by Ivan Markov
[REGNUM] The crew members of the Il-2 attack aircraft Pavel Smirnov and Yuldash Zhandarov, whose plane was shot down in an air battle on March 4, 1945, in the area of the current settlement of Kornevo in the Bagrationovsky District of the Kaliningrad Region, had already been found once.
The local press wrote about the ceremonial burial of the remains of both pilots in 1981, their names are immortalized on the Kornevo memorial. However, when in mid-July of this year, Kaliningrad searchers carried out work to raise the wreckage of the plane, it turned out that in fact the crew remained at the scene of the crash.
The work was carried out in a swampy area in conditions of heavy rains for a week, but was crowned with success - in the depths of the crater, not only parts were found that could be used to identify the aircraft, but also the pilot's awards. In order to collect the remains in the wet sticky soil, the searchers used the washing method - by the way, the order and medal were not lost.
That air battle is recorded in the combat log of the 136th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment. The document states that it was forced upon a group of 11 Il-2 attack aircraft and six Yak-9 fighters by a dozen German fighters with experienced pilots.
Despite fairly dense cloud cover (7-8 points), two groups of “flying tanks” flew to attack enemy artillery and manpower near the East Prussian settlement of Hermsdorf (today this is the settlement of Pogranichny in the Bagrationovsky district).
The groups were led by the most experienced Soviet pilots: the commander of the 1st squadron of the 136th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment, Guards Major Yakov Korovin, and his deputy, future Hero of the Soviet Union, Guards Senior Lieutenant Grigory Poluyanov.
Having approached the target, the attack aircraft were suddenly attacked by the Germans, who appeared from behind the clouds. According to the report, there were 12 enemy aircraft: six Messerschmitt-109 and the same number of Focke-Wulf-190.
They attacked from above and below at the same time, performing flips. It was obvious that the Nazis had dozens, if not hundreds, of air battles under their belts.
However, Korovin and Poluyanov had over a hundred combat sorties under their belts, and their wingmen also had good combat experience. The attack aircraft quickly managed to close the defensive circle, which allowed them to avoid significant losses. An exchange took place.
Having shot down one Fokker and one Messer, the groups lost two attack aircraft. In addition, one Soviet aircraft was set on fire, but managed to reach its own and make an emergency landing (the pilot and gunner, although injured, managed to reach their airfield on their own).
The head of the search team "Sovest" Ruslan Khisamov assures that the picture of the battle described in the documents has been almost completely confirmed on the ground, since to date in this area it has been possible to find not only the crash site of Smirnov and Zhandarov's plane, but also two German planes.
The Fokker was found not far from the excavation site, and the Messer was literally across the road from it. However, the work continues, as the second downed Il-2 of Guards Captain Khai Zagidullin, whose name is also immortalized on the Kornevsky memorial, has not yet been found.
"The problem is that we don't have any clear references to the area, " Khisamov explains. " Zagidullin's plane could have crashed in a forest or a field. We will continue the search."
As for the current discovery, according to the squad leader, excavations were carried out at the crash site back in 1980, when land reclamation workers discovered the wreckage of the attack aircraft in a swampy forest.
"Then, as we know, the pilots' documents were found, part of the remains of the air gunner Yuldash Zhandarov and his awards, " Khisamov explains. " We carried out more in-depth work, which allowed us to find the remains of Pavel Smirnov and his orders: Glory of the 3rd degree and the Red Banner. In addition, we raised a broken Berezina machine gun with the turret on which it was mounted, and a lot of serialized parts. All of this will be transferred to the Kaliningrad Historical and Art Museum."
The searchers' findings both delighted and surprised them.
The fact is that local residents reported the activity of black diggers, who, apparently, had previously managed to pull out an attack aircraft engine and other large parts from the swamp.
In addition, during Soviet times, metal parts of the aircraft that remained on the surface of the earth could be turned into scrap metal.
Thanks to the help of Kaliningrad historian Vasily Savchuk, newspaper articles from the early 1980s were found in which Anatoly Petrikin, a research fellow at the regional Historical and Art Museum (by the way, he was a participant in the assault on Königsberg), talks about how the plane was found.
