General Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich

Yakov Vladimorivich Smushkevich was born in Rakishok, Kovno gubernia in 1902; he was the fourth person to be awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" twice, and was murdered in the Stalinist purges in February, 1942, after a brilliant military career. He came from the Lithuanian Smushkeviches.

Braithwaite's book Moscow 1941 describes as from a small town in Latvia, "one of seven children of an itinerant Jewish tailor." He appears in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls as General Douglas. His patronymic, changed at Stalin's urging, was originally Vulfovich. He is a relative of Aron Smushkevich.

The following is a news interview with his daughter:

Soviet Ace Executed in 1941

By Vladimir Shevelev Moscow News

The legendary air pilot Yakov Smushkevich was born 100 years ago. He was a striking and extraordinary personality. Even his enemies treated him with respect

At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis, in their official press, made no secret of their joy over the fact that General Douglas (that was his alias in Spain) was not taking part in the 1941 war. Indeed, there was no way he could have done that as he was arrested shortly before the war and executed as soon as it began.

His daughter, Roza Smushkevich, recalls those terrible days.

When your father was appointed commander-in-chief of the country’s Air Force, he was 37 - a mere boy by present-day standards.

Father was a born pilot. In Spain they still remember General Douglas. During the 1939 clash on the Khalkhin Gol river, father proposed using pinpoint strikes on designated targets. Today this practice has been adopted throughout the world. Father was awarded the second Hero of the Soviet Union medal for the Khalkhin Gol operation. The first one was for Spain. Alexander Shakhurin writes in his memoirs that Smushkevich played a major role in the Great Patriotic War even though he had been executed. In the last few years before the war he devoted himself entirely to creating new types of combat aircraft. Few people realized how critical it was to create an altogether different kind of aviation, aviation industry, and pilot-training system. He said that the first few minutes of war belonged to aviation. These minutes were key to the course and outcome of the war.

He must have been aware of an imminent war, better than anyone else.

Yes, that seemed to be the case. In 1940, at a New Year’s party at the Chkalov Club, father had a serious conversation with Alexander Golovanov, a renowned civil aviation pilot. Father suggested that it was necessary to start building at once long-range bomber aviation, and added that he had a detailed plan to that effect, asking Golovanov to take the matter up with Comrade Stalin. At the time he was suspended from his official position - purportedly due to an illness.

Golovanov was very surprised: "Why not you, Yakov Vladimirovich?" "I cannot go and see him now. But this is very important." "I will see to it that your letter is read by Stalin himself," Golovanov promised. Father’s calculation proved correct. Stalin received Golovanov, and the matter was taken up on the national level. That enabled our pilots to bomb Berlin as soon as the war broke out.

What do you remember about your father’s arrest?

I remember it very well. Father was in the hospital following an air accident. He was badly injured and doctors were amazed that he had survived. But he recovered and resumed his official duties, even though from time to time he had to go back to the hospital. One day he was taken from the hospital to Lubyanka [headquarters of the People’s Commissariate for Internal Affairs, or NKVD] on a stretcher. That was on June 7, 1941. I had been at the hospital and came home late. I woke up at night because a flashlight was shone in my face. Mother and I jumped out of bed: There were people in the room - all of them in doctor’s white smocks. We were shown a search warrant. The reason they were in white smocks was that they had just arrested father in the hospital. The search lasted for 36 hours. We had about 4,000 books. They went through every book, then threw it into a pile. For some reason they took away all our mattresses and pillows, so we had to sleep on the floor. The man in charge of the search was Bogdan Kobul ov, Beria’s lieutenant.

Later on we were told that father had been carried out of the hospital on a stretcher. He remained at Lubyanka until October, when he and other Air Force commanders were evacuated to Kuibyshev. When the Nazis were advancing on Moscow, on October 28, the NKVD local directorate received a cable signed by Beria: "Investigation to be stopped, all to be executed by firing squad without delay."

Now that a long time has passed and many new documents have come to light, do you have an explanation why Red Army commanders that the army needed so badly were executed?

I have often thought about that, but the only explanation I have is that the Nazi intelligence service got the Soviet leadership to believe that white is black and faithful fighters are enemies. What other explanation can there be.

ROKISHKIS (also Rakishik, Rakishki, Rakishok, Rakiszki,Rokishok), Lithuania.
Monument to Yakov Smushkevich, a native of the town. J. Smushkevich was fighter pilot, twice awarded with the highest Soviet award - golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Photo 1983.