Video: How the Soviet fighter pilot managed to survive, who committed 4 rams: Boris Kovzan
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
This "record" is unlikely to ever be broken. An aerial ram is considered too dangerous a technique, so it was never encouraged by the command, but, nevertheless, the pilots who performed this feat were always presented for an award - most often posthumously. The only person in the world who rammed opponents four times and survived is Soviet fighter pilot Boris Kovzan.
The Kovzan family never dreamed of heroic deeds. The father of the future pilot served at the post office, his mother, however, was a Don Cossack, and, perhaps, from her son Boris inherited a restless character. The boy was born in the city of Shakhty, but in 1935 the family moved to Bobruisk, and it was there that little Borya first took to the air. This happened thanks to his first childhood victory.
In the 1930s, the Soviet government paid great attention to the popularization of aviation. The whole country knew the names of the Chelyuskinites, the boys dreamed of the northern expanses and airplanes. Little Borya Kovzan was enthusiastically engaged in aeromodelling, launched plywood planes into the sky and dreamed of becoming a pilot someday. Once he won a city competition, his model flew the farthest, and the boy got a magic prize - a flight over the city on a real plane. From that moment on, Boris's dream took on quite real features. He enrolled in the flying club, and then managed to enter the Odessa Military Aviation School. In 1940, he graduated with the rank of junior lieutenant, and was assigned to the 162nd Fighter Regiment, based in Kozelsk.
The young lieutenant's peaceful life ended too quickly. With the outbreak of World War II, he immediately found himself in the line of fire. The very first task turned out to be a difficult psychological test for Boris Kovzan. He was supposed to conduct reconnaissance, and in the area of his native Bobruisk. Flying over the streets of an almost completely destroyed city, the pilot almost lost his composure, but managed to pull himself together and completed the task - he found a German tank column not far away.
Not all soldiers of the Red Army during the war years got such a test - to see with their own eyes what the Nazis did to their native places. Boris Kovzan managed to survive this and fight on. Three months later, he made the first ram. The pilot was sure that such a feat should be the first and last in his life. On October 29, 1941, during the battle for Moscow, Kovzan on a Yak-1 fighter crashed into the German Messerschmitt-110. By that time, he had already run out of cartridges, he did not hope to escape from the enemy, so he decided to die as a hero. The surprising luck of the Soviet pilot appeared then for the first time: the propeller of his Yak chopped off the tail of the German car and it, having lost control, crashed. But Kovzan managed to stay in the air, he reached the nearest village and sat down on the field. It turned out that the screw only bent after a terrible blow. Local residents helped to straighten it, and the pilot returned safely to base.
The second ram occurred at the end of February 1942. All on the same "happy" Yak Kovzan clashed with the German "Junkers-88". It happened in the sky over the Valdai - Vyshny Volochek section. Again, our car turned out to be stronger, although for several seconds it seemed that both planes would crash to the ground together - the Yak's nose literally got stuck in the Junkers fuselage, but then it got free. The landing not far from Torzhok was hard, but Boris Ivanovich again got off easy. For this feat, he received the Order of Lenin.
The name of Kovzan after this incident has already become a legend - even the Nazis admired the "deranged Russian", but he continued to experience his happiness. For the third time, Boris Ivanovich sent a MiG-3 to the enemy Messer in July 1942 over Veliky Novgorod. The German car fell to the ground, getting hit in the side, and our fighter's engine stalled. Only incredible skill helped the pilot survive that time. The altitude was low, and he managed to land the plane.
The fourth ram took place in August 1942. On the La-5 plane, Captain Kovzan came across a whole group of enemy aircraft: several bombers and fighters covering them. In this battle, the hero was unlucky. The plane received several damages, and Boris Ivanovich was wounded in the eye. Realizing that he had no chance of winning, he sent his plane directly to the German bomber. From the blow, the pilot was thrown out of the cockpit at an altitude of six thousand meters. The parachute failed, it was probably also damaged, but fate still kept Kovzan. Endless swamps spread beneath him, and he fell into a soft swamp, breaking only his leg and several ribs. The partisans saved the hero. They left the pilot and ferried him across the front line.
Then Boris Ivanovich spent almost a year in the hospital. It was not possible to save the eyes, but after recovering, the pilot again rushed to the front. Usually, with such injuries, they were not allowed to fly, but an exception was made for a living legend. In total, Boris Kovzan made 360 sorties and destroyed 28 enemy aircraft. He became a Hero of the Soviet Union and after the war he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, he continued his service and graduated from the Air Force Academy. But after retiring in 1958, he lived with his family in Ryazan and worked as the head of the flying club - he taught a new generation of heroes to fly.
The fate of another fighter pilot was full of incredible luck. The whole country admired the feat of Mikhail Devyatayev, a Soviet pilot who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp on an enemy plane
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