At the turn of the 1930-1940s, many boys and girls in the Soviet Union dreamed of aviation and the sky. This was largely due to the achievements of the young Soviet aviation industry and the emergence of new heroes, which the country so needed. For the younger generation, courageous pilots and female pilots became idols, among whom was Polina Denisovna Osipenko, who was awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The award ceremony took place after the completion of a record non-stop flight on the Moscow - Far East route.
Polina Denisovna Osipenko tragically died during the next training flight on May 11, 1939. The plane crash that happened 80 years ago interrupted the life of a brave Soviet woman. But this very path from a poultry farm worker on a collective farm to a pilot taking part in record flights cannot but command respect. By her personal example, Polina Osipenko proved to everyone how, if you wish, you can drastically change your life.
Polina Osipenko becomes a military pilot
Polina Denisovna Osipenko (surname at birth Dudnik) was born on September 25 (October 8 in a new style), 1907 in the village of Novospasovka. Today, the village located on the territory of the modern Zaporozhye region has been renamed to Osipenko in honor of the pilot. Polina was born in a simple large family of Ukrainian peasants, in which she became the ninth child. Since the family was large, Polina was able to receive only primary education, graduated from two classes of a parish school. After that, the girl had to help her family. At the insistence of her parents, Polina was engaged in various household chores, helped with the housework, and also labored, caring for other people's children. After the formation of the collective farms, the girl worked as a poultry woman, and after completing her studies at the courses of poultry farmers, she worked as the head of the collective farm poultry farm.
Polina Denisovna Osipenko
Earlier, in 1926, Polina got married for the first time. Her chosen one was Stepan Govyaz, a fellow villager, in the future a military pilot. It was he who did a lot to make Polina fall in love with aviation, airplanes and the very profession of a pilot. In 1931, Polina Govyaz moved to her husband, who served in the village of Kacha, where the Kachin school of military pilots already existed at that time. At school, Polina initially worked in the canteen. Sometimes cadets and officers had to deliver meals on a U-2 training aircraft, such delivery was relevant, since the airfields of the educational institution were located in different places. Polina Govyaz sometimes flew as a representative of canteens at U-2. It is believed that at the same time she got the first experience of piloting an airplane, the pilots let Polina "steer". So the future Hero of the Soviet Union mastered the "flying desk" U-2, Polina Govyaz learned to fly this plane practically independently. After that, the question of a further career was decided by itself, the girl finally and irrevocably fell ill with the sky and flights.
In 1932, Polina Govyaz achieved the goal of becoming a female cadet at the Kachin Flight School. Formally, there were no obstacles for this, the girl was distinguished by excellent health, which many men could envy. At the same time, Polina was not the only girl who wanted to become a military pilot. In addition to a simple former peasant woman, six more women became students of the school, among them Vera Lomako, who was Polina's friend. Together they will make several flights in the future, setting new aviation records. In 1933, the future record-breaking pilot successfully completed her training, surpassing the expectations of many trained pilots. According to the recollections of contemporaries, the girl studied with exceptional diligence and desire, besides, her comrades helped Polina a lot and willingly.
Since 1932, Polina Govyaz was in military service, after school she served as a pilot, was a flight commander in fighter aviation. When returning to her village on vacation in a flying uniform, Polina had to convince her fellow villagers that she really flies on airplanes. Many could not believe that an ordinary collective farm worker could become a military pilot. In 1935, Polina changed her surname to Osipenko, after she got married a second time. The chosen one was a fellow soldier, fighter pilot Alexander Stepanovich Osipenko, a future participant in air battles in Spain, where a civil war began in 1936 between supporters of the military-nationalist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and the left republican government of the Spanish Popular Front, which was supported by the Soviet Union.
Polina Denisovna Osipenko
Initially, the girl served in one of the aviation units of the Kharkov garrison, where they were able to appreciate her piloting skills and were appointed a flight commander. Later Polina Denisovna served in units near Zhitomir and Kiev. In the spring of 1935, the girl was transferred to serve in the Moscow Military District, and a little later was appointed an Air Force inspector at the General Staff. The following year, Polina Osipenko became a participant in the All-Union meeting of the wives of the command and command staff of the Red Army, the event was held on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin, where the pilot was introduced to the state leadership. Speaking at the meeting, Polina Osipenko said that she was ready to fly higher than all female pilots in the world, so her path began from simple flights to aviation records.
Record flights of Polina Osipenko
The words of the pilot did not disagree with the deeds. This is not surprising, given that Polina Osipenko has always been considered a stubborn, hardworking and extremely persistent person, moreover, she never stopped learning and tried to improve and improve her piloting skills. In 1937, Polina Osipenko set a number of new aviation records for women. The first was a record flight on the MP-1bis amphibious aircraft (Marine passenger of the first modification).
The first was the open cockpit altitude record. On May 22, 1937, near Sevastopol, she managed to conquer the height of 8,886 meters (according to other sources, 9,100 meters), leaving far behind the record of the Italian pilot Contessa Negrone, who had previously conquered the height of 6,200 meters. A few days later, on May 27, 1937, Polina Osipenko on the same seaplane set a flight record with a cargo weighing half a ton, the pilot conquered the height of 7605 meters. On the same day, but already later, the MP-1bis under the control of Osipenko again stormed the records, this time the plane with a cargo weighing one ton rose to an altitude of 7009 meters. The amphibious aircraft landed on the water surface of the Sevastopol bay.
