River pilot biography. Rechkalov Grigory Andreevich, twice hero of the Soviet Union. Conflict with Pokryshkin

The future twice Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the best Soviet aces, Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov, was born on February 9, 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo, Irbitsky district, into an ordinary peasant family. At the end of 1937, on a Komsomol ticket, young Rechkalov went to a military pilot school in Perm, which he successfully graduated from in 1939. After distribution, Grigory, with the rank of junior lieutenant, is sent to serve in the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which has given the country many famous pilots.

At the time Rechkalov joined the 55th IAP, it was equipped with I-153, I-16 and UTI-4 aircraft and was part of the 1st KOVO high-speed bomber brigade. In 1940, the regiment was transferred to the 20th mixed aviation division, which was part of the Air Force of the Odessa Military District. The regiment was located on the outskirts of the small town of Balti near the border with Romania.

On June 22, 1941, Grigory Rechkalov arrived at the disposal of his regiment from Odessa, where he passed a medical flight commission, which wrote him off from flying work; the pilot had color blindness and could not distinguish colors well. By that time, the first losses had already been noted in the regiment, and combat work was in full swing. Having reported his arrival to the unit and decommissioned from flights, Rechkalov immediately receives his first combat mission - to take documents to the neighboring unit in an I-153 fighter. The chief of staff of the regiment, Major Matveev, did not even pay attention to the doctors’ conclusions; there was no time for that. Thus, unexpectedly, a very difficult task was solved for the fighter pilot, which had tormented him all the way on the way to the regiment. On his first combat mission, Grigory Rechkalov met the enemy in battle, survived and was able to help out his comrade.

In the future, chance will intervene more than once in the fate of the ace pilot, which will provide him with the opportunity to return to the skies. Talking about them would take too much time. It is only worth saying that after a month of the war, having 3 downed German planes in his combat account, Rechkalov was seriously wounded in the leg and, wounded, brought his I-16 to the airfield, from where he was immediately transported to the hospital. At the hospital he undergoes a very complex operation on his right leg. This wound put him out of action for almost a year. In April 1942, having escaped from the reserve air regiment, where the pilot was retraining on the Yak-1, he returned to his hometown, now the 16th GvIAP.

From this moment on, a new stage of his flying career begins with the call sign “RGA”. Ahead of him awaits retraining for the American P-39 Airacobra fighter, the menacing sky of the Kuban, the first Golden Star of the Hero, fierce battles in the skies over Iasi, the second Golden Star and finally the sky of Berlin. This segment also included some confrontation with the famous Soviet ace Pokryshkin, which received an unexpected development after the end of the war and which they previously preferred not to talk about out loud.

Grigory Rechkalov went down in history as the most successful ace, having won the most victories on the P-39 Airacobra fighter. By the end of the war, his Cobra had 56 stars, which symbolized the pilot’s 53 personal and 3 group victories. Rechkalov was the second most successful Allied pilot. He had 61 personal victories and 4 group victories.

Among the German planes shot down by Grigory Rechkalov were:

30 Me-109 fighters;
5 FW-190 fighter
2 Me-110 fighters;
11 Ju-87 bombers
5 Ju 88 bombers
3 Ju 52 transport aircraft
2 He-111 bombers
2 light reconnaissance aircraft Fi 156
1 Hs 126 fighter-spotter

Conflict with Pokryshkin

For those who were interested in the history of the 55th IAP, which later turned into the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, and subsequently the 9th GvIAD, which was commanded by Pokryshkin from July 1944, the strained relationship between the division commander and one of the best Soviet aces twice Hero of the Soviet Union Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov. At one time, the aviation community even waged serious debate on the vastness of the World Wide Web, trying to understand the nature of the relationship between the two famous Soviet aces. Many believed that the reasons lay in their aerial rivalry, while a variety of aspects of their combat interaction were taken into account.

Aces pilots of the 9th Guards Aviation Division at the Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter G.A. Rechkalova. From left to right: Alexander Fedorovich Klubov, Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov, Andrei Ivanovich Trud and commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment Boris Borisovich Glinka.


Whether this is true or not, over time it began to seem that the strained relationship between the two pilots, which led to a serious conflict, was connected with their personal accounts of downed aircraft. These assumptions were confirmed by Rechkalov’s relatives, in particular his wife Anfisa and daughter Lyubov spoke about this. According to the daughter of the famous ace, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, Grigory Rechkalov, working with TsAMO documents, found 3 of his planes shot down in 1941 on the account of Alexander Pokryshkin. Having learned about this, he most likely called his immediate military superior and expressed everything he thought about him. Alexander Pokryshkin’s reaction was not long in coming; after this conversation, Rechkalov was forgotten, and access to the TsAMO archives was closed to him. Even another Soviet ace Georgy Golubev, who was Pokryshkin’s wingman and was friends with Rechkalov during the war, in his book “Paired with the Hundredth,” writes practically nothing about his friend during the war, building the entire narrative around Pokryshkin’s personality. According to the relatives of Grigory Rechkalov, he maintained his opinion that the 3 planes he shot down were attributed to Pokryshkin until his death in 1990.

Rechkalov’s personal combat account since 06/22/1941 opens with the following enemy aircraft shot down: on June 26 in the Ungheni area he shot down an Me-109 fighter, on June 27 an Hs 126 fighter-spotter and on July 11 a Ju 88 bomber. However, already a month after the start of the war, Grigory Rechkalov receives a serious wound in the leg. During a combat mission on July 26, 1941, to escort seven I-153s that flew out on an attack mission, Rechkalov was part of a flight of I-16 escort fighters. In the Dubossary area, when approaching the target, a group of aircraft comes under intense German anti-aircraft fire. During the shelling, Rechkalov was wounded; the hit on the plane was so strong and accurate that the fighter's rudder pedal was broken in half, and the pilot's foot was seriously damaged.

During the pilot's absence, many documents of the 55th IAP were destroyed during the retreat from Odessa. It is possible that Rechkalovo’s account was “zeroed” also because during his almost year-long absence the regiment transferred to another unit, while information about the pilot’s victories remained in the documents of the 20th Mixed Air Division. The report on the combat work of the new 16th Guards Aviation Regiment was already compiled in the reserve regiment, so there was nowhere to get data for 1941 from. This would be a fairly convincing version, if not for the fact that many pilots of the 55th IAP, even despite the burning of staff documents, the downed planes were recorded again and only the “returnee” Grigory Rechkalov had to start his combat journey from scratch. One way or another, until the end of his life Rechkalov was convinced that 3 victories of 1941 were taken from his combat account, which, by some coincidence, ended up in Pokryshkin’s account.

