Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev - a well-known participant in the war against the Nazi invaders, a fighter, twice he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This happened in 1944 and 1945. In 1966 he received the rank of major general. We will tell about the most significant events of his fate in this article.
Biography of the pilot
Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was born in 1917. He was born in the small village of Khokhly on the territory of the modern Kurgan region. At that time it was the Chelyabinsk district of the Orenburg province. The family of Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was poor and very large. Parents worked as peasants, they had two sons and five daughters. By nationality, Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was Russian. His mother died very early - in 1920, when the boy was only three years old, so, basically, his father was engaged in his upbringing.
Until 1932, Cyril's father worked on the land, and then decided to go to work on the construction of Yar-Phosphoriterailway line in the Kirov region. He worked there for two whole years.
When my father left, Kirill remained in the family in charge with his brother Alexei, by that time they were in school, responsible for their sisters, ran the household, Father regularly sent them money.
Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev graduated from school in the village of Maloye Dyuryagino, which was larger than his native Khokhlov. Soon he went to the construction of the road to help his father. In parallel, he began to study there at a secondary school at the railway stations Peskovko-Omutinsk, Yar, Kirs. Schools had to be changed as the brigade of builders who built the railway line advanced.
In 1934, the hero, to whom our article is dedicated, came to a city called Shumikha, where he began working as a lineman. By that time, the features of railway workers were well known to him and known to him. The future pilot worked on the Ural railway lines, mainly at the site called "Stone Booth". His father died during the war, he died on the battlefield in 1943.
Education
Seven classes of secondary school Evstigneev graduated from the Shumikhinsky railway school in 1934. In the same year he moved to Chelyabinsk, where he was accepted as a student of the factory school. Kirill decides to master the profession of a turner at a tractor factory. He successfully graduated from college in 1936. A year before, he joined the Komsomol.
Employment career
Yevstigneev began to work fully in 1936 at a pilot plant located inChelyabinsk. Approximately six months later, the management noted his diligence and diligence and transferred him to the fuel equipment shop on the basis of the tractor plant. At the same time, Kirill begins attending classes at the flying club in order to fulfill his childhood dream - to conquer the sky.
In 1938, Evstigneev was drafted into the army, he went to serve from the Traktorozavodsky district of Chelyabinsk, where he worked. Until 1939, he did military service at a field repair base in the Far East with the rank of a Red Army soldier. In 1941 he successfully graduated from the military pilot school in Burma. At that time, it was located on the territory of the Amur Region.
At the front
When the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Evstigneev was initially left to serve at the same flight school in the Amur Region. As an instructor, he stayed there until the very end of 1942.
Only after that significant changes take place in the biography of Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev. He is sent to Moscow to the main headquarters of the air forces of the Soviet troops in order to start ferrying American Airacobra aircraft from the United States of America, the Soviet Union receives them under Lend-Lease. But Evstigneev does not dream about this, he wants to go to fight at the front. He manages to realize this idea after a meeting in the capital with the famous Soviet pilot Soldatenko, who contributed to his sending to the front.
At about the same time, Evstigneev became a member of the Communist Party, which was then called the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Evstigneevat the forefront
On the front line in the confrontation with the Nazis Evstigneev is only in March 1943. He immediately actively joins the service, participates in air battles on the territory of the Kursk region. WWII pilot Yevstigneev flies a fighter model La-5.
By the end of the year, he receives the rank of senior lieutenant. By that time, he had 144 sorties on his account, he repeatedly took part in air battles, shooting down 23 enemy aircraft, and shot down three more aircraft as part of a group of Soviet fighters. Even then it becomes obvious that Evstigneev is a real ace pilot.
Hero Title
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Evstigneev for the first time receives in the summer of 1944. At that time, he was already in command of a squadron in a fighter aviation regiment, fighting on the Ukrainian front with the rank of senior lieutenant. In addition to the honorary title, he is awarded the Order of Lenin, as well as the Gold Star medal. By the way, Evstigneev is already flying the new La-5FN fighter, an improved version of the Da-5.
