At the age of fifteen, Anna Stepanovna’s son had his eye removed as a result of an injury. Over the years, his vision only worsened, but the boy, now an adult man, was never given disability. Now my vision has begun to deteriorate sharply. One eye cannot withstand the load. They live at a small station in the Nekrasovsky district of the Yaroslavl region. It is impossible to get a job, especially for a half-blind person. And he still has a few years left before retirement. Anna Stepanovna and her son visited doctors and lawyers. Everywhere - refusal.
“Please answer whether it is possible to obtain disability for him or not. If possible, then how?” she asks in a letter to the editor.
Another letter from Tatyana Vsevolodovna Noskova from Olenegorsk, Murmansk region. “Many of the categories of people with a disability group have to undergo re-examination and confirm it every year. The absurdity of some situations is obvious. For example, a person who has received a severe injury to his limbs or does not have them is forced to undergo an annual medical and social examination and confirm this fact. Cases have become more frequent and, one might say, depriving people of their disability group has become a practice. The fact of the disease occurs and is obvious, but the disability group is removed regardless of whether it is a child or an adult. The adult is asked to “get a job,” and the child’s parents are advised to “solve the problems themselves.” A person receiving a penny disability benefit is also deprived of payment benefits utilities, purchase of medicines, travel, free kindergarten And speech therapy classes if it's a child. And there are those who are left without any means of subsistence, without a piece of bread, since there is no old-age pension yet, and a sick person is no longer able to do physical labor.”
Unfortunately, letters to the editor with a similar formulation of the problem are not isolated. Exhausted from going to doctors' offices to collect the necessary certificates, extracts, and not receiving or not confirming their disability, infirm people or their loved ones begin to suspect that workers of social and medical commissions are deliberately so zealously limiting the number of citizens receiving the group. And the followers of Hippocrates do this not because of bad character, but to carry out orders coming from higher bureaucratic offices. There is a crisis in the country, accession to the WTO is on the horizon, so they are saving on the poorest, weakest citizens of Russia: the sooner there are fewer of them, the sooner we will get rid of the problems.
We asked the candidate of medical sciences, head of the branch of Bureau No. 49 of the Federal government agency“Moscow Main Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise” (BMSE) (formerly they were called VTEC) Victoria Shilovich.
In her opinion, indeed, the problem is very acute, and each patient who comes for an examination must be worked individually. “The whole point, in my opinion, is the lack of clarity, the imperfect organization of the system of interaction between health care facilities and the ITU bureau,” says my interlocutor. - And if there is still order in Moscow, and if necessary, citizens can achieve a revision of the results, then in the regions this can be more difficult to do. The reasons are the low qualifications of doctors or the absence of specialists in this field at all, there is no necessary medical examination, the financial insolvency of citizens who do not have the opportunity to travel at their own expense and seek justice in higher authorities, or even simply ignorance of their rights. This is why it is so necessary to carry out a full medical examination and correct design documents are already at the level of district and village clinics.”
Victoria Arkadyevna shows a referral for a medical and social examination received by an applicant for disability in one of the capital’s district clinics: “Look, even in Moscow there are examples of unprofessionally prepared documents.” I understand: the patient had one kidney removed two years ago. In the medical “runner” form 088 there is an extract from an ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist, gynecologist and other specialists. How much effort does a person tormented by illnesses have to put in to see so many doctors in a limited time?! And in the end? The most important thing, on the basis of which he should be given or not given a disability group, is that the result of a biochemical blood test (creatinine and urea levels) is not indicated in the extract. “Formally, we are obliged to send the person back to the clinic at the place of residence for further examination,” explains Victoria Shilovich.
I give examples from letters from our readers, where they are perplexed why there are cases where a person with an amputated arm or leg, removed by a kidney or lung, which, of course, does not form again, nevertheless, after a year, the disability group is reduced or removed altogether . It turns out that such actions of experts are regulated by certain rules. Let's say a patient's leg is amputated. He receives the first group for a year and is sent to rehabilitation at his place of residence. If after a year or two the disabled person masters the prosthesis and operates it quite successfully, his group is revised based on the degree of existing functional impairment. In a word, in such a case, a real person, Alexei Petrovich Maresyev, would not be given a disability under current conditions. But Maresyev is rather an exception to the rule. The majority of disabled people, many of whom old age, are burdened with other serious diseases, and such feats are simply beyond their capabilities. And let’s be honest, today disability benefits for some families are almost the only way to survive.
Victoria Arkadyevna gives an example from her practice. A certain patient lost his voice after cancer surgery on his throat. He was assigned a second disability group. Himself, being a doctor and an advanced person, he used his own savings to go to Germany and buy an expensive voice apparatus there. After the operation and installation of this device, I was able to speak independently. And what do you think? The group was not assigned to him. It is believed that the patient has been completely rehabilitated.
As a rule, even in the most seemingly hopeless cases, at first the group is given for a year and the patient is re-examined annually. Indeed, over time, for example, one eye or one kidney successfully takes over the functions of the missing organ, and the person does not experience any discomfort. But if the remaining organ could not fully earn “for two,” then the patient is given a disability group for life and is not tormented by annual re-examinations. However, it sometimes takes up to three to five years to confirm that rehabilitation is impossible.
The situation is particularly concerning with the medical and social examination of military personnel. Often there is a belated referral of former military personnel to MTU. The late referral is due to the fact that military personnel, after the conclusion of the Military Military Commission on unfitness for military service, first decide housing issues and only then do they issue a referral to ITU.
And what are the conditions in which experts are forced to work and patients, exhausted from sitting for many hours, are forced to wait for their turn?! So, the BMSE where we are talking is located in a dilapidated outbuilding of city hospital No. 23 (named Medsantrud, by the way). Two small rooms are equipped for receiving patients. People wait their turn in a tiny waiting room, where about a dozen chairs are pressed closely together. Those who did not have enough seats sat on the windowsills or waited in the yard. There are no changing rooms or toilets in this medical facility. If, as they say, you are really impatient, citizens are invited to run to one of the hospital buildings. With the norm being ten to fifteen people, experts sometimes have to hire almost twice as many per shift. And, please note, there are no additional payments for such processing.
Starting this year, the law on autonomous institutions comes into force, that is, budget-funded educational, medical, and cultural organizations will have to earn money for their own existence, including through the provision of commercial services to the population. Naturally, I am interested: will this somehow affect the work of the bureau of medical and social examinations? Victoria Arkadyevna just shrugs: “How do you imagine this? A person comes to us to receive a disability group, and we give him a price list: for the third group - such and such an amount, for the second - a little more, but for the first - you will have to fork out in full. No, I hope such innovations will not affect us. - But, after thinking, he adds: - Although it would be possible to organize consultations at the BMSE for clinic doctors who, at the very first stage, are preparing documents for examination. Because, I repeat, many of them send patients to us with illiterate statements, which creates additional difficulties for us and causes misunderstandings among patients. But if the documents are drawn up professionally, if the diagnosis is accurately indicated, not a single expert will be able to either underestimate or overestimate the group, or remove it or not give it at all. It is necessary, in my opinion, and methodological literature. However, solving such problems is already within the competence of the health department. The question, of course, comes down to who will finance this kind of consultation, publish manuals, etc.”
Regarding the question asked in their letters by a pensioner from the Yaroslavl region and many others who, in their opinion, have not achieved a legal disability group at their place of residence, they need to send copies of documents, research results, answers from the regional branches of the BMSE to Moscow , to the Federal Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise at the address: st. Susanina, house 3. If necessary, they will be called to Moscow for a final examination. But all expenses are at your own expense.
