Flying horror of the Luftwaffe
On June 8, 1920, the legendary pilot, three times Hero of the Soviet Union, Air Marshal Ivan Kozhedub was born.
The future pilot was born a few kilometers from Shostka - the village of Obrazheevka. Despite his unfulfilled life, he grew up as a smart and inquisitive child. I learned to read early. He entered the chemical-technological technical school at the mechanical faculty. He combined his studies with classes at the local flying club of Osoviakhim, after which he entered the Chuguev Aviation School. After final exams and impeccable practical flights, Kozhedub is left at the school as a flight instructor. On the one hand, there is bitterness and disappointment that his comrades will disperse to combat units, and on the other, the high trust placed in him.
Go ahead, falcons. Let's attack!
Finally, the command approved his next report to send him to the front. Collection point for flight technical personnel in Moscow. A regiment of experienced fighter pilots was formed here. Its commander is Major Ignatius Soldatenko. Hero of the war in Spain, holder of two Orders of the Red Banner. The regiment commander tried to ensure that in each squadron, along with the newcomers, there were pilots who had been fired upon in air battles.
It was the spring of 1943. The troops of three fronts, inspired by the triumphant victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad, went west. The enemy managed to hold back the offensive impulse of the Soviet troops. The two warring sides had to develop a combat strategy for the summer period.
The first fight for Kozhedub was unsuccessful. While patrolling the sky above the regimental airfield, he entered with six “Messers” and did not notice how a German came into the tail of his “Lavochkin”. He didn't miss. Ivan was saved by his armored back; the shell that hit it turned out to be a high-explosive one. Finally, while landing, he came under anti-aircraft fire from the airfield cover.
For another young pilot, the first failure would have unsettled him for a long time. But Major Soldatenko was not only a good commander, but also an experienced psychologist. Kozhedub forever remembered his order and followed it: “To shoot down a plane is not a matter of waving your hand. From desire to ability there is a huge distance. And her combat experience and ingenuity reduce her. And hard work and study.”
On July 5, the Wehrmacht launched Operation Citadel. The next day, the 240th Fighter Aviation Regiment, in which Junior Lieutenant Kozhedub also fought, entered combat. Our pilots are crossing the front line. Almost immediately they discover 20 dive bombers, accompanied by Messers. Squadron commander Fyodor Semyonov quickly moves away from the fire and shoots the lead Junkers from below. A start. The silhouettes of our and enemy planes flash in Ivan’s eyes. Continues to pursue “his” enemy chosen for attack. A long queue. Another one. The voice of wingman Vasily Mukhin is heard in the headset: “Hit, Dad, I’m covering you!” The enemy plane burst into flames and fell west of the village of Zavidovka. The bombers hastened to free themselves from the dangerous cargo at the location of their troops and turned back.
The tension was rising. The balance of forces in the air was almost equal. The Luftwaffe command sent selected aviation squadrons into battle. But the Soviet air force was no longer the same, they received modern aircraft - Pe-2 bombers, Il-2 attack aircraft, La-5, Mig-3, Yak-9 fighters, and accumulated invaluable combat experience in the battles of Moscow and Leningrad, near Stalingrad and in the Kuban. The squadrons of the 240th Air Regiment, operating in the Belgorod-Kursk direction, had to fly out several times a day to accompany Pe-2 groups that continuously bombed German tank and infantry units and enemy airfields. And also carry out aerial reconnaissance.
In one of these fights, Fedor Semenov was wounded. In the evening, Kozhedub received an order to take command of the squadron until the commander’s recovery. For the first time, Kozhedub flew on a mission as the leader of four fighters. A fierce tank battle is raging on the ground. Ivan carefully scans the airspace above the Soviet battle formations. The silhouettes distinguish two Messerschmitt-109s. They are trying to attack. But while the enemy was turning around, Ivan caught the leader at gunpoint. He was the first to open fire, he turned over and crashed into the ground from a vertical dive. This was his third battle success. The Four once again flew out to cover our troops. In a short battle, Kozhedub shot down another Messerschmitt.
The enemy's offensive has stalled and he is withdrawing his troops. While waiting for the command to take off, Ivan sees regiment commander Podorozhny rushing to his plane with good news: for successful military operations he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. And in the evening he was introduced to the order of his appointment as squadron commander.
