Golovaty Ferapont Petrovich. Born on May 24 (June 5) 1890 in the village of Serbinovka, now the Grebenkovsky district of the Poltava region of Ukraine, in a peasant family.
In 1910 he was drafted into the army. Thanks to good external data, high growth was sent to the Life Guards of His Majesty's Cuirassier Regiment. In August 1914 he was sent to the front with a machine-gun team. He fought in East Prussia, was awarded three St. George's Crosses: for the courage shown both in battle, and when saving the wounded, and when leaving the encirclement. Participated in the Civil War, was a squadron commander in the 1st Cavalry Army.
In March 1921 he returned to a peaceful life, settled on the Stepnoy farm in the Saratov region. He was engaged in beekeeping. He was elected chairman of the village council, was the first to join the collective farm when collectivization began. He lived on the outskirts of the village of Stepnoye. In 1937, when the hut prevented the cultivation of the adjacent agricultural land, he was offered to move out of the old house, but the new one was not given. Golovaty categorically refused to move, and was arrested. He spent 10 months in solitary confinement and returned safely to the village.
In December 1942, on his own initiative, he contributed 100 thousand rubles of personal savings to the Defense Fund for the purchase of an aircraft. The money was raised from the sale of honey in the market from their own apiary and the sale of cows. This despite the fact that the dependents of the grandfather and grandmother were 11 grandchildren, whose fathers were at the front. Ferapont Golovaty personally brought the money to the director of the Saratov Aviation Plant, which produced Yakovlev's fighters.
The Yak-1B fighter plane was presented to pilot Boris Eremin, a native of the Saratov region, who fought at Stalingrad. On board the plane there was a dedication to the Guards pilot of the Stalingrad Front, Major Eremin, from the collective farmer of the Stakhanovets collective farm, com. Holovaty . On this plane, Eremin traveled from Stalingrad to Crimea, won more than one victory, and was never shot down. After the liberation of Sevastopol, the plane, as an exhausted operating resource, was sent to Saratov, where it was installed for viewing on one of the city squares.
In June 1944, F. P. Golovaty, at a rally in Saratov, handed over to the Guard Lieutenant Colonel Eremin a second plane, acquired at his own expense. This time - a Yak-3 fighter, with an inscription on board "The second plane for the final defeat of the enemy." On this plane, Eremin fought until Victory, the last plane was shot down in the sky over Berlin.
During the Great Patriotic War, he became one of the initiators of the national patriotic movement to raise funds for the fund of the Soviet Army. This movement became nationwide. During the war years, voluntary contributions totaling 16 billion rubles were received in the defense fund and the Red Army fund (according to the archive of the USSR Ministry of Finance). In addition, 13 kilograms of platinum, 131 kilograms of gold, 9519 kilograms of silver, 1.8 billion rubles of jewelry, more than 4.5 billion rubles of bonds and 500 million rubles of deposits in savings banks. These funds were used to build over 30,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, 2,500 aircraft, submarines and many other military equipment.
Ferapont Holovaty continued to work on the collective farm. In 1944 he joined the VKP (b) / KPSS. In 1946 he was elected chairman of the Stakhanovets collective farm. He made a lot of efforts to restore the economy in the post-war period. In 1947, during the harvesting work on the collective farm, a high yield of wheat was harvested.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 26, 1948, “in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 29, 1947, for obtaining high yields of wheat when the collective farm fulfills the obligatory deliveries and in-kind payments for the work of the MTS in 1947 and the provision of seeds for grain crops for sowing 1948 Holovaty Ferapont Petrovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Ferapont Petrovich Golovatyi led the collective farm until the last day. He died on July 25, 1951. He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Stepnoye, Saratov Region.
The first aircraft built with Golovaty's funds, the Yak-1b, has been exhibited since 1991 at the Saratov State Museum of Military Glory, located in Victory Park on Sokolovaya Gora. The second, Yak-3, was kept for a long time in Moscow, but in the early 90s it was taken from the Russian Federation to the United States and for a long time was in a private aviation museum in the city of Santa Monica.
Eremin Boris Nikolaevich (1913-06-03 - 2005-04-04) - Lieutenant General of Aviation, Hero of the Soviet Union. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, he flew 342 combat missions, of which: over 100 attack aircraft of enemy ground forces; 117 reconnaissance missions: carried out 70 air battles: shot down 23 enemy aircraft (14 of them were destroyed on two donative aircraft presented by F. P. Golovaty). Boris Nikolayevich has repeatedly addressed (including the State Duma) with proposals regarding the return of the aircraft.
In 2014, the issue of returning the aircraft was finally resolved, and in December 2014 it returned to Russia. It is currently located in the region of the Baltic Customs. Deputy General Director of the OKB im. Yakovlev on foreign economic activity, Arkady Gurtovoy did not hide that the company paid for the delivery of the aircraft to Russia from the United States, and after customs clearance will pay for the restoration.
“This is several thousand dollars, but we understand that the Saratov region is not the most powerful economic entity, therefore, after the necessary restoration, we are determined to simply transfer the plane to the region,” explained Arkady Gurtovoy.
Further, he emphasized that the plane of the pilot-ace Boris Eremin, unfortunately, will never rise into the sky:
- We found it in the Aviation Museum at the end of the 60s in an extremely serious condition and took a long time to restore. At the show at the Santa Monica Museum, we simply transferred it in order to interest potential partners, - said our interlocutor. “And besides, the age of the vessel imposes restrictions.
- I am glad that in the Saratov region such caring people and the whole region are looking forward to the return of the military relic, - said Arkady Gurtovoy. - I would like to note that the plane is the property of the joint-stock company, but the OKB will in every possible way convince the other shareholders to transfer the legendary car to your city. After all, we are not strangers to you, because for many decades we have worked side by side with the wonderful specialists of the Saratov Aviation Plant.
