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Grozny, because there were no aircraft available for them to fly. After an eternity of boredom and frustration—“we wanted to go out and conquer Germany, but all we were able to do was study the theory of flight”—he won a place in flying school by getting into the school band. His commanding officer was captivated by the fashion in which Markov played the balalaika. But, even in 1944, they were expected to train on old aircraft, which constantly failed them. “Sometimes, there were three funerals in a week.” Forty-seven per cent of all wartime Soviet aircraft losses were the consequence of technical failure rather than pilot error or enemy action. They learned next to nothing about fighter tactics, because they were forbidden even to loop: “We were just taught to make figures in the sky.” Markov qualified in May 1944, with 100 hours’ dual and solo experience. When he was finally sent to a squadron, he was expected to learn to fight in the air over the German lines.

The Soviet Union devoted little effort to strategic bombing. Its air force was a branch of the army, overwhelmingly committed to tactical operations. Russian units never received the sort of “cab-rank” close support from fighter-bombers that was available to the Western allies, because they lacked sophisticated ground–air radio links. But in 1944–45, the Soviets possessed overwhelming air superiority over the battlefield, protecting their advancing armies from the sort of devastation they had suffered from the Luftwaffe between 1941 and 1943. Most Russian bomber operations were carried out by daylight formations of Ilyushin-2s and American-built Bostons, attacking with heavy fighter escort. “I was testing my own skills to the limit,” said Alexandr Markov of his days as an escort pilot. “Right to the end, the Germans had some pretty good fliers. We were sometimes flying four missions a day, each one from half an hour to two hours. Nobody asked whether we could take it. The tired pilots were simply the ones most likely to die.” Unlike British and American pilots who were rested after a “tour,” Russian aircrew flew until they died, or won the war. On the ground, their planes were serviced almost entirely by women. The girls did everything for them—bombing up and arming the aircraft, manning communications, washing their clothes. One Soviet night-bomber wing was entirely crewed by women, twenty-three of whom became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Markov fell in love with his unit’s meteorological officer, twenty-six-year-old Lydia Fyodorovna. She was married, but her husband serving on the Leningrad Front wrote suggesting that the couple should part: “He had found someone else, of course.” Markov married Lydia after the war. At their airfield behind the Polish front, the pilots partied every night. Yet in most respects their war was more austere than that of their British and American counterparts. No one painted names or cartoons on their planes, any more than they did on Rus-sian tanks. They had enough to eat, and almost unlimited supplies of alcohol. But there were few creature comforts, and no leave. There was only the war, and the comradeship of the unit.

BREACHING THE ODER

AT THE END of January, the Russians seized bridgeheads across the upper Oder, upstream and downstream from Breslau. The Germans first learned of their coming when Russian tank gunfire sank a steamer proceeding blithely downriver from the city. Breslau was designated by Hitler as a fortress, and doggedly held by the Germans for many weeks to come. But Konev’s southern offensive had now achieved its principal purposes. It had opened a path into the heart of Germany across the last great river barrier. The loss of Upper Silesia caused Albert Speer to dispatch a memorandum to Hitler, copied to Guderian, in which the armaments minister asserted that without Silesia’s factories Germany’s war was lost.

Meanwhile, further north, General Vasily Chuikov had seized Lodz against negligible resistance on 19 January. Soviet and Polish flags burgeoned across the city. The Russians had enveloped Warsaw.