Tatiana Morozova
I didn’t have time to write down a lot of things at the time, and a lot of things were lost in my memory over the course of four years. Out of his modesty, Alexey Maresyev kept silent about many things then. I had to think about it and add to it. The portraits of his friends, about whom he spoke warmly and vividly that night, were erased from his memory. They had to be created anew. Not being able to strictly adhere to the facts here, I slightly changed the hero’s surname and gave new names to those who accompanied him, who helped him on the hard way his feat. Let them not be offended by me if they recognize themselves in this story.
This is how this “Tale of a Real Man” arose.
After this book was written and prepared for publication, I wanted to introduce its main character to it before publication. But for me he was lost without a trace in the tangle of endless front roads, and neither our mutual friends-pilots nor official sources, to whom I contacted, could not help me find Alexei Petrovich Maresyev.
The story had already been published in a magazine, it was being read on the radio, when one morning my phone rang.
“I would like to meet you,” a hoarse, courageous, seemingly familiar, but already forgotten voice sounded on the phone.
Who am I talking to?
With Guard Major Alexei Maresyev.
And a few hours later, fast, cheerful, still as active, with his bearish, slightly swaying gait, he was already walking towards me. Four years of war hardly changed him.
…Yesterday I was sitting at home, reading, the radio was on, but I got carried away and didn’t listen to what they were broadcasting. Suddenly an excited mother comes up, points to the receiver and says: “Listen, son, this is about you.” I listened, that’s right, they were telling about me what happened to me. I was surprised: who could write this?
After all, it seems like I didn’t tell anyone about this. And suddenly I remembered our meeting near Orel and how I kept you up all night in the dugout with my conversations... I thought: how can that be, that was a long time ago, almost five years ago... But they read out an excerpt, named the author, and so I decided to find you ...
He explained all this in one gulp, smiling with his wide, slightly shy, old Maresyev smile.
As always happens when two military men who have not seen each other for a long time meet, they started talking about battles, about mutual acquaintances of officers, kind words remembered those who did not live to see victory. Alexey Petrovich was still reluctant to talk about himself, and I found out that he had fought a lot and successfully. Together with his guards regiment, he went through the combat campaign of 1943–1945. After our meeting, he shot down three planes near Orel, and then, participating in the battles for the Baltic states, increased his combat tally by two more aircraft. In a word, he generously paid back the enemy for his legs lost in battle. The government awarded him the title of Hero Soviet Union.
Alexey Petrovich also spoke about his household chores, and I am glad that in this regard I can add to the story a happy ending.
After the war ended, he married the girl he loved, and they had a son, Victor. His old mother came from Kamyshin to the Maresyevs, who now lives with them, rejoicing at the happiness of her children and nannying little Maresyev.
So life itself continued this story I wrote about Alexei Maresyev - a Real Soviet Man.
...BEING HUMAN
For the fourth decade, “The Tale of a Real Man” remains one of the favorite books in our country. And not only in ours. They turn to her with constant interest progressive people all over the world.
The story was published in 1946, and its first readers were those soviet people who had just endured on their shoulders all the hardships, troubles and horrors of the war - they endured, stood and came to Victory, because they defended from fascism what was most vital and dear to them: their home, the Motherland, the conquests of the Great October Revolution. The feat of the pilot A.P. Maresyev, which Boris Polevoy told the world about, was for them one of the brightest expressions of a nationwide feat. In an “unprecedented case,” an exceptional case (a pilot who lost both feet in the first months of the war returned to duty and fought heroically in a fighter), they recognized the typical features of their time, when everyone soviet man gave all his strength - to the end! - the struggle for freedom and independence of the Motherland.
Special meaning had a story in the first years after the war for people who were experiencing irreparable losses. She taught them courage, helped them to endure grief, to seek and find their place in a new, post-war life.
It is known that those books that remain alive for a long time, forever, are those that correspond to their time, express the most important thing in it, the most important for it. This happened with “The Tale of a Real Man.”
Speaking about the reasons for the strong impact on readers of such books as “The Young Guard” by A. Fadeev, “Star” by E. Kazakevich, “Sputnik” by V. Panova, “Flag Bearers” by O. Gonchar, “House on the Road” by A. Tvardovsky, “ White Birch” by N. Bubennova, “The Storm” by V. Latsis, B.N. Polevoy wrote: “Now these are middle-aged books... but they have not lost their charm of freshness to this day. They are read, re-read, studied because they were written “hot on the heels of the war” and, preserving “the spontaneity of perception, the heat of feelings, experiences,” are “the most exciting, soul-stirring narratives about the war itself.” big war which has ever been led by man." These words should, of course, also apply to “The Tale of a Real Man.” Yuri Gagarin named B. Polevoy’s story among his favorite books.
When a new reader, a representative of the younger generation, opens a book by Boris Polevoy for the first time, he knows that it is based on a real human destiny and authentic military feat, that the prototype of the hero of the story, pilot Alexei Maresyev, is Hero of the Soviet Union A.P. Maresyev, whom B.N. Polevoy, military correspondent of the Pravda newspaper, met on the roads of war. B. N. Polevoy spoke about this meeting and how, when and why the story was written in the afterword to “The Tale.” If the writer had published after the war only the article and materials for the leading newspaper Pravda, which he had prepared during the days of his meeting with the legless pilot in the summer of 1943, then in this case he would have done an important thing: the Soviet people would have learned another heroic page from the history of the Great Patriotic War, met one of its heroes, whose courage, courage and devotion to the Motherland evoke admiration. However, the author understood that such a life required artistic embodiment, and it was no coincidence that he nurtured for a long time the idea of his story about the “best pilot of the regiment”, who turned out to be legless: “How many times during the war, in the days of calm and after, wandering through the countries of liberated Europe, I wanted to write an essay about him and put it off every time, because everything that I managed to write seemed only a pale shadow of his life!
91Exactly 100 years ago, on May 20, 1916, the famous Soviet pilot Alexei Petrovich Maresyev was born in the city of Kamyshin, whose feat formed the basis of the book “The Tale of a Real Man,” which was included in the course of Soviet school literature. There was probably not a single person in the Soviet Union who had not heard of this fighter pilot. The feat he accomplished during the Great Patriotic War still lives in the memory of people today. Thanks to Boris Polevoy’s book, Maresyev entered people’s consciousness as the standard of a “real person.” Under this high title he will forever be inscribed in our country.
Alexey Maresyev will remain in the public consciousness thanks to his superhuman endurance and will to live. The feat he accomplished was worthy of both a separate book and a film made from it later. After returning to his 18-day crawl through the woods, suffering from frostbite and having both legs amputated, this man did not break down or give up. He not only put on prosthetics, but also returned to aviation: that in itself was akin to a miracle. But Maresyev not only returned to the sky, he returned to the fighter unit, continuing to fight for the freedom and independence of his homeland.
Alexey Petrovich Maresyev was born on May 20, 1916 in the city of Kamyshin, Saratov province. Alexei and his two brothers, Peter and Nikolai, were raised by their mother. The father of the future pilot, who went through the battles of the First World War, died from the consequences of numerous wounds when Alexei was only three years old. During his childhood, Maresyev was not particularly healthy; the boy was often ill and suffered a severe form of malaria, the consequence of which was rheumatism. Alexei was tormented by terrible pain in his joints, and his family’s neighbors whispered among themselves that he would not live long. However, from his father, whom Alexei practically did not know and did not remember, he inherited enormous willpower and stubborn character.
