Ivan Kozhedub - Top Soviet Ace.
Ivan Kozhedub was the top scoring fighter pilot on the Allied side during World War II. He was born on 8 June 1920, in the village of Obrazheyevska, Shostka district of the Sumy region in the Ukraine as the youngest of five children in his family. In 1934 he finished a seven-year school. For two years he attended a school for young workers. In beginning of 1940 he graduated from the Shostka chemical technical school, then he joined the Soviet Army admitting to the Chuguyev military aviation school.
In 1941, he finished flight school (learning to fly the UTI-4 & I-16) with excellent results. Because he remained in the school as a flight instructor, many young pilots were prepared by him. But, his dream was to enter real air battles.
He remembers in interview from Jon Guttman:
"I requested a transfer to the front more than once. But the front required well-trained fliers. While training them for future battles, I was also training myself. At the same time, it felt good to hear of their exploits at the front. In late 1942, I was sent to learn to fly a new plane, the Lavochkin LaG-5. After March 1943, I was finally in active service.
My first appointment was to the 240th Fighter Air Regiment (Istrebitelsky Aviatsy Polk, or IAP), which began combat operations on the first day of the war, on the Leningrad front. Since many graduates of the Chuguyev school served there, I did not feel out of place, not even at the beginning. Our pilot personnel included people of many nationalities. There were Belorussians, Tartars, Georgians, Russians and Ukrainians. We were all like one big family.
I got LaG-5 No. 75. Like other aircraft of our regiment, it had the words “Named after Valery Chkalov” inscribed on its fuselage. Those planes were built on donations from Soviet people. But my plane was different. Other fliers had aircraft with three fuel tanks, which were lighter and more maneuverable, whereas my fivetank aircraft was heavier. But for a start its potential was quite enough for me, a budding flier. Later on, I had many occasions to admire the strength and staying power of this plane. It had excellent structural mounting points and an ingenious fire-fighting system, which diverted the exhaust gases into the fuel tanks, and once saved me from what seemed certain death.
In my first combat, I did not get a single scratch, but my plane was badly damaged. My commander said, with good reason, “Make haste only when catching fleas.” I did not heed his advice. It seemed to me I could down at least two or three enemy planes at one go. Carried away by the attack, I did not notice an umbrella of Messerschmitt Bf-110s approaching me from behind. Of course, that was a bitter experience and a serious lesson for me. Despite general failures, our morale was quite high."
On 6 July 1943, Kozhedub scored his first kill. The squadron led by Major Soldatienko spotted a group of 20 Junkers Ju 87 “Stukas” harassing the Soviet ground forces. Floowing his third attack, Kozhedub downed one of the Ju 87s.
Further dive-bombers were shot down by his comrades pilots, and the remaining Ju 87s escaped rapidly. Lets hear Kozhedub’s describe of this combat: [i]"We were ordered to attack a group of Junkers Ju-87 dive bombers. I chose a “victim” and came in quite close to it. The main thing was to fire in time. Everything happened in a twinkling. It was only on the ground, among my friends, that I recalled the details of this battle.
Caution is all-important and you have to turn your head 360 degrees all the time. The victory belonged to those who knew their planes and weapons inside out and had the initiative. On July 7, I downed a second plane and, on July 8, I destroyed another two Bf-109 fighters." [/i]
In the following ten days, Kozhedub´s victory tally rose to 8 (on 16 July 1943). In begin of August 1943 Kozhedub was promoted to flight leader funkction.
On 6 November 1943, he scored his 26th kill in a hard combat with German fighters. During the battle over the Dniepr Front, Kozhedub achiev his greatest successes. In ten days, he downed 11 enemy planes! In April 1944, he downed 3 German aircraft in one mission. On 4 February 1944, Captain Kozhedub was awarded as a Hero of the Soviet Union. In fact, he received this the highest Soviet award three times (only Pokryshkin received this award as many times as Kozhedub): second time on 19 August 1944, with total 34 kills, third time after war, on 18 August 1945.
