Almost a hundred years ago, on May 20, 1916, Alexey Maresyev was born - pilot, hero of the Soviet Union, legend of the Great Patriotic War. His homeland is the city of Kamyshin. From childhood he was forced to learn to be independent. He grew up in a large, half-orphan family; his father died early.
The biography of Alexey Maresyev is full of a series of overcomings and courage. Alexey Maresyev was very ill in childhood and adolescence, sometimes had difficulty moving, and even then he began to dream of flying. An accident helped to recover from a strange illness. The Komsomol brigade was going to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. When Maresyev got to this miraculous land, he was completely healed. Then he began to move towards his dream of becoming a pilot. Maresyev received his first lessons on the Amur, and when enlisting in the aviation border detachment on Sakhalin. But there were no serious flights.
Maresyev was able to gain his first flight experience only in 1940 at the Bataysk military school. He fought a real battle bravely in 1942. His assertive desire to become a master pilot yielded results. Alexey Maresyev was a diligent student. In just a month, in the first year of combat missions, the talented pilot Maresyev had 4 enemy aircraft. Fatal changes in the biography of Alexei Maresyev occurred on April 4, 1942. Maresyev's fighter plane was shot down in an air battle. He fell in the area of Staraya Russa. The brave pilot was in the forest for 18 days. He desperately crawled towards his people. How the wounded pilot survived is a mystery. Senior Lieutenant Maresyev courageously endured the amputation of frostbitten shins of both legs, learned to live on prosthetics and returned to the sky.
At first, the young pilot Maresyev was terribly depressed, but his powerful will turned out to be stronger than his injuries. Maresyev was not driven by ambition at all. All his life this amazing man was embarrassed by his unnecessary fame. In his interviews he showed extraordinary modesty. At the height of the war, Maresyev did not want and could not stay in the rear. He felt more than capable of defending his Fatherland. The pilot Maresyev loved the sky most of all, and did not accept the verdict of unfitness. Unbending fortitude and perseverance helped Senior Lieutenant Maresyev. 1943 - he went to the front again. Without legs, Maresyev was more than fit to fly. This is a great victory - Maresyev’s greatest feat. The heroic pilot conducted 86 flight battles and shot down 11 enemy aircraft.
The Motherland awarded Alexei Maresyev the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in August 1943. This is for the desperate courage and military valor that he showed in the fight against hated enemies. The fame of the disabled hero spread throughout all military units, and they spoke enthusiastically about him in the rear. Correspondents rushed to the 15th Air Army. Much has been written about the exploits of the pilot Maresyev. The writer Boris Polevoy, the author of “The Tale of a Real Man,” did not give his hero Maresyev, for fear that the hero pilot would do something in the future that was not in accordance with ideology, and the story would not be published. This is how the literary Meresyev appeared. But, in the book - everything that actually happened in the biography of Alexei Maresyev.
The only thing missing was the girl, she appeared later. The real wife of the pilot Maresyev served in the air force. First of all, the planes, and then the girls - as they say in the famous song from the war. In fact, Alexey Maresyev did not even read the book about his exploits: “I didn’t have a chance.” But he signed autographs on the book for a long memory. In the USSR, almost everyone knew the name Maresyev. Later, “The Tale of a Real Man” was translated into many languages of the world. The feature film, with Kadochnikov in the title role, was watched by everyone in the USSR, and an opera of the same name was staged at the Bolshoi Theater. Maresyev rose to the rank of Guard major and left the army in 1946. It was not easy; severe injuries took their toll. But he did not remain idle - he taught flying skills to young pilots. The last time Maresyev took to the skies was in the 50s. Thus ended the heroic celestial saga of the hero. In 1952, Maresyev studied at the higher school of the CPSU Central Committee, and in 1956 he completed graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences.
Self-education and the pursuit of knowledge can serve as an example to anyone. Maresyev became a candidate of historical sciences. Alexey Maresyev devoted a lot of time to the well-being of veterans. He became active in the War Veterans Committee. Maresyev published his memoirs about the Second World War. His most famous work is “On the Kursk Bulge,” which includes the memories of many veterans with whom he was friends and whom he cared about. Until his death, Maresyev amazed with his extraordinary thirst for life, goodwill towards people and love for the Motherland. He lived modestly, like many WWII veterans who were accustomed to hardships.
Maresyev did not like to complain or ask. At the front, I completely forgot about my wounds. One dream did not come true. I didn’t get to fly the Airacobra. The design of this machine is too complex for a person with both legs. But Maresyev realized his main dream. He and the others brought Victory closer. When they talked about his feat, he was embarrassed. Alexey Maresyev did not know how to live without giving back. When the Great Patriotic War ended, the country still needed heroes. The victory came at a high price: millions of wounded, disabled people, and lost loved ones. Everyone needed an illustration of true heroism, which was the fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev.
With the beginning of “perestroika” they began to completely debunk the heroes. This cynicism also affected Maresyev. But Maresyev’s military exploits and his entire biography were genuine. He visited our school several times, on the most important holiday of our country, Victory Day. I remember the courageous, kind, smiling face and stately posture of the hero pilot Maresyev. I was lucky enough to listen to his stories about the war times. He talked a lot about ordinary fighters, about their courage, and it seemed that his own fame was somewhat burdensome to him. He believed that we would grow up loyal to our country, he spoke about this without pathos, but with sincerity.
People like Maresyev are the greatest heroes, our saviors, those who gave us life. Alexey Petrovich Maresyev died in 2001, on his birthday, when a solemn holiday was being prepared for him. The great hero of the Second World War, Alexey Maresyev, left with honors.
Victoria Maltseva
A.P. Maresyev is an example of will, courage, and love of life. He could not give up his dream, even when he lost his legs, he stubbornly walked towards it, because he loved the sky. He never boasted about his victories, and did not consider them exploits. Alexey Petrovich simply did not know how and did not want to live differently.