After finishing 8th grade high school In Kamyshin, Alexey Maresyev received a specialty as a metal turner at the local school at the sawmill. This is where he started his labor activity. Twice during this time he submitted documents to the flight school, but both times they were returned, citing his health. In 1934, the Kamyshinsky district committee of the Komsomol sent the future hero to build the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Exactly on Far East Without interrupting his work, Alexey began to study at the flying club, finally realizing his craving for the sky, which arose in him as a child.
In 1937 he was drafted into the army. Initially, he served in the 12th Air Border Detachment, located on Sakhalin Island, but was then transferred to the 30th Chita School of Military Pilots, which was transferred to Bataysk in 1938. Batayskoye aviation school named after A.K. Serov, Maresyev graduated in 1940, receiving the rank of junior lieutenant. After completing his studies at the school, he was retained there as an instructor. It was in Bataysk that Maresyev would meet the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
After the start of the war, the pilot was sent to the Southwestern Front, where he fought as part of the 296th Fighter Aviation Regiment. He made his first combat mission on August 23, 1941 in the Krivoy Rog area. The first months of the war were a very difficult time for the entire Red Army and Soviet aviation. The Germans were superior to the Soviet pilots in terms of accumulated experience and level of proficiency in the equipment they had been flying for quite a long time as airplanes. Maresyev was saved by the fact that he was already an experienced pilot. And although he did not chalk up any air victories in 1941, he remained alive. Later, the famous Soviet ace Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin said that those who did not fight in 1941-1942 do not know real war.
He shot down his first German aircraft, a Ju-52 transport aircraft, in early 1942. In March 1942, Alexey Maresyev was sent to the North-Western Front, by which time he had already shot down 4 German aircraft. It was here that an air battle took place that would change his life forever.
In the spring of 1942 between lakes Seliger and Ilmen Soviet troops near the inconspicuous town of Demyansk, a group of approximately 100,000 people was surrounded German troops, who did not think of giving up, offering organized and very strong resistance. On April 4, 1942, in the area of this so-called “Demyansk Pocket”, during a flight to cover bombers in a battle with German fighters, Maresyev’s Yak-1 aircraft was shot down. He tried to make an emergency landing in the forest, noticing a suitable lake there. However, his plane caught the landing gear on the tops of pine trees and overturned. The plane fell into deep snow, and the pilot himself was seriously injured, but survived.
For 18 whole days, the pilot who injured his feet, first on crippled legs, and then crawled, made his way to the front line. Having eaten the onboard rations along the way, he ate what he could find in the forest: tree bark, berries, pine cones. The situation seemed hopeless: finding himself alone in the middle of an endless and dense forest, with injured legs, the pilot simply did not know where he should go, or rather, crawl. How he ended up staying alive is unknown to anyone. Alexey Petrovich never liked to remember this story and tried not to talk about it. According to him, he was driven at that moment by an indomitable desire to live.
In the end, he finally made it out to his own people. Near the village of Plav, Kislovsky village council, Valdai district, he was noticed by a father and son, local residents. Since the pilot by that time was no longer responding to questions, father and son, out of fear, returned back to the village, thinking that there was a German in front of them. Only later was the barely alive pilot discovered by children from the same village - Sasha Vikhrov and Seryozha Malin, who determined that it was a Soviet pilot in front of them, and with the help of Sasha’s father, they took the wounded pilot on a cart to their home. Village residents looked after Maresyev for more than a week, but he needed qualified medical care. In early May, a plane landed near the village, and Maresyev was transported to a hospital in Moscow.
This could be the end of Alexei Petrovich's story. By the time he was delivered to Moscow, the pilot was already in critical condition; he had gangrene. At the same time, there were quite a lot of wounded in the hospital, so the brought fighter pilot, as if he was practically hopeless, was laid on a gurney in the corridor. Here, while making a round, Professor Terebinsky accidentally drew the attention of him, who ultimately saved his life. True, he had to pay for this by amputating both legs in the lower leg area. There was simply no other way out; by that time, Maresyev had begun to develop gangrene, incompatible with life.
The amputation of both legs seemed to put an end to the pilot’s career. However, Maresyev was not going to give up. He did not come to terms with the idea that he would have to part with the sky, making a decision for himself - to return to aviation and fly again at any cost. Having accepted this, he began to train almost immediately: walking, running, jumping and, of course, dancing. True, he had to learn to dance again not with the nurses in the hospital, who were afraid that he would crush their legs with his insensitive prosthetics, but with his neighbors in the hospital ward, who specially put on work boots for the duration of the training.
In just 6 months of intensive training, Alexey Maresyev learned to walk on prostheses so that only rare person I could notice something unusual in his gait. He continued to train in the sanatorium, where he was sent in September 1942. Already at the beginning of 1943, the commission recorded personal file senior lieutenant: “Fit for all types of aviation.” After passing a medical commission, he was sent to Ibresinskaya flight school(Chuvashia). In February of the same year, the pilot made his first flight after being seriously wounded. He was helped in this by the head of the flight school, Anton Fedoseevich Beletsky, who himself flew with a prosthesis instead of his right leg.
Only because, after an emergency landing and the death of his plane, the pilot spent 18 days getting out of the Valdai forests, his action could safely be called a feat. However, much more amazing was that after the amputation of both legs, Maresyev not only did not break, but also achieved simply incredible results: having overcome a lot of administrative and medical barriers, he returned to duty.
Maresyev reached the front again in June 1943, joining the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. Initially, Maresyev was not allowed to fly on combat missions in the regiment. The regiment commander simply did not let the pilot go into battle, since the situation in the sky above the field was Battle of Kursk was extremely tense. Alexey was very worried about this situation. As a result, the commander of one of the squadrons of the regiment, A. M. Chislov, sympathized with him. He took Maresyev on a couple of combat missions. As a result, several successful flights together with Chislov helped correct the situation, and confidence in the pilot in the regiment increased.
On July 20, 1943, during an air battle with superior German forces, Maresyev saved the lives of two Soviet pilots by shooting down two German Fw.190 fighters, which were covering Ju.87 dive bombers. Thanks to this, the military glory of Alexei Maresyev scattered throughout the 15th Air Army and along the entire front. Correspondents from all over the country frequented the 63rd Fighter Aviation Regiment, among whom was Boris Polevoy, author of the future book “The Tale of a Real Man.”
What is also surprising in this story is that, having returned to the combat unit after the amputation of both legs, Maresyev shot down 7 combat aircraft, bringing his list of aerial victories to 11 enemy aircraft. At the same time he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1944, Alexei agreed to an offer to become an inspector-pilot and move from a fighter aviation regiment to the Air Force University Directorate. The pilot himself honestly admitted that the loads during flights only grew, and it became more and more difficult for him to bear them. At the same time, Maresyev never refused combat missions, but did not complain when he was offered a new job. As a result, in June 1944, Guard Major Alexei Maresyev accepted the offer to become an inspector.
In total, during the Great Patriotic War, Maresyev made 86 combat missions, shooting down 11 German aircraft: 4 before being wounded and 7 after. He served in military service until 1946, when he retired for health reasons. At the same time, the former fighter pilot tried to maintain himself in very good condition. physical fitness. A man who lost his legs in the war was fond of skating, skiing, swimming and cycling. As a result, he even managed to set a record in a sanatorium near Kuibyshev, swimming here across the Volga (2200 meters) in 55 minutes. Maresyev made his last flights on an airplane (trainer U-2) in the early 1950s, working as an instructor at a special Air Force school in Moscow.