The pilots of the 240th IAP are in high spirits, as are all the soldiers of the six fronts, who not only held their positions on the Kursk Bulge, but also went on the offensive. Belgorod and Orel were liberated. Moscow saluted the winners of the Kursk-Oryol Battle. And again the command: “Take off!” A large group of enemy bombers was approaching Rogan, a suburb of Kharkov. The enemy has at least 40 Junkers-87s in the sky. The Hawks break through the Messer screen and crash into the formation of bombers. Kozhedub gets behind one of them, opens fire and drives it into the ground. Hot and fierce battles near the Dnieper, slightly inferior in intensity to the skies over Belgorod and Kharkov: covering crossings near Dnepropetrovsk, repelling raids on the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front in the zone of action of which the 5th Air Army fought, and in it the 240th IAP. Here squadron commander Kozhedub emerged victorious 11 times in ten battles. By the end of the third year of the war, his personal combat tally had increased to 26 enemy aircraft destroyed.
After the battles over Slavutich and participation in the liquidation of the Korsun-Shevchenko group, Soviet aviation on the southern and other fronts seized air supremacy. And she didn’t let him go until the last days of the war. The enemy tried in vain to seize the initiative and replenished its air fleet with new types of aircraft. But domestic military-technical thought was several steps ahead of him. Changes in the flight-tactical qualities of fighters for the better contributed to an increase in the combat prowess of the “winged knights of the sky.”
An unforgettable morning for him, February 4, 1944. The regiment received a message that three pilots of the 240th IAP - Olkhovsky, Semenov and Kozhedub - were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their courage and heroism. His heart was filled with a feeling of pride that he, a simple peasant boy, had been awarded the highest award of his Motherland. He was replaced by a feeling of immense gratitude to his comrades in arms - wingman Vasily Mukhin, mechanic Viktor Ivanov, everyone, without whom his personal successes and victories would have been impossible.
The spring thaw has been replaced by a hot summer. Troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front are preparing for the Iasi-Kishinev offensive operation. But the enemy is still very strong, snarling in the sky and on land. One day, Ivan Kozhedub received an order to fly on a U-2 to the Moldavian city of Balti, where their regiment had recently been based. Approaching the airfield, I noticed a brand new La-5FN, shining with fresh paint. The command of the air force, which included the IAP, handed him this plane, built with the labor savings of collective farmer Vasily Konev, an old beekeeper of the Bolshevik collective farm in the Stalingrad region. He asked to give him the name of his nephew - the commander of the 21st Guards IAP, Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Konev, who died a heroic death in December 1942 in the sky near Leningrad. Thanking Vasily Viktorovich Konev for the expensive gift, he soon informed him: “On your plane, I shot down eight enemy aircraft, of which five were the vaunted Focke-Wulf-190.” Now I have forty-five enemy aircraft on my account. Let me end this letter with the assurance that my battle score will continue to grow. With military greetings, Captain Kozhedub."
At the end of June, the regiment commander invited him to his place: “An order has arrived for your immediate flight to Moscow. For what purpose is unknown.” At the main headquarters of the Air Force, he learned that the command intended to send him to the 1st Belorussian Front, to an aviation regiment that was conducting a free air hunt for enemy aces. An order appointing him as deputy commander of a fighter regiment was signed. In the reserve regiment he knew near Moscow, a La-7 of a new modification was waiting for him.
Already in the process of studying this aircraft, Kozhedub was delighted with its flight qualities. The enemy did not have such vehicles in service. Here, on the eve of the celebration of Air Fleet Day, I learned that he had been awarded a second Gold Star. With the loss of its air superiority, the Luftwaffe chose a different tactic. They sent out their best aces to hunt single planes or those that had strayed from a group. It was necessary to once and for all repel the enemy’s desire to resort to these tricks.
After the liberation of Warsaw, all three fronts - the 1st Ukrainian, 1st Belorussian and 2nd Belorussian fronts quickly crossed the Oder. Even from above, our pilots can see the signs in Russian: “Berlin is 80 kilometers away.” They find airfields filled with Junkers, Messerschmitts and Fokkers. The Germans, fleeing in panic, abandoned their planes - there was nothing else left for them.
Messerschmitt-262 jets with turbojet engines appeared in the sky. On February 19, Ivan Kozhedub, together with his wingman Dmitry Titarenko, went hunting, where they discovered a jet Messer. He obviously relied on his speed - in vain. The partners are pushing the Lavochkins to their maximum speed. The wingman hurried to be the first to open fire; the enemy decided to turn around, but exposed himself to the fire of the leader’s guns. The enemy “novelty,” falling apart, fell down.