Bell P-39 "Airacobra"

Many years after the end of the war, Grigory Rechkalov was asked what he valued most in his P-39Q Airacobra fighter, on which he won so many victories: the power of the fire salvo, speed, engine reliability, visibility from the cockpit? To this question, Rechkalov noted that all of the above, of course, played a role and these advantages are important, but in his opinion, the most important thing in the American fighter was... the radio. According to him, the Cobra had excellent radio communication, rare at that time. Thanks to her, the pilots in the group could communicate with each other, as if on the phone. Anyone who saw anything in the air immediately reported it, so there were no surprises during the combat missions.

It is worth noting that the Airacobras have come a long way, constantly modernizing and improving, including taking into account the requirements of the Soviet side. To assemble and fly the fighters that were in the USSR, a special group of the Air Force Research Institute was created, which began a thorough study of the flight performance characteristics of the Airacobra, as well as eliminating various identified defects. The first versions of the P-39D were distinguished by inflated characteristics. For example, the speed at the ground was only 493 km/h, and at an altitude of 7000 m - 552 km/h, the maximum speed that the aircraft managed to reach at an altitude of 4200 m was 585 km/h. The higher the plane climbed, the lower its rate of climb became. At an altitude of 5000 meters it was 9.6 m/s, but at the ground it was already 14.4 m/s. The takeoff and landing characteristics of the fighter were also quite high. The plane's mileage was 350 meters, and the takeoff run was 300 meters.

The plane had a good flight range, which was equal to 1000 km. and could stay in the sky for 3.5 hours. The fighter's fairly good characteristics at low altitudes allowed it to effectively act as an escort vehicle for Soviet Il-2 attack aircraft and protect them from German fighters, as well as successfully fight German dive bombers and work quite confidently against ground targets. Over time, the characteristics of the fighter only grew and were brought to a very high level.

It is worth noting that American engineers, designers and workers were sympathetic to the proposals coming from the Soviet Air Force, which related to improving the design of the fighter. Bell company specialists, when coming to the USSR, visited military units and tried to study the circumstances and causes of accidents on the spot. In turn, Soviet engineers and pilots were also sent to the United States, where they assisted the Bell company in improving the P-39 Airacobra fighter. The largest center of Soviet aviation science, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after. Zhukovsky known by the abbreviation TsAGI.

Work to improve the aircraft was largely based on improving engine performance and reducing the take-off weight of the fighter. Already from the P-39D-2 version, the aircraft began to be equipped with a new Allison V-1710-63 engine, the power of which, without turning on the afterburner mode, was 1325 hp. To reduce the take-off weight of the fighter, the ammunition load of wing machine guns was reduced from 1000 to 500 rounds per barrel, and for fuselage machine guns from 270 to 200 rounds per barrel. Also, the hydraulic system for reloading the gun was completely removed from the aircraft; it could only be reloaded at the airfield. In addition, units that were installed on the P-40 Kittyhawk aircraft, which also arrived in the USSR under Lend-Lease, were installed in the air, fuel and oil systems.

In 1942, the most massive and best modification of the P-39Q fighter went into production; Rechkalov flew the P-39Q-15 fighter. Unlike other models, the fighter with the letter Q had 2 large-caliber 12.7-mm machine guns installed instead of 4 wing-mounted rifle-caliber machine guns. Among the fighters of this series there were also special lightweight models, for example, the P-39Q-10 version was distinguished by the fact that it had no wing machine guns completely.


improvised anti-aircraft crew: Alexander Pokryshkin and Grigory Rechkalov.


Probably, Rechkalov’s “Cobra” was the most “painted”. photographers, as we see, loved her very much)

Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov on Wikimedia Commons

Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov(February 9 or December 20) - twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1943, 1944). Ace pilot of the Great Patriotic War, Major General of Aviation.

Biography

Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov was born in the village of Khudyakovo, Irbitsky district, Perm province (now the village of Zaykovo, Irbitsky district, Sverdlovsk region) into a peasant family. When Grigory Rechkalov was in school, his family moved to the village of Bobrovka near Sverdlovsk, and he completed 6 classes there at a school in the village of Bolshoy Istok. At the age of 14 he began working as an electrician at a local mill. Later he moved to Sverdlovsk and entered the factory apprenticeship school at the Verkh-Isetsky plant. At the same time, Rechkalov began studying in a gliding circle.

The day before the start of the war, Rechkalov underwent a medical flight commission and was rejected due to discovered color blindness. However, on June 22, when he returned to the unit, the regimental chief of staff gave him an urgent task to deliver documents and did not even look at the medical report. At the beginning of the war, he flew the I-153 Chaika fighter. He scored his first aerial victory on June 27, shooting down an Me-109 with a rocket. Already in the first month of the war, Grigory Rechkalov shot down 3 enemy planes, was wounded himself, but brought the plane to the airfield. He was sent to a hospital, and then to a reserve aviation regiment, to master the Yak-1 aircraft, but in April 1942 he fled to his regiment, which by that time had received the rank of Guards and became known as the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (16 GvIAP) .

In the regiment he mastered the American Airacobra fighter. Since the spring of 1943, the regiment entered into battles with the enemy in the Kuban. In the first two weeks of fighting, Grigory Rechkalov shot down 19 enemy aircraft, and in three combat missions he shot down 2 aircraft, and in one - 3.

By June 1944, deputy regiment commander Rechkalov made 415 combat missions, participated in 112 air battles and personally shot down 48 enemy aircraft and 6 in the group.

In total, during the war, Rechkalov flew 450 combat missions and 122 air battles. Data on downed aircraft vary. According to some sources, 56 aircraft and 6 aircraft in the group were shot down. According to M. Bykov, Rechkalov shot down 61+4 enemy aircraft.

After the war, Grigory Rechkalov continued to serve in the air force and graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1951. In 1959 he was transferred to the reserve. Lived in Moscow, since 1980 - in the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow region. Died on December 20, 1990 in Moscow. He was buried next to his mother in the cemetery of the village of Bobrovsky, Sysert urban district, Sverdlovsk region.

List of aerial victories

The award lists do not include 3 aerial victories Rechkalov won in 1941 (due to the loss of documents of the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment for that period). However, these victories are reflected in the documents of the 20th Mixed Air Division, which gives every reason to include them in the pilot’s combat account.

Total aerial victories: 61+4
combat sorties - more than 420
air battles - 122

** - group victories

Awards

  • Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (05/24/1943, 07/01/1944);
  • four Orders of the Red Banner;
  • Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree;
  • medal "For victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" ;
  • anniversary medal "Twenty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" ;
  • anniversary medal "Thirty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" ;
  • anniversary medal "Forty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" ;
  • other USSR medals;
  • honorary citizen of the city of Balti and other cities.

Memory

Essays

  • Grigory Rechkalov.. - Chisinau: Cartea Moldovenasca, 1967, 1979. - 247 p. - 15,000 copies.
  • Visiting youth. M., 1968.
  • The smoky sky of war. Sverdlovsk, 1968.
  • Grigory Rechkalov. The burning sky of 1941. - Yauza, Eksmo, 2008. - 496 p. - (In air battles). - 5100 copies.
  • Grigory Rechkalov.- ISBN 978-5-699-25675-4.

