After World War II, our army took part in wars in more than 20 countries of the world, having lost 18 thousand people. The names of the heroes are still a mystery.
More than 30 thousand Soviet servicemen passed through the Middle East alone. People served in extremely difficult conditions, according to eyewitnesses - sometimes just hellish. And they fought, dying in absolute obscurity. Since the late 90s, the very fact of the participation of our military in the Middle East and other wars has ceased to be a secret. Sometimes journalists interview veterans, less often they themselves publish their memoirs - in specialized publications. But the country still does not know its heroes.
Bitter lake
More than 30 thousand Soviet servicemen passed through the Middle East alone. People served in extremely difficult conditions, according to eyewitnesses - sometimes just hellish. And they fought, dying in absolute obscurity. Since the late 90s, the very fact of the participation of our military in the Middle East and other wars has ceased to be a secret. Sometimes journalists interview veterans, less often they themselves publish their memoirs - in specialized publications. But the country still does not know its heroes.
… Recently on one of the most authoritative military sites in Israel - www.waronline.org - a discussion has flared up. The participants tried to reconstruct a mysterious episode from forty years ago: the death of the Stratocruiser plane. Nothing, except for guesses, assumptions, was expressed.
So what happened on September 17, 1971 that is still remembered in Israel today?
The American-made Boeing-377 Stratocruiser (Stratospheric Cruiser) aircraft was used by Israeli aviation for reconnaissance and electronic warfare. The scout was created on the basis of the C-97 military transport aircraft, which in turn was a version of the infamous B-29 nuclear bomber.
60-ton "Stratospheric cruiser" did not enter the zone of destruction of anti-aircraft weapons of Egypt. Nevertheless, a surface-to-air missile destroyed an aircraft flying at an altitude of 9 km, 23 km east of the Suez Canal. Of the nine crew members, only one survived. Debris fell in the area of Bolshoy Gorky Lake. The intrigue was that the "Cruiser" was fired from where the Egyptians, in principle, could not have rocket launchers.
Author
The tragedy had a background. A week before the incident, on September 11, the Israelis shot down an Egyptian Su-7B fighter-bomber from the ground. The Sukhoi, flying at low level, was shot down by the infantry: a marked machine-gun burst. The pilot was killed.
The attack on the Stratocruiser was actually revenge for the downed Sukhoi. The anti-aircraft gunners organized an ambush: they secretly advanced to the canal and deployed the S-75 Dvina complex. Experts are still amazed at the virtuosity of the design and its execution: one should not confuse those old, low-maneuverable complexes with modern, highly mobile ones. The rocketeers managed to check the radar secretly from the all-powerful Israeli intelligence, report to the headquarters, and get the go-ahead.
The chief of the Egyptian General Staff, Saad Shazli, in his memoirs, recently translated into Russian, proudly describes the valor of the Egyptian military who carried out a risky operation.
We were silent. And then, and later …
Only recently did a group of Egyptian war veterans approached the Chairman of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, who told the true story. Finally, the name of the hero who led the daring operation sounded. This is the Russian officer Viktor Petrovich Kopylov. Unfortunately, he died two years ago.
Here's what we managed to find out about him.
Kopylov is a graduate of the Riga Higher Red Banner Artillery School of Coastal Defense of the Navy (KAUBO). Served in coastal defense units of the Baltic Fleet, and then in the country's air defense forces. In March 1970 he was sent to Egypt as an adviser to the commander of the S-75 Dvina anti-aircraft missile battalion. Already in the first battles in the skies over the Suez Canal, his division was shot down by the Israeli Phantom fighter-bomber. According to the recollections of colleagues, he was known as a merry fellow, he loved to sing and play the accordion. A decisive, brave, inventive person, ready to enter into an argument with the authorities, if it was necessary for the good of the cause.
The story with the "Stratocruiser" caused a mixed reaction from the management. After a conflict with the adviser to the commander of the Egyptian air defense fighter aircraft, Kopylov was ordered to return to the Union ahead of schedule, but in the end was awarded the Order of the Red Star. After leaving the army, he lived in Ulyanovsk.