In October 1944, Evstigneev received a promotion. He becomes the captain of the guard, having made 83 more sorties in the intervening time, during which he shot down twenty enemy aircraft. Mostly flies on La-5F. This is a special aircraft, which was built exclusively at the expense of the beekeeper Vasily Viktorovich Kornev, who worked on the Bolshevik collective farm in the Budarinsky district. This is a collective farm in the Stalingrad region (nowthis settlement is located near Volgograd).
February 23, 1945, ace pilot Yevstigneev is awarded another Gold Star medal. He serves on the Second Ukrainian Front, leads a squadron of an aviation fighter regiment.
By the end of the war, the Hero of the Soviet Union Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev, in total, already had about three hundred sorties. In total, he takes part in almost 120 air battles, personally shooting down 52 enemy aircraft. The WWII pilot ends the Great Patriotic War in Hungary, already being the deputy commander of the fighter guards aviation regiment in the 14th guards air division. At that time, he had the rank of Major Aviation Guards.
Aerial victories
K. A. Evstigneev's list of aerial victories is really impressive. If he sums up the statistical results, then in total the ace made 283 sorties during the war years, took part in 113 air battles.
In total, they shot down 52 Nazi bombers, and managed to destroy three more enemy planes as a result of group sorties.
Service after the war
After the end of World War II, Evstigneev remained in the army. He received the post of commander of an aviation fighter regiment. At the same time he raised the level of his education. For example, he graduates from the Higher Flight Tactical Courses, and six years later from the Air Force Academy.
From 1955 to 1958, he served as chief of staff of the aircrew retraining school, which was located inthe city of Frunze on the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan.
In 1960 Evstigneev graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. After that, he began to serve at the Myasnikov Kachinsky Higher Military Aviation School, heading the headquarters there. Later he was the head of the operational department at the headquarters of the air force of the North Caucasian Military District. Then he was transferred to serve in Kyiv to the post of deputy commander of the air army No. 73.
Gradually, Evstigneev continued to receive promotions. He was chief of staff of the air forces of the North Caucasian Military District, then deputy commander in the same headquarters, and then in the management of educational institutions, which was based at the main headquarters of the air forces of the Soviet Union.
The rank of major general was awarded to him for his successful service in 1966.
In 1972, Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was dismissed with the rank of Major General of Aviation. The reason was the achievement of the age limit for military service. At that time, the hero of our article turned 55 years old.
After retirement
After retiring, Evstigneev settled in Moscow. He lived in the very center, in Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Lane, at number 25. Directly opposite his house was the famous Church of Cyril and Athanasius.
Evstigneev was married once. In 1945, he married his fellow soldier Maria Ivanovna Razdorskaya, who was three years younger than him. They lived together all their lives. Maria Ivanovna survived her husband by 11 years, having died in 2007.year.
In the summer of 1996 Evstigneev died after a long illness at the age of 79. All this time he remained to live in the capital. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.
Memory of the pilot
The memory of Yevstigneev has been preserved in many parts of Russia. In the city of Shumikha, Kurgan region, where he began his career as a lineman, a bronze bust of the Hero of the Soviet Union was installed. First, it appeared in the city garden, and over time it was moved to the park, which received the name of Yevstigneev, fresh flowers were planted at its foot.
In the same city, a memorial plaque was installed on the building of school No. 2. It was this educational institution that Evstigneev graduated from. In 2005, the Agricultural Construction College in Shumikha was officially awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union Yevstigneev and another famous Soviet fighter pilot Sergei Ivanovich Gritsevets, who was also twice Hero of the Soviet Union. A museum has been organized at the college, in which Yevstigneev's personal belongings are kept. In particular, his overcoat, tunic, cap, as well as fragments that the doctors took out of his numerous wounds. They were brought to the Kurgan region by students who personally met with the pilot back in 1985.
Kurgan Aviation and Sports Club was named after Evstigneev.
In 1982, the Military Publishing House published the memoirs of the hero of our article called "The Winged Guard". In 2006, the book was republished by the EKSMO publishing house.
