the Wehrmacht decided

to create a backup research test range in Poland to continue the optimization of

the A-4 and to bring it to the point of reliability for combat.

At the same time, the military was tasked with intensifying the training of troop

formations to service combat launchers. To accomplish this, Himmler proposed

using the SS Heidelager test range in Poland, which was located in the Debica area

between the Vistula, Wisloka, and San Rivers. The test range’s line of fire went

257
north-northeast from the small town of Blizna to the bend of the Bug River 

Siedlce-Sarnaki area east of Warsaw. The range and all of its facilities were 

oughly camouflaged. Construction was carried out by the prisoners of the Pu

concentration camp (approximately 2,000 people), who were later all killed.

The 444th Test Battery, the “Blizna Artillery Range,” was located in the v

of Blizna and Pustkow.The 444th Test Battery conducted the first experim

launch in Blizna under field conditions on 5 November 1943, and the first co

use of the A-4 began just one year later.

During the test firings in Poland there was one failure after another.Some 

ets failed to take off; immediately after ignition the circuit would reset itself. 

took off and immediately fell on their tails, destroying the launch pad. O

exploded at an altitude of several kilometers due to fires in the tail section, cr

due to control system failures, or broke up in the air due to aerodynamic h

of the oxidizer tanks. Only 10–12 percent of the launched missiles reached 

targets. Series production at Mittelwerk was already running at full speed, an

Peenemünde specialists were desperately attempting to determine the causes 

mid-air breakups by performing series after series of new test launches. S

method now seems anachronistic to us because, as a rule, we are tasked with e

ing the successful launch of a new missile on the first attempt.At that time 

was no other way to gain experience.We went part way down that difficul

at Kapustin Yar from 1947 to 1950.7

The lack of multi-channel telemetry systems also played a role. Messina-

first radio telemetry system, had only six channels. But even its use was limi

the Polish test range due to radio silence.The Red Army offensive was roll

the eighteenth and last test launch near the village of Blizna took place 

August 1944.The Blizna test battery was restationed in an area south of Lièg

the first combat firing was conducted from there. It was aimed at Paris.Thre

later they began routine firing against London using long-range ballistic mi

Thanks to the actions of the Polish partisans and underground, the British 

ligence service had received valuable information concerning the test ran

Poland.They had even managed to send an airplane to pick up missile parts 

ered by the partisans from missile crash sites. The Brits had also obtaine

remains of rockets that crashed in Sweden.

There was no time to waste, and Churchill appealed for help directly to 

FROM CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CHURCHILL AND STAL

Personal Top Secret Message from Mr. Churchill to Marshal Stalin:

1. There is reliable information to the effect that for a substantial per

of time the Germans have been conducting missile tests from an exp

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7. Kapustin Yar was the location in central Asia where the Soviets test-fired their V-2 and V-2-derived 

in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
imental station in Debica, Poland. According to our information this

projectile has an explosive charge weighing approximately 12,000

pounds, and the effectiveness of our countermeasures depends to a

significant degree on how much we can find out about this weapon

before it can be used against us. Debica is located on the route of your

victoriously advancing troops and it is completely possible that you will

seize this site in the next few weeks.

2. Although the Germans almost certainly will destroy or haul off as much

of the equipment located at Debica as possible,you will probably be able

to obtain a great deal of information when this area is in Russian hands.

In particular, we hope to find out how the missile is launched because

this will enable us to determine the missile launch sites.

3. Therefore, I would be most grateful, Marshal Stalin, if you could give

the appropriate instructions concerning the preservation of the equipment and facilities in Debica, which your troops might capture after

seizing this area, and if you would then provide us with the opportunity for our specialists to study this experimental station.

13 July 1944.8

Churchill and Stalin exchanged six telegrams in 1944 on the participation of

British specialists in an expedition to the German test station in Debica.Stalin gave

instructions to allow the Brits to inspect the test range, though not as quickly as

Churchill would have liked. Due to the particular secrecy of the correspondence

between Churchill and Stalin, the texts of the letters were not accessible until long

after the deaths of both leaders.

In July 1944, we Soviet missile specialists who had been working in NII-1,

formerly RNII, knew nothing about the test range in Poland and still had virtually

no idea about the A-4 missile.As is evident from Churchill’s letter,the Brits only had

vague notions about the missile. All of the instructions that Churchill mentions in

his letter were given directly to the General Staff.Accordingly, our army intelligence

services received orders to be particularly vigilant in gathering intelligence on the

Debica area, which in August 1944 was still 50 kilometers from the front line.

At the same time, People’s Commissar of the Aircraft Industry Shakurin

received instructions from Stalin to prepare a group of Soviet specialists who could

study everything that could be found on that test range before the British specialists showed up there.

The first expedition, comprised of military intelligence under General I. A.

Serov, was sent to the liberated area of the alleged test range hot on the heels of

259

8. Perepiska Predsedatelya Soveta Ministrov SSSR s prezidentami SShA i premier-ministrami Velikobritanii vo vremya

Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny, 1941-1945 gg., 2-ye izd. (Correspondence of the USSR Council of Ministers

Chairman with the U.S. President and British Prime Ministers During the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945, Vol.

1, 2nd ed.) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1986).
battle. Included in this group from our institute were Yu. A. Pobedonostsev, M. K.

Tikhonravov, and several of their immediate

technical assistants.They dug around Poland

for a rather long time under heavy guard.

After our group had been working in Poland

for about a week, the British specialists

arrived, including a representative of British

intelligence who had a detailed map of the

area showing the coordinates of the launch

site and numerous sites where the missiles

had fallen. Upon his return, Tikhonravov

told us that our military intelligence officers

had driven all over the test range and had

confirmed that the Britsh map was right on

the money. Their intelligence service had

provided accurate information.

In many respects for our future activities,

Churchill’s appeals to Stalin were truly decisive. If not for his letters, our victorious army

would have moved right past these Polish marshlands and forests without inve

ing what the Germans had been doing there.With the help of the Brits, we 

able to recover A-4 missile parts for the first time. (We of course did not kno

designation “A-4” at that time.)

Within days after the captured missiles were delivered from Poland to NI

Moscow, some wise person commanded that they be kept secret from 

rocket specialists. It was sometimes impossible to understand the logic of our 

ligence services.

All of the missile parts were placed in a large assembly hall at the institute

the chief of the institute (General Fedorov), his science unit deputy (our “pa

General Bolkhovitinov), and an information security officer were granted a

Even Pobedonostsev and Tikhonravov, who had seen everything in Poland, l

everything into the airplane, and brought it with them, were initially barred 

entering. But gradually common sense began to prevail. Isayev, and th

Pilyugin, Mishin, and several other specialists were allowed to inspect the Ge

secret weapon. Entering the hall, I immediately saw a dirty, black, funnel-s

opening from which Isayev’s lower torso protruded. He had crawled hea

through the nozzle into the combustion chamber and, with the aid of a flash

was examining the details.A gloomy Bolkhovitinov sat nearby.

I asked,“ What is this,Viktor Fedorovich?”

“This is something that can’t exist!” he answered.

We had simply never imagined a liquid-propellant rocket engine of 

proportions at that time!

260

From the author’s 

Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov, 1
According to Tikhonravov, who had delivered this engine from the Polish

swamp,its location had also been indicated on the British intelligence map.The Brit

who brought them to the swamp said that a local resident had passed along the site

coordinates. He, in turn, had received the coordinates from Polish partisans. Not far

away they had found blown up aluminum tanks, pieces of the exterior steel casing,

and white shreds of prickly fiberglass.They didn’t manage to get everything out of

the swamp.The explosion of the propellant components had scattered missile parts

all over the area.

The Brits were very interested in the remains of radio equipment and control

system instruments that had remained intact.They had gathered several large cases

of all sorts of parts to be sent immediately to Britain via Moscow. Upon the arrival

of the British cases in Moscow, we were given the opportunity to inspect the

contents the night before they were transferred to the British Mission. Pilyugin,

two other engineers, and I did just that at the Khoroshevskiy barracks.

A group headed by Bolkhovitinov—consisting of Isayev, Mishin, Pilyugin,

Voskresenskiy, and I—received the assignment to reconstruct the general form of

the missile, its methods of control, and primary specifications based on the fragments that had been recovered.A year later, already working in Germany, I determined that for the most part, we had correctly reconstructed the missile, and this

greatly facilitated our subsequent activity.

Early in 1945,we received information from Poland about new interesting parts

that had been discovered in the area of the same test range.This time institute chief

General Fedorov decided to head a search expedition himself. He took along the

leading specialist on radio systems, my colleague Roman Popov. His group also

included the leading specialist on solid-propellant missiles, Colonel Leonid

Emilyevich Shvarts.They flew out of Moscow on 7 February 1945 in a Douglas.

Near Kiev the aircraft became cloud-bound, evidently lost its bearings, and then

crashed. All twelve passengers and crew perished. For me the loss of the remarkable radio engineer Roman Popov was particularly painful. His death effectively

ended our work on a radio-guided target location system for rocket-powered

interceptor aircraft.

During the first months of 1945, we put together an approximate representation of the A-4 missile, but we still had no concept of the true production scale or

the combat-effectiveness of this “vengeance weapon.” Specialists from the Air

Force who were working with us at NII-1 were particularly interested in the reliability of the missile—a drone aircraft that was fully automatically controlled.We

did not resolve these questions until after we arrived in Germany.

In December 1944, General Kammler conducted a review of the A-4 missile’s

reliability. Over the review period, 625 missiles were delivered to troop units. Of

these, 87, or 12.3 percent, were immediately returned to the factory due to defects

in the control system. Of the 538 remaining missiles, 495 were launched. Of this

number,44 launches were recorded as failures.Here,41 percent of the failures were

attributed to the control system, 13 percent to the propulsion system, 13 percent

261
to fires in the tail section, and 2.9 percent to explosions upon launch.Thus, 

the 625 missiles, 131 were clearly unfit for launch.The Germans did not hav

concerning missile crashes and breakups during the descending atmosp

segment. According to our subsequent experience launching A-4 missi

Kapustin Yar in 1947, crashes during the latter segment of the trajectory occ

at least 15–20 percent of the time.Consequently,one should consider that no 

than 400 of the 495 missiles launched reached their target, or 64 percent 

missiles delivered from the factory.

In spite of the V-weapon’s low degree of reliability and effectivenes

Wehrmacht and Reich leaders did not advise Hitler to reduce resources fo

production of missile weaponry and increase expenditures for aviation and in

armaments. On the contrary, work at Peenemünde to perfect the A-4 and on 

projects that were capturing the imagination were developed with new vig

spite of the approaching inescapable defeat.

According to the testimony of German Minister of Armaments and Mun

Speer before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, in tec

production and economic terms, the war had been lost as early as early su

1944. Total production was already insufficient to meet the demands of th

Speer commented, “The Germans cannot recall without pain the astou

achievements of their researchers, engineers, and specialists during the war and 

these achievements proved to be in vain, especially since their enemies cou

oppose those new types of weapons with anything remotely comparable to 

in the least.”9

There is no point in feeling sorry for the German scientists and engineers b

they ran out of time and their “achievements were in vain.”Whether they wan

or not,they accelerated Germany’s defeat by diverting large amounts of resourc

prospective developments from Germany’s depleted military-economic produ

potential.And they had even more interesting projects than the A-4.

During his first visit to Peenemünde in May 1945,Aleksey Isayev and a 

of colleagues from NII-1 went through all kinds of trash trying to fin

remnants of missile documentation.All of their searches had been unsuccessfu

then, according to Isayev, one of our colleagues who had stepped away fro

group to relieve himself behind a woodpile let out a howl and returned with 

booklet—a report. A diagonal red stripe ran across the slightly damp cover 

the frightening inscription Streng Geheim (Top Secret). The collective pa

experts that was set up there on the spot determined that this document w

design for a rocket-powered bomber.

Isayev told me about this rare find in Berlin after returning from Peenem

He was an engineer with an original way of thinking, who was captivat

262

9. E. Schneider, Itogi vtoroy mirovoy voyny (Results of the Second World War II) (Moscow: Izd

inostrannoy literatury, 1957).
extraordinary,new ideas regardless of who proposed them.In a half-whisper so that

no one could overhear, he confided, “Blow my brains out! What have they

invented here?! It’s an airplane, but not our pitiful BI, with a 1.5 metric ton bottle.

This one had 100 metric tons of sheer fire! That damned engine hurls the airplane

to a frightful altitude—300 or 400 kilometers! It comes down at supersonic speed,

but doesn’t break up in the atmosphere—it glances off it, like when you throw a

flat stone across the water at an acute angle. It strikes, skips, and flies farther! And

it does this two or three times! Ricocheting! Remember how we used to compete

at Serdolikovaya Bay in Koktebel? The one who got the most skips won.That’s

how these aircraft skip along the atmosphere; they dive down only after they have

flown across the ocean in order to slice their way into New York! What an impressive idea!”

The newly discovered report was immediately “classified” a second time. In the

presence of witnesses, Isayev slipped the report under the shirt of his most reliable

collaborator,then instructed this person to return to Moscow in their B-25 Boston

without reporting to General Sokolov.

As far as I was able to understand later, this was not the design of the A-9/

A-10 missile, which was designed for a range of 800 kilometers. The report

discussed the ranges required to strike New York. From today’s standpoint, we can

say that the layout of the vehicle described in the report—found in the woodpile

in Peenemünde in May 1945—anticipated the structure of the American Space

Shuttle and our Energiya-Buran system.

Let’s interrupt the narrative about Peenemünde and take a closer look at what

they had found in the “woodpile.” After the report arrived in Moscow via the

special flight of the Boston bomber, it was personally delivered to our patron,

General Bolkhovitinov. Together with engineer Gollender, who had a good

command of German, Bolkhovitinov studied the sensational contents.

The report had been issued in Germany in 1944. Its authors were the Austrian

rocket engine researcher E. Sänger, who was already well known before the war,

and I. Bredt, who was unknown to us and was later identified as Irene Bredt, a gas

aerodynamics specialist.

Eugen Sänger was known for his book Raketen-flugtechnik (The Technology of

Rockets and Aviation), which he published in 1933. It had been translated and

published in the Soviet Union. Back when he was a 25-year-old engineer, Sänger

was captivated by the problems of rocket technology. He was one of the first serious researchers of gas dynamic and thermodynamic processes in rocket engines.

You can imagine how Bolkhovitinov and other NII-1 specialists felt as they

leafed through the top-secret report, one of 100 printed copies. Judging by the

distribution list, it had been sent to the leaders of the Wehrmacht main command,

the ministry of aviation,to all institutes and organizations working in military aviation, and to all German specialists and leaders who were involved in rocket technology,including General Dornberger in the army department of armaments,who

also served as chief of the Peenemünde center.

263
The title of the report was “Über einen Raketenantrieb für Fernbomber” 

Rocket Engine for a Long-Range Bomber).This paper analyzed in great det

technical capabilities for creating a manned winged rocket weighing many 

The authors convincingly showed by constructing nomograms and graphic

with the proposed liquid-propellant rocket engine with a thrust of 100 metri

it was possible to fly at altitudes of 50–300 kilometers at speeds of 20,000–3

kilometers/hour, with a flight range of 20,000–40,000 kilometers. The ph

and chemical processes of high-pressure and high-temperature propellant com

tion were studied in great detail, along with the energetic properties of prope

including emulsions of light metals in hydrocarbons.The work proposed a c

direct-flow, steam power plant both as a cooling system for the combustion c

ber and as a means to activate the turbopump assembly.

The problems of aerodynamics for an aircraft with a speed ten to twenty 

greater than the speed of sound were new for our aerodynamics specialist

report went on to describe the launch, takeoff, and landing dynamics. In an a

ent attempt to interest the military, the report included a highly detailed exa

tion of bombing issues, considering the enormous speed of a bomb dropped 

such an aircraft before it approached the target.

It is interesting that Sanger had already shown by the early 1940s that la

ing space aircraft without auxiliary means was unacceptable. He pro

launching space aircraft using a catapult with a horizontal track that would e

the aircraft to reach a speed greater than the speed of sound. Commenting o

calculation and visual graphics of flight, Sänger and Bredt wrote:

Takeoff is conducted using a powerful rocket complex fixed to 

ground and operating for approximately 11 seconds. Having accelerated 

a speed of 500 meters/second, the aircraft lifts off from the ground; w

the engine at full power, it climbs to an altitude of 50–150 kilometers 

a trajectory that is initially at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizon, a

then becomes lower and lower.... The ascent lasts from 4–8 minu

During this time, as a rule, the entire fuel supply is consumed. . . . At 

end of the upward phase of the trajectory, the rocket engine shuts dow

using its stored kinetic energy and potential energy, the aircraft contin

its flight in its characteristic glide along a wave-like trajectory with atte

uating amplitude. . . . At a previously calculated moment, the bombs 

dropped from the aircraft. Tracing a large arc, the aircraft returns to 

airfield or to another landing pad and the bombs, which are flying in 

original direction, come down on the target. . . .This tactic makes the att

completely independent of the time of day or the weather over the targ

and deprives the enemy of any capability to counteract the attack. . . .T

problem that we posed, which until now no one anywhere had solv

entails firing on and bombing targets located 1,000–20,000 kilomet

away. A formation of 100 rocket-propelled bombers . . . within the cou

264
of several days would be capable of completely destroying areas approaching the size of world capitals, including their suburbs, located anywhere on

the face of the earth.

The total takeoff weight of the bomber was 100 metric tons, of which 10

metric tons was the weight of the bombs.The landing weight was assumed to be

10 metric tons. If the flight range were reduced, the weight of the bombs could be

increased to 30 metric tons.They proposed that the subsequent work to implement the design of the rocket-propelled bomber be divided into twelve stages, in

which the bulk of the time would be devoted to firing rig optimization of the

engine, rig testing of the interaction of the engine and aircraft, launcher testing,

and finally, all phases of flight tests.10

In 1945, the work of Sänger and Bredt was translated, and in 1946 it was

published under the title “Survey of Captured Technology” by the Military

Publishing House of the USSR Armed Forces Ministry, under the editorship of

Major General of the Aviation Engineer Service V. F. Bolkhovitinov; a large

number of copies were printed.

Being in Germany at the time, Isayev and I had no idea that this report had

caused quite a stir after its delivery to NII-1 in May 1945.We could only imagine

the feelings experienced by our patron, who was considered a dreamer in higher

aviation circles, but who was respected for his enthusiasm in the face of extremely

bold proposals, a quality that was very unusual for a chief designer.Together with

the engine specialists from RNII, we had only obtained a reliable liquid-propellant rocket engine with a thrust of 1.5 metric tons in 1943. Isayev dreamed of

bringing the engine up to a thrust of 2–3 metric tons in a year or two. But then,

in 1944, a V-2 engine with a thrust of almost 30 metric tons was recovered in

Poland. Added to this now was Sänger’s report, which outlined the design for an

aircraft with engine thrust of 100 metric tons!

When Bolkhovitinov’s deputy, MAI professor Genrikh Naumovich

Abramovich, flew into Berlin from Moscow in June, he was already familiar with

Sänger’s work. Being a very erudite theoretician, he said that such an abundance

of gas-kinetic, aerodynamic, and gas-plasma problems required a profound scientific analysis. He believed it would take ten years—God willing—before it came

down to the business of designers.“It’s easier to make rockets than that airplane.”

Yes, that proposal was at least twenty-five years ahead of its time.The first space

aircraft in the form of the Space Shuttle flew in 1981. But it launched vertically as

the second stage of a rocket. To this day there is no authentic aerospace vehicle

with a horizontal launch.

265

10. For an inside look at the Sänger-Bredt bomber,see Irene Sänger-Bredt,“The Silver Bird Story:A Memoir,”

in R. Cargill Hall, ed.Essays on the History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Third through the Sixth History

Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics,Vol. I (Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1977), pp. 195-228.
In modern-day Germany, they have designed an aerospace system that is 

“Sänger” in honor of the pioneer of this idea.The largest German aircraft 

participated in the work on this program.The spacecraft was designed on th

of forward-looking, but realizable technology and was intended to transport 

ous cargoes into space while lowering costs and ensuring safety, reliability, an

purpose use. It differs fundamentally from the 1940s design in that hori

acceleration is not achieved by a catapult, but by a special booster aircraf

carries the actual spacecraft, which will be capable of inserting 10 metric t

payload into near-Earth orbit—the same amount specified in Sänger’s or

design—at an altitude of up to 300 kilometers.Working in 1944, Eugen S

certainly could not have imagined the materials, engines, and navigatio

control methods that German scientists with access to advanced space tech

gies are working on now.

In 1947, in conversations with Gröttrup, we were trying to determine 

emünde’s attitude toward Sänger’s design during the war.The gist of his respon

something like the following: First, the consensus was that work on Sänger’s 

might hinder the A-4 program and the other programs at Peenemünde that 

purely rocket-oriented.Second,they believed that such a design would require a

four to five years of intense work before the first flight; and third, it was an airc

the design interested the Luftwaffe, but rocket technology was under the manag

of the infantry command. Even here institutional partiality was at work!

It is interesting to compare the different assessments of the development cy

the Sänger aircraft.Peenemünde estimated up to five years,while G.N.Abramo

subsequent assessment was up to ten years.The present Germany began work o

“Sänger” in 1986 and scheduled the first demonstration flight for 1999—a thi

year development cycle! And this was more than fifty years after Isayev’s 

extracted the top-secret report from the woodpile. Currently, work on the p

has been practically halted due to the European Space Agency’s lack of fundin

Though Eugen Sänger would never see an aircraft bearing his name, he n

theless received international recognition during his lifetime. In 1950, h

elected the first president of the International Academy of Astronautics, a

1962 the USSR Academy of Sciences awarded him the Yuriy Gagarin Med

In Peenemünde, there was serious work underway on another large 

missile. By December 1944, the territory of Germany had been invaded b

Red Army from the east and the Allies from the west.The defeat of the Naz

inevitable. Nevertheless, the stubborn specialists in Peenemünde launched a

cruise missile under the designation A-4b on 27 December.The launch was u

cessful. From our vantage point today, the failure can be easily explained—

simply unavoidable, the knowledge and experience to realize this design d

exist. They started this work with the particular courage that comes with 

rance. The time for the realization of such designs had not yet come, esp

since it was already too late to be working on them in Peenemünde. One had 

to glance at a map of the military situation.

266
Nevertheless, in 1944, Dornberger decided to consolidate in Peenemünde the

projects for the development of automatically guided anti-aircraft missiles that

were scattered among different agencies and companies. The combat use of air

defense missiles had been scheduled to begin in 1942–43. The existing types of

radar at that time—Burund, Hansa, Brabant, Percival, and Lohengrin—were used

to support launches, guidance, and monitoring.The launch area design was codenamed Vesuvius.

Each Wasserfall anti-aircraft guided missile battery consisted of one radar and

four launchers. The utopian plan for the protection of Germany called for 870

Wasserfall batteries and 1,300 Schmetterling batteries. It is astounding that this pipe

dream was considered possible! 

By mid-1945, the unfeasible production plans also called for no fewer than

2 million Taifuns to be produced per month.The Taifun was developed during the

last year of the war to battle large Allied bomber formations. It was the smallest

liquid-propellant rocket the Germans developed, with a length of just 1.9 meters

and a diameter of 10 centimeters.The engine generated 500 kilograms of thrust,

imparting to the projectile—which weighed just 9 kilograms—a speed four times

greater than the speed of sound! The Taifuns were supposed to be launched in

salvos from a launcher with forty-six launching rails. Here the influence of our

Katyusha was clearly evident. But the Taifun engine had not been optimized, and

the Germans had not yet mastered the technology of solid-propellant rockets.

In contrast to the Allies and us, the Germans understood that a guided missile

capable of generating supersonic speed is the most effective means of combating

aircraft. The Wasserfall could have been produced earlier, but little attention had

been devoted to it—the doctrine of vengeance had dominated. The Wasserfall

required very large expenditures.They believed that a battery of eight launchers

using thirty-five rockets could repel an entire bomber squadron.

The Schmetterling was an air defense missile produced by the company

Henschel, with tests conducted in Peenemünde.The Rheintochter was still in development. It was a two-stage, solid-propellant rocket produced by the company

Rheinmetall Borsig, but it possessed only subsonic speed.The anti-aircraft guided

missile Enzian was developed on the basis of the Me 163 rocket-propelled fighter

at the research center in Oberammergau.Thirty-eight of these missiles were fired.

It used a Walter engine with a thrust of 1.5 metric tons and Rheinmetall Borsig

solid-propellant launch boosters.The Enzian is one more example of the transfer

of scientific-technical ideas through super-secret barriers, even during wartime.

While we were developing the ideas of radio guidance for the BI-1 aircraft in

early 1944, Roman Popov, Abo Kadyshevich and I arrived at the idea of making

this aircraft automatically guided. Popov and Kadyshevich worked on using the

newest American radar for this purpose, and I attempted to create a small work

force to develop an autopilot. The work proved to be considerably more laborintensive than we had imagined at that beginning stage when an interesting idea

entices inventors into the meat grinder of problems.The discontinuation of work

267
on the BI-1, the virtual elimination of the danger of German bombings, and 

the tragic death of Popov halted further work.

The Germans discontinued similar work because the ideas of the Wasserfal

more reasonable. The development of the Wasserfall anti-aircraft guided m

went farther than the rest. Greater efforts by control systems specialists 

diverted for this work because the problem of hitting an airplane proved 

much more complex than firing A-4 missiles “against areas.” To optimiz

Wasserfall control system,its equipment was installed on an A-4,and an exper

tal launch was conducted in March 1944. The launch was conducted ver

from the island of Greifswalder-Oie. Due to a failure of the control sy

the missile turned to the north and fell in the south of Sweden. Fragments 

missile were delivered to Britain and provided the Brits with the first more 

accurate notions about the A-4 missile.At that time, no one in Britain knew 

this launch was a control system test for an air defense missile.

By December 1944, only the Wasserfall and Schmetterling remained on the 

air defense missiles that had been kept for production and testing in Peenem

Counting on dragging out the war, the Germans developed plans for their 

production during 1945 and 1946. But it was impossible to oppose the 

powerful bomber strikes from the west and the complete air superiority of th

models of Soviet aircraft. Nevertheless, over the course of a year the Ge

managed to conduct around one hundred experimental launches of the Was

According to Gröttrup, the Wasserfall and Schmetterling documentation was 

pletely destroyed during the evacuation of Peenemünde. In Germany, we 

certain that the Brits were most interested in the Wasserfall.

Work on the A-9, the winged version of a long-range missile, continued in 

of the catastrophic situation on the Eastern and Western Fronts. On 24 Ja

1945, a successful launch of the A-4b finally took place.This was the first l

of an experimental long-range missile with wings.

In December 1944, Hitler awarded the Knight’s Cross, one of the highest 

decorations, to five Peenemünde scientists, including von Braun, for excep

service in the design, manufacture, and use of V-2 missiles.11

On 14 February 1945, the last A-4 missile was launched from Peenemünd

Eastern Front of Hitler’s Reich was collapsing. After their decorations 

conferred, the Peenemünde directors received no more orders and beg

prepare for evacuation on their own initiative. All of the equipment and 

mentation was packed into cases marked “EW.” The accompanying docu

noted that this was the property of an elektrotechnisches werk (electrical fac

Convoys of automobiles and special trains carrying specialists, archives, and e

268

11. During the Third Reich, the Iron Cross had eight grades.The lowest two grades were Iron Cr

and Second Class, and the highest grade was the Grand Cross.The five grades in between were the 

Cross and its variations.
ment, headed by Dornberger and von Braun, left Usedom Island on 17 February

1945. They evacuated to the areas of Nordhausen, Bleicherode, Sonderhausen,

Lehesten,Witzenhausen,Worbis, and Bad Sachsa.The primary archives with the

results of thirteen years of research and work were hidden in the tunnels of Mittelwerk and nearby potassium mines.The main group of Peenemünde directors was

sent to the Bavarian Alps. On 4 May, the troops of the Second Byelorussian Army

Group entered the area of Peenemünde. On 2 May 1945, the Peenemünde directors went out toward the Americans and surrendered willingly. On the blindingly

sunny day of 2 May 1945, when my comrades and I were jubilantly signing our

names on the still-smoldering Reichstag walls,the Americans captured some of the

most valuable spoils of the war: more than four hundred of the main scientifictechnical employees of Peenemünde; documentation and reports; more than one

hundred missiles ready to be shipped to the front that had been stored at 

Mittelwerk and on spur tracks; and combat launchers, along with the military

personnel who were trained to operate the missiles!

The next stage in the history of rocket technology had begun. It could rightly

be called the Soviet-American stage. German specialists participated in the work

of this stage in the USSR and in the United States.

Some old hands from Peenemünde who were still alive in 1992, along with a

few admirers of the Hitler era in modern Germany, decided to commemorate the

fiftieth anniversary of the first successful launch of the A-4 on 3 October 1942. For

this occasion they planned a large festival in the Peenemünde area with the participation of foreign guests.The celebration was advertised as the “50th Anniversary

of the Space Age.”The British public strongly protested the commemoration, and

Chancellor Kohl had to intervene. Mass demonstrations were prohibited, and the

regional minister who had encouraged this festival was forced to retire.The British

acted graciously.The event coincidentally took place twenty-four hours before the

real anniversary of the Space Age—the thirty-fifth anniversary of the October 4

launch of the first artificial satellite! Meanwhile, Russia’s new reform-minded

authorities ignored the 35th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite,

and moreover did not interfere in the British-German brouhaha.

269

Chapter 18

To Thuringia

The Allied armies had occupied Germany. But they were faced with a subsequent

regrouping in accordance with the decision of the Yalta Conference. We were

supposed to vacate the western areas of Berlin and, by the same token, the

Americans were vacating Thuringia, the same Thuringia where Nordhausen,

already known to us from German accounts, was located.1

All of the personnel from Peenemünde, all of the documentation and unique

equipment were evacuated to Thuringia. Our authorities were in no hurry to

bring the troops out of the western part of Berlin because they needed time to

disassemble and transfer machine tools and valuable equipment from the factories

in the western part of the city to our zone.Two motor rifle divisions had been sent

for the sole purpose of disassembling Siemensstadt (Siemens City). Now dust was

stirred up not by battles, but by the hundreds of Studebakers and other vehicles

hauling captured equipment along streets that had not yet been cleared.

Meanwhile, the Americans were also in no hurry to take their troops out of

Thuringia.They needed to search for and bring out as many German specialists as

possible, particularly missile and nuclear experts.They needed to retrieve rockets and

various rocket equipment from the subterranean factories in Nordhausen and transport this material outside of the Red Army zone. Everyone working on both sides

of the still undesignated boundaries was in a hurry.They asked their commanders

not to rush to remove the checkpoints and the guards on these boundaries. Nevertheless, officers and soldiers interacted spontaneously and with friendship, and as a

rule, exchanged watches, cigarettes, belts, and military insignia from garrison caps.

On 9 May all the armies jubilantly celebrated victory.The war had been won.

Now we were faced with winning the peace.The central streets of Berlin were

decked out with the flags of the four Allied powers. On 4 June, a meeting was set

up between the commanders of the occupying troops, who were supposed come

to an agreement about practical measures for the management of Germany after

its unconditional capitulation.

271

1. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the major Allied powers made plans for dividing up Germany

into four zones of occupation (American, Soviet, British, and French).
Tempelhof airfield was preparing for a meeting of distinguished guests

commanders of three powers. Our commandant’s staff had restricted the pass

Soviet officers through the western portion of Berlin. But after some wranglin

obtained the necessary passes and June became a very hectic time,especially fo

During the “special regime” period when the allied commanders were 

ing, I went to visit Isayev in Basdorf.This quiet hamlet housed an experim

factory, laboratories, and test rigs produced by the Walter company.These fa

produced the liquid-propellant rocket engine for the German Me 163 fight

Early in the war, Messerschmitt was developing a fighter-interceptor th

very similar in specifications to our BI.The Germans had also, before this, 

the Heinkel He-176 with a Walter engine in Peenemünde—they had 

executed a takeoff! Several dozen of these aircraft were manufactured, but the

virtually no action in air battles.

The Walter engine was very reminiscent of the engines that Dushki

Shtokolov had begun to develop at RNII, that Isayev further developed, an

Glushko, working independently in his sharashka in Kazan, was making mor

able than any of them had been able to do. Korolev was testing engines deve

together with Glushko on Pe-2 airplanes in Kazan.

In this field,our developments and those of the Germans were running in 

lel. It was therefore not surprising that Isayev, after getting a look at de

Peenemünde, had settled down for a long time in Basdorf with an entire te

Muscovite and Khimki engine specialists.

Isayev had clearly gotten bored in Basdorf and his mood was somber. I

compatriots—the expansive Ivan Raykov; the imperturbable Anatoliy Tolsto

Arvid Pallo, who had joined them—enthusiastically told me about their in

tions with the German Walter employees.

“Before our troops showed up they had managed to bury the most techn

ically complex and original parts of their engines, chambers, and turbo

assemblies.The ones who buried them have taken off for the West.We had to 

everything down using persuasion, bribery, and sometimes threats.After the

determined that we were engine specialists, the Germans restored their te

and conducted several firing tests with us.We achieved a thrust of up to 1,50

and there is still some in reserve. Everything they’ve got is really high qualit

“So what’s the point?” asked Isayev, interrupting his compatriots, who 

captivated by the detective story.“I know now that we and Sasha Bereznya

dear patron in Bilimbay, the brilliant Glushko in Kazan, Kostikov and Tikhon

in Likhobory, and completely independent of us, the renowned Messerschmi

Walter have gotten off-track! Rocket-aircraft such as our BI and the Germa

163 aren’t needed! In nine out of ten cases the pilot doesn’t have time to atta

enemy. Our engine will burn up all its fuel and die at the most critical mo

Bakhchi, may he rest in peace, was a hero and an enthusiast. But for hundr

young pilots, one single thought will pulsate in their minds from the momen

take off at night: How and where will I land in order to save the aircraft an

272
life? Our developers need to find another application. It seems the Germans have

found it, and we simply have not matured.We don’t need a rocket-powered fighter

with a pilot, but an unmanned rocket. I heard about the Wasserfall in Peenemünde

and a little bit here in Basdorf.This rocket is an aircraft fighter.That is precisely what

our engines will be needed for. But we, the engine specialists, won’t be the most

important contributors—it will be you, the guidance specialists. The engines—

they’re a given.The design of a rocket, the body, that’s much simpler than for an

airplane. But how to find an airplane and hit it—that’s the main thing!”

Isayev was morose.The thoughts that tormented him had taken shape here in

quiet Basdorf.

“Blow our brains out! And Messerschmitt’s too! We have squandered four years

developing airplanes that nobody needs.The Germans managed to go farther, but

the result is the same! We were discussing unmanned rocket-fighters with the late

Roman Popov back in Khimki, after returning from Bilimbay. He and Abo

Kadyshevich showed me these multi-ton radar systems and told me that if a

rocket were to lift them into the air, they would be worth more than the airplane

they shot down.”

Our evening discussions about the future, which we held during those quiet

evenings in Basdorf over steins of flat local beer, led us all to conclude that aircraft

with liquid-propellant rocket engines were not necessary. Isayev was already full

of new ideas. He asked me to get in touch with Moscow upon my return to

Berlin and arrange for him to be recalled to the NII-1 institute—otherwise we

would form an expedition and make our way west to Nordhausen without waiting for orders.

After returning to Berlin, I discovered that our headquarters in Adlershof had

been greatly expanded. I received orders to fly to Moscow for a brief report and

to receive new instructions.

Our NII-1, which was enjoying friendly relations with the Air Force command

(the NII chiefs were aviation generals),had received an American Boston B-25 twoengine, high-speed bomber as a gift. It was much more pleasant to fly in than the

Douglas transport planes.The view from the navigator’s cockpit was magnificent,and

it was faster—the flight from Berlin to Moscow took just a little over five hours.

I was in Moscow for just two days. I managed to meet with Bolkhovitinov, who

sounded depressed.There was an “opinion” in the People’s Commissariat that the

NII-1 leadership should be replaced and the NII should be reoriented to pure

science—to areas such as gas dynamics and air-breathing jet engines. Viktor

Fedorovich asked me to immediately familiarize myself with Nordhausen and

return to Moscow.

I was trying to understand who in Moscow would be conducting work on

subject matter that was purely rocket-oriented; in other words, who needed the

V-2 and all the German secrets immediately. His opinion was, “Nobody needs

the V-2.We need jet aviation, and as fast as possible. Rockets are the future, but at

the People’s Commissariat they don’t think that’s the business of aviation.”

273
I met with Pilyugin and Voskresenskiy. Neither objected to joining m

Germany, but Bolkhovitinov would not let them go for the time being.