Labor is good
Alexey Maresyev, whose feat went down in history, was born in the city of Kamyshin, on the Volga River, on May 20, 1916, the last, fourth child. Describing his brothers, he said that the elders were smart, and he became a pilot. At the age of three, Alexei was left without a father; he died from his wounds, barely returning from the First World War, working as a trench soldier. The boys were raised by one mother. The modest income of a woodworking factory cleaner and the strong-willed character of a woman raising four children alone allowed the boys to get accustomed to work and also understand what it means to live an honest life. At the end of his life, Alexey Maresyev, whose feat is an example to follow, will name the main positive quality of a person
Health
The future Hero of the Soviet Union, the legendary pilot Maresyev (every schoolchild knows his feat), did not shine with special health in childhood, rather the opposite. He said to himself that he looked like a Chinese, and not a Russian boy, because from year to year he suffered from malaria. In his youth, Alexei had serious problems with his joints, they caused him a lot of suffering, the pain was so severe that he could not move. He was also tormented by constant migraines. No one has established an exact diagnosis. With such poor health, he didn’t even have to think about any military flight school, but he thought and dreamed.
Direction
After graduating from school, Alexey studies to become a metal turner at a school at a woodworking plant, where he begins his career. Then he sends the documents to the Aviation Institute (MAI). The dream should have already come true, he is so close to it, but suddenly the district committee of the Komsomol of his native city directs him to build the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Very angry, he rashly replied that he would not go, and sent the documents to the Moscow Aviation Institute. To which he was offered to hand over his Komsomol card. But Alexey was not a timid person; he took it and laid it on the table. But when I returned home, I had to tell my mother everything, she was ideological, cried and wailed for a long time. But everything worked out, fortunately, Alexey calmed his mother down and went to the Komsomol cell.
Dream is reality
Alexey Petrovich Maresyev... His deed will never be forgotten by his descendants, but how would his life have turned out if he had not gone to the Far East? Would he become a pilot? Before leaving, Alexey underwent a medical examination; a female doctor addressed him in a motherly manner, saying that he may not go, but if he sets foot on that land, then all his illnesses will go away. Then Alexey thought that if he recovered, he would become a pilot. How he looked into the water... After arriving in the Far East, his health began to improve. The climate helped, as Alexey Petrovich himself said.
Arriving at the place, Alexey worked as an ordinary lumberjack, sawed wood, built barracks and neighborhoods, and at the same time attended a flying club. My health improved noticeably, and with it came confidence in my abilities. He worked hard to make his dream of becoming a professional pilot a reality.
Ensign
He received his first lessons on the Amur, then, after being drafted into the army in 1937, he was sent to the 12th air border detachment on the island of Sakhalin, but he was not yet able to fly there. This happened only when he was admitted to the Bataysk Aviation School named after A. Serov. In 1940, he graduated with the rank of junior lieutenant and remained there to work as an instructor. In Bataysk he receives news of the war.
A. P. Maresyev: feat (brief description)
In August 1941, he was sent to the Southwestern Front, and his first combat mission took place in August. His initial flight experiences at the aviation school were not in vain; at the beginning of 1942, he found success in a real battle. You are probably already wondering what feat Alexey Maresyev accomplished.
The persistent pursuit of high professionalism yielded results; he was a good student and perfectly learned everything that the teachers said. Alexey Maresyev accomplished the feat without thinking: the downed German cars came one after another. The first destroyed German Ju-52 aircraft opened the scoring for victories over the enemy; by the end of March, the talented pilot had already shot down 4 enemy aircraft. Then he is transported to the North-Western Front.
Thirst for life
At the beginning of April, a misfortune happened to a young pilot. The plane was shot down, and the pilot himself was seriously wounded in the legs. When planning, he was going to land in a forest swamp covered with snow, but the plane’s power was not enough, and he fell with all his might onto the mighty tree trunks. Finding himself in enemy-occupied territory, he tried with all his might to get to the front line. First, on sore legs, and then crawling for 18 days, he got to his people. No one knows how he survived. Alexey Petrovich Maresyev himself (his feat now seems unthinkable) did not like to remember this story and talk about it. He was driven, he said, by an indomitable desire to live.
Miraculous Rescue
He was discovered, barely alive, by local residents of the village of Plav, the boys Sasha Vikhrov and Seryozha Malin. Sasha’s father settled the wounded man in his house. For a week the collective farmers looked after him and took care of him, but there was no doctor in the village, and his frostbitten legs were very inflamed. Alexey Maresyev received qualified assistance later, when he was transported to the nearest hospital. Amputation of the legs was the only correct decision, since gangrene, incompatible with life, began to develop.
Sentence
The doctors knew what feat Maresyev had accomplished and what his profession meant to him. It was all the more difficult for them to announce to him their conclusion: he was unfit to fly. The young, strong-willed man was greatly depressed, but his iron will and thirst for a fulfilling life did not allow him to come to terms with the idea of disability and his professional unsuitability. He could not give up on himself and abandon military activities. The motives for action were not the desire to make a career or become famous; on the contrary, he regretted his obsessive fame, which burdened him - as he spoke about it in numerous interviews. In difficult times for the country, he could not become disabled and a burden, that was Aleksey Petrovich Maresyev. The Fatherland needed heroism from everyone in this difficult time, and he felt enormous unspent strength within himself. In addition, Alexey Petrovich passionately loved the sky, and the conclusion of the doctors became a death sentence.
Strength of will
Alexey Petrovich owes his return to the flying troops solely to his own qualities: perseverance and willpower. While still in the hospital, he began training, preparing himself to fly with prostheses. He had an excellent example - Prokofiev-Seversky, a pilot of the First World War who fought without his right leg. He convinced not only himself, but also the doctors, that he could fly.
In February 1943, the senior lieutenant made his first flight with prosthetic legs instead of legs at the flight school of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He managed to be sent to the front and in the middle of the same year he arrived in a fighter aviation regiment.
