I Flew the Pe-2: Chronicles of Dive Bombers

During the Great Patriotic War, this joke was told: “Why is the Li-2 so fat, the Il-2 ‘hunchback,’ and the ‘Peshka’ so skinny? Because the Li-2 was speculating all war long, the assault plane had the war on itself, and the ‘Peshka,’ like a prostitute, would be thrown to the scouts, then to the fighters, then to dive bombers…” There’s a grain of truth in this crude joke: originally built as a heavy fighter, during the Second World War the Pe-2 became the USSR’s most mass front-line bomber, as much a symbol of Victory as the T-34 and the Il-2.

In a new book by Artyom Drabkin, continuing the popular series of conversations with Great Patriotic War veterans, memories of pilots who fought on the legendary “Peshka”—pilots, navigators, gunners-radio operators—are collected. These are authentic chronicles of dive bombers: a truthful account without omissions or self-censorship, about combat sorties and deadly dangerous missions, about bombing strikes under withering anti-aircraft fire and clashes with German fighters, about everyday front-line life and comrades-in-arms, awards and losses, defeats and victories…