Pilyugin grumbled,“Why are we rummaging in packages and papers and 

ing our brains over what’s what? We need to be there, on site, to understand 

I spent one night at home in Sokolniki on Korolenko Street. I saw our new

child, my second son, for the first time—he was only two months old. Katy

cares that I had already managed to forget: firewood, kerosene, redeeming 

cards and new quota books.2 Bathing the baby was quite an event.You had t

the water in the kitchen on a kerosene stove and haul it to the tub in the other 

But the mood of my resilient wife and all Muscovites was joyful.Victory! 

everything would be different.

On 14 June, I was joined on the flight to Berlin by NII-1 chief engineer 

Volkov and G. N.Abramovich, Bolkhovitinov’s deputy who was a professor 

Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) and already a well-known scientist in the 

of gas dynamics, thermal processes, and air-breathing jet engines.3 B

Abramovich explained to me, his interests in Berlin would be broader.“I ne

take a look at how their scientists are working in general.”

Back in Berlin, I was once again involved with packing up and shipping 

to Moscow. By 28 June I had “polished off” all the Adlershof “leftovers”. I 

two entire days loading the Douglas with cases filled with measuring equip

At that time, I still did not know that this shipment was being sent to an in

to which I would not return. Nevertheless, ten years later I was pleased to 

that Rauschenbach’s group, which worked at NII-1 with M.V. Keldysh, ha

this rich arsenal of measuring technology to good use.

While I was involved with loading and shipping and acting as tour guide f

higher-ups who had flown in, Abramovich caused quite a stir in Berlin. H

landed in Germany with the rank of an engineer colonel, he had managed, wi

assistance of his aviation connections,to secure his own personal vehicle with a 

tary administration license plate. It was a light gray Mercedes in excellent cond

The Mercedes came with a German driver, whom everyone called Alfred

soldier Alfred had made it as far as Smolensk before being demobilized d

illness. Before serving in the army, he had been a circus performer—his pa

to ride a motorcycle around a vertical wall. He drove the Mercedes magnific

After much wrangling,Abramovich managed to obtain a document certifyin

citizen Alfred Hessler was serving as a driver in the Soviet Military Administ

(SVA).4 The now-official driver wore his old circus costume—leather j

274

2. Quota books were used for non-food consumables such as kerosene and firewood.

3. MAI—Moskovskiy Aviatsionnyy Institut.

4. The provincial Soviet military organizations in occupied Germany were known as Sovetskaya V

Administratsiya (SVA) or Soviet Military Administration. SVA organs reported to the top-level Soviet go

authority in postwar Germany, the Sovyetskaya Voyennaya Administratsiya Germanii (SVAG), the Soviet 

Administration in Germany.
leather breeches, and gleaming gaiters—and looked very impressive in the

Mercedes.Alfred was always correcting us when we were talking about the car.“It’s

not pronounced ‘Mersedes’, but ‘Mertsedes’.That’s how real automobile connoisseurs say it.” It turns out that that was the name of the Benz automobile firm’s

founder’s daughter.5

In late June, we learned that the orders had finally been given to the American

troop units to clear out. Consequently, our troops would now occupy Thuringia.

Professor Abramovich was a very sophisticated man. He was captivated not

only by his professional activity in Germany, which involved studying problems

that were dear to him, but also by the country, its old culture, its people, and their

postwar psychology. Without much trouble he talked me into traveling to

Nordhausen by car.We would mix business with pleasure by making a two-day

trip from Berlin to Nordhausen through the cities of Dresden, Annaberg, Aue,

Zwickau, Gera, Jena, and Weimar.

Before our departure, we arranged with Isayev for him to travel to Nordhausen

with his main group of engine specialists over the shortest route, through

Magdeburg.We arranged to meet in Nordhausen on 14 June.

Our journey really did prove to be interesting. I strolled through the already

cleared streets of Dresden. It was astonishing how rapidly peaceful life had been

restored in the city. Streetcars were beginning to run between heaps of majestic

ruins. In places where by some miracle the first floors had been preserved, work

was starting up again in stores, cafes, and pharmacies. There were many signs

proclaiming, Checked—No Mines.The air in the suburbs was fragrant with roses.

The air army command was still based here, and we stopped to fill up with aircraft

gasoline.To Alfred’s great joy we filled the tank and three canisters. Until then he

had filled the tank with methyl alcohol and had been upset by the obvious drop

in engine power.

After Dresden,Alfred drove the Mercedes confidently while we monitored the

route using an excellent tourist guidebook.We were surprised that it contained

so many unclassified details.We had the maps of Germany that our General Staff

had issued to troop units, but the readily available German maps were much

more informative.

Just over a month had passed since the war’s end, and we were cruising along

through villages and towns without seeing any destruction. If it weren’t for the

passing columns of our shifting troop units, the swing-beam barriers on certain

roads, and patrol guards checking documents, one would have wondered, “Was

there really a war?”

At the military commandant’s office in Annaberg, we stopped to have dinner

and find a place to spend the night.We were warned that up ahead on our route

275

5. The Mercedes-Benz company claims that ‘Mercedes’ was the daughter of the company’s first client, an

Austrian businessman.The company was originally known as Daimler, becoming Daimler-Benz in 1926.
there was a blown-up bridge and a village that had been wiped off the face 

earth.We would need to bypass both.What had happened there? We learne

answer to that question there and then.

After a good dinner with Rhine wine,we heard about the episode in the v

from an elderly man who turned out to be a Russian “displaced person” wh

worked in SVA as a translator.To him, this characterized the American meth

combat and the basic tenet of American military operations: Above all, sav

lives of your own soldiers.

An American mechanized column was moving deep into Thuringia, m

virtually no resistance.After entering this unfortunate hamlet—I don’t reme

what it was called—the advance guard was suddenly fired on by auto

weapons and hunting rifles. Later it was determined that a small detachm

Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) had settled in that village. They had respond

Goebbels’ appeals and decided to become “werewolf” guerrillas.Their fire d

harm to the Americans.

If a Red Army unit had been here, these “werewolves” would have been 

hilated on the spot or taken prisoner. But the Americans didn’t want to ri

life of a single one of their guys.Without firing a shot, the powerful mecha

formation withdrew several kilometers. The “werewolves” decided that 

village had been saved from the occupying forces, but they were sorely mis

The commander of the American unit reported the situation in such a way 

bomber formation was sent to his aid. It turned the ill-fated village and all 

inhabitants into formless heaps of smoking ruins. Only after this treatment 

the air did the Americans continue their “victorious” advance.

We made a small detour to get a look at this demolished “fortress” and d

ered an intense reconstruction project at the site of the former village.

276
Chapter 19

Nordhausen—City of Missiles and Death

We arrived in Nordhausen the evening of 14 July. The Seventy-seventh Guard

Division, part of the Eighth Guard Army, had just taken over the city from the

Americans and had already been billeted in the city and surrounding areas.The

offices of the commandant and the Bürgermeister were already in operation.With

some difficulty, we found Isayev’s team of engine specialists.They had arrived a day

earlier and had taken up residence in a remote and devastated villa close to the site

we were most interested in—Kohnstein Mountain, where the subterranean

Mittelwerk factory was hidden.

Isayev had already managed to establish contact with division intelligence and

Smersh. The division command had already placed guards at all the obvious

entrances to the subterranean factory and also at the Dora death camp. The

Bürgermeister promised to find and gather any Germans who had worked at the

factory and have them meet with us.

Meanwhile, we wandered around the city and discovered that American military Jeeps were still tearing around at breakneck speed carrying obviously tipsy

soldiers with heavy pistols dangling from their broad belts. During their twomonth stay in Nordhausen, the American soldiers had acquired a lot of girlfriends.

In spite of orders about the demarcation of the occupation zones, it wasn’t easy to

back out of the next date, and our patrol received these strict instructions: “No

conflicts with Allied servicemen until border guards have been set up.”

Half the night we talked with Isayev about our impressions and adventures. In

spite of our fatigue,here in this dark,ravaged villa hidden in the middle of an overgrown, mysterious garden, we felt very uncomfortable.

The city of Nordhausen had been largely destroyed by Allied bombers. The

British and Americans, with assistance from our aviation, had tried to prevent

missile production.While they succeeded in destroying the city, the brutal bombing attacks had not inflicted any damage on the subterranean factory and the

neighboring Dora concentration camp.

In the morning, we found that a whole line of people wishing to offer their

services had assembled at our villa after being summoned by the local authorities.

We began with a Soviet officer who introduced himself as “Shmargun, former

prisoner of war,liberated from the camp by the Americans.”According to his state277
ment, he was a first lieutenant and a political commissar who had been taken 

oner in 1944. After being moved to various places, he had been sent th

Buchenwald to Dora. Outfitted in the uniform of an American soldier, he d

look at all like the walking skeletons usually seen at death camps. We aske

expected question:“Why did you survive?”

“Before the Americans arrived there was a lot of work—we were orde

gather up and burn more than 200 corpses that were delivered from the fact

the camp.They needed us to be alive for that work. But we didn’t manage to 

them all. About 100 bodies were still lying around when the Americans f

their way in.The Germans fled.The Americans fed us and gave us clothes. 

of the skeletons and I refused to leave with the Americans and decided to w

our own troops.

“Now I can show you around the camp. I know some Germans who w

at the factory and didn’t leave.They have agreed to help in investigating every

that was going on there. I can be in contact with ‘that side.’There were a 

good guys among the American officers.There are also a lot of Russian g

town.They were domestic workers and worked on farms.They know the lan

well, and can serve as interpreters until they are repatriated. I know places w

the SS hid the most secret V-2 equipment that the Americans didn’t find.We 

oners knew a lot.”

This helper immediately won us over, but our entire previous upbringing 

us vigilant: “Might this be an American agent?” Isayev and I decided that 

Smersh rep hadn’t bothered him, then in the interests of the work at hand—t

with vigilance!— let him work and help us.After all,we had come here for s

we didn’t bring the secrets with us.

We began by inspecting the horrible Dora death camp.The American

already put things in order here.All of the dead had been buried, and those 

had survived had been treated and fed—the living dead were back on thei

Special troop units were preparing the camp for Russians who were fo

prisoners or had been driven off into Germany.They would be sorted ou

then repatriated.

Shmargun led us to a distant wooden barracks hut, where in a dark corne

throwing aside a pile of rags, he jubilantly revealed a large spherical object wr

in blankets.We dragged it out, placed it on a nearby cot, and unwrapped the 

layers of blankets. I was stupefied—it was a gyro-stabilized platform of the typ

I had seen for the first time in Berlin at the Kreiselgeräte factory.At that time,

ian” Colonel Viktor Kuznetsov, who was also seeing the instrument the first 

explained its layout to me. How had a gyro-stabilized platform, which still 

become a standard V-2 instrument, ended up in this death camp prisoners

Shmargun could not give me a clear explanation.According to what he had 

from others, when the camp guards fled, some Germans who were neither g

nor Mittelwerk personnel brought a beautiful case to the barracks, covered i

rags, and quickly fled. By the time that the Americans arrived, the surviving 

278
oners had discovered the case and opened it;one of them said that it was very secret.

They decided to put it away until the Russians arrived.They used the case to pack

up various things that they had begun to acquire after liberation, and when they

found out that Shmargun was staying to wait for the Russians, they revealed the

secret to him and packed everything up in dirty blankets so that the Americans

would be less suspicious.

As we could see, the operation went brilliantly. Now Isayev and I were responsible for this priceless windfall.We wrapped it back up in the blankets, since no

other container was available, transported it to the division headquarters, and

asked them to store it there until we could take it to Moscow.Approximately six

months later there was a struggle over the possession of this gyro platform that

led to the first rift in the relationship between Viktor Kuznetsov and Nikolay

Pilyugin, the friends that I made shortly after the instrument’s discovery. But we’ll

get to that later.

After a brief inspection of the horrible Dora camp, we hurried off to inspect

Mittelwerk itself. I must honestly confess that we hurried to leave the camp not

because we had completely run out of time.The horrors that Shmargun began to

tell us about and the live witnesses who had arrived from somewhere were so out

of synch with the radiance of the hot July day and our frame of mind as impassioned hunters who had finally seized real spoils.We could not help wanting to

cast off this hallucination. They showed us the area where the bodies had been

placed before being fed into the crematorium and where they had raked out the

ashes. Now there were no traces of ashes anywhere.When the Americans had been

here a commission had been at work documenting atrocities and war crimes.

Before our eyes the camp was now being converted into a dormitory for displaced

persons. But the ashes we could not see were beginning to pound both in our

hearts and in our temples.

A group of Germans was waiting for us in front of the entrance to Mittelwerk.

They had turned up as a result of the Bürgermeister’s efforts.A young, thin German

with delicate facial features separated himself from the group. He boldly

approached and introduced himself,“Engineer Rosenplänter from Peenemünde.”

He explained that everyone had been evacuated from Peenemünde to

Nordhausen, and they had settled not far from here in Bleicherode. At first von

Braun and Dornberger, whom he knew personally, had lived there.They had left

Bleicherode and moved farther west.

Before the arrival of the Russians, the Americans had sent almost all of the

specialists to the towns of Worbis and Witzenhausen. Rosenplänter and several

dozen other specialists had refused to move, and the American officers, having

checked with their lists, didn’t make them go. Certain others had been taken

despite their unwillingness.

Rosenplänter said all of this rapidly; he was very agitated. Shmargun could not

keep up with the interpretation, so someone drove up to the camp and brought a

Russian girl who could interpret more rapidly than the Germans spoke.This inter

279
preter charmed everyone. Her name was Lyalya. From that day on we declare

our official interpreter-secretary, and we formalized her status with the m

authorities. Rosenplänter offered to familiarize us with V-2 technology, but h

not know Mittelwerk and recommended another specialist from Peenemünde 

had often visited Mittelwerk to perform monitoring tasks.Rosenplänter denie

they had anything to do with the atrocities that had taken place there.

Our first inspection of the legendary subterranean Mittelwerk missile fa

took almost two days. Literally translated, Mittelwerk means “middle factor

“factory located in the middle” (it was located in the middle of Germany

construction of the factory began in 1942 under the codename Mittelbau (m

construction). This was before the successful launches of the V-2 (A-4) m

They didn’t need to go extremely deep into the ground.The construction w

ers successfully used the natural terrain.The wooded hill that locals proudly 

Kohnstein Mountain rose up almost 150 meters above the surrounding t

four kilometers from Nordhausen.The limestone rock forming the interior 

mountain yielded easily to mining work. Four opened galleries had been 

the mountain along the diameter of the base, each was a bit longer than three 

meters. Forty-four transverse drifts connected the four galleries. Each galler

a separate assembly factory.

The two galleries on the left side of Mittelwerk were BMW-003 and JUMO

aircraft turbojet engine factories. These engines had already been made 

series production in 1942. And here the Germans had surpassed the Bri

Americans, and us. But (luckily for us, of course) as a result of somebody’s 

ishness, they did not use this advantage and did not release into large

production the twin-engine jet Me 262 Messerschmitts, which were equ

with these engines. It wasn’t until the end of the war that these aircraft app

on the fronts in small numbers. In postwar memoirs, German generals note

Hitler had been personally opposed to using these airplanes for a long time

demonstrates how a dictator’s stubbornness yields invaluable benefit t

mortal enemies.

The third gallery at Mittelwerk was used for the production of the V-1 “w

bombs,” which in modern terms would be called cruise missiles.The mass pr

tion of V-1s began in 1943. Only the fourth gallery was dedicated to the ass

and testing of A-4 missiles. Rolling stock bringing in materials could roll d

into each gallery from the surface. Rail cars loaded with the finished pr

exited at the other end.

The gallery for A-4 missile assembly was more than 15 meters wide, a

height in individual bays reached 25 meters. In these bays they conducted th

called vertical Generaldurchhalteversuchsprüfung. We later translated this as “g

vertical tests” and used it as the official term for this type of test for a long 

280

1. The literal meaning of the term Generaldurchhalteversuchprufüng is “general endurance test.”
Horizontal tests were usually carried out before vertical ones, although these did

not have the prefix “general.” The transverse drifts were where the assemblies and

subassemblies were fabricated, integrated, inspected, and tested before they were

mounted on the main assembly.

Our inspection of the galleries and drifts was hampered by the fact that the

lighting had been partially damaged, from what we were told, by order of the

Americans. Only “duty” lighting was on.We had to be very careful while walking

around the factory to not fall into some processing pit or hurt ourselves on the

remains of missile parts that hadn’t been cleared away.We noted the large number

of missile components scattered around in disarray. It was easy to count dozens of

“tails,” side panels, middle sections, and tanks.

A German who was introduced as an assembly engineer-tester said that the

factory had worked at full power until May. During the “best” months, its productivity was as high as thirty-five missiles per day! At the factory the Americans had

seized only fully assembled missiles, taking more than 100 which had been piled

up at the factory.They had even set up electrical horizontal tests.The assembled

missiles had been loaded into special railroad cars before the arrival of the Russians

and hauled to the west—to their zone.“But it’s still possible to gather assemblies

for ten and maybe even twenty missiles here.”

The Germans told us that the special equipment used purely for missile testing

had been hauled away. But the ordinary machine tools and standard, generalpurpose equipment in the shops had remained untouched. Even the most stateof-the-art metal-cutting machine tools had been passed over by the wealthy

missile-secret hunters from across the Atlantic.

In the gallery, Shmargun directed our attention to the overhead traveling crane

that covered the entire width of the bay. It was used for the vertical tests and for

the subsequent loading of the missiles.Two beams were suspended from the crane

over the width of the bay.They were lowered when necessary to a human being’s

height. Nooses were secured to the beams and placed around the necks of prisoners who were guilty or suspected of sabotage.The crane operator, who also played

the role of executioner, pressed the raise button and immediately an execution of

up to sixty people was carried out via mechanized hanging. Before their very eyes,

the polosatiki, as the prisoners were called, were given a lesson in obedience and

fear under the bright electrical lights 70 meters below ground.2

Hearing this horrible story, Isayev nudged me and pointed at the Germans.

Earlier they had crowded closely around us, but now they huddled in a bunch and

retreated into the darkness. Here Rosenplänter intervened and told us that they

had been warned about an underground organization operating at Mittelwerk. Prisoners who had worked on assembly had learned how to slip in a defect so that it

would not immediately be detected and would not become evident until after the

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2. Polosatiki literally means “people in stripes,” referring to their prison uniforms.
missile had been shipped, often during its tests, before launch, or in flight. S

one had taught them to solder the electrical connections unreliably.This wa

difficult to check.The German control personnel were not capable of che

tens of thousands of soldering points per day.The Gestapo asked the Peenem

engineers to devise a way to automate control.

As far as Rosenplänter knew, they had not come up with anything. U

twenty percent of the missiles were rejected during the final tests at Mittelwe

of the rejected missiles were sent to a small “rehabilitation” factory, Werk 

(Factory Three), to determine the cause of the failure and make repairs. Wer

was located near the village of Kleinbodungen, not far from Bleicherode. 

would still be electrical equipment there for horizontal tests if the American

not hauled it away.

In a sort of justification, Rosenplänter said, “Only Germans worked at 

Drei.There weren’t any prisoners there. If the Russian command is interes

the reconstruction of an A-4 missile, it would be best to use this small facto

that purpose.” Later we did just that. Especially after dozens of our process 

neers and dismantlers subsequently descended on Mittelwerk.Their primary o

tive was to disassemble and haul away processing equipment that was of any 

Much later—in early 1946 as I recall—a German artist came from Erf

speak to General Gaydukov, chief of the Institute Nordhausen. He brought a 

collection of watercolors and pencil drawings depicting subterranean produ

activity at Mittelwerk. According to the artist, any photography or filming 

factory and the surrounding areas was forbidden on the threat of death. B

leaders of the A-4 program believed that a creation as great as Mittelwerk s

somehow be immortalized.

They had sought out the professional artist and caricaturist, and with th

of the Gestapo, had brought him to the factory to draw the entire primary m

assembly process and do as many sketches as possible in color. He labored 

gently, but at times he got so carried away that drawings appeared of pri

being beaten, executions, and visits to the factory by high-ranking guests su

Ernst Kaltenbrunner himself.3 We looked intently at these drawings filled 

doomed individuals in striped uniforms, among whom were certainly doz

heroes whose names humankind will never know.

How did he manage to keep these pictures? “Very simply,” he explaine

special officer of the Gestapo took some pictures from me. But he wasn’t 

ested in a lot of them. I was supposed to hand them over to the factory ma

ment, but I wasn’t able to—and now I would like to offer them as a gift 

Russian command.” General Gaydukov accepted this unexpected gift with 

tude. Eventually the album of these pictures was sent to Moscow. But as 

282

3. From 1942–45, Kaltenbrunner was head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), overseeing both the Gest

the system of Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe.
whereabouts now, I do not know. Perhaps it is in some archives and someone will

manage to find them.

While we were investigating Mittelwerk, a new group of specialists arrived in

Nordhausen from our NII-1, including Professors Knorre and Gukhman;

Dushkin, the chief designer of the first liquid-propellant rocket engine for the BI

aircraft; and Chernyshev, a chemist and rocket propellant specialist. Late that

evening, when we had made our way back to town, tired and dusty, dreaming of

rest, this information-starved team pounced on us and demanded to be let in on

all our secrets.While Abramovich conversed with them, Isayev, who dearly loved

practical jokes, pulled me aside and said,“We’ve got to get rid of them or else our

hands will be tied.With this professoriate we’ll have nothing but trouble.”

“But how? We have no right to just drive them out of Nordhausen.”

“I have an idea.We’ll frighten them with British-American intelligence—I’m

sure they’re hunting for Soviet specialists, documents, and great State secrets.”

Isayev pulled off the performance in his best tradition. In the middle of the

night, the entire host of scientists was invited to our dark mysterious villa.There

Isayev announced to them that in 20–30 minutes, an agent, whom we had

recruited from British intelligence, would arrive, having crossed the border to

discuss secret documentation for the Wasserfall missile and provide information

about where these missiles had been hidden. Moreover, he knew where von Braun

himself was. It would be very good if our comrades just arriving from Moscow

would get involved in the operation to abduct von Braun.

During these explanations, a prearranged knock was heard at the window

overlooking the dark garden. Isayev grabbed his pistol and commanded,“Quick,

everybody into that room and don’t make any noise. Chertok will conduct

the meeting.”

I received the “agent,” whose role was brilliantly played by Shmargun dressed in

a quasi-American uniform.At first we talked a bit in German.Then I began to yell

in Russian that we could not promise so many dollars, this was out-and-out

robbery,and so forth.Shmargun,our agent,threatened that his bosses already knew

about the arrival in Nordhausen of high-ranking Soviet rocket engine specialists.

As a sign of his good relationship with us, he asked me to warn them that it would

be better for their safety to leave here for the time being. I thanked him for his

valuable information and said that this service would be paid for. Our “agent”

quietly withdrew. Isayev released everyone from the adjacent room and asked

triumphantly,“Did you hear that?”

But we didn’t stop there.We took the frightened company under our guard

to the apartment where the commandant’s office had settled them—they

immediately discovered that their suitcases had been opened and searched!

Isayev, feigning anger, demanded answers from the landlady. She explained that

some officers had come and demanded that she show where her tenants were

staying.The landlady had been coached in advance on how to answer. Needless

to say, the entire group of specialists wished us success and set off in the direc

283
tion of Berlin the next morning. Abramovich shared a good laugh with u

then followed them to Berlin in an escort vehicle. He left the Mercede

Alfred at my disposal. In our joy, we decided that such a successful perform

called for a celebration that evening at the local café-cabaret that was still 

ating after the Americans’ departure.There we wanted to develop our pl

future operations.

The café, which was located in a cozy bomb shelter, proved to be a noisy 

lishment that served beer and bootleg schnapps instead of appetizers and c

The joint was already filled with smoke,American officers, and black soldier

on an improvised stage, a brunette past her prime, dressed like a gypsy, sang 

thing unintelligible in a husky voice. Evidently we were the first Soviet offic

come here.As soon as we sat down at the only free table, one of the American 

cers jumped up and yelled something in the direction of the bar.A fellow in 

quickly flitted from behind the bar and deftly placed foaming mugs in front 

The singer came running over to us, gauged our ranks by our shoulder board

without asking permission planted a smacking kiss on Isayev’s cheek.“At la

Russians have arrived! What shall I sing for you?”

The American officer said something to her in the tone of an order.

“He knows that I am Russian and wants me to interpret,” she explained

welcomes the Russian officers to the land that they, the Americans, liberated 

our common enemy. Horrible crimes occurred here. He hopes that we w

friends.To victory and comrades in arms!”

We reached for our mugs, but he managed to add something to his bee

ours from a bottle that he was holding in his outstretched hand. One o

American officers talked a lot, demanding the whole time that the singer int

for us.This is what he managed to tell us.

The Americans, who had advanced from the west as early as 12 Apri

being three months before us, had taken the opportunity to familiarize them

with Mittelwerk.The subterranean factory had been shut down only twenty

hours before their arrival. They were staggered by the sight of it. There 

hundreds of missiles under the earth on special railroad flatcars; the factor

spur tracks were completely preserved.The German guards had fled, and the 

oners had not been fed for at least two days before the arrival of the Am

troops.Those who were capable of walking moved slowly.They approache

Americans to get food and did not hurry. It was as if they were doing every

in their sleep. The singer interpreted further, “They told us that more 

120,000 prisoners had passed through the camp. First they built—gnawing 

at the mountain.Those who survived and newly arrived prisoners worked 

subterranean factory. We found prisoners in the camp who had fortui

survived.There were many corpses in the subterranean tunnels. Our soldiers 

horrified when they saw all of this.We put many Germans to work cleani

and bringing order. It will be easy for you to work there now.To our victo

our friendship!”

284
We did not notice that another Soviet officer had appeared at our table. He

was clearly not “civilian,” because his chest was covered with decorations and

medals. He put his arm around my shoulder and quietly said, “I’m from the

Smersh division. In the morning, you and the lieutenant colonel should stop in

at headquarters.”

I had to wake up Isayev a little early the next morning. We managed to

conduct some blitz-strategy and work out a plan of action: “Do not under any

circumstances make excuses—demand and attack!”This was our frame of mind

when we arrived at headquarters. But they weren’t even thinking about dealing

with us for our “improper” behavior the previous night. The deputy division

commander’s political commissar, the executive officer, and the Smersh officer

we had spoken with the night before very kindly explained,“The headquarters

of the Eighth Guards Army is located in Weimar. It is under General V. I.

Chuykov, who for the time being has been assigned to head the Soviet military

administration in Thuringia.You are obliged to coordinate your future actions

on the use of German specialists, and especially contacts with Americans, with

Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG) representatives. Smersh has

reported through its channels that the American intelligence services are

conducting broad-ranging operations to seize German specialists. According to

reliable information, some of your drinking companions last night were not

combat officers, but men who have been assigned to “wrap up” the seizure of

German specialists, look for remaining missile paraphernalia, and monitor the

actions of Russians hunting for German secrets. Subsequently, we found out that

the Americans’ operation to seize German missile secrets was being conducted

by a group under the codename ‘Paperclip’.”

We laid out our plans:“A group headed by Major Pallo is leaving today for the

town of Saalfeld. According to German accounts from Mittelwerk, there is a V-2

engine firing test station near the village of Lehesten. Engines for assembly came

from there after the firing tests.”

We requested assistance with transport and asked that instructions be given to

the commandant of Saalfeld to provide us with living quarters in the town of

Bleicherode, where we planned to assemble a group of German specialists. We

requested that they provide workrooms for the specialists,establish storage areas for

valuable equipment, set up guards and make arrangements for food and communications.Then we intended to call for assistance from Moscow. But for the time

being, it was advisable not to allow anyone to enter Mittelwerk so that what the

Americans had left behind would not be dragged off every which way.

“And one more thing,” I added. “A certain Shmargun, a former prisoner, is

helping us.”

“That’s our concern,” the Smersh officer interrupted me.“You can trust him.

According to our information, the Americans didn’t have time to remove the

equipment hidden by the SS in the potassium mines.That’s somewhere here in the

surrounding area.A German told us that about fifteen kilometers from here,almost

285
at the border, there is a lot of secret equipment hidden in a forester’s cabin

forester, an ardent Nazi, has fled, but supposedly there are local forestry loo

guarding this cabin. We do not advise going there alone. If you come up 

something, we will help. But be careful—the other side is also conducting a 

After our “dressing-down” at headquarters, Isayev and I seated Rosenplän

our Mercedes and gave Alfred the command:“Onward, to Bleicherode!”

That was the morning of 18 July 1945.

286
Chapter 20

Birth of the Institute RABE

The route to Bleicherode went first through forests on a narrow road, then along

the steep and dangerous curving lanes of the villages of Pustleben, Mitteldorf, and

Oberdorf.The very picturesque road climbed up into the forested mountains and,

leaving the forest, crossed a railroad and entered a pristine little garden hamlet.This

town, Bleicherode, became my workplace for more than a year-and-a-half.

Right on the central square the red flag showed us the location of our commandant’s office. He came out to meet us, introducing himself as Captain Solodyankin.

He was a typical frontline veteran with decorations and medals, around forty-five

years old, with a face that showed great fatigue, though one could just barely see

a kind smile.

He had already been in charge of the town here for two days, and was overwhelmed. “I don’t know the language, and there’s a long line of Germans

coming to me. I got rid of the Bürgermeister.They said he was a Nazi. Some have

shown up and introduced themselves as communists and social democrats. But

who the hell knows? I appointed one of them the new Bürgermeister. He is selecting his police department and various other services. I have already received the

instructions about helping you, but I don’t have a lot of people. I advise you to

go to the division headquarters. General Goryshnyy’s Seventy-fifth Guards Army

is billeted nearby.”

We took his advice. It turned out that the general had also been notified of our

arrival. He gave us a very warm reception.

“The commandant is arranging for your accommodations and you will be

provided with meals according to all the norms for officers in the division.As far

as gasoline, your Germans, and guards, we’ll also take care of that tomorrow.

We returned to the commandant’s office.There Rosenplänter, who had come

with us, having seen the respect with which they received us, was conversing in a

rather harsh tone with the new Bürgermeister. He explained to us,“The best villa

in town is on Lindenstrasse—the Villa Franka.Wernher von Braun lived there for

some time after Peenemünde. Now a German pilot lives in part of the villa. He is

ill, which is why neither the Americans nor the Russians took him. I told the

Bürgermeister that they should resettle him, but he doesn’t know where.”

“Let’s go and have a look.”

287
After a five-minute drive on a cobblestone road going up a hill, we got 

the car on a small square by the main entrance to a three-story villa.The m

doors—plate glass behind ornamental wrought-iron bars—would not give

Bürgermeister ran off somewhere and brought back an elderly German wom

Frau Storch.“She was a maid here. She knows everything and is prepared to 

you.” Frau Storch had the keys. We entered. But where was the German 

Suddenly we were almost run over by a little kid about five years old on 

bicycle. He turned out to be the pilot’s son.We learned that the villa had an

half with a second entrance. Isayev was outraged that part of the residence w

occupied. Rosenplänter rapidly muttered something. I announced that the 

suited me and let Alfred unload our meager luggage.

The villa was magnificent. The first floor had a large drawing room. It 

library with bookcases made of dark wood.There were deep armchairs in fr

an elaborate fireplace and a separate smoking room with ashtrays of varying 

Passing from the drawing room through heavy doors,we entered a fragrant g

There were magnolias, roses, and a pool with a fountain, which for the time 

was not functioning.

“Aleksey,” I said, “the fountain—that’s your bailiwick. Let’s get some re

then you can fix the jet.” Isayev promised he would.

A marble staircase led from the vestibule to the second floor. Here there 

four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two half-baths equipped with various lav

sanitary facilities—four toilets in all! The floors were covered with large ca

and the walls were decorated with ornamental rugs and paintings of local 

scapes and scenes of nature. Heavy red velvet curtains hung at the wide win

We entered the largest bedroom.The bed was mahogany and designed to ac

modate, as we determined, four. It had snow-white featherbeds instead of bla

And the ceiling! The ceiling was a mirror. Lying blissfully in bed you could a

yourself in the mirror. Isayev could not contain himself. He threw back the 

erbed and plopped onto the bed, sinking just as he was, in dusty boots an

uniform, into the froth of feathery-white bedding. With a leisurely attitu

pulled out a soft pack of his favorite Byelomorye cigarettes, which were in 

supply here, and lit up.

“You know,Boris,it’s really not all that bad in this ‘fascist beast’s den of iniq

At that moment, alarmed by our long absence, Rosenplänter app

accompanied by Frau Storch and the Bürgermeister. Finding Isayev in the 

they were completely dismayed. “Is Herr Officer very ill? Should we br

doctor?”We calmed them down and announced that we would take the 

We asked only that the other half be made available. “We are going to h

lot of guests!”

“Jawohl!” was the response, to which we had already become accustomed

third floor turned out to be a mansard; Frau Storch said that sometimes the 

or guests spent the night there.

We asked,“Why isn’t there any hot water?”

288
“Oh, for that you need to go down into the basement and heat up the boiler.”

Isayev could not restrain himself.“Come on, let’s go light it now.”

In the basement there was a large bunker filled with coal. We heated up the

boiler and each of us luxuriated in a separate bathroom.Next,wrapped up in fluffy

bathrobes (where did they get this stuff?!),we went down into the library and celebrated our new digs over an improvised lunch.

For almost a year,Villa Franka in Bleicherode was converted into an officer’s

club and headquarters where we summed things up, developed plans of action,

broke bread together, and celebrated holidays. It is difficult to remember who

came up with the idea of calling our breakaway group—which for the time

being consisted of twelve Germans under the command of Lieutenant Colonel

Isayev and Major Chertok—an institute.The Germans were delighted with this

idea and announced that they could quickly put together specialists and an entire

staff. But what should we call this new invention? After a brief “Soviet-German”

discussion, we came up with a name: the Institute RABE.The precise translation

of the German word Rabe is “raven.” Our acronym stood for Raketenbau und

Entwicklung Bleicherode (missile construction and development in Bleicherode).

Our “cover” had emerged—we became a place where German specialists scattered by the war could take refuge.

This was clearly a guerrilla operation on our part that could lead to diplomatic

complications with the Allies, especially since the border was only six kilometers

away, and immediately beyond the border was a town where, according to our

289

From the author’s archives.

The former Villa Franka, where Wernher von Braun stayed after evacuating Peenemünde, and home

to Major B. Ye. Chertok for eighteen months. 
intelligence, the American command had assembled several hundred Ge

specialists. Isayev and I visited division commander General Goryshnyy in or

get his approval for our guerrilla operations.The general honestly confesse

he was not in a position to advise us in this business and that we needed to 

Weimar, to the SVAG for Thuringia being set up there. He then asked us t

a lecture about missiles to his division officers.“Then my people will be mor

willing to help you.”

Soon thereafter, at his command, around 100 officers from his division an

attached artillery brigade assembled to hear us speak. I told them as muc

could about the V-2 missile and Isayev explained the operating principles 

liquid-propellant rocket engine.We were pleasantly surprised at the genuine 

est with which these combat officers—who had gone through the entire war 

Stalingrad to Thuringia—listened to us. They bombarded us with que

thanked us for our reports, and asked to be called upon to render whateve

they could.We could understand their situation.The round-the-clock battle

their intense physical and emotional stress were over. The constant ho

oppressive feeling of risking their own lives and the lives of their soldiers had 

The heavy burden of responsibilities and cares had disappeared. Now ther

simply nothing to do. Such a quiet, peaceful life in a strange land had disr

their normal frame of mind. The Germans had transformed from enemie

something like allies.Young German women had no objection at all to p

attention to Soviet combat officers, who had both cigarettes and butter, and 

on the whole had been brought up a lot better than the Americans.

Having enlisted the support of the “entire division,”as Isayev said,we could 

demand attention from the high command. So we set off for Weimar.We 

this pristine town, which had not suffered at all from the war, mainly as a 

associated with the name Goethe.1

Colonel General V. I. Chuykov was in command at Weimar, and 

Sazonovich Kolesnichenko had just been assigned as chief of the SVAG D

torate for the Federal Land of Thuringia. He cordially received us and listen

us attentively.Then, in spite of the long line of visitors waiting in the rece

room, he summoned several officers and explained to them who we wer

began to consult with them.“Here we must set up a peaceful life based on 

democratic principles in an alliance with all the anti-Nazi forces.We must u

vestiges of Nazism in the ethos of the German people and redirect the entire 

omy onto a peacetime footing.And what do you propose? To restore Hitler’s 

tary technology! And where? Here, in Thuringia! And what will we tell the 

as soon as they find out about the creation of a missile institute?”