On the Bryansk Front they did not immediately believe in him. Alexey Petrovich was worried and really asked to give him a chance. Soon he received it from commander Alexander Chislov, who accompanied his first flights. When Maresyev shot down a German fighter before his eyes, his confidence immediately increased.
It was a huge victory and a great feat. Having lost both legs, he found himself in service.
Maresyev's next feat: summary
At the Kursk Bulge, in a bloody battle, Alexey Maresyev proved his right to the title of one of the best Soviet fighter pilots. After amputation of his legs, he shot down 7 more enemy planes and saved the lives of two Soviet pilots in the fight against superior enemy forces.
After the end of the battles on the Kursk Bulge, Maresyev was sent to the best sanatorium of the Air Force. Here he was caught by a decree awarding him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Regiment commander N. Ivanov wrote that Alexey Maresyev, whose feat was true patriotism, fought against the enemy without sparing himself, his blood and life, achieving excellent results in battle, despite his physical handicap.
Meeting B. Polevoy
His military glory spread throughout the entire front. War correspondents began to arrive at him, including the author of “The Tale of a Real Man.” Boris Polevoy did not give the hero of the story a real name. This is how the well-known Meresyev was created. The rest of the events described in the story happened in reality, with the exception of the novel, but the prototype liked the image of the girl.
He didn’t have to make a choice between airplanes and girls, since his wife is also involved in the Air Force. Maresyev said that he had not read the story, but he had the book.
Hero-pilot Alexey Maresyev was not the only prototype of “The Tale of a Real Man.” Many heroes who were left without limbs fought at the front; they were also awarded titles and orders; Meresyev is a collective image.
Maresyev is an example of courage
After the war in 1946, it was already difficult for Alexei Petrovich to fly: old wounds began to make themselves felt, so he resigned, although he did not complain about his health. He became involved in teaching activities, training young pilots. And he summed up his brilliant celestial history in the 50s, when he made his last flights. Then he worked on the war veterans committee.
We are only familiar with Maresyev the pilot, and the other side of his personality remained in the shadows. He was a candidate of science in history and took an active part in the work of public organizations. This amazingly resilient man not only did not succumb to illness, but also amazed those around him with his cheerfulness.
In the post-war period, Maresyev, whose feat made him famous throughout the country (partly thanks to the story of Boris Polevoy), was invited to many celebrations and meetings with schoolchildren. His merits served as an example in educating the younger generation.
Maresyev’s feat, a brief summary of which we have reviewed, will be remembered by descendants. Throughout the war, this heroic man made 86 combat missions, destroyed 11 enemy fighters, and saved the lives of two pilots.
A.P. Maresyev left this world in 2001, when, an hour before the gala evening on the occasion of his 85th birthday, all those present were informed of his heart attack. The evening took place, turning into an evening of remembrance, it began with a minute of silence. A.P. Maresyev was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow...
20.05.2016May 20 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alexei Petrovich Maresyev, the famous Soviet pilot who fought without both legs. Thanks to the writer Boris Polevoy and actor Pavel Kadochnikov, he became a legend at the age of 30. But only shortly before his death in 2001, he simply and even casually told something that made the story about him really become real.
The main day in life
It is customary to say about Maresyev that the main event in his life were those 18 days during which, shot down behind the front line, he persistently made his way through the snow-covered forest to his own people. Someone claims that the turning point for him was the unexpected decision to return to duty at all costs and fight until Victory, despite gangrene and amputation of his legs. But Alexey Petrovich himself more often recalled that far from heroic day when in his youth, while drawing water from the Volga to water melons, he heard an airplane engine above him and was so enchanted by it that he lay down straight in the water to better see the amazing flight.
This is how he met that real dream that determined his whole life. After all, it was the desire to fly that prompted the young man, who was constantly ill and lay in bed for months, to go to the Far East, where, according to an experienced doctor, all his ailments could go away. And this craving for the sky helped him, the builder of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, find time and energy for regular classes at the flying club. Finally, it was his constant passion for heights and speed that “pulled” him out of the despair in which he almost drowned when, after an operation, he could not find his legs under the blanket.
Maresyev learned to fly even before he was drafted into the Red Army in 1937. Therefore, he began to serve in his specialty, in the border air detachment on Sakhalin, and then he was sent to complete his studies at a flight school and aviation school, thanks to which he soon found himself almost in his homeland - in the Rostov region. Maresyev only gained combat experience in August 1941, but by that time he was already a good pilot. At least, his skill was enough to not only stay alive during the defeat of our Air Force, but also to shoot down three German transport aircraft before April 1942. By the way, Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin, who later used to say that whoever did not fight in 1941 and 1942 does not know the real war, also shot down 3 enemy planes during the same time. However, experience did not at all exclude annoying mistakes and blunders. The same Pokryshkin opened his “account” by shooting down a Soviet bomber by mistake, and Maresyev simply... hurried.
Our people are just a stone's throw away
The fact is that in the spring of 1942, between lakes Ilmen and Seliger near the inconspicuous city of Demyansk, our troops managed to encircle about 100 thousand Germans. The Germans were then confident of their victory and therefore held the defense heroically, receiving everything they needed by air. And in order to disrupt this air bridge, our ILs, under cover, often “ironed” German airfields in the Demyansk cauldron. But since enemies rarely appeared in the air, instead of a large group of fighters, only four were sent for the next attack, under the command of Lieutenant Maresyev.
They reached the goal, but there they met an enemy three times superior to them. The Germans were serious. They didn’t even think about starting any of the pincer games that Polevoy wrote about in his story, but immediately began shooting at the planes. And Maresyev did everything right. When his engine began to stall from a direct hit, he broke away from the Messerschmitts and decided to land on the ice of a small lake in the thicket. But he released the ski landing gear too early, which caught on the tops of the pine trees, causing the plane to immediately crash into deep snow.
