During the Great Patriotic War, all the work of civil aviation was subordinated to the interests of the front. For this purpose, special military units were created from Aeroflot units under the command of experienced commanders and flight teams of the civil air fleet. Among the first, the baptism of fire was received by the Moscow Special Purpose Air Group (MAGON) of the Civil Air Fleet, which already on June 23, 1941 began to carry out special tasks of the Red Army command. At the end of 1942, MAGON was reorganized into the 1st Air Transport Division of the Civil Air Fleet. And on November 5, 1944, it was transformed into the 10th Guards Air Transport Division of the Civil Air Fleet. In this article, we will give only a brief chronicle of the hostilities of the famous air unit.
FOR THE DEFENSE OF MOSCOW
In the first half of October 1941, a tank group of German troops broke through the defenses of the Western Front and approached the city of Orel, developing an offensive against Moscow from a southern direction. To eliminate the threat to the capital, the Headquarters ordered the MAGON Civil Air Fleet to transfer the troops of the 5th Airborne Corps to the airfields of the cities of Orel and Mtsensk. The transfer of the landing was carried out by a squadron consisting of seven detachments led by commander F. Gvozdev. The crews of the commanders of the ships P. Rybin, S. Frolovsky, A. Kalina, D. Kuznetsov, A. Voskanov, A. Lebedev, A. Sukhanov, I. Shashin, F. Kovalev and others took an active part in this operation. Crews made several sorties a day, usually at low altitudes, and in most cases without fighter cover. The pilots took on board the Li-2 thirty people instead of the 25 required according to the instructions, and sometimes 35 instead of 18 on the G-2. … Almost all landing operations were carried out with the active participation of the Civil Air Fleet fleet.
This was in January 1942. In the Kaluga region, 28 Li-2 aircraft were urgently assembled, the crews were headed by such famous pilots of the Civil Air Fleet as N. Shebanov, A. Levchenko, A. Kulikov, V. Efimov, G. Taran, G. Benkunsky and others. They were faced with a combat mission - to throw out a large airborne assault in the German rear, southwest of Vyazma. The first flight with a strike group was to be performed in formation. A. Semenkov was appointed as the leader of this group. The second pilot of the flagship crew was P. Rusakov, navigator A. Semenov. The responsibility was great. The slightest inaccuracy or mistake of the leader is a disruption of the combat mission.
It was decided to follow the "wedge" line with three nines. The left bearing was led by A. Dobrovolsky, the right bearing - by A. Kulikov. The first nine flew at an altitude of 20-30 meters above the ground, the second and third - with a slight excess over the first. And only when approaching the target did the Li-2 have to quickly gain altitude and drop paratroopers from 600 meters.
During the flight over the front line, several enemy firing points opened furious fire on the aircraft. But the turret arrows of our aircraft suppressed the German firing points. In addition, the gunners fired at a large column of enemy infantry moving along the road of our route. About a thousand paratroopers were delivered to the exact destination.
During the defensive battles near Moscow, in the period October-December 1941, the pilots of the MAGON Civil Air Fleet made over three thousand sorties, including more than five hundred to the German rear. Twelve thousand soldiers and officers and almost 935 tons of ammunition and other cargo were transported.
IN THE BATTLES FOR LENINGRAD
Autumn of the first military year. Fascist troops took Leningrad into the ring. By October, Ladoga became the only route through which food and ammunition could be delivered to the city. However, frequent storms and incessant German air raids caused interruptions in the heroic work of the sailors. On October 4, the State Defense Committee ordered Aeroflot to prepare a group of transport aircraft in order to ensure the supply of besieged Leningrad with the necessary food and ammunition. It was also necessary to take out of the city ten thousand skilled workers of defense plants, deliver vital cargo to Leningrad every day, and evacuate the wounded, sick, women and children from the city. These flights were to be carried out by the most experienced and competent commanders of the subunits V. Pushinsky, K. Bukharov, S. Sharykin. The crews were headed by A. Dobrovolsky, G. Benkunsky, A. Kapitsa, A. Lebedev, M. Skrylnikov, F. Ilchenko, P. Kolesnikov, 8. Bulatnikov, I. Eremenko, N. Chervyakov, A. Semenkov.