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1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is widely recognized as the greatest writer in the 

literary tradition. He lived in Wiemar for the majority of his working life, and the city became a pr

cultural center on account of his influence.
We were totally crestfallen. But one of the officers subordinate to

Kolesnichenko was on our side. He expressed an idea that for some reason had not

occurred to me. “The institute needs to be registered as a new scientific institution. Under the military administration’s supervision, scientists will be gathered

whom we do not want to be left unemployed. In addition, they will help us reveal

the mysteries of Hitler’s secret weapon so that we will have evidence of war

crimes.We not only should not object, but we should support such an initiative at

all costs!”

These arguments and Isayev’s and my eloquence overcame Kolesnichenko’s

wavering. He took on the responsibility and gave us permission to set up an institution according to all the rules—with an official stamp, letterhead stationery, telephones, and a German staff. The Military Administration of Thuringia took on

the responsibility for the provisions and monetary support for the Germans in the

initial stages.

Having established communications in Weimar, we wandered around the town

musing about everything that we had undertaken. All of a sudden, after such an

administrative coup, Isayev said that now he wanted to leave for Lehesten to have

a look at the engine technology there and then return to Moscow. “It’s time to

start a revolution in our patron’s way of thinking at NII-1. To this day there in

Moscow they do not want to understand the scale of German work on rocket

technology.We admit that during the war we were not up to that. But the Americans were farther behind the Germans than we were! We need to take advantage

of this. I must reeducate our patron. If not he, then who else in Moscow is capable of open-minded thinking?”

i objected, but since i knew his nature, I understood that he had already

made his decision.We agreed simply that he would not leave until help flew in

from Moscow.

Upon our return to Bleicherode, we assembled our German team, announced

the SVAG’s decision, and gave the assignment to develop the institute’s structure.

Isayev announced that Major Chertok was being appointed chief of the institute.

Having thus taken over command, I immediately announced that engineer

Rosenplänter would be the director of the new institute. His deputy for general

matters would be engineer Müller, whose duty it would also be to establish conditions suitable for scientific research work.The priority task for all personnel would

be to restore, first on paper, the technology that had been developed at Peenemünde.To do this we needed to search diligently for everything that had been

hidden or left behind after the American’s withdrawal,and recruit rocketry specialists who had worked in Peenemünde or other places. Everyone set about their

work with great enthusiasm.

Within twenty-four hours, the former employees of the company that managed

the regional electrical power grids vacated their three-story building. We began

our hectic preparations to move in. Each Institute RABE employee received a

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photo-identification pass in accordance with all the rules.Trucks rolled up 

building and the rooms were outfitted with workbenches and stands for the 

ratory equipment that had not yet been acquired.

My office was luxurious, even by modern standards.The desk had deep l

chairs.There were watercolor landscapes on the walls, and a bouquet of fresh 

on the conference table.Telephones were provided for internal and local com

nications and communications with Berlin. A couple of days later, a “field 

phone” appeared providing us with direct communications to the m

administration and the commandant’s office.A typist-stenographer appeared 

reception room, which led into the office of the German director. She intro

herself simply as “Fräulein Ursula.”

Several days later, I tracked down the interpreter Lyalya, who had found 

in the division political department. She had helped us during the first days 

stay in Nordhausen and I placed her in the reception room as a backup and s

visor for Ursula. But Lyalya showed character—she proclaimed herself chief 

tary of the office of Major Chertok and Director Rosenplänter, and no one 

enter our offices without her consent.We soon restored peace among the f

staff and the Russian-German secretariat began to operate efficiently.

By agreement with the division, we were allocated a guard service, and n

could enter the building without presenting his or her pass to a soldier wi

an automatic weapon.

From Nordhausen they transported the priceless windfall that had been 

there—the gyro-stabilized platform. But our staff still did not have anyone 

would dare start studying it. Therefore, they placed it in the future gyro

instruments laboratory, which they locked and sealed.

292

From the author’s 

Main building of the Institute RABE in Bleicherode, 1992.
Every day, first thing in the morning, Rosenplänter would report to me and

present newly hired leading specialists. Though many of them were good engineers, judging by their documents, they had a weak understanding of what they

were supposed to be doing at the institute. Nevertheless, I agreed to accept them

on a “wait and see” basis while operations were beginning. It wasn’t until the end

of July, after the hectic days of establishing the institute, that we returned to the

search for “secret treasure.” In Nordhausen, they were still talking about the potassium mine and the forester’s mysterious mountain cabin.We consulted with the

town commandant and concluded that for such operations it would be best to

obtain a car with a driver-gunner from the division or commandant’s office.The

potassium mine was well known in the area and was located quite near

Bleicherode. Our driver arrived and Isayev and I headed over to the mine in the

division Jeep, whose driver was armed with an automatic weapon and proud of it.

In the yard we came upon some sort of meeting.The miners were wearing their

helmets with lights mounted on them, but they weren’t the least bit dirty.After all,

this was a white potassium mine, not a coal mine.They were all quite surprised at

the arrival of Soviet officers. They clustered around us until the man who had

introduced himself to us as the director gave a shout and the miners dispersed.We

explained the objective of our trip.The director called out some names, and about

ten men assembled by our car.We found out that a few cases had been placed in

some remote dead-end drifts at a depth of 500 meters. An SS detachment had

brought them just before the arrival of the Americans.They said that the equipment in the cases was rigged with explosives.

After briefly wavering, we decided to risk descending into the mine.We gave

the driver instructions to wait for ninety minutes—if we hadn’t returned by then

he was to “high-tail it to the commandant’s office.”The director apologized that

he had pressing business, and entrusted the foreman to accompany us. The ten

miners surrounded us, each of them with something similar to a pickaxe.We then

entered a spacious cage.A chime sounded and we descended at a surprising speed.

Isayev had been in mines as a youth, but they were coal mines. I had only read

about them and seen them in movies.This was nothing like what we had expected

to see.

Underground it was well illuminated, and the walls sparkled with the white

crystals of potassium salt. We walked without bending over, standing fully erect,

surrounded by miners.After walking briskly for fifteen minutes, we were standing

in front of a stack of green cases. Isayev and I began to carefully examine them.We

grew bolder and grabbed the top case by the convenient side handles.The catch

clips were wrapped and unusual seals hung from them. I asked a miner if I could

borrow his pickaxe. He shook his head and gave it to me.We broke off the seals

and opened the case.There were no explosives, and the contents were clearly radio

equipment.What was this? I remembered the broken instruments that had been

shipped to Moscow from the Polish firing range in 1944. To calm the miners,

Isayev and I took down another case, lifted and shook it, and placed it one top of

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the other. We checked the time—only thirty minutes remained befor

prearranged deadline.We needed to get back! We asked the miners to car

two cases to the elevator and leave the other six behind. Our Jeep would no

them all in any event.We decided we would pick them up on the next run.W

we reached the surface our driver was smiling. “Five more minutes and I w

have raced over to the commandant’s office.”

We explained to the director that this material was now the property of th

Army. We left a receipt for the two cases, asked that the others be stored, and p

ised to pick them up the next day. As a precaution, we said that there mig

explosives there,and therefore other specialists would be coming for them. Th

day, per my request, two officers from the division, including a sapper, brough

the remaining cases. An examination at the institute showed that we had re

sets of Viktoria-Honnef radio-control equipment for lateral radio correctio

range control. It was the first contribution to the equipment of our radio labo

in spite of these adventures, Isayev was dying to investigate engine

soon thereafter he left Bleicherode and went to Lehesten.

Abramovich, whom we had last seen in Nordhausen, kept his promises.A

time of his departure, after a cursory familiarization with Mittelwerk, he had p

ised that when he arrived in Moscow he would persuade Bolkhovitino

everyone else that he could to have reinforcements sent to us. I did not even 

time to miss Isayev before a vigorous team arrived, headed by Nikolay Alek

vich Pilyugin, the future two-time recipient of the Hero of Socialist Labor 

and future academician, director, and general designer for one of the most p

ful Soviet space electronic instrument firms, NPO Avtomatiki i Priborostro

(Scientific-Production Association of Automation and Instrument Building

company that developed the control systems for many combat missiles and 

launch vehicles.

Pilyugin flew in with the rank of a colonel, despite the fact that his m

service record stated that he was a non-combatant. He was accompani

Leonid Aleksandrovich Voskresenskiy, who had risen from the rank of priv

lieutenant colonel.Voskresenskiy,who had the astounding ability to sense and 

see the behavior of a missile system during the most diverse off-nominal situ

and failures, subsequently became Korolev’s legendary deputy for testing.

Semyon Gavrilovich Chizhikov flew in with the rank of first lieut

Designer Chizhikov was my long-time comrade from the Bolkhovitinov 

Factory No. 22, Factory No. 293, and also the factory in the distant Ural vill

Bilimbay where the BI interceptor was built during the difficult war years.

Among the new arrivals there was only one real service officer—Enginee

Lieutenant Vasiliy Ivanovich Kharchev.He was the youngest member of our g

having graduated from the N.Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy in 1944. 

been his adviser when he was doing his diploma project, and at that time 

been convinced of his exceptional abilities and impressed with his pencha

294
coming up with new technical ideas.While the ideas weren’t always feasible, they

were very interesting and original.

Two weeks later,Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin,Aleksandr Yakovlevich Bereznyak,and

Yevgeniy Mitrofanovich Kurilo appeared.Vasiliy Mishin, who was inclined toward

integrated design and theoretical work, immediately set about obtaining materials

from the Germans concerning the theory of rocket flight. He later became

Korolev’s first deputy, and after Korolev’s death in 1966, he became the chief

designer of Korolev’s firm and was selected as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Sasha Bereznyak was the initiator of BI development, an enthusiast only for the winged versions of missiles,and the future chief designer of cruise

missiles.After surveying our work in Bleicherode, he announced that he was leaving because there was nothing for him to do, but said he would join us again after

Isayev returned from Lehesten.

I set about distributing duties among the new arrivals. In spite of his high rank,

I appointed Pilyugin as the first deputy chief of the Institute RABE and chief

engineer.2 After receiving his office, he immediately asked the Germans for a set

of precision mechanics tools and ordered that all electromechanical instruments,

no matter where they came from, pass through his office workshop. I visited

Semyon Chizhikov at Villa Franka.Taking into account his exceptional organiza

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2. The title ‘first deputy’ was common in Soviet institutions to denote someone who was ‘first among the

deputies.’

From the author’s archives.

Boris Ye. Chertok (left) and Nikolay A. Pilyugin in occupied Germany—Bleicherode, winter of 1946. 
tional skills, I appointed him as general assistant, which put him in charge 

problems concerning transportation, housing, food for the officer staff, and 

action with the commandant’s office and the local German authorities. H

quite enough to worry about, because the so-called domestic problems 

becoming more complicated with every passing day.I also had several long co

sations with Vasiliy Kharchev.We agreed that we would set up our own inde

ent intelligence service.The primary mission of this group would be to sear

authentic missile specialists and entice them, or even abduct them, from 

American zone.

by the end of august, our institute was already becoming, by provincial 

dards,a robust,large-scale institution.We created laboratories for gyroscopic i

ments, control-surface actuators, electrical circuits, ground-based control con

and radio instruments. We also set up a design bureau. There was an exc

Photostat machine in the semi-basement, and an exemplary, while yet empty

nical documentation archive nearby.The first report on the institute’s activity 

appeared on our official letterhead and in the institute’s files.

An officers’ mess hall had opened up at the Villa Franka. In exchange for 

and a small salary, a language teacher from the Baltic States was conducting 

lessons in conversational German with our officers. While Semyon Chiz

proved to be the most linguistically challenged, he was somehow under

better than the others when it came to dealing with the Germans conce

routine business problems. He was already well-known in the area as a who

buyer of provisions and schnapps and as a specialist in the repair of automob

I asked Kurilo to inspect the factory in Kleinbodungen and begin restorin

production of missiles. He arranged the transport of the the assemblies tha

been left behind by the Americans at Mittelwerk, found several skilled wor

who knew the assembly process, and began to develop real missile produ

When we had made a list and tallied up the riches, it turned out that out of 

tail and middle sections, tanks, instrument compartments, and nose sectio

could assemble at least fifteen, and maybe even twenty missile bodies. But th

ation was a lot worse with the innards.We still did not have a single control s

instrument that we could use. There were also no engines and no turbo

assemblies that we could clear for installation.

back in moscow, hectic decisions were being made related to our work

Main Artillery Directorate had tasked the Guards Mortar Units command 

finding captured German missile technology. As mentioned previously

whole thing started with General Sokolov’s commission, which was the f

arrive in Peenemünde. In August, General N. N. Kuznetsov appear

Nordhausen with a large retinue. In accordance with a command from B

he occupied the sole ancient palace in the town.There they founded, as we 

to joke, the missile headquarters of the Guards Mortar Units or ‘GAU R

296
sentation,’ which had been ordered to direct the study and expropriation of

German missile technology.

After determining “who was who,” Kuznetsov announced that the Institute

RABE and all of us were subordinate to the GAU military command, as per the

decision of the Central Committee, which had instructed the military to head this

activity until the industry could sort out which one of the Peoples’ Commissars

would be in charge. Having discussed these problems in our own aviation circle,

we decided that it wasn’t worth it to put up a fight.After all, in Germany at that

time, the military were our masters.The aircraft industry had really abandoned us

or forgotten us, and no one else had picked us up yet. Soon thereafter we made

the acquaintance of General Lev Mikhaylovich Gaydukov, who had arrived for an

inspection.He was a member of the Guards Mortar Units military council and also

a Central Committee department manager. He impressed us as an energetic man

who was full of initiative, and we liked that he made no secret of the fact that he

would support in every way the expansion of our operations in Germany, to the

extent that he would even issue the appropriate Central Committee and governmental resolution.

In August 1945, the Institute RABE became fully established and began to

expand its activity.The following month, commissions and all sorts of plenipotentiaries from Moscow—ranging from the serious to the idly curious—began

making regular visits to determine who we were and what we were doing.

After returning to Moscow, Gaydukov really got down to business. The first

result of his efforts was the arrival of a group that consisted of future chief designers Mikhail Sergeyevich Ryazanskiy, Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov, and Yuriy

Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev, as well as Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Boguslavskiy and

Zinoviy Moiseyevich Tsetsior.We had now been brought up to full strength with

radio and gyroscopic specialists. This was an interagency group organized at

Gaydukov’s initiative by decision of the Central Committee.

When Viktor Kuznetsov saw the gyroscopic platform that we had in our laboratory,he announced that it should be sent immediately to his institute in Moscow.

But it didn’t work out that way. Pilyugin categorically objected.This was the first

serious conflict between the two future chief designers. Later, in the early 1960s,

disagreements as to who should make gyroscopic instruments and what they

should be like led Pilyugin, who had obtained a powerful production base, to

begin successfully developing and producing gyroscopic instruments and highly

sensitive elements for inertial navigation systems.

Yevgeniy Boguslavskiy, who remained with us at the institute to the very end,

immediately immersed himself in the mysteries of the lateral radio correction and

range radio control systems.

to consolidate its policies, the GAU sent cadre officers from its staff and

troop units.And so, the following people turned up first in Berlin, and then at our

place: Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin, who would later became director of the

297
head central institute of the USSR Ministry of General Machine Bu

(Minobshchemash or MOM) and then MOM’s first deputy minister;Yuriy Ale

drovich Mozzhorin, who also became director of the head institute after T

Colonel Pavel Yefimovich Trubachev, a future first regional engineer and ch

military acceptance at the head institute NII-88; and Captain Kerim Al

Kerimov, a future chairman of State Commissions.

A special regiment of the Guards Mortar Units was billeted in the tow

Sondershausen.The regimental commander introduced himself to me as the 

commander of a rocket troops subunit. The military leadership was finally 

awake. But the situation with the German specialists was clearly not satisfa

We needed to take urgent action to entice them from the Western zone.

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Chapter 21

Operation “Ost”

There were more and more complaints from the higher-ups. This time it was

coming from General Kuznetsov, GAU’s authorized representative, to the effect

that his officers were not receiving materials and satisfactory technical information

from the Germans. One of the high-ranking artillery officers who had visited

Bleicherode told me bluntly, “We have the impression that you Russian aircraft

specialists already have a better understanding of this technology than the Germans

here. But the mortar and artillery specialists aren’t receiving the materials to study.”

They also accused me of setting a very high pay scale and food rations for the

Germans. We obtained rations and issued them with the consent of the SVAG,

who were striving to show that German scientists were being provided with both

moral and material support, despite the burdens of the postwar period. Germans

with engineering and doctorate degrees at the Institute RABE received the

following food rations every fourteen days: sixty eggs, five pounds of butter, twelve

pounds of meat, and a fully sufficient amount of bread, sugar, vegetable oil, potatoes, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages.Their monthly salary of 1,400 Marks was

issued without any deductions. Soviet scientists back home in Moscow during

those years would not have dreamed of such conditions. Despite our incentives,

however, we still did not have “the right Germans” working for us.We needed to

stir up a second wave and get some real specialists.

The institute had now become a well-organized enterprise, and we were not

ashamed to invite people to undertake good and interesting work.We undertook

efforts in two areas.The first, which Pilyugin took on, was to offer scientists and

highly qualified engineers in specific specialties the opportunity to work for us

through the SVAG Thuringia directorate, where there were already many good

administrators. Prior direct involvement in rocket matters was not a prerequisite.

This personnel program quickly led to the discovery of prominent specialists who

made valuable contributions, even though they had not previously worked at

Peenemünde.

This is how Dr. Kurt Magnus joined us. Dr. Magnus was a first-class theoretician and engineer in the field of gyroscopes and theoretical mechanics. He quickly

acquired an understanding of the gyroscopic platform technology and announced

that he would take on all gyroscopic problems. He summoned Dr. Hans Hoch, his

299
friend at Hettingen University, who was a theoretician and brilliant experim

in automatic control. Magnus convinced Hoch to stay and work with 

Bleicherode.After briefly wavering, we assigned Hoch general stabilization t

and the “Mischgerät” laboratory.1

This pair, Kurt Magnus and Hans Hoch, assisted us greatly. Unfortunate

Hoch died in Moscow in 1950 from suppurative appendicitis. Dr. Magnus be

a renowned scientist and gyroscope expert, whose works were translated 

many languages. His fundamental monograph, Kreisel, is still a first-class tex

for those studying gyroscopic technology.2 In October we acquired Dr. M

Blasing, a former employee of Askania who appealed to the departments o

firm in the various zones until he managed to get on board with us.We ent

him with the directorship of the control-surface actuators laboratory.The b

calculations associated with controlling missile flight were entrusted to Pro

Waldemar Wolff, who had been the chief ballistics expert for Krupp. Soon 

after, an aerodynamics specialist from Dresden, Dr.Werner Albring, joined hi

took on the aerodynamic problems of the atmospheric segment.

But we still needed authentic Peenemünde missile specialists. For this I 

a “secret” second program, which I entrusted to Vasiliy Kharchev. His task w

establish a network of agents, and if necessary, personally penetrate int

American zone to intercept specialists before they were sent to the U

States.At Kharchev’s suggestion I assigned this program the code name “O

tion Ost” (East).

Semyon Chizhikov was instructed to supply Kharchev with cognac, butte

various delicacies “on account” for Operation Ost. The division chief o

agreed to open and close the border between our zone and the American z

Kharchev’s request. Pilyugin undertook a special mission—I no longer reme

what town he went to—and brought back many dozens of wristwatches 

used as souvenirs and “bribes” for the American border guards.Vasiliy Kha

could barely sleep because of his intensive German and English studies.

The first success of Operation Ost was to win over and bring onto the R

staff an authentic specialist on the combat firing of V-2 missiles, Fritz Vieba

The Americans unexpectedly gave our Operation Ost a boost. Early one m

ing, I was awakened by a telephone call from the town commandant. He rep

that his patrol had stopped two Jeeps with Americans who had apparently bur

town and were trying to abduct German women. The latter had raised s

ruckus that our patrol had arrived.The arrested Americans were raising Cain 

at the commandant’s office.They explained that these women were the wi

German specialists who were supposed to be sent to America.I asked the com

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1. A Mischgerät (mixing unit) was an amplifier-converter on the circuit connecting the command gy

and the control-surface actuators.

2. Kurt Magnus, Kreisel: Theorie und Anwendungen (Gyroscope:Theory and Application) (Springer

Berlin, 1971).
dant to serve the Americans tea and offer them some Kazbek cigarettes and promised to be there soon.

I woke up Chizhikov and Kharchev and ordered them to find some cognac,

some good snacks, and to set the table at once.When I appeared at the commandant’s office, the din was terrible.The four American officers, each trying to outyell the others, were communicating with the commandant through two

interpreters—a German interpreted from English to German and a Russian lieutenant from German to Russian, and vice versa.

Introducing myself as the Soviet representative for German missile specialists, I

asked our American friends to calm themselves and take a break from their tiring

work by joining us for refreshments at the Villa Franka.They responded with an

“Okay,” and the cortège set off for our villa.

Chizhikov and Kharchev had not let me down.When the Americans looked at

the table their eyes lit up. All four of the young Yankees broke into smiles and

exclamations of approval followed. After numerous toasts, the Americans were

quite tipsy.Excitedly slapping each other on the shoulders,we declared our friendship and found out that in September and October all of the German specialists

that the Americans had named as war criminals would be sent from Witzenhausen

via France to the United States. But several of their wives or mistresses had

remained in the Soviet zone, in particular in Bleicherode, and the Germans categorically refused to go without them. On behalf of the command, the Americans

requested that the Soviets help them return these women to them.

Finally we came to an agreement.The American representative would present

the commandant of the town with instructions as to which women he wanted

transported from Bleicherode and the surrounding areas;this list would include the

names of the German specialists associated with the women. We said that we

would permit the transfers, but only under the condition that an officer of ours be

present to hear each woman voluntarily agree to leave—especially if she had children.Then and there we composed a protocol in Russian and English and signed

it. It is now difficult to say to what extent the two texts were identical.

First Lieutenant Vasiliy Kharchev was introduced to the American major who

was taking part in the transfer. The operation to send off five women and three children took place peacefully, without any yelling. Kharchev explained to the alarmed

women that they were free to act as they wished. He said the Soviet command was

prepared to petition for their return to Bleicherode if they did not like it in the

American zone.What could these women do? After all, they were not indigenous,

but had been evacuated from Peenemünde, and their landlords were glad to see

them go because it was considerably more profitable to house Russian officers.

Kharchev quickly befriended the American officers guarding the Germans in

the border towns of Worbis and Witzenhausen, and established a rapport with

the women.

Just a week later, we received a report through our new female network of

“agents” that Frau Gröttrup, the wife of a German specialist, wanted to meet with

301
us.The meeting was set up near the border. Irmgard Gröttrup, a tall blond

light-colored sport suit, appeared with her 8-year-old son. “If we run int

trouble I’ll explain that we were out walking and got lost.” She immediately 

it clear that she would make the decision, not her husband. She supposedly 

fascism. She had even been arrested on a number of occasions, and her hus

Helmut, had been as well.They wanted to know what the Russians would p

ise them.

She said that Helmut Gröttrup was von Braun’s deputy for missile radio-c

and for electrical systems as a whole. He was prepared to come over to us 

the condition of complete freedom. I said that I needed to receive the cons

a general in Berlin before we could give her an answer, and we would first l

meet with Herr Gröttrup. Frau Gröttrup said that we should hurry becaus

might be sent to America in a week or two. Three days later, we pulled o

transfer of the entire family: papa, mama, and the two Gröttrup children—w

the consent of Berlin of course.

The Gröttrups settled in a separate villa and were offered a very high salar

food rations compared with those of the other Germans. But there was one c

tion: to keep order and to take part in the creative work of restoring missile 

nology,our specialist Colonel Kuteynikov,who had a good knowledge of Ge

would live with them at the villa. The primary interaction with the 

management should go through him.The institute’s German directorate an

were not happy with this arrangement.They were unhappy that the institut

they had created was being transferred to an associate of von Braun who w

drive out everyone who disagreed with him.

Gröttrup was clearly better informed than the others about the operati

Peenemünde.He had been close to von Braun,and he spoke very skeptically 

the German contingent at our Institute RABE, except for Kurt Magnus and 

Hoch.The others he simply did not know.To avoid stirring up passions, we a

that we would create a special “Gröttrup Bureau” at the institute. Its first tas

to compile a detailed report on the development of A-4 missiles and other 

ects at Peenemünde.

In retrospect, I would say that we were right on the money with Gröttru

true, however, that Frau Gröttrup, who had grown bolder, proved to be not 

as modest as she had seemed during our first meeting.Soon thereafter she acq

two cows,“for the children and to improve the nutrition of the institute’s R

management.” She managed to obtain orders for products in extremely 

supply, which Semyon Chizhikov grudgingly had to pay for and deliver. B

unexpected report from Colonel Kuteynikov sent us into a state of shock.

Attached to the villa where we had settled the Gröttrup family was a 

The Frau was impatient to put it to use as originally intended.And so one 

two rather decent horses appeared there. Colonel Kuteynikov, a man a

advanced in years, evaluating the situation from all sides, reported that the 

wanted to go horseback riding, not with her husband, but escorted by h

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or another Soviet officer.After all, they might otherwise be detained at the nearest checkpoint.

When Colonel Ryazanskiy heard about this, he said sardonically, “Colonel

Kuteynikov’s mother is a ballerina and his father is a dancer. He will certainly stay

put in the saddle. Let him go first.” I was also losing patience. Ryazanskiy chided,

“And what will your wife say if she gets a photo and a letter saying how pleasantly

her little husband is passing the time, prancing around on horseback with a

German Amazon?”Kuteynikov had worked as a military inspector in radio factories during the entire war. He was a pretty good radio engineer, and had risen to

the rank of colonel in the engineer technical service. He had been attached to the

Gröttrup family against his will, and was seriously offended. “My wife barely

survived the siege of Leningrad. Now she is seriously ill and I have to worry about

German mares.You can all go to hell!”

Kharchev couldn’t stand for it either. “My sister is graduating from Moscow

State University. She goes to the university wearing men’s boots and is selling her

last dress in order to buy food for our sick mother. My young wife Tamara had to

quit her studies at theater school because she can’t make it without my help—and

here we are getting saddle horses!”

Chizhikov was tasked with developing an operation to exchange the horses for

service automobiles for the institute. But Frau Gröttrup nevertheless secured one

of the automobiles, by rights a service vehicle, for herself. She drove herself around

from place to place.At one stop a ton of apples was procured for us; at another, a

pig was slaughtered and sold to her; at a third, a “representational” sports car rented

for the institute; and at a fourth stop, milk with enhanced fat content was ordered

for the officer’s mess hall. She would burst into our officer’s mess, inspect our food,

and demand that we immediately fire the cooks, whom she had caught stealing. In

spite of Herr Gröttrup and Kuteynikov’s protests, she sacked and replaced the

stenographer/typists.Throughout all of this she was raising her children, learning

Russian, and riding over to Villa Franka on a motorcycle to play Liszt, Beethoven,

and Tchaikovsky on the grand piano.

But Operation Ost was not without its mishaps. Immediately after the operation to bring Gröttrup across the border, Kharchev announced that it was now

time to bring Wernher von Braun himself across the border. Before giving the goahead, we discussed with Pilyugin,Voskresenskiy, and the local military intelligence

whether such an attempt would be permitted. The nominal intelligence service

immediately distanced itself,fearing a scandal with the allied forces.They were sure

that “heads would roll” at the military administration if the operation was found

out.“Therefore,you can act at your own peril and risk.Your shoulder boards aren’t

legitimate anyway. If they take them away, you won’t be losing anything.”

We decided to take the risk. As always, we sent Kharchev on the operation.

Driving up to the border checkpoint early in the morning, Kharchev greeted the

Americans and announced that he needed to cross into Witzenhausen to meet

with the American officers who had visited our villa.They all exchanged wrist

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watches and Kharchev parted with the only bottle of genuine Moscow vod

our entire garrison. Touched by such generous gifts, the Americans invite

into their Jeep and took it upon themselves to deliver him into town.This w

first hitch in the operation.What else could he do? Instead of taking Kharch

see his acquaintances, they drove him to the American commandant of the 

The duty officer announced Kharchev’s arrival and received instructions to 

the Russian first lieutenant to the commandant’s personal quarters. We 

Kharchev to repeat many times the story of what happened next, especially 

evening after dinner, expecting new exciting details on each retelling.

“So they take me into a big bedroom.The commandant himself is lying 

in the big wide bed, just like the one here at the Villa Franka on the second 

And on the other half of the bed is this beautiful woman.And between the

German shepherd. It looks like they’re having breakfast: there are bottles a

sorts of food on the bedside table. He throws off the featherbed, shoos th

away,and tells me to climb into bed.‘For a Russian officer, my border neigh

begrudge nothing!’”

At this point in the story, we usually asked questions: “And did the bea

woman throw off her blanket too?” Kharchev, red with indignation, would u

get all muddled and lose his train of thought. But he always firmly insiste

he did not accept the invitation, and that in broken English had confirmed t

was there on business.

Kharchev told us that, finally, after throwing on a robe, the commandant 

out with him into the adjacent study.There they drank whiskey or somethin

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From the author’s 

Irmgardt and Helmut Gröttrup with their children.
for a long time; Kharchev argued that they needed to share the German specialists

because they were war spoils.The commandant explained that a special assignment

was in charge of guarding them. Kharchev then tried to turn the conversation to

von Braun.The commandant said that he was the most important war criminal

and was being very heavily guarded. After the conversation, they put Kharchev

back into that same Jeep and as quick as the wind they drove him back to the

checkpoint, where he hopped into his own vehicle and an hour later reported this

adventure to us.

when we let him go rest and sober up, Pilyugin reproachfully said to me,

“He’s your ward.What would have happened to us all if he had given in to temptation? The commandant or somebody else there would have taken pictures of him

in bed and then presented the photos to ‘the right people’!”

Several months later, when Korolev was working in our company, he just about

split his sides laughing over that story. But in contrast to Pilyugin he said,“What a

fool Kharchev was not to accept the American’s offer.” As regards von Braun,

Korolev was pleased that the operation had failed. He did not conceal this. Having

seen the conditions in which Gröttrup lived and worked among us, he could imagine what would have happened if the most important German missile specialist had

also showed up. Korolev thought that Von Braun clearly would have gone against

the ideas that he was developing here, and changed the plans he had made through

all his suffering during the last years in Kolyma and in the Kazan sharashka.

Having heard somehow about our attempt to make contact with von Braun,

Gröttrup was quite amused. He said something to the effect that it was out of the

question to think that von Braun would voluntarily come over to us.Von Braun

was, of course, a very good engineer, a talented designer, and an effective organizer of ideas. But he had also been a baron, a member of the Nazi party, and even

a Sturmbannführer.

3 He and his mentor, General Dr. Dornberger, met several times

with Hitler and received high state honors. Reich leaders Goebbels and

Kaltenbrunner kept close tabs on his work. In his youth,Wernher von Braun had

dreamed of space travels under the influence of Hermann Oberth’s works, but life

forced von Braun to use his talent for purely military objectives. We asked

Gröttrup to discuss the beginning of von Braun’s career. He agreed, but with great

reluctance. It ended with his wife inviting a small, select circle to coffee with

whipped cream. She promised that Helmut would tell us a bit about the very

beginning of their work.

Von Braun’s story is no longer novel,thanks to numerous publications by American, German, and Soviet researchers, and even television documentaries. For that

reason I will not cram my memoirs with yet another version of von Braun’s biography. Gröttrup said that one of von Braun’s very good traits was his striving to

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3. Sturmbannführer was equivalent to the rank of major in the SS.
attract the most talented people. In doing so, he did not take age into accoun

he was not afraid of competition.

Von Braun had been named technical director of Peenemünde-Ost at th

of twenty-five! For Germans this was quite unusual. But this shows how h

they valued his talent, initiative, and rare intuition. According to Gröttrup

Braun was very attentive to senior, experienced specialists. He made fundam

decisions after having first gathered and listened to diverse opinions.There w

voting; von Braun always had the last word, but he managed not to offen

other staff. In spite of his youth, his authority was not called into question.

Fifty years after this assessment of von Braun’s management style, I met w

American engineer named Jerry Clubb, who was a participant in the A

Saturn lunar program, which had been directed by the no longer twenty-fiv

fifty-five-year-old,world-renowned creator of the first long-range ballistic m

The American talked about von Braun’s working style in the United States 

same way that I had heard Gröttrup describe it in 1945 over a cup of coffee 

whipped cream.

We did not manage to pick up Baron Wernher von Braun through Ope

Ost,and I think that this was good both for us and for him. Despite all of his 

bilities, what he achieved in the United States would have been impossible fo

to achieve in the Soviet Union. It is true, another prominent scientist, pro

doctor, and also baron, Manfred von Ardenne, who had worked in the 

Union from 1945 to 1955 at the Electrophysics Institute in Sukhumi, was aw

the title Hero of Socialist Labor for his participation in the creation of the 

atomic bomb. It should be noted, however, that von Ardenne had not b

member of the Nazi Party, and he had not created weapons of mass destru

under the Nazis.

Von Braun had been valued and trusted by Dornberger and the higher m

leadership of the infantry forces who had financed the constructio

Peenemünde. He did not have to fear intrigue against himself, and he was a

work confidently as the technical director. Dornberger, who had become a g

at Peenemünde, had always shielded von Braun.They were a powerful duo.

In spite of various nuances in political views, the main leadership sta

worked rather harmoniously and very selflessly. Everyone understood that 

too dangerous to express one’s innermost thoughts.Any conversations conce

the possibility of using rockets for space travel were also dangerous becau

Gestapo had ears everywhere. Such conversations were viewed as sab

the diversion of efforts from the Führer’s most important assignment.

While we were talking with Gröttrup, the conversation somehow turned 

forced labor at Mittelwerk and the atrocities that had been carried out there.“

was your attitude toward the production of missiles using people condemn

death?” we asked. Immediately Frau Gröttrup interjected. No, she and Helmu

had no idea that such horrors that were taking place there. She said that th

also the case with the majority of the specialists. But von Braun an

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Peenemünde production personnel had been in Nordhausen more than once, and

they of course had seen everything. This was yet another reason why he would

avoid contact with the Russians.After all, the majority of the Dora camp prisoners were Red Army prisoners of war. Gröttrup recalled that Von Braun, during the

hurried evacuation of Peenemünde, had been clearly afraid and had commented,

“We fired missiles against England, but it’s the Russians who will take revenge.”

Gröttrup said that he had been arrested by the Gestapo because of indiscreet

dinner conversations,but von Braun and Dornberger’s intervention had saved him.

A report Gröttrup wrote toward the middle of 1946 was the most complete

and objective account of the history of Peenemünde and the technical problems

that were solved during the development of the first long-range ballistic missile,

the A-4.4

The prehistory of German rocket technology, the interrelationship between

“rocket and state”, and the problems that were solved outside the scope of the

A-4 program are discussed in greater detail and more reliably in the historical

works and memoirs that emerged significantly later. In this regard, I would refer

the reader to the memoirs of Walter Dornberger: V2, der Schuss ins Weltall (V2, A

Shot into the Universe), which was published in the United States in 1954, and

the richly illustrated book, Wernher von Braun, Crusader for Space: A Biographical

Memoir, by Ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick I. Ordway, von Braun’s coworkers in

Germany and the United States.5

Michael J. Neufeld, a professional space historian working in the United States,

has most completely and objectively researched the history of Peenemünde. In

1996, I was in Washington giving a lecture related to Rakety i lyuidi (Rockets and

People) at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. On this

occasion, Neufeld, who at the time was the curator for World War II history at that

museum, presented me with a copy of his book, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era, published in 1995.6This is truly a

very serious scientific historical study.

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4. Author’s note: In the chapter “What is Peenemünde” (chapter 17) I used material from Gröttrup’s report.

5. Walter Dornberger, V2, der Schuss ins Weltall; Geschichte einer grossen Erfindung (V2, A Shot Into the

Universe:The History of a Big Invention) (Esslingen: Bechtle Verlag, 1952). An English-language version was

published in 1954. See also, Ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick I. Ordway III, Wernher von Braun, Crusader for Space:

An Illustrated Memoir (Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1994).

6. Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New

York:The Free Press, 1995).

Chapter 22

Special Incidents

The energetic but uneventful activities that characterized the formation of the

Institute RABE were punctuated by a few “strength tests.” There were many

conflicts among the town’s indigenous residents, the German specialists enlisted for

work, and Soviet military and civilian specialists arriving with “special assignments”

from Moscow. In most cases, these conflicts had to do with the forced reduction of

living space. More than a thousand new residents had converged on the small, quiet

town, and there had been no new construction.The housing conflicts were for the

most part successfully resolved through the personal efforts of the military

commandant’s office, the administration of the town Bürgermeister, and the Institute RABE administration.