1941. The Burning Sky of War. - Yauza, Eksmo, 2009. - 496 p. - (The greatest Soviet aces). - 3000 copies.

- ISBN 978-5-699-35350-7.

see also

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  • Notes

Literature

Bykov M. Yu. Aces of the Great Patriotic War. - M.: Yauza; Eksmo, 2007. - ISBN 978-5-699-20526-4.

  • .

Links

. Website "Heroes of the Country".
Excerpt characterizing Rechkalov, Grigory Andreevich
- That's how it is! - said Rostov.
“Well, yes, it’s all nothing,” Natasha continued to chatter. – Why is Denisov good? – she asked.
- Good.
- Well, goodbye, get dressed. Is he scary, Denisov?
- Why is it scary? – asked Nicholas. - No. Vaska is nice.
- You call him Vaska - strange. And that he is very good?
And Natasha stood on tiptoe and walked out of the room the way dancers do, but smiling the way only happy 15-year-old girls smile. Having met Sonya in the living room, Rostov blushed. He didn't know how to deal with her. Yesterday they kissed in the first minute of the joy of their date, but today they felt that it was impossible to do this; he felt that everyone, his mother and sisters, looked at him questioningly and expected him to see how he would behave with her. He kissed her hand and called her you - Sonya. But their eyes, having met, said “you” to each other and kissed tenderly. With her gaze she asked him for forgiveness for the fact that at Natasha’s embassy she dared to remind him of his promise and thanked him for his love. With his gaze he thanked her for the offer of freedom and said that one way or another, he would never stop loving her, because it was impossible not to love her.
“How strange it is,” said Vera, choosing a general moment of silence, “that Sonya and Nikolenka now met like strangers.” – Vera’s remark was fair, like all her comments; but like most of her remarks, everyone felt awkward, and not only Sonya, Nikolai and Natasha, but also the old countess, who was afraid of this son’s love for Sonya, which could deprive him of a brilliant party, also blushed like a girl. Denisov, to Rostov’s surprise, in a new uniform, pomaded and perfumed, appeared in the living room as dandy as he was in battle, and as amiable with ladies and gentlemen as Rostov had never expected to see him.

Returning to Moscow from the army, Nikolai Rostov was accepted by his family as the best son, hero and beloved Nikolushka; relatives - as a sweet, pleasant and respectful young man; acquaintances - like a handsome hussar lieutenant, a deft dancer and one of the best grooms in Moscow.
The Rostovs knew all of Moscow; this year the old count had enough money, because all his estates had been re-mortgaged, and therefore Nikolushka, having got his own trotter and the most fashionable leggings, special ones that no one else in Moscow had, and boots, the most fashionable, with the most pointed socks and little silver spurs, had a lot of fun. Rostov, returning home, experienced a pleasant feeling after some period of time trying on himself to the old living conditions. It seemed to him that he had matured and grown very much. Despair for failing to pass an exam according to the law of God, borrowing money from Gavrila for a cab driver, secret kisses with Sonya, he remembered all this as childishness, from which he was now immeasurably far away. Now he is a hussar lieutenant in a silver mentic, with a soldier's George, preparing his trotter to run, together with famous hunters, elderly, respectable. He knows a lady on the boulevard whom he goes to see in the evening. He conducted a mazurka at the Arkharovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamensky, visited an English club, and was on friendly terms with a forty-year-old colonel whom Denisov introduced him to.
His passion for the sovereign weakened somewhat in Moscow, since he did not see him during this time. But he often talked about the sovereign, about his love for him, making it felt that he was not telling everything yet, that there was something else in his feelings for the sovereign that could not be understood by everyone; and with all my heart he shared the general feeling of adoration in Moscow at that time for Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, who in Moscow at that time was given the name of an angel in the flesh.
During this short stay of Rostov in Moscow, before leaving for the army, he did not become close, but on the contrary, broke up with Sonya. She was very pretty, sweet, and obviously passionately in love with him; but he was in that time of youth when there seems to be so much to do that there is no time to do it, and the young man is afraid to get involved - he values ​​​​his freedom, which he needs for many other things. When he thought about Sonya during this new stay in Moscow, he said to himself: Eh! there will be many more, many more of these, somewhere, still unknown to me. I’ll still have time to make love when I want, but now there’s no time. In addition, it seemed to him that there was something humiliating for his courage in female society. He went to balls and sororities, pretending that he was doing it against his will. Running, an English club, carousing with Denisov, a trip there - that was another matter: it was befitting of a fine hussar.
At the beginning of March, the old Count Ilya Andreich Rostov was preoccupied with arranging a dinner at an English club to receive Prince Bagration.
The Count in a dressing gown walked around the hall, giving orders to the club housekeeper and the famous Theoktistus, the senior cook of the English club, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal and fish for Prince Bagration's dinner. The Count, from the day the club was founded, was its member and foreman. He was entrusted by the club with arranging a celebration for Bagration, because rarely did anyone know how to organize a feast in such a grand manner, hospitably, especially because rarely did anyone know how and want to contribute their money if they were needed to organize the feast. The cook and housekeeper of the club listened to the count's orders with cheerful faces, because they knew that under no one else could they profit better from a dinner that cost several thousand.
- So look, put scallops, scallops in the cake, you know! “So there are three cold ones?...” asked the cook. The Count thought about it. “No less, three... mayonnaise times,” he said, bending his finger...
- So, will you order us to take large sterlets? - asked the housekeeper. - What can we do, take it if they don’t give in. Yes, my father, I forgot about it. After all, we need another entrée for the table. Ah, my fathers! “He grabbed his head. - Who will bring me flowers?
- Mitinka! And Mitinka! “Ride off, Mitinka, to the Moscow region,” he turned to the manager who came in at his call, “jump off to the Moscow region and now tell Maximka to dress up the corvée for the gardener. Tell them to drag all the greenhouses here and wrap them in felt. Yes, so that I have two hundred pots here by Friday.
Having given more and more different orders, he went out to rest with the countess, but remembered something else he needed, returned himself, brought back the cook and the housekeeper, and again began to give orders. A light, masculine gait and the clanking of spurs were heard at the door, and a handsome, ruddy, with a black mustache, apparently rested and well-groomed from his quiet life in Moscow, entered the young count.
- Oh, my brother! “My head is spinning,” the old man said, as if ashamed, smiling in front of his son. - At least you could help! We need more songwriters. I have music, but should I invite the gypsies? Your military brethren love this.
“Really, daddy, I think Prince Bagration, when he was preparing for the Battle of Shengraben, bothered less than you do now,” said the son, smiling.
The old count pretended to be angry. - Yes, you interpret it, you try it!
And the count turned to the cook, who, with an intelligent and respectable face, looked observantly and affectionately at father and son.
- What are young people like, eh, Feoktist? - he said, - the old people are laughing at our brother.
“Well, Your Excellency, they just want to eat well, but how to assemble and serve everything is not their business.”
“Well, well,” the count shouted, and cheerfully grabbing his son by both hands, he shouted: “So that’s it, I got you!” Now take the pair of sleighs and go to Bezukhov, and say that the count, they say, Ilya Andreich sent to ask you for fresh strawberries and pineapples. You won't get it from anyone else. It’s not there, so you go in, tell the princesses, and from there, that’s what, go to Razgulay - Ipatka the coachman knows - find Ilyushka the gypsy there, that’s what Count Orlov was dancing with, remember, in a white Cossack, and bring him back here to me.
- And bring him here with the gypsies? – Nikolai asked laughing. - Oh well!…
At this time, with silent steps, with a businesslike, preoccupied and at the same time Christianly meek look that never left her, Anna Mikhailovna entered the room. Despite the fact that every day Anna Mikhailovna found the count in a dressing gown, every time he was embarrassed in front of her and asked to apologize for his suit.
“Nothing, Count, my dear,” she said, meekly closing her eyes. “And I’ll go to Bezukhoy,” she said. “Pierre has arrived, and now we’ll get everything, Count, from his greenhouses.” I needed to see him. He sent me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Borya is now at headquarters.
The Count was delighted that Anna Mikhailovna was taking on one part of his instructions, and ordered her to pawn a small carriage.
– You tell Bezukhov to come. I'll write it down. How is he and his wife? - he asked.
Anna Mikhailovna rolled her eyes, and deep sorrow was expressed on her face...
“Ah, my friend, he is very unhappy,” she said. “If what we heard is true, it’s terrible.” And did we think when we rejoiced so much at his happiness! And such a lofty, heavenly soul, this young Bezukhov! Yes, I feel sorry for him from the bottom of my heart and will try to give him the consolation that will depend on me.
- What is it? - asked both Rostov, the elder and the younger.
Anna Mikhailovna took a deep breath: “Dolokhov, Marya Ivanovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “they say he has completely compromised her.” He took him out, invited him to his house in St. Petersburg, and so... She came here, and this head-off man followed her,” said Anna Mikhailovna, wanting to express her sympathy for Pierre, but in involuntary intonations and a half-smile, showing sympathy for the head-off man, like she named Dolokhov. “They say that Pierre himself is completely overwhelmed by his grief.”
“Well, just tell him to come to the club and everything will go away.” The feast will be a mountain.
The next day, March 3, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 250 members of the English Club and 50 guests were expecting their dear guest and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, for dinner. At first, upon receiving news of the Battle of Austerlitz, Moscow was perplexed. At that time, the Russians were so accustomed to victories that, having received the news of defeat, some simply did not believe it, while others sought explanations for such a strange event in some unusual reasons. In the English Club, where everything that was noble, with correct information and weight gathered, in December, when news began to arrive, nothing was said about the war and about the last battle, as if everyone had agreed to remain silent about it. People who gave direction to the conversations, such as: Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Valuev, gr. Markov, book. Vyazemsky, did not show up at the club, but gathered at home, in their intimate circles, and Muscovites, speaking from other people’s voices (to which Ilya Andreich Rostov belonged), were left for a short time without a definite judgment about the cause of war and without leaders. Muscovites felt that something was wrong and that it was difficult to discuss this bad news, and therefore it was better to remain silent. But after a while, as the jury left the deliberation room, the aces who gave their opinions in the club appeared, and everything began to speak clearly and definitely. The reasons were found for the incredible, unheard of and impossible event that the Russians were beaten, and everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same thing was said. These reasons were: the betrayal of the Austrians, the poor food supply of the army, the betrayal of the Pole Pshebyshevsky and the Frenchman Langeron, the inability of Kutuzov, and (they said on the sly) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who entrusted himself to bad and insignificant people. But the troops, Russian troops, everyone said, were extraordinary and performed miracles of courage. Soldiers, officers, generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, famous for his Shengraben affair and his retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone led his column undisturbed and spent the whole day repelling an enemy twice as strong. The fact that Bagration was chosen as a hero in Moscow was also facilitated by the fact that he had no connections in Moscow and was a stranger. In his person due honor was given to a fighting, simple, without connections and intrigues, Russian soldier, still associated with the memories of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvorov. In addition, in bestowing such honors on him, the dislike and disapproval of Kutuzov was best shown.