It’s hard to even imagine what happened in the long days and nights that followed. Already in the 1990s, Maresyev succinctly said to the Frenchman Angel Casajus, who became a pilot after watching the film “The Tale of a Real Man,” that “getting out of the forest was more difficult and scarier than it is shown in the film.”
And this despite the fact that there were no traces of any Germans there: there were dense forests and swamps all around. And the fight with the connecting rod bear that Polevoy described at the beginning of his story did not happen either. But there was an on-board ration, which included 3 cans of condensed milk and canned meat, almost a kilogram of biscuits, sugar and even chocolate. But none of this mattered. Because the pilot, who seriously injured his feet, found himself completely alone in the middle of an endless and dense forest, not knowing where to go, or rather, crawl. Not knowing that his own people, as researchers later found out, were just a stone's throw away - some 8-10 kilometers.
Hopeless
Maresyev also usually remained silent about his stay in the hospital. And not only because he did not want to dispel the impeccable legend created by Polev with his revelations. It’s just not easy to remember how, having miraculously returned to people, he was first considered hopeless, since three weeks had passed since the injury, and was put in a cold, deaf room with boarded-up windows to die. And how the surgeon Terebinsky, almost by chance, passing by, saw him and immediately began to operate, promising to save his legs.
It was not easy to remember even those who helped him in those terrible days: compassionate nurses, the resilient commissar Semyon Vorobyov and the very pilot who flew in the First World War, despite the amputation of one foot. After all, no matter how sincere their help was, no matter how encouraging the ancient example was, the thought of the lost legs was stronger. And then it was necessary to drown it out not only with words, but also with vodka, which Maresyev admitted at the end of his life to the correspondent of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper Anatoly Dokuchaev.
However, when the desire to fly nevertheless won in the soul of Alexei Petrovich, he immediately began to train: walk, jump, run and, of course, dance. True, I had to dance not with the nurses, whose legs I was afraid of crushing with my insensitive prostheses, but with my roommates, who specially wore work boots for this task.
“Suitable for all types of aviation”
In just six months, Maresyev learned to walk in such a way that rare people noticed something wrong in his gait. And already at the beginning of 1943, the commission wrote in the personal file of the senior lieutenant: “suitable for all types of aviation.” And in February, he made his first flight after being wounded, and in this he was helped by the deputy head of the flight school, Anton Fedoseevich Beletsky, who himself flew with a prosthesis instead of his right leg.
Finally, in June of the same year, Maresyev arrived at the front and faced the last, expected, but practically insurmountable obstacle: human fear. None of the pilots of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, which was then preparing for the upcoming Battle of Kursk, wanted to take him as a partner. And for a whole month he had to fly only over the airfield, until Alexander Mikhailovich Chislov, the commander of one of the squadrons, took him with him on a combat mission... with a signature! But this was enough for Maresyev, who was yearning for the case, to immediately show what he was worth in the sky. Almost on his first flight, in front of the commander’s eyes, he shot down a German fighter, and the next day, in an unequal battle, he “killed” two more Focke-Wulfs and saved his colleagues from certain death.
A month later, at the end of August 1943, the productive Chislov, who shot down 15 German planes, and who surprised everyone, Maresyev, who had 6 aerial victories, received a “Golden Star”. Soon after this, their paths diverged: the first remained in combat units, the second moved to the “peaceful” position of inspector in the Air Force University Directorate, and in the summer of 1946, due to health reasons, he completely retired.
However, friendship, born of trust, constantly brought them together. And one of these meetings took place soon after the war, when Chislov, while passing through Moscow, came to visit a former fellow soldier. The cramped room where the young Maresyev family huddled outraged him so much that he immediately wrote to Marshal Konev, and soon the hero was given an apartment on Gorky Street - now Tverskaya. And six months later, the whole country learned about the modest pilot on prosthetics, however, it was not Chislov who was “to blame” for this, but Polevoy.
Accidental fame
It’s hard to imagine, but until the very end of 1946, when “The Tale of a Real Man” was first published, few knew the name Maresyev (in the book – Meresyev). Only Alexei Petrovich’s comrades in arms and those who, voluntarily or unwittingly, entered into his destiny could tell about his exploits in the snows of Valdai, in a hospital bed and in the blue sky.
However, fame could have fallen on the pilot earlier, in 1943. After all, then, in the fall, the eminent Pravda correspondent Boris Polevoy arrived in the 63rd regiment, glorified by its heroes. I arrived to interview the regiment commander, ace Andrei Fedotov, but he pointed to his deputy Chislov as a real titan. The same one, dodging questions, told the Moscow guest about the legless pilot, and Maresyev had to tell his story all night.
Polevoy usually wrote his essays quickly, even rapidly. But the article about the unprecedented hero did not make it into the country's main newspaper. Some argue that Stalin himself approved of it, but forbade its publication, because he did not want rumors to appear that the Red Army, out of despair, “reached” the use of disabled people. Like it or not, it doesn’t matter now. But it is important that the journalist remembered Maresyev again when he was at the Nuremberg trials. Again, it is unknown what the relationship is here, but immediately after returning from Germany, Polevoy wrote his most famous work in one breath, within 19 days.
For some time, a rumor appeared that Maresyev had never read the book about himself. May be. But how then was he able to advise the actors of the film, which was filmed in 1948 based on the story, and subsequently, in his declining years, tell “how it really happened”? Most likely, life itself was enough for Alexei Petrovich, which no talented books or films could convey. And he looked with understanding at the writer’s inventions, including a hungry bear, a nurse covered in snow, a village burned by the Germans, a too-correct commissar, and an invented pilot Karpovich instead of the real, but “inconvenient” Prokofiev-Seversky.
All these dramatic details did not in the least distort the truth about the war. And they did not interfere with inspiring tens of thousands of disabled people who, like Meresyev, found themselves facing the abyss of physical helplessness. Therefore, Maresyev did not shy away from strengthening the legend and for this purpose, walk with Polev along the Moscow embankment or meet his saviors, the “boys,” one of whom was already 20 years old in 1943, on the station platform. But he himself remained a lively, simple and modest person.
