Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev

Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev – a Soviet serviceman, fighter pilot, Guards Senior Lieutenant of the Air Force, Hero of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev was born in the village of Torbeevo. After finishing seven years of schooling in 1933 he moved to Kazan, where he enrolled in a river technical college and trained at an aeroclub. He worked as an assistant to the captain of a barge on the Volga, was drafted into the Red Army in 1938, and in 1940 graduated from the Chkalov Military Aviation School.

 

During the Great Patriotic War he took part in battles on various fronts, carried out 180 combat sorties and shot down 9 enemy aircraft. On 13 July 1944 Devyatayev’s aircraft was shot down and the pilot was taken prisoner. On 8 February 1945 he managed to make a daring escape in a hijacked Heinkel-111 aircraft from the Peenemünde concentration camp on the island of Usedom. Despite pursuit by German fighters and fire from Soviet anti-aircraft guns, he managed to land the damaged aircraft on territory held by Soviet troops.

 

This incredible feat, however, was not immediately properly recognized. After the war Devyatayev was forced to give up his flying career and worked as a river ship captain, becoming the first captain of the motor ship 'Meteor'. Only on 15 August 1957, at the initiative of S. P. Korolev, was he awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev died on 24 November 2002 in Kazan and was buried in Arskoe Cemetery.