It was possible to find out the name of this person thanks to Igor Smirnov, the son of a participant in the war in Egypt, Lieutenant Colonel P. M. Smirnov, commander of an anti-aircraft missile battalion. Igor created his own site on the Internet "Khubara. Rus", dedicated to the Egyptian war, collecting bit by bit the memories of its participants.
Passion Egyptian
The exploits of our pilots are better known. The MiG-25 flights over Israel were especially sensational, one of which entered the Guinness Book of Records. An unofficial speed record of 3395 km / h was set with the original wording: "According to Israeli radars." One of the aces - test pilot Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Gordienko - not without humor comments on those achievements:
- Pilots Yuri Marchenko, Alexander Bezhevets and I worked out the flight profile first over our territory and only then moved to the Suez Canal zone. We had a limitation: the speed was no more than 2.83 times the speed of sound. Nevertheless, Sasha Bezhevets jumped out for 3 sounds in one of the flights. When we asked him: "Why are you, Alexander Savvich, violating the instructions?" - pressed by objective control, he admitted: "What to do when a missile is fired at you!"
Israeli Phantoms fired many missiles at MiGs. Not a single MiG-25 was shot down.
But the service of our sailors is a mystery shrouded in darkness. Meanwhile, the commanders of Egyptian destroyers, submarines, missile and torpedo boats also had Soviet advisers. "Rusi khabir" (Russian specialist), like the position of "adviser", does not evoke any heroic associations. Meanwhile, it was these officers who actually commanded the ships, planned operations, and launched attacks.
- We came directly to Haifa for the raid, - recalls the captain of the 2nd rank, retired Vladimir Kryshtob, now a pensioner from Riga. - We looked through the periscope at the night city: beauty, all in lights. Civilian tankers are unloading at the terminal. Well, where to shoot!..
The combat mission read: torpedo the oil terminal, place mines in the roadstead. And for the country, these were the peaceful 70s …
Once "Mr. Volodya" saved a peaceful Greek ocean liner from destruction. The boat dodged the attacks of the Israeli Saar boats for ten hours, the Egyptian commander was inflated. And suddenly he gave the order: to torpedo the surface ship detected by the noise of the propellers. He personally declared the target a "Jewish destroyer".
“There is terrible pressure in the compartments, it’s hot,” writes Kryshtob in his memoirs. “An Arab sanitary instructor wanders through the compartments and injects everyone with a syringe. They drink badly. Everything is at the limit. Baghir (the Egyptian commander) yells into the first compartment: six torpedo tubes are being prepared. I shout: “Bagheer, wait!” He doesn't listen, he decided to fight.
He has already announced a torpedo attack. I'm flying to the first compartment. And there all the knobs are turned, the data is entered, six torpedoes are ready. I back: "Stop! We float." - "No," Baghir shouts, "we will shoot from a submerged position! We will not emerge!" - "Bitch! - shout. - I wanted an easy life ?!"
We floated up and looked. My mother, such a handsome liner goes Greek, it is dear to see. And all cars are packed, on the decks of the people, as in the house of officers at a dance. I rolled down, went up to Bagheera: "Well, you see?" Frowned: "I see." - "What do you see ?! What would we do with you now, your mother ?!"
In addition to our officers and warrant officers, conscripts were sent on secret missions to the war. According to Western data, up to 50 thousand Soviet soldiers served in Egypt between 1967 and 1973. According to our data, fewer, but 30 thousand bayonets is a huge figure. After all, they also served in Korea, Syria, Angola, Yemen, Afghanistan - in total in more than two dozen countries. As for Egypt, when the new President Anwar Sadat decided to actually expel ours, the grouping of Soviet troops and advisers was about 15 thousand people.
The history of our participation in the Arab-Israeli wars still has a lot of unfilled pages. The easiest and most effective way to erase the "blank spots" is to send veterans their memories and documents to the site www.hubara-rus.ru.
And the faster, the better, because most of the participants in the Egyptian wars are now over 60.
The headquarters of the Council of Veterans of the War in Egypt is located in Moscow at the address: st. Krzhizhanovskogo, 13/2, office 1B (metro station "Profsoyuznaya"). Chairman - Hero of the Soviet Union Konstantin Ilyich Popov.
The "hotline" for disabled veterans in Egypt (open on Wednesdays from 11.00 to 13.00): (495) 719 09 05.