The most important thing in Maresyev’s story is that fame did not cloud his soul at all and helped him accomplish another, third, feat. He traveled a lot around the Union and often traveled abroad. Every month, every week, he performed in large formal halls, in famous stadiums or in small rural schools. He constantly met with a variety of people, from the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and marshals of the Soviet Union to cosmonauts and little pioneers.
But amid this bustle - sometimes important and sometimes not - he remembered war veterans and disabled people. I went to high offices to “knock out” apartments for them, and fought for years to start producing cars for people without legs and arms. He also made a lot of efforts just so that the country would recognize other heroes who, like him, fought despite their physical disabilities. After all, among the pilots alone there were eight of them: A. F. Beletsky, L. G. Belousov, A. I. Grisenko, I. M. Kiselev, G. P. Kuzmin, I. S. Lyubimov, I. A. Malikov, Z A. Sorokin. And they didn’t know about them only because, according to Maresyev’s apt remark, Polevoy didn’t have a clue about these heroes.
It is difficult to determine the date of this man’s feat. Was it accomplished during 18 days of painful crawling towards the front line after being seriously wounded? Was it a feat to return to flight duty with prosthetics after fourteen months? Or is the highest point of heroism when a disabled aviator rescues his fellow soldiers in an air battle, shooting down two German fighters? Perhaps his whole life - feat.
Alexey Maresyev
born on the Volga, in Kamyshin. At the age of three he was left without a father - he died of wounds shortly after returning from the First World War. Mother, Ekaterina Nikitichna, worked as a cleaner and raised three sons. Alexey was the youngest. As a child, he was often sick, including malaria. There were serious problems with the joints. Severe pain led to the fact that the boy often simply could not walk. He also suffered from migraines. Another would have given up and given up. Maresyev was not one of those people.
After graduating from college, Alexey worked as a turner at a timber mill and did not forget about his dream. Twice he applied to a flight school, but doctors did not allow the guy to take the entrance exams due to rheumatism. And in 1934, Maresyev was sent to the Far East on a Komsomol ticket. At first, he categorically refused this offer-order - it seemed that leaving would put an end to his dream. I almost lost my Komsomol card, but everything turned out okay. I still had to go to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. And later it turned out that even at the ends of the earth you can strive for the sky. Without interrupting his work, Alexey studied at the flying club. On the first attempt he passed the medical examination - working in the open air, the Far Eastern climate and regular wiping with snow benefited his health.
In 1937, Maresyev was drafted into the army. He served in the 12th aviation border detachment on Sakhalin. Then he was sent to the Bataysk Aviation School. In 1940, Alexey graduated from it, received the rank of junior lieutenant and continued serving in Bataysk as an instructor. This is where the war found him.
Maresyev's combat path began on the Southwestern Front. He made his first combat flight on August 23, 1941 in Ukraine, in the Krivoy Rog region. In March 1942, Maresyev was transferred to the North-Western Front. By this time, the pilot of the 580th Fighter Aviation Regiment had 4 downed German aircraft.
On April 4, 1942, during an operation to cover bombers over the Demyansk bridgehead in the Novgorod region, the Germans shot down Maresyev’s plane, and the car quickly rushed down. The impact on the ground was softened by the trees. The pilot, thrown out of the cockpit, fell into a snowdrift and lost consciousness. Some time passed, and the cold forced me to wake up. Alexey looked around, there was a deserted forest all around. The plane was shot down over enemy-occupied territory. This means that we need to quickly make our way to the front line, to our own people. Through thick and thin. I tried to get to my feet and cried out in pain: the soles of both legs were crippled.
Alexey was starving, suffered from cold and wild pain - gangrene began. Dragging his frostbitten feet, he stubbornly moved east. When there was almost no strength left, Maresyev rolled from his back to his stomach, then back again.
The pilot, who was freezing in the forest, was found and rescued by rural boys. For several days the collective farmers looked after Maresyev. There was no doctor, and medical attention was needed immediately. At the beginning of May, a plane landed near the village, and Maresyev was sent to the hospital. The hero had to have both legs amputated at the lower leg. To save a life.
The wounded sympathized with the pilot, who, everyone was sure, had said goodbye to the sky forever. Sometimes hopelessness pinned the disabled person against a wall worse than the trials in the frozen forest. But there was also a glimmer of hope: what if? Day by day, Alexey’s determination grew stronger: a person should not stop fighting while his heart is beating in his chest.
Then, in the hospital, Maresyev could hardly have known about the story of the Russian pilot Alexander Prokofiev-Seversky, who lost his right leg in 1915, but despite this, returned to full service. Brought up on the romance of the military campaigns of the Red Army, other Soviet pilots who lost one or two legs at the front probably had not heard about this fact. In addition to A.P. Meresyev, eight more people were able to take to the air again. Seven of them were fighter pilots. These are Guard Colonel A. I. Grisenko, Guard Lieutenant Colonel I. S. Lyubimov, Major L. G. Belousov, Major A. F. Beletsky, Guard Captain Z. A. Sorokin, Guard Captain G. P. Kuzmin, Senior Lieutenant I M. Kiselev. One aviator, senior lieutenant I.A. Malikov, served in bomber aviation.
In the Moscow region, Maresyev mastered prosthetics. He convinced himself and the doctors that he could fly and fight. While still in the hospital, Alexey began doing grueling exercises on prosthetics. Then he continued to train in a sanatorium, where he was sent in September 1942. At the beginning of 1943, he passed a medical examination and practiced at the Ibresinsky flight school in Chuvashia. He loved to joke and could dance to the accordion. He walked with his leather boots creaking. Even in severe frosts I didn’t wear felt boots. Back then, not everyone knew that this optimistic guy was using prosthetics and was learning to fly again.
