Nikolai Kamanin

Born Oct. 5 (18), 1908, in Melenki, in present-day Vladimir Oblast. Soviet military figure, colonel general of aviation (1967), Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 20, 1934). Became a member of the CPSU in 1932. The son of a shoemaker.

Kamanin graduated from the Leningrad Military-Theoretical Flight School in 1928 and then volunteered for the Red Army. In April 1934 he was a pilot in the rescue of the expedition on the steamship Cheliuskin, which was sinking in the Arctic Ocean. In 1938 he graduated from the Higher Air Force Academy and took command of an aviation brigade. He fought in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–40. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), he became commander in May 1942 of the V Assault Aviation Corps, which was active in the liberation of the Ukraine, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. In 1950 he graduated from the Academy of the General Staff. Between 1966 and 1972 he worked at the main headquarters of the air force; he was in charge of training cosmonauts. He retired in 1972. He has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Kutuzov Second Class, the Order of the Red Star, several foreign orders, and medals.