Rechkalov Grigory Andreevich

This brilliant air fighter was distinguished by a very contradictory and uneven character. Having demonstrated an example of courage, determination and discipline in one mission, in the next he could be distracted from the main task and just as decisively begin the pursuit of a random enemy. His military fate was intertwined with the fate of A. Pokryshkin; he flew with him in the group, replaced him as a commander, then as a regiment commander. Alexander Ivanovich himself considered Rechkalov’s best qualities to be directness and frankness.

The beginning of the war saved Rechkalov from being written off from flying duty: doctors found he had a slight degree of color blindness, but the regiment commander ignored their conclusion, which was disastrous for the pilot.

Rechkalov made his first combat missions to attack enemy troops on the I-153, a biplane with blue tail number 13. He also won his first victory on it, shooting down one of the Me-109 attacking him with a salvo of eReS. Like Pokryshkin, he said that his number 13 was “unlucky for them.” On it, however, he suffered an accident due to engine failure: a connecting rod broke, and, having jacked up, Rechkalov almost died. After the accident, he began flying the I-16, and soon shot down a Romanian PZL-24 with it, and then a Yu-88. On one of the flights he was wounded in the head and leg, brought the car to his airfield and ended up in the hospital for a week, where he underwent 3 operations - the wound in the leg turned out to be serious. After a relative recovery, the pilot was assigned to a reserve regiment, but upon learning that the regiment was equipped only with U-2 aircraft, he decisively turned around and went back to the district air force headquarters. There he achieved a meeting with the commander and managed to demand a referral for retraining in a fighter regiment. Only in the summer of 1942, having mastered the Yak-1 and having once again been in the hospital - the fragment was difficult to come out of, Rechkalov, by hook or by crook, returned to his regiment - the 55th IAP, which by that time had received the guards name of the 16th GIAP. Here, on the Southern Front, he makes about a hundred sorties, bringing the number of victories to 6 - 4 personal and 2 in a group.

In December 1942, the 16th GIAP was withdrawn from the front, and the regiment's personnel were sent to the 25th Regiment for retraining on Airacobras.

...Only during the first 2 weeks of the battle in the Kuban “combat work from the Popovicheskaya airfield”, the deputy commander of the 1st air squadron of the 16th GIAP st. Lieutenant Rechkalov personally shot down 8 enemy aircraft (7 Me-109 and Yu-88) in air battles and was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In total, he scored 19 victories in the Kuban, destroying 2 aircraft three times in one battle and once - 3. Usually he flew as the leader of the pair in Pokryshkin’s group.