Loaded to the eyeballs with food, transport planes performed several flights a day to besieged Leningrad. It is worth noting that German fighters were constantly patrolling along the route, and especially over Ladoga. Once, while returning from Leningrad, six Messerschmitts attacked a group of transport planes. The aircraft of the commanders of the ships K. Mikhailov and L. Ovsyannikov were set on fire in the air. But, despite the serious injury, Leonid Ovsyannikov pulled the burning car to the shore and managed to land it. Risking their lives, the crew members rescued 38 women and children taken from Leningrad. Konstantin Mikhailov also landed on his bank.
The flights of civil aviation transport vehicles to the besieged city did not stop during the entire period of the selfless defense of the city. For the entire 1942 and the first half of 1943, 2,457 flights were made to our northern capital, including 146 - night flights. 68 aviators were awarded orders and 290 - the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad".
ABOVE THE VOLGA FORTRESS
In December 1942, MAGON was transformed into the 1st Air Transport Division of the Civil Air Fleet. This event took place during the period of active participation of the crews in the battle of Stalingrad. The division's crews delivered the necessary cargo to the front line and to the place where it was impossible to bring them in by other means, provided the military units fighting on the Volga with communication with Moscow, and took out the wounded. The crews of the 1st Transport Aviation Division of the Civil Air Fleet, together with the aviators of the 6th and 7th separate air regiments, the Civil Air Fleet, carried out 46,040 sorties, transported about 31 thousand soldiers and officers, took out more than three thousand wounded to the rear, delivered more than 2500 tons of military cargo. Dozens of aviators have received government awards.
In one of his articles, Marshal of Aviation S. Rudenko, who commanded the 16th Army in those years, highly appreciating the actions of the combat units of civil aviation, wrote that the heroism of civilian crews in the Battle of Stalingrad was truly massive. Any tasks assigned to them, no matter how difficult and responsible they were, the pilots performed promptly, selflessly and courageously.
DEFENSE OF SEVASTOPOL
In the summer of 1942, on the eighth month of the siege of Sevastopol, the German command began the third, which became decisive, the assault on the city. Cut off from land communications, lacking ammunition and food, our infantrymen and sailors defended the Black Sea Fleet base with unprecedented heroism. To help the Sevastopol garrison, it was necessary to urgently organize a massive transfer of ammunition and food. MAGON was commissioned by the Supreme Command to carry out this important operation. The air group command allocated twenty of the most experienced Li-2 crews. Among them are A. Bystritsky, V. Gulyaev, P. Kashuba and others. Combat work was carried out from the airfields of Krasnodar and the village of Korenovskaya. Landing was possible only at the small site "Chersonesos Mayak", which was under constant shelling.
The crews worked with tremendous strain. For ten days (from June 21, 1942), 230 night flights were carried out with a landing in Sevastopol, more than two thousand wounded soldiers and officers were taken out. On June 30, 1942, Vice Admiral Oktyabrsky, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, flew off from the Chersonesos Mayak airfield (commander of the ship M. Skrylnikov) on board an aircraft flying from the Chersonesos Mayak airfield. By order of the Commander of the North Caucasian Front No. 0551 of 21.07.42, the combat work of the air group was recognized as excellent, and gratitude was declared to the personnel of the air group.
GUERRILLA WAR
The selfless struggle of the partisan formations of Belarus and Ukraine, the Smolensk region, the Bryansk region, the Oryol region is directly related to the invaluable assistance provided by the flight personnel of the division. Thus, 655 sorties were made to the partisans in Ukraine, to Belarus - 516, to the Crimean partisans - 435, to Moldova - 50 sorties. In addition to individual flights, the division's planes carried out massive operations in the German rear. So, from mid-August 1943, the division began a combat mission to transport three partisan detachments of 250 people and 26 tons of ammunition to the enemy's rear to disrupt the activities of two railways that fed the enemy's Kharkov fortified junction. The task was completed in seven days.