Alexey Petrovich Maresyev became the very person about whom you can talk your whole life - a feat. Moreover, after the war, he still brought great benefit to the country’s Air Force, being involved in the process of training future pilots. In addition, starting in 1956, when the Soviet (and later Russian) Committee of War Veterans and military service, retired colonel Maresyev headed it. He remained at this public (but in his own way also military post) until the last days of his life.
Alexey Petrovich, despite everything, lived enough long life. Somehow he managed to overcome the consequences of both a difficult childhood and an injury received during the war. May 18, 2001 at the Theater Russian army should have passed gala evening, dedicated to the 85th anniversary of Alexei Maresyev. He was just about to arrive at this event when he was struck by a heart attack; he was taken to the intensive care unit of one of the Moscow clinics, but the doctors were unable to save his life. As a result, the gala evening in his honor began with a minute of silence.
It often happens that a person who becomes the prototype of a book character in life does not live up to the image created by the writer. However, Maresyev is a living example of the opposite. He proved with his whole life that the book “The Tale of a Real Man” is not a colorful myth, but a real story that tells about the great courage and unsurpassed fortitude of this man.
In honor of the centenary of the birth of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the famous pilot Alexei Petrovich Maresyev, a Center will be opened in his small homeland in the city of Kamyshin patriotic education, and there will also be a parade with the participation of the Russian Knights and Swifts air groups, TASS reports. The name of Alexey Maresyev will be given to an aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations and one of the new streets of Volgograd. In addition, commemorative events dedicated to the anniversary will be held in Moscow, Tver and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as in other regions of Russia. In turn, the Russian Military Historical Society will continue the search for the Yak-1 fighter, on which in 1942 the pilot was shot down during an air battle in the area of the “Demyansk Pocket”.
Based on materials from open sources
In June 1943, the leadership of the Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War of the USSR Academy of Sciences 1 planned a trip of researchers to the location of the 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Division in order to interview the most distinguished fighter pilots. No one could have foreseen that among those interviewed would be Alexey Petrovich Maresyev (1916-2001) - a legless pilot, future hero Soviet Union. The commission staff were the first to record in detail Maresyev’s story about his experience.
Still ahead is a meeting with the writer Boris Polev, whose “Tale of a Real Man” will be published in the fall of 1946 in the magazine “October”. And he will make Maresyev a hero whom generations of Soviet people will look up to...
We offer readers of Rodina the original story of the 27-year-old pilot - in the form as it was recorded in July 1943. This document is amazing human strength. We publish it in full, maintaining spelling and style.
Before the war. "We brought fuel to the flying club..."
Transcript of a conversation with guard lieutenant of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Division, Alexey Petrovich Maresyev, born in 1916. Candidate for party membership. Deputy commander. Awarded the Order Red Banner 2.
The conversation at one of the combat airfields was conducted by Commission researcher E.M. Gritsevskaya, stenographed by O.V. Crouse 3.
“I was born into a peasant family in the town of Kamyshin, Stalingrad region. I went to school for 8 years, graduated from the 1st level of school, studied in the second level until the 6th grade, and then went on to study at FZU 4 at a timber factory. My mother and two My brother's school provided me with a seven-year education. I studied as a metal turner. I worked in this specialty at the factory until August 34, and I worked all the time and tried to continue studying. I studied on the job at evening courses at the workers' faculty. at the Agricultural Institute, after that I could go to study at this institute, but since I did not have any funds to study there, I did not finish it for 4 months 5, because I read in Pravda that admission to the Institute was beginning. MAI 6.
I sent a letter so that they would send me the admission rules, and I submitted an application to my company so that they would let me study. But they didn’t let me leave the production, and they sent me to DVK 7 to build the city of Komsomolsk. And I was a Komsomol member from the age of 29.
We arrived there, they told us that construction needed timber, and we worked in logging in the taiga. For good work, I was transferred to work in my specialty, and I soon began working there as a diesel mechanic on water transport. And there I worked until July 1937. Here I was drafted into the Red Army. In Komsomolsk, I graduated from the flying club without leaving work. It's very interesting how we ended it. The city was just beginning to be built. We just arranged places where the builders themselves could live. I worked in water transport, there was fuel, oil, gasoline, and another friend worked at an aircraft factory, and we brought fuel to the flying club and in general whoever could. That's how we studied and graduated from the flying club.
Afterwards I joined the army, on the island of Sakhalin, where I served in the border aviation in a border detachment, worked as a mechanic, they didn’t let me fly, because one such pilot was allowed to fly, and he broke the plane. But I reached the commander of the troops, and he said: “Try to give it, if he flies well, then let him fly.” While they began to check me, the commander sent a special direction that if the squad commander meets the requirements, has a seven-year education, graduated from the flying club and is a Komsomol member, then send him to a military school. They called me and asked where you want to go? I said that I wanted to go to military flight school. And they sent me to Chita. Then the school was transferred to Bataysk, and I graduated there.
Studying was easy for me. For my excellent piloting technique, I was allowed to work as an instructor, but I didn’t want to stay there, I wanted to join the unit. But still I was left as an instructor at the school, where I stayed from 40 to 41 for the month of August. I finished transporting the group, released all my cadets and began to send me on duty to Rostov, i.e. They gave me kind of combat work. I took it and wrote a memo so that they would take me to the front. One day I was on duty at the main airfield and the flight commander called me. He greets me with the words: “Goodbye, goodbye.” I say: "What is this goodbye?" - “And you’re flying away.” It turns out that based on my report, I was sent to the front.
The beginning of the war. "We worked exclusively on attack aircraft..."
On August 6, 1941, several of us flew to the front. I ended up in the 296th Fighter Regiment 8 and began to fight from Kirovograd. Then, as our troops retreated, we went to Nikopol and Zaporozhye. As soon as we arrived at the front, we began to conduct combat work. The work was very stressful. Our group had to work on our own and for the technicians, since the technicians were a little behind us. We had to do 7-8 combat missions a day. We worked on the I-16 exclusively on attack aircraft. Once we only had a pair-on-pair meeting with the Messerschmitts, but, as usual, they did not accept the battle.
After we went to Kuibyshev for formation, I was transferred there to another regiment as a flight commander, and we fought on Yaks. Our pilots were young. We spent a little time with this regiment near Moscow, here we worked as if for air defense and at the same time the flight crew trained. Then we were in the 580th regiment. And then, in March 1942, we went to the northwestern direction, when near St. Russa was surrounded by the German 16th Army. We then worked for the Demyansk group 9.
When I came directly to the front, I was appointed assistant commander. On the Northwestern Front I had to fight for 7 or 8 days. Here our task was to destroy transport aircraft that were throwing ammunition and food to the 16th Army. We shot down three of them in 8 days. And then I was hit myself.
The battle. "And I was thrown out of the plane..."
