(5 of 8)
First & Best. Soviet Russia now boasts that it was the birthplace and cradle of all aviation. Russian schoolchildren are taught that a Russian was the first to fly. "The gifted inventor A. F. Mozhaisky," wrote Vasily Stalin two years ago, "built and successfully tried, in 1882, the world's first plane—20 years before the brothers Wright." In this doctrine, Russians also invented the first rocket (1607), the first helicopter model (1754). Young Vasily, who is no slouch on this sort of thing, has also written: "In our land were created aviation motors, high-speed and heavy multi-engine planes, the first flying boats and parachutes, aviation instruments, all-metal dirigibles, and the jet plane."
In such a land, where the Big Lie is jet-propelled, the pilot is a cut above ordinary groundlings. He wears golden wings, gets much higher pay, better food and uniforms. The first men to become Heroes of the Soviet Union, Russia's highest kudos, were the flyers who in 1934 rescued 104 survivors of the icebreaker Cheliuskin, crushed by an ice pack. Of the three men who have won the honor three times, two are fighter pilots,* the other is Russia's Marshal Zhukov, an old infantry soldier, who has just returned to favor.
Today, between 3,000 and 5,000 Red transport planes fly 137,500 miles of air route. In every village there is an aviation club. Some 13 million young Russians belong to DOSAV, which teaches them how to fly light planes, how to parachute, how to tune an aircraft engine. Above all, it teaches the glories of the Red air force.
Surprise. Not much was known about the Red air force before the Spanish civil war. Most people thought that backward Russia lacked the technical skill to produce first-rate planes of its own. During the '20s, held back by the Versailles Treaty, Germany's Heinkel, Dornier, and Junkers plane builders set up plants in Russia and built planes for the Red air force. The Russians got their engines from the U.S.
By the time of the Spanish civil war, Hitler was putting German designers to his own use, but the Russian "volunteers" showed up with fairly good planes of their own. Tubby little Chatos and Ratas with 750-1,000 h.p. engines rose up to battle the Luftwaffe "volunteers." They were 100 m.p.h. slower than the streaking Messerschmitts, but they had better range and could turn circles inside their heavier opponents. At Guadalajara, 125 Russian-piloted fighters routed an attacking Italian armored division, the first decisive use of tactical air force in aviation history. Soviet designers and airmen were learning.
World War II gave Russia's Golden Falcons a chance really to spread their wings. For two years, the air forces of heavy-set Marshal Alexander Novikov took a dreadful beating. The first eight weeks saw 5,000 of Russia's initial 8,000 planes put out of action. But Novikov kept sending more fighters up to challenge the Nazi Luftwaffe. The U.S., doing its best to help a besieged ally, sent fighters: Bell P39 Airacobras and Curtiss-Wright P-40s. Russia's own factories were moved east of the Urals, and worked overtime to keep up. "In 24 hours," said one manager, "these planes will be at the front killing Germans."