In February 1943, Maresyev made his first test flight after being wounded. In the end, he managed to be sent to the front. In June 1943, the courageous pilot arrived at the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. He was sent to a squadron commanded by Captain A. M. Chislov. The regiment command did not let Alexey go on combat missions: the situation in the sky on the eve of the Battle of Kursk was very tense. But Maresyev was eager to fight and was very worried after each refusal. Fellow soldiers flew to the front line, and he continued to train, honing his skills over the airfield. The largest battle on the Kursk Bulge flared up, and the squadron commander finally gave Maresyev the go-ahead to fly.
Alexey Maresyev opened his new combat account on July 6, 1943. In two days, flying the La-5, he shot down five enemy aircraft. The fame of the legless pilot spread throughout the 15th Air Army and throughout the Bryansk Front. War correspondents began to arrive at the air regiment. Among them was the future author of the book “The Tale of a Real Man,” Boris Polevoy. There is a version that the writer did not dare to give the hero of his work a real name, because he was afraid that Maresyev might commit some serious offense and the story would not be published. This is how Meresyev, known to readers, appeared. The events described in the work really took place, with the exception of a romantic relationship with a girl, whose image, despite the writer’s fiction, was liked by the prototype.
“The Tale of a Real Man” was published after the war, three years after Maresyev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. They say that Soviet ideological workers were afraid that the Germans would think that things were really bad in the Red Army for putting disabled people at the controls of airplanes. However, this is rather speculation. Immediately after the war, Boris Polevoy, at a meeting with readers in the Kalinin House, said that he had recently finished the manuscript of a story about an amazing pilot, which means that it had not yet been written during the war years.
This book has become a reference book for millions of people. After publication in the USSR in 1946, it was translated into almost all languages of the world. A feature film was made based on it, and the opera of the same name by S. S. Prokofiev was staged at the Bolshoi Theater.
You cannot fit all the touches of a real person’s biography into a work of art. A whole book could be written about Maresyev’s air battles alone. One day, a brave pilot saved two colleagues from death and shot down two enemy fighters. For this feat, on August 24, 1943, Maresyev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later he fought in the Baltic states and became a regiment navigator. He has 86 combat missions, 11 enemy aircraft shot down, 7 with amputated legs. In June 1944, Guard Major Maresyev was appointed inspector-pilot of the Air Force Higher Education Institutions Directorate.
In 1946, Alexey Petrovich was dismissed from military service and began training young pilots. But in the 50s he still personally flew airplanes. In 1956, A.P. Maresyev defended his PhD thesis in history. From that time on, he was the executive secretary of the Soviet War Veterans Committee. In 1960, his book “On the Kursk Bulge” was published.
This man never complained about fate, lived modestly, did not succumb to illness and surprised those around him with his cheerfulness, charm and optimism. In 2001, on May 18, a gala evening dedicated to Maresyev’s 85th birthday was planned at the Russian Army Theater. Shortly before the start of the celebration, Alexey Petrovich died of a heart attack. The gala evening still took place. It began with a minute of silence.
Retired Colonel A.P. Maresyev was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. He was an honorary soldier of the military unit, an honorary citizen of the cities of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Kamyshin, Orel, Stara Zagora. Youth patriotic clubs, a public foundation, and a minor planet of the solar system are named after him. He remained forever in the history of mankind.
One hundred years ago, on May 20, 1916, Alexey Petrovich Maresyev, one of the most outstanding fighter pilots in the history of aviation, was born. His merits do not lie in the number of enemy aircraft shot down, but primarily in his high moral and strong-willed qualities and the desire to return to the air after a serious accident, no matter what.
Maresyev was born in the Volga city of Kamyshin. When the boy was barely three years old, his father died, and his mother was left alone with three children. After graduating from school, Alexey becomes a metal turner at a school at a woodworking plant. In 1934, the young man was sent to the construction of distant Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Despite rheumatism (a consequence of a difficult childhood) and malaria, after work he goes to the flying club, is interested in parachuting - and overcomes illness.
Alexey Maresyev. 3rd row 4th right
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In 1937, Maresyev was drafted into the army. First, he serves in the air border detachment on Sakhalin, in the village of Kirovskoye, and then goes to the Bataysk Aviation School named after Anatoly Serov. Shortly before the war, Maresyev graduated from college and received the rank of junior lieutenant.
War
According to award documents, Maresyev started the war on June 28 (according to other sources - August 7), 1941 - on the Southwestern Front, defending Krivoy Rog. The pilot completed his first combat flight on August 23. Maresyev, fighting under the command of Captain Nikolai Ivanovich Baranov on the I-16, earned the first thanks in reports. Then, from the end of March 1942, he fought on the Northwestern Front, in the 580th Fighter Aviation Regiment, already on the Yak-1. In February 1942, troops of the North-Western and Kalinin Fronts closed the Demyansk Cauldron. German aviation began to actively supply those surrounded by air, and Soviet pilots tried their best to prevent this. Flight commander Alexei Maresyev has three downed Ju 52 transport aircraft recorded - the first was destroyed on April 1, two more on April 5, 1942 (as in the documents - Maresyev was shot down on April 4, but April 5 is listed as missing in action).
Probably, it was this battle that was described by Boris Polev in “The Tale of a Real Man”:
“This is where Alexey made a mistake. Instead of strictly guarding the air over the attack area, he, as the pilots say, was tempted by easy game. Throwing the car in a dive, he rushed like a stone at the heavy and slow “crowbar” that had just taken off from the ground, and with pleasure hit its rectangular, motley-colored body made of corrugated duralumin with several long bursts. Confident in himself, he did not even look as his enemy poked into the ground. On the other side of the airfield, another Junkers took off into the air. Alexey chased after him. He attacked - and failed. Its fire trails slid over the car, which was slowly gaining altitude. He turned sharply, attacked again, missed again, again overtook his victim and knocked him down somewhere to the side above the forest, furiously stabbing his wide cigar-shaped body with several long bursts from all the on-board weapons. Having laid down the Junkers and given two victory laps at the place where a black pillar rose above the green, disheveled sea of endless forest, Alexey turned the plane back to the German airfield.”