Transport was more difficult. Sometimes high-ranking envoys from Moscow

appeared who hampered work and who for some reason wanted to join in and get

some benefits. They demanded personal automobiles, private apartments, and

guides to show them local points of interest. Isayev and I, and later Pilyugin, had

to take on the task of throwing them out of Bleicherode as quickly as possible.

But there were incidents that we categorized as “critical.” Approximately two

weeks after the official founding of the Institute RABE, a Smersh lieutenant

colonel from the division that had been billeted in Nordhausen appeared in my

comfortable office. He reminded me of our meetings during our first days in

Nordhausen and was interested in what we had turned up using the information

we had received from Smersh about possible hiding places of secret equipment that

the Americans had not discovered. It turns out that we had forgotten about the

“forester’s cabin.”

“According to information that we received from the Germans in the first days

after we entered Nordhausen,” he said as he unfolded a large-scale map of

Germany,“somewhere in the area of the forest preserve, which used to be strictly

guarded under the pretext of protecting the wild animals, there is a forestry base

that locals called the ‘forester’s cabin.’We haven’t been able to find anyone from

among the locals who has been at that base. The new German authorities have

found forestry service employees who themselves did not have access to that base.

They said that in actual fact there wasn’t a ‘forester’s cabin’ there, but a comfortable house with all the conveniences that was used for recreation and hunting by

309
high-ranking officials of the Reich. Eyewitnesses, who are not always trustw

told us that they suspected that a bigwig was visiting the cabin when the n

police patrol on the roads was reinforced with a special SS motorcycle patro

the big shots didn’t feel like hunting during the last year of the war.There 

increasing numbers of wild boar, wild goats, and roe deer in the forests, b

law-abiding Germans never did any poaching for meat. Someone reportedl

a column of trucks escorted by an SS motorcycle patrol on the road to the 

just before the American troops occupied Thuringia.

The Smersh officer continued,“I think that the Americans visited these are

did they find everything? I won’t be able to help you.We’re being transferred 

east.They’re about to begin the demobilization and reduction of Smersh.Ac

ing to our information, the last vestiges of Vlasov’s men are hiding somewh

these forests.1They are considerably more dangerous than the German Nazis.

go looking for the “forester’s cabin,” I’d advise you to arrange an armed escor

the commandant’s office or the Seventy-fifth division. Just in case.”

“Are you sure,” I asked, pointing to the map,“that the alleged secret cabin 

our zone and not the American zone?”

“I can’t say for sure.They still haven’t laid a precise border over the hilly,fo

terrain. Our border guards and the Americans are posted on the roads, but 

are no checkpoints, barriers, or soldiers in the forest.”

That very same day at the Villa Franka I convened an improvised “m

council” to develop a plan to uncover the secret of the “forester’s cabin.” Isaye

certain that there would be nothing there to do with engine technol

everything that the Germans had in that field he had already studied at the 

company in Basdorf, and now it was time to settle down in Lehesten.Ther

he had no intention of wasting a day on some mythical “forester’s cabin” wi

added risk of ending up in the American zone. But the others supported m

we formed a two-car expedition. The division command allocated a Jee

driver, an “unemployed” combat intelligence officer, and a soldier with an 

matic weapon—just in case.Accompanying me in my Mercedes was my Ge

guide, whom the military commandant and Bürgermeister had recommende

engine specialist Ivan Raykov, who joined us despite Isayev’s objection.

“One automatic weapon and three pistols is quite sufficient to defend our

against an attack of wild boars,” I commented.

We left early in the morning. Soon thereafter, on the gravel road that d

around the forested hills, I was no longer able to orient myself using the ma

had to completely trust the guide.After about an hour of driving that was di

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1. Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (1900-1946) was a Soviet military commander with anti-Stalinist sen

who after being captured with his army by the Germans in July 1942, formed the Committee 

Liberation of the Peoples of Russia and the Russian Liberation Army aimed at overthrowing Stalin’s 

The Germans allowed Vlasov’s 50,000 troops to go into battle against the advancing Red Army at the 

the war. He was handed over to the Soviets in May 1945, tried, and hanged.
for the Mercedes,Alfred hinted that the motor was overheating and said we might

not have enough gas for the return trip in these road conditions.As if in response

to his apprehension, having ascended to the top of the next hill, we came out of

the dark forest into a sunny clearing.The road ended at the open gates of a small

country estate, in the middle of which stood a small two-story house with a

double-gabled, red tile roof. Along the edges of the clearing stood haystacks and

mangers for the forest animals. Everything appeared to be well-kept. But the most

unexpected sight was the Jeep parked in front of the house.

The division intelligence officer yelled out,“Turn the cars around! Drivers, stay

in the cars! All others stay by the vehicles.” He turned to the soldier with the

automatic weapon,“Petro! Cover me in case something happens. I’ll go alone first

to investigate.”

Evidently having seen or heard our procession, an elderly woman came out of

the house. She was waving her arms very aggressively, making it clear to us that we

were to beat it. Summoning every shred of my knowledge of German, I emerged

from where I had taken cover and tried to communicate with her.

“This is a nature preserve,” she yelled.“You are scaring the animals.The American soldiers came here and went off into the forest to hunt.They took away my

husband’s car. He walked to Nordhausen two days ago to ask for help. Now

you’ve come to hunt too, and we are going hungry—but we never shoot the

wild animals!”

The Jeep had a military license plate and the stars and stripes marking. How did

it get here? we thought, through our zone? 

As if in response to our musings, a burst of automatic fire resounded in the

forest followed by several single shots.We lit up cigarettes and decided to wait for

the hunters.

Soon thereafter, four Americans emerged from the forest.We couldn’t figure out

what their military ranks were.They were carrying a roe deer by the legs and dragging the carcass of a wild boar along the ground.When they saw us, the Americans

were not embarrassed,but greeted us gregariously.In Russian-German-English,but

primarily pointing with our finger at the map, we showed them that this was our

zone and they didn’t have the right to kill animals here. In response the Americans

guffawed,slapped us on the back,and offered us the pick of the roe deer or the wild

boar.After loading their booty, the Americans departed rolling down the road that

went over the other side of the hill. We understood then that we were located

somewhere on the border.

I attempted for some time to explain the objective of our visit to the distraught

proprietress. After we had handed over our entire supply of cigarettes “for her

husband,” she led us to the barn, moved aside a pile of some sort of brooms, and

pointed to a trapdoor in the wooden floor. In the dry cellar we discovered what

was clearly well-packed electrical equipment.We couldn’t make it out in the darkness.The next day, a team that included German specialists—without an automatic

weapon-wielding soldier but with a wealth of rations—brought the precious cargo

311
from the “forester’s cabin.” It turned out to be two sets of relay boxes and c

panels intended for pre-launch tests and the launching of V-2 missiles. I ma

to find the Smersh officer who hadn’t yet left Nordhausen and thanked hi

steering us to the cabin. He said that we had been marvelously lucky. Subse

clarification had shown that the “forester’s cabin”was considered part of the A

ican zone.

a month after the institute rabe had begun to function, the we

of the organizational and financial management of the institute’s German 

started to become evident. Director Rosenplänter was a very energetic eng

but he had a poor understanding of supply problems, and he evidently carri

prestige among the local businessmen and merchants who were setting up bu

ties with the institute. His deputy for general affairs devoted all of his attent

procuring rations for the Germans and improving their living conditions. 

therefore very glad when, on the recommendation of the SVAG, Herr Schm

former director of the Peenemünde supply and cooperation service, came 

from Weimar. Obviously no spring chicken, stout and nattily attired, his s

manner and pleasant smile instilled respect for the institution he represented

We appointed Schmidt to the post of commercial director, and put h

charge of transportation, supply, equipment for the buildings, and what later 

to be called “social welfare.” He energetically set about his business and im

ately showed his competence by outfitting the laboratories with first-class i

ments and excellent standard benches. A broad range of electrical power so

312

From the author’s 

View of the former Institute RABE building. 
appeared and new top-notch metal-working machine tools began to arrive at the

factory in Kleinbodungen and in the institute’s shops.

In early September 1945,Pilyugin and I went to Dresden for three days to place

orders for gyroscopic instruments. When we returned, we found Isayev in a

gloomy mood. He was chain-smoking his favorite Byelomor cigarettes, and finally

he told us about what had happened in our absence.

In the middle of the workday,Schmidt,who was usually very polite and respectful, literally burst into Villa Franka where Isayev was resting after returning from

Lehesten. He yelled at Isayev, “Your soldiers are raping German women!” After

calming down a bit, Schmidt explained that the woman he was living with (his

wife had remained in another town) was strolling with a female acquaintance in

the forest.A Russian soldier had attacked them, raped his friend, and disappeared.

There was nothing for Isayev to do but to report Schmidt’s complaint to the military commandant. Captain Solodyankin, remembering Marshal Zhukov’s threatening orders, reported the incident to the commander of the division billeted in

the area of Bleicherode.There they quickly determined that they should look for

the perpetrator in the artillery brigade attached to the division, which was getting

ready to return to the Soviet Union.To wipe away the division’s shame,the brigade

commander ordered all of his men to stand in formation in the town square. He

led the victim past them to identify the perpetrator. She pointed at a Kazakh

soldier, who was arrested on the spot.The accused confessed during interrogation

that his goal was to get revenge against the Germans for his two brothers who died

at the front. He himself had never gotten the opportunity to kill a German in

combat. Having learned of their impending evacuation from Germany, he decided

to avenge the death of his brothers in that way.The next day a military prosecutor

was to arrive from Erfurt, and a military field trial would be held. Iron discipline

was now being restored in the army, and it was not out of the question that they

would sentence him to be shot.“And it’s all my fault,” Isayev said,“I don’t know

what possessed me to hurry over to the commandant with that report. I needed

to calm Schmidt down. Maybe we could have agreed not to take the matter to the

military tribunal.”

The next day there really was a trial and they sentenced the soldier to be shot.

I reported this to Schmidt over the telephone. He immediately rushed over to Villa

Franka along with his girlfriend, the victim. She was not young, and was tall and

well built. She seemed to be a woman who could stand up for herself.

Schmidt and his girlfriend shouted over each other that they were shocked by

such a harsh sentence.They were prepared to forgive the soldier and asked me to

intervene to save his life. I immediately called the division commander and asked

if something could be done to save the soldier since the victim was stunned by the

severity of the sentence, wanted to petition for a pardon, and had forgiven him.

The general was silent for a moment and then said that he would call me back in

a half hour.Thirty minutes later, he reported that he had talked with Berlin.They

had explained to him that Moscow had given instructions to establish rigid order

313
among the occupation troops. Our critical incident had already been repor

the commander, and the sentence would be carried out for the edificati

others,regardless of the German woman’s petition.Schmidt and his girlfriend 

stunned by this message.

That evening, after a hard day, we gathered by the fireplace in the spaciou

at Villa Franka. It had come to pass that several officers of the Seventy-fifth G

Division billeted in Bleicherode who were hungry for cultured society had j

our informal officers’ club. Our circle in Germany, which consisted of trade 

or “civilian” officers, somehow attracted real officers who were decorated 

combat ribbons and medals, but who had grown tired of the war.

The combat officers explained their interest in our activity, “You he

involved in interesting and important work, but we’re a bunch of layabout

know very well what you will be doing when you return home. But we have 

fighting for more than four years, and we happened to survive—now we 

nothing to do. The combat guards division is enjoying comfortable cond

without the war, but it’s doomed to disintegration.”

On those evenings when we gathered by the fireplace, the souls o

society were the “hussars,” Isayev’s name for Voskresenskiy, Boguslavskiy

Rudnitskiy, who lived in the Villa Margaret on the highest hill in Bleiche

Somehow, it turned out that Guards Captain Oleg Bedarev, a combat o

became the latest member of our “hussars’ squadron.” He had march

Thuringia all the way from Stalingrad with his combat girlfriend Mira, a G

captain in the medical service. Pilyugin called military physician Mira and 

Bedarev our “Guards lovebirds,” and we included them among the wel

members of our evening meetings and fireside chats, where we would 

fragrant kirsch and precious packs of Kazbek cigarettes purchased at the c

Berlin military exchange.

We, including Oleg, Mira, and their combat friends, traded stories abou

everyday life in the war for hours, constantly interrupting each other. Some

Oleg would stop himself and say,“Let’s not talk about that.” To distract us fro

bad memories, he would pick up his guitar and perform songs that h

composed himself. Oleg was also a poet and the editor of the division news

His poetry was very unsettling to the political department, which made it di

for him to get promoted.

Mira explained,“The political workers consider his poems to be demora

and decadent. Not once does he mention the Party or Stalin in them.”

The tribunal’s sentence stunned Oleg and Mira as much as it did us.

“I was ordered to examine the condemned soldier and to certify that he w

the proper state of health to be shot. It turns out that some regulation or an

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2. The phrase “hussar” was originally used to describe ornately attired officers of the Hungarian ligh

from the fifteenth century. Chertok uses the word for his elegantly dressed associates.
calls for that. He was very calm and said that he was no longer disgraced before his

two dead brothers. As a doctor, I doubt that he was capable of overcoming a

powerful woman if she resisted. He was nineteen years old and had been in the

army for a year and a half.All the way from Stalingrad to Berlin, I have signed so

many death certificates that I can’t keep count.This is the first time I have had to

sign a certificate of health before an execution.”

Isayev had smoked an entire pack of Byelomor cigarettes that evening; after Mira’s

story, he announced that there was nothing left for him to do in Bleicherode.The

Institute RABE would get along without him, and he had already seen and understood everything he needed to in Lehesten.It was time for him to return to Moscow.

The soldier’s death was especially hard on Mira. She took Isayev’s arm, grabbed

the bottle of kirsch, and they retreated to the garden.

Voskresenskiy turned to Oleg, “Be careful that we don’t make off with your

beautiful wife.Who knows, we might haul her off to Moscow.”

“I’m not afraid.They didn’t make off with her on the front lines, and I’ll return

with her to Moscow before you. I just got my orders—our division is being

temporarily redeployed to the area of Wittenberg, and from there back home.

Tomorrow we begin the evacuation.”

Our party broke up late. When they said goodbye, Mira gave Isayev a long

embrace and kissed him.

We had a proper celebration of Isayev’s departure soon thereafter. On 10

September 1945, he went to Berlin and soon thereafter flew back to Moscow. He

never returned to Germany.Two weeks later, I took a trip to Wittenberg with two

of our “hussars,”Voskresenskiy and Boguslavskiy.We sought out Mira and Oleg.

They had not unpacked their suitcases and were preparing to load onto a special

train that was heading back to the Motherland. I jotted down a possible address

and phone number for Mira in Moscow.

It wasn’t until the spring of 1947 that Katya and I were able to host a gathering of old friends in Moscow on Korolenko Street. Mira and Oleg and two

“hussars”—Boguslavskiy with his wife Yelena and Voskresenskiy with his future

wife,also Yelena—squeezed into our cramped communal apartment.Isayev did not

come to the party. Mira arrived in a stylish wool suit. She appeared very different

than how I remembered her in uniform as a medical service Guard’s captain in

1945. Oleg, however, in his old, second-hand jacket with no decorations, was a

sorry sight. He was drinking a lot without taking part in the toasts and hardly

touched the appetizers that Katya painstakingly arranged for him on a plate.

“Why didn’t Isayev come?” Mira asked me before leaving.

“I invited him, but he didn’t want to come without Tatyana, and she is ill,”

I answered.

Mira knew that Tatyana Isayeva and Oleg Bedarev were suffering from the

same disease—alcoholism.The medical profession was powerless when it came to

treating acute alcoholism.The condition was exacerbated by the transition from

the rigid, goal-oriented discipline of military service to life in a peacetime dicta

315
torship. His wife’s illness was one of the reasons for Isayev’s hurried dep

from Germany.

here it is pertinent to mention that Isayev and Arvid Pallo, whose gro

had sent from Nordhausen to Lehesten on 15 July, successfully orchestrated e

firing tests. Soviet engine specialists—engineers and mechanics—mastere

technology that they had seen in Germany to such an extent that they wer

to conduct firing tests in different modes without the Germans’ assista

managed to visit Lehesten in August and for the first time witness a stunning 

tacle—the open plume of an engine firing with 25 metric tons of thrust

GAU chief, General Kuznetsov, who considered himself officially responsib

the Lehesten site in addition to the Institute RABE, had not yet seen the 

tests and demanded that director Rosenplänter and I accompany him on a t

Lehesten. I postponed this trip several times under various pretexts.

In late September,Aleksandr Bereznyak visited us.He had become familia

all of the German aircraft firms in the Soviet zone. Bereznyak’s head was 

ideas, and he had hurried to Bleicherode to meet with Isayev. But Isaye

already in Moscow. Bereznyak talked me into going with him to Lehesten

general was still making his persistent demands,so we decided to combine ou

On Sunday, 30 September, we left Nordhausen in two cars.

General Kuznetsov’s Opel-Kapitän was the lead car, with a military driver 

wheel. Kuznetsov seated Rosenplänter next to the driver to serve as his guid

general sat in back and demanded that our interpreter be seated in his car s

he could converse with Rosenplänter. Lyalya had to obey the general. Berez

Kharchev, and I were in the second car, our Mercedes, with Alfred at the w

We set out and were soon lagging way behind the lead car.Alfred repeatedly 

his head reproachfully and muttered something about the general’s car exce

permissible speeds on the narrow, winding roads. Suddenly Alfred let out a 

He was the first to see that the Opel-Kapitän had slammed into a tree.The in

were taken to the hospital in Erfurt. All three men were severely injured, b

German doctors assured us that they would live. “But Fräulein Lyalya has 

fatally injured.The base of her skull was fractured and she has multiple injur

her spinal cord.” I made a telephone call to Bleicherode and requested th

Musatov, the chief of the division medical-sanitary battalion, come immed

We had become friends with him. His front-line surgical operations 

legendary in the division.

When Musatov arrived, the chief surgeon of the hospital, Professor Sch

came out to speak to us.The hospital was top-notch. Before the surrender 

been the military hospital for SS officers.We went into the operating room 

the professor. Both of General Kuznetsov’s legs were bandaged and already in 

and he was still in a state of shock. Rosenplänter had multiple injuries to the 

and face. He was lying there with his head completely bandaged.The drive

unconscious. Both his legs, an arm, and several ribs were broken.The nurses 

316
bustling about them. Off to the side lay

our beloved Lyalya, unattended,

completely naked.

Kharchev was beside himself. He

snatched his pistol from its holster. He

fired into the ceiling and shouted that

this was premeditated.“If you don’t save

her life I am going to shoot everybody

here.” But Professor Schwartz and the

other doctors and nurses did not even

flinch. Evidently their dealings with SS

officers had hardened them. Our

surgeon,Major Musatov,deftly disarmed

Kharchev. He examined Lyalya, spoke

with Schwartz, and told us, “They did

everything they could. Now they have

given her the opportunity to die peacefully. She doesn’t have more than an

hour to live.” Kharchev began to sob.

The doctor motioned to one of the nurses. She approached Kharchev, rolled up his

sleeve, and gave him an injection.

Lyalya was given a funeral with honors. She had not only worked at the institute, but had helped on her own initiative in the division, and she had enjoyed

great success with her artistic talent.A standard pyramid with a red star was erected

at her gravesite in the garden next to the institute. On one of the facets was a

portrait of Lyalya—a beautiful, talented young Russian woman from near Tula,

whose life came to such a tragic end in Germany. I wrote to Isayev about Lyalya’s

death. He was shaken—all the more so because he was making arrangements to

fulfill his dream of her working in our Moscow institute after repatriation.

317

From the author’s archives.

“Our beloved Lyalya.”

Chapter 23

In Search of a Real Boss

We soon started to receive pessimistic letters from Isayev in Moscow: “Horrible,

horrible, horrible! . . .We don’t have anything sensible to work on! Our patron is no

longer interested in our research. He wants to go back to work at the Academy.”

Using the darkest images to describe the work life and unsettled daily life in

Moscow, Isayev reminisced about the Villa Franka and Bleicherode. “Our work in

Bleicherode—that was just a beautiful dream. Here the primary “missile-related

concerns” are firewood, early freezes, and agricultural work. . . .Your Katya is a real

trooper! She wants you to come home. She met with the patron himself. He said

that it was your own fault that you had stayed too long in Germany. Nobody was

making you stay there.You were loyal to him during the most difficult time and now

suddenly you have ‘sold your own sword’; and to whom?—to the artillerymen.”

This was November 1945. It was hard to read Katya’s letters about the difficult

life in postwar Moscow with two little boys. And what’s more, the youngest was

always getting sick. Katya had to travel all the way across Moscow to NII-1 for the

rations to which she was still entitled, rush off to the children’s clinic for milk for

the sick baby, and repair the eternally burned-out electric hotplate. It was cold in

the apartment—it was even difficult to dry underwear.The autumn wind blew in

around the windows. Often the water didn’t make it up to the fifth floor, so she

had to run down to the water fountain on the street. After returning with the

water, she had to repair the electric wiring.There was a short circuit somewhere

and the fuses were always burning out.

After General Kuznetsov’s accident, which had him confined to a hospital bed

for a long time, it was understandable that receiving news like this prompted me

to petition for leave.I reached an agreement with Pilyugin that he would take over

all the business of managing the Institute RABE for about two weeks. But it

turned out that Moscow had not forgotten us.

General Gaydukov ordered that none of us were to leave Germany. He was

evidently one of the first among our military leaders to appreciate the prospects of

the work we had undertaken and its scope. He understood who was propping it

all up, and he lobbied in Moscow for energetic support of the Institute RABE.

We could sense this. First, there was an increased stream of specialists at our

disposal who had been sent on temporary assignment from various agencies.

319
Second, leave was categorically forbidden.And finally, a Communist Party C

Committee plenipotentiary arrived in our midst. He announced that the s

the Central Committee was monitoring our work and were pleased with u

we needed to accelerate our work so that everything could be wrapped up in 

1946.The People’s Commissars hadn’t yet agreed as to who should be inv

with long-range missile technology. For the time being, the Central Comm

had entrusted all of the work in Thuringia to Gaydukov. As far as the calam

situation with our families, the Central Committee plenipotentiary assured u

all the necessary commands would be given to our Moscow institution

commands were given, but how could they really help? All they could d

provide financial support and rations for the wives and children. In this situ

Gaydukov made the only correct decision, which had exceedingly imp

consequences for the future development of missile technology in the 

Union. In order for missile technology, which had been rejected by the a

industry, to acquire a real boss, it was necessary to report to Stalin and requ

instructions. But regardless of Stalin’s instructions, the specialists who had a

immersed themselves in these problems needed to be retained. And to p

them from being dragged off to various agencies, the best scenario was to 

them all into a single collective in Germany and let them work together there 

the necessary decisions had been made in Moscow.

One could not report to Stalin empty-handed. He needed to be remind

his correspondence with Churchill in 1944, and we needed to show that w

thoroughly investigated the secret V-weapon and that our specialists were a

working in Germany. But that was not enough.

Sometimes the decisive actions of a single individual, especially if they 

been covered for many long years by a Top Secret stamp, go unmention

historians or publicists.To prepare for his meeting with Stalin, Lev Mikhai

Gaydukov studied the history of RNII and assessed the previous work of Ko

Glushko, and other repressed specialists who were still alive. He determined 

whereabouts and prepared a list of those whom he believed needed to be dr

out of the special prison where Beriya had driven them.The majority of 

specialists had been officially freed in 1944, but they were still working i

same sharaga.

Wise people advised Gaydukov to get to Stalin in such a way that Beriya w

not find out about it ahead of time under any circumstances. It is difficult to 

mine how Gaydukov managed to do this, but somehow he did. Gay

reported to Stalin about the work going on in Germany and the need to 

working on this program in the Soviet Union.Stalin did not make a concrete 

sion regarding whom he would entrust with this work, but he autho

Gaydukov to personally familiarize the People’s Commissars with his propo

take on the responsibility for the development of missile technology—wh

among them agreed could prepare the necessary draft resolution. In concl

Gaydukov requested that Stalin free the specialists on the list that Gayduko

320
placed before him on the desk, so that

the rocket efforts could be intensified.

Stalin’s decree, which contained the

list, determined the fate of Korolev,

Glushko, and many other people for

many years.

Being in Germany in 1945, we of

course had no way of knowing about

this behind-the-scenes activity. Many

years later, Yuriy Aleksandrovich

Pobedonostsev’s fragmentary hints led

me to assume that he was one of those

who had helped Gaydukov prepare the

list and develop his tactics. One false

step could have halted the development of missile technology in our

country for many years.

It is also evident that Malenkov

helped arrange Gaydukov’s meeting

with Stalin. Malenkov had been

Gaydukov’s mentor when the latter

had been a Central Committee staff

worker under his jurisdiction. At that

time Malenkov was still the chairman

of the State Committee on radar and air defense technology, which made it his

duty to be interested in the anti-aircraft guided missiles that had also been developed in Germany in Peenemünde.

One way or another, Gaydukov had received instructions directly from Stalin

to meet with the People’s Commissars. There were three choices: Shakhurin,

People’s Commissar of the Aircraft Industry; Vannikov, People’s Commissar of

Ammunition and director of the First Main Directorate which was in charge of

the atomic problem; and Ustinov, People’s Commissar of Armaments.

All of the People’s Commissariats were preparing for conversion into ministries.

Gaydukov knew this could also mean changes among the directors. Stalin might

recall some blunders in the development of wartime technology and not approve

a particular People’s Commissariat becoming a ministry. Such a danger threatened

Shakhurin. During the war he had been considered Stalin’s favorite. He had

reported to Stalin more often than the others, and to a greater degree than the

other People’s Commissars had enjoyed Stalin’s help in organizing the mass

production of new aircraft technology, which by the end of the war had surpassed

German technology both in quantity and in quality (with the exception of jet

aircraft). Stalin had then received a report about our jet aircraft construction

lagging behind, and this had affected his attitude toward the leadership of the

321

From the author’s archives.

Lev Mikhaylovich Gaydukov—member of the

Supreme Command Headquarters Guards’

Mortar Unit’s military council, Institute

Nordhausen chief, NII-4 deputy chief.
People’s Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry. Turbojet technology beca

priority task for Shakhurin.All of his chief designers were tasked with creati

aircraft. Under these conditions it was impossible to also put the “missile n

around the neck of the aircraft industry.

In response to Gaydukov’s appeal, Shakhurin refused to participate i

missile weaponry development program, in spite of the fact that missiles, in 

design, production process, instrumentation, and electrical equipment, were 

to aircraft technology than to other types of weaponry.This refusal was the b

ning of a confrontation between aircraft and missile technology that wou

many years. Aviation had the advantage until strategic missiles with n

warheads emerged.

But Shakhurin’s refusal also had other direct consequences for those of u

had worked in Germany. In late 1945, the Deputy People’s Commissar of the 

tion Industry, Dementyev, ordered all specialists from the aircraft industry, incl

Pilyugin and myself specifically, to stop our work in Nordhausen, Bleicherod

Lehesten and return to Moscow. Gaydukov protested this order, and told us b

that no one would be released. Only Isayev was allowed to travel, and lat

colleague Raykov. For the time being we had gone our separate way from avi

Gaydukov’s appeal to People’s Commissar Vannikov had been motivated b

fact that a missile is also ammunition. It’s the same thing as a projectile, just b

capable of being guided. But Boris Lvovich was not born yesterday. His son R

who had served in the first military rocket unit at Sondershausen, had enligh

his father to the fact that a guided missile was anything but a projectile. It 

large and complex system. Moreover,Vannikov explained to Gaydukov that h

now responsible for developing atomic weapons—now that’s a real pie

ammunition—and they had better things to do than deal with missiles. Gay

needed to keep looking.

That left People’s Commissar of Armaments Dmitriy Fedorovich Us

Neither he himself nor his deputies had had anything to do with missile tec

ogy during the war. They had been responsible for artillery, “the god of 

infantry small arms;and machine guns and large-caliber guns for aircraft,tank

ships. They hadn’t even been involved with the Guards Mortar Units’ Ka

rocket launchers.

Nevertheless, Ustinov thought about it. What kind of prospects did thi

have? He knew that being a perpetual supplier of armaments for aircraft, tank

ships meant always playing a supporting role.The aircraft, tank, and ship spe

would play the starring roles. Classic conventional artillery had practically re

its limit for all parameters—range, accuracy, and rate of fire. No qualitative lea

foreseen there.

And anti-aircraft artillery? the experience of the war had shown that thou

of rounds were needed to shoot down a single aircraft. Ustinov had rece

report about German anti-aircraft missile programs, and he could forese

sooner or later they would supplant anti-aircraft guns. In addition, the Pe

322
Commissariat of Armament had been instructed to develop fire control radars

(SON) in place of optical instruments to control anti-aircraft fire.1This was something similar to missile technology. What is more, even a hardcore artilleryman

such as GAU chief Artillery Marshal Yakovlev had now become interested in

missile technology. If GAU was to be a customer, as it had been during the war,

then the Commissariat needed to preserve its strong military friendship in the new

field.This was very important.

Ustinov gave his preliminary consent to take guided missile weaponry into his

Commissariat, but asked that no final resolutions be prepared for Stalin’s signature

for the time being.The problem needed to be studied in greater depth. He gave

this assignment to his first deputy Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ryabikov.

In the initial period of Soviet missile technology development, we were fortunate to have devotees and individuals with initiative and daring. Despite the fact

that the Germans’ massive use of missiles against London had not yielded the

anticipated effect, the Guard’s Mortar officers were able to quickly appreciate the

prospects for a completely different qualitative leap. The few NII-1 aircraft

employees who had been in Nordhausen converted to the new “missile religion.”

They refused to follow the orders from their immediate and very highest superiors to curtail their activity in Germany. Finally, after the usual postwar delays, we

had found a strong boss in the industry for the new technology.

After receiving Ustinov’s instructions, Ryabikov flew to Berlin and made his

way to Bleicherode.He was very calm,attentive,thoughtful,and evidently an intelligent and experienced leader. Pilyugin, Mishin, Ryazanskiy, and Voskresenskiy

assessed Ryabikov in similar terms. He visited Mittelwerk and became familiar with

the unusual history of the Institute RABE’s establishment. He listened to our

stories about the history of A-4 development, the history of Peenemünde, and our

ideas about the future.We even spoke about designs to increase range and accuracy.

Toward the end of his visit, we arranged a farewell dinner during which Vasiliy

Mikhaylovich said very frankly that his technical worldview had been significantly

changed by everything that he had seen and heard. Now he saw that a completely

new outlook had emerged in weapons technology. He promised to inform Ustinov about all of this.With regard to our work in creating a scientific-research institute on our former enemy’s territory, he said, “You are simply champs to have

devised and organized such a concept. I will support you everywhere.”

Ryabikov’s visit inspired us all.We were assured that in addition to having military guardians, we could also rely on a solid scientific-industrial and technological

base and strong industry leadership.

323

1. SON—Stantsiya Orudiynoy Navodki.

Chapter 24

Korolev, Glushko, and

Our First Encounters in Germany

We were always glad when new people arrived from the Soviet Union to expand

the common front of our operations.When Yuriy Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev

called me in late September from Berlin and asked me to receive Sergey

Pavlovich Korolev and tell him about our work, I did not associate Korolev with

any previous events. I told Pobedonostsev that a lot of officers came to see me at

the institute, and if they were specialists in the business, then we didn’t begrudge

anyone, everyone found work. In the daily commotion of work I forgot about

this conversation.

Several days later, Lieutenant Colonel Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin telephoned from Berlin. He was there as the GAU representative in charge of receiving and dispatching to various locations the military and civilian specialists sent

to Germany to study technology. His mission, under the appellation “Tyulin’s

Domain,” was located in Oberschöneweide and was well known by the military

administration. The Institute RABE’s example proved to be infectious. In

September 1945,Tyulin began to assemble a group of specialists in Berlin to study

anti-aircraft guided missile technology.These specialists would later become the

core of the Institute Berlin, which was similar to our Institute RABE. When

Tyulin reminded me about Pobedonostsev’s phone call in connection with

Lieutenant Colonel Korolev’s upcoming visit (without prefacing this notification

with any other comments), I concluded that Korolev must be one of those

honored combat commanders who was being sent on special assignment from the

Guard’s Mortar Units, the artillery, or aviation. Lately those three branches of

the armed forces had been the primary suppliers of seasoned specialists from the

troops stationed in Germany.

Many years later when Korolev’s name had gained worldwide recognition,

recalling our first meeting, I asked Pobedonostsev and Tyulin why they had not

told me who this Korolev really was who was traveling from Berlin to

Bleicherode.They had not even indicated—as they usually did with senior officers—whether he was being dispatched on special assignment by industry or the

army.The reply I received from both of them was essentially,“Why do you ask

such a naïve question now? Back then we were forbidden to explain anything

to you.”

325
Pobedonostsev knew Korolev very well because he had worked with h

GIRD and RNII starting in 1930.Their families had lived in the same apar

building on Konyushkovskaya Street in Krasnaya Presnya.They had worke

socialized together almost everyday until Korolev’s arrest on 28 June 1938. 

met Pobedonostsev in 1942 when he,A. G. Kostikov, and L. S. Dushkin arriv

Bilimbay to observe the firing tests of the liquid-propellant rocket engine 

oped at RNII. After the annihilation of the first RNII chiefs, Kleymeno

Langemak, Pobedonostsev was saddled with the heavy burden of organizin

program on solid-propellant rocket projectiles and launchers.

In 1944, Pobedonostsev and I often dealt with each other on projects at 

under our common patron,Bolkhovitinov.I met with Pobedonostsev almost 

day at the big dining table in the mess hall for the NII-1 managerial staff

dining hall was a meeting place for the NII-1 employees who had known Ko

very well throughout all of his previous work. Among them was M

Klavdievich Tikhonravov, Korolev’s collaborator on the first rocket programs 

Moscow GIRD. But never during that time—not at the table, or anywhere 

did I hear the names of Korolev or Glushko mentioned.

In Germany I associated with Pobedonostsev very often, but here a

Korolev’s name had never been mentioned, until the telephone call from B

Some unwritten law had placed a taboo on the names of those who had 

repressed. One could mention them and speak of them only during closed 

meetings and at various political activist meetings that came out immediately 

their arrest.Here one was obliged to say,“We had failed to notice that we had 

working side by side with enemies of the people.” “Good form” at that 

required that everyone stigmatize enemies of the people, and in doing so, i

of self-criticism, list all the shortcomings that one could possibly think of 

work of one’s group, department, or entire institute.Then, having pledged ou

giance to the great Stalin, who warned us in time about the acute situation 

uncompromising class struggle, we were supposed to say that we would 

around “the great cause,” we would correct the shortcomings that had 

committed, we would strengthen, and we would “fulfill and over-fulfill” th

ahead of schedule.

After a revelatory campaign and a series of similar public speeches, the 

of the “enemies of the people” were to be erased from one’s memory. I

were authors of books or magazine articles, then those books and magazines 

removed from libraries. Usually they were hidden in a so-called “special arc

and issued only in extreme necessity with the permission of a governmental 

sentative who was an employee of the state security apparatus.

That was the situation from 1937 until the beginning of the war. Durin

war some repressed military leaders and designers were freed, but neverth

the taboo remained in effect practically until the end of Stalin’s life.

During those years, I committed a gross violation against the system by s

the scientific works of “enemies of the people.” In 1935, I saw a book at a ki

326
Factory No. 22. On the book jacket was an illustration of something akin to an

aircraft bomb.At the time I was caught up with the problems of aircraft automatic

bomb releases and other problems of aircraft armaments, so I shelled out one ruble

and 50 kopecks to buy the book.

It turned out to be a work by Georgiy Erikhovich Langemak and Valentin

Petrovich Glushko, Rockets: Their Construction and Use, written in 1935 and

published by the Main Editorial Office of Aviation Literature in a run of only

seven hundred copies. After a cursory perusal, I had found almost nothing in the

book that interested me, but I understood that there were people and organizations who were working on flying machines that had nothing to do with airplanes.

In 1937 there was talk of mounting a new type of weapon on our airplanes—

rocket-propelled projectiles.As the director of an equipment and armament design

team, I had to learn what this entailed. I remembered this book, found it in my

bookcase, and got so carried away with it that I consider that time in 1937 to be

the beginning of my association with the problems of rocket technology. But I was

once again swamped with aircraft issues, and the book was once again hidden in

the bookcase.

During our evacuation to the Urals in 1941, my meager library remained

behind in the old wooden house where I had lived with my parents at the “quilt”

factory. It wasn’t until 1942 when I was in Bilimbay in the Urals that I remembered this book. Isayev and Bolkhovitinov had just returned from Kazan, where

they had met with some liquid-propellant rocket engine developer named Valentin

Glushko at the NKVD’s special prison. I told Isayev about the publication, and he

decided to look for the book in the Sverdlovsk libraries. It didn’t turn up.As soon

as I returned to Moscow, I checked my library and found to my great joy that it

was still intact. Only one volume of my unique pre-Revolutionary eight-volume

collection of Gogol’s works had disappeared. Langemak and Glushko’s book was

still there!