The fierce battle for Berlin, both in the skies and on the ground, was drawing to a close. For Kozhedub and Titarenok this was the fifth flight of the day. The setting sun was in favor of the potential enemy when the pilots noticed 40 Focke-Wulfs. The balance of forces was 2:40 and yet they decided to engage in battle. We went to the back of the group from the direction of the sun. Two Fokkers were immediately set on fire, causing panic among the others. But the enemy, making sure that there were only two Soviet fighters against them, encircled them. Late. Friends in arms came to the rescue in time. On the way back, they notice a stray plane with a swastika on board. He tried to bomb himself and earn the “Iron Cross” at the very end of the war. Kozhedub shoots him point-blank and wins his 62nd victory.
62 victories and not a single defeat! An unsurpassed result in either the Soviet or Allied air forces. No one has ever been able to bring him down. He had to suffer damage, sometimes quite seriously, but in each such case he knew how to save the car and land at his airfield.
"MIG-15" against "Sabres" and "flying fortresses"
The Soviet country and all its multinational people rejoiced and paid well-deserved honors to the heroic warriors who crushed the multi-headed fascist hydra. And in the 176th Guards Fighter Regiment, the deputy regiment commander, Major Kozhedub, was escorted to Moscow to study at the Air Force Academy for command and navigation personnel.
At one of the airfields near Moscow, preparations were underway for the first post-war air parade dedicated to Air Force Day. Early in the morning, the radio broadcast a message about the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding a large group of pilots - winners of air battles. The first name in it was Kozhedub's surname. His homeland crowned him with the third Gold Star. He became the second three times Hero of the Soviet Union in the history of Soviet aviation.
The time has come to storm the skies again, now on the wings of jet aviation, which requires impeccable knowledge of theory, careful preparation and flying skill. Kozhedub and his fellow students persistently mastered the Mig-15 fighters. Flights day and night, in difficult weather conditions, comfortable cabins equipped with modern instruments. They helped us choose an error-free solution and practice our piloting technique down to the smallest detail.
On June 25, 1950, the United States, hiding behind the mandate of the UN peacekeeping forces, unleashed a full-scale war against the young Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Kim Il Sung turned to Stalin and Mao Zedong for help. Already on October 12, 9 combined arms armies of the PRC under the general name “Chinese volunteers” crossed the border. However, without reliable air cover there was no hope of success. The Americans, along with their allies, threw more than 1500 “flying fortresses,” jet and rotary-wing fighters into the skies.
Late at night, a telephone call woke up the commander of the 324th Aviation Division, I.N. Kozhedub, who was vacationing with his family in Sochi. The apparatus was commanded by the commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District, V. I. Stalin. He had to urgently fly to Moscow. Ivan Nikitovich guessed the reason for the emergency call. On the way, he remembered the far from friendly first meeting with the allies in the skies over Berlin. While patrolling the square assigned to him, Kozhedub discovered two Messers preparing to attack an American B-29. A jet of fire cut them off from the bomber. And then he saw two Mustangs open fire on him. "As for me? For what?". Return cannon tracks hit one fighter and it fell apart in the air, the second began to smoke, its pilot jumped out with a parachute. After returning home, we developed the film from the photo-machine gun. There was no doubt: white American stars on the fuselages. They decided not to make the incident public. Division commander Evgeny Savitsky summed it up: “These victories of yours count towards our future war.” And the regiment commander Pavel Chupikov returned the films to him with the words: “Take them for yourself, Ivan, and don’t show them to anyone.”
The month allotted for preparing the 324th IAP for combat operations quickly passed. The district air force commander personally supervised all work at the airfield in Kubinka near Moscow. I remember his parting words to the division command staff: “You have to fight there differently - not the way you fought in the last war, use your experience, acquired knowledge, intelligence, new equipment... I forbid the division commander to carry out independent sorties.” The last phrase became a blow for Kozhedub. After all, personal participation in combat battles has always been the content of his life in the sky.
The first flights from the Chinese Andun airfield on April 2, 1951. At first, not everything went as planned on the ground, due to the lack of combat experience in the new conditions. During these difficult days for the division, Kozhedub emerged as a division commander. It was possible to establish trusting relationships with regimental and squadron commanders, and reliable operation of warning and guidance stations.
The “finest hour” for the 324th Division was Thursday, April 12th. The American command intended to destroy the crossings across the border Yalu River, along which material and human reserves went from the PRC to the front. The main striking force of the aggressor was 48 heavy bombers, covered by 80 fighters. The enemy lost 10 “flying fortresses” and 4 fighters. The 324th Air Division had no losses. After this, B-29s became rare guests in the “Alley of Migov” - as they nicknamed the area of operation of the 324th and other Soviet air divisions.