Amazing accuracy for a fiction book! Boris Polevoy throughout the war strived for maximum accuracy in military reporting - and here, too, he did not betray himself. It is no less characteristic of Polevoy that a won air battle is described without the slightest pathos, and can even be assessed as a mistake (the pilot will be left without ammunition and will be shot down). What it took to wander, hobble, and crawl through a dense forest for eighteen days with frostbitten feet, almost without food, to reach your own people - only Maresyev himself knows. Finally, he is picked up by the residents of the burned village of Plav.
The book mentions squadron commander Hero of the Soviet Union Andrei Degtyarenko:
“Alexey opened his eyes, but it seemed to him that he continued to sleep and in a dream he saw this wide, high-cheeked, rough, as if rough-cut by a carpenter, but not wiped with either sandpaper or glass, the good-natured angular face of a friend with a purple scar on his forehead, with light eyes , covered with the same light and colorless, pig-like - as Andrei's enemies said - eyelashes. Blue eyes peered with bewilderment into the smoky twilight.”
Andrei Nikolaevich Dekhtyarenko served in the Red Army since 1931, in 1939 he fought at Khalkhin Gol, where he earned the Order of the Red Banner. In the spring of 1942, Dekhtyarenko commanded the 2nd squadron of the 580th air regiment, part of the 6th Strike Air Group of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Over three combat missions, Dekhtyarenko was credited with nine Ju 52s - two of them on the ground. The first of these flights took place on April 1, 1942. In the area of the Istoshino airfield near Demyansk, Dekhtyarenko was the first to notice a group of 18 Ju 52s, attack and destroy three aircraft. For this fight, Dekhtyarenko received another Order of the Red Banner. On April 4, he destroyed two more aircraft on the ground.
Andrey Dekhtyarenko
http://soviet-aces-1936–53.ru/
On April 8, Dekhtyarenko’s troika met about 30 Ju 52s at the same airfield. As a result of the battle, nine transport aircraft were declared shot down, four of them by the group commander. The flight had completely used up its ammunition; after landing, there were literally 20 liters of fuel left in the tanks. On April 21, Dekhtyarenko was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. On May 8, with rockets and bursts from his Yak-1, Dekhtyarenko destroyed a He 111 bomber and then a Bf 109 fighter. In the second battle of the same day, Dekhtyarenko, rescuing a downed comrade, alone fought with two fighters, making frontal attacks five times. His squadron from March 31 to May 8 made 220 sorties, shot down 31 German aircraft in air battles and destroyed 10 more on the ground.
It was Dekhtyarenko who took Maresyev out of the wilderness on the U-2 - both in the book and in life. On July 11, 1942, Dekhtyarenko did not return from a combat mission...
Pilot without legs
With indescribable efforts, Maresyev, after amputation of both legs, learned not only to walk on prosthetics, but also to run and even dance. According to the memoirs of aircraft technician Pivkin, Maresyev returned to the fighters to settle accounts with the Germans.
After treatment and training, Alexey was sent to the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Pavlovich Ivanov: “An experienced ace himself, he understood from the sounds rushing through the air that the battle was hot, that the enemy was strong and stubborn and did not want to give up the sky.” For the battles to destroy the Demyansk group, Ivanov was awarded the “Red Banner”, and in March 1943 he was presented with the Order of Alexander Nevsky. We can say that the regiment settled scores in absentia for Maresyev and other downed pilots.
The squadron where Maresyev would fight was commanded by Alexander Mikhailovich Chislov (in the book - Cheslov). He fought exceptionally competently, from the first days to the end of the war, made 342 combat missions, personally shot down 21 aircraft and two in the group, and was never wounded. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of Alexander Nevsky and two Orders of the Red Banner. On February 23, 1945, Chislov’s La-7 was shot down, and the pilot himself was wounded, but was able to fly to his airfield and land.
Chislov and Maresyev
http://soviet-aces-1936–53.ru/
On July 10, 1943, Maresyev fought again. They took care of it for a long time, only allowing it to cover the airfield. Chislov was one of the first to fly into battle together with Maresyev. According to Maresyev, “...perhaps in this battle I learned from Alexander how to fight... On the ground, Alexander told me - you won’t be lost when paired with you.”. Chislov later recalled: “It was difficult... But for me, for example, the main thing is that I trained a pilot who flew without legs”.
In the battles over the Kursk Bulge, in the Oryol direction, Maresyev made seven combat missions on the La-5, and personally shot down three German aircraft. So, on July 20, 1943, in an unequal air battle, Maresyev saved the lives of two pilots (one of whom was the commander of a neighboring air regiment) - and this is also reflected by Polevy. In that battle, Maresyev destroyed two fighters:
“An unfamiliar hoarse bass rumbled near my ear:
- Well, thank you, senior lieutenant! Cool shot, appreciate it, saved me. Yes. I walked him all the way to the ground and saw him stumble... Do you drink vodka? Come to my checkpoint, get me a liter. Well, thanks, I'll press five. Take action."
The three vehicles shot down by Maresyev were confirmed by the crews of other aircraft and ground units of the 63rd Army. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Maresyev and Chislov by one decree on August 24, 1943. Having learned about the battles of the guards regiment, which shot down 47 planes in nine days, losing only five of its own and three pilots, Pravda military correspondent Boris Polevoy flew to its location.
Alexey Maresyev at the plane
http://www.airaces.narod.ru/
“The chief of staff, completely hoarse, with eyes red like a rabbit’s from lack of sleep, at first snapped, and then, having examined my shoulder straps, he came to his senses, uttered some crumpled apologies and declared:
- Alyosha Maresyev will return from the battle. He just shot down the second plane today. Go to him. He's at nine. The “nine” will land, you dive straight at it.