In 1944, when our OKB-293 was combined with NII-3, I used that book to

supplement my knowledge on the principles of rocket technology. Having allowed

my vigilance to slip, I once brought the book to work at NII-1. One of my new

employees, an old hand from RNII who had known Langemak and Glushko

personally, saw their book on my desk and was seriously worried. He warned me

that I should take the book home and never bring it back to the institute.“They

shot Langemak—Glushko is alive, but convicted. This book is in the special

archives in the institute library and is impossible to obtain.You are violating the

rules; if any unpleasantness gets started, you risk losing a good book.” Naturally I

once again hid this book behind other books. But I can boast that, having retained

this book, I am now the owner of a rarity.

Thus, we all knew about Glushko as early as 1942 after Isayev’s trip with

Bolkhovitinov to the special prison in Kazan,which the initiated called a sharashka.

I learned about Langemak from reading his and Glushko’s book, but I had no

information about Korolev before the phone call from Berlin. Pobedonostsev

327
knew all about Korolev, but in his dealings with the “uninitiated” he p

observed the rule of the taboo.

Tyulin later told me that before Korolev, Glushko, and the other zeki fre

accordance with Gaydukov’s list arrived in Berlin, he was strictly warned b

“security apparatus” that a certain group would be flying into Berlin but th

one under any circumstances was to know that they were former prisoners

Upon meeting Korolev for the first time in my office at the Institute RA

late September or early October 1945, I knew nothing about him except f

full name.When he entered my office, I stood up to greet him, as is appro

for a major receiving a lieutenant colonel.We exchanged greetings and intro

ourselves. More than a half-century has passed since our first meeting. W

countless meetings over that period of time. The majority, at least in ter

details, have faded from my memory, but this first meeting has stuck. Indepe

of our normal thinking process, there is a sort of subconscious “standby” me

system that involuntarily switches to “record.”This recording cannot be erase

can be replayed many times.

The brand new officer’s uniform fit the man who had entered very w

would have thought that a cadre officer was standing before me, but the ab

of medals on his clean tunic immediately gave him away as a “civilian” o

The only unusual thing was the fine officers’ chrome leather boots that he 

instead of our usual kersey boots.His dark eyes,which had a sort of merry sp

looked at me with curiosity and attentiveness. I immediately noticed Ko

high forehead and large head on his short neck. There is an expression

sucked his head into his shoulders.” But Korolev wasn’t sucking anything 

nature had made him that way. There was something about him like a 

during a fight.We sat down. He sank into the deep armchair and with ob

pleasure stretched out his legs.That’s usually what one does after sitting b

the wheel of a car for a long time.“I would like to have a brief overview 

structure and operation of your institute.” I always had a diagram of the inst

structure in a file on my desk. Of course, it was drawn by Germans an

German inscriptions.

Korolev started to examine the diagram without showing much attenti

respect, or so it seemed to me, leading me to believe that he didn’t like th

that it was inscribed in German. His first question immediately found our 

spot.“So who here is responsible for mastering launch technology and for l

preparation?” I explained that Lieutenant Colonel Voskresenskiy was studyin

matter with a large group of Germans, two or three of whom who had ac

fired the systems.The military would soon be forming a special subunit to 

firing technology in its entirety. For the time being we had concentrated all 

efforts on having something to fire.We needed to recreate the missiles them

and the chief problem was the control instruments. As far as the engines 

concerned, we had found many of them in Lehesten, and firing tests were a

being performed successfully there.

328
He looked at me merrily and decided to open up just a bit.“Yes, I have already

been in Lehesten.The people there—including my old friends—are doing excellent work.”

“A-ha,” I thought,“So you’re an engine specialist. But from where?”

Several trivial questions followed, evidently more out of politeness. I proposed

to Korolev that he visit the laboratories.“No thanks,” Korolev declined. He added

in parting, “I’m returning to Nordhausen today. But I have a feeling that I’ll be

working with you quite a bit.” He then shook my hand much more firmly than

he had when we met.

Korolev went out into the reception room and lingered a bit, thoughtfully scrutinizing the secretary tapping away on her typewriter. Turning to me he asked,

“She’s German, of course?”

“Yes, of course.”

He quickly descended the soft carpet runner down the stairway. I returned to

my office and approached the window. Korolev was sitting behind the wheel of

an Opel-Olympia.The car had not been washed for a long time and was therefore of indeterminate age. He turned sharply and zoomed down the road to the

exit from town.

Now that I know about Korolev, based on everything that I have been able to

learn from him personally, from his friends, acquaintances, and biographers, it

seems to me that he had little interest in our institute and the details of

our work that day. Yes, he had already thought over a plan of future actions

and his meeting with me was meant to confirm certain ideas of his. But the main

thing that excited, stimulated, and inspired him was the freedom of movement.

329

From the author’s archives.

S. P. Korolev in Germany, October 1945.
Behind him were just over five years as a Soviet zek—at Butyrka, a transit p

Kolyma, Butyrka again, the sharaski in Moscow, and then Omsk and Kazan.

And then suddenly Korolev was in Thuringia, the “green heart” of conq

Germany, in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel, with documents that o

every checkpoint, alone behind the wheel of a “trophy” car racing like the 

He could drive wherever he wanted over such good roads. He could sto

spend the night in any town in the Soviet occupation zone.The military au

ities would always give him refuge, and even if they weren’t around, a good 

gasthaus would take him in.Freedom! How beautiful! That is how,many year

I imagined the feelings that must have overcome Korolev. He wasn’t yet forty 

old! He had so much yet to do! But he had the right now to take something 

life for himself.

Soon after that memorable first encounter with Korolev in Bleiche

Pobedonostsev arrived. He had spent a great deal of time in Berlin, and wa

well informed about the organizational problems that troubled the G

Mortar Units command, the Party Central Committee military departmen

industry People’s Commissariats, and our institute. He reported that for the 

being in Moscow, there was total confusion “at the top” as to who w

become the actual boss of missile technology in the country. Meanwhile 

the power was in the hands of the military and the Central Committee ap

tus.We would therefore be working according to the principle: “He who 

the piper calls the tune.”

Pobedonostsev told Pilyugin and me in detail “who was who” at RN

who Korolev was. Pobedonostsev was the first to tell us that Korolev had 

Glushko’s deputy in the “special prison.” Glushko had been sentenced to 

years in a prison camp “for participating in the Kleymonov-Langemak sab

organization.” He was retained to work at the NKVD Fourth Special D

ment Technical Bureau. In 1940, they transferred him Aircraft Factory No. 

Kazan to develop aircraft jet boosters. In 1941, they appointed Glushko 

designer of an OKB staffed with imprisoned specialists. Over a three-year p

they developed several types of boosters with thrusts from 300 to 900 kilog

These boosters underwent tests on Petlyakov,Yakovlev, and Lavochkin aircr

1942, at Glushko’s request, they transferred prisoner Korolev from the Tu

sharashka in Omsk to Glushko’s OKB, where he was assigned as Glu

deputy for testing.

According to all sorts of gossip, Glushko was supposedly delivered under 

to Stalin at the Kremlin in August 1944.There he not only reported on the 

he had done, but managed to tell Stalin something about the future ou

Glushko left the Kremlin a free man. Without a guard, he initially experi

some difficulty getting settled.

In 1944, the authorities decided to free Glushko and thirty-five other sp

ists who had worked in his OKB before their sentences had been served ou

their previous convictions were expunged. Korolev was also freed somewha

330
in 1944. After both Glushko and Korolev were freed, they stayed on to work in

Kazan, and Korolev tried to set up an independent rocket OKB there at Factory

No. 22. Glushko, Korolev, and all the former NKVD prisoners were transferred to

the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry, which did

not have a very good idea what to do with them.

pobedonostsev said that gaydukov had tasked Korolev with organizing a

service independent of the Institute RABE to study missile launch preparation

equipment. Since we were the real bosses in town, Korolev would be asking

us to render him all kinds of assistance,

and Voskresenskiy and Rudnitskiy would

become Korolev’s subordinates. I agreed

right away, but Pilyugin strongly objected.

He had not yet met Korolev,and he believed

that everything should be under RABE

management. He felt that the existing

Guard’s regiment in Sondershausen should

be reinforced to take on launch preparation.

Regiment commander Chernenko and his

officers were already working closely with

us. But ultimately Pilyugin gave in.

Several days later, Korolev arrived in

Bleicherode with the plenary powers to

create the Vystrel (shot) group.The tasks of

this new service included the study of

missile pre-launch preparation equipment,

ground-filling and launch equipment, and

aiming equipment; flight mission calculation; developing instructions for firing team personnel; and preparing all of the

necessary documentation. Members of the Vystrel team included Voskresenskiy,

Rudnitskiy, and several cadre officers.We allocated separate office space for them

at the Institute RABE.

But soon Voskresenskiy was complaining that Korolev had left for Berlin on

urgent business without notifying anyone, It turned out that Korolev had been

included in a delegation which, at the invitation of the British military authorities,

was traveling to Cuxhaven for V-2 demonstration launches near Hamburg. This

news enraged Pilyugin and Voskresenskiy.They both blamed me, “What kind of

chief are you if everybody there in Berlin decides for us and without us.We work

so hard here! But when it comes to going to Hamburg, they forget all about us

and send Korolev who only just got out of prison.” But Pilyugin was a homebody

by nature, and he quickly calmed down.

Soon thereafter Korolev returned along with Pobedonostsev.They were quite

merry and excitedly told us about their visit to Cuxhaven, where the Brits, using

331

From the author’s archives.

S.P. Korolev in Germany, November 1945.
German prisoner of war missile specialists, had decided to conduct demonst

launches of the very V-2 missiles that had terrorized the Londoners.

All the members of our delegation, except for Korolev, had been se

Cuxhaven with the ranks that had been conferred on them. But Korol

instructions from Moscow, had been ordered to change into a captain’s un

with artillery shoulder boards and “cannons.”1 Apropos of this, Pobedonostse

that “this artillery captain” provoked considerably more interest among the B

intelligence officers who were watching our delegation than General So

Colonel Pobedonostsev, and the other high-ranking officers. One of the Brits

spoke excellent Russian,asked Korolev straight out what he did.In accordanc

his instructions and his cover story Sergey Pavlovich responded,“You can se

I am an artillery captain.” The Brit remarked, “Your forehead is too high 

artillery captain.What’s more, you clearly weren’t at the front judging by you

of medals.”Yes, for our intelligence services this disguise was a resounding fa

The launches at Cuxhaven took place without a hitch. Filling us in o

details, Korolev commented ironically about the complete helplessness o

Brits, who themselves had not participated in the launch preparations at all, 

entirely dependent on the German team. It had been impossible to determin

missile trajectories because it was overcast. But the launch made an impre

These missiles were, of course, a far cry from the GIRD rockets that Korole

launched with Tikhonravov twelve years previously. At our officers’ club 

Villa Franka, these first British launches served as an occasion “to celebrat

start of training firing teams in the Vystrel group.

332

1. Shoulder boards with stitched renditions of cannons indicated service in the artillery forces.
Chapter 25

Engine Specialists

In the autumn of 1945, the Brits held V-2 demonstration launches for the Allies in

Cuxhaven. How could we respond to show that we too understood this secret

weapon, and furthermore, that we were already mastering this technology without

the assistance of the Germans?

Our “Russian-sized” plan proved to be far more grandiose by propagandistic

design.We were not ready for missile launches from German territory even with

German assistance.We certainly weren’t capable of doing that on our own territory in 1945.The Brits and Americans had managed to get their hands on fully

tested missiles, an oxygen plant, and filling and launch equipment, along with a

whole set of launchers and a troop detachment that had a great deal of experience

firing against Britain.

I cannot recall who made the suggestion, and perhaps it was even a collective

idea. It is more likely that it originated from the military leaders of GAU or the

Guard’s Mortar Units, since they were keeping abreast of our work and our

resources to a much greater degree than the leaders of the industrial People’s

Commissariats or Party figures.

During the war, a large exhibition of all sorts of captured technology was set

up on the grounds of Moscow’s Central Park of Culture and Recreation. The

exhibition was very successful and had tremendous propaganda value. It elevated

the people’s spirits during the most difficult years. After the victory, they added

extensively to this exhibit. Someone came up with the idea of bringing a V-2 to

put on display.

In September, our Institute RABE received an assignment to quickly prepare

two missiles. I gave instructions to the factory in Kleinbodungen where Kurilo,

one of the experienced production leaders at our NII-1,was now the director.The

work there was in full swing.We naturally assumed that for the purposes of the

exhibition it would be sufficient to assemble missiles without their internal instrumentation or electric devices, especially since the size of the propulsion system

nozzle alone would make an impression.

But soon thereafter we received an absolutely staggering command from

Moscow.The missiles had to be ready for firing tests on a rig that would be set up

on the Lenin Hills.The fire plume would come crashing down with a horrific roar

333
from a height of 80 meters along the bank of the Moscow River, to the deli

all the Muscovite spectators and numerous foreign guests who would be co

to the capital to celebrate the twenty-eighth anniversary of the October Re

tion. This festive fireworks display would be quite an addition to the a

customary victory salutes! 

Presumably Stalin himself would want to feast his eyes on such an unusual 

performance. And after that decisions regarding the development of m

technology, despite all the postwar difficulties, would pass quickly throug

Politburo.They would of course be interested in who organized all of this, an

organizers of the firing spectacle would be commissioned to head the dev

ment of this new type of weaponry. This assignment immediately shifte

primary responsibility from the assemblers to the engine specialists.

By that time, September 1945, the primary group of engine specialists ha

settled down as an independent organization in Thuringia, near the tow

Saalfeld at the Lehesten firing test base for series-produced A-4 engines.

In order for the reader to better understand the problems that engine sp

ists faced at that time, I will return to the events of May 1945 in Berlin.

On 25 May 1945, an American B-25 bomber landed at the airfield that 

iced our “residence” in Adlershof. An assault landing force of “trade union

cers, headed by “Lieutenant Colonel” Aleksey Mikhaylovich Isayev, disemb

from the airplane.The commander of the B-25 was not an American but ou

pilot Boris Kudrin. In 1942 and in 1944, he had tested the now legendary 

rocket airplane in glider mode. With the end of the war, the Armed F

command transferred several combat airplanes received through the Lend-

Program to our institute for our transport needs.

Aleksey Isayev’s team consisted of liquid-propellant rocket engine special

also included one of the first testers of liquid-propellant rocket engines, 

Pallo, whose face still showed traces of severe burns from the nitric acid th

splashed on him when an engine exploded during firing rig tests in the win

1942 in Bilimbay.The rest of the team had become involved in liquid-prop

rocket engine technology during the development of the BI airplane,and the

already mastered the engine terminology that Isayev had very successfully 

duced. This group was the nucleus that would later diversify into speci

engine OKBs in the postwar era.

During the first years of work on missile technology in the Soviet Unio

during the same period in Germany, the creators of liquid-propellant 

engines did not have any theoretical works at their disposal that were suitab

practical application to enable them to design a liquid-propellant rocket engi

a reasonably scientific basis.

A rocket designer used the sciences developed for the needs of artiller

aviation, such as ballistics, the flight theory of a variable mass body, aerody

ics, the theory of elasticity, and the resistance of materials—all of w

depended on the classic works of famous scientists. The developers of m

334
control systems relied on the firm theoretical foundations of electrical engineers

and radio engineers, who already had experience with aircraft automatic pilot

technology and gyroscopic technology which had been very successfully applied

in ship navigation.

Engineers who had taken on the risky work of developing liquid-propellant

rocket engines did not have any special training, and during the first years they

functioned almost blindly,using “hit-or-miss”methods.Fires and explosions on the

test rigs and during rocket launches were not uncommon.We were not averse to

good-naturedly teasing the engine specialists—we would ask them how many

times a liquid-propellant rocket engine needs to explode before it’s ready for its

first flight.

As I recall my dealings with engine specialists—and most of all my work with

Isayev, Glushko, and their engine specialist compatriots—I remember that they

were always encountering problems when setting up the work process to obtain

the highest possible specific thrust and combustion stability. All kinds of pulses

occurred, both low-frequency and high-frequency.The pulses gave rise to vibrations, which would first destroy the equipment around the engine, and then cause

the engine itself to explode. So as not to frighten the top brass, they replaced the

word “explosion” with the term “breach of the combustion chamber.”

Injectors, their arrangement, spray action, carburetion, temperature fields, cooling—all of these problems required study without the aid of any textbooks or manuals.And with the use of turbopump assemblies and gas generators in the makeup of

engines, a multitude of highly complex problems of mechanical engineering for

power plants emerged that were alien to traditional turbine construction.

Unfortunately, even now our literature does not have suitable works on engine

science analogous to the numerous works that have been published on control

systems and instrumentation. Contemporary rocket engines, in terms of their

concentration of power per unit of volume, are a unique product of engineering.

Perhaps this is why the majority of rocket accidents during the launch phase are

caused by irreproducible failures in the engine systems.

more so than engineers in other fields,engine specialists had to have intuition,

engineering common sense, and courage to compensate for the lack of mathematical theories; they had to be able to recognize their mistakes and tirelessly conduct

hundreds of tests rather than rely on calculations.Aleksey Isayev had been endowed

with these qualities like a gift from God. He had tried many professions and

specialties before he fell in love with liquid-propellant rocket engines, which

remained his passion until the end of his days.

I made his acquaintance at Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovininov’s design bureau

long before the war.We worked together on the DB-A aircraft and participated in

the preparations for Levanevskiy’s flight to the United States. We vacationed

together in Koktebel.There, during strolls on the stony beaches and rocky shore

of Kara-Dag, Isayev told my wife Katya Golubkina and me about his adventurous

335
attempt to escape from Koktebel to the Hawaiian islands with his boyhood f

future writer Yuriy Krymov (Beklemishev).1

In 1941, when the Germans were advancing on Moscow, we were wo

together at Factory No. 293. At that time, without leaving the factory to 

outside assistance,Isayev and Bereznyak developed their idea for a rocket-pro

interceptor, which would later be called the BI-1. On one of those October 

Aleksey made me give my word that I would not divulge his secret. He br

me to one of the basement rooms of our factory and showed me an entire a

of aircraft weaponry. There were ShKAS rapid-fire aircraft machine gun

millimeter ShVAK aircraft guns, dozens of solid-propellant rocket projectile

many cases of ammunition.

“Look, Boris, I have no intention of high-tailing it into evacuation somew

in the east.We can send our families off there and set up a guerrilla detach

These are the weapons that we must protect.You must help me pull toge

detachment of loyal people.”

We spent some time developing an operation to protect the bridge ov

Moscow River, across which the Germans could force their way into Mo

advancing along the Leningrad Highway.But our adventure was quickly foun

as soon as we began recruiting volunteers to join our guerrilla movement.A

weapons were taken away, and under the supervision of real weapons spe

(including young engineer Vasiliy Mishin, future first deputy to Korolev and 

chief designer and Academician), they were mounted on open railroad flatcar

flatcars were coupled into the special train that evacuated us during the las

of October 1941 from Khimki to the Urals. During the movement of the s

train, we took turns manning the makeshift anti-aircraft gun mountings.

Isayev was constantly generating all kinds of ideas—and not only technical 

Sometimes he expressed thoughts that were risky in those days about the ne

political restructuring. Especially interesting for that time were the projects th

discussed during our joint stay at Villa Franka in Bleicherode. Debates often 

up between us—for example, why in the world did they have it so good 

“lair of the fascist beast”? After all, all of this luxury and comfort was evi

generated before the war.How did they get such resources in Germany after 

World War I? Now Germany had also lost World War II—a myriad of da

issues needed to be discussed. But we were afraid to plunge too deeply in

heart of politics and history because there was the danger of “shaking the fo

tions.”We agreed that ultimately, engineers and scientists should rule the w

Then there would be no national socialism, chauvinism, and anti-Semitis

racism, and no national enmity at all. In our conversations we jumped fro

Dora camp to the Russian camps, about which we knew a great deal les

firmly concluded that it couldn’t continue like this any longer. Power should 

336

1. Soviet writer Yuriy Solomonovich Krymov (1908–1941) wrote under the pen-name “Yu. S. Bekle
the hands of wise, talented, and honest scientists. Scientists and engineers were

upright intellectuals and enthusiasts devoted to their work.They couldn’t care less

about your nationality.They had no use for concentration camps, special prisons,

and crematoria. Scientists and engineers of the world, unite! But let’s return once

again to Berlin in May 1945.

isayev, pallo, and their fellow travelers, including Raykov, Tolstov, and

other engine specialists who would become Isayev’s future compatriots, had not

been in Berlin very long before they set out for the Walter factory in Basdorf.This

was the factory laboratory base where the Germans had developed and fabricated

the liquid-propellant rocket engine for the Me 163 rocket-propelled fighter plane,

which was functionally very similar to our BI. I will annotate my previous discussion of this factory with some details from Arvid Pallo that I believe are pertinent.

Having settled in Basdorf, Isayev and Pallo’s team began searching for specialists

who could restore documentation and hardware. Our troops had not fought with

anyone here and hadn’t damaged anything. But, in contrast to the Berlin enterprises, everything here had been carefully cleared away.The spindles and chucks

had been removed from the machine tools.They couldn’t even find everyday tools.

They were not able to find engines or valves or any technical documentation.After

a thorough inspection of the grounds, they finally discovered well-camouflaged

aboveground storehouses containing concentrated hydrogen peroxide, tonka rocket

fuel, and concentrated nitric acid which had been used as an oxidizer.

After lengthy questioning of the local inhabitants, they managed to find out the

home addresses of several engineers from this firm, and using the successive

approximation method, they managed to find the chief engineer in Berlin and one

of the lead designers.They did not “crack” immediately. But after a certain amount

of time they wrote a report about the firm’s work and drew diagrams of the

engines’ construction. They claimed that the SS Sonderkommandos had taken the

missing equipment and materials.

Nevertheless, one of the Germans, a test rig mechanic, directed Pallo’s attention

to a pipe sticking out of the ground and hinted that someone should dig there.

They dug and found carefully packed and conserved liquid-propellant rocket

engine combustion chambers, turbopump assemblies, and propellant component

feed mechanisms with all of their valves.After they had laid this entire windfall out

on tables in the shop and called the former directors to provide explanations, the

latter announced,“Everything that we told you and wrote for you had nothing to

do with reality. Everything was false. Now we see that we are not dealing with

army officers but with real specialists, and we are ready to collaborate with you.”

With the assistance of the German mechanics, our “real specialists” installed the

engines they had found on test rigs and conducted a series of firing tests, taking

down all the necessary specifications.When I arrived in Basdorf from Berlin,Isayev

was distressed that he had previously (in Khimki) made me invent the most exotic

methods of electrical ignition to set alight mixtures of kerosene and nitric acid.

337
The Germans had used a fuel called tonka instead.2 When it was injected in

combustion chamber and mixed with nitric acid there was instant sponta

ignition.“And it doesn’t require any of your ‘horns and hooves.’”

In 1943 in Khimki, I had indeed proposed an electric-arc type of disc

system for reliable ignition.This required a special mechanism that set up tw

shaped “horns” in the engine nozzle before launch. At the required mom

blinding electrical arc appeared between the electrodes, or “hooves”, secur

these horns.Theoretically, the kerosene and nitric acid mixture had to ignit

then form the steady plume characteristic of a liquid-propellant rocket engin

achieved ignition only half the time. Under my command, engineer and ph

Larisa Pervova worked on getting this capricious system to work right

mechanics on the test rig joked in this regard, with some vexation, “Lari

hasn’t learned how to give anybody horns.”

A threatening telegram addressed to Isayev arrived from Moscow from 

deputy People’s Commissar of Aviation Industry, accusing him of dawdlin

demanding that he return to make a report. In response, Isayev invited the 

tors of the aircraft industry to Basdorf in Germany. Makar Lukin, who w

charge of engine production in the aircraft industry, flew in and attended s

firings.The engines generated 1.5 metric tons of thrust. Lukin praised them

guys are champs, what you’re doing is fine, and for the time being you don’

to go to Moscow. Keep up the good work.”

Each firing rig was provided with a technical description, then disassem

carefully packed, and shipped to our institute, NII-1.And what about the di

tled machine tools and drawings? Eventually the Germans showed us tha

barrels with machine tool parts and instruments had been buried in a small 

under young birch trees.All of the technical documentation was discovered 

aluminum tube that had been buried in a bomb crater.

Having made a complete study of liquid-propellant rocket engines design

aircraft, Isayev and Raykov headed by way of Magdeburg to Nordhausen, w

we had come together to start joint work. The team of the remaining e

specialists headed by Pallo traveled to the A-4 engine firing test base in Leh

near Saalfeld. On the way Pallo visited Kümmersdorf. The history of Ge

liquid-propellant rocket engines began in Kümmersdorf. Here, von Brau

other future leading specialists of Peenemünde began their work and develo

series of engines with various combustion chamber geometries. The Ge

expended a great deal of effort on developing combustion chamber head d

with injectors that provided the best mixture of alcohol and liquid oxygen.

In Lehesten, our engine specialists easily tracked down the directors o

unique engine testing base, including engineer Schwartz, director of the 

338

2. Tonka was a common term used by the Germans to refer to a mixed hydrocarbon fuel. Its most c

form, Tonka-250, consisted of 57 percent crude oxide and monoxylidene and 43 percent triethylamine
oxygen plant, and many other

specialists whom the Americans

had not deemed necessary to take

into their zone.

Lehesten was an enormous sand

quarry with a firing rig set up on

one of its slopes. In this same

quarry was a subterranean plant

that produced liquid oxygen for

tests and a subterranean ethyl alcohol storage facility. Each engine

slated for a V-2 missile underwent a

preliminary firing test run using

the propellant components fed

under pressure from enormous,

thick-walled tanks. In order not to

disrupt series production at the

subterranean Mittelwerk factory,

they “lit up” more than thirty

engines per day in Lehesten.All of

the firing test equipment was in

very good repair. The Americans,

for unknown reasons, did not take anything away from the site.

The engines that had undergone firing tests at Lehesten, after being dried out

and subjected to preventive maintenance procedures, were sent to Mittelwerk in

Nordhausen.Turbopump assemblies that had undergone tests on a special test rig

were also sent to Nordhausen, where they were connected with the engine during

missile assembly. This process was forced on them and was not fruitful. In our

production process, the entire propulsion system—the engine coupled with the

feeding system (the turbopump assembly)—was provided for assembly from the

very beginning of missile production. In essence, the propulsion system output

parameters as a whole are determined during their joint operation.

Arvid Pallo became the Lehesten “firing boss” in July and began to debug the

firing tests. Over fifty brand new combustion chambers ready for testing had been

discovered in the subterranean warehouse. They had also found fully preserved

freight cars on spur tracks containing property transported from Peenemünde.

There were fifteen railroad cars containing A-4 engines; flatcars with ground

equipment, including meillerwagen erectors; carriages for transporting missiles; tanks

for transporting and filling liquid oxygen; alcohol filling units; and many other

items from the ground facilities. These were very valuable finds. Pallo arranged

with the military authorities to have them guarded. In Lehesten, they started

having regular visits from high-ranking guests who did not mind tasting rocket

fuel since it was ethyl alcohol of the highest purity.

339

From the archives of Arvid V. Pallo.

A-4 rocket firing tests in Lehesten, September 1945.
Our engine specialists spent the entire period from July through Septe

studying and mastering the technology for testing and adjusting the engines

conducted over forty firing launches in various modes.To the Germans’ sur

our testers proved to be more daring and went far beyond the limits of the 

regulation modes that had been permitted. In doing so, they discovered th

A-4 engine could be substantially boosted—to a thrust as high as 35 metric 

They worked out new processes for the firing tests.These included proces

measure thrust parameters, calculate and select blends, flow-test oxygen and 

hol injectors, and perform quick analyses of the chemical and physical prop

of both the fuel for the combustion chamber and the propellant componen

the steam-gas generator.

The command to prepare for the firing launch on the Lenin Hills in Mo

interrupted the testing work. The documentation of the testing work had 

twenty-two report files.All of the prep work for the Moscow firing was sup

to be completed in one month.Arvid Pallo made the right decision—whic

then approved by Valentin Petrovich Glushko, who appeared in Lehest

October—to equip the missile that was being assembled in Kleinbodungen 

the combustion chamber that had undergone firing tests in Lehesten.A spec

was being designed and fabricated in Lehesten for the missile’s installati

Moscow. It would be outfitted with the necessary equipment for pre-l

preparation and launch: high-pressure tanks, tanks for alcohol and ox

pipelines and valves, and remote control panels to control the engine startup

With the assistance of the Soviet Military Administration in Thuringia an

local authorities (using rocket alcohol as an incentive),they managed to design,

cate, and test everything within one month in Saalfeld. We sent two asse

missiles without engines to Lehesten.There they completed work on the m

fully equipped them, and fit them to the rig.The special train carrying all 

equipment to set up firing tests in Moscow consisted of sixteen railroad cars

himself was in charge of this crucial expedition and heroically made his way th

Poland and Brest, which was jammed with railroad cars. Finally they made 

Moscow’s Byelorusskiy train station. Here the military authorities took ov

entire train and relieved Pallo and those accompanying him of their sensitive 

While the expedition was moving out of Germany, navigating through d

of obstacles, some Politburo member reported the undertaking with the e

firings on the Lenin Hills to Stalin. It was not approved, and on that note e

thing ended.

with the departure of isayev, and Pallo’s subsequent journey to Mo

Glushko took on the directorship of all the engine-related work, and Shabra

who would later become his deputy for testing,became the immediate chief 

Lehesten base.

Valentin Petrovich Glushko flew into Berlin with Korolev. They had w

together at the NKVD special prison in Kazan. There Glushko had been 

340
designer of aircraft power units, and Korolev had been his deputy for testing.

Neither of them liked to recall this period of their joint work.After the prohibitions placed on historical aerospace technology publications were partially

removed, Glushko exerted a great deal of effort to publish historical and popular

literature. In one of his most respectable works, the Kosmonavtika (Cosmonautics)

encyclopedia, he recalled: “In 1942–1946, Korolev worked at the KB (see

(GDL-OKB) as deputy chief engine designer, involved with equipping seriesproduced combat aircraft with liquid-propellant rocket boosters.”3

There are two inaccuracies here. First, the GDL did not exist at that time.They

were imprisoned specialists, who under the supervision of chief designer Glushko,

worked at a KB that was officially called the “NKVD special prison,” but in

common parlance was known as the sharashka attached to Factory No. 16 in

Kazan. Second, in late 1945 Korolev was freed and was in Germany. During the

spring of 1946, he occupied the post of chief engineer at the Nordhausen Institute.As such, Korolev was not Glushko’s subordinate after 1945, Glushko was his.

In 1946, Korolev was transferred to NII-88 and appointed chief designer of longrange ballistic missiles. Glushko’s attempt in the later publications to lengthen

Korolev’s subordination to him by another full year to a certain degree characterizes the attitudes that formed between these two talented and very complex directors of our domestic aerospace industry.

My first encounter with Glushko in Germany took place soon after I had first

made Korolev’s acquaintance. Pobedonostsev had also informed me from Berlin of

Glushko’s arrival. I was convinced that Yuriy Aleksandrovich was bent on avoiding

possible complications in connection with his former RNII colleagues’ release.

Before Glushko’s arrival I invited Pilyugin to participate in the meeting with this

most renowned engine specialist. In contrast to the incident with Korolev, I did

not have to guess with whom I would be meeting.

First, Langemak and Glushko’s book, Rockets:Their Construction and Use, which

I had studied thoroughly, had declared in the foreword that Glushko was the most

outstanding specialist in rocket technology. Second, the opinions of people whom

I considered high-ranking authorities in that field, such as Bolkhovitinov, Isayev,

and Pobedonostsev, were in and of themselves sufficient to instill my respect for

the most important specialist in the field of rocket engines.

But there was one more reason why Glushko was for me a great authority.

During 1943 and 1944, as I mentioned earlier, I developed an electrical-arc ignition system for Isayev’s engine. In the process of this work, we decided to use an

electrical arc not for ignition, but for generating thrust. Using the appropriate

shape of electrodes, and by creating a magnetic field around them, it could have

been possible to “shoot off” blobs of plasma at high speed and with a considerably

341

3. V. P. Glushko, ed., Kosmonavtika entsiklopediya (Cosmonautics Encyclopedia) (Moscow: Sovetskaya

Entsiklopediya, 1985).
higher specific thrust than in engines using chemical propellant. In lite

searches at the NII-1 library, I found secret Leningrad Gas-Dynamic Labo

reports from which it followed that as early as 1929,V. P. Glushko had inv

electric rocket engines. My passion for electric rocket engines ended there a

time. But since Glushko was involved with this, I was convinced that he co

be a dilettante in electrical engineering. It was yet another argument in his 

Two officers entered my office. I immediately recognized the colonel—

Valentin Petrovich Glushko. The other officer, a lieutenant colonel, intro

himself simply as List. Both wore high quality uniform jackets, well-p

trousers rather than tunics, jodhpurs, and boots. Glushko smiled slightly and 

“Well, it seems you and I have already met.” Evidently he remembered our 

ing in Khimki. Nikolay Pilyugin dropped in and I introduced him as the inst

chief engineer. I proposed that we all sit down and drink some tea or “some

a bit stronger.” But Glushko, without sitting down, apologized and said th

needed emergency automobile assistance.“We were driving from Nordhause

our car was pulling badly and smoking severely. We were suffocating from 

smoke inside.They say that you have some good repair specialists.”

Nikolay Pilyugin went up to the window and announced,“Yes, it’s still s

ing. Did you turn the motor off?”

Suddenly in a calm, quiet voice List began to speak. He removed his servic

revealing a shock of completely gray hair,and sank demonstratively into the arm

“Don’t worry.The brake pads of the handbrake are burning out.We drove 

Nordhausen with the handbrake engaged.”

Pilyugin and I were flabbergasted.

“Why didn’t you release it?”

“You see,Valentin Petrovich stipulated that if he was at the wheel, I was 

dare suggest anything to him.”

Later we found out that before his arrest in 1938, Grigoriy Nikolayevic

had been the deputy chief designer at the I.V. Stalin Automobile Factory (

In terms of outward appearance, his manner of speaking and holding himse

was a typical old generation intellectual. Nevertheless, he understood autom

in all their subtleties and drove them beautifully. He drove the car from Ber

Nordhausen. But in Nordhausen, Glushko demanded that the wheel be t

over to him.And this was the result.

Pilyugin and I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or to sympathiz

there was not a trace of indignation or surprise on Glushko’s face. He too 

calmly into his armchair,pulled out a pristine handkerchief,and wiped off his 

head. I called our repairs department, and after explaining the situation, requ

that they quickly replace the Olympia’s handbrake.And that was our first m

with Glushko at the Institute RABE in Germany.

342

4. ZIS—Zavod imeni Stalina.
This incident was characteristic both for Glushko, who sometimes exhibited

incomprehensible obstinacy and did not tolerate suggestions if he had set a certain

goal for himself, and for List, who had worked at the Kazan sharashka under

Glushko’s authority. List now dreamed of breaking free from him, but Glushko was

still his boss and would not let him go. Later, under the pretext of checking and

revising the technical documentation on a propulsion unit, List nevertheless did

break free from Glushko’s daily surveillance. I set up a workstation for him at the

Institute RABE, and here he serenely worked until the end of our activity in

Germany. But upon his return to Moscow, List nevertheless returned to Glushko

and worked in his Energomash design bureau, OKB-456, until he retired.5

Glushko and List did not stay long in Bleicherode. Glushko complained that

Isayev had left for Moscow without waiting for him.

“The thing is, I was given great authority, and I wanted to enlist all of the

engine specialists for prospective developments in this field.” With the hint of a

smile he added,“I was appointed chief of the engine section of a special governmental commission.”

When we sent Glushko and List off to their hotel to rest until their trip to

Lehesten, Pilyugin muttered, “So over in Moscow they are setting up special

governmental commissions that will be boasting about our work,and we are going

to start working for some other chief of the control section.And if it weren’t for

us, this special commission wouldn’t even have anything to do.”

We lit up our favorite Kazbek cigarettes and moved on to pressing business.

When Glushko and his people arrived in Lehesten, the work there got a new

boost. The large amount of experimental material for the optimization of the

engines and their series testing, plus the statistical data on thrust, temperature, and

flow rate parameters, was extremely valuable for our engine specialists. In addition

to the combustion chambers that had been stored in Lehesten itself, they found

fifty-eight railroad cars in the surrounding area containing A-4 combustion chambers, five railroad cars carrying A-4 launchers and transporters, and nine liquid

oxygen transport tanks. This wealth of equipment gave the engine specialists

tremendous advantages over specialists in other fields, including control specialists

such as ourselves.

