For deeds committed during the great Patriotic war, the title “hero of the Soviet Union” was awarded more than 11,700 people. It is known only twelve cases, when a Gold Star was awarded to several members of one family – brothers, husband and wife, brother and sister… But some of these people became famous throughout the country. The greater part of the “family of Heroes” left “honored veterans of the war of regional value”.
In the intervals between battles brought little daughter
the Most famous case of “family heroism,” noted the highest award of the USSR, a sister and brother Kosmodemyanskaya Zoe and Alexander.
However it was, it appears, and another similar pair. Pilots, heroes of the Soviet Union brother and sister Nicholas and Tamara Konstantinov, born in the village Nigeria current Tver region.
the First in this “tandem” has paved the way to the sky Tamara. In 1934, 15-year-old girl-a member of the Komsomol she came in just opened in Kalinin (Tver) the flying club and there mastered flying biplane Po-2. Later, after completing the course instructors, began to work in the same club with her husband – also a pilot.
Example older sister drew and her brother Nicholas. After leaving school he entered the Orenburg military aviation school of navigators that finished on the eve of war.
When the war began Tamara Konstantinova some time worked in the civilian sector in the rear, but after her husband’s death in 1943 went to the military enlistment office, demanding to send her to the front. At first the young woman confided in the role of chauffeur in avtobatalon – on the “lorry” she picked up the ammunition for our advanced units on the front. But a persistent widow still achieved, she was sent to the aviation unit.
the First place of service was the air force connection. On a well-known Po-2 delivered the packages with the documents carried the officers-signalers. However, such a thing did not suit Konstantinov, she wanted to fight with the Nazis for real. In the end, this desire has managed to “break” his superiors: Tamara gave direction to the courses of pilots stormtroopers. After graduating newly minted Lieutenant was in 566 th attack aviation regiment 1st air army. There Konstantinov gained an excellent reputation and became famous almost in the whole front: the only female pilot, flying camel – heavy IL-2, and even in between combat missions raising a little girl! (Indeed, while 5-year-old girl, which is not who was to leave in Kalinin, lived with mother at the airstrip. Departing on a mission, Tamara was assigned to look after the child, co-workers, the baby became a “daughter of the regiment”.)
Konstantinov for��onila war 999th attack aviation regiment, where she was transferred in the winter of 1944 to the position of Deputy squadron commander. In total she participated in nearly 70 successful combat missions. Her battle account of several German batteries destroyed, blown up two dozen anti-aircraft guns of the enemy… Repeatedly Tamara risked her life. There was even a case when the attack was hit, and Konstantinova had to make an emergency landing. – She managed to save the plane, of the last opportunities dragging it across the front line.
on 29 June 1945 “for courage and heroism in the battles against the invaders fashistskimi” Lieutenant Tamara Fedorovna Konstantinova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Her younger brother got a Gold Star earlier – in April 1944. Guards senior Lieutenant Vladimir Konstantinov fought in 25 th guards night bomber aviation regiment. Spent the war years first as a Navigator and later a pilot, almost 700 night-bombing sorties of the concentration of enemy troops and equipment. Managed the bombs with his “plywood” In 2 to destroy more than a dozen tanks and armored vehicles, more than 40 trucks, railway train, 3 warehouses with ammunition.
“Subversive University” brothers Ignatovich
During the German occupation of the Krasnodar region in 1942-1943 in the Kuban deystvovala more than 80 guerrilla groups. One of them was special – “scientific-technical”. It just so happened that the six dozen fighters almost two-thirds were engineers, research Rabotnicki, including even a few PhDs. He commanded a detachment of “dad” – Peter Karpovich Ignatov, the Director of the Krasnodar Institute of chemical technology. And at the beginning he had a family – his wife and two sons. Helena was in charge of the medical detachment part, and Gennady and Eugene became excellent miners.
that’s what vspominal subsequently P. K. Ignatov: “Order was pronounced “production” profile. – We were actually saboteurs. Blew up bridges, power plants, warehouses, derailed German trains, burned columns of trucks along with guarding their armored cars and tanks. Here is the “current account” of the squad. Blasted and destroyed 15 locomotives, 392 carriage of troops and cargo tank 41, 113 cars, …34 bridge and destroyed more than eight thousand occupants…. In the rear of the Germans in the mountain wilderness, we opened the “mine-subversive University”, where she interned mine and sabotage the works of the best and bravest partisans…”
the Efficiency of the fighting detachment of Peter Ignatov amazing. A group of just over fifty “non-professionals” could inflict such vnushitelnye damage and losing all the time only five killed and two woundstime -! Probably affected by the creative approach of former engineers and scientists, many of whom had lived under the “Bati” to conduct sabotage behind German lines.
They made, for example, several successful changes in the design used mine systems (this “Ignatowski” the novelty then was spread and many other partisan groups). And resourceful guerrillas Ignatova used their own tactics of mining.
Just one example. They noted that the Nazis after the next explosion, carried out on the railway, always act the same. To the scene from both directions arrive two repair trains, and the nearest towns where there are military forces going there trucks with soldiers. Such pedantry occupiers, the guerrillas decided to use for drawing the enemy for more damage. In addition to mining the train tracks, they have adapted to plant bombs even on all roadways the roads in the vicinity of this place. As a result, in addition to once derailed an enemy train, fighting through popolnelsya was still blown up and several trucks with infantry.