“Nine” sat down, taxied to its caponier at the edge of the forest, and I “diveed” on the young stocky guy who got out of the plane with some special bear-like grace. He could barely stand on his feet. Of course: six battles, two downed enemies.”
Later, after dinner, Maresyev invited the correspondent to spend the night in his dugout - the fighter’s neighbor had not returned from a combat mission.
“The pilot went outside, and you could hear him noisily brushing his teeth, dousing himself with cold water, quacking, snorting throughout the forest. He returned cheerful, fresh, with drops of water on his eyebrows and hair, lowered the wick of the lamp and began to undress. Something crashed heavily on the floor. I looked back and saw something I didn’t believe. He left his feet on the floor. Legless pilot! Fighter pilot! A pilot who just today flew seven combat missions and shot down two planes! It seemed completely incredible.
But his legs, or rather his prosthetic legs, deftly shod in military-style boots, lay on the floor. Their lower ends stuck out from under the cot and looked like the legs of a person hiding there. I must have looked very puzzled at that moment, because the owner, looking at me, asked with a sly, satisfied smile:
Haven't you noticed before?
It didn't even occur to me.
That's good! Well, thank you! I'm just surprised no one told you. We have as many aces in our regiment as there are bell-ringers. How did they miss a new person, and even from Pravda, and not boast of such a curiosity? It’s because everyone is so exhausted today...”
In response to Polevoy’s words that the history of aviation does not know a pilot who fought in a fighter without legs, Maresyev showed him a worn-out clipping from an old magazine about a pilot who fought on a Farman without a foot. The episode with Prokofiev-Seversky (the legless pilot, future aviation consultant to President Roosevelt) was also included in the book, and later in the film. Perhaps Maresyev read an article about Yuri Gilscher, who also lost a leg, continued to fly and died in battle in the summer of 1917. Apparently, Polevoy simply could not know about the British fighter pilot Douglas Bader, who lost his legs before the war and was in German captivity at that moment.
From the page of the magazine looked at Alexei the unfamiliar face of a young officer with a small mustache curled in an awl, with a white cockade on his cap pulled down to his very ear.
http://airaces.narod.ru/
The field commander was not allowed to publish an essay about the legless pilot immediately, so as not to feed enemy propaganda. Polevoy was able to return to the history of Maresyev only after the war, when much had already been lost. We couldn’t even find our interlocutor: “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 difficult path of his feat. Let them not be offended by me if they recognize themselves in this story.”. An example of the honesty of a military journalist and writer!
In total, Maresyev made 86 combat missions during the war, and was credited with downing 11 aircraft (according to Polevoy, two in the Baltic states).
After the war
In 1946, Polevoy’s book “The Tale of a Real Man” was published, and in 1948, a film of the same name was published. The consultant was the famous fighter pilot, Air Marshal Evgeny Yakovlevich Savitsky.
According to the diaries of Pavel Kadochnikov, who played Maresyev in the movie, the scene where Maresyev stands on a chair before the medical examination and then jumps off it was not made up. Maresyev and Kadochnikov were very worried at their first meeting. Finally, Maresyev asked: “You are probably most interested in how I managed to overcome...” - “Now he will say “black forest region”,- thought Kadochnikov. “...overcome the medical commission and prove that I am a physically healthy person,”- Maresyev finished. And, “softly and freely” standing on a chair, he told how he passed it.
The episode with the bear featured a real bear from the zoo, Maryam:
“Kadochnikov is lying down. He feels the close breath of the beast on his face. He, like Meresyev, madly wants to jump up, but with a huge effort of will he restrains himself and lies motionless, as if dead. Having sniffed the man’s face, Maryam proceeds to examine his jacket, and everyone sighs with relief. Maryam sniffs the jacket, it smells of something very tasty; The she-bear knows very well what to do to get a tasty morsel. After all, more than once Kadochnikov deliberately hid something tasty in his pocket and taught Maryam how to get it out. With huge, strong claws, the bear tears the jacket, takes out the hidden piece and moves away. She leaves because Galina Grigorievna waves her arms and pours a whole bag of sugar onto the ground. Maryam rushes to the sugar. Filming is over."
Director Stolper did not tolerate the slightest falsehood. For a long time he could not achieve the impression that the actor was walking with crushed legs. After much trial and error, Kadochnikov poured pine cones into high boots and put them on his bare feet. At the end of the filming, even Maresyev could not stand it, saying: “I crawled for eighteen days and almost all the time in a semi-conscious state, but he has been crawling here in the forest in full consciousness for more than three months.”
Maresyev on the set of the film. RGAKFD
After the war, Maresyev got married and worked for decades in the Soviet War Veterans Committee. He did gymnastics, rode a bicycle in the summer, and skied and skated in the winter. Once he was part of the Soviet delegation to the USA. The press release announced that among the participants would be the author and hero of the book “The Tale of a Real Man.” The field man, with worsened rheumatism received after a concussion in Stalingrad, awkwardly walked sideways off the ladder, and Maresyev easily escaped to the ground. As a result, for some time Polevoy’s photo was signed as Maresyev, and Maresyev as Polevoy. It was only when laying flowers at Arlington Cemetery that the confusion cleared up.
Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Petrovich Maresyev died on May 18, 2001, right during the festive evening dedicated to his 85th anniversary...
Sources and literature:
- Materials from the site http://podvignaroda.mil.ru
- Materials from the site https://pamyat-naroda.ru
- Materials from the site http://www.airaces.narod.ru
- Anokhin V. A., Bykov M. Yu. All fighter regiments of Stalin. The first complete encyclopedia. - Moscow: Yauza-press, 2014
- Brickhill Paul. Legless ace. - M.: AST, 2003
- Bykov M. Yu. Aces of the Great Patriotic War. The most successful pilots of 1941–1945. / Ed. A. B. Vasilyeva. - M.: YAUZA, EKSMO, 2007.
- Polevoy Boris. These four years. From the notes of a war correspondent. Volume I - M., Young Guard, 1978