They knocked me out on April 4, 42 10. They hit my engine. And I was over their territory. The altitude was 800 meters. I pulled the plane a little to my territory, 12 kilometers away, but there were forests and swamps, and there was nowhere to land. I went to sit in the forest, and there the forest was sparse and high and it was very difficult to sit in the forest. I covered myself with my hand so as not to hit myself, maybe, I think, I’ll stay alive, so that my eyes don’t get knocked out. I put my head in my hands, and here on the left I saw a platform. And here I did a big stupid thing. I lowered the chassis because it seemed to me that there was a platform there, but when I began to turn around, the engine stopped and the car went down. I just managed to straighten it out of the roll when the plane hit the top of a tree with its skis, and it turned out to be a full high-speed hood, i.e. the plane turned upside down. I was strapped down, but they came off and I was thrown out of the plane. So I fell about 30 meters, although I don’t know for sure. Apparently, what happened was that I fell in the snow, and then I rolled along the road and hit my temple, and for about 40 minutes I lay unconscious. Then, when I woke up, I felt something on my temple, I put my hand to it - blood, and a piece of skin was hanging. I wanted to tear it off at first, but then I felt that the skin was thick and I applied it back to the wounded area. The blood was dried there, and then everything was overgrown.
All that was left of the plane was the cabin and the tail - everything was scattered different sides. I must have hit myself hard because I soon started hallucinating. I really wanted to ruin the engine, so I took out the gun and started shooting at the engine. And it seems to me that I am missing, I fired one clip in the pistol, then the other. Then I looked again into the forest, and I see that there are planes there, people standing there, I scream for help, but then I look - there is nothing. You look in the other direction, the same thing again, and then everything disappears again.
So I fornicated. He walked, lay down, then walked again. I slept in the snow until morning. Once it seemed to me quite clearly that there was a house, an old man came out of the house and said that we have a holiday home here. I say: "Help me get there." And he goes further and further. Then I approach myself, but I don’t see anything. Then I went to another clearing, I looked - there was a well, a girl was walking with a guy, otherwise it seemed that a girl was walking with buckets. "What are you talking about?" - “Water.” But she didn’t give me water.
I fell 12 kilometers from the front line, but I couldn’t figure out where I was, it always seemed to me that I was at my airfield or somewhere close. I see the technician who served me coming, and I start telling him: “Help me get out.” But no one does anything for me. And this story with me continued for 10-11 days, when my hallucination passed.
The rescue. "Come over! Yours, pilot!"
Once I wake up in the morning and think, what should I do? I was already completely sane. I was very emaciated because I hadn’t eaten anything all the time. And I don't have a compass. I decided to go east, already in the direction of the sun. I also see planes flying towards us. I think I’ll eventually come across some village, and then they’ll take me there. But I became very thin and could not walk. I walked like this: I chose a thick stick, you put it down and pull your legs towards it, and then rearrange them. So I could walk a maximum of one and a half kilometers per day. And then for three days I lay and slept again. And I have such dreams that someone is calling: “Lesha, Lesha, get up, there’s a good bed in store for you, go there to sleep...”.
So I spent 18 days without a single crumb in my mouth. During this time I ate a handful of ants and half a lizard. Moreover, my feet were frozen. I flew in a leather jacket and high boots. While I was walking from place to place, water got into them, since it was already melting all around, and at night it was cold, frost and wind, and there was water in my boots, and thus I froze my feet. But I didn’t realize that my legs were frostbitten, I thought that I couldn’t walk from hunger.
Then on the 18th day, April 27, 11 o’clock at 7 pm, I lay down under a tree and lay there. At this time I hear a strong crash. I already understood that there were no people in the forest here, and I decided that some animal was coming, smelled the victim and was coming. I have two cartridges left in the pistol. I raise the gun, turn my head, and look - a man. The thought flashed through my mind that the salvation of my life depended on him. I started waving a pistol at him, but since I had grown taller and became very thin, he probably thought it was a German. Then I threw the pistol and said: “Go, your people.” He came up to me: “Why are you lying there?” I say that I’m shot down, the pilot: “Are there any Germans here?” He says that there are no Germans here, since this place is 12 km from the front line. He says: "Come with me." I say I can't go. - “But I won’t drag you away from this place. Then don’t leave this place, I know him and I’ll ask the collective farm chairman to send a horse for you.”
About an hour and a half later I hear a noise. About eight kids, 14-15 years old, came 12. I hear noise, but I don’t know from which direction. Then they started shouting: “Is anyone here?” I shouted. Then they came to a distance of 50 meters. Then I already saw them, and they saw me. We stopped. "Well, who's going?" - Nobody is coming, everyone is afraid. Then one guy says: “I’ll go, just watch, if something happens, you immediately run after the people to the village.”
It doesn’t reach me about 10 meters. And I’m thin, overgrown, I probably looked scary. He came closer. I unbuttoned the raglan 13, the buttonholes are visible. He came even closer and shouted: “Come over! You’re one of us, pilot!” They came up and looked. They ask: “Why are you so thin?” I say that I haven’t eaten for 18 days. And then they immediately: “Vanka, run for bread! Grishka, for milk!” And everyone ran in all directions.
Then another old man arrived 14. They put me on the sleigh. I put my head on the old man's lap and we drove off. It turns out that the person who first found me was going around, since everything there was mined.
Then I feel the boy pushing me:
Uncle, uncle, look!
I look, we are approaching the village, there is something black across the street. I speak:
What it is?
And all the people came out to meet you.
And indeed, there was a whole column standing, and when we entered the village, it turned out to be a whole procession. The old man stopped at his hut. Here people are in great demand. One says, give it to me, I have milk, another says, I have testicles, the third says, I also have a cow. I hear noise. Here the old man says:
I went for it and I won’t give it to anyone. Wife, bring the blanket, we’ll take it to the hut.
They brought me into the hut and started taking off my clothes. The high boots were removed, and the trousers had to be cut, as the legs were swollen.
Then I see people coming again: some are carrying milk, some are carrying testicles, a third is doing something else. The councils began. One says that you can’t feed him a lot, so one engineer from Leningrad ate a lot at once and died, the other says that you just need to give him milk. They put me on the bed and gave me milk and white bread. I drank half a glass of milk, I don’t want any more, I feel full. They say: "Eat, eat." And I didn't want any more. But then gradually I began to eat.
They found some kind of doctor in their village, like a paramedic. He advised the owners to heat the bathhouse and wash me. They did all this. In general, very good people turned out to be. I really regret that I can’t keep in touch with them.
Meeting. "Leshka, is it really you?!"
I stayed there for two days. They reported to one military unit, and the captain arrived from there the next day. He checked my documents and took me to his unit. They gave me a warm compress on my legs there. The legs were as white as a wall. I was surprised and asked why they were so white. I was told that it was swelling from hunger. I asked if they were frostbitten? “No, no,” they say, “nothing.” But I couldn’t walk at all.
When I was brought to this unit, and it was some kind of convoy detachment, a doctor came there, and I still can’t understand why he did it, and whether it was necessary to do it, but he prescribed me to drink a glass of vodka and gave me I can only snack on black crackers. At first, after I drank, everything was fine, but then around two in the morning I began to feel uneasy, and I began, as they say, to “play tricks.” One girl was sitting there next to me, then there was a captain, so I don’t know what happened to me. I hit this girl, overturned the table that was standing next to me, and began shouting: “The Germans cannot win!” Then they laid me down. They just calmed me down, and ten minutes later I started shouting again: “Twist my right leg, otherwise the Germans will take it!” This captain said that I shouted: “I’m dying, I can’t breathe!” He got scared and went for the doctor. He came and gave me an injection into my abdominal cavity. Then he asks me: “Well, did it get worse or better?” I answer: “No worse and no better.” - “Well, it’s good that it’s not worse, but there’s nothing better to expect.”
