Plant No. 18 (Now "Aviakor" in Samara) December 10, 1942 released the first Il-2 attack aircraft from its workshops. But the events that will be discussed here began much earlier and in a completely different city. Until the described time, the plant was located in the city of Voronezh. And, starting in February 1941, the IL-2 was mass-produced.
On June 24, 1941, the Politburo of the Central Committee creates an Evacuation Council. N. M. Shvernik is appointed its chairman, and A. N. Kosygin and M. G. Pervukhin are appointed as deputies. On June 27, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the procedure for the export and deployment of human contingents and valuable property."
A workshop for the production of Il-2 attack aircraft at plant No. 18 in the city of Kuibyshev (now Samara)
Relocation to the east takes on a planned nature, the main law of which was the instruction: "To give out products to the last opportunity!" Particular attention was paid to the relocation of enterprises producing military products. Workers, professionals and their families were the focus of those organizing this great movement. Indeed, in order to win the war, it was necessary not only to take out the equipment of the factories in a timely manner, not to leave material assets to the enemy, but also to deploy the exported factories in new places in an incredibly short time and provide the front with weapons and ammunition.
The order to evacuate to the east was sent to Voronezh plant number 18 in early October 1941. The main idea of the plan was that, while relocating the plant to a new site somewhere in the east, at the same time continue to produce Il-2 aircraft in Voronezh. The plan provided that the relocation of workshops and departments should be carried out sequentially, taking into account the place occupied by the unit in the technological process of building aircraft. The first to leave are the designers and technologists with drawings and other technical documentation. Together with them, part of the employees of the departments of the chief mechanic, power engineering, planning department, accounting department travels. All employees travel with their families. Behind them are the workshops for the preparation of production. These units at the new location must prepare for the deployment of the main production.
But the evacuation of the plant's divisions without stopping work in Voronezh did not yet guarantee the uninterrupted production of aircraft. The IL-2 construction cycle is long enough, and if it was carried out at the new site from the initial stage, then the aircraft manufactured there would not take off soon. Therefore, almost simultaneously with the designers and technologists, boxes with parts, assemblies, and assemblies of attack aircraft manufactured in Voronezh had to go on a long journey. This was part of the backlog of the workshops of the plant, which continued to issue products around the clock.
The collectives of the shops of the main production were divided into two parts. Some remained in Voronezh and continued to produce aircraft until a certain time. Others left for a new site, where they had to begin the development of a new territory and establish the production of aircraft, first from Voronezh parts and assemblies, and then independently. As the established program was fulfilled, the procurement and aggregate shops had to be removed from the Voronezh site and relocated to a new one. The main assembly shop and the flight test station left Voronezh the latest, after the release of the last aircraft.
The plan for relocation of plant No. 18 appears in all its efficiency. Now both the plan and its implementation are admired and deeply respected. The truth says that people are the main thing in any business. It is not easy to dismantle the myriad of machine tools and machines, move them to a new location and put them into operation. It is not easy to carry out the transportation of many hundreds of tons of parts, assemblies, equipment and materials without losses and in a timely manner. But to remove thousands of families of plant workers from their habitable, habitable places, send them to unknown distances and resettle them there, arrange them - a much more complicated matter.
The first factory train, with which, as already mentioned, the design, technological and other departments, as well as part of the production preparation service, were sent to a new location, departed from the factory platform on October 11, 1941. Echelons were loaded around the clock, and people worked the same way. They worked, regardless of time, with their specialty, position. They did what was needed.
The new building, to which Plant No. 18 was relocated, was one of the new aircraft factories, the construction of which was carried out by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), adopted in September 1939. This construction was headed by a prominent civil engineer, General A. P. Lepilov. V. V. Smirnov was the chief engineer, and P. K. Georgievsky and I. I. Abramovich were his deputies. All construction, the scale of which made it possible to define it as one of the largest construction projects in our country, was divided into a number of independent construction areas, the chiefs of which were: G. N. Serebryany, F. G. Dolgov, Ya. D. Krengauz, G. F. Ivoilov. Also, a support area was allocated to an independent construction area, very impressive in size and scope of work, headed by a civil engineer V. V. Volkov. One of the main objects of this area was the central mechanical plant, which produced building metal structures for the entire construction site, the output of which reached four thousand tons per month.