343

5. Glushko’s design bureau, OKB-456, was renamed KB Energomash in 1966.

Chapter 26

The Institute Nordhausen

In early 1946, with Ustinov’s support, General Gaydukov managed to reach

an agreement in the Party Central Committee in Moscow and in the Soviet 

Military Administration in Berlin for a significant expansion of operations in

Germany.This had not been easy to do.A considerable portion of the Party and

state apparatus involved with policy in Germany had demanded that the work in

occupied Germany to restore German technology be curtailed and all Soviet

specialists be called back to the Soviet Union no later than January or February

1946. Gaydukov and Ustinov, as well as Artillery Marshall Yakovlev, who

supported them, did not agree—they insisted on expanding operations. At the

same time, the Institute RABE was becoming the foundation for a significantly

more powerful organization.

I should mention that the aircraft industry,using the Institute RABE as a model,

had gathered German aircraft specialists in the Soviet occupation zone for work in

Dessau, using the facilities of the Junkers factories.

Only the atomic experts immediately brought Professor Manfred von Ardenne

and a small group of specialists to the Soviet Union. (The British had captured the

primary developers of the German atomic bomb, headed by Nobel laureate

Werner Heisenberg.) 

The Institute RABE had a clearly pronounced emphasis in the field of electrical control systems because the institute management (Pilyugin and I from the

Russian side and Rosenplänter and later Dr. Hermann and Gröttrup on the

German side) consisted of specialists in electrical equipment and control.

Korolev, who had taken charge of the Vystrel group; Glushko, who was directing the study and testing of engines in Lehesten; Kurilo, who was assembling

missiles in Kleinbodungen; and other smaller groups were functioning more or

less independently, often duplicating rather than complementing each other.

Korolev accused Pilyugin and me of not paying proper attention to the general

matters of missile construction—to its warhead and operation. Pilyugin replied

harshly to Korolev.

“Sergey Pavlovich, you don’t know the first thing about the control system, so

go ahead and organize the work for all the other systems.Any aircraft factory in

the Soviet Union will rivet the hardware for the body just as well as the Germans,

345
but we still don’t know how to make the instruments for the rocket.And e

we reproduce the instruments, we still have to learn how to control the fli

that the body and the tanks will fly where they are supposed to, instead o

the nearest garden. And as for which explosive to put in the warhead, it’s 

for you and the artillerymen to look into that without us.”This skirmish ha

ranging consequences.

In February 1946, Korolev was summoned to Moscow. He returned in 

March, cheerful, hale and hearty, radiating exuberant energy, and now a co

Thus, Korolev, if only outwardly in terms of military insignias, was now eq

Glushko, Pobedonostsev, Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and Kuznetsov, who had flo

Germany wearing colonels’shoulder boards.A day or two later,General Gay

arrived, also in an excellent, jubilant mood, and he asked me to assemble a

civilian specialists. He would be responsible for military specialists.At a large 

ing of Soviet specialists, Gaydukov announced the decision to create a 

organization based on the Institute RABE and all of the various and sundry 

tioning groups. It would be called the Institute Nordhausen.

Gaydukov was commissioned as director of the institute and Korole

appointed his first deputy and chief designer.Next they reviewed and approv

general structure of the new institute.

Our Institute RABE became a part of the new conglomeration as an in

for control systems. Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, Boguslavskiy, and I remained in c

346

From the author’s 

Entrance to the Institute Nordhausen directorate.
but we were advised to prepare for a large number of new specialists who would

be arriving from the Soviet Union shortly.They tasked me with helping to organize the Institute Nordhausen until the new staff was formed.

We agreed that RABE would make room—the new institute’s headquarters

and its management would also be located in Bleicherode.To do this we needed

to commandeer some baron’s private residence, which was located next door.This

was no problem for the local authorities.

In addition to the Institute RABE, the following organizations became part of

the Institute Nordhausen and were directly subordinate to Gaydukov and Korolev:

• The Montania factory in the vicinity of Nordhausen, which was used as a

production base for engines and turbopump assemblies and a base for engine

firing tests in Lehesten near Saalfeld.Glushko was put in charge of the general

management of Montania and Lehesten,and Shabranskiy was appointed chief

of Lehesten in place of Pallo, who had gone back to Moscow;

• The production facility in Kleinbodungen, which was officially named

Factory No. 3 (Werk Drei). Kurilo was appointed director. The factory’s

objective was to restore the production process and assemble as many missiles

as possible from everything that remained at Mittelwerk;

• The Olympia Design Bureau for the restoration of A-4 documentation and

processing equipment that had been fabricated in Sömmerda at the

Rheinmetall-Borsig factory. First Budnik was the head, and then Mishin.

Mishin traveled with Bereznyak to Prague in search of technical documentation and got lucky.They found and brought back a large amount of design

documentation which facilitated the beginning of work in Sömmerda;

• Sparkasse (savings bank), our term for the computational-theoretical group in

Bleicherode. The team was established at a municipal savings bank which

under the new authorities had been left without any monetary deposits.

Colonel Tyulin, who had transferred to us from Berlin, headed the group. It

included Lavrov, Mozzhorin,Appazov, and Gerasyuta. German theoreticians

from RABE were transferred to the group, and more new specialists arrived,

in particular, the chief ballistics expert from the firm Krupp, Dr.Waldemar

Wolff, and aerodynamics specialist, Dr. Werner Albring, the former deputy

director of the aerodynamics institute in Hannover.

gröttrup’s bureau became an independent subdivision of the Institute

Nordhausen, but at Gaydukov’s insistence I was tasked with monitoring its activity. Taking advantage of that responsibility, I instructed Gröttrup to go beyond

describing the history of A-4 development at Peenemünde and begin concrete

work on proposals for longer-range missiles and high-precision control systems.

Ryazanskiy and Boguslavskiy participated directly in these operations in the radioengineering sphere.

The Vystrel group had expanded considerably. Now Voskresenskiy headed it in

place of Korolev.This same group included Rudnitskiy, who had been tasked with

347
searching for and restoring the ground-based filling, transporter-erecto

launch equipment. Here I should mention that at the same time the In

Nordhausen was created, the Institute Berlin was established in Berlin, wi

task of restoring anti-aircraft guided missile technology. Barmin was appo

chief engineer of the Institute Berlin. He had been the chief designer o

Kompressor factory where over eighty rocket projectile salvo-firing systems 

developed during the war. Later Barmin was named chief designer of the 

complex for missile ground equipment while Rudnitskiy, who had worked 

me at the Institutes RABE and Nordhausen, became his first deputy.

At the Institute Nordhausen, the Main Artillery Directorate set up its 

representative office headed by Colonel Mrykin. He was a very demanding 

who on first impression seemed extremely stern. He knew how to make slug

and slovenly types tremble, but all the berating was in the interest of the is

hand. The large body of cadre military specialists subordinate to him 

suggested a unit of measurement to quantify the magnitude of his rebukes

mryk. Leaving the office of Colonel Mrykin, officers would explain,“I rece

one-mryk dressing down.” A two- to three-mryk dressing down might be 

for an officer to be detached to another place of service. Later, Mrykin 

developed a very good relationship. I was convinced that his outward ster

and his not-always-pleasant, exacting nature did not prevent him from be

348

From the author’s 

Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin, chief engineer of the Institute Berlin from 1945–46 and future

academician and chief designer of rocket launching systems.
wise, objective, and keen manager who respected every honest specialist, both

military and civilian. More than once I had the opportunity to witness Mrykin’s

indubitable decency.

The number of personnel at the Institute Nordhausen—composed of German

specialists and Soviet military and civilian specialists—increased rapidly, requiring

the creation of a new office to service the entire contingent.There was a shift from

“quantity to quality” with regard to problems involving transport, accommodations,food,and receiving documentation and equipment and shipping them to the

Soviet Union. At the Institute RABE, First Lieutenant Chizhikov, who had

worked amicably with the services of the division, the commandant’s office, and

the German commercial director, coped with all of this excellently and singlehandedly. I did not give up Chizhikov to Gaydukov’s staff. To compensate,

Gaydukov acquired a deputy for general work as well as a commercial unit and

“rear services” that included a personnel department headed by Lieutenant

Colonel Aleksandr Kaplun. Gaydukov asked that problems concerning light automobile transport be left to RABE and handled personally by Chizhikov.

As a rule, the stream of civilian specialists flying in from Moscow now without

any sort of military uniform passed through Kaplun, whose responsibility it was to

provide each of them with housing and food and direct them to the proper division of the institute. He asked for my assistance to accomplish the latter task.Thus,

I became acquainted with many young specialists, still quite green, for whom fate

had prepared the historic mission of humankind’s breakthrough into space.

Among this stream of young people, my attention fell on the Kozlov family.

Dmitriy Kozlov had gone through the war, lost an arm, graduated from the

Leningrad Military-Mechanical Engineering Institute and married a coed. They

showed up everywhere in tandem. I advised Kaplun to send Dmitriy and Zoya

together to Sömmerda to work for Mishin. Fifty-six years later, at a meeting of the

Russian Academy of Sciences, I met a corresponding member of the aforementioned institution, Dmitriy Ilyich Kozlov, two-time Hero of Socialist Labor,

general designer and general director of the Central Specialized Design Bureau

(TsSKB) and the Progress Factory in the city of Samara. He told me that he had

been in Berlin at the aerospace exhibition, and he had taken a day trip to

Bleicherode to recall the beginning of his career in Germany.1

“I was pleasantly surprised,” said Kozlov.“More than a half century had passed,

and there in Bleicherode they still remembered Chertok, they pointed out the

building of the Institute RABE and were proud that Korolev had lived and worked

among them.”

Due to his new appointment, Korolev, as before, devoted a great deal of time to

the subject matter of the Vystrel group and to organizing work on documentation

in Sömmerda.There with Mishin and Budnik he began the first studies of a missile

349

1. TsSKB—Tsentralnoye Spetsialnoye Konstruktorskoye Byuro.
variant with a range of up to 600 kilometers—the future R-2 missile. In pl

the Opel-Olympia, which lacked prestige, he acquired a powerful, sporty, da

Horch. This car clearly suited Korolev’s taste, and he never missed a chan

praise it.He offered to take his friends out for a drive,but did not trust any of 

behind the wheel. I didn’t pass up the chance to go out for a drive in the H

I already had a driver’s license and had coped well with the Mercedes an

Opel-Olympia. Korolev did not trust me behind the wheel of the Horch be

he knew about the “loop the loop” that I had executed in the Olympia with 

passengers in the car.

Korolev drove through the narrow streets of Bleicherode and the villa

Kleinbodungen in a way that made me plead with him,“Sergey Pavlovich

Horch is beautiful, but it’s not a fighter plane, and we are in a populated are

the sky.”

Korolev’s fitting response to that statement was, “But I have both a d

license and a pilot’s license.”

“But I don’t want to end up in heaven before my time, even in a Horch

Soon thereafter,on the square in front of the Institute RABE,the Horch co

with an old Opel driven by a German driver who worked at our institut

magnificent red Horch sustained a sizeable dent, but the small Opel was se

350

From the author’s 

Evening gathering of Institute RABE officers at the Villa Franka. Sitting (from left to right): L. 

Voskresenskiy, unidentified person, V. A. Bakulin, V. I. Kharchev, V. P. Mishin, Yu. A. Pobedon

Standing (from left to right): N. A. Pilyugin, A. G. Mrykin, S. G. Chizhikov, V. S. Budnik, S. P.

Korolev—Bleicherode, Germany, 1946.
smashed. Korolev flew into my office extremely upset and demanded that I immediately fire the German driver and send Chizhikov, who was in charge of the institute’s transportation, into exile in Moscow for not keeping order in his motor pool.

Poor Chizhikov and the German skilled workmen spent the night in the workshop,

and by morning the Horch looked better than it had before the ill-fated collision.

This was probably Korolev’s first meeting with Chizhikov. Korolev was convinced that the former foundry pattern maker really did have the magic touch.

Three years later, Korolev managed to bring Chizhikov into his creative team,

which had received the Stalin Prize for the development of instrumentation for

temperature measurement during R-1 missile flight tests. Chizhikov, who had

been the first to receive a multi-mryk rebuke from Korolev for vehicular disorderliness,loved to boast “I’m not afraid of anyone in the whole wide world.”And then

he would pause and add,“except Korolev.”

In order to relieve the Soviet specialists of concerns about the hardships their

families were suffering, the military command decided in March 1946 to send the

families of the “trade union” and cadre officers to their service posts on a semicompulsory basis.For some of the cadre officers this was not very convenient,since

they had acquired girlfriends during the war years, or as was customary to say at

351

From the author’s archives.

S. P. Korolev, Institute Nordhausen’s chief engineer, conferring with Ye. M. Kurilo—Bleicherode, 1946.
the time,“field wives” or PPZh.2 But we civilian specialists immediately orga

a service for the “re-evacuation” of our families from Moscow, Leningrad

other cities, this time not to the east on the far side of the Urals and beyond 

the case in 1941,but to the west—to Berlin and then to the places where the 

of households had been posted in occupied Germany.

In May in Berlin, Chizhikov and I met our wives and children who had 

in on an Li-2 military transport plane.The meeting with our wives in Ger

was not without incident. Chiz

and I arrived in Berlin in 

automobiles and waited fo

plane from Moscow to lan

Schönefeld airfield. Evening 

already approaching when the

us that they were expecting no 

airplanes that day.

“How can that be? We 

a message saying they dep

from Moscow.”

“Maybe they had to m

stopover along the way,” sug

the dispatcher. “In any case, 

radio Adlershof although the s

aerodrome is already closed.”

The dispatcher finally manag

get through to Adlershof and 

reported that some women and 

dren were there on the airfield.

twilight we found our wives

were exhausted by the difficult 

and incensed by the many hours of waiting, and our hungry little boys on the 

of the airfield next to the catapult used to launch V-1 cruise missiles. Pobedo

sev gave up his apartment in Berlin for us.There, Katya managed for the firs

in twenty-four hours to feed some farina to our sick, one-and-a-half-year-ol

After their arrival in Bleicherode, our wives, who had grown accustomed 

hardships of Moscow, were dumbfounded by the comfort of the Villa F

Nevertheless they demanded that we kick out the German maid:“We will 

and clean by ourselves.”The officers’mess hall,our evening club at the Villa F

and also the German lessons all had to be closed down. Three meals a da

recreation were arranged for all the officers without families at Japan, the 

opened restaurant in Bleicherode.

352

From the author’s archives.

In the vicinity of Bleicherode, Boris Chertok

and Yekaterina Golubkina with son Valentin—

Germany, 1946.

2. PPZh—Polevaya pokhodnaya zhena (field camp wives).
Providing living quarters and food for the large number of German specialists and

workers enlisted to work at the Institute Nordhausen was also a serious problem.

When the work to restore the documentation and fabricate missiles was in full swing

in the summer of 1946, the Germans themselves estimated the total number of

German personnel at six thousand.Taking into account the personnel that worked

at subcontracting firms,the number exceeded seven thousand.The assessment of this

period of our joint activity in Germany by contemporary German historians is

interesting. I shall quote excerpts from Manfred Bornemann’s book Geheimprojekt

Mittelbau: Die Geschichte der Deutschen V-Waffen-Werke (The Secret Mittelbau Project:

A History of the German V-Weapons Factory), published in Munich in 1971.

Material support for (German) specialists was on a level that had not existed

in Germany for many years.Thus, for example, a degreed engineer received

what were called Category-1 rations to last for fourteen days: sixty eggs, five

pounds of butter, twelve pounds of meat, unlimited bread, plenty of vegetable

oil, flour, cigarettes, and tobacco. For other categories of workers, these norms

were lower, but for the situation at that time, still comparatively very high.

The German specialists were also paid relatively high salaries.Bornemann writes:

One should also mention the rapport between the Russians and Germans

during the missile project.The atmosphere was exceptionally amicable.The

Russians showed their best side. Nevertheless, a certain distrust developed on

both sides. If the Soviet specialists sometimes displayed reserve during work,

fearing secret sabotage on the part of the Germans, this depressed the

German missile specialists, who were worried about their future. As the

rocket undergoing restoration acquired a more distinct shape, the Russians

strove to obtain more documentary data on rocket technology during the

production process.

The Germans’ fear for their future is evident in these citations. Indeed, if the

Russians were to understand and master everything, then what would become of

the German specialists? Some of them hoped that the Russians would at least

entrust the Germans with a field of activity that had never been attempted in

Nordhausen, such as the very process of launching the missiles. But it turned out

that the Russians also had already envisioned that. And not only in their small

Vystrel group.

The 13 May 1946 decree of the Party Central Committee and Soviet People’s

Commissariat called not only for the creation of a missile industry, but also for the

creation of a special missile State Central Firing Range (GTsP) and specialized

troop units. In parallel with our military-industrial organization, which encompassed the Institute Nordhausen, they created a purely military system that was

tasked with mastering the field operation of rocket technology.

353
Using Colonel Chernenko’s Guards Mortar Unit, which was stationed 

village of Berga near the town of Sondershausen, they began to form the r

Special Purpose Brigade (BON) of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.3 Co

General Aleksandr Fedorovich Tveretskiy was appointed brigade commande

Along with Korolev,Voskresenskiy, and Pilyugin, we set out for Sondersh

where the entire BON officer staff was located, to familiarize ourselves wi

new military organization and its commander. Korolev was afraid that the 

complex technology would fall into the hands of martinet commanders

work might be discredited at the very last stage. But our fears were unfou

General Tveretskiy proved to be an uncommonly intelligent, benevolen

prepossessing individual.We were soon convinced of this, interacting not o

the line of duty, but also socializing with our families.

But in one aspect Tveretskiy displayed firmness right from the beginning

tary specialists visited BON every day. They were officers with a great d

frontline experience from various branches of the armed services. Tver

announced that he did not intend to take up their time with drill and physic

political training. He categorically insisted that we grant them access to wo

the institute’s laboratories and subdivisions and admit them to missile tests 

354

From the author’s archives.

L. A. Voskresenskiy (left), S. P. Korolev and V. K.

Shitov (right) in Peenemüde, 1946.

From the author’s 

General A. F. Tveretskiy and S. P. Korolev—

Germany, 1946.

3. BON—Brigada Osobogo Naznacheniya.
facility in Kleinbodungen and to the Vystrel group’s work. Korolev and Pilyugin

were not enthusiastic because we were already thoroughly saturated with Soviet

specialists, i.e. those engineers and military personnel who later were supposed to

be transferred to the GAU central office to support the powerful military acceptance work forces.

We somehow fulfilled all of Tveretskiy’s demands, and the officers, who in

contrast to us were decorated with many combat medals, began to master their

new field of work.Among the many BON officers who on orders from the army

personnel department ended up serving in Sondershausen during those spring

days of 1946, I must say some kind words about those whose subsequent work had

a substantial impact on the development of our rocket, and later, space technology.

Nikolay Nikolayevich Smirnitskiy went from being assistant chief of the new

formation’s electrical firing group to very difficult service at the GTsP at Kapustin

Yar. He eventually became a lieutenant general and headed the Main Directorate

of the Rocket Armaments (GURVO) for nine years. Later, he was appointed

deputy commander-in-chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces.4

Yakov Isayevich Tregub, a major of the special sapper troops, was in charge of

the first launch team. Later, as a major general, he directed the testing of anti

355

From the author’s archives.

Standing (from right to left): Major B. Chertok, Major Musatov, Colonel N. Pilyugin, and officers of

the Seventy-fifth Guards’ Division—Bleicherode, Germany, 1945.

4. GURVO—Glavnoye Upravleniye Raketnogo Vooruzheniya.
aircraft guided missiles. He was the deputy to Chief Designer Mishin for th

ing of spacecraft, and until recently he was working productively on new 

matic space instruments for meteorology and to study Earth’s natural resour

After Sondershausen, Aleksandr Ivanovich Nosov served at Kapustin Ya

then was in charge of the directorate for testing the famous R-7 interconti

missile at the firing range at Tyuratam (the Fifth Scientific-Research and T

Range which would later become Baykonur). He did a great deal to op

Korolev’s rocket technology, but died tragically on the launch pad in the exp

of an R-16 intercontinental missile developed by Mikhail Yangel, another 

designer. This was not the only instance of tragic death among the first m

specialist officers.5

Boris Alekseyevich Komissarov arrived at BON with the rank of major. 

he specialized in testing automatic stabilization control instruments. He w

charge of military acceptance at missile factories and rose to a high governm

post: deputy chairman of the Commission on Military-Industrial Affairs und

Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers. For departmental reasons, way 

in 1946, Pilyugin and I had had to turn down Komissarov’s requests to hand 

gyroscopes, mischgeräte, and control surface actuators that we had gathered c

by crumb and restored with difficulty. No, we could not foresee that many 

later we would be coming to this unassuming major, petitioning for resol

costing many millions of rubles.

I shall not list the many other military specialists with whom we worked j

in Germany. Except for some random, minor exceptions, they all subsequ

proved to be worthy fighters in the vanguard of the scientific-technical revo

in weapons technology and later in the peaceful field of cosmonautics.

i cannot say at whose personal initiative it took place—whether it was Ko

Voskresenskiy, or one of the military specialists from the Vystrel group—b

early 1946 somebody came up with the idea of developing and construc

special missile train using the workforces of German railroad car building 

and bringing in any other special rolling stock. The realization of this ide

beyond the capacity of the Institute RABE. With the creation of the In

Nordhausen, however, the idea acquired many powerful advocates.The go

ment allocated the necessary sizeable resources, the Soviet military administ

drew up a top-priority order to railroad car and instrumentation firms, an

feverish activity began.The project called for the creation of a special trai

could support the entire process of missile testing and launch preparation 

any uninhabited location so that the only construction required would b

road track.

356

5. During pre-launch preparations for the first R-16 launch in 1960, the rocket exploded and kill

than a hundred soldiers, administrators, and engineers.
The train was to consist of at least twenty special freight cars and flatcars.

Among them were laboratory cars for off-line tests of all the onboard instruments, cars for the Messina radio telemetric measurement service, photo laboratories with film development facilities, a car for tests on engine instrumentation

and armature, electric power plant cars, compressor cars, workshop cars with

machine tools, cars containing restaurants, bathing and shower facilities, conference rooms, and armored cars with electric launching equipment. The train

would have the capability to launch a missile by controlling it from the armored

car. The missile would be mounted on the launch platform, which along with

the transporter-erector equipment would be part of a set of special flatcars. Five

comfortable sleeping cars with two-bed compartments, two parlor cars for highranking authorities, and a hospital car would make it possible to live in any desert

without tents or dugouts. In the heat of the construction of this marvel of railroad technology, Tveretskiy convinced his superiors to approve and fund the

construction of a second special train, but not for industry, just for the military.

The program’s doubling resulted in numerous conflicts due to the shortage of

special testing and general-purpose measurement equipment to outfit the railroad cars.

But these were probably the only conflicts between industry and the military at

that time. It was absolutely miraculous that both special trains were constructed

and completely fitted out by December 1946. During the first years of the rocket

era we simply could not imagine living and working at the firing range at Kapustin

Yar without the special train. Not until the early 1950s, when, through the diligence of GTsP chief Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk, hotels, an assembly and testing

facility with workshops, domestic services, and much more were built, did life in

the trans-Volga steppe become possible without the special trains.

work at the institute nordhausen and correspondingly at the Institute

RABE reached its most arduous level in August 1946. At Werk Drei in

Kleinbodungen, they had managed to gather a sufficient number of parts to

assemble more than twenty missiles. They were all provided with engines that

had undergone firing tests at Lehesten and with turbopump assemblies that had

been completed and tested at the Montania factory.

But an absolutely disastrous situation developed when it came to obtaining the

necessary number of onboard instruments and test equipment for off-line and

integrated tests. Nikolay Pilyugin,Viktor Kuznetsov’s deputy Zinoviy Tsetsior, and

I, again with the assistance of the SVA in Thuringia, visited the Karl Zeiss factories in Jena. There our Soviet optics experts were already lording over it as

customers. Nevertheless, we arranged to place an order for the basic gyroscopic

systems Gorizont, Vertikant, and Integrator. Karl Zeiss was a world-renowned

manufacturer of optical instruments. These included glasses, binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, periscopes, all sorts of optical sights, and many other devices that

were manufactured in large quantities to fill orders from Moscow.The engineers

357
in Jena were not intimidated by the new orders and they claimed that,“Every

that Siemens did, we are capable of reproducing.”

And they did! They received our instructions in March or April, and in Se

ber they returned the last of twenty sets of gyroscopic instruments. Our Ge

specialists, Dr. Magnus and Dr. Hoch, grumbled that we wouldn’t get the 

precision with the Zeiss instruments that Siemens had guaranteed, but this 

bother us very much at the time.The Germans’ misgivings proved justifie

we did not understand this until we were performing flight tests after return

the Soviet Union.

We tracked down the onboard electronic instruments—the mischgerät (m

instrument),main distributor,time-domain current distributor,and the relays n

for their assembly and testing in the ruins of Mittelwerk and in trips made b

Germans over the border into the Western zones.But this proved to be clearly 

ficient, and we had to open a special electronic instrument factory in Sangerh

We also ran into a critical situation with the Askania control surface act

and the graphite control surfaces.We did not have a single Soviet control s

actuator specialist at the Institute RABE until Georgiy Aleksandrovich S

appeared at my disposal, having first passed through Korolev. He was one 

young specialists whom Ustinov had ordered sent from various instrumen

factories to NII-88, which was being set up in Podlipki back in the Soviet U

In the spring and summer of 1946, many of those who had not yet begun w

ing in Podlipki departed immediately for Germany. They were no longer 

military ranks. For that reason they got significantly less respect from the Ge

than engineers with officers’ ranks.

Under Pilyugin’s direction and my supervision, Stepan, who had no 

knowledge of electrohydraulic control surface actuators, learned their stru

and the minimum theory required to begin working independently in Pod

With his assistance, we managed to equip the missiles with control surface 

tors and electromechanical trim motors to control the aerodynamic c

surfaces. All of these drives were installed on a special load-bearing frame 

tail section and were tested for performance and correct polarity before the 

was completely assembled.

The missile’s electrical equipment consisted of a special 27-volt lead s

battery and two DC-to-AC converters to power the gyroscopic instrum

mischgerät, sequencing current distributor, and lateral correction radio system

In late 1945, not far from Berlin, we met our electric machine specialists h

by NII-627 Director Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan. They were busy 

completely different business. Iosifyan was already a well-known specialist 

field of slaving systems and devices for electric synchronous communica

Nevertheless, he was included in our co-op, and soon thereafter we gai

powerful and loyal ally—not only in Germany but also for many years i

Soviet Union—in the solution of diverse electrical engineering problems of 

and space technology.

358
Captain Kerimov was in charge in the well-lit, dry, and comfortable basements

of the Institute RABE. He would later become the chief of the Main Directorate

of the Ministry of General Machine Building and then the permanent chairman

of the State Commission on Manned Flights. In 1946, he was responsible for

restoring six onboard sets of extremely scarce Messina telemetry equipment and

a ground receiving-recording station. G. I. Degtyarenko, a specialist from the

Moscow radio institute NII-20,assisted him.Subsequently,fate separated these first

telemetry experts. Kerimov made his career in a purely military and later, ministerial field.At NII-20, Degtyarenko attempted to restore and perfect the German

Messina, but strong competition from the new work forces of Boguslavskiy at

NII-885 and Bogomolov at MEI forced him to capitulate.

the main nucleus of soviet directors of the Institutes Nordhausen and

RABE consisted of a comparatively small group of specialists who first became

intimately acquainted in Germany.With the arrival of their families, the business

relationships were supplemented with familial relations and friendships between

their wives.We tried to set aside time to take trips together to nearby towns.Tonya

Pilyugina, Lesha Ryazanskaya (her name was Yelena, but we all called her Lesha as

her husband did), and Katya, who had quickly become friends, were extremely

active. It wasn’t possible for us husbands to take part in all their sightseeing trips,

but we tried to quench their thirst for knowledge of the Western world by making

our service vehicles and German drivers available to them. After seeing points of

interest in Weimar, Erfurt, and even Leipzig, our wives would report the expenses

that the drivers had presented for the kilometers driven. We obtained gasoline,

which was in short supply, from the military administration or illegally from the

black market. Conventional filling stations were not in operation.

Family “receptions” were other forms of social mingling.We contrived anniversary dates for these. I organized the first such banquet-reception at the Villa Franka

under the pretext of the first anniversary of the Institute RABE’s founding. Its

success encouraged a chain reaction of “comradely dinners” on the occasion of

whomever’s birthday it happened to be.The birthday boy or girl would arrange

with one of the very modest local restaurants to provide service for these dinners.

It was the responsibility of the hospitable host to provide all the requisite beverages and hors d’oeuvres, and the German staff provided the service, including the

dishes, the table settings, and so on.We usually paid not in marks, but in kind—

foodstuffs and schnapps. For our wives, these activities at first seemed sacrilegious

in the face of the horrors of the war and of our relatives and friends who had

perished. After five dreadful years they had grown unaccustomed to such revelry,

but they quickly adapted.

Korolev’s wife, Kseniya Vintsentini, and their eleven-year-old daughter Natasha

arrived in Bleicherode after the other officers’ families. Korolev tried very hard to

show them all around Germany as much as possible.Perhaps because Korolev’s wife

and daughter left Bleicherode almost immediately and for a long period of time,

359
they did not fit in with the “club” of officers’ wives, who exchanged inform

almost daily about where and what to buy, what to see during the day if they 

have a car,and what was playing in the evening at the town’s movie theater.K

never told any of my close comrades at work anything about his family.We 

learned from Pobedonostsev that his wife Kseniya Maksimilianovna Vintsenti

a leading surgeon at the renowned Botkinsk hospital.His daughter Natasha h

seen her father for the last six of her eleven years. Kseniya Vintsentini was th

wife of a former “enemy of the people” in Bleicherode. Katya met her for th

time at the children’s swimming pool. It turned out that Natasha Korolev

Nadya Pilyugina, who had already learned to swim, helped my seven-ye

Valentin master the technique. That evening when she was telling me abou

encounter at the pool she said,“She’s an amazing woman.We talked as if w

already known each other for years. It’s too bad that she and her daught

getting ready to leave soon. She said that she is needed at work and Natasha 

be back in time for the beginning of the school year.”

Late one evening in the first week in August, the field telephone rang 

bedroom. “Something’s happened again at your institute,” said Katya anxi

Korolev had telephoned, and to my surprise, he excused himself for calling s

and asked me to hand the phone to Yekaterina Semenovna. At the end 

conversation Katya explained that the Korolevs had invited us to their fift

wedding anniversary party on 6 August.The next day I found out that the 

officer elite of the Soviet colony of the Institute Nordhausen and the m

administration had been invited.

At the anniversary party there were many traditional toasts “to the health 

newlyweds” and long speeches about what an uncommon gatherin

“renowned dzhigit Sergey and his beautiful Ksana” were holding “in the la

the conquered enemy.”6

Korolev began his toast with the words,“Do you all know what it means 

fifteen years with Korolev? No, you cannot imagine such a thing. But my 

has endured this heroically.And for that I drink this toast to the last drop!”

We all stood up at once and drained our glasses.Having refilled my glass,I 

with difficulty to elbow my way over to the happy couple. When I had 

managed to squeeze into an empty space among those who wanted to clink 

with the Korolevs and had begun to utter something, Kseniya Maksimilia

interrupted me, saying that she knew about me as the discoverer of this town

she was acquainted with my wonderful wife, and that if we were going to 

let’s drink to our friendship. I expected to see a radiant, almost sainted wo

who after many long agonizing years was reveling in domestic bliss. But he

did not have a happy smile. She looked at me with dark, sorrowful eyes. Ko

was not next to his wife, and I went out into the garden to light up a cig

360

6. A dzhigit is a Caucasian horseman.
Our hussars, as we jokingly referred to the three bachelor lieutenant colonels

Boguslavskiy,Voskresenskiy, and Rudnitskiy, were already out there smoking.The

three of them lived amicably in a single residence, the Villa Margaret, and shared a

tiny Fiat. The hussars were surprised and concerned by Korolev’s unexpected

conduct.Voskresenskiy explained,“Somebody really set Sergey off. He needed to

unwind. While you were paying court to Ksana he invited your Katya into his

Horch and then tore off into the night.”About ten minutes later Korolev’s Horch

illuminated us with its powerful headlights and screeched to a halt. Korolev

jumped out of the car and like a true gentleman, throwing open the door on the

passenger’s side, he gave Katya his hand, led her over to me, and—wobbling

slightly—returned to the festive, noisy banquet hall. At home during our postparty “flight analysis” Katya said that Korolev suddenly approached her and offered

to demonstrate the performance of his sports car.“When we took off, he apologized, saying that he needed to unwind and that speed was the only thing that let

him unwind. By some miracle we avoided hitting a bicyclist. Somewhere we

struck what was probably a milk can but we didn’t stop. He thanked me and said

that if he had been alone, he might have crashed the car.”And that was that.

In august 1946,after traveling around many towns and enterprises in the Soviet

zone, a high-level government commission headed by Artillery Marshall Nikolay

Yakovlev arrived in Bleicherode.

The following individuals were members of the commission: Minister of

Armaments Colonel General Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov; Major General of the

Artillery Lev Robertovich Gonor, who had already been appointed director of

head missile institute NII-88; Chief of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of

Armaments Colonel Sergey Ivanovich Vetoshkin; Director of the Gosplan Department of the Defense Industry Georgiy Nikolayevich Pashkov; and Deputy Minister of the Communications Systems Industry Vorontsov.The only old acquaintance

on the commission was Pobedonostsev. Officially he—like Pilyugin, Mishin,

several others, and me—was still considered to be affiliated with NII-1 of the

Ministry of the Aviation Industry.

We immediately understood that all of the commission’s primary decisions

actually came from Ustinov and Pashkov.This duo had to decide how to distribute the cadre of specialists gathered at the Institute Nordhausen among the

ministries and agencies, along with the material and intellectual wealth that had

been accumulated. Despite the fact that the distribution of duties in rocket technology had been stipulated in principle by the governmental decree dated 13 May,

many design and production issues, and especially personnel issues, had not yet

been resolved. Ustinov informed us that his ministry was officially in charge and

that he had already arranged, with Korolev for Korolev to transfer to NII-88, the

new head institute, as a chief designer. Pobedonostsev would be the chief engineer

at the new institute. Ustinov then acknowledged Gonor and announced that he

would be the future director of NII-88.

361
Ustinov felt that he needed to dwell on a subject that appeared to g

disturb him, and on which a firm position had not been reached in the com

sion or at some higher level.

“Very great and vital work has been done here. Our industry will have to 

not from square one, not from a void, but by first learning what was do

Germany.We must accurately reproduce the German technology before we 

to make our own. I know that some of you don’t like this.You also found 

deficiencies in the German missile and you are burning with the desire to go 

own way. Initially we will forbid that.To begin with, prove that you can do a

And to anyone who alludes to our experience and history, my response is th

have every right to this, we paid for it with a great deal of blood!

“But we will not force anyone.Whoever doesn’t want to do this can loo

other work.”

Ustinov continued, “We cannot take it upon ourselves to develop and m

facture engines, and therefore Glushko will transfer with this problem t

aircraft industry, which will allocate a special factory for him in Khimki.As 

the control systems are concerned, except for control surface actuators, ba

this has been entrusted to the Ministry of the Communications Systems In

(MPSS), and Ryazanskiy has already agreed to be in charge there, but und

condition that Pilyugin and Chertok transfer with him as his deputies.”7

Apropos of that, Ustinov decided that one of us would be enoug

Ryazanskiy because a leading specialist on the whole complex of control 

lems would also be needed at the NII-88 head institute.This specialist woul

be responsible for starting up the production of control surface actuators, w

MPSS had rejected.

Thus, Pilyugin and I were going to have to part company and decide 

went where. One way or the other, we both would be leaving our old ho

the aircraft industry. Soon thereafter I understood that our respective assign

had already been decided in Moscow in the Party and state offices, and the

been approved at all security and cadre levels. That explained why N

Dmitrievich Yakovlev, a Marshal with the outward appearance of a t

simple-minded peasant, had been smiling slyly while looking at Pilyugi

me when Ustinov was giving his impassioned speeches regarding who n

to go where to work. It was clear that it was all a show—the decision

already been made.

