Biography Nikolai Vaganov

On July 8, he was drafted into the Red Army and enrolled in the Aramil military school of pilots, near Sverdlovsk. The pilot received the title in July in the city of Sorochinka of the Orenburg region. In August, after graduating from the pilot school, he was sent to Transcaucasia, to the city of Yevlah, to the Batai Flight School, evacuated from under Rostov-on-Don. In the south of the country, fierce heavy battles were going on at that time.

The Germans, having a large numerical superiority in people and technology, occupied the North Caucasus, went to the main Caucasian ridge. The situation was such that, despite the persistent defensive resistance of our troops, many cadets of the school were sent as part of the infantry units to defend an important section of the front, the training of cadets was stopped by flight business.

Some of the cadets began to be thrown into the rear of the enemy for sabotage acts. Others defended the Caucasus as shooters. And only when our troops in February drove the enemy from the North Caucasus, the military school again began to prepare fighter pilots for the front. First of all, these are the cadets who arrived in the school before our Ural detachment. During the training flights on the “I” educational aircraft, I was seriously ill with a tropical malaria mowed cadets and disabled them and, accompanied by a military paramedic, was sent to the hospital of the city of Tbilisi.

After recovery, he voluntarily left for the front. He did not return to the school from a real fears to lose participation in the hostilities of the defeat of the German fascists. With great difficulty, he convinced the head of the hospital, a lieutenant colonel of the medical service, in the need to send me only to the front. What kind of arguments did not give me to satisfy my request!

I am still grateful to him for the fair decision. So, in September, I ended up at the front in the location of the first Ukrainian front in the famous Guards Aviation Division, which was commanded by the Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin. Upon learning why I didn’t return from the hospital to the School, having got acquainted with the certificate of the cadet-pilot and with the Komsomol ticket, Pokryshkin asked if I had been in the air for a long time and immediately declared that I arrived not at the address, since he did not command the sanitary part.

The chief of staff of the division present during the conversation noted that Vaganov wants to be a fighter pilot. Confirming the words of the chief of staff, I said that my personal flight business is in the Batai Flight School, which again survived the evacuation and is now in the city of Azov. The legendary pilot Pokryshkin gave the chief of staff the following instructions: - Immediately request my personal file from the school; - Vaganova N.

Let, until a personal file has come, works in one of the flight crews by the junior aircraft specialist, with the simultaneous responsibility of studying the Aerocobra fighter aircraft, which he will have to fight on. After I served combat sorties at the front and thoroughly studied the Aerocobra aircraft, the regiment commander V. Bobrov, satisfying my numerous reports from the knowledge of Pokryshkin, gave me an order to teach me the piloting technique on the Aerocobra aircraft.

My pilot was engaged in the deputy commander of the squadron I. Countess - a wonderful officer, an experienced pilot. Having passed the theoretical exams for the design of the aircraft and received from Joseph Countess a positive assessment on the piloting technique of this aircraft, I was enrolled in the flight composition of the regiment in the first squadron.

This happened on December 20, after almost three months of my military work by the junior aviation specialist in the crew of the pilot Gennady Voroshilov. The Guards Aviation Regiment in which I fought went a glorious military path. The pilots successfully covered our ground troops from the air. Reliably covered tankers advancing in enemy positions. Being a guided in the combat pair of aircraft, I provided the leading pilot Voroshilov with the possibility and security of the attack, covered him from enemy attacks along with other pilots, took part, accompanied by bombers and attack aircraft IL-2.

Our guards regiment distinguished himself in battles when crossing the Vistula River, when covering our crossings through the Vistula. For the liberation from the Nazis of the Polish city of Krakow, our regiment received the name "Krakow", and pilots - awards. In one of the battles, in conditions of low cloud cover, the squadron commander Viktor Zherdev was knocked out by anti -aircraft guns.

The wounded pilot landed safely near the front line. During the retreat, the Nazi soldiers, as we later became aware, like wild animals, tore a tunic with orders from the pilot and stabbed him with knives. The student of Alexander Pokryshkin - Zherdev, in fierce battles in the Kuban more than once, risking his life, covered the commander from attacks of enemy fighters.

Viktor Zherdev, who gave his life for the liberation of Poland, was buried in the city of Sandomir. Once, after the war, in the resort city of Essentuki, in Victor’s homeland, they showed the movie “Pokryshkin” shot at the front.The screen transferred them to the combat atmosphere in which their son lived and fought. And suddenly the mother, seeing her own son on the screen, cried out in full voice: “Vitya is my Vityushenka !!!