During the fourth quarter of 1940, preparatory work was basically completed and a residential community for builders was created. And from January 1941, all construction areas began the main construction. In late April - early May, the installation of metal structures into the frames of the hulls of future aircraft plants began.
A. I. Shakhurin, who arrived at the construction site on October 22, 1941, recalls:
“The new site, where I arrived from the airfield, was not an ordinary sight. A group of new, unfinished buildings of factories. A huge mass of people scurry, at first glance, randomly, dirt and disorder of the territory itself. Some buildings have not yet begun to be built (a blacksmith for an aircraft building and a foundry for an engine plant). Railroad tracks were laid inside a number of workshops, which facilitated the unloading of equipment. A conversation was held with the workers of the Voronezh plant. “We failed,” I tell them, “to complete the construction of the plant before your arrival. It will be very difficult for you with housing and food, especially at first. " They reassure me: "This is nothing, the main thing is that the plant is good, it would be more likely to produce airplanes …"
Echelons from Voronezh arrived regularly. With each train that brought shop equipment, materials and aircraft parts, factory workers with their families also came. They were immediately involved in unloading transports and placing equipment in new buildings.
The huge building of the aggregate shops and the same building of the main assembly of the aircraft did not yet have roofs. True, the change houses located in two floors along these buildings are almost ready, and they housed technical departments, administration and shop services. In the buildings for the procurement shops, the construction of the walls has not been completed. Foundations are still being laid for the forge and compressor room, and the same is for a number of other buildings. There are no storage facilities. At the airfield, the construction of the airfield has not been completed, there are no storage facilities for gasoline and oil. There is no water in the buildings, there is no sewage system, the electrical wiring is not finished. There is no housing for the workers of the plant.
In a word, there was little that could please people in a new place. And then winter began to come into its own. At the same time, it turned out that the local places are characterized by the wind, which intensifies as the frost grows stronger.
And the "conveyor" of echelons carrying equipment and people from Voronezh operated continuously. And for the factory workers who gathered at the new site, the main task was to accept the equipment, arrange it in the workshops in new buildings and put it into operation. Just as on the first day, the goods rolled around the factory yard on pipe scraps and logs. True, another type of vehicle has appeared - a metal sheet with a rope or cable tied to it. The machine was installed on a sheet, several people were harnessed to a cable loop, one or two helped from behind - and the machine was driving along a road that was frozen by that time, covered with snow.
Not only men, but also women worked to unload the plant equipment. For example, a brigade of women under the command of OGT technologist Tatyana Sergeevna Krivchenko did a great job. This brigade not only kept up with many male brigades, but at times set the tone for them.
SV Ilyushin, who came to plant No. 18 in those days, recalls: "… The trains stopped, and the hardest, most complicated equipment was blown off the platforms as if by the wind …"
And it was no coincidence that during the evacuation from Moscow, the Ilyushin Design Bureau was sent to Kuibyshev, in the area of which the new site of Plant No. 18 was located.
The removal of equipment from the territory of plant No. 18 in Voronezh was coming to an end. Here the Birdsboro press giant was being dismantled and loaded onto railway platforms.
The weight of individual units of this press reached eighty tons with the corresponding dimensions. Therefore, a special railroad crane with a team of railroad specialists took part in the disassembly and loading operation of the Birdsboro.
B. M. Danilov, who commanded the operation of dismantling the press, gave instructions to blow up the shop wall. Then autogenous cut and brought down the floors and roof over the press, and the giant was exposed. The team of the master A. I. Taltynov - the one that carried out the installation of this unique press three years ago - began to quickly and accurately disassemble it.