Then they immediately took me to a mobile hospital and there they began to treat me normally. They gave me a blood transfusion there, and I began to feel a little better. They started giving me warming manganese baths. On the first day they brought me, they told me: “Sit on the stool.” As soon as I sat down, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. They say again: “Sit down.” I say I can't. They nevertheless sat me on a stool, and I fell off it. Then the doctor came, they put me on the table and infused me with 400 grams of blood. Then I say: “Now I can get up on my own.” But they put me back on the bed.
I was treated there for 7-8 days, until April 30. They tell me that we will send you to the rear, to Sverdlovsk. But for this it was necessary to get to Valdai, and from there sanitary trains ran. On April 30, I was sent by car to Valdai. I arrived there around six in the evening. They just laid me down, I lay there for about 15 minutes, and they gave me rice porridge to eat. I started to eat, suddenly the door opens, a man comes in and starts looking for someone with his eyes, looking in all the beds. Then we met his gaze. I look - the squadron commander with whom I flew is now a Hero of the Soviet Union, Degtyarenko 15.
Leshka, is it really you?!..
It turns out that he was looking for me, because the mobile hospital informed the unit that I was there, and the next day he rushed to look for me... And I just started crying, I just sobbed, such was the meeting!
He asks me: “Why are you lying there? You might be hungry, I brought you two bars of chocolate.” I tell him: “I can’t, Andrey, I haven’t eaten anything for 18 days, I’m very weak.” And he, it turns out, came for me and wants to pick me up. And we really were very good friends with him; we couldn’t live without one. But the doctor won’t let me go, he says that they will send me to the rear. Degtyarenko began to get nervous and swear: “This is my pilot, I’ll take him. We ourselves know where to send him for treatment!”
And he looked for me for a long time and all the time - on the plane. First he flew to where they had been informed about me. And I was no longer there. But it’s not easy - I flew in and landed, like at an airfield, and the site is 3-4 kilometers away. Then I had to fly here again. And he took off at 7 o’clock in the morning, and it was already evening. And he, in the end, took me with great grief and put me on a plane. Although they gave me a blood infusion, I felt bad. And as soon as they put me on the plane, I lose consciousness. Here he says: “I’m taking you, but you’ll probably die.” I say: “Come on, push it! Dead or alive, you’ve already taken it, so take it!” He put me in the cockpit, tied me up somehow, and we flew to the part where I fought. Everyone had already gathered here, everything was prepared for landing. True, I cannot tell you everything, since I was very in serious condition, and the next day I was sent on an ambulance plane to Moscow.
Operation. “Before my eyes, he cut off his legs with these scissors.”
Afterwards the doctor told me that the attending physician came and said that he, i.e. I probably won't live. She went into the office and still thought about whether to take a medical history or not. I decided to wait until Professor Terebinsky 16 arrived. When he came, he also had no hope that I would live. They put me in a separate room and began to monitor how I felt. The ward was a walk-through room, I complained about the noise. Then they put me alone in the ward and began to give me injections to maintain cardiac activity. I didn’t sleep for a long time; they started giving me morphine injections. I started sleeping for four hours then. They kept asking me how I was feeling? I say it's better. And here they began to treat me thoroughly.
It was necessary to cut off my legs. They have already begun to move away on their own: you lie in bed, you drag, and the joints themselves come apart.
One day a professor came, brought me into the operating room, he took sterile scissors and simply cut off my legs with these scissors before my eyes. In some places where there was still some living tissue, it hurt, but it didn’t hurt at all. I ask: “Comrade Professor, is this the whole operation?”
And since I was afraid of the operation, he said that we would fix it a little more and that would be it. But they began to prepare me for the second operation. I got a suppuration and needed it to go away. On July 22, I had a second operation. They only wanted to give me a spinal injection, but this anesthesia had no effect on me. The injection of local frostbite also does not relieve. The professor is even surprised, and then they decided to perform the operation under general anesthesia. They covered me with a mask and began to pour ether on it; I had to breathe the ether. My sister advised me to breathe deeply, deeply. As soon as I took a deep breath, it immediately hit me in the head, I waved my hand, knocked off the mask, a drop of ether fell into my mouth, and I began to feel sick. The professor swears at his sister: “Why can’t you keep the mask!” They put on the mask again. I felt so bad, I shouted: “Take it off, let me live at least a little!” The sisters are crying here, the professor is swearing. Well, then they lifted my mask a little, I took a sip fresh air, and everything went as it should.
After the operation I woke up crying. My legs hurt a lot.
Extract. "I'll dance in the club"
They treated me and took measurements for prosthetics. On August 23, 1942 they brought me dentures and I started walking. I studied, walked with crutches for 3 days, then walked with only one cane for five days.
It must be said that one day my sister brought me a magazine and said: “Lyosha, look, there is an article here about an English pilot who, without both legs, continues to fly” 17.
This article interested me very much, and I asked my sister to tear out these two leaves from the magazine for me. Here I gained some confidence that I too could fly.
After the hospital, I went to the flight crew's rest home for a month. There I rested, and the battle for my flying life began again.
At the rest home, I talked to the doctor about this topic, but he didn’t tell me anything, like the man was joking and that’s all. Then the visiting expert commission of VSVK A 18, chaired by brigade doctor Mirolyubov, arrived there. I decided to contact him there, since this was the commission that I had to pass. And our doctor also advised me to talk to them. I get there and walk around without a stick. Moreover, I have already learned to dance. I wore trousers to graduation, then I was in pajamas. I come and say: “Doctor, I probably won’t go through a commission with you, but I would like to talk to you. I want to fly.”
He looks at me:
If you are a pilot, you will fly.
I'll have to go straight back to the hospital, and I want to talk to you beforehand.
What do you have?
I'm on both artificial legs.
What are you saying?!
I took a walk. He says:
No, you're kidding. Indeed?
Here my doctor began to smile and said that this is really so.
And do you want to fly?
Well, go through it again.
I passed again. Then I say:
If you are interested in how I use prosthetics, then come to the club today, I will dance there.
I go to the club in the evening and see that the whole commission comes to the club. I invite a girl and go dance. After the dance I go to my doctor. He says it is unlikely that the commission noticed. Then I dance again. They have already seen me here. They say: “Consider that all our votes are yours. When you arrive at the hospital, the surgeon will take a look, say his weighty word, if all is well, then you will pass.”
Offices. "You came here to rub your glasses in!"
I arrive at the hospital in Sokolniki. The chairman of the commission there is Dr. Sobeinikov. They turned me around, checked me nervous system, vision. Particular attention was paid to the legs.
Do you still want to fly? On what planes?
I speak:
If you ask to fly on fighters, you still won’t allow it, then on the U-2.
One doctor laughed:
In good faith, he says.
They had a council meeting. One says something, the other speaks. Then they call me over.
We decided to allow him to perform test flights on the U-2 aircraft.
Well, if I show good results, will I be considered fit to fly on the U-2?
Well, I think it’s not entirely good, but still we have to agree.
I went with this decision to the personnel department of the VVSK[A]. I arrive there and they direct me to Colonel Valchugin. He reads the paper. And there they wrote that he was unfit, both legs were amputated. And at the very end they wrote that he was cleared for training flights on the U-2. The colonel read that he was unfit and didn’t read it anymore.
What have you come?
I want a flying job.
You're no good.
I say that the commission gave me permission. He’s here: “What do I need a commission for, we can figure it out here ourselves, and here it’s written that he’s unfit and that’s it!”
And here he grabbed it and went:
You have no legs, but you came here to rub in your glasses.
This hurt me terribly. I speak:
I have legs, Comrade Colonel, but my legs are wooden.