For purposes of decorum, we were given twenty-four hours to think it 

After many hours of debate in the commission,Pobedonostsev divulged to m

he had already made an agreement with Ustinov. Under this agreement, Pil

would go with Ryazanskiy as his deputy, and I must transfer to NII-88 as d

to Pobedonostsev, the chief engineer. Pobedonostsev felt it necessary for p

362

7. MPSS—Ministerstvo Promyshlennosti Sredstv Svyazi.
siveness to add that he knew Ustinov a lot better than I did.“Believe me. He is a

very powerful man. One can work with him. I don’t know Gonor, but I have been

told that, in any case, he is a decent man and we will be able to get along with

him, especially since he is Ustinov’s man. It will be difficult for Sergey of course,

but we will help. Give your consent!”

And I did. I must confess that I liked the young, energetic Ustinov.And I wasn’t

the only one. Ryazanskiy said, “You know, I regret this assignment for only one

reason—instead of having a smart, energetic minister such as Ustinov, I will have

some spineless windbag or some indifferent bureaucrat over me.” It remained for

me to meet with Pilyugin. He waved it off and came to the following conclusion:

“We’re not getting a divorce.We’re still going to be in the same field.The main

thing and the saddest thing is that we’re both leaving the aircraft industry. They

didn’t want to take on the problems of missile technology. Ustinov is taking that

on.That means we have to help him.”

After the commission had dealt with personnel allocation and distribution, the

division of laboratories and production property went rather smoothly. Ustinov

demanded that we increase documentation so that no one would be denied the

necessary number of sets. But the originals, copies, and “copies from copies” had

to be stored in the NII-88 central archives.

Gaydukov and Korolev were ordered to prepare detailed reports concerning the

work conducted at the Institute Nordhausen, bearing in mind (this was the first

time this was said officially) that operations in Germany would be curtailed no

363

From the author’s archives.

S. P. Korolev, last photos at Bleicherode, 1947.
later than the end of that year.They did not name a specific date. Gonor fe

need to clarify that he would insist that Pobedonostsev, as well as Korolev’s d

for technical documentation and several other leading specialists, arrive in Po

no later than September.To fulfill this completely legitimate demand as ea

August and September, we began to gradually send our specialists to Moscow 

“its environs,” as the military used to joke, alluding to Podlipki, Bolshevo, a

the as yet unknown site of the missile test range.

After the relatively peaceful division of the laboratories, problems once 

arose.Who would get what in terms of the technical wealth that had been 

mulated over the course of more than a year? The two special trains were equ

in large part with the laboratories’ apparatus and testing equipment.The ins

in Moscow must have their own laboratories, but it would be impossible to 

them there.

After all of the emotional experiences,to the surprise of the Germans,we 

a hectic, redoubled effort to manufacture two more sets of special labo

equipment.Each set included the massive test benches for the control surface 

ators; the so-called “Häuserman pendulums,” the first primitive electromech

simulator for the adjustment of mischgeräte;all sorts of panels for testing gyro

instruments; a central distributor; a time-domain current distributor; and f

panels for the integrated tests of the entire missile.

The reviving German industry fulfilled our orders readily and rapidly

directors of the enterprises which contracted with the Institute Nordhausen 

already accustomed to impossible deadlines and they joked,“This again.‘Le

let’s go.’”

We paid them generously, almost without haggling, and by October w

turned out and procured a sufficient amount of equipment for the initial pe

By October we had also manufactured twelve missiles and had comp

their horizontal integrated testing. The horizontal tests proved to be the 

complicated technological process. From the first try, something always 

counter to the procedure and instructions. Display lights lit up, stayed il

nated, and went out regardless of the instructions. We had to develop a 

understanding of the operating logic behind the the general “ground-t

circuit in order to quickly figure out the causes for the malfunctions. As a 

the malfunctions were caused either by the inexperience of the operator/

or by equipment failures.

The horizontal test process provided us with a graphic demonstration 

low degree of reliability of the A-4’s electrical system as a whole. Out of the t

missiles, not one underwent testing without receiving ten negative remar

such reasons as “no contact when there should have been one” or “contact 

ent where it shouldn’t have been.”The latter cases were due to a short circ

smoke came out of the missile and all of the power supply sources shut do

technical council began to ask the eternal questions: “Who is to blame?

“What is to be done?”

364
In addition to these twelve missiles, we put together other assemblies and put

the final touches on them for the purposes of rocket assembly training at the

factory in Podlipki. The factory accumulated enough assemblies and performed

off-line tests for ten missiles.

in early october, all the main directors of the Institute Nordhausen were

assembled for a closed meeting in Gaydukov’s office. Here we saw Colonel

General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov for the first time.All we knew about him was

that he was Lavrentiy Beriya’s deputy for counterintelligence and an authorized

representative in that field in Germany who purportedly had no direct relation to

the NKVD office of internal repression.

Addressing all of us, Serov asked us to give some thought to making a list with

brief descriptions of those German specialists who in our opinion might be of use

working in the Soviet Union. To whatever extent possible, we would not take

superfluous specialists.We were to hand over our lists to Gaydukov.The German

specialists that we selected would be taken to the Soviet Union regardless of their

own wishes. The Americans had designated the German specialists whom they

needed “prisoners of war.” We would not act like that.We would allow the specialists to bring along their families and all of their household effects.We would know

the precise date very soon.There was already a resolution to that effect. All that

was required from us were fully-verified lists without errors. Specially trained

operations officers would carry out the operation.They would each have a military interpreter and soldiers to help load the personal effects.The German specialists would be told that they were being taken by decision of the military command

to continue the same work in the Soviet Union because it was no longer safe to

work in Germany.

“We will allow the Germans to take all their things with them,” said Serov,

“even furniture.We don’t have much of that. As far as family members, they can

go if they wish. If a wife and children wish to stay, then by all means. If the head

of the family demands that they go, we will take them. No action is required of

you except for a farewell banquet. Get them good and drunk—it will be easier to

endure the trauma.Don’t tell anyone about this decision so that a brain drain won’t

begin! A similar action will be underway simultaneously in Berlin and Dessau.”

We left this meeting with mixed feelings. It was difficult to meet and work with

the Germans and to seriously discuss future projects knowing that one night soon

they and their families would be “seized.”

Three days later the date was announced—from the late night to early morning hours of 22–23 October. On the evening of 22 October we held a banquet at

the Japan restaurant with a completely open bar for the Germans and a strict

prohibition against drinking for all Soviet specialists who were acting as hosts.The

banquet had been supposedly organized to commemorate the successful completion of the assembly and testing of the first dozen missiles. In all, around two

hundred people were “enjoying themselves.” This, of course, meant only the

365
Germans—the Russians were in a gloomy mood in light of the ban on dri

in the presence such a beautiful spread of hors d’oeuvres. The party broke 

about one o’clock in the morning.After returning home, I informed Katya f

first time about the operation that would be staged that night and asked th

wake me up at three o’clock.

At four o’clock in the morning, hundreds of military Studebakers beg

rumble through the streets of the quiet, soundly sleeping town. Each oper

officer had previously located the home that he was supposed to pull up to, s

there would be no confusion and needless fuss.At each home, the interpreter 

woke up the head of the household, and explained that she had an urgent 

from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Army. The dazed

asleep Germans didn’t immediately grasp why they needed to go to work 

Soviet Union at four o’clock in the morning, much less with their families a

their possessions. But the discipline, order, and the unquestioning subordinat

authority that had been drilled into them and under which the entire Ge

people had lived for many decades did the trick.An order is an order.They p

to be much more quick on the uptake, obedient, and submissive than w

assumed.There were no serious incidents or hysterics—with one minor exce

At five o’clock, Pilyugin called me and, stuttering from emotion, said that 

ations officers had come for him and asked him to drive over to Dr. Rule

had poisoned himself to make a point, and on his deathbed was requesting 

Pilyugin. I told him, “Go—just request a doctor to render first aid.” W

Pilyugin entered Rule’s apartment, Rule was lying there with a military d

bustling about him trying to determine how many pills he had taken.The d

told Pilyugin that the pills were harmless, that they were not life threatenin

that there was nothing here for her to do. Pilyugin asked Rule what he w

from him. Slurring his words, he demanded a guarantee that in the Soviet U

he would be offered work in his specialty together with Pilyugin—whom up 

now he had trusted—and not be sent to Siberia. Pilyugin gave his word, and 

that the incident was settled. Pilyugin really did appreciate Dr. Rule, and 

knownst to the other German specialists, the two of them were designing a l

tudinal acceleration integrator using new principles.

The second hitch took place at the Villa Franka. Frau Gröttrup announce

she could not starve her children. Here she had two beautiful cows, and if she 

not allowed to take them with her, she would refuse to go. Helmut Grö

declared that he would not go without his family. A communication wit

operational leadership ensued.They sent an immediate response: we guarante

we will hitch a goods wagon for the two cows to the special train and fill i

hay. Only who would milk them? Frau Gröttrup thanked them and anno

that she was prepared to milk them herself.

Now this incident was also settled.The owners supervised as the soldiers l

their possessions—everything that they possibly could have wanted—int

Studebakers. There wasn’t much furniture because almost all of the Ge

366
specialists lived in strangers’ apartments and the furniture did not belong to them.

The cars loaded with people and possessions headed for the Kleinbodungen train

station.There on a sidetrack stood a special train made up of sixty cars.The people

found places in the sleeping cars, and their possessions were loaded into the freight

cars under their supervision.

In the morning as I walked along the now quiet streets to the institute, solitary

Studebakers and military Jeeps were still scurrying about the town. Someone

forgot something; someone wanted to say one last farewell to his beloved.Without complaint, Serov’s staff complied with these requests.

When I appeared in my office, the institute’s most beautiful woman, Frau

Schäfer, who managed our archives and our Photostat, came flying in. She was

indignant because she had not been arrested and was not being taken to work in

the Soviet Union. Her husband was a prisoner of war there and if she were in the

Soviet Union she would certainly find him. “Why haven’t they taken me?” I

explained that they had taken only engineers and scientists and that Russia had

enough archivists, Photostat operators, and typists.

But she did not give in and demanded that I report to Gaydukov. Instead of

Gaydukov,I telephoned the commandant’s office where the temporary operational

headquarters was located.There, after some brief confusion, they made the following decision: “Give this Frau a car and let her go home immediately, gather her

things, and set off for the special train.”

Thus, Frau Schäfer turned out to be, perhaps, the only one who left on that

special train for Russia as a complete volunteer.

The fuss continued around the special train for another entire day until everyone

was arranged, everything that had been forgotten in the nighttime confusion was

fetched, all the abundant rations were passed out, and the two Gröttrup cows were

loaded.The Institutes RABE and Nordhausen switched over into liquidation mode.

All of the technical and maintenance personnel remained, the commercial

office did not move, and having received assurance that none of them would be

taken away, they set about the work of settling debts.We still had the big job ahead

of us of copying and collating sets of documentation, disassembling and packing

up the laboratory and production gear, and collecting the orders that remained

unfulfilled from subcontractor enterprises.The BON officers who also remained

in Germany for the time being were very helpful during this time.

Wrapping up operations on this scale took almost three months, and it was

not until January 1947 that the entire primary staff of the Institute Nordhausen

arrived with their families in Moscow at the Byelorusskiy train station. The

assembled missiles, missile parts, machine tools, instruments, equipment, and

automobiles that we had acquired as personal property, including Korolev’s

Horch, arrived in Podlipki ahead of us, and by the time we arrived, they had

already been partially “distributed.”The BON personnel and the hardware that

had been transferred to them—several A-4 missiles and ground equipment—did

not depart Thuringia for the State Central Firing Range that was under

367
construction until the summer of 1947.And that was the end of our almo

years of activity in Germany.

To this day the debate continues as to what significance the German ach

ments during World War II had in the development of our domestic missile 

ing industry.

I will attempt to briefly formulate my responses to that question. First, w

the Americans, British, and French, who had worked on the new typ

weaponry, were convinced that long-range automatically guided missiles we

a thing of the distant future, not fantasy, but a reality.There was a shared belie

in the future this type of weapon would certainly be used on much broader 

than the Germans had been capable of achieving.

Second, we had the capability, based not on literature but on our own ex

ence, to study the shortcomings and weak points of the German technolog

think about substantially improving it while we were still in Germany.

Third, missile technology attracted the attention of the all-powerful hie

of the Party, state, and military leadership.The resolution dated 13 May 194

the direct reaction to our activity in Germany, and of course also to a c

extent a response to the work being conducted in the United States on the 

of the same German technology.

Fourth, we acted correctly, having organized the study and restoration 

technology on German soil and taking advantage of the Germans’ still pow

368

From the author’s 

By the entrance of the Villa Franka: German journalist Karl Heinz, Ursula Gröttrup (Helmut

Gröttrup’s daughter), and B. Ye. Chertok—Bleicherode, Germany, 1992.
technical potential, with the participation of German specialists. It would have

been impossible to provide similar working conditions on that scale during the

first two postwar years in our own country.

Fifth, and this is perhaps one of the most crucial results, our work in Germany

produced more than a reconstruction of German technology. Korolev once gave a

very sound assessment of the work of the Soviet specialists in Germany:“The most

valuable thing that we achieved there was forming the basis of a solid creative team

of like-minded individuals.”

369

Index

09 rocket, 166

A

A-1 rocket, 243

A-2 rocket, 243

A-3 rocket, 243-244

A-4 rocket; see V-2 rocket

A-4b rocket, 266, 268

A-9 rocket, 266

A-9/10 rocket, 245, 263

A-11 rocket, 245

Abkhaziya, 114

Aborenkov,Viktor V., 168-171

Abramovich, Genrikh N., 265-266, 274-275, 283-284

Academy of Sciences (USSR/Russian), 1-2, 24, 26, 101, 145, 153, 266, 295, 349

Adlershof, 218-223, 229, 235, 273, 274, 334, 352

Adventures of Tom Sawyer,The, 33

AEG (company), 237, 253

Aelita (novel), 36

Afanasyev, Sergey A., 24-26

Air Force Academy; see Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy

Air Force Directorate, 93, 94, 102

Air Force NII, 61-62, 91, 99, 118, 124, 129, 157, 158, 162-163, 187, 188,

193-195, 220

Akademiya bomber, 99; see also DB-A

Alaska, 126, 132-136

Albring,Werner, 300, 347

Alekseyev,Anatoliy D., 121-122, 135

Alekseyev, Semyon M., 6

A Life Devoted to the Arctic (book), 137

Alksnis, Yakov I., 70, 82, 93, 99, 103-105, 107, 109, 119, 123, 131-132, 137,

142-143

All-Russian Council of the National Economy; see VSNKh

371
All-Union Electrical Engineering Institute; see VEI

Alshvang, 102, 133

Altshuler, Menasiy, I., 192

AM-34 engine, 62

AM-34FRN engine, 62

AM-34FRNV engine, 114

Annaberg, 275-276

Anna Karenina (novel), 46

Annushka aircraft, 107-110, 115, 127

Anschütz (company), 237

ANT-1; see TB-1 aircraft

ANT-3 (R-3) aircraft, 58

ANT-5 (I-4) aircraft, 58, 118

ANT-6; see TB-3 aircraft

ANT-9 aircraft, 59, 61

ANT-20 (Maxim Gorky) aircraft, 104, 142, 147

ANT-25, 118-120, 124, 142

ANT-40; see SB aircraft

ANT-42; see TB-7 aircraft

anti-Semitism, 16

Antwerp, 254-255

Apollo program, 306

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project; see ASTP

Appazov, Refat, F., 347

Aralov, 74

Arctic aviation exploits in the 1930s, Soviet, 63, 78, 117-138, 139

Arkhangelskiy,Aleksandr A., 79, 105, 111

Arkhidyakonskiy, 102

Armenia, 4

Artemyev,Vladimir A., 207

Artillery Academy, 170

Arzamas-16, 18

Askania (company), 159, 223, 226, 230, 232, 236, 237, 300, 358

ASTP (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), 25

Atlantic Ocean, 137

atomic bomb program (American), 218

atomic bomb program (German), 233, 247-250, 256

atomic bomb program (Soviet), 16, 18, 306

Aue, 275

Auschwitz, 215, 232

Austria, 114

Aviapribor Factory, 101, 237

aviation exploits of the 1930s, Soviet, 58-59, 117-138; see also Arctic av

exploits

372
Aviatrest, 64

Avro airplane, 37

Azerbaijan, 4

B

B bomber, 115, 152, 154, 173

B-17 American bomber, 105, 106

B-25 American bomber, 239-240, 257, 263, 273, 334

B-52 American bomber, 21

Babakin, Georgiy N., 6

Babington-Smith, Constance, 256

Babushkin, Mikhail S., 121-122

Bad Sachsa, 269

Bakhchivandzhi, Grigoriy Ya., 108, 246, 272; and development and testing of BI

rocket-plane, 187-199, 204

Baklanov, Oleg D., 23, 69

Bakovka, 140

Bakulin,V.A., 350

Balfour, Harold, 81

Balmont, Konstantin D., 53

Baltic Sea, 243, 256

Barabanov, 84-85, 105

Baranov, Petr I., 58, 61, 62, 70, 71, 83-84, 144

Barents Sea, 118

Barmin,Vladimir P., 5, 6, 19, 25, 348

Barrikady Factory, 15-16

Basdorf, 272, 273, 310, 337-338

Battle of Britain, 155, 162, 247

Battle of Kursk, 221, 246, 251

Battle of Stalingrad, 251

Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School; see MVTU

Baydukov, Grigoriy F., 110, 118-120, 124

Baykonur, 356

Becker, Karl Emil, 243

Bedarev, Oleg, 314-315

Beklemishev,Yuriy (Yuriy Krymov), 154-155, 336

Belarus, 4

Belgium, 154

Belousev, Igor S., 22-23

Belyakov,Aleksandr V., 124

Belyayev, 120

Bereznyak, Aleksandr Ya., 151-155, 160-163, 171-172, 173-178, 184-185, 208,

272, 295, 316, 347; and development and testing of BI rocket-plane, 187-199

373
Berg,Aksel I., 6, 206

Berga, 354

Bering Sea, 117, 135

Beriya, Lavrentiy P., 12, 13-14, 16, 18, 45-46, 98, 144, 218, 256, 320, 365

Berlin, 46, 218-238, 245, 249, 262, 265, 271-273, 278, 284, 292, 302, 315

325, 326, 328, 330, 334, 337, 340, 349, 352, 358, 365

Bibikov,Yakov L., 212-213

BI (or BI-1) rocket-plane, 108, 153, 212, 239, 246, 263, 268, 272, 283, 294

334, 336, 337; origins, 160-163, 173-178; development and testing, 187-

Bilimbay, 181-199, 272-273, 294, 326-327, 334

Black Sea, 153

Blasing, Manfred, 300

Blaupunkt (company), 231, 236

Bleicherode, 254, 269, 282, 286-298, 291, 295, 299, 301, 309-317, 319, 322

325, 330, 331, 336, 343, 347, 349-350, 352, 359-362

Blizna, 258

Blok,Aleksandr A., 46

Blyukher,Vasiliy K., 123

BM-13 Katyusha launcher, 170

BMW engines, 62, 191, 280

BMW-003 jet engine, 191, 280

Boeing aircraft, 58-59, 63, 102, 105-106, 114

Bogdanov, Nikolay, 76, 86

Bogomolov,Aleksey F., 6, 359

Boguslavskaya,Yelena, O., 315

Boguslavskiy,Yevgeniy Ya., 297, 314-315, 346-347, 359, 361

Bolkhovitinov,Viktor F., 99-111, 114-116, 124-126, 142, 147-155, 159, 171

181-185, 204-209, 212, 260-263, 265, 273-274, 294, 326-327, 335-336

moves to Kazan, 111; as “patron,” 127; involvement in 1937 arctic exped

127-138; development of BI rocket-plane, 187-199

Bolkhovitinov KB (or OKB-293), 99-111, 114-116, 147-155, 294, 327, 335

evacuation to Bilimbay, 181-185; development and testing of BI rocket-

187-199

Bolotov, Filip Ye., 55, 59

Bolshevik Party, 92, 140

Bolshevo, 364

BON (Special Purpose Brigade), 354-356, 367

Bonch-Bruyevich, Mikhail A., 44

Bornemann, Manfred, 353

Bosch (company), 89

Brabant radar, 267

Bredt, Irene, 263-265

Brehm,Alfred, 47

374
Brest, 240

Brezhnev, Leonid I., 15, 24, 26

“Brezhnev Stagnation,” 4

Brinkovskaya village, 198

Bryusov,Valeriy Ya., 41, 46

Buchenwald, 232, 278

Buchow, 219, 225, 229

Budennyy, Semyon M., 123

Budnik,Vasiliy S., 347, 349-350, 350

Bukharin, Nikolay N., 39

Bulganin, Nikolay A., 13

Bund (social democratic party), 30

Bunkin, Boris V., 6

Buran (Soviet space shuttle), 27, 178-179

Burund radar, 267

Bushuyev, Konstantin D., 180

Butyrka (prison), 330

Buzukov,Anatoliy, 100-101, 128, 183, 187

Bykov,Yuriy S., 6, 202, 213

Byushgens, Georgiy S., 178-179

C

Canada, 136

Cape Schmidt, 133

Captain Grant’s Children (literary work), 36

Catherine the Great, 184

Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute; see TsAGI

Central Committee, 12, 16, 22, 20, 69, 82, 97, 182, 297, 320-321, 330, 345, 353

Central Design Bureau; see TsKB

Central Design Bureau-29; see TsKB-29

Central Specialized Design Bureau; see TsSKB

Cheka (ChK, Extraordinary Commission), 67

Chelomey,Vladimir N., 6, 21, 24, 25

Chelyuskin expedition, 59, 118, 123

Chernaya river, 48

Chernenko, 331, 354

Chernyshev, Nikolay G., 283

Chertok, Boris Ye., 2, 12, 368; early childhood, 29-39, 31, 32; schooling, 41-55;

work at Factory No. 22, 57-98; joins Komsomol at Factory No. 22, 72-73; joins

Communist Party, 74; Party purges, 85-87; meets wife, 88-89; becomes MEI

student, 93-94; work at Bolkhovitinov KB in 1930s, 99-111; joins KOSTR,

111-116; involvement in 1937 arctic expedition, 117-138; Great Purges,

139-145; student at MEI, 147-148, 150-151; returns to Bolkhovitinov KB,

375
148-156; becomes father, 150; during evacuation to Urals, 173-185, 18

development and testing of BI rocket-plane, 187-199; returns to Mo

201-209, 205; ends work under Bolkhovitinov, 208-209; goes to Germa

1945, 213-269; work at Thuringia, 271-276; arrives at Nordhausen, 277

formation of Institute RABE, 287-298; recruitment of German scientist

war, 299-307; meeting Korolev and Glushko, 325-343; work in Institute N

hausen, 345-369, 352, 355

Chertok, Sofiya B. (Chertok’s mother), 29-30, 41-42, 68, 98, 181-182, 196

death of, 192

Chertok,Valentin B. (Chertok’s son), 154, 174-175, 181-182, 186, 203-204

Chertok,Yevsey M. (Chertok’s father), 30, 41-42, 46, 47, 86, 186, 192, 203

death of, 204

Childhood (literary work), 41

China, 75

Chistyakov, Nikolay I., 202, 213-214, 223-225, 228-229, 231

Chizhikov, Semyon G., 101, 108, 127, 133, 154-155, 180, 183, 185, 187, 216

296, 300-305, 349-352, 350

Chkalov,Valeriy P., 120, 124, 137, 139

Chukchi Sea, 118, 135

Chukotka peninsula, 134

Churchill,Winston, 10, 258-260, 320

Chusovaya river, 184-186

Civil War; see Russian Civil War

Chuykov,Vasiliy I., 285, 290

Clubb, Jerry, 306

Cold War, 8, 11, 20

Comintern, 75, 97

Commission for the Development of the Scientific Legacy of the Pione

Space Exploration, 2

Commission of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers for Mil

Industrial Issues; see VPK

Cooper, James Fenimore, 36

Council of Chief Designers, 5-7

Council of Labor and Defense, 118, 164

Council of Ministers, 16, 18, 22, 83

Council of People’s Commissars, 118

Council on Radar, 235

Curie, Pierre and Maria, 7

Cuxhaven, 331-332

376
D

D bomber, 173-175

Dahlem, 233

Danilin, Sergey A., 124, 162

Darmstadt, 245

DB-3 (TsKB-30) bomber, 142

DB-A bomber, 99-111, 114-115, 124-126, 142, 147, 152, 162, 173, 335; 1937

arctic expedition, 127-138, 139, 215

DC-3 aircraft, 148

Debica, 257-260

Decembrist movement, 48

Degtyarenko, Grigoriy I., 359

De Havilland airplane, 37

Dementyev, Petr,A., 322

Denikin,Anton I., 75

Denisov,A.A., 90

Dessau, 345, 365

Dickson Island, 135

Diest, 255

Directorate of Military Inventions, 93-95, 166

Dnepropetrovsk, 19-20, 25

Dobrovolskaya, Larisa, 73, 76, 84-85, 158

“Doctor’s Plot,” 16

Donets basin, 75

Dora concentration camp, 253, 255, 277-286, 307, 336

Dorfman, 83

Dornberger,Walter R., 241, 243-269, 305-307

Dornier aircraft, 37, 157

Doronin, I., 119

Douglas aircraft, 148, 214, 261, 273, 274

Douhet, Giulio, 62, 63, 103-106, 257

Dresden, 245, 275, 300, 313

Dudakov,Vyacheslav I., 167

Duks Factory, 33

Dushkin, Leonid S., 168, 171-172, 176, 180, 188, 196, 272, 283, 326

DVL (German Aviation Research Institute), 217, 220-221, 226

Dynamit AG (company), 253

Dzerzhinskiy, Feliks E., 39

Dzyuba, Nikolay A., 173

377
E

Einstein,Albert, 3, 7, 49, 139

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 20

Elbe-Dnepr publishing house, 1

Electronic Tubes (textbook), 46

Electrophysics Institute, 306

Elektropribor Factory, 101, 237

Elektrosvet Factory, 101

Elektrozavod (Electrical Factory), 67, 237

Energiya rocket, 179

Energiya-Buran system, 27-28, 263

Erfurt, 316, 359

Estonia, 154

European Space Agency (ESA), 266

Eydeman, Robert E., 77, 123

Eyger, 97

F

Factory No. 1, 21

Factory No. 16, 191-192, 330, 341

Factory No. 22, 43, 55, 57-98, 105, 111, 112, 121-122, 124, 140, 142-143

155, 158, 163, 294, 326-327, 331

Factory No. 23, 21, 110; see also M.V. Khrunichev Factory

Factory No. 84, 148

Factory No. 88, 14, 19

Factory No. 293, 148-149, 157, 202, 206-207, 294, 336

Factory No. 456, 19

Factory No. 586, 19-20

Farmakovskiy, Sergey, F., 101

Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), 244

Fedorov, Petr I., 11, 194-197, 208, 260-261

Feldman, B.M., 123

Fi 103 flying bomb; see V-1 cruise missile

Fili, 21, 33-34, 55, 57-98, 101, 122, 177

Finland, 144, 154

First Circle,The (novel), 46

First Main Directorate of the Council of Ministers, 321

First Main Directorate of the VSNKh, 71

Flerov, Ilya, 173

Flight-Research Institute; see LII

Flying Fortress aircraft, 102, 106, 114

Fokker aircraft, 37, 59

378
Fotolet organization, 148, 150

France, 154, 256, 301

Franco, 112

Frankfurt, 219

Franz Joseph Land, 136

French Revolution, 30, 33, 48

Freud, Sigmund, 49

Freya radar, 235

Friedenau, 230

Frolov, 102, 127, 129-130

Frunze district, 77

Fufayev, D.V., 55, 59

G

Gagarin,Yuriy A., 20, 197-199, 215

Galkovskiy, Nikolay,Ya., 129-130

Galkovskiy,Vladimir N., 167, 168-171

Gas Dynamics Laboratory; see GDL

GAU (Main Artillery Directorate), 12, 13, 14, 167-171, 240, 296-297, 316, 323,

325, 333, 348, 355

Gaydukov, Lev. M., 12-13, 17, 282, 297, 320-323, 328; and formation of Institute

Nordhausen, 345-349, 365, 367

GDL (Gas Dynamics Laboratory), 142, 341-342; history of, 164-166

Geheimprojekt Mittelbau (book), 353

Georgia, 4, 114

Gera, 275

Gerasyuta, 347

German atomic bomb program; see atomic bomb (German)

German concentration camps; see Nazi concentration camps; see also separate

concentration camp names

German scientists, Soviet recruitment of in 1945, 299-307; deportation to Soviet

Union, 365-369; see also individual German names

German-Soviet cooperation in 1920s, 57-58

Germany, mission to seize rocket technology in, 223-238

Gestapo, 232, 250, 253, 282, 307

GIRD (Group for the Study of Reactive Motion), 165-166, 326, 332

GKChP coup in 1991, 69

GKO (State Committee for Defense), 11, 176, 181, 183, 196, 212, 214, 235

Glavaviaprom (Main Directorate of the Aviation Industry), 83, 99, 114, 121, 125,

127

Glavsevmorput (Main Directorate of the North Sea Route), 59, 118, 121, 135

Glukhov, 93, 94

379
Glushko,Valentin P., 5, 6, 9, 12, 25, 26, 108, 163, 196, 204-205, 207, 272, 320

326-332, 334-340, 345-347; early career, 165-168; arrest and incarcer

168, 191-192, 326-327, 330-331; arrives in Germany, 340-343

Goddard, Robert F., 3, 239

Godovikov,Aleksey N., 78

Godovikov, Nikolay N., 67, 78, 82, 84, 88, 98, 107, 113, 126-138, 131

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 290

Gogol, Nikolay,V., 46, 51, 327

Goldobenkov,Aleksandr K., 128

Gollender, 263

Golovin, Pavel G., 121-122, 135

Goloventsova, Galina G., 180

Golubkin, Semyon S. (Chertok’s wife’s father), 140

Golubkina,Aleksandra S. (Chertok’s wife’s aunt), 140

Golubkina,Anna S. (Chertok’s wife’s aunt), 88-89, 140-141

Golubkina, Kseyniya T. (Cherto’s wife’s mother), 153

Golubkina,Vera N., 88

Golubkina,Yekaterina (Katya) S. (Chertok’s wife), 88-89, 99-100, 104, 105

114, 140-141, 150, 153-154, 174-175, 181-182, 185-186, 203-204, 274

319, 334-335, 352, 359, 366

Gomel, 29

Gonor, Lev R., 15-16, 361, 363-364

Goltsman, 83

Gorbachev, Mikhail S., 69

Gorbunov, Sergey P., 63-64, 65, 69, 71-73, 76-83, 86, 181

Gorbunov,Vladimir, P., 83, 128

Gorelik, 102

Gorizont gyroscope system, 357

Gorkiy, 143

Gorky Radio Factory, 127

Goryshnyy, 287-290

Gosplan (State Planning Commission), 17, 22, 83, 230, 361

Gratsianskiy, 135

Great Britain, 157, 245, 251-252, 268, 307

“Great Purges,” 9-10, 98, 123, 137, 139-145, 168

Grechko,Andrey A., 25

Greenland, 137

Gromov, Mikhail M., 59, 61, 62, 118, 119, 124, 137, 139

Gröttrup, Helmut, 249-250, 266, 268, 302-307, 345; work in Institute N

hausen, 347-348; deportation to USSR, 366

Gröttrup, Irmgard, 301-303, 366

Gröttrup, Ursula, 368

Group for the Study of Reactive Motion; see GIRD

380
Groznyy, 75

Grushin, Petr D., 149

Gruzdev, Konstantin A., 196-198

GTsP-4 (or GTsP), 14, 353, 355, 357, 367-368; see also Kapustin Yar

Guards Mortar Units (of the Supreme Command Headquarters), 11-13, 240,

296-298, 322, 325, 330, 333, 354

Gukhman, 283

GULAG (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps), 141

GURVO (Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments), 170, 355

Gvay, Ivan I., 168

Gvozdev, Zinovey M., 180

Gzhatsk, 180

H

Haase oxygen plant, 338-339

Hamburg, 331

Hannover, 245, 347

Hansa radar, 267

Harris,Arthur Travers, 257

Hartmann-Braun (company), 222, 237

Hawaii, 336

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friederich, 139, 145

Heinkel aircraft, 157, 272

Heinz, Karl, 368

Heisenberg,Wernher, 247, 249, 250, 345

Henschel (company), 267

Hermann, 345

Hero of our Times (literary work), 46

Hessler,Alfred, 274-275, 284, 286, 310-311, 316

Hettingen University, 300

Himmler, Heinrich, 257

Hiroshima (and atomic bomb), 218, 249

Hitler,Adolf, 63, 154, 157, 201, 217, 243, 245, 247, 251-252, 262, 268, 269, 290-

291

Hitler Youth, 276

Hoch, Hans, 299-300, 302, 358

I

I fighter, 114-115, 150, 155, 161, 173, 175

I-4 fighter plane, 78, 165

I-15 fighter plane, 142, 167

I-16 Ishak aircraft, 112, 142, 167

I-153 Chaika aircraft, 112, 142, 167

381
Ibershtein, Zhenya, 101

Il-2 attack aircraft, 159, 171, 216

Il-78 tanker aircraft, 138

Ilyushin, Sergey V., 159

“Industrial Party Affair,” 110

Institute Berlin, 14, 348

Institute Nordhausen, 12, 14, 282, 341; formation of, 345-367

Institute of Telemechanics, 94

Institute RABE, 12, 14, 299, 302, 309-317, 319, 323, 325, 328, 331, 333-334

343; formation of, 287-298; Operation Ost, 300-305; subsumed by In

Nordhausen, 345-350, 356-359, 367

Integrator gyroscope system, 357

Iosifyan,Andronik G., 6, 115, 358

Ipswijk, 255

Irving, David, 247-248

Isayev, Aleksey M., 6, 102, 107-109, 114-115, 127, 150-155, 160-163, 172

178, 181-183, 204-205, 208, 212, 240, 260-263, 265, 272-273, 277-279

285-286, 287-297, 292-294, 309-310, 313-318, 322, 327, 334-337, 341

development and testing of BI rocket-plane, 187-199

Isayeva,Tatyana, N., 154, 315-316

Isayeva,Vanya, 155

Itskovich, Zalman, I., 173

I.V. Stalin Automobile Factory, 342

Izvestiya (newspaper), 81, 179

J

Japan (country), 59

Japan (restaurant), 352, 365

Jena, 275, 357

Jeschonnek, 257

jet engine development, Soviet, 189-191, 321-322

JUMO, 212

JUMO-004 jet engine, 191, 280

Junkers (aircraft), 37, 59, 74, 112, 157, 247

Junkers (factories), 345

Junkers, Hugo, 37, 57-58

K

Kabardino-Balkariya, 114

Kadyshevich,Abo, D., 206, 267, 273

Kaganovich, Lazar M., 84

Kaganovich, Mikhail S., 84, 107, 144

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 233

382
K.A. Kalinin Design Bureau, 61

Kalinin Design Bureau, see K.A. Kalinin Design Bureau

Kaliningrad, 14

Kalmykov,Valeriy D., 17

Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 257, 282

Kaluga, 3, 180

Kamanin, Nikolay P., 119

Kammler, Hans, 255, 261-262

Kamov-Mil design bureau, 184

Kan, Saveliy N., 102

Kapitsa, Petr L., 21

Kaplun,Aleksandr, 349

Kapustin Yar firing range, 13, 258, 262, 355-357; see also GTsP-4

Karamyshevskaya Dam, 33, 79

Karl Zeiss (company), 237, 357

Kashira, 183

Kastanayev, Nikolay G., 108-110, 124, 126-138, 131

Katayev,Valentin P., 73-74

Katyusha rockets, 11, 13, 167-171, 189, 207, 212, 267, 322, 348

Kazakhstan, 4

Kazan, 111, 114, 124-125, 142, 147, 150, 152, 191, 272, 305, 327, 330-331, 340-

343

Kazan Aircraft Factory, 111, 173

KB-22, 99

Keldysh, Mstislav V., 5, 24, 274

Kerber, Leonid L., 128-129, 141-142, 144

Kerimov, Kerim A., 298, 359

KGB (Committee for State Security), 16

Khabarovsk, 120

Khalkin-Gol engagement, 63, 143

Kharchev,Vasiliy I., 294-296, 300-305, 316-317, 350

Kharkov, 75

Kharkov Aviation Institute, 190

Kharkov Instrument Building Factory, 69

Khimki, 19, 25, 148, 151-155, 175-176, 181-183, 186, 203, 107, 272, 336, 337-

338, 342, 362

Khodynka, 36-37, 47, 61, 77, 119, 122, 177

Khoroshevskiy Serebryanyy Bor, 34

Khrisantov, 84-85

Khrunichev Factory; see M.V. Khrunichev Factory

Khrunichev State Rocket-Space Scientific Industrial Center, 21

Khrushchev, Nikita S., 15, 18, 70; and space program, 20-22, 24, 26

“Khrushchev Thaw,” 141

383
Khrustalev,Vladimir A., 6

Kiev, 80, 143, 208, 261

Kirichenko, 102

Kirov, Sergey M., 97-98

Kirov Factory, 189-191

Kislovodsk, 152, 166

Kisunko, Grigoriy V., 6

Kleinbodungen, 282, 296, 313, 333, 340, 345, 347, 350, 355, 357

Klevanskiy,Aleksandr, 85-86

Kleymenov, Ivan T., 9, 165-168, 326, 330

Knorre, 283

Kochetov, Ivan, 225

Kohl, Helmut, 269

Kohnstein Mountain, 277, 280

Koktebel, 108, 153-155, 335-336

Kolesnichenko, Ivan S., 290-291

Kolomensk Locomotive Building Factory, 110

Koltsovo, 188, 193, 197

Kolyma, 45, 330

Kommissarov, Boris A., 356

Kompressor Factory, 348

Komsomol, 63-64, 67, 70-73, 158

Komsomolsk, 120

Komsomolsk-on-Amur, 142

Kondratyuk,Yuriy V. (Aleksandr I. Shargey), 239

Konoplev, Boris M., 122

Koonen,Alisa, 76

Kork, 123

Korolev, Sergey P., 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 18-19, 25, 26, 44, 96, 151, 170, 207, 272, 294