Riggers, led by K. K. Lomovskikh, immediately prepared the blocks of the press for loading, and the railroad workers carefully laid them on the platforms with their crane. At night, the platforms with the press blocks were taken out of the plant's boundaries.
The scope of work at the new site of Plant No. 18 was continuously expanding. The machines and other equipment that arrived from Voronezh and were transported to the workshops had to be put into operation as soon as possible. To do this, it was necessary to fulfill at least two conditions: fix the machines on the foundation and supply them with electricity. As soon as the machine was dragged into one or another workshop and put in place according to the layout, the electricians were sent to it. And while several workers in the workshop were removing the wrapping paper from the machine and wiping off the preservative grease, the fitters connected temporary electrical wiring to it.
Securing the machine. The foundation is absolutely necessary, because without it the machine loses its accuracy. But the earthen floor in the workshop was so frozen that it needed to be hammered with pneumatic hammers, of which there were still too few. And the concrete of the foundation, so as not to freeze, must be heated.
But the transportation and installation of machine tools in the shops did not exhaust the difficulties of establishing production in a new place. The previous weights seemed like toys compared to the forging equipment that had arrived. And chief among the "mastodons" was the Birdsboro press.
It was very important that the same specialists of A. Taltynov's brigade and the riggers of K. Lomovskikh worked on the installation of the press, who had already installed it and then dismantled it. But here, in addition to outdoor frosty conditions, additional difficulties were created by the lack of a large lifting crane.
Engineer M. I. Agaltsev found a way out. He and his assistants constructed a powerful tripod from iron beams. She, like a giant spider, stood over the entire assembly area. And with the help of such a device and two hoists suspended from it, the press blocks gradually began to take their places. The exemplary dismantling and packing of the aggregates and parts of the press in Voronezh ensured the complete safety of all its parts.
The 24-hour watch at the installation of Birdsboro continued successfully. And people did a miracle: they mounted and started up the press in twenty-five days!
The stocks of the assembly shops have arrived. It was no longer possible to collect them on a "live thread", temporarily. Bonfires were burned in the workshops, warming the frozen ground of the floors. However, jackhammers often stopped, as condensate water froze in them. And here again bonfires came to the rescue - hammers and people were warming up near them.
The concrete arrived. To prevent it from freezing in the foundation pits, the electricians suggested heating the concrete through the reinforcement using welding transformers. Have tried it - it turns out. Then they learned how to lay concrete floors in workshops, heating them through a metal mesh.
In connection with the evacuation of plant No. 18, the reserve air brigade, in which the assault aviation regiments were formed, also received a command to relocate from Voronezh. The ground equipment of the air brigade, its personnel with families, as well as the flight technical personnel of the combat aviation regiments that arrived in Voronezh for the "silts" were sent by train. And all the IL-2 aircraft in the air brigade - there were about fifty of them - had to urgently fly to the Volga region and prepare for participation in the military parade on November 7, 1941 in Kuibyshev.
This parade was intended to show that there are significant military reserves in the rear. After all, only in the aviation part of the parade, about 700 aircraft of various types took part.
The parade in Kuibyshev was only a small episode in the life of the air brigade at the new location. The difficulties began with the fact that the air brigade was relocated not to some, albeit unfinished, construction site, but to a bare place in the literal sense of the word. It was assigned steppe plots near two regional centers, seventy kilometers from the site of plant No. 18. The steppe was really flat - ready-made unpaved airfields, but there was nothing else there. And at each of the steppe airfields of the brigade's reserve aviation regiments, settlements from dugouts, called "dig-city", arose.
Soon, classrooms were equipped in dugouts and in local schools, and the pilots continued their studies.
At the direction of the State Defense Committee, the brigade commander Podolsky assembled an assault aviation regiment from Il-2 brigade aircraft and sent it to the defense of Moscow.
This air regiment became the first guards among the assault air regiments. At the end of the war, it was called: 6th Moscow Guards, Orders of Lenin, Red Banner and Suvorov Assault Aviation Regiment.