Seaplane MP-1 on Taimyr
In 1938, Polina Osipenko set a number of international women's records. Together with navigator Marina Raskova, she participated in a record closed flight in the skies over the Crimea, the flight lasted more than 9 hours, during which time the seaplane covered a distance of 1,749 kilometers in the air. Later, Polina Osipenko headed the crew, which made a non-stop flight on the route Sevastopol - Arkhangelsk. The MP-1 seaplane covered the distance between cities of 2,416 kilometers in about 9.5 hours.
Flight Moscow - Far East
In September 1938, Polina Osipenko took part in a record non-stop flight on the Moscow-Far East route, this flight made the entire female crew popular and loved by the people, for this flight the pilots were nominated for the highest government awards. For the flight, a modernized long-range bomber DB-2 was used, created by the designers of the Tupolev Design Bureau in the mid-30s of the last century. The version of the aircraft prepared for the record flight was designated ANT-37 "Motherland".
The specially converted record aircraft had a maximum flight range of about 7-8 thousand kilometers. To be absolutely precise, the model received the designation ANT-37bis (DB-2B) "Rodina". The motors were changed especially for setting records on the twin-engine aircraft. Engineers opted for the more powerful M-86, which developed a maximum power of 950 hp. Also, from the aircraft, which was originally created on the instructions of the Ministry of Defense, all available weapons were dismantled, the nose of the fuselage was reequipped, and additional tanks were placed for increased fuel supplies. The aircraft designers also took care of the aerodynamic qualities of the aircraft, the car had a smooth skin cavity. The landing gear of the aircraft was made retractable, while for the first time in the USSR the landing gear retraction mechanism was performed electric; to retrace the landing gear into the engine nacelles, the pilots had to press just one button. Also, a distinctive feature of the record aircraft was an unusually high aspect ratio. This decision of the Soviet designers helped to increase the aircraft's flight range, but only at speeds up to 350 km / h, which was not critical for the relatively low-speed aircraft of the 1930s, no one was going to set speed records on them.
The record flight began on September 24, 1938, after at 8:16 am the Rodina plane took off from the runway of the Shchelkovo airfield and headed east. It so happened that the weather for the flight was not the most favorable, primarily for orientation on objects on the ground. Having flown about 50 kilometers from Moscow, the crew of the record aircraft collided with clouds that covered the ground. Almost all 6400 kilometers of the ANT-37 route were made in flight above the clouds, out of sight of the earth's surface. Instrument flight at this range in the 1930s was a challenge, even for well-trained pilots.
In order to establish their position, the crew took a bearing to the radio beacons. The worst thing was that before Krasnoyarsk the plane was moving forward over the clouds, but after the car had to fly already in the clouds, the upper limit of which exceeded 7 kilometers. From that moment on, a truly blind flight began. Outside the plane was freezing temperatures, the glazing of the cockpit began to be covered with a crust of ice. To break through the clouds, the plane had to be raised to 7450 meters, at an altitude of at least 7 thousand meters, the car flew all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk, while the crew members were forced to wear oxygen masks. To all other troubles on board, the radio equipment failed, which made it impossible to navigate by radio beacons.
For this reason, and because of difficult meteorological conditions in the alleged landing area, the pilots could not find the Khabarovsk airfield, the plane found itself with almost empty tanks in the Sea of Okhotsk. From above, they were able to determine their location along the Tugursky Bay, the contours of which were marked quite clearly. Turning back, the plane headed for Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where there was a good airfield. The Amur was supposed to act as a reference point, but Valentina Grizodubova, who was the crew commander on this flight, confused the Amur with its tributary, the Amgun River. Therefore, the plane continued to fly along the tributary. When it became clear, the crew decided to make an emergency landing right in the taiga. Since they had to land right on the belly, Grizodubova ordered the navigator Marina Raskova to jump with a parachute. In a fall, the nose of the fuselage, where the navigator's cockpit was, could be seriously damaged. Later, Raskova got to the plane landed in a swampy area for about 10 days. Osipenko and Grizodubova, who remained on the plane, survived an emergency landing, all three pilots were rescued.
Monument to Polina Osipenko in Berdyansk
This episode made the already difficult flight even more heroic. The world record for a female non-stop flight was set, even in spite of an emergency landing in the Far Eastern taiga. "Rodina" flew 6450 kilometers from Moscow to the Far East (in a straight line - 5910 kilometers), updating the record. For the completion of this flight and the courage and heroism shown at the same time, Polina Osipenko, like two other participants in the record flight, was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, this happened on November 2, 1938.
The death of Polina Osipenko
No one today can say how many more records Polina Osipenko could set or update. After a record flight to the Far East, she continued to serve in the Air Force as an aerobatics instructor. The life of a brave Soviet pilot ended tragically on May 11, 1939. The UTI-4 aircraft, which was flown by Anatoly Serov and Polina Osipenko, the head of the main flight inspection of the Red Army Air Force, crashed during a training flight.
It was Osipenko who controlled the flight from the instructor's cabin. When performing turns at an altitude of about 300-500 meters above the ground, the aircraft, according to the testimony of numerous witnesses, strongly lifted its nose and then fell into a tailspin. Both pilots were killed in a collision with the ground, as the commission later established, the UTI-4 crashed into the ground at an angle of 55 degrees. The tragedy took place about 25 kilometers northwest of Ryazan between two small villages Vysokoe and Fursovo. Urns with the ashes of the fallen pilots of the Heroes of the Soviet Union were walled up in the Kremlin wall on May 13, 1938. Almost 170 thousand Moscow residents came to say goodbye to the legendary Soviet pilots in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, several tens of thousands of Muscovites and guests of the city came to Red Square itself.
