Double, Triple and Quadruple Heroes
The concept of "twice, thrice, four times Hero" today seems somewhat strange, probably it would be more correct to talk about awarding several Gold Star medals. But this is a…

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Last great ace
I want to tell about the life of a man with whom a journalistic fate once brought me together. About a man in whom self-esteem and absolute inner freedom were…

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Black wings of Spain...
Medal "Participant in the Spanish Civil War" in an award box, on the original ribbon with an authentic hairpin. Bronze, gilding, blackening. Kleymo A.M. Excellent collectible condition. The medal, simply…

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Ivan Kozhedub
A Soviet military leader, air fighter and commander, an officer selflessly devoted to his work, Kozhedub is one of the most talented Soviet fighter pilots. Air Marshal, Three times Hero…

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Kursk Bulge

Sorcerers rushed into the sky

Koldunov rushed into the sky, into the element of air combat. He submits an application with a request to be admitted to the Kachin flight school. But he was refused – a few years. Alexander went to the military commissar. He just threw up his hands – I can not help. Then the young man wrote a letter personally to K. E. Voroshilov. The People’s Commissar of Defense instructed to send Koldunov to a flight school. So Alexander ended up in glorious Kacha … Continue reading

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

Rechkalov Grigory Andreevich
Born on February 9, 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo, now the village of Zaikovo, Sverdlovsk Region, in a peasant family. He graduated from the 6 classes of an incomplete…

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Klubov Alexander Fedorovich
Born on January 18, 1918 in the village of Yerunovo (now does not exist; the territory of the Semenkovsky rural settlement of the Vologda district of the Vologda region). In…

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