On December 10, the first Il-2 attack aircraft, built at the new site of the plant, was launched. The deputy head of the flight test station, test pilot Lieutenant Colonel Evgeny Nikitovich Lomakin, was instructed to lift this machine into the air. The crew of flight mechanic N. M. Smirnitsky prepared it for the flight.
December 1941 ended. The last train arrived with the equipment and workers of the plant No. 18. The relocation of the enterprise took two and a half months. On that memorable day, at an operational meeting, the director of the Shenkman plant said that the last Il-2 aircraft, assembled at the old site in Voronezh, had been flown and handed over to a military unit in early November 1941. Thus, due to the evacuation, the "silts" with the brand number 18 did not rise into the air for only thirty-five days.
On December 23, 1941, late in the evening, the director received a government telegram:
“… You have failed our country and our Red Army. You will not deign to release the IL-2 so far. IL-2 aircraft are needed by our Red Army now as air, as bread …
Stalin.
You can imagine what kind of reaction she caused.
At the end of the day on December 24, a telegram left the plant with the following content:
Moscow. Kremlin. Stalin.
Your fair assessment of our poor work was communicated to the entire team. In pursuance of your telegraphic instructions, we inform you that the plant will reach the daily production of three cars at the end of December. From January 5 - four cars. From January 19 - six cars. From January 26 - seven cars. The main reason for the lag of the plant in the deployment of aircraft production is the placement of us on the unfinished part of the plant. Currently, the building of the aggregate shops, the forge, the building of the blanking and stamping shops, and the compressor room are unfinished. There is a lack of heat, air, oxygen and adequate housing for workers.
We ask for your help in accelerating the completion of construction and accelerating the establishment of the supply of the plant with finished products and materials. We also ask to oblige the relevant organizations to mobilize the missing workers for us and to improve the nutrition of the workers.
The staff of the plant undertakes to eliminate the shameful backlog immediately."
On December 29, 1941, at thirteen o'clock, the first train echelon with Il-2 attack aircraft, manufactured by Plant No. 18 at a new location, departed from the factory site. Twenty-nine aircraft carried this echelon - all the products of the plant, released in December 1941. Course - Moscow.
It took eight days to assemble, fly around and hand over a military unit of twenty-nine attack aircraft that arrived with the first echelon. And this was done in compliance with all the rules for the delivery and acceptance of military products, with the presentation of stringent requirements for the quality and reliability of each mechanism. Just like at the plant, after acceptance by the Quality Control Department, the aircraft were presented to military representatives. Two military representatives, Ryaboshapko and Ryabkov, did a great job here, accepting the vehicles assembled at a plant near Moscow. The success was accompanied by the fact that the propeller-driven installations of these machines were well worked out at their own plant by LIS mechanics.
Three echelons, about a hundred aircraft, built at the new site, assembled the brigades of Plant No. 18 in Moscow. The "silts" tested in the air immediately flew to the front. The factory archive contains the order of the People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry No. 20 dated January 29, 1942, according to which employees of factory No. 18 S. E. Malyshev, A. Z. Khoroshin and others, as well as the head brigades of Moscow aircraft repair workshops A. T. Karev.
But it was very costly - to disassemble the finished aircraft, carry them a long distance and reassemble. This “procedure” was only suitable as a temporary, forced measure. And as soon as the plant's airfield at the new location received the minimum equipment and capabilities for flight tests of aircraft, the loading of "silt" into the echelons stopped.
In the same days - the end of 1941 - the head of the 15th Main Directorate D. Kofman received from the People's Commissar A. I. number 207, the echelon of which is going to Kuibyshev.
Therefore, attention to the needs of plant No. 207 (director Zasulsky) was the maximum possible for those conditions.
Of course, the mechanical plant and its residential settlement, which consisted mainly of wooden barracks, could not stand comparison with the plant in Podolsk. But the main thing was that the residents of Podolsk could start working on the move in several heated production buildings.
It was also very important that the echelon with the details of the armored hulls, equipment and materials, so thoroughly equipped in Podolsk and addressed to the plant No. 18, arrived even before the arrival of the Podolsk residents themselves.