The chief of the Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement Bulatov gave a high assessment to the activities of the division: “As a result of the heroic work of the flight personnel, the partisans of the Crimea conducted successful operations, inflicting great damage on the enemy both in manpower and equipment. During the combat operations conducted by the partisans, a large number of wounded accumulated in the forest partisan camps, who needed urgent medical assistance and hampered the combat activities and maneuverability of the partisan detachments. Without stopping work on the delivery of ammunition to the partisans, the flight crew performed the task of transporting the wounded perfectly. The commanders of the Taran and Kashuba squadrons, the commanders of the ships Yezersky, Aliev, Danilenko, Ilchenko, Rusanov, Bystritsky, Barilov and others, making two flights a night and landing on unsuitable mountain sites, took out more than 700 wounded. These tasks could be performed by pilots with great flying skill and courage, ready to sacrifice themselves in the name of Rodima …”For these flights, pilots Gruzdev, Eromasov, Kashuba, Frolovsky, Ryshkov, Taran, Radugin were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
IN THE REAR OF THE ENEMY
In the spring of 1943, the 1st Transport Aviation Division of the Civil Air Fleet was tasked with ensuring the offensive operations of the troops of the Central Front. For this purpose, an operational group of fourteen aircraft was formed at the Telegino airfield near Yelets. The group worked in difficult weather conditions and difficult air conditions. The pilots Mosolov, Matveev, Pushechkin, Nazarov, Ilyin, Bulavintsev and others completed the task two days earlier than planned. Their work was highly praised by the Commander of the Central Front. In the order dated 05.04.43. No. 38 on the Central Front noted that 1280 sorties were carried out in the shortest possible time, 2 thousand tons of ammunition were transported, a tactical reserve in the amount of 13,600 people was delivered to the threatened area, 12,124 wounded were taken to the rear.
From February 23 to March 15, 1943, the task force carried out the task of the 4th VA to transport fuel, ammunition and technical equipment to the front line. 370 sorties were flown. The transported spare parts ensured the restoration of 411 combat aircraft. In the order of 04/20/43 g.on the North Caucasian Front, it was noted that in extremely difficult days, when, due to the lack of roads, ground troops and personnel of forward airfields were in need of food and ammunition, transportation by motor vehicles was impossible. All the burden and responsibility for the delivery of food, ammunition, and fuel to army and navy units was assigned to transport crews. The aviation group fully coped with the task.
FORCING THE DNEPR
From September to October 1943, the division carried out the order of the headquarters of the Supreme Command to provide assistance to Soviet troops in the crossing of the Dnieper. A group of aircraft under the command of B. Labutin, fulfilling the assignment of the 4th Ukrainian Front, assisted units of the 5th Shock Army, leading the crossing of the Dnieper near the city of Nikopol. In September, the crews of the division conducted a major operation to throw units of the 5th Airborne Corps into the enemy rear in the Kanev area. In one night, 31 sorties were made and 483 parachutists and more than ten tons of ammunition were dropped.
On October 10, 1943, on the instructions of the second Ukrainian Front, a massive operation was carried out from the Poltava airfield to transport fuel and ammunition for tanks to the Pyatikhatka area. In the combat response of the Commander of the 5th Air Force, Colonel-General of Aviation Goryunov, it was noted that the flight personnel, following the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, provided the advancing units of the second Ukrainian Front with ammunition, weapons and fuel.
In October 1943, during the crossing of the Dnieper, it became necessary to provide advanced units with weapons and ammunition. The division's crews, performing five to seven sorties a day, completed the task and provided the opportunity for Soviet troops to conduct successful offensive battles. During the Korsun-Shevchenko battle, due to muddy roads, vehicles could not bring the required amount of ammunition to the troops. This gap was filled by the pilots, providing the advanced units in sufficient quantities of ammunition and fuel.
FOR NIKOLAEV AND KHERSON
The aircraft of the regiment under the command of K. Bukharov from February to the end of May 1944 provided the offensive of the troops of the Third Ukrainian Front in the direction of Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa. In early March, Soviet troops crossed the Ingulets River and seized a bridgehead on the western bank. The infantrymen caught on a small piece of land, which with a sharp wedge pressed into the enemy's defenses. To help the units fighting on the right bank, the command sent aircraft from the Civil Air Fleet division. Under fierce enemy fire, despite difficult weather conditions, the pilots headed to the area of the breakthrough.
The crews of the commanders of the ships Poteev, Okinin, Bykov, Vasiliev and Tyupkin dropped a large amount of fuel to our tank formations, which were expanding the breakthrough. 1225 sorties were made. The group also interacted with the tank and cavalry units of General Pliev, who went into deep raids behind enemy lines. The deputy commander of the Third Ukrainian Front assessed the combat work in the area of the breakthrough as follows: “Transport group 1 - and ATD, with their efficiency and maneuverability in combat, contributed to the successful deepening of the bridgehead on the Ingulets River. The crews were faced with a new task - to provide the units that had escaped to the operational space in the German rear with fuel and ammunition. The group did an excellent job with the task. By order of the Headquarters, the First Air Transport Regiment received the honorary name "Kherson".
