The Petlyakov Pe-2, affectionately called „Peszka,” was numerically the most important Soviet bomber of World War II. At its peak, it made up 75% of the Soviet twin-engine bomber fleet. However, its story does not begin in a design bureau, but in a special prison for scientists, where Stalin locked away his country’s most talented aeronautical engineers.
The Designer Behind Bars
In 1937, Vladimir Petlyakov was a rising star in the Soviet aviation industry. He led the team responsible for developing heavy bombers at the famous Tupolev design bureau. In his mid-twenties, he held a prestigious position at the CAGI institute and had a head full of ideas about high-load metal wings. All this ceased to matter once the Great Purge began.
Andrei Tupolev, head of the entire bureau, was forced to sign testimony against his colleagues. Petlyakov found himself on the list of supposed enemies of the Soviet state. Unlike thousands of other victims of repression, the designer was deemed too valuable to simply execute. Stalin needed airplanes, and brilliant engineers don’t grow on trees—even in the land of the Soviets.
Petlyakov ended up in a sharashka, a special prison run by the NKVD for valuable specialists. There, under the watchful eyes of guards, he was to continue working for the benefit of the socialist motherland. The absurdity of a system in which enemies of the people design weapons for that same people was not a concern for anyone.
A Fighter that Became a Bomber
In March 1938, the imprisoned designer proposed the project of a twin-engine interceptor to counter high-altitude bombers. The Germans were developing aircraft such as the Junkers Ju 86P, and the Soviets needed something that could shoot them down. The project received the codename VI-100, where VI stood for „Vysotny Istrebitel”—high-altitude fighter.
The design requirements were ambitious for their time: a pressurized cabin, an all-metal airframe, turbochargers, and electric systems. The plane was supposed to reach 630 km/h at 10,000 meters, climb to an altitude of 12,500 meters, and have a range of 1,400 kilometers. A reinforced structure was supposed to allow for dive attacks from high altitude.
Reality was brutally different. The prototype never received the promised pressurized cabin. The semi-monocoque construction, looked good on paper, but was a nightmare to produce given Soviet manufacturing quality. The slender fuselage squeezed the rear gunner into such a cramped space that evacuation in an emergency was practically impossible.
Test Flights that Cost Lives
The first VI-100 prototype took off on December 22, 1939, piloted by Pyotr Stefanovsky and Ivan Markov. During this flight, one M-105 engine failed, and on emergency landing, the stiff shock absorbers caused the aircraft to bounce uncontrollably. Subsequent flights revealed defects in the fuel, oil, and cooling systems.
During the May Day parade in 1940, Major Stefanovsky flew the prototype over Moscow, while Petlyakov and his team watched from the prison roof. The symbolism is almost literary—an engineer gazing through bars at the work of his own hands as crowds cheer for Soviet air power.
The second prototype ended in tragedy. During its eleventh flight, a fire broke out in the cockpit due to an improperly tightened fuel system nut. The crew parachuted to safety, but the aircraft crashed into a kindergarten, killing a group of children and their teacher. The disaster temporarily slowed progress, but did not stop it. The system needed an aircraft.
Last-Minute Change of Plan
In 1940, news spread of the effectiveness of German dive bombers Junkers Ju 87 Stuka during the blitzkrieg campaigns. Suddenly, the Red Army desperately needed something similar.
Additionally, Soviet experts, who were able to visit German aircraft factories due to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, discovered that Germany wasn’t developing high-altitude long-range bombers on a large scale after all.
The entire rationale for the VI-100 high-altitude fighter evaporated overnight. Instead of scrapping the project, it was decided to convert it into a dive bomber. This evolution—from interceptor, to high-altitude bomber, to dive bomber—showcases the chaotic development of Soviet aviation. Petlyakov had to redesign the plane for a completely new role.
The reworked aircraft was designated the Pe-2 and, flaws and all, entered mass production. By the war’s end, more than 11,400 units had been built—more than any other Soviet twin-engine combat plane. During the war, only the German Junkers Ju 88 and the British Vickers Wellington were produced in greater numbers in this class.
Success Against the Odds
The Peszka turned out surprisingly versatile, serving as a dive bomber, heavy fighter, night fighter (as the Pe-3 version), and reconnaissance aircraft. It was one of the war’s most prominent tactical strike aircraft, though its use as a night fighter bordered on the absurd. The only night fighter squadron defending Moscow lost planes mainly because crews became lost in the dark and ran out of fuel. Pilots bailed out and returned to base on foot.
The M-105 engines—the same as those powering Yakovlev fighters—were a constant trouble source. They overheated, leaked, and kept working only for maybe 15 minutes after leaving the factory. The bomb load was laughably small for a twin-engine, three-man aircraft. And yet, it flew, it fought, it dropped bombs on the enemy.
Petlyakov did not live to see the end of the war or the full triumph of his creation. He died in a plane crash in 1942. After his death, the Pe-2 began to bear his name—an ultimate irony for a designer first imprisoned as an enemy, then awarded a medal, and finally commemorated with an aircraft. The system that ruined him needed his genius to the very last moment.
Autor
Margot Cleverly
Margot's journey into women's history began with a box of forgotten letters in a Cambridge archive – suffragettes whose voices had been silenced for over a century. Since then, she's been on a mission to uncover the stories history overlooked.
What she writes about: Queens who ruled from the shadows. Scientists whose male colleagues took credit. Revolutionaries who risked everything. But also ordinary women – those who survived wars, raised families through upheaval, and shaped their communities in ways no one bothered to record.
Margot turns historical figures into real people. She writes with warmth and detail, making centuries-old stories feel surprisingly relevant. Rigorous research meets accessible storytelling – no dusty academic jargon, just compelling narratives backed by solid facts.
When she's not writing, you'll find her in regional archives, collecting oral histories, or visiting sites connected to the women she writes about.