Plant No. 207, with everyone's attention and assistance, quickly became a respectable enterprise. In parallel with the expansion of production, the construction of the missing premises went on. To equip the shops of the new plant, all enterprises of the industrial area have allocated various equipment. BA Dubovikov still recalls how the director of plant No. 18 Shenkman personally brought them a microscope for the plant laboratory.
But they still had enough difficulties. Take at least the fact that the site of the plant was on the outskirts, about twenty kilometers from the main airline complex. Svyaz is the only railway line that was swept by any snowstorm in winter. Then horses and peasant sledges or drags came to the rescue.
Already in February 1942, Plant No. 207 handed over to Plant No. 18 the first batch of armored hulls assembled at a new location.
No matter how clearly the evacuation of plant No. 18 was carried out, its main difficulty - the relocation of people - brought him substantial losses. Only a little more than half of the previous staff of the plant started to work at the new place. True, these were the best shots. The main divisions - technical departments, main workshops and services - had almost no dropouts in people. Mainly missing were workers of procurement shops, riveters, warehouse workers and other subsidiary units, where the majority were women, whose families lived in the suburbs of Voronezh or neighboring villages. To compensate for these losses, recruitment and training of personnel in the missing specialties were organized.
The past months of the war brought recognition to the Il-2 attack aircraft. At the same time, the same period clearly revealed a significant drawback of the aircraft - the insecurity of its tail section, the absence of an onboard gunner. At the plant number 18 and in the Ilyushin Design Bureau from the fronts, there were requests and demands for the introduction of an air gunner's cabin with a machine-gun mount on the Il-2. In some air regiments, home-made machine-gun installations began to appear on single-seat Il-2 aircraft.
But the decisive factor in this matter was undoubtedly the episode described by Sergei Vladimirovich Ilyushin in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper in 1968:
“… Soon, news began to come from the front: the“silts”were being shot down by enemy fighters. The enemy, of course, immediately saw through the insufficient protection of the aircraft from behind.
In February 1942, J. V. Stalin summoned me. He regretted the previous decision (to start production of the IL-2 in a single version) and suggested:
“Do what you want, but I don’t allow you to stop the conveyor. Give the front two-seater planes immediately.
We worked like a man possessed. We slept and ate right in the KB. They racked their brains: how, without changing the adopted technology, to switch to the manufacture of cars with a two-seater cab? Finally, it was decided that the shooter's cockpit frame should be stamped …"
The OKB recalls that the first batch of two-seater "silts" was obtained by modifying the single-seater machines located at the airport near Moscow by the forces of the factory brigade.
A rigid ring stamped out of duralumin cut into the "barrel" of the fuselage, and a machine-gun mount was mounted on it. To protect the shooter, an armor plate was reinforced across the fuselage from the tail side. The resulting cockpit was covered from above by a hinged canopy.
This is how the first two-seat Il-2 attack aircraft appeared at the front in late March - early April 1942.
It would seem that the task was solved: and the shooter returned to the plane, and the production of attack aircraft was not slowed down, the plan did not suffer. But here it was discovered (and the designers knew this before) that the introduction of a full-fledged, armored gunner's cockpit with a powerful rifle installation and a sufficient supply of shells (total weight more than three hundred kilograms) noticeably shifted the aircraft's center of gravity back. This, in turn, somewhat worsened its aerobatic properties. The aircraft became harder to take off and required additional attention from the pilot.
There was nothing unexpected in this. And the method of treating the "illness" was clear to the designers. It was required to increase the wing sweep angle.
It was such an event that was carried out at the second stage of the finalization of the attack aircraft. In order not to disrupt the flow in production, we decided to turn the wing at the expense of the docking nodes located on the wing consoles, changing the angle of inclination of the docking combs. At the same time, the wing console in the joint zone underwent minor modifications, and the center section remained practically intact.