“There wasn’t a single flight where we didn’t fight. At first, the fascist acted impudently. A group will jump out, pile on, you look, first one, then another of our planes, catching fire, rushing towards the ground. But we quickly figured out the tactics of the fascist pilots and began to use new techniques: fly in pairs rather than in flights, it is better to use radio for communication and guidance, echelon groups of aircraft in the so-called “stack.” It was during these days that the “falcon strike”, developed by Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin, was born in our regiment.” In the Kuban, G. Rechkalov fought on the Airacobra P-39D-1, P-39D-2, with tail number 40.

Infinitely brave personally, daring, full of contempt for his enemies, he fought in a decorated Airacobra, in addition to the standard coloring and elements of quick recognition, which bore stars according to the number of downed enemies and the formidable letters RGA (pilot’s initials) on the rear fuselage.

In the summer of 1943, at the head of eight fighters, he attacked a large group of Yu-87s on the move at top speed, head-on, and personally shot down 3 of them. His group then shot down 5 Yu-87s and Me-109s.

In the fall of 1943, during the famous “hunt over the sea”, discovered by Pokryshkin, Rechkalov managed to shoot down 3 aircraft - 2 Yu-52 - a fuel tanker in one flight and a Savoy flying boat.

He enjoyed flying to “hunt”, loved to climb to high altitudes, about 6 thousand meters, and, using his exceptionally sharp vision, quickly attack the chosen victim. The ace flew on missions with different pilots. Among them were A. Trud, G. Golubev, V. Zherdev.

On July 1, 1944, Guard Captain Rechkalov was awarded the second Gold Star for 415 combat missions, 112 air battles, 48 ​​personal and 6 group victories. He made his last double near Iasi, shooting down 2 Yu-87s in a short and decisive attack.

After Pokryshkin's appointment, deputy regiment commander Rechkalov became commander of the first air squadron, and when Pokryshkin became division commander, he was appointed commander of the 16th GIAP. However, this position was fatally unlucky. After the death of I. Olefirenko due to the negligence of a mechanic, Rechkalov was removed from the post of regimental commander and B. Glinka was appointed there. However, a few days later he was seriously wounded in an air battle and Rechkalov again became the acting regiment commander. And again he was replaced in this position by another - I. Babak.

Rechkalov had by that time been appointed inspector of piloting technology for the 9th Hyades. In this position, Guard Major Rechkalov ended the war.

Grigory Rechkalov was born on February 9, 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo, Irbitsky district, Perm province. He graduated from 6 classes and in 1938 was admitted to the Perm Military Aviation School. The same one that 5 years before Rechkalov arrived there, his future commander Pokryshkin graduated. True, at that time the school graduated only aircraft technicians. Having become a military pilot in 1939, Rechkalov served in units of the Red Army Air Force of the Odessa Military District.

He took part in the battles of the Great Patriotic War from the first day. He fought on the Southern, North Caucasian, 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts. Conducted more than 450 sorties, 122 air battles, in which he shot down 56 enemy aircraft personally and 6 in a group. Probably, no other Soviet ace has such a variety of types of officially shot down aircraft as Rechkalov. Here are the Xe-111 and Yu-88 bombers, and the Yu-87 and Khsh-129 attack aircraft, and the Khsh-126 and FV-189 reconnaissance aircraft, and the Me-110, Me-109, FV-190 fighters, and Yu transport aircraft. -52, and relatively rare trophies - “Savoy” and PZL-24.



R Echkalov Grigory Andreevich – flight commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (216th Mixed Aviation Division, 4th Air Army, North Caucasus Front), guard senior lieutenant; deputy commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (9th Guards Fighter Aviation Division, 7th Fighter Aviation Corps, 5th Air Army, 2nd Ukrainian Front), guard captain.

Born on February 9, 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo (now within the boundaries of the village of Zaykovo, Irbitsky district, Sverdlovsk region) into a peasant family. Russian. He graduated from the 6th grade of school, the school of the FZU Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant (1935). He worked at this plant as an electrician and studied at the flying club.

In the Red Army since January 1938. In 1939 he graduated from the Perm Military Aviation Pilot School. Served in the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Force (in the Odessa Military District), junior pilot.

Participant of the Great Patriotic War: in June 1941-July 1944 - pilot, flight commander, squadron commander, navigator - deputy commander of the 55th (from March 1942 - 16th Guards) Fighter Aviation Regiment. During one of the air battles he was seriously wounded in the head and leg, and spent a long time recovering in the hospital, where he underwent three operations.

By May 1943, he had flown 194 combat missions, in 54 air battles he personally shot down 12 enemy aircraft and 2 as part of a group.

For courage and heroism shown in battles, Guard Senior Lieutenant Rechkalov Grigory Andreevich By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated May 24, 1943, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

By June 1944, he had flown 415 combat missions, participated in 112 air battles, and personally shot down 48 enemy aircraft and 6 as part of a group.

For new military exploits of the guard, the captain was awarded the second Gold Star medal by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 1, 1944.

In July 1944-March 1945 - commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, from March 1945 - pilot inspector for piloting technology of the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Division.

He fought on the Southern, North Caucasian, 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts. He took part in defensive battles in the south of Ukraine, the defense of the North Caucasus, the liberation of Kuban, Donbass, Crimea, Belarus and Poland, and in the Berlin operation. In total, during the war he made more than 450 combat missions on I-153 Chaika, I-16, Yak-1 and R-39 Airacobra fighters, participated in 122 air battles, in which he shot down 61 aircraft personally and as part of a group of 4 aircraft enemy.

After the war he continued to serve in the Air Force. Since August 1945 - inspector-pilot for piloting techniques of the 6th Guards Fighter Aviation Corps. In 1951 he graduated from the Air Force Academy (Monino). From 1951 - deputy commander, from July 1952 - commander of the 10th Guards Fighter Aviation Division, then commanded the 146th Fighter Air Division (Sakhalin Air Defense Corps). Since 1957 - Deputy Commander of Fighter Aviation of the Separate Far Eastern Air Defense Army. Since April 1959, Major General of Aviation G.A. Rechkalov has been in reserve.

Lived in Moscow. Died December 22, 1990. He was buried in the village of Bobrovsky, Sysertsky district, Sverdlovsk region.

Major General of Aviation (1957). Awarded the Order of Lenin, 4 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of Alexander Nevsky, Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree, 2 Orders of the Red Star, medals.

A bronze bust of the Hero was installed in the village of Zaykovo, Irbitsky district, Sverdlovsk region. A memorial museum named after G.A. is also opened there. Rechkalova.

Essays:
Visiting youth. M., 1968;
The smoky sky of war. Sverdlovsk, 1968;
In the sky of Moldova. 2nd ed. Chisinau, 1979, etc.

