Musa Gaisinovich Gareev

About museum

Musa Gaisinovich Gareev was a Soviet military pilot, colonel, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, and a participant in the Great Patriotic War. He was born on 9 July 1922 in the village of Ilyakshide, Belebeevsky Uyezd, Bashkir ASSR (now Ilishevsky District of Bashkortostan) into a peasant family. In 1937 he graduated from the school in the village of Bishkuraevo. In 1940 he graduated from the Ufa Railway Technical School of the People's Commissariat of Railways and the Ufa Aeroclub of the Bashkir OSOAVIAKHIM. On 15 December 1940 he was drafted into the army. On 25 September 1942, after graduating from the Engels Military Aviation School, he was sent to the front. 

In 1944 he was appointed squadron commander of the 76th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the 1st Guards Assault Aviation Division of the 1st Air Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front. On 23 February 1945 he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In total, during the Great Patriotic War he carried out about 250 combat sorties and shot down two enemy aircraft. He finished the war as a major, serving as the regiment's navigator. He took part in the Victory Parade in Moscow on 24 June 1945. After the end of the war he commanded an aviation regiment. In 1951 he graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy, and in 1959 — from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR. In 1956 he received the military rank of colonel. From 1964 he was placed in the reserve for health reasons.  

He lived and worked in Ufa. He was chairman of the Bashkir Republican Committee of DOSAAF from 1965 to 1977. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd–4th convocations (1946–1958), and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Bashkir ASSR of the 7th–9th convocations. In 1973 he published for the first time the autobiographical book "The Sturmoviks Head for the Target" based on the Great Patriotic War. Musa Gaisinovich Gareev died on 17 September 1987 at the age of 65 after a prolonged illness.