Many of the military “innovations” in a partisan told the sons “Bati”. Especially active inventor all sorts of tricks for the Germans was Eugene.
the Fatal for younger Ignatovich became a commando operation in the evening of 10 October 1942. The purpose of the group of partisans, which included Gennady and Eugene, was the site of a rail route connecting the city of Novorossiysk, at the 22nd kilometer from her seaside city.
As he recalled later Peter Ignatov, this time its the miners decided to use a new design of mine-laying action of the pressure, which is triggered under the weight passing over it of the engine. The schedule of following of German trains, it was known from reliable informants. Choosing the suitable interval between trains to lay explosives and how to conceal the traces of their activity. To bring mines to the military state it was only necessary to remove the metal pin from the fuse.
According to the plan, the remaining “point X” time, the group was required to engage in the mining of highway near a railway. And then, very shortly before the passage of the train, should someone from the miners to crawl to the rail track and pull the pin. But in a carefully calibrated schedule of actions unforeseen circumstances intervened. Suddenly I heard the distinctive noise was coming train, which was started by the Nazis outside of the schedule.
In such a complex situation the initiative showed the younger Ignatovy. Hoping that even the most darkness to the pores will hide them, Eugene and Gene rushed to the rail. To find a few seconds to actually touch the little stud was, of course, impossible, so the brothers decided to use another way to throw to an area where there is a mine, anti-tank grenade to its explosion detonated the main charge. This emergency plan has worked. A powerful explosion tore up the engine, threw him to the mound, then went downhill cars… the train was destroyed, but the brave boys paid for with their lives they, too, had covered the blast and shrapnel. Eugene was 27, and Gennady just 17.
the Guerrillas had managed to take literally from under the noses of the Germans bodies of the dead heroes and buried them in a secluded place.
As reported then the “bath” of his informants, who worked with the occupiers, with the wreck of the train was killed about five hundred soldiers and officers of Wehrmacht. Additionally, the list of casualties ware joined the Germans themselves: on the orders of their commanders was shot more than fifty guards in charge of bezopasnosti movement by rail and “prosleeve” guerrilla RAID.
March 7, 1943 the Decree of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which Evgeny and Gennady Ignatov were awarded the title of hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). Subsequently, both brothers were buried in Krasnodar.
Romeo and Juliet
One of the most beloved, the most poignant of Soviet films devoted to the great Patriotic war – “go To fight some old people”. As claimed by meticulous researchers, some of the heroes of this film, made by Leonid Bykov in 1973, were real prototypes. For example, Lieutenant Sagdullaev nicknamed “Romeo” and who captured his heart member of the crew of a night bomber Po-2 Masha Popova “copied” from Seeds Kharlamov and Hope Popova – pilots who fought with the Nazis and became heroes of the Soviet Union and married in the victorious 1945.
You Nadine and Simon Brezhnev jokingly said that their Union was sealed by the signatures of three times. The first time it happened was February 23, 1945, when, by a strange coincidence, both were in the same Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on conferring the title of Hero. Following the ceremony, “sign” was the episode with the tour of defeated Berlin, where the wall of the Reichstag they left their autographs side by side. Well, the third ceremony was classical, which resulted in the victory in the same year they became husband and wife.
two of the couple’s very impressive military account.
She is among the famous that scared the Germans the “night witches”, the Deputy squadron commander of the 46th Guards regiment of female night bombers. Learned to fly in 1940 in aviation school osoaviahima. Fight beginning in the spring of 1942. Totessludge in total more than 850 sorties.
He is a graduate of the famous Kachin flying school. Fought fighters in may 1945 he became commander of the 163rd Guards fighter aviation regiment. During the war years made more than 570 sorties (including some 400 – the most complex and dangerous of intelligence), member of the 85 air battles, which shot down 6 enemy aircraft.
Their fates crossed paths for the first time by accident in 1942 at Rostov. Here’s how recalled this Nadezhda Popova: “…I Met his destiny a little unusual. 2 August 1942, returning from a mission, was shot down by Nazi fighter. Landed successfully, but the machine burned. Began to look for his regiment. In the Cherkassk was attached to one of the retreating columns. In the midst of machinery, horses, steaming field kitchens, exhausted by fighting, people wounded pilot with a bandaged face, perched on a stump and reading “and Quiet flows the don” seemed surprisingly calm. Terribly happy – “his”! “Petty officer pilot Nadezhda Popova,” he introduced me. “Sergeant Semyon Kharlamov. Fly fighter planes…” So held our acquaintance… We were 20, and youth took its course. Was on the road a traffic jam, and I ran to the ambulance… On the eleventh day, and at parting gave him her hand: “good-bye. Write to me in regiment number so and so…”
Destiny had prepared for them new, and again, casual, meeting in the rear of Baku, where the semen was treated after being wounded. After that, they began to correspond.
Nadezhda Popova: “And then, flipping through the newspaper for 23 February 1945, could not believe my eyes: one decree for both of us was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union…”
now They had not lost each other from view until the very end of the war. On may 10, the day after the Victory the young people were able met in Berlin. They went to look at the ruined Reichstag and leave it on the wall of their signatures. And after that…
“…In the Park the first time he held my hand and said, “We won, we survived, let us no longer be separated. Will be together for life!”