FOR THE GLORY OF RUSSIAN WEAPONS

On June 22, 1941, Grigory Rechkalov returned from the city, where he was sent to a medical commission to check his eyesight. He could not distinguish colors, and the commission made a negative conclusion. “I can’t fly now,” thought Grigory. Upset, he left the carriage onto the platform. And then the terrible news: war. Grigory, without hesitation, straight from the station, jumped into the back of the first car he came across, and drove to the field airfield. The regiment was already fighting against the Nazis in southwestern Ukraine. Entering the regiment commander, Grigory reported his sadness. He, having read the conclusion, said:

What a problem, you can’t distinguish colors! Can you tell someone else's plane from your own?

I'll tell you the difference, comrade commander.

So, you see,” the commander continued, pointing his hand out the window, “there stands Seagull number 13, sit down and fly.”

Together with other pilots, Rechkalov stormed enemy troops in his Chaika six times on the first day, and seven times on the second. Then transferring to the I-16, he accompanied bombers and attack aircraft and conducted air battles. And here is the first joy: in an air battle, Gregory shot down a fascist Yu-88 plane. Twelve Junkers carried a bomb load to drop it on Chisinau. Three Soviet pilots, including Rechkalov, crashed into their formation and with bold attacks forced them to unload far from the target.

ABOUT Once, when the fighters were escorting the Chaikas, which were storming a fascist column, a dry crack was heard in the cockpit of Rechkalov’s plane, blood flowed down his face, and his right leg slipped off the pedal. He barely made it to the airfield, landed the car with difficulty, but did not have enough strength to get out of the cabin.

Grigory spent several months in hospitals and underwent three operations. And as soon as the wounds healed, he began to beg the doctor to discharge him to the unit. One day the doctor said angrily:

Okay, we’ll write you out, but we’ll give you a restriction: you’ll fly behind the lines in light planes.

A few days later, Rechkalov arrived at the flight school. The first thing he asked was:

What kind of planes do you have?

“Only U-2,” answered the staff officer.

So, there was a mistake,” Rechkalov said nervously and, picking up his suitcase, went back to the district Air Force headquarters.

Did you send me there for fun? After all, I am a fighter! - he pressed the officer who gave him an order to go to school.

But he was relentless. Only the district air force commander, after a long conversation, allowed Rechkalov to be sent to a reserve fighter regiment, in which pilots were being retrained for LaGGs and Yakis. But Gregory was drawn to where his fellow soldiers were, to the front. He writes a report asking to be sent to the active army. They refuse him. He writes a second, a third... And then my leg began to bother me: a fragment. Rechkalov was put into surgery. He spent more than two weeks in the hospital. And when I was discharged, I came to the commander of the reserve air regiment to ask for leave to go home. Before this, there were cases when pilots, receiving leave, went to the front, to their unit. The regiment commander, receiving Rechkalov, said:

Okay, you won’t get away from me on crutches.

And he let go. Grigory went to Sverdlovsk for a couple of days, to visit his relatives, and, still with a crutch in his hand, went to the Rostov-on-Don region, where his native regiment fought.

On the train, someone gave him the latest issue of the newspaper. From it he learned that the regiment had been given the name Guards. Grigory was delighted, he couldn’t wait to meet his fighting friends and together with them, under the guards banner, defeat the fascists.

IN new front, combat life. Grigory Rechkalov quickly entered her. Mastering the experience accumulated by the regiment's pilots, he searches for and applies new tactical techniques in air combat and boldly fights the enemy. In a short time, it makes more than a hundred sorties, destroying dozens of enemy vehicles, artillery pieces, railway cars and a lot of enemy personnel through assault operations; in 20 air battles conducted during this time, Rechkalov shot down six enemy aircraft: four personally and two in a group. At the end of December 1942, for these successful actions, Rechkalov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

New planes were heading to the front. The 16th Guards Fighter Regiment also received them. Day and night, the pilots mastered the new machine. In April 1943, at the height of the air battle in the Kuban, they entered the battle using new aircraft.

It was sunny spring days. Dozens of our own and foreign planes flew in the Kuban sky from dawn until late at night. “There wasn’t a single flight,” recalls Grigory Rechkalov, “that we weren’t fighting. At first, the Nazis acted impudently. A group will jump out, pile on, and you look, first one, then another of our planes, catching fire, flies to the ground. But we quickly figured out the tactics of the fascist pilots and began to use new techniques: to fly in pairs rather than in flights, it is better to use radio for communication and guidance, to echelon groups of aircraft in a so-called “stack.” It was during these days that the “falcon strike”, developed by Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin, was born in our regiment.” Grigory Rechkalov, who then served in Pokryshkin’s squadron, was his faithful assistant.

... IN Eight fighters flew towards the front line, accompanying the attack aircraft. Suddenly, nine Me-109s and ten Me-110s appeared at the bottom left. Without noticing the Soviet fighters, they launched an attack on the attack aircraft. Rechkalov realized that not a second could be lost. The command immediately sounded: “Attack!” Plunging sharply, the Soviet pilots from above suddenly fall onto the Messerschmitts. Rechkalov sees the silhouette of the enemy plane growing larger in his sight. Involuntarily the hand strives to press the trigger. But the mind prompts: “It’s early, early, to hit - for sure, from a short distance.” The fascist pilot tries to turn away sharply, but it’s too late. A fiery track flashes through his car.

“How conveniently the falcon strike came in handy,” Rechkalov thinks and, using the high speed developed due to a steep dive, he gains altitude to attack enemy aircraft again...

This was the second air battle carried out over the Kuban land on April 21, 1943 by Rechkalov’s eight. Like the first, it ended in complete victory: the Messerschmitts were unable to break through to the Soviet attack aircraft. Having lost several cars, they went home. Two of them were shot down by Grigory Rechkalov.

Day after day, the five-pointed scarlet stars on Rechkalov’s plane were added and lined up in one common line. 19 of them were added in Kuban!

In fierce battles with the enemy, Gregory understood the basic commandment of the fighter: “Detect the enemy first. Don't rush to attack - wait for the moment. Attack for sure, from close range, in one burst.”

ABOUT Once, eight fighters under the command of Rechkalov covered ground troops in the area of ​​the Molochnaya River. When the patrol time was almost up, Rechkalov noticed a large group of Junkers below on the right - at least 50. They were about fifteen kilometers from the front line. They were covered by two flights of fighters.

“Attack head-on,” Rechkalov decides.

This decision was based on surprise and on using the full power of the strike group’s fire.

Klubov, cover us, let’s go on the attack,” he conveyed to the leader of the second four and, having rearranged his group in bearing, rushed into the forehead of the enemy. From a distance of 200 meters he shot down the leading fascists. Almost simultaneously, another Yu-87 caught fire. It was lit by pilot G.G. Golubev. Without stopping fire, Soviet fighters passed through the entire formation of bombers. The six, in which the plane was shot down, dropped their bombs and began to leave. The entire Yu-87 formation fell apart.