And in production, two versions of wings with different sweep went in parallel, the new began to gradually replace the old. Finally, around September - October 1942, the plant began to produce two-seat attack aircraft, not the final version, but the main version with characteristics even better than the aforementioned IL-2 prototype. In particular, the length of the takeoff roll was reduced, since by this time the minders had slightly increased the engine power by introducing a forced mode. The engine on the "silt" became known as AM-38F.
Aviation Colonel General F. P. Polynin in his book "Combat Routes" pointed out that in the 6th VA, which he commanded, a gunner's cabin with a ShKAS machine-gun mount was mounted on a single-seat attack aircraft. The commander of the 243rd Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel I. Danilov, proposed revision with the active participation of the Chief Engineer of the 6th Air Force V. Koblikov. The modified aircraft was examined in Moscow in September 1942 by a commission of the leaders of the Air Force and the aviation industry, which approved this work and spoke in favor of carrying out a similar modification of the aircraft in military units.
The spring and early summer of 1942 were very hot in the area of the new industrial area. Big snows quickly melted, and in the rains the nature turned out to be stingy. Steppe airfields, blown by constant winds, have turned into a kind of storehouses of earth dust. The foot was ankle-deep in the smallest, soft and very mobile surface. Often, taking off in links, the planes raised clouds of the smallest dust, which was "swallowed" by the flying machines. The IL-2 did not have an air filter at that time (!!!). All the dust of the steppe airfields almost unhindered penetrated the carburetor, supercharger and engine cylinders. Mixing with engine oil, this dust formed an abrasive emery mass, scratching, scuffing the mirror surface of the cylinders and piston rings. The motors began to smoke …
The chief engineer of the 1st reserve aviation brigade F. Kravchenko and the head of the maintenance and repair department of the engine aircraft plant A. Nikiforov flew to the airfields on the Po-2. At each they gave instructions to remove the carburetors from the motors and everywhere they found an unsightly picture: the carburetors are full of dirt, on the walls and blades of the motor superchargers - layers of compressed earth … Everything immediately became clear.
When this was established and the command of the air brigade reported to Moscow, a categorical instruction was received from there: to stop flights on the Il-2 in reserve regiments, plant No. 24 to repair or replace the failed engines as soon as possible …
And there were about two and a half hundred such engines … Two hundred and fifty Il-2 attack aircraft immediately became "joked".
Designers and factories were ordered to immediately develop an efficient air filter and install it in the aircraft's intake air tunnel. Introduce this filter into series production. All Il-2 aircraft located in the 1st zab, urgently finalize - to install air filters. In parallel, organize a similar revision of aircraft in the army.
At the plant number 18, a solid commission gathered under the chairmanship of Professor Polikovsky. It was proposed to install a special labyrinth mesh in the air channel of the aircraft, which was supposed to be dipped in oil before the flight and washed with gasoline after the flight. But this is only a principled recommendation, but a reliably working structure is needed that provides all the requirements: both motor protection and ease of use. Further, an air filter with a powerful mesh is required only when the aircraft is moving on the ground. In flight, it should automatically turn off so as not to cause excessive air braking and not reduce engine power. Is it not an easy task? Not for these people.
Two days later, a prototype of such a filter was already in flight, began and quickly and successfully completed the tests.
Evaluating the work done by the builders and installers of the factory crews, On March 29, 1942, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 334 construction workers were awarded orders and medals.
The builders completed their activities at the site of the new industrial area in 1943. At the same time, a large group of builders was awarded orders and medals for the second time.
During the war, the collective of Plant No. 18 produced about 15,000 attack aircraft. That is, in fact, almost half of the total (36,000).
“Nails would be made of these people - there would be no stronger nails in the world! - was written in a children's poem of the past. There was no point in making nails out of those people: planes were more needed. And each "IL" that emerged from the walls of the plant's shops carried a part of those who, in the unheated shops, on starvation rations, collected it. The hands of these men, women, adolescents made 15,000 nails driven into the lid of the Wehrmacht's coffin. Remember this, and make it so that it is remembered in the future.