In the second war in his life, Ivan Kozhedub again showed brilliant results, now as a military leader. During nine months of participation in hostilities, his division shot down 216 enemy aircraft, including 12 “superfortresses” and 118 “Sabres”. Own losses amounted to 27 fighters and 9 pilots. The combat effectiveness coefficient is 9,6. The Mig-15 became the most effective fighter in this war. In total, Soviet aviation during the Korean War carried out 64 combat sorties and conducted a little more than 000 air battles, in which the enemy lost 1870 aircraft. Realizing the scale of such huge losses, the United States abandoned its intention to atomic bomb the border territories of the USSR, China and the DPRK, and even Siberia, adjacent to the Korean Peninsula.
For skillful leadership of the division's combat operations in the skies of the DPRK, its commander was awarded the seventh Order of the Red Banner - the most revered award among military pilots. Five masters of air combat from his air force were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The international situation after the death of I.V. Stalin continued to heat up and required a constant increase in the combat readiness of the Air Force and Air Defense. The general's stars shone on Ivan Nikitovich's shoulder straps. Studying again, now at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. The next stages of growth are deputy commander of the 76th Air Army, then deputy commander of the Air Force of the Leningrad and Moscow districts, work in the Central Office of the Air Force. He strived to constantly improve his combat skills and flew all types of fighters. He even mastered the technique of piloting a Mi-4 helicopter and performed important civilian tasks on it. Yes, I almost forgot to mention: the title “Pilot 1st Class” was awarded to him back in 1950, on the eve of his “business trip” to China and the DPRK.
Air Marshal Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub (he was awarded this high title in 1985) took his rightful place in grateful human memory as a truly national hero. Not only as a courageous warrior, but a statesman. From 1946 to 1970 he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of three convocations. Residents of the cities of Sumy, Chuguev, Kupyansk, Kaluga, Balti, Zvenigorod awarded him the title of “Honorary Citizen”.
For truth and honor
For the first time, Ivan Nikitovich took up his memoirs in 1945, as soon as the echo of recent battles and battles had died down. His front-line memories seemed to be asking to be put on paper. This is what he wrote later: “...I look with emotional excitement at the dry list of names of my former fellow soldiers. More than one book could be written about everyone, from the mechanic to the commander. I couldn’t even mention many in my book - I mainly talked about the pilots of the squadron in which I served, about those with whom I flew more often.”
Five books of memoirs were published under his authorship. The last of them, “Loyalty to the Fatherland,” includes the content of all the previous ones. It was supplemented by a foreword and afterword by the writer Nikolai Bodrikhin, who devoted himself to studying the heroic history of Soviet aviation, in which the name of Kozhedub shines as a bright star. In 2010, a book by the writer-historian “Kozhedub” was published in the “Life of Remarkable People” series.
However, let us return to the first half of the eighties, when a “fresh wind of change” blew over the country in the form of perestroika imposed by Gorbachev and his “foremen.” It highlighted all the negative consequences of the “reforms” and “transformations” hastily imposed on Soviet society. They were felt most acutely by the military elite - the brains of the Soviet Armed Forces. The third world war was unfolding, without the roar of shells and bombs, but with its unpredictable and destructive geopolitical consequences.
This premonition gave the right to the People's Deputy of the USSR, Air Marshal Kozhedub, on behalf of a large group of Heroes of the Soviet Union and full Knights of Glory, from the rostrum of the 3rd Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR to address with the words:
“We note with deep pain and alarm how attempts by extremist, anti-Soviet forces are intensifying to split the unity of our multinational state, artificially sow hostility between peoples, dismantle socialist gains, create chaos in the country, undermine confidence in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and destroy the foundations of the Soviet system. It's time to go on the offensive against counter-revolutionary forces. Delay is like death!
A little over a year later, the same call will be repeated by world-famous patriotic politicians in their “Word to the People”: “Let us unite to stop the chain reaction of the disastrous collapse of the state, the economy, the individual!..”.
They did not listen, did not rally, did not go on the offensive, “millions of shoulders pressed tightly against each other.” The “disintegration train” launched by Gorbachev-Yeltsin was rushing at full speed towards the abyss, promising to bury the wreckage of a huge country.
On the morning of August 8, 1991, his wife Veronika Nikolaevna, returning from the store, found Ivan Nikitovich without signs of life on the second floor of their modest dacha in Monino. The arriving ambulance was unable to help, stating death from acute heart failure. The obituary of his death appeared in print only five days later. The air marshal was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
English version :: Read in English: The Flying Terror of the Luftwaffe