Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin

Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin was a Soviet military leader and flying ace during the Great Patriotic War, Marshal of Aviation (1972). He was the first person to be named a Hero of the Soviet Union three times (24 May 1943, 24 August 1943, 19 August 1944). At 19, Pokryshkin, with only seven years of schooling and trained as a fitter-toolmaker, entered a military school for aircraft technicians. In 1938 he completed the aeroclub course as an external student and entered a military aviation school, which he graduated from with honors. Already in the winter of 1941, despite difficult conditions and the deaths of colleagues, he carried out a combat mission and was awarded the Order of Lenin.

After the war Pokryshkin graduated from the M.V. Frunze Military Academy with a gold medal and continued his studies at the Military Academy of the General Staff. Pokryshkin devoted nearly 25 years to service in the air defense forces, where he held high-ranking positions up to deputy commander-in-chief. In 1953 he was granted the rank of general, and in 1972 he became Marshal of Aviation. From 1972 he chaired the Central Committee of DOSAAF of the USSR. After the war Pokryshkin wrote several autobiographical books about the war, for which in 1965 he was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers. Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin died in Moscow on 13 November 1985 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.