That year I just turned 18 that April, and in the military registration office before our slightly frightened future draftees, our wonderful Colonel Pavel Ivanovich, a former pilot, often lectured, and his surname was matched by that Stalin era - Sokolov. And why is he "our"? Yes, our cottages in Peredelkino were very close, I often visited him, to which he was genuinely pleased. During my visits, I often asked him to tell about the war, but he either denied it or simply was silent, although somehow he threw it in our hearts - “Well, it was not like that, as they write in books! This is not such a war! ”

And once in May, at his suggestion, we started cooking kebabs, especially since my parents were invited - tomorrow is May 9! I chopped firewood for burnout, and Pavel Ivanovich pre-soaked the meat, firmly refusing the help of my mom, saying that the kebab of women's hands does not tolerate! The next day, watching the parade on TV, my parents came to him, we just sat wonderfully and talked beautifully, Pavel Ivanovich was incredibly charming.

My mummy somehow expressed in conversation with her friends that even ten years ago “this elderly lady in love” could easily and quite easily charm any woman, be alone with him - it’s better to go to bed right away. These ladies all laughed, and then, continuing to eavesdrop, after their fifth glass of wineglass, and it turned out that they all occasionally visited his house. The whole question is who resisted his charm longer! And now, when two more friends of Pavel Ivanovich and their wives came, everyone was delighted with the hospitable host and his stories - he was definitely a man of unquestionable and incredible charm.

Imagine how he was in his youth! Then the girls were very much in front of the military! They all drank well, the kebab was just awesome and melted in the mouth - Pavel Ivanovich knows how! Only one I was completely sober - both in age and in connection with my sports activities, so when everyone left, I stayed to help the owner with cleaning and washing dishes, which I always did at home.
Before parting, we still sat in the garden, seeing off the sunset of this beautiful day, the day of the thirtieth anniversary of the great Victory, and then, evidently greatly impressed by the impression of the past day, Pavel Ivanovich unexpectedly handed me a common notebook, stuck with adhesive tape and said his farewell:

- My young namesake! You once told me that you have a secret in your attic, so I hand you this notebook of my memories, here about a very short period of war. I’m already very old, not by age, but by years we have experienced, God forbid others to experience this. And although thirty years have passed since our Victory, it’s impossible to publish anything from this notebook, they simply won’t be allowed, and there are also my intimate adventures, and according to our films and books all our warriors, and especially our scouts, are simply impotent. Just kidding, of course, but they all in films refuse to have sex with German women, being behind enemy lines. Joke! It can not be! A rejected German woman would immediately sounded in the Gestapo, and a contented woman would help our intelligence officer. Here Richard Sorge such was possible only through the bed!

We talked a little more, he told a couple of interesting episodes, and then continued:
- Pasha, so I will not publish anything, but I really want to read my diary in due time, but later, when you serve in the army, you will receive a specialty and by 25 years you will have a completely different outlook on life. Life will remember you and rub a little, then you will understand my actions and my experiences. You will understand that we, too, were not immediately born old veterans, and we were then young officers, we fought well, and of course we loved life in all its manifestations. Like this!

- Well, Pavel Ivanovich! Thank you for your trust, I will. Exactly 25 years old and read. Now for sure it is better for me not to read.

“Exactly then you will understand more or less.” Remember, your friend on one of my lectures somehow passionately said that we, like cowards, then shot at the German troops from behind the trees, but we needed to go to bayonet and sweep them away with a mighty blow, like in the movies. The bayonet on machine guns and German machine guns? This movie is so heroic, but in life it is stupid and even criminal - only to destroy people. This is only Marshal Zhukov, who received the nickname "Butcher", did so - thousands of soldiers killed the soldiers. This is the year 25-30 and you will understand everything ...

And this day has come. Arriving on vacation and noting my quarter-century with friends and wives, the next day I climbed into the attic and, taking out this treasured notebook, proceeded to read, empathize with the events of those incredible fiery days ...
... In this terrible war, having gained combat experience, having learned how to skillfully kill the enemies, these invaders who captured part of our land and trying to destroy all life on it, you understand that in addition to the ability to destroy the fascists, you also need to be able and survive. Any infantryman who survived after the first half of the war was no longer even the teeth of SS-thugs — he learned to survive and kill the Nazis.

That is why the commander of any rank so appreciates the soldiers who have combat experience. In the war, everything happened in a completely different way than we are shown in the cinema, but the fact that it is very difficult to kill you after half a year of war in any part of our army is yes! For example, the best tank of the T-34 war or even the KV-2 monster live only three fights according to statistics, but here lieutenant Kolobanov on the T-34 managed to destroy 27 German T-3s and T-4s in one battle. Experience!

In these May days of 1942, I was a pilot on a Pe-2, a great diving bomber, becoming a squadron commander by this time and receiving the rank of captain. But any plane is nothing if at the helm there is also “nothing”, as my friend Starley Panchenko said: “The main thing in our business is the layer between the seat and the steering wheel”. I received the rank of captain and the second order of the Red Star after flying to the German rear and defeating the headquarters of the 4th Wehrmacht Army Corps, deftly bringing the entire squadron from the west, so the Germans thought their bombers were flying.

It looks like our generals were very upset that the German baron backgrounds with general shoulder straps fought and led the troops better, skillfully using the interaction between the different kinds of troops, so they tried, if necessary, to knock out their generals. And exactly, after our raid on the front it became quieter and our generals managed to bring the troops in order, and I got a tie in the buttonholes and an order. Without generals, the German Ordnung immediately stalled.
True, everyone was constantly joking, and in particular, our wits, Starley Panchenko, that I am always lucky, because I have a light hand and the asterisk of luck burns behind my back. But after all, Suvorov said at one time: “Once a luck, two is luck, yes, Lord, and this is already a skill.” And then one day in the middle of this May, everything, and very dramatically, changed in my destiny.

Early in the morning I was sent as the most experienced pilot, because by that time I was already very much — as many as 27 years old, for reconnaissance, something the Germans had suspiciously silenced. I flew alone, the rest of the Pawns were being repaired.I recorded on the radio with our conventional codes, that in a square of 12-34 a large accumulation of troops and there are tanks, I began to return, having had time to escape a couple of Messers at an afterburner, and then noticing a slow German sailing (Stork) ( I dived and gave him a couple of turns, because initially the Pe-2 was planned as a heavy fighter like the German Me-110. Yes, and the speed of the "Pawn" is very decent.

The airplane began to smoke and began to descend, but here I am in the heat of the moment and missed the attack of another Me-109 from the sun, as they always do, he killed my gunner and navigator, and on the turn he came under my turn from my large-caliber nose Berezina "and also caught fire. We jumped out almost simultaneously and landed close to each other. I cheated a little - dropping the parachute and dropping my old flight jacket ...