Ivan Vasilevich Doronin
Doronin, Ivan Vasil’evich
Born Apr. 22 (May 5), 1903, in the village of Kamenki, in present-day Kuibyshev Oblast; died Feb. 2, 1951, in Moscow. Soviet pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 20, 1934), colonel (1939). Became a member of the CPSU in 1934. The son of a peasant.
Doronin volunteered for the navy in 1920. He studied at a technicians’ school and then at the Naval College, from which he transferred to a naval aviation school in Leningrad. After graduating from the Sevastopol’ Pilots’ School in 1925, he served as a naval pilot in the Black Sea Fleet and as an instructor in a naval aviation school. He became a civilian pilot in the North in 1930. In April 1934 he participated in the rescue expedition of the Cheliuskin. Subsequently he headed test flight stations at aviation plants. He retired in 1947 for reasons of health. Doronin was awarded the Order of Lenin.