Pstygo, Ivan Ivanovich

Born on April 10, 1918 in the village of Sukhopol, now Inzersky Village Council of the Arkhangelsk District of Bashkiria . Belarusian

He studied at the school of peasant youth, and after moving to the capital of Bashkiria - the city of Ufa - in Ufa secondary school No. 3.

Service in the Red Army before World War II

In the Red Army since 1936 .

In 1940, he graduated from the Engels Military Aviation Pilot School and was assigned to the 211st Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Odessa Military District .

Of the checks at the regional commission, I most remembered such a test. It consisted in the fact that it was necessary to run along a dark corridor. After 5-7 meters, the floor opened under you, and in the dark you fell down onto sports mats. Then the doctor grabbed your hand and counted the pulse. Then he looked intently into his eyes, determined your mental state.

- from the book of I. I. Pstygo "Workers of the sky" ^[3] .

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Great Patriotic War

The beginning of World War II, Lieutenant Pstygo met at the field airfield near the Dniester River in the position of flight commander . On June 22, 1941, he was part of the Su-2 bomber group of the 211st air regiment and completed its first combat sortie. Total for the Su-2, he will make 21 sorties. In one of them, he witnessed how a neighboring Su-2 was shot down by Alexander Pokryshkin , who took the new Su-2 as an enemy aircraft.

It was like this: we are going on a mission, two MiG-3s are attached to us. We think flying with fighters is safer. Suddenly something incredible happens - one of the MiGs shoots down the commander of our squadron with accurate shots and attacks my plane. Shaking the car from wing to wing, showing our identification marks. It helped ... MiG stepped aside ...

Many years later, when I was studying at the General Staff Academy , I told my fellow students about this case. Three times Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin studied in our group. He asked me to repeat the story.

Retells again.

“It was me,” he said, confused and upset.

"Are you kidding, Sasha?"

“Yes, what a joke!” At the beginning of the war, I really shot down the Su-2. There was such a terrible incident with me, I did not know Sukhoi’s airplanes, because they appeared in units just before the war, and they looked quite unusual - I thought that the fascist ... ”.

- from the story of Pstygo L. M. Kuzmina ^[4] .

After the fall of Kiev and Kharkov , when only 11 aircraft remained in the 211st bomber regiment, Lieutenant Pstygo, among other pilots, was sent to retrain in the city of Balashov at the aviation school , where they were to master a new Il-2 attack plane.

In subsequent years, attack pilot Ivan Pstygo fought in the South-West , Stalingrad , where he was the ancestor of street battles of stormtroopers ^[5] , Bryansk , 1st and 2nd Baltic , 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts as commander the squadron , the head of the air rifle service of the assault aviation division and air corps , having met Victory Day with the rank of lieutenant colonel , commander of the 893rd assault Vitebsk Red Banner Aviation Regiment , who had finished off the demoralized remnants of German troops from the air. During the war years, Pstygo made 164 sorties, personally shooting down 2 enemy fighters (one of them in a frontal attack) in air battles.

After the war

After the war he was sent to the Higher Officers' Course of the Air Force in Lipetsk . And after their successful graduation he served in the Far East . In 1950 he was the commander of the 53rd mixed aviation corps (Elizovo, Kamchatka).

Then - studies at the Academy of the General Staff , after which in 1957 he was appointed deputy commander of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District .

Since 1958 - First Deputy, and since 1960 - Commander of the Air Force of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany . In the subordination of the commander of the 16th Air Force Pstygo there was a group of 64,000 personnel, 1,700 airplanes. Up to seven violators were shot down in a year ^[6] .

Since 1967, Colonel General I.I. Pstygo - Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Air Force for combat training.

In 1975 he was awarded the highest military rank of Marshal of Aviation .

In 1977, Ptsygo was instructed to form the Central Flight Safety Inspectorate of the Armed Forces of the USSR , which he also headed. Then he introduced the “flight safety formula” as the sum of the components — the qualities of the personnel, the laws of the flight service, the regularity of flights, the management and control of flights, the reliability of aircraft. This “safety formula”, built on the experience of the whole life of Psygo, is still effective.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 7, 1978, "for personal courage and bravery shown in the struggle against the German fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War, a great contribution to the preparation and improvement of the combat readiness of troops in the postwar period, the development of sophisticated combat equipment" Marshal Aviation Pstygo Ivan Ivanovich awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the medal "Gold Star" (№ 11300).

Since 1983, Marshal of Aviation I. I. Pstygo has been in the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR . Pstygo has a total of 59 years of military service.

He mastered 52 types of aircraft, flight experience 42 years. He spent 7500 hours in the sky. Many winged vehicles, for example, MIG-21, MIG-23, gave a ticket to life.

In 1995, to the 50th anniversary of the Victory, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation awarded Pstigo, among other major military leaders, a marshal's uniform of a new type. “I immediately sporced the buttons with eagles and sewed buttons with the emblem of the Soviet Union,” said I. Pstygo on June 30, 1995 in an interview with the newspaper Pravda. - Chevron also cut off: there is nothing to monkey in front of the Americans! Well, he simply threw his cap with a double-headed eagle in the garden: let a crow pop a nest in it. Neither in form nor in accessories does it fit my beliefs, but it is too late for me to change beliefs ” ^[7] .

