Callsign “Maestro”
Golovachev, Pavel Yakovlevich
Born in the village of Koshelyovo, Buda-Koshelev Volost, Mogilev Province, now Buda-Koshelev District, Gomel Region, into a peasant family. Belarusian. Member of the CPSU since 1943.
After graduating in 1935 in the city of Gomel, the school of factory apprenticeship, he worked as a turner and miller at a timber processing plant. He was a forward of the factory football team. At the same time he studied at the Gomel flying club. In 1938, on a Komsomol ticket, he was sent to the 8th Odessa Military Aviation Pilot School named after P. D. Osipenko, from which he graduated at the end of 1940. Continue reading
Callsign “Maestro”
Vitaly Ivanovich Popkov, the future Maestro and future Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, went to the front in early May 1942 after several reports.
From the very beginning, the young pilot’s service did not work out. He was almost immediately appointed “eternal orderly”. Vitaly Ivanovich appreciated humor and jokes, and he himself was not a blunder, to laugh. Pilots in one liberated village picked up a puppy, and the future twice hero taught him to carry out combat commands. Continue reading