But you won’t fly, how is that possible!
What do I care about the medical commission, we won’t let you in anyway.
Then I started talking to him differently.
Comrade Colonel, I will fly, but I ask you not to give a conclusion right away.
And he is already asking who I worked for and is going to look for a vacant position for me.
I ask you again - not to give a conclusion. I'll get to the air marshal.
He still won't accept you.
No, he will.
Well, he screamed even louder here.
Who will give you permission?
I speak:
I will come according to all the rules and ask permission. And I will still fly.
No, you won't fly.
No, I will.
You don't know how to walk.
I then plucked up the impudence and said:
It's none of your business how I walk. Since the doctors have given me the conclusion that I have good command of prostheses, I have the right to request that I be scheduled for testing, as indicated here.
He started shouting something else, but I had already left.
Some major was standing there. He is asking:
Is that what you were talking about there? What is it?
I told him everything.
Well, where do you want to go now?
I speak:
I'll go to the commander, Lieutenant General Novikov 19.
Have you visited the head of the HR department?
No wasn `t.
Go see him, otherwise it’s awkward to walk over his head.
And I decided to go to the head of the personnel department. I come to the secretary, he reports, and the boss receives me. It was just Major General Orekhov.
What's the matter?
I don't get a flying job.
I say, this way and that, Colonel Valchugin refuses. Valchugin comes to him. He reads the documents and says:
So you have no legs?
I speak:
With artificial legs, Comrade Major General.
No, you won’t fly, no matter what you do!!!
Why, Comrade General?
You can't do that.
Then I take out the magazine and say:
Well, people fly, only the British, why can’t I?
He read and put the magazine aside:
No, you won’t fly after all.
Comrade Major General, allow me to say.
Speak.
I will fly.
You are an average commander and must listen to what the general tells you.
I listen, but still I will fly.
Why is this necessary?
Firstly, I can still help aviation a lot, and secondly, this is very interesting thing in aviation in general.
Have you thought about how you will cope with this?
I thought about everything.
He asked me to leave, then called me again.
Okay, he says, let's try.
Well, I think if we try, then that’s it. And so, only person- this general who helped me.
Hope. "Okay, let's fly..."
They send me to one school to try. This is in the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in Chuvashia, in a primary education school 20. I'm coming there. The head of the school receives me there:
“Okay,” he says, “let’s fly.”
But he still doesn’t know or guess anything. They are assigned to fly on such and such a day. And then someone said that I was on artificial legs. The boss calls me and says:
Are you missing both legs?!
How will you fly?
I speak:
That's why they sent me to you.
And I didn’t even figure it out. Well, okay, let's try.
They give me a pilot, Naumov, he tests me on the U-2. On this plane you need good coordination, you need to be able to feel with your feet. I checked. Then he says:
My feet are frozen, maybe you can fly yourself?
They gave me 4 transportation flights. Then the squadron commander came, also checked and said that I can’t even tell that you have artificial legs. Then the head of the school flew on a U-2. I checked. They conclude that he is suitable for all types of aviation.
When I boarded the plane, I was even surprised myself; I never knew it was possible to fly like that without legs.
With this conclusion I come to Moscow, to the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. The commander, Major General Sbytov 21, was busy and did not receive me. His deputy Belokon reported to him about me. Belokon comes and tells me that he said that I cannot be sent to fighter aviation, and that I should rest. I speak:
I would still like to fly fighter jets. But if you promise to send me to a fighter, then I will agree to fly on a U-2 for now. I will be in Moscow and will bother you.
Okay,” he says, “we’ll arrange it, we’ll arrange it.”
Victory. "I won't break my legs!"
They sent me to the communications squadron in Moscow 22. There really was good job, I rested. I stayed there for only three months. Then I wrote a letter to the Moscow Military District saying that I felt good, rested, and gathered my strength. Then the very squadron I was in received the plane from the collective farmers, and Colonel Lyakishev was here. I asked my squadron commander for permission to contact him. He asks me:
Have you written to the commander of the troops?
There is some kind of resolution there. You must be called.
I waited and waited, but nothing came. Then Major Shiryaev calls me and says that the commander is sending you to the ZAP in Ivanovo 23. I'm asking:
In a fighter plane?
I dropped everything and started getting ready. I went to Ivanovo. They started there:
How is it that you don’t know how to fly a U-2?
“I fly on the U-2,” I say, “I also have a conclusion.
But the regiment commander did not dare to train me in a fighter right away. But it turned out that at first I had a conclusion regarding the U-2, and Major General Sbytov himself had already sent me to the fighter, but there was no doctor’s conclusion regarding the fighters. Then the regiment commander says:
You need to pass the commission, and then I will train you.
I think we need to go to Moscow for this commission. I went to Moscow. I come to the same doctors. Sobeinikov recognized me immediately. True, when I arrived from school, I gave him the report to read, and he was very surprised that I was suitable for all types of aviation. And here he says:
No, it won’t work, you can’t do it on a fighter.
Why, doctor?
There are great prerequisites for pilots having to land with a parachute. And you'll break your legs.
Just this magazine described the case of how that pilot jumped with a parachute and broke his prosthetics. Then he made himself prosthetics and flew on. I speak:
I won't break my legs, but I'll break my prosthetics.
We talked and talked, then he said:
Come tomorrow.
I come the next day, Doctor Mirolyubov is sitting there. He tells me:
Let's have a heart-to-heart talk about what might happen to you.
I speak:
If I fly a fighter jet, I will be able to control it completely, but if I jump with a parachute, I will break my prosthetics.
“I think,” says Mirolyubov, “that you will break your prosthetics and hurt yourself, but you won’t be able to fly the plane.”
And Doctor Sobeinikov said:
Yes, he will break his legs, but he will be able to fly the plane.
And here they had disagreements. I climbed onto the table, jumped and said: “This is how it will work!”
Finally, Mirolyubov was inclined to allow it. I wrote a piece of paper: we allow you to try it on a UTI-4 or Yak-7 plane.
Flight. "Suitable for all fighters"
I think: going to that regiment again won’t work, because they demanded that they write in black and white what we allow. Then I come to Major Shiryaev and ask to be tested here. And I began to fly in Lyubertsy with Major Abzianidze. We made a flight with him on UTI-4. He says:
How are you feeling?
I speak:
I sit as if in my car.
He says:
I also can’t say anything against it.
In the end, they wrote a conclusion: suitable for all fighter aircraft. With this conclusion, I go to the doctors. They read it and don’t believe it. I say: “Well, what should I do now?” They say: “Give us the chief of staff of this unit and the pilot with whom you flew. We will all get together and give a final conclusion.”
I then went to the personnel department to ask that they be requested to Moscow. They came to the commission, and the commission gave a joint conclusion: we allow training flights according to a special training course and, if he shows good results, then he is considered fit for fighter aviation. And with this conclusion, I went to ZAP and started training there. I finished the course there normally and asked to be sent to the front. I flew there on LA-5, Yak-7 and UT-2. So far everything is going fine.
All this happened because the operation was performed very well on me. I remember back in the hospital, I once jokingly asked the professor: “Professor, will I fly?” He said: “This is not my business, my business is to repair you so that you can feel everything through the prosthetics.” And indeed, wherever I go through the commission, everyone is surprised at how well the operation was done for me." 24
July 1943.
Notes
1. For more information about the history of the creation of the Commission and its activities, see: The contribution of historians to conservation historical memory about the Great Patriotic War (Based on materials from the Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1941-1945). M.; St. Petersburg 2015.