Having made a combat turn, Rechkalov and his wingman again found themselves above the bombers. But at that moment a pair of Messers began to enter the tail of his plane. Senior Lieutenant V.I. Zherdev noticed this and decided to engage them in battle. He hit one on a bend. Seeing that Zherdev was fighting off the “Messers,” Rechkalov, diving, caught the leading pair of bombers in his sights and pressed the trigger. A well-aimed burst struck another Junkers.

The fascists rushed about. Taking advantage of the panic, Rechkalov fired a burst into the third Yu-87, which exploded in the air from its own bombs.

Soviet pilots destroyed five Junkers and one Messerschmitt in this battle. Rechkalov managed to shoot down three planes.

Soon Grigory Rechkalov appeared at the airfield with the Order of Alexander Nevsky on his chest. This was the Motherland's reward for successful victories in battle against superior enemy forces.

... TO Somehow, late in the evening, an order came to the regiment: by flying several pairs of “free hunter” fighters, to prevent the actions of enemy “hunter” aircraft, transport and communication vehicles, to disrupt the movement of railway trains, single vehicles, etc. In the morning, Rechkalov and his wingman received a “free hunt” assignment. He passionately loved flying like this over the battlefield or far behind enemy lines, looking for targets on his own and suddenly destroying them...

There was an air battle going on. Rechkalov, having reached a height of 5-6 thousand meters, watched him. Suddenly two Me-109s, obviously also “hunters,” gained altitude and entered our territory. Rechkalov let them pass under him, and then dived and, with a short burst from behind, lit up one plane from a distance of 50 meters. The second one went to his own territory.

Shortly before the Nazis were expelled from Crimea, Rechkalov “hunted” over the sea for transport planes that were bringing ammunition, fuel and food for the encircled enemy. One gloomy day he noticed three Yu-52s.

“They are transporting gasoline to Crimea,” thought the pilot. And he was not mistaken. When the two Junkers that he and his wingman had shot down crashed into the sea, a huge flame ran across the water.

Sh whether days or months. Our troops moved further and further to the west, liberating their native land from the fascist invaders, smashing them in their own lair. The Nazis threw new reserves into battle, and our pilots had to participate in two, three, or even four air battles a day. Grigory Rechkalov also took part in them.

The regiment was in combat readiness. Suddenly, the commander of the guard division, Colonel A.I. Pokryshkin, arrived. At the command post, he revealed the map and explained the mission.

“Our tanks moved into this area,” he began, pointing to the map. Probably, in a few minutes the Focke-Wulfs will appear there, we must prevent them from getting there and cover the actions of the tankers. Clear? Take off!

“I gave the command,” says Rechkalov. - Less than five minutes passed before we were in the air. Mountains covered with snow appeared below us. We knew that the German airfield was somewhere in these mountains. And against their white background we saw the silhouettes of enemy aircraft. These were Focke-Wulf 190s, which were used not only as fighters, but also as attack bombers. We failed to attack the airfield: fascist fighters took off to meet us.

We started a battle with four Focke-Wulfs. Berezkin and Sukhov, breaking into the formation of German aircraft, immediately shot down one FV-190 each. We were already preparing to settle scores with the remaining two planes when eight more Focke-Wulfs fell on top of us. They hastily dropped their bombs and engaged us. I managed to knock down one of them, and the other, whom I attacked from the side, began to run away. I gave chase...

In the sixteenth minute of the battle we managed to disperse the Focke-Wulfs. Five of them were shot down...”

The future twice Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the best Soviet aces, Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov, was born on February 9, 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo, Irbitsky district, into an ordinary peasant family. At the end of 1937, on a Komsomol ticket, young Rechkalov went to a military pilot school in Perm, which he successfully graduated from in 1939. After distribution, Grigory, with the rank of junior lieutenant, is sent to serve in the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which has given the country many famous pilots.

At the time Rechkalov joined the 55th IAP, it was equipped with I-153, I-16 and UTI-4 aircraft and was part of the 1st KOVO high-speed bomber brigade. In 1940, the regiment was transferred to the 20th mixed aviation division, which was part of the Air Force of the Odessa Military District. The regiment was located on the outskirts of the small town of Balti near the border with Romania.


On June 22, 1941, Grigory Rechkalov arrived at the disposal of his regiment from Odessa, where he passed a medical flight commission, which wrote him off from flying work; the pilot had color blindness and could not distinguish colors well. By that time, the first losses had already been noted in the regiment, and combat work was in full swing. Having reported his arrival to the unit and decommissioned from flights, Rechkalov immediately receives his first combat mission - to take documents to the neighboring unit in an I-153 fighter. The chief of staff of the regiment, Major Matveev, did not even pay attention to the doctors’ conclusions; there was no time for that. Thus, unexpectedly, a very difficult task was solved for the fighter pilot, which had tormented him all the way on the way to the regiment. On his first combat mission, Grigory Rechkalov met the enemy in battle, survived and was able to help out his comrade.

In the future, chance will intervene more than once in the fate of the ace pilot, which will provide him with the opportunity to return to the skies. Talking about them would take too much time. It is only worth saying that after a month of the war, having 3 downed German planes in his combat account, Rechkalov was seriously wounded in the leg and, wounded, brought his I-16 to the airfield, from where he was immediately transported to the hospital. At the hospital he undergoes a very complex operation on his right leg. This wound put him out of action for almost a year. In April 1942, having escaped from the reserve air regiment, where the pilot was retraining on the Yak-1, he returned to his hometown, now the 16th GvIAP.

From this moment on, a new stage of his flying career begins with the call sign “RGA”. Ahead of him awaits retraining for the American P-39 Airacobra fighter, the menacing sky of the Kuban, the first Golden Star of the Hero, fierce battles in the skies over Iasi, the second Golden Star and finally the sky of Berlin. This segment also included some confrontation with the famous Soviet ace Pokryshkin, which received an unexpected development after the end of the war and which they previously preferred not to talk about out loud.

Grigory Rechkalov entered the list as the most successful ace, having won the most victories on the P-39 Airacobra fighter. By the end of the war, his Cobra had 56 stars, which symbolized the pilot’s 53 personal and 3 group victories. Rechkalov was the second most successful Allied pilot. He had 61 personal victories and 4 group victories.

Among the German planes shot down by Grigory Rechkalov were:

30 Me-109 fighters;
5 FW-190 fighter
2 Me-110 fighters;
11 Ju-87 bombers
5 Ju 88 bombers
3 Ju 52 transport aircraft
2 He-111 bombers
2 light reconnaissance aircraft Fi 156
1 Hs 126 fighter-spotter

Conflict with Pokryshkin

For those who were interested in the history of the 55th IAP, which later turned into the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, and subsequently the 9th GvIAD, which was commanded by Pokryshkin from July 1944, the strained relationship between the division commander and one of the best Soviet aces twice Hero of the Soviet Union Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov. At one time, the aviation community even waged serious debate on the vastness of the World Wide Web, trying to understand the nature of the relationship between the two famous Soviet aces. Many believed that the reasons lay in their aerial rivalry, while a variety of aspects of their combat interaction were taken into account.