In July 1944 he was posted to the 1st Belorussian Front as vice commander to the 176th Guards Fighter Regiment, and received La-7 No. 27, in which he score his final 17 victories.
"I was upset by my new appointment but only until I found out that I could fly with aces who went on lone-wolf operations. Day in and day out, we would fly in the morning and analyze our sorties back at the squadrons at noon. At 9 p.m., we used to gather in the canteen, where the commander gave an account of the results of the day. In this regiment, I also began to team up with Dmitry Titarenko.
The 176th Guards Fighter Regiment carried out 9,450 combat missions, of which 4,016 were lone-wolf operations; it conducted 750 air battles, in which 389 enemy aircraft were shot down."
In February 1945, Kozhedub shot down a German Me 262 “Schwalbe” jet fighter: “On February 19, 1945, 1 was on a lone-wolf operation together with Dmitry Titorenko to the north of Frankfurt. I noticed a plane at an altitude of 350 meters (2,170 feet). It was flying along the Oder at a speed that was marginal for my plane. I made a quick about-face and started pursuing it at full throttle, coming down so as to approach it from under the “belly.” My wingman opened fire, and the Me-262 (which was a jet, as I had already realized) began turning left, over to my side, losing speed in the process. That was the end of it. I would never have overtaken it if it had flown in a straight line. The main thing was to attack enemy planes during turns, ascents or descents, and not to lose precious seconds.”
Ivan Kozhedub and congratulations from ‘tavarischi’ after successful flight. In background ‘red nose’ of Kozhedubs La-7 fighter.
By now, he was Second Commander, in the rank of Major, of 176th GvIAP (Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment). Kozhedub remembers alo his last aerial combat in WW2 on 19 April 1945, when he flew with Lieutenant Titorenko:
"On the evening of April 17, we went on a lone-wolf operation over the suburbs of Berlin. All of a sudden we saw a group of 40 Fw-190s with bomb loads, flying at an altitude of 3,500 meters in our direction. We climbed to the left and flew behind them under the cover of clouds. The odds were obviously not in our favor, but we still decided to attack since the enemy aircraft were heading for our troops. At maximum speed, we approached the tail of the formation, out of the sun. I opened fire almost point-blank at the wingman of the last pair of aircraft. The first Fw-190 fell into the suburbs of the city. Several planes turned to the west, while others continued their flight.
[i]We decided to drive a wedge into the combat formation and break it up. Making a steep dive, we swept past enemy planes. As often happened in such cases, the Nazis thought that there were a lot of us. Confused, they started jettisoning bombs. Then they formed a defensive circle–each fighter covering the tail of the one in front of him–and began to attack us. Titorenko skillfully downed the plane that followed me. At that point, we saw our fighters and we turned for home. But suddenly, we saw yet another Fw-190 with a bomb.
Apparently, the pilot had received a warning, for he made a quick dive and jettisoned his bomb over the suburbs of Berlin. But I still reached him on the recovery from his dive. The plane literally burst in the air. We made a good landing but our fuel tanks were completely empty. After that battle, I brought my personal score of downed Nazi planes to a total of 62."[/i]
During WWII, Ivan Kozhedub flew 326 combat missions, took part in 126 aerial combats, and achieved 62 kills (in them 22 FW 190 and 18 Ju 87). The planes he flew were La-5 FN & La-7 fighters. In 1949, he finished the Zhukovski Military Aviation Academy. In 1956, he graduated from the High Command´s Academy, after which he was promoted to General. Ivan Kozhedub passed away in August 1991.
Here is the full (and long) list of Ivan Kozhedub’s victories:
Apart from these 62 victories, Ivan Kozhedub also was forced to shoot down two U.S. P-51 Mustangs that mistakenly attacked his La-7 on one occasion. Both these P-51 losses have been verified by USAAF sources.
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/kozedub/kozedub.htm
Does anybody have more information about the later incident?
Is beliavable?