2. On April 9, 1942, for three shot down German transport aircraft (in air battles on April 1 and 5), the command of the 580th IAP presented Maresyev with the Order of the Red Banner; despite the fact that he had been listed as missing since April 5, 1942. The award order was issued on June 23, 1942.
3. The exact date when the interview was recorded is not indicated. Most likely, this happened on one of the days between July 11 (the first day of work of the commission employees in the air division) and July 20, 1943, when Maresyev made his first combat mission as part of the 63rd Guards. iap.
4. FZU - factory apprenticeship school
5. So in the document.
6. MAI - Moscow Aviation Institute.
7. DVK - Far Eastern Territory.
8. 296th IAP of the Southwestern Front.
9. From March 31 to June 19, 1942, the 580th Fighter Aviation Regiment was part of the 6th Strike Aviation Group, which took part in the Demyansk Operation - the destruction of a group of Nazi troops encircled in the area of Staraya Russa - Demyansk ("Demyansk Cauldron").
10. In combat reports we're talking about about April 5, 1942
11. Correct - April 22.
12. Among those guys who were the first to discover Maresyev were Alexander Vikhrov and Sergey Malin.
13. Raglan is a specially cut men's jacket in which the sleeve is integral with the shoulder.
14. We are talking about Mikhail Vasilyevich Vikhrov.
15. That’s right - Andrey Nikolaevich Dekhtyarenko (1909-1942), senior lieutenant, from March to June 1942, commander of the 580th IAP. He made 39 combat missions, shot down 10 in air battles and destroyed 2 enemy aircraft on the ground. On July 11, 1942, he did not return from another combat building. On July 21, 1942, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
16. Terebinsky Nikolai Naumovich (1880-1959) - professor of surgery, pioneer of experimental surgery open heart. During the war years he worked in Moscow city hospitals, as a consultant surgeon at several evacuation hospitals.
17. Most likely, the magazine article was about Douglas Bader (1910-1982), an English ace pilot. Bader lost both legs in a plane accident (1931). After undergoing rehabilitation after leg amputation, he resumed flight training. In 1939 he was re-enlisted in the Royal Air Force. Won 20 in air battles personal victories. In August 1941, it was shot down over occupied French territory. Escaping from a downed plane, he jumped out with a parachute, while losing one of his prostheses. Got into German captivity. Liberated by the Americans in April 1945.
18. Red Army Air Force.
19. Novikov Alexander Alexandrovich (1900-1976), from April 1942 to April 1946, commander of the Red Army Air Force, Chief Marshal aviation, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
20. We are talking about the 3rd school of initial pilot training in the village of Ibresi, Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where Maresyev took to the skies for the first time after amputation of his legs.
21. Sbytov Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1905-1997), lieutenant general of aviation (1943), from May 1941 to January 1948, commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District.
22. We are talking about the 65th separate air communications squadron of the Moscow Military District (Lyubertsy).
23. Most likely, we are talking about the 22nd reserve fighter aviation regiment of the Moscow Military District Air Force in Ivanovo.
24. Scientific archive IRI RAS. F. 2. Section I. Op. 79. D. 7. L. 29-33 vol.
I want to talk about my great-uncle, Alexey Petrovich Maresyev. Yes, yes, you were not mistaken - about that same Maresyev. However, they rarely write or talk about him now, and no one sets him up as an example for children. But just recently the fame of the pilot Alexei Maresyev thundered throughout the country and in schools they wrote essays based on the book by Boris Polevoy “The Tale of a Real Man”. Well, the new generation has its own heroes...
Fate brought us to Irkutsk, but our family’s roots are in the Volga region. There in small town called Kamyshin, not far from Saratov, there lived three brothers. Well, the beginning is almost like a fairy tale... Only then no one could have guessed what kind of fairy tale fate destined for the youngest of them - Alexei.
As a child, Lenka was frail and sickly. He suffered from joint pain and at times could not even walk. And I had to walk to school 4 kilometers away - in torn shoes, in the bitter cold. The family was poor and early childhood Alexey started working. Maresyev learned to mow, harrow, thresh and plow before he could read and write.
Alexei suddenly fell ill with the sky. One day, while collecting water from the river, he heard a buzzing sound. He raised his head and was stunned. A plane circled in the sky like a bird... Of course, the sickly boy was not accepted into any flight school. But as an active Komsomol member, he was sent to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. For almost a year, Maresyev felled wood in the taiga and flew in his sleep. However, not only in dreams. His first flight on a small U-2 training aircraft took place at the local flying club.
At a medical examination at the Chita Fighter School, doctors declared Maresyev absolutely healthy - work in logging cured him better than a sanatorium... And then the war and that fateful flight on April 4, 1942 near Novgorod, when Lieutenant Maresyev’s plane was shot down and fell behind the front line. Seriously wounded, without food, he crawled for 18 days to reach his people. By chance, two guys from the nearby village of Plav stumbled upon him, at first mistaking him for a half-baked Fritz. They then came to Alexei Petrovich in Moscow more than once with stories about the fate of fellow villagers who had once saved Maresyev.
But this turned out to be only the first test that fate had in store for Maresyev. The worst blow awaited him in the hospital. Gangrene of both legs... The doctors’ verdict was inexorable: “Amputation! Cut, otherwise you will die!” A pilot without legs is like a bird without wings... Many in such situations gave up and gave up on themselves, but not Alexey Maresyev. He is learning to walk, run, and even dance again. Maresyev knocks on the thresholds of all kinds of military and medical authorities and achieves the impossible. After amputation of the legs - return to duty and new downed enemy planes.
Many did not fully believe the veracity of this story. They say that a person is physically incapable of doing this - this is a propaganda trick, a writer’s fantasy... I declare with all responsibility: the feat of Alexei Maresyev is not fiction, it all happened. Unfortunately, I myself saw him only once, when I was very little. But my mother, Alexei Petrovich’s niece, often visited the Maresyevs in Moscow. She told us a lot about her famous uncle. And who, if not her, should know the truth about the members of our family...
However, some things in the book are truly the writer’s invention. At that time, Alexei Maresyev did not have a beloved girl, Olga. He married after the war, and not very successfully.
He, then already a famous hero, was matched with Galina, a beautiful girl, but hysterical and eccentric. And their two sons - Vitaly and Leonid - caused Maresyev a lot of problems... Well, it’s only in fairy tales that everything ends wonderfully and after trials only glory, honors and happiness await the heroes. Everything in life is more complicated...
They often say: “Now, if Polevoy had not written a book about Maresyev, nothing would have happened: neither national glory, nor universal admiration...” Maybe it would not have happened if Vasily Stalin had not introduced Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Maresyev to writer. Surely the bags of letters with which Maresyev was overwhelmed after the release of the film “The Tale of a Real Man” would not have arrived. But gold star He received a hero for downed planes and unparalleled courage, and not for his popularity. And Maresyev’s feat remains a feat regardless of the book and film - they only helped several generations of boys in our country get worthy ideal, role model. Who do today's boys imitate - Batman or Spider-Man? Comments, as they say, are unnecessary...
Alexey Petrovich Maresyev died in May 2001, 2 days before his 85th birthday. He caught the 55th anniversary of the Victory, before last day remaining the permanent chairman of the Veterans Council and devoting all his strength to this work.
One of the asteroids in the solar system is named after him. Once upon a time, Alexey Maresyev rose into the sky and left his soul there. Now he is bound to heaven forever.