On July 2, 1980, an article was published in Kaliningradskaya Pravda in which the author reported on the discovery of the remains of the pilots, their belongings, notebooks, field maps, documents and awards.
"The exact date of the air battle is unknown, " Petrikin wrote at the time. " But judging by the documents found, it could have been two months before the victory: the canteen coupons for March 9 were used, but for the following days they are intact."
Further searches and correspondence with fellow pilots and relatives of Pavel Smirnov suggested to Petrikin that his guess about the approximate date of the battle was incorrect. However, he established other details that greatly helped in the search.
In his newspaper reports, the searcher reported that the pilot graduated from the Balashov Military Aviation School of Pilots in the summer of 1944 and was accepted as a member of the Communist Party there.
Regarding the air gunner Zhandarov, it was reported that his date of birth was established from his Red Army book and Komsomol card (and in the text of the note he calls him Zhaldash Dzhandorov, since that is how he was written down on his card).
On January 22, 1981, Kaliningradskaya Pravda published a new article in which Petrikin reported new details.
By this time, Smirnov and Zhandarov's fellow soldiers responded to the news about the found plane. The first to write to Kaliningrad were Vladimir Andronov from Minsk and N. A. Sheloukhina (presumably Natalya Afanasyevna) from Krasnodar Krai, who served in the same 136th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment.
They sent the first detailed information about the dead.
"We saw off sixes, nines, and even several squadrons at once on combat missions and waited for them with excitement, counting the minutes... " the newspaper quoted Sheloukhina. " That's how it was on that memorable day of March 4, 1945, when Pasha Smirnov and Zholdash Dzhandorov did not return. We looked at the sky with hope, listened, but no, the crew did not return. And we knew nothing about its fate until the publication in Kaliningradskaya Pravda. But believe me, we always remembered and remember - about each one."
Petrikin then started a correspondence with Smirnov's relatives. He managed to get in touch with them, among other things, thanks to the deceased's documents: the identity card stated that the officer was born on December 19, 1922, in the village of Chernitsyno, Pereslavsky District, Yaroslavl Region. It turned out that the pilot was not married and had no direct descendants.
Pavel was the eldest brother in the family, and during the war years, funeral notices came not only for him, but also for his father.
By 1981, his 80-year-old mother and sister Evdokia remained in their homeland. By that time, his sister Galina lived in Aleksandrov in the Vladimir region. In addition, Pavel's brother Aleksandr lived in the village of Berendeyevo in the Pereslavl district of the Yaroslavl region (in May 1981, he came to the funeral ceremony, as reported by the local newspaper Kaliningradsky Komsomolets), and his second brother, Nikolai, lived in Volzhsky in the Volgograd region.
“In the summer of 1944, after finishing pilot school, Pavel came home on leave for ten days, and soon after, from the front, he wrote about his first battles,” Alexander Smirnov wrote to the museum worker, adding that his brother had wanted to become a pilot since childhood and had done everything he could to achieve this.
If by the beginning of the 80s the search immediately gave a good result, then after 45 years it has not yet been possible to find any of the relatives to pass on the awards of the young attack pilot. The head of the "Sovest" detachment said that in May 2015 a message was left on the Kaliningrad Internet portal by a distant relative of the pilot - Galina Kiseleva.
“Unfortunately, Smirnov’s brother P.I., who was present at the reburial on April 24, 1981, has already died and we do not know the exact burial site,” the woman wrote.
Since Galina did not leave any contact information, it was not possible to contact her.
Gennady Polubedov, a member of the "Sovest" squad from Pyatigorsk, is currently searching for other relatives. He told the Regnum news agency that Pavel's nephew lived in Volzhsky, but he died in April of this year. In addition, Polubedov established that another niece of the pilot lives in Pereslavl, but she has not yet responded to messages.
There was also hope for Petrikin's archive, part of which is kept in the Historical and Art Museum. However, the museum's fund custodians explained that there was only an archive there concerning the Heroes of the Soviet Union with whom the searcher corresponded.
It was not possible to establish whether the letters to Pavel Smirnov's family were preserved. So this is where the search ends for now, but one thing is certain: the remains of the Il-2 crew will be buried with honor, and the awards will be preserved and given to the family if they are found.