FOR BELARUS AND THE BALTIC
On June 12, 1944, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief ordered to send aircraft to the Third Ukrainian Front to support the actions of the troops advancing in the Minsk-Vilna direction. Fulfilling the order, the command of the division sent two groups of 26 aircraft under the command of Polosukhin and Ivanov, under the general leadership of the regiment commander G. Taran. The next day, the regiment's crews (commanders of the ships Bugrenko, Serdechny, Zadorozhny, Shevyakov, Kuzmin, Pechkorin, Kirsanov, Slepov, Ilyin, Zakharov. Komarov, Potapov, Bautin and others) began work on redeploying the 1st VA to forward airfields and their uninterrupted supply of ammunition and fuel. In ten days, three fighter and one bomber corps and an assault division were deployed. Excellent operational work made it possible for Soviet attack aircraft and bombers to deliver a powerful blow to the fortifications and manpower of the fascists.
On June 23, 1944, our troops came close to the Vitebsk-Orsha railway. The command gave the order to find the tank corps of General Obukhov, which had broken through into the German rear, and to organize the delivery of fuel to the stopped tanks. The solution to this problem practically decided the fate of Obukhov's operation. Fuel and ammunition were delivered on time, and the tanks rushed forward. The pace of the offensive increased, each crew had to be in the air daily for up to twelve hours or more. During the battles on the outskirts of Vilnius, the pilots of the third regiment managed to transport 216 tons of combat cargo to the front platforms in one day. By order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 0213, the Third Regiment was awarded the title of "Vilnius".
RELEASE OF YUGOSLAVIA
The group under the command of P. Eromasov, far from the Motherland, completed an important and difficult task of supplying the partisan detachments of Albania, Greece and Yugoslavia with weapons, ammunition, medicines, evacuating the wounded and performing other special tasks. The air group worked in extremely difficult conditions: flights had to be made across the Adriatic Sea and in the highlands at night. The landing sites were set up by partisans on the mountain slopes and in the valleys of mountain rivers. The fact that the crews of British and American aircraft stationed at the same airfield with the Soviet group refused to fly to the sites where our pilots landed speaks of the skill and determination of our pilots.
In less than a year, a group of ten crews performed 972 sorties, including 387 with landing behind enemy lines. 1603 wounded were taken out on our planes, and five thousand soldiers and commanders, more than 1000 tons of ammunition and other important cargo were transferred to partisan detachments. November 7, 1944, "for perseverance, discipline and organization, for heroism" The First Air Transport Division of the Civil Air Fleet was transformed into the 10th Guards Air Transport Division.
At the end of the war, the 10th Guards Division was tasked with delivering special ammunition of high power from Gorky, necessary for the assault on Berlin. On April 21, the group of Commander Major V. Chernyakov completed the task, the artillerymen received a full ammunition load of special ammunition. The final point of the combat operations of the air transport division was the flight of the crew of the commander of the Second Sevastopol Regiment A. I. Semenkov, who on May 9, 1945 delivered from Berlin to Moscow the act of unconditional surrender of the Hitlerite Reich.
In conclusion, let us name a few figures: the personnel of the 10th Guards Air Transport Division made sorties to the enemy rear - 7227; removed from the rear of the enemy - 9105 people; delivered to the rear of the enemy -28695 people, various cargoes - 7867 tons; sorties to the front - 52417; transported to the front -298189 people, various cargoes - 365410 tons. Fourteen pilots were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, were awarded the Order of Lenin - eight people, the Order of the Red Banner - 185 people, the Order of the Patriotic War - 221 people, the Order of the Red Star - 600, the Medal For Courage - 267, the Medal For Military Merit - 354 people. On November 30, 1946, the 10th Guards Division was disbanded and ceased to exist as a military unit. But the pilots continued to fly. The first air group and the air group of international air communications were created from the ranks of the division in Moscow. Dozens of pilots, navigators, flight mechanics, radio operators, engineers and technicians were sent to all departments of the Civil Air Fleet. The personnel of the division became practically the backbone of the peaceful transport aviation in the post-war years.
