The Great Patriotic War left to descendants many names of the great Soviet pilots. One of them is Dolina Maria Ivanovna. She was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.
Early years
Dolina Maria Ivanovna was born on December 18, 1922 in Sharovka, a village located in the Omsk region. Her parents were ordinary Siberian peasants and Ukrainians by origin. The girl's father fought in the Civil War and lost his legs there.
Due to the incapacity of the breadwinner, the family moved to the Zaporozhye region, where the girl graduated from an eight-year high school. The child has always been attracted to airplanes. In 1939, the girl graduated from the Kherson Aviation School. In order to get there, Maria Ivanovna Dolina added two years to her age, so that in all official documents the year of her birth was noted as 1920. Many of her peers went for such maneuvers, especially when the war began, and the military registration and enlistment offices did not have time to accept everyone who wanted to be at the front.
In the Red Army
Unlike many war heroes who became soldiers only because of the Wehrmacht attack, Dolina Maria Ivanovna receivedall the necessary professional skills in peacetime. After graduating from an aviation school in Kherson, she began working as an instructor pilot in Osoaviakhim. She lived in Dnepropetrovsk and Nikolaev.
When the war began in 1941, Dolina Maria Ivanovna was immediately included in the Red Army as a valuable specialist. At first, the girl fought in the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment. Her combat vehicle was the Pe-2 aircraft. It was a dive bomber developed at the Kazan Aviation Plant.
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War
The pilot made her first sortie in the vicinity of Stalingrad, where the fate of the entire war was largely decided. In the future, Maria Dolina was constantly transferred from front to front. She fought in the skies of the Kuban, the North Caucasus and Kursk. At the final stage of the war, the pilot took part in the liberation of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and the B altic states.
In capable hands, the Pe-2 became a deadly weapon against German opponents. And Maria Ivanovna Dolina, of course, was a real professional, even despite her very young age. Almost each of her sorties ended in losses in the camp of the enemy. In Pe-2, Maria Dolina had an equally brilliant navigator - Galina Dzhunkovskaya.
In the 125th Aviation Regiment
In 1943, Maria Dolina received a new appointment. She became deputy commander in the 125th Guards Women'sbomber regiment. At the same time, this military formation received the name of another famous Soviet pilot - Marina Raskova, who died near Saratov during a flight to the front.
The pilots of the regiment, where Maria Dolina served, destroyed equipment, manpower and defensive structures of the enemy on the banks of the Volga River, where in 1943 there was a turning point in the entire Great Patriotic War. "Pe-2" ensured the breakthrough of Soviet tanks during the famous Battle of Kursk.
Fight over Krymskaya
Almost every pilot of the Great Patriotic War had a battle that almost became his last. Dolina Maria Ivanovna also had such a case. The pilot was given the task of destroying several targets near the Kuban village called Krymskaya. In the sky above this place on June 2, 1943, her Pawn received significant damage - a fragment of an anti-aircraft shell hit one of the engines.
Maria Dolina led the left link of the squadron. At that moment, when the target was already very close, the engine of the car began to work intermittently. The plane began to veer off course. The crew of the Valley lagged behind the main squadron, in which he carried out a combat mission. But even with this state of the car, the crew continued to fight. Ground targets were bombed, and the goal set by the command was achieved. On the way back, the Pe-2 came under renewed fire from several German fighters.
In the battle, the machine gunner on the "Pe-2" ran out of ammo. The valley in such conditions decided to decline. In this position, she was overtaken by onefrom "Messers". The plane came close, so that the pilot saw the face of the German enemy. Through the windshield, he gestured to the Valley, first one and then two fingers. The woman did not understand the meaning of the gesture. Only later was it explained to her that the German pilot kindly asked how many runs to bring down her car. But everything worked out. In a stubborn skirmish, the crew of the Valley knocked out the enemy "Me-109" and FW-190.
However, a fire started in the Soviet "Pe". The valley did not go blind from the fire only because Galina Dzhunkovskaya put on her glasses in time (the pilot's hands were busy all the time). Maria miraculously landed the plane just two kilometers from the front. As soon as the crew hurriedly left the car, it exploded.
In Belarus
In total, Maria Ivanovna Dolina conducted 72 sorties in the war. When the Soviet army liberated Belarus, the pilot was noted for several particularly striking and successful air operations. For example, on July 26, 1944, she destroyed a strategically important section of the railway near Orsha, which the Germans used to transport resources.
Many trains with ammunition and other important objects were bombed by Maria Ivanovna Dolina. The photo of the young pilot began to appear in Soviet newspapers in the rear and at the front. Her daring sorties were shown throughout the country as examples of courage and professionalism.
During the fighting over the Belarusian Borisov, the Dolina crew dropped a pennant with a letter to the residents. In the message, the pilot urged his compatriots to quickly restore their hometown. When, 15 years later, the residents of Borisov celebrated the anniversary of his liberation, local journalists remembered the dropped pennant. They had to work hard to find Maria Dolina, who at that time lived in the B altics. Employees of the Belarusian newspaper conducted several interviews with the famous pilot. These recorded conversations later formed the basis of biographical sketches about Maria Dolina.
After the war
After the defeat of Germany in August 1945, Dolina received the well-deserved title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The woman decided to stay in the Air Force. Until 1950, she was deputy commander of one of the Soviet bomber aviation regiments. She retired at the age of 28.
In the subsequent time, work in the CPSU became the path that Maria Ivanovna Dolina chose. The Hero of the Soviet Union lived in the Lithuanian city of Siauliai, where she graduated from the party school. In the 60s, the former pilot worked in the Latvian institutions of the CPSU and lived in Riga. She was elected to the local Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Since 1983, Maria Dolina lived in Kyiv. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she received Ukrainian citizenship. She died in Kyiv on March 3, 2010 at the age of 87. The local Baikove cemetery became the burial place of the famous pilot.
