Klimov, Ivan

Born June 11 (24), 1904, in the village of Volosovo-Zvegino, in present-day Kozel’sk Raion, Kaluga Oblast. Soviet military commander, colonel general of aviation (1944). Became a member of the CPSU in 1939. The son of a railroad worker.

Klimov joined the Soviet Army in 1926. A graduate of the technical war school of the air force (1927), of the military pilots’ school (1928), and of the Military Academy of the General Staff (1948), he commanded an air division on the eve of the Great Patriotic War (1941—45). In the Great Patriotic War he participated in the defense of Moscow and in combat in the Crimea and on the Voronezh Front. Commander of a corps of the Air Defense Forces, deputy commander of the National Air Defense Forces, and commander of an air group and of a fighter air division in 1941 and 1942, Klimov commanded a fighter air corps from February to September 1943 and the fighter aviation arm of the Air Defense Forces from 1943 to January 1947. In February 1949 he became inspector general and deputy chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense.

Klimov has been in the reserve since February 1959. A deputy to the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Klimov has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, two Orders of the Red Star, and medals.