The hall, usually acutely reacting to the violation of silence, was now silent. The audience understood everything, guessed what happened. We, fellow soldiers, being in the sanatoriums of the city of Essentuki, each time visited Zherdev’s parents, helped them as we could. There, in Poland, in the conditions of a combat situation, our other fellow soldier, Vishnevsky Konstantin Grigorievich Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the glorious Soviet officers, died.

A certain weather improvement at the end of February brought the harbinger of the crib. During the run, planes with difficulty broke away from the ground, and when landing the wheels buried in the ground. In these difficult conditions, the commander had to release only experienced pilots on combat missions. Once Pokryshkin, being in the air, drew attention to a two -lane car track with a width of no more than nine meters.

The scope of the wings of the aircraft was 12 meters. Having examined this Auto track Breslau-Berlin, risking his life, he landed on the road. The next day, the division commander put more aircraft on the freeway. Our advancing troops were daily under the reliable cover of Soviet fighters. In search of the airfield "strangled". Once, in the area of ​​the aircraft, two enemy aircraft appeared in the air.

One was shot down by a young, inexperienced, like me, pilot Yuri Golberg, the second - Captain Luantsev. The captured German pilot turned out to be a terry intelligence officer with an iron cross on his chest. During the interrogation, he showed that he was the commander of the aviation regiment, had the task: to find our secret airfield on the motorway and strike on it. They did not find the airfield, but met - as the German officer said - with our aces, who shot down them.

The first thing that the prisoner stated at the regiment headquarters was to show him the pilot who shot him. This interesting episode is well shown in the documentary "Pokryshkin in the sky." Without waiting for this pilot, the Germans threw off their second azure at night at night. Early in the morning, our sentry noted that a man with a knapsack behind him, in a torn peasant clothing, was coming along the runway.

The soldier's attention was attracted by the fact that the “peasant” walks in the strip with an almost drill step, as if in a parade. The unknown person was detained and delivered to the headquarters, where during interrogation he showed that he had a task with the radio station in Kitopka - to find our planes and report their deployment. For the vigilant of the soldier, they awarded the medal "For Military Merit".

Our airfield was in their way. The fog did not allow our planes to fly away, a difficult situation was created. According to combat alarm, the entire personnel of the regiment: flight and technical, using personal weapons, weapons of aircraft, guns and machine guns, entered the battle and steadily repulsed the attacks of the Germans. Many, including me, for the first time had to participate in a ground unequal battle, moving from defense to attack, and sometimes to hand -to -hand combat.

At the request of the commander of Pokryshkin, who broke out into the unit on the “spanning” flight to the aid of us, at the end of the second day a platoon of tankers arrived, who immediately joined the battle. The Nazis, carrying heavy losses, could not stand it and began to surrender in large groups. Pilots and tankers won together. About two thousand German soldiers and officers surrendered.

In the last days of April, two of our pilots were killed. Nikolai Klimov died under Taran of an enemy aircraft. And my squadron commander Joseph Countess died. This is how Pokryshkin describes this fight: “Our fighters boldly and decisively fought, shot several enemy aircraft, the rest began to go west.

The Capherine, pursuing the “Me” screaming at a small height, settled down in his tail and opened fire, at that time the Messerschmit was fired at anti -aircraft guns. The machine gun queue touched the Countess’s car, shot down aircraft, enemy and ours fell almost nearby. The only bullet hit our pilot in the temple. It was hard to experience the death of an extraordinary officer.

The decanter was distinguished by his desperate in battles, the ability to perform the most dangerous tasks, he was very respect for the pilots. ” The death of the countess on the eve of Victory shocked me to the core. More recently, this brave warrior taught me the piloting of a fighter aircraft and now, at the monument to M. Kutuzov, that in the city of Bunzlau, with military honors, we buried his hero.

After the war, I graduated from the Sverdlovsk Law Institute and 32 years worked continuously in the investigative apparatus of the prosecutor's office and internal affairs bodies of the region. My hard, responsible work of the investigator, in the fight against crime, the high quality of the investigation has been repeatedly noted by state awards. This was written: the story of Smoleva “The shot at night”, the outline of the journalist S.

Bunkov “Duel every day” published in the newspapers “Chelyabinsk Worker” and “Evening Chelyabinsk”, my younger brother Alexander fell on the front line earlier than me. He fought for two years, from August to the end of the war. He was the commander of the communications department.In the battles near Rzhev, he was seriously wounded, in the hospital he was healed and again in operation.

He returned home alive, began to work almost where I got married. We have been friends with families all our lives, he was gone two years ago. My participation in the Great Patriotic War was noted by the title of “guards”.