Aces pilots of the 9th Guards Aviation Division at the Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter G.A. Rechkalova. From left to right: Alexander Fedorovich Klubov, Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov, Andrei Ivanovich Trud and commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment Boris Borisovich Glinka.

Whether this is true or not, over time it began to seem that the strained relationship between the two pilots, which led to a serious conflict, was connected with their personal accounts of downed aircraft. These assumptions were confirmed by Rechkalov’s relatives, in particular his wife Anfisa and daughter Lyubov spoke about this. According to the daughter of the famous ace, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, Grigory Rechkalov, working with TsAMO documents, found 3 of his planes shot down in 1941 on the account of Alexander Pokryshkin. Having learned about this, he most likely called his immediate military superior and expressed everything he thought about him. Alexander Pokryshkin’s reaction was not long in coming; after this conversation, Rechkalov was forgotten, and access to the TsAMO archives was closed to him. Even another Soviet ace Georgy Golubev, who was Pokryshkin’s wingman and was friends with Rechkalov during the war, in his book “Paired with the Hundredth,” writes practically nothing about his wartime friend, building the entire narrative around Pokryshkin’s personality. According to the relatives of Grigory Rechkalov, he maintained his opinion that the 3 planes he shot down were attributed to Pokryshkin until his death in 1990.

Rechkalov’s personal combat account since 06/22/1941 opens with the following enemy aircraft shot down: on June 26 in the Ungheni area he shot down an Me-109 fighter, on June 27 an Hs 126 fighter-spotter and on July 11 a Ju 88 bomber. However, already a month after the start of the war, Grigory Rechkalov receives a serious wound in the leg. During a combat mission on July 26, 1941, to escort seven I-153s that flew out on an attack mission, Rechkalov was part of a flight of I-16 escort fighters. In the Dubossary area, when approaching the target, a group of aircraft comes under intense German anti-aircraft fire. During the shelling, Rechkalov was wounded; the hit on the plane was so strong and accurate that the fighter's rudder pedal was broken in half, and the pilot's foot was seriously damaged.

During the pilot's absence, many documents of the 55th IAP were destroyed during the retreat from Odessa. It is possible that Rechkalovo’s account was “zeroed” also because during his almost year-long absence the regiment transferred to another unit, while information about the pilot’s victories remained in the documents of the 20th Mixed Air Division. The report on the combat work of the new 16th Guards Aviation Regiment was already compiled in the reserve regiment, so there was nowhere to get data for 1941 from. This would be a fairly convincing version, if not for the fact that many pilots of the 55th IAP, even despite the burning of staff documents, the downed planes were recorded again and only the “returnee” Grigory Rechkalov had to start his combat journey from scratch. One way or another, until the end of his life Rechkalov was convinced that 3 victories of 1941 were taken from his combat account, which, by some coincidence, ended up in Pokryshkin’s account.


Bell P-39 "Airacobra"

Many years after the end of the war, Grigory Rechkalov was asked what he valued most in his P-39Q Airacobra fighter, on which he won so many victories: the power of the fire salvo, speed, engine reliability, visibility from the cockpit? To this question, Rechkalov noted that all of the above, of course, played a role and these advantages are important, but in his opinion, the most important thing in the American fighter was... the radio. According to him, the Cobra had excellent radio communication, rare at that time. Thanks to her, the pilots in the group could communicate with each other, as if on the phone. Whoever saw what in the air immediately reported, so there were no surprises during the combat missions.

It is worth noting that the Airacobras have come a long way, constantly modernizing and improving, including taking into account the requirements of the Soviet side. To assemble and fly the fighters that were in the USSR, a special group of the Air Force Research Institute was created, which began a thorough study of the flight performance characteristics of the Airacobra, as well as eliminating various identified defects. The first versions of the P-39D were distinguished by inflated characteristics. For example, the speed at the ground was only 493 km/h, and at an altitude of 7000 m – 552 km/h, the maximum speed that the aircraft managed to reach at an altitude of 4200 m was 585 km/h. The higher the plane climbed, the lower its rate of climb became. At an altitude of 5000 meters it was 9.6 m/s, but at the ground it was already 14.4 m/s. The takeoff and landing characteristics of the fighter were also quite high. The plane's mileage was 350 meters, and the takeoff run was 300 meters.


The plane had a good flight range, which was equal to 1000 km. and could stay in the sky for 3.5 hours. The fighter's fairly good characteristics at low altitudes allowed it to effectively act as an escort vehicle for Soviet Il-2 attack aircraft and protect them from German fighters, as well as successfully fight German dive bombers and work quite confidently against ground targets. Over time, the characteristics of the fighter only grew and were brought to a very high level.

It is worth noting that American engineers, designers and workers were sympathetic to the proposals coming from the Soviet Air Force, which related to improving the design of the fighter. Bell company specialists, when coming to the USSR, visited military units and tried to study the circumstances and causes of accidents on the spot. In turn, Soviet engineers and pilots were also sent to the United States, where they assisted the Bell company in improving the P-39 Airacobra fighter. The largest center of Soviet aviation science, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after. Zhukovsky known by the abbreviation TsAGI.


Work to improve the aircraft was largely based on improving engine performance and reducing the take-off weight of the fighter. Already from the P-39D-2 version, the aircraft began to be equipped with a new Allison V-1710-63 engine, the power of which, without turning on the afterburner mode, was 1325 hp. To reduce the take-off weight of the fighter, the ammunition load of wing machine guns was reduced from 1000 to 500 rounds per barrel, and for fuselage machine guns from 270 to 200 rounds per barrel. Also, the hydraulic system for reloading the gun was completely removed from the aircraft; it could only be reloaded at the airfield. In addition, units that were installed on the P-40 Kittyhawk aircraft, which also arrived in the USSR under Lend-Lease, were installed in the air, fuel and oil systems.

In 1942, the most massive and best modification of the P-39Q fighter went into production; Rechkalov flew the P-39Q-15 fighter. Unlike other models, the fighter with the letter Q had 2 large-caliber 12.7-mm machine guns installed instead of 4 wing-mounted rifle-caliber machine guns. Among the fighters of this series there were also special lightweight models, for example, the P-39Q-10 version was distinguished by the fact that it had no wing machine guns completely.

Sources used:
www.airwiki.org/history/aces/ace2ww/pilots/rechkalov.html
www.airwar.ru/history/aces/ace2ww/pilots/rechkalov.html
www.airaces.narod.ru/all1/rechkal1.htm
www.vspomniv.ru/P_39

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