305, 320-321, 336; work in 1930s, 166-168; arrest and incarceration, 168

329-331, 340-341; Nobel Prize, 20-21; arrives in Germany, 325-332; le

ship in Institute Nordhausen, 345-369, 350, 351, 354, 363

Korolev (city), 25

Koroleva, Natalya S., 44, 46, 359-360

Kosberg, Semyon A., 6

Kosmonavtika (book), 341

Kostikov,Andrey G., 164, 166-168, 171-172, 176, 188, 196, 205, 272, 326

KOSTR (Design Department of Construction), 58, 70, 73, 77, 79-80, 83, 8

111-116, 121, 139-140, 158, 163

Kostrzyn, 219

Kozlov, 62

Kozlov, Dmitriy, I., 6, 349

Kozlovskaya, Lidiya P., 87-88, 104

384
Krasin (ship), 135

Krasnoznamensk, 25

Krasnaya Presnya, 34, 42-43

Krasnaya Presnya Factory, 54-55

Krasnaya Zarya Factory, 94, 238

Krasnoyarsk, 16

Krenkel, Ernest T., 123

Kreiselgeräte factory, 230-231, 278

Kronstadt, 47-48

Krug, 126

Krupp (company), 253, 300, 347

Krupskaya, Nadezhda K., 39

Krymov,Yuriy; see Yuriy Beklemishev

Kuban river, 198

Kudrin, Boris, N., 150, 178, 179, 187, 334

Kuksenko, Pavel N., 44

Kulebakin,Viktor S., 150

Kulik, Grigoriy I., 169-171

Kumerov, 256

Kümmersdorf, 244, 338

Kuntsev, 33

Kuntz,Albert, 253

Kurchatov, Igor V., 6, 95-96, 218

Kurilo,Yevgeniy M., 295-296, 333, 345, 347, 351

Kuritskes,Yakov M., 101-102, 105

Kuteynikov, 302-303

Kutovoy, Slava, 49-50

Kuybyshev, 21, 142

Kuznetsov, Nikolay N., 296-297, 299, 316, 319

Kuznetsov,Viktor I., 5, 6, 25, 231, 278-279, 297, 346, 357

Kvochur,Anatoliy N., 137

L

LaGG-1 fighter aicraft, 159

Lake Khasan, 144

“Land of the Soviets” aircraft, 58, 80, 82

Langemak, Georgiy E., 9, 11, 163, 165-168, 326-327, 330, 341

Larionov,Andrey N., 147

Lavochkin, Semyon A., 330

Lavrov, 347

Latvia, 154

Lebedev, Pashka, 39

Lehesten, 269, 294, 295, 310, 316, 322, 329, 333-343, 345, 347, 357

385
Leipzig, 359

Lend-Lease program, 206, 334

Lenin,Vladimir I., 38-39, 44, 48, 64

Lenin Enrollment, 39

Leningrad, 47-48, 187, 189-190, 192, 201, 237, 303, 352

“Leningrad Affair,” 18

Leningrad Military-Mechanical Engineering Institute, 349

Leningrad Mining Institute, 170

Leningrad Physics and Technical Institute, 96, 162

Leningrad Special Technical Bureau, 61

Leningrad Telemechanics NII, 94-95

Leninsk, 25; see also Baykonur

Lepse Factory, 101, 128, 237

Levanevskiy, Sigizmund A., 118-120, 119, 124-138, 131, 139, 145, 215, 335

Levchenko,Viktor, I., 118-120, 128-138, 131

Levin, Gerts A., 213

Li-2 aircraft, 148, 352; see also DC-3

Lidorenko, Nikolay S., 6

Liège, 255

Life Devoted to the Arctic,A (book), 137

Life of Animals (book), 47

LII (Flight-Research Institute), 150, 178, 181-182, 220, 222, 236

Likhobory, 222, 272

Lille, 19

List, Grigoriy N., 342-343

Lisunov, Boris P., 148

Lithuania, 154

Lódz, 29-30

Loewe Radio factory, 236

Lohengrin radar, 267

Loktionov,Aleksandr D., 143

London, 155, 254-255, 332

Lorentz (company), 222, 231, 232, 234, 236, 237

Los Angeles, 124

Losyakov, Sergey N., 47, 49-50, 202, 205-206, 213, 236

Lozovskiy, Petr, 58, 78

Lübke, Heinrich, 244

Luftwaffe, 157-158, 217, 244, 246-247, 257, 266

Lukin, Makar, M., 338

Lukyanov, Sasha, 68

lunar program; for manned lunar program, see N1-L3

Luss, Eduard E., 203-204

Lyalya, 292, 316-317

386
Lyamin, 77-79

Lyapidevskiy,A.V., 59, 119

Lyulka,Arkhip M., 188-190, 203-204, 213

M

M-17 air engine, 62, 79

M-34 air engine, 79

M-34FRN air engine, 108, 115, 127

Magdeburg, 275, 338

Magnitogorsk, 108

Magnus, Kurt, 221, 299-300, 302, 358

MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute), 101, 140, 147, 274

Maidanek (Nazi camp), 232

Main Artillery Directorate; see GAU

Main Directorate for Rocket Technology, 16

Main Directorate of Reactive (or Rocket) Armaments; see GURVO

Main Directorate of the Aviation Industry; see Glavaviaprom

Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Routes; see Glavsevmorput

Makeyev,Viktor P., 6

Malakhov, Fedor, 58, 64, 69

Malenkov, Georgiy M., 13, 14, 321

Malinovskiy,Aleksandr A., 51

Malyshev,Vyacheslav A., 12, 16-17, 18-19, 218

Malyshka,V. M., 90

manned lunar program; see N1-L3

Manometr Factory, 237

Mariendorf, 230

Marx, Karl, 140

Mashinostroyeniye publishing house, 1

Maslyukov,Yuriy D., 22

Mattern, Jimmy, 118, 124

Maxim Gorky aircraft, see ANT-20

Maxwell, James K., 7

Mayorov, 97, 130

Mazuruk, Ilya P., 121-122, 136

Medyn, 180

MEI (Moscow Power Engineering Institute), 57, 93-94, 100, 137, 139, 150, 154,

359

Meillerwagen, 254

Melitopol, 130

Mendeleyev, Dmitriy I., 7

Mensheviks, 30, 39, 86

Meretskov, Kirill A., 169

387
Meshcherskiy, Ivan V., 3

Messerschmitt,Willy, 198

Messerschmitt Me 109 aircraft, 63, 106, 112, 157, 160

Messerschmitt Me 110 aircraft, 157

Messerschmitt Me 163, 198, 216, 267, 272-273, 337

Messerschmitt Me 262 jet, 212, 280

Messina telemetry system, 357, 359

Messina-1 telemetry system, 258

Meuse valley, 255

MGU (Moscow State University), 49, 206, 303

Miass, 25

Midgetman missile, 254

MiG-3 fighter aicraft, 159

Mikoyan (ship), 135

Mikoyan,Artem I., 159

Mikulin,Aleksandr A., 62, 108, 114

Milch, Erhard, 250

Military-Industrial Commission; see VPK

military-industrial complex (Soviet/Russian), 23

Milshtein,Viktor N., 202, 213

Ministry of Armaments, 361

Ministry of Aviation Industry, 361

Ministry of Communications Systems Industry (MPSS), 362

Ministry of Defense, 20, 25-26

Ministry of General Machine Building, see MOM

Ministry of Medium Machine Building, 233

Minuteman missile, 254

Mir space station, 27

Mirnyy, 25; see also Plesetsk

Mishin,Vasiliy P., 12, 96, 208, 260, 323, 336, 356, 361; at Bolkhovitinov KB

183; arrives in Germany, 295; Institute Nordhausen, 347, 349-350, 350

Mitkevich, Olga A., 75-76, 79-93, 97-98, 99, 108, 155

Mittelbau, 280

Mitteldorf, 287

Mittelwerk factory, 252-253, 256, 258, 269, 277-286, 294, 306, 323, 339, 347

Mnatsakanyan,Armen S., 6

Mnevniki, 31, 126

Moiseyev,Yakov, N., 58

Mokhovskiy, 136

Molokov,Vasiliy S., 119, 122, 135

Molotov,Vyacheslav M., 174-175

“Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” 179-180

MOM (Ministry of General Machine Building), operations of, 23, 24, 298

388
Monino, 109

Montania Factory, 347, 357

Moorcroft, John, 46

More,Thomas, 48

Morozov, 77

Moscow, 16, 31, 34, 36-38, 42-43, 47, 59, 68, 71, 75, 76, 80-83, 88-89, 92, 98, 101,

114, 118, 124, 126, 129-130, 133, 135, 137-138, 142, 145, 161, 164-167, 176-

177, 181-188, 196-197, 201-209, 220, 235, 237, 261, 265, 272-273, 293-294,

297, 300, 309, 319-320, 322, 327, 330, 333-334, 336, 338, 340, 343, 346, 347,

352, 357, 367

Moscow Aviation Institute; see MAI

Moscow Commercial Institute, 75

Moscow House of Scientists, 136

Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, 50

Moscow Power Engineering Institute; see MEI

Moscow Radio Factory, 127

Moscow river, 31, 38, 55, 73, 78, 80, 104, 334, 336

Moscow State University; see MGU

Moscow-Volga Canal, 33, 175, 180-181, 183

Moshkovskiy,Yakov D., 77, 121

Mozhaysk, 180

Mozzhorin,Yuriy A., 298, 347

Mrykin,Aleksandr G., 348-349, 350

Müller, 291

Munich, 353

Murmansk, 118

Musatov, 316-317, 355

M.V. Keldysh Research Center, 10

M.V. Khrunichev Factory, 21-22, 57

MVTU (Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School), 24, 54, 93

Myasishchev,Vladimir M., 21

N

N1 heavy lunar rocket, 27

N1-L3 manned lunar landing project, 25, 26

N-2 hydroplane, 135

N-209 aircraft; see DB-A

Nadashkevich,Aleksandr V., 79, 97

Nadiradze,Aleksandr N., 6

Nagasaki, 249

Narkomtyazhprom (People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry), 84, 111, 164

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), 25, 27

National Aeronautics and Space Administration; see NASA

389
National Air and Space Museum, 307

Nauen, 227

Nazi concentration camps, 215, 232, 253, 277-286; see also Dora

Nedelin, Mitrofan I., 12

“Nedelin Disaster,” 12

NEP (New Economic Policy) era, 37, 42, 67-68, 86

Nekrasov, Nikolay A., 46

Nemenov, L. M., 96

Nesterenko,Aleksey I., 13

Netherlands,The, 154, 255-256

Neufeld, Michael. J., 307

New Economic Policy; see NEP

Newport airplane, 37

New York, 45, 58, 80, 263

Neyman, 185

NII-1 institute, 10, 211, 221, 222, 259-261, 265, 273, 291, 319, 323, 326-327

338, 342, 361; transformed from NII-3, 207; see also RNII

NII-3 institute, 10, 164, 167-172, 174, 205, 326; becomes NII-1, 207; se

RNII

NII-4 institute, 12, 14

NII-20 institute, 162-163, 359

NII-88 institute, 13, 14, 15-16, 19-20, 298, 341, 361-362

NII-627 institute, 358

NII-885 institute, 19, 359

NII SKA (Scientific-Research Institute of Communications of the Red A

162

NII TP (Scientific-Research Institute for Thermal Processes), 10

Nikolayev (area), 75

NISO (Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment), 202, 205, 212-213, 222, 

Nirenburg, Lev, 52-53

Nitrogen Institute, 207

Nizhnaya salda, 25

Nizhnekhodynskaya Factory, 32, 38, 43

NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs), 120, 137, 139-145, 191

330-331, 340, 341

Noga (company), 138

Nogayevo Bay, 135

Noordwijk, 255

Nordhausen, 253-254, 269, 271-286, 292-293, 307, 309-317, 322-323, 329

339, 342, 345-367

Norway, 139, 154, 256

Nosov,Aleksandr I., 356

390
Novikov,Aleksandr A., 213

Novopolotsk, 25

Novosibirsk, 182

NPO Avtomatiki i priborostroyeniya, 294

Nuremberg trial, 262

N.Ye. Zhukovskiy Red Army Air Force Academy; see Zhukovskiy Red Army Air

Force Academy

Nyukhtikov, Mikhail A., 103, 110, 124, 136

O

Oberammergau, 267

Oberdorf, 287

Oberth, Hermann, 3, 7, 239, 250, 305

October Revolution; see Russian Revolution (October 1917)

OGPU (United State Political Directorate), 205

OKB-1 design bureau, 170

OKB-2 design bureau (MKB Fakel), 149

OKB-2-155 design bureau, 152

OKB-23 design bureau, 21

OKB-52 Branch No. 1, 21

OKB-293; see Bolkhovitinov KB

OKB-456, 343

OKB-586 design bureau, 20

Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiiya (ship), 48

Olekhnovich, 94

Olympia Design Bureau, 347

Omega (radio station), 127, 130

Omsk, 45, 330

Onward! Time, 73-74

Operation Barbarossa, 157

Operation Ost, 299-307

Operation Paperclip, 285

Optimistic Tragedy (literary work), 73, 76

Ordzhonikidze, Sergo, 9, 64, 71, 84, 99, 107

Ordway, Frederick I., 307

organization of Soviet rocket industry; see Soviet rocket industry

ORM-65 rocket engine, 167

Osoaviakhim (society), 77, 78, 165, 166

Ovchinnikov,Anatoliy, I., 140

Ovchinnikov, Ivan, I., 139-140

391
P

Pallo,Arvid V., 172, 188, 189, 194, 240, 241, 272, 285, 316, 334-340, 347

Papanin, Ivan D., 63, 122-123, 135

Paris, 96-97, 254, 258

Pashkov, Georgiy N., 14, 361

Pavlenko,Aleksey P., 168

Pe-2 dive bomber, 159, 163, 173, 179, 272

Peenemünde, 11, 12, 212, 231, 232, 239-269, 272, 273, 296, 300, 306-307

338

People’s Commissariat of Ammunition, 168

People’s Commissariat of Armaments, 322-323

People’s Commissariat of Aviation Industry, 147-148, 159-160, 176, 181

211-212, 273-274, 321-322, 331, 338

People’s Commissariat of Defense, 212

People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry; see Narkomtyazhprom, 84

People’s Commissariat of Military and Naval Affairs, 94

Percival radar, 267

Peresvet, 25

Pervova, Larisa, 187, 338

Pesotskiy, 102

Petlyakov,Vladimir M., 159, 173, 330

Petropavlovskiy, Boris S., 164-165

Petrov, 83

Petrov, Nikolay I., 208, 213, 215-216, 219

Petukhov, Petya (Petushok), 71, 72, 76

Phillips (company), 222

Pilyugin, Nikolay A., 5, 6, 12, 25, 207-208, 260-261, 274, 279, 294, 295, 297

305, 309, 313, 319, 323, 330, 331, 341, 342, 345-346, 350, 354-355, 356

361-362, 366

Pilyugina, Nadezhda (Nadya), N., 360

Pilyugina,Antonina (Tonya) K., 359

Plotnikov, 83

Pobedonostsev,Yuriy A., 9, 166, 168, 188, 207-208, 260, 297, 321, 325-328

332, 341; leadership in Institute Nordhausen, 345-347 350, 352, 360-36

Pobezhimov, Grigoriy,T., 127-138, 131

Podlipki, 358, 364-365, 367

Podolsk, 83

Poem About an Axe (literary work), 73

Pogodin (Nikolay F. Stukalov), 73-74

Point Barrow, 135

Poland, 10, 29, 208, 255-261, 340

Polikarpov, Nikolay N., 112

Politburo, 24, 61, 75, 84, 124, 334, 340

392
Ponomarev, Boris N., 83, 88

Popov, 168

Popov, Roman I., 206-207, 208, 261, 267, 273

Pospelov, Germogen S., 139, 145, 153

Postyshev, Pavel P., 70, 72

Powers, Francis Gary, 149

Prague, 245, 347

Pravda (newspaper), 69, 212

Primakov, 123

PRIPO (appliance design department), 70

Progress Factory, 21, 349

purges, 85-86, 98; see also Great Purges

Pushkin,A. I., 41, 48

Pustleben, 287

Putna, 123

Pyshnov,Vladimir S., 152, 193-196

R

R-1 rocket, 13, 19-20, 351

R-3 reconnaissance aircraft, 102

R-2 rocket, 19-20

R-5 reconnaissance aircraft, 102, 142

R-5M strategic rocket, 18

R-6 aircraft, 59, 61, 83, 122, 142

R-7 ICBM, 18-19, 20, 356

R-16 ICBM, 12, 122, 356

Ramzin, Leonid, K., 110

rape, problem of, in Nordhausen, 313-315

Raspletin,Aleksandr A., 6, 208

Rauschenbach [Raushenbakh], Boris V., 2, 9, 274

Raykov, I. I., 180, 272, 310, 322, 337, 338

Razgulyay, 31

RD-1 jet engine, 190

Reactive Scientific-Research Institute; see RNII

“Ready for Labor” pins, 65

Redut radar station, 162

Reshetnev, Mikhail F., 6

Reutov, 25

Revolutionary Military Council, 9

Rheinmetall Borsig (German company), 253, 267, 347

Rheintochter rocket, 267

RNII (Reactive Scientific-Research Institute), 9-11, 142, 174, 177, 205, 212, 265,

272, 320, 326-327, 330, 341; history of, 164-168; see also NII-3

393
Rocket and the Reich,The (book), 307

Rockets:Their Construction and Use (book), 163-164, 327, 341

Rodin,Auguste, 88

Rodzevich, 130

Rohde & Schwarz (company), 222, 237

Rokossovskiy, Konstantin K., 11, 211-212, 241

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 126

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 126

Rosaviakosmos, 10

Rosenplänter, Gunther, 279-282, 286, 287-288, 291-293, 312, 316, 345

Roslyakov,Aleksey Ya., 193-195

Rovinskiy, S., 167

Royal Air Force, 256

RP-318-1 rocket-plane, 167

RS-82 solid propellant projectiles, 165

RS-132 solid propellant projectiles, 167

Ruben, 74-75

Rudin, 46

Rudnitskiy,Viktor A., 314, 331, 347-348, 361

Rudolph Island, 135

Rule, 366

RUS-2 radar station, 162

Russian Academy of Sciences; see Academy of Sciences

Russian Aviation and Space Agency, 21, 28

Russian Civil War, 32-36, 124

Russian Revolution (1905), 48, 184

Russian Revolution (February 1917), 30-31, 75, 184

Russian Revolution (October 1917), 30-31, 334

Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP), 30, 39, 75

Russian Space Agency, 28

Rutherford, Ernest, 7

Ryabikov,Vasiliy M., 13, 14, 16-17, 323

Ryazan province, 63

Ryazanskiy, Mikhail S., 5, 6, 25, 297, 303, 323, 346-347, 362-363

Ryazanskaya, Lesha (or Yelena), 359

Ryazantsev, Nikolay, I., 202

Rybinsk, 143

Rychagov, Pavel V., 143-144, 171

394
S

S aircraft, 114-115, 150-152, 173, 175

Saalfeld, 285, 334, 338, 347

Saburov, 102, 126

Saburov, Maksim Z., 230

Sadovskiy, Boris D., 149

Sakharov,Andrey D., 7

Salnikov,Yuriy, P., 136-137

Salyut space station, 27

Samara, 349

San Francisco, 118

Sänger, Eugen, 239, 262-266

Sänger-Bredt antipodal bomber, 262-266

Sarotti (company), 234

Sasha-Bosun, 88

Saturn V heavy-lift launcher, 27

SB aircraft (ANT-40 bomber), 104-105, 110, 111-113, 121, 124, 142, 163, 167

Schäfer, 367

Schmetterling rocket, 267-268

Schmidt, 312-314

School of Higher Marxism, 42

Schwartz, 316-317, 338-339

Scintilla (company), 89

Siegnette Electricity (book), 90, 95

Semipalatinsk, 18

Serebryanyy Bor region, 32, 43

Serov, Ivan A., 259-260, 365-366

Seventh Main Directorate (of Ministry of Armaments), 14

Severin, Gay I., 6

Sevruk, Dominik D., 12

Shabranskiy,Vitaliy L., 340, 347

Shakhurin,Aleksey I., 10, 13, 143, 159, 176-178, 181, 184, 190, 196, 205, 213, 259,

320-321

Shaposhnikov, B. M., 169

sharagi (prison science shops), 12, 45, 191; see also TsKB-29

sharashki (prison science shops), 141, 144, 305, 327-328, 330, 341, 343; see also

TsKB-29 and sharagi

Shchetinkov,Yevgeniy S., 166

Shcherbakov,Aleksandr S., 182

Shelepikha, 31, 35

Shelimov, Nikolay, P., 132

Shenfer, Klavdiy I., 149

Shestakov, Semyon A., 55, 59, 80

395
Shevelev, Mark I., 118, 121

Shevchenko,Taras H., 50

Shishmarev, Mikhail M., 99-102, 108

Shitov, Dmitriy A., 167

ShKAS machine guns, 115, 151, 336

Shmargun, 277-281, 283, 285

Shmidt, 122

Shokin,Aleksandr I., 235

Shpak, Fedor, 73, 76

Shpilreyn, 126

Shtokolov,Vladimir A., 171, 174, 180, 272

ShVAK machine gun, 151, 161, 174, 336

Shvarts, Leonid E., 168, 261

Siberia, 183, 194, 366

Siemens (company), 221-222, 228, 229, 230, 232, 236-238, 253, 358

Siemens-Apparatebau (company), 158

Siemens und Halske (company), 222

SKB-1, 188-190

Slepnev, M.T., 119

Slinko, Mikhail G., 153

Slonimer, Boris M., 168

Smersh (Death to Spies), 217, 229, 277, 285-286, 309

Smirnitskiy, Nikolay N., 355

Smirnov, Leonid V., 22

Smirnov,Veniamin I., 202, 205, 213-217, 225, 239

Smithsonian Institution, 307

S. M. Kirov Factory; see Kirov Factory

Smolensk, 178

Smushkevich,Yakov V., 143, 152

Social Revolutionaries; see SRs

Society of Inventors, 67

Sokolov, 202

Sokolov,Andrey I., 11, 12, 240-241, 263, 296, 332

Solodyankin, 287, 313

Solzhenitsyn,Aleksandr, I., 45-46

Sömmerda, 347, 349

Sonderhausen, 269, 298, 331, 356

Sopwith airplane, 37

Sorkin,Viktor E., 168

Soviet Military Administration in Germany; see SVAG

Soviet rocket industry, origins, 9-19, 353, 361, 368; expansion, 19-23; labo

growth statistics, 23, 26

Sovinformbyuro (Soviet Information Bureau), 180, 201

396
Soyuz-U launch vehicle, 18

Spain, 105, 112, 144

Spanish Civil War, 105, 112

Sparkasse group, 347

Space Shuttle (American), 27, 263

Special Committee (No. 1), 16

Special Committee No. 2 (Special Committee for Reactive Technology), 14, 16

Special Committee No. 3, 16

Special Committee for Reactive Technology; see Special Committee No. 2

Special Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers, 16

Special Purpose Brigade; see BON

Speer,Albert, 250, 262

Sperry (company), 101

Sportsman’s Sketches (literary work), 36, 41

Sprinson,Yefim, 100-101

Sputnik, 269

SRs (Social Revolutionaries), 140

SS (Schutzstaffel, Protective Squadrons), 224, 232, 241, 257, 278, 285-286, 293,

310, 316-317, 337

Stakhanovite movement, 67, 80

Stalin, Iosif V., 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 49, 61-62, 63, 71, 75, 76, 77, 85,

98, 118, 119, 124, 125, 143, 144, 169-171, 176, 219, 258-260, 314, 320-323,

326, 330, 334, 340

Stalingrad, 15-16, 246, 315; see also Battle of Stalingrad

State Central Firing Range-4; see GTsP-4

State Commission on Manned Flights, 359

State Committee for Defense; see GKO

Stefanovskiy, Petr M., 103

Steinhoff, Ernst, 245

Stepan, Georgiy A., 358

Sterligov, B. F., 55

Stergilov, S.A., 59, 103

Storch, 288

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 33

St. Petersburg, 88; see also Leningrad

strategic arms race, 26-27

Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN), 355

Stuhlinger, Ernst, 307

Su-30 fighter, 138

Sudnik, Zoya, 51-53

Sukhotskaya, Nadya, 50

Sukhumi, 306

Sukhumi Institute, 233

397
SVAG (and SVA) (Soviet Military Administration In Germany), 274-275

285, 290-291, 299, 312, 340, 357

Svanetiya, 114

Svecharnik, David V., 115

Sverdlovsk, 181, 187, 188, 192, 327

Svetlana Factory, 94, 237

Sweden, 139, 256, 258, 268

T

T-24 tanks, 227

Taifun rocket, 267

Tanker Derbent (literary work), 154

Taras Bulba (literary work), 51

Tarkonovskiy, Mikhail I., 193-194

Tarasevich, Boris N., 57, 110-113, 126, 140

Taratuta, Zhenya, 50-51

Tayts, Maks A., 129, 130

TB-1 (ANT-1 aircraft), 58-59, 61, 77, 80, 165

TB-3 (ANT-6 aircraft), 59-98, 99, 101-106, 110, 121-123, 125, 135, 142, 15

TB-4 aircraft, 106, 142

TB-7 (ANT-42 or Pe-8 aircraft), 107, 114-115, 142, 173

TEKhNO (process preparation department), 70

Telefunken factory, 231, 232, 234, 236-238

Tempelhof, 234, 272

Teplopribor Factory, 101, 237

Tevosyan, Ivan F., 179, 215

Theoretical Physics (textbook), 46

Theremin, Lev S., 44-46

Thiel,Walter, 257

Thiessen-Hitton (company), 253

Thuringia, 232, 271-276, 285, 290, 299, 320, 330, 334, 340, 357, 367

Tikhomirov, Nikolay I., 164

Tikhonravov, Mikhail K., 9, 166-169, 207-208, 260, 272, 326, 332

Timoshenko, Semyon K., 169-170

Tkachev, Fedor D., 6

Tolstov,Aleksey A., 180, 272, 337

Tolstoy, Lev, 41

tonka (fuel), 338

Traskin, Konstantin A., 109

Treaty of Versailles, 37, 57, 243

Treblinka, 232

Tregub,Yakov I., 355-356

Tremen, 227-228

398
Trotskiy, Lev, D., 49, 74

Trotskiyites, 85-86, 123, 137

Trubachev, Pavel Ye., 170, 298

TsAGI (Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute), 21, 58, 61-62, 70, 79, 129, 178,

182, 198, 220, 222

Tsander, Fridrikh A., 165-166, 239

Tsetsior, Zinoviy M., 230-231, 297, 357

Tsiolkovskiy, Konstantin E., 3, 7, 239

TsKB (Central Design Bureau), 61

TsSKB (Central Specialized Design Bureau), 21, 349

TsKB-29, 45-46, 141, 147; see also sharashki and sharagi

Tukhachevskiy, Mikhail N., 9, 58, 70, 95, 99, 109; death, 123, 137, 142; and formation of RNII, 164

Tula, 183, 317

Tupolev,Andrey N., 58, 61-62, 70, 82, 97, 101, 103, 105, 107, 114-115, 118-120,

124, 125, 173, 330; arrest and incarceration, 137, 141, 144

Turgenev, Ivan S., 36, 41

Turzhanskiy, 62

Tushinskiy Technical School, 89

Tveretskiy,Aleksandr F., 13, 354-355

Twentieth Party Congress, 98

Tyulin, Georgiy A., 13, 25, 297-298, 325, 328, 347

Tyuratam, 356

U

U-2 training plane (Po-2), 77, 78, 142

Uborevich, 123

Udelnaya, 174, 181

Uger, G.A., 162

Ukraine, 4, 20

Ulrikh, 123

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (novel), 33

UR-700 lunar launch vehicle, 25

Urals, 11, 151, 181-182, 187-199, 336, 352

Ursula, 292

USSR Academy of Sciences; see Academy of Sciences

Ustinov, Dmitriy F., 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 321-323, 345, 358, 361-363

399
V

V-1 (Fi 103) German cruise missile, 211, 226, 246-247, 250-252, 256, 280

352

V-2 (A 4) German rocket, 13, 208, 211-212, 217, 228, 229, 230, 237-238, 273

307, 312, 323; history of, 239-269, 278-282; specifications, 254; flight sta

254-255, 261-262; launches from Cuxhaven, 331-332; engine firin

Germany, 333-343; organization of work at Institute Nordhausen, 345-3

Vancouver, 124

Vannikov, Boris L., 10, 13, 17, 168, 218, 321-322

Vannikov, Rafail, B., 322

Vasilyev,Aleksandr (Sasha), 71, 72

Vazinger, 94

VEI (All-Russian Electrical Engineering Institute), 94, 149, 150

Vertikant gyroscope system, 357

Vetchinkin,Vladimir P., 167

Vetoshkin, Sergey I., 14, 361

Vickers airplane, 37

Vienna, 245

Viktoria-Honnef radio control equipment, 294

Vintsentini, Kseniya M. (Korolev’s wife), 359-360

Virus House,The (book), 247-248

Vishnevskiy,Vsevolod V., 73-74

Vladivostok, 118

Vlasov,Andrey A., 310

V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering Institute; see MEI

Vodopyanov, Mikhail V., 119, 121-122, 124, 135

Volfson, Mikhail S., 36

Volkov, Nikolay V., 181, 184, 203, 274

Volkovoinov, 62

Vologdin,Valentin P., 36

Volokolamsk, 180

Voloshin, Maksimilian A., 153-154

von Ardenne, Mandred, 232-233, 249, 306, 345

von Braun,Wernher, 241-269, 283, 287-289, 302-307, 338

Voronezh, 75, 142

Vorontsov, 361

Voroshilov, Kliment E., 58, 61, 70, 71, 143, 152

Voskresenskiy,Leonid A.,12,207-208,261,274,294,314-315,323,328,331

348, 350, 354, 356, 361

Voskresenskaya,Yelena,V., 315

Voznesenskiy, Nikolay A., 12, 13, 17-18

Voznyuk,Vasiliy I., 13, 357

VPK (Military-Industrial Commission), 22-23, 356

400
VSNKh (All-Russian Council of the National Economy), 71

Vstrechnnyy (film), 74

Vystrel (group), 331-332, 347-349, 353, 355, 356

W

Walter (German company), 267, 272, 310, 337

War Economy of the USSR During the Period of the Patriotic War (book), 17

War and Peace (novel), 46, 51

Warsaw, 258

Wasserfall surface-to-air missile, 246, 267-268, 273, 283

Wasserman, 86

Weimar (city), 275, 285, 290, 312, 359

Werk Drei (Factory Three), 282, 347, 357

West Germany; see Federal Republic of Germany

Westphalia, 232

White Sea, 117

Wilki, 231

“Wings of the Soviets” aircraft, 59

Wittenberg, 315

Witzenhausen, 269, 279, 301, 303

Wolff,Waldemar, 300, 347

Worbis, 269, 279, 301

World War I, 3, 30, 57, 243, 336

World War II, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 53, 63, 60, 63, 106, 142, 144-145, 154-155, 157-

228, 230, 245-269, 336, 142; beginning of war, 154, 173-186, 244-245; end of,

211-238, 271-272

Würzburg radar, 235

Y

Yak aircraft, 159, 203

Yak-1 fighter, 159

Yakhontova, Maria N., 50-53

Yakir,, 123

Yakovlev,Aleksandr S., 159, 178, 212-213, 330

Yakovlev, Nikolay D., 13, 323, 345, 361-362

Yakubovich, Nikolay V., 136

Yakutsk, 133

Yasvoin, 94

Yalta conference, 271

Yangel, Mikhail K., 6, 12, 20, 24, 25, 356

Yaroslavl, 75

Yasvoin, 94

Yegorov-Kuzmin, 95

401
Yeltsin, Boris, 69

Yengibaryan,Amik.A., 128, 130

Yezhov, Nikolay I., 123, 256

Yurg, 25

Yubileynyy, 25

Yumashev,Andrey B., 124

Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, 20

Z

Zalevskiy, 62

Zalmanov, Semyon, 77-78

Zaporozhstal, 108

Zaraysk district, 83, 88-89, 140, 181

Zarzar, 83

Zehlendorf, 231, 234

Zeppelin airship, 117

Zheleznogorsk, 25

Zhigarev, Pavel F., 144

Zhukov, Georgiy K., 16, 169-171, 211, 313

Zhukovskiy, Nikolay Ye., 7

Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy, 63, 70, 71, 98, 99-100, 129, 144, 147-148

165, 166, 173, 194, 294

ZIKh; see M.V. Khrunichev Factory

Zilinsky, Joseph, 253

Zinnowitz, 244

Zinovyev, Grigoriy Ye., 39, 49

ZIS-6 automobile, 168, 170

Zlatin, Solomon, 215

Zubovich, Ivan S., 14

Zudkov, 135

Zvereva, Polya, 181

Zwickau, 275

402
About the AuthorBoris Yevseyevich Chertok was born in 1912 inPoland and his family moved to Moscow when hewas three years old. In 1930, he began work as anelectrician in in the Fili suburb of Moscow. In 1934,he joined the design bureau of Viktor Bolkhovitinov,a noted designer of bombers. Under Bolkhovitinov,Chertok contributed to the development of theDB-A long-range bomber and the first Soviet rocketplane launched under its own power, the “BI.” In1945–46, Chertok played a key role in organizingand reconstructing plans to reproduce the GermanV-2 using Soviet materials.

In 1946, by a joint order of two ministries, Chertok

was transferred from the aviation industry to the

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chertok cover full 12/21/04 1:46 PM Page 1
About the AuthorBoris Yevseyevich Chertok was born in 1912 inPoland and his family moved to Moscow when hewas three years old. In 1930, he began work as anelectrician in in the Fili suburb of Moscow. In 1934,he joined the design bureau of Viktor Bolkhovitinov,a noted designer of bombers. Under Bolkhovitinov,Chertok contributed to the development of theDB-A long-range bomber and the first Soviet rocketplane launched under its own power, the “BI.” In1945–46, Chertok played a key role in organizingand reconstructing plans to reproduce the GermanV-2 using Soviet materials.

In 1946, by a joint order of two ministries, Chertok

was transferred from the aviation industry to thenewly created head institute for rocket technology, theNII-88, where he was the deputy chief engineer andchief of the department of control systems. Chertokbecame one of Korolev’s closest aides in developingcontrol systems for ballistic missiles and spacecraft,eventually becoming Deputy Chief Designer of thefamous OKB-1, the design organization that spun offfrom NII-88 in 1956. Chertok participated in everymajor project at OKB-1 (now the Energiya RocketSpace Corporation, RKK Energiya) until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1992 (at the ageof 80) he moved from the position of Deputy GeneralDesigner of RKK Energiya to become the ChiefScientific Consultant.

At the present time,Academician Chertok lives

in Moscow, and continues active work as the ChiefScientific Consultant for RKK Energiya, the deanof the Faculty for “Control Motion” at the MoscowPhysical-Technical Institute and also serves as Professor of MGTU and head of the Program on theHistory of Cosmonautics in the Russian Academyof Sciences. His four-volume memoirs Rakety i lyudi(Rockets and People) were published in Moscow

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