July 25, 2003 in the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 a round table "Battle of Kursk: A Look after Six Decades" was held, at which Pstygo spoke on "In the Sky over the Kursk Bulge". On the same day he was awarded the commemorative medal "60 years of the Battle of Kursk . "

He lived in Moscow . He worked as a consultant at the N. E. Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy . After the creation of the Service of Inspectors-General of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in 2008, he was the Inspector-General of the Service until the last days of his life ^[8] .

He died on February 23, 2009, at the age of 91. He was buried on February 26 at Troyekurovsky cemetery in Moscow.

• Member of the CPSU (b) (later the CPSU ) in 1941-1991.

Soviet

• Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union No. 11300 (April 7, 1978);
• two Orders of Lenin (1955, 1978);
• Order of the October Revolution (1974);
• seven Orders of the Red Banner (August 1942, October 1942, 1945, 1953, 1956, 1968, 1969) ^[9] ;
• Order of Alexander Nevsky (1944);
• two Orders of the Patriotic War , 1st degree (1943, 1985);
• two Orders of the Red Star (1951);
• Order "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" 3rd degree (1988);
• fourteen battle medals .

Russian

• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th degree (2008);
• medals

Foreign

• Foreign awards.

Honors

• Honored Military Pilot of the USSR (1967);
• Honorary citizen of Volgograd (May 29, 2003).

April 15, 2018 monument to Marshal Aviation I.I. Pstygo was opened in the building of the Flight Safety Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Moscow ^[10] .

• Pstigo I.I. On the combat course. - M .: Military Publishing , 1989. - (Military memoirs). - 65 000 copies - ISBN 5-203-00061-1 .
• Planes over Markovo and Uelkal / / Questions of History: Journal. - 1993. - № 10 . - S. 153-156 .
• Workers of the sky. - M., 1994. - 469 pp., 1 p. silt
• Workers of the sky. - Ufa : Kitap , 1995 . - 327 s.
• Thirst for the sky. - M .: AVIKO-PRESS, 1995.
• Ptsygo I.I. Dumas about war and peace. - M .: Step, 1995. - p. 265.
• Pstigo I. I. Memoirs. - M .: Publishing Center "Shareholder", 2002. - p. 352.
• Pstygo I.I. Earth and sky. - Polygon-press, 2002. - p. 192. - 1500 copies. - ISBN 5-94384-015-X .
• Pstygo I.I. - M .: Publishing Center "Shareholder", 2003. - p. 352.
• Pstygo I.I. - Voice Press, 2004 .-- S. 192. - 4000 copies. - ISBN 5-7117-0065-0 .
• Pstygo I.I. Time. Cause People. - Voice Press, 2005. - S. 320. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-7117-0074-X .
• Pstygo I. I. Life (It was so). - M .: Golos-Press, 2006. - 288 p. - 1000 copies - ISBN 5-7117-0136-3.

• Interview - Vremya Novostey newspaper: No. 78, May 07, 2004
• Bashkortostan: Brief Encyclopedia. - Ufa, 1996.
• Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Brief Biographical Dictionary / Prev. ed. College I. Shkadov . - M .: Military Publishing , 1988. - T. 2 / Lyubov - Yashchuk /. - 863 s. - 100 000 copies - ISBN 5-203-00536-2 .
• Kozlov P. Ya. Marshal of Aviation: Document. story. - M.: Mechanical Engineering, 2002.
• Commanders of air armies. M .: Patriot, 2006.
• Their exploits are immortal. - Ufa: Kitap, 2000.
• Red Star: newspaper. - 2009, February 26 (obituary).
• Pstygo Ivan Ivanovich: [Hero of the Council. Union, Marshal of Aviation, 1918-2009: obituary] // Republic of Bashkortostan. - 2009. - Feb 26. - Signatures: M. G. Rakhimov, K. B. Tolkachev, R. S. Sarbaev and others. - (Evening Ufa; Feb. 26). - (Kyzyl tan; Feb 26).

• Pstygo, Ivan Ivanovich (Rus.) . The site " Heroes of the country ."
• Biography of the hero on the site "Red Falcons".
• Memoirs of I. I. Pstygo “Under the wing - Stalingrad” - on the site of “AiF”.
• Interview with the Marshal of Aviation Pstygo I. I. on the website "Time of news".
• On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of I. I. Pstygo (inaccessible link) - on the website of the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.
• About I. I. Pstygo - on the site “Victory - 60”.
• On the Marshal of Aviation Pstygo I. I. - on the website "Bashinform".
• About the first marshal from Bashkiria (inaccessible link) - on the website "BASHvest".
• Honorary citizens of Volgograd .
• He died an honorary citizen of the hero-city of Volgograd .
• Parade uniform of Marshal Aviation of the USSR Pstygo I. I.