Another 24/03/20 Nikolay Gastello”Fire Taran” of the Soviet pilots: as they were in the great Patriotic
From the first days of the war the Red army showed heroism, trying to slow down the advance of the enemy. Do not stay aside and the air force. Widespread captains, including fire, which destroyed a large amount of manpower and equipment of the enemy.
the Russian Weapons
Classic air RAM is the direction of his plane on the enemy. It was first used in September 1914, staff-captain Pyotr Nesterov. At an altitude of over 500 meters, the pilot turned his monoplane to the plane of the Austrians. Since then, our pilots began to use this method of warfare.
the Special distribution Taran got during the great Patriotic war. Our pilots used them at the expenditure of fuel and ammunition, or in the case of a failure of the weapon.
Kind of RAM is a fiery battering RAM. It was used in significant damage to the plane when it was clear that the aircraft waiting for imminent death. The pilot in such a situation was faced with a tough choice: whether or not to do the job and be captured, or gave their lives to destroy the enemy. Often chose the latter. In this case, the plane was heading to the congestion of manpower and equipment of the enemy on the ground or in the water target.
the Fiery battering rams pilots made at all stages of the war. They were during the summer battles of 1941 and in the defense of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, in battles at Kursk and on the Dnieper in Belarus and Poland, and after the defeat of Germany in the campaign against Imperial Japan.
“Kamikaze” Soviet-style
Fire Taran demanded from the pilot special skill, it was necessary to have iron nerves and a willingness to sacrifice. Chief Marshal of aviation Alexander Novikov said that the RAM is the highest PRiavlenie the moral factor, which could not account for the enemy.
During the great Patriotic war marked about 600 cases, of rams, of them 506 – ground targets. In the list of pilots who committed the fiery RAM are more than 450 people. Over four years has been committed 237 such rams. Differences in the number of pilots and cases of fire RAM due to the fact that the aircraft at that time was for 2-3 people.
In very rare cases, walking on fire ramming pilots were alive. One of the lucky ones – Lieutenant S. I. Kolybin. He sent the plane caught fire on the German crossing of the Dnieper. The blast, the pilot was thrown from the car. Just after the fiery battering rams survived only six pilots.
the enemy!
the First blazing plane into the enemy sent 27-year-old senior Lieutenant Peter Chirkin. It happened in the midst of battle near the town of Striy in Western Ukraine. It is symbolic that the feat he performed on the first day of the war – June 22 1941. Fighter I-153 broke right in the center of the German tank column.
Forever inscribed in the history of Russian military glory and heroism of the crew of captain Nikolai Gastello. June 26, two bombers DB-3F were shelling the column of German tanks from the Radoshkovichi-Molodechno. The plane Gastello circled the armored group of the Wehrmacht, standing at the tanks with fuel.
the Plane was leaving from, when suddenly the fuel tank of the aircraft hit by a shell. After a few seconds the plane was in flames. At this point, Gastello turned him around and sent him to a cluster of tanks.
In September 1941, the first and only time in the history of the RAM was done by a woman. Pilot Yekaterina Zelenko on the su-2 bomber was able to destroy one fighter of the Nazis, and then went to RAM the second. From blow “Messerschmitt” broke in half and the pilot was killed.
there have been cases of fire and sea-rams. So, the crew of major Merkulov March 19, 1945, went in flight to strike at the conhowl, carrying reinforcements in Courland cauldron. The aircraft attacked the court, but was damaged by a bullet of the enemy and caught fire. The crew directed the aircraft to the ships of the Germans. All the pilots were killed.
Awards for heroes
Despite the fact that rams, including fire, were not provided by the Charter, the Soviet command had treated them positively in General and was considered a manifestation of heroism. Accordingly, the pilots that went to the RAM, is almost always rewarded.
Praise went to the RAM aviators of the Soviet information Bureau beginning after the feat Gastello. The red army used it for example for propaganda purposes. Posthumously he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Ivan Proshkin
Source:
© Russian Seven
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