Melekhin, Boris Dmitrievich

Born on July 12, 1919 in Kiev in the family of employees. Russian. ^[one]
In the Red Army from August 1936. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1941. ^[1] In 1936, he entered the Kachin Military Aviation Pilot School , from which he graduated in 1938. He was sent to the 153rd Fighter Regiment, which was formed as part of the Moscow Military District in Lyubertsy .

In 1939 - 1940 he participated in hostilities with belofinami .

He fought as a part of ^{[1] the} 153rd Fighter Aviation Regiment (from 22.11.1942 of the 28th Guards Fighter Leningrad Order of the Kutuzov Aviation Regiment ) 239th Fighter Aviation Division ( 5th Guards Fighter Aviation Division ).
Member of the Great Patriotic War from June 22, 1941 on the Leningrad front. The outbreak of war met at the base of the regiment in Kexholm . He fought on the Volkhov front , from where he flew to defend the “Road of Life”.
From the spring of 1942 - on the Voronezh Front , and then on the North-Western Front .
He was slightly wounded in 1942.
From the end of 1943 he fought on the 1st Baltic front , then successively on the 2nd Baltic and 2nd Byelorussian fronts . The war ended on the 3rd Belorussian front .
He flew I-153 , MiG-3 , R-39 "Air Cobra" .
In the period from 07/30/1943 to 08/14/1943, he oversaw the distilling of the aircraft P-39 " Air Cobra" from the deep rear to the front along the route: Krasnoyarsk - Aer. Zhernovka ( North-Western Front ). ^[2]
By August 1943, Captain Melekhin held the post of commander of the 3rd Squadron of the 28th Guards Fighter of the Leningrad Order of the Kutuzov Aviation Regiment . ^[2]
Junior Lieutenant Melekhin met the war as a pilot of the 153rd Fighter Aviation Regiment , and Lieutenant Colonel Melekhin ended the war of the Guards as commander of the 28th Guards Fighter Leningrad Order of the Kutuzov Aviation Regiment . ^[3] During the period of hostilities he made 298 combat sorties, participated in 38 air battles, in which he personally shot down 5 enemy aircraft and 1 in the group. ^[3]

Participant in the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945 .

Total sorties - 316, downed aircraft: 5 personally and 1 in the group.

Note: the table is based on the data of M. Bykov ^[4]

At the end of the war he commanded the aviation regiment, division.
In 1959 he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff.
In 1960 - 1961 - Head of the Kaczynski Higher Military Aviation Pilot School .
In 1962 - 1965 - Deputy Commander of the 1st Air Army .
In 1965 - 1971 - Commander of the 4th Air Army (as part of the Northern Group of Forces ( Poland )).
In 1968, he commanded the Air Army when troops entered Czechoslovakia .
In 1971 - 1978 - Head of the Command Department of the Y.A. Gagarin Air Force Academy .
In the ranks of the Air Force, BD Melekhin served 40 years and went from a cadet of a military school of pilots to the commander of the Air Army, flying at the same time more than 3,000 hours on airplanes of 15 types.
He lived in Lyubertsy, Moscow Region. He died on February 7, 2008 at the age of 88. ^[five]

• Seven Orders of the Red Banner
• Order of Alexander Nevsky (02.06.1945) ^[3]
• Order of the Patriotic War , 1st degree (04/06/1985) ^[6]
• Order of the Patriotic War , 2nd degree ^[1]
• Order of the Red Star (11/26/1941) ^[7]
• Order "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces" 3rd degree
• 22 medals

Foreign awards

• Officer of the Order of the Renaissance of Poland

• In 1955 he was awarded the rank of Major General Aviation .
• In 1966 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant-general of aviation .
• In 1966 he was awarded the title "Honored Military Pilot of the USSR".

• "Red Star", 2008, February 7
• Gorbachev A.N. 10,000 generals of the country. M., 2007
• Team Faculty. Air Force Academy named after Yu. A. Gagarin. Moscow. 2007 CJSC JV Contact RL. −367s. / p. 54 - 55
• Bykov M. Yu. Soviet Aces 1941-1945. Victory Stalin falcons. - M .: Yauza. Eksmo, 2008. - p. 339. - 608 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-30919-1 .

• A page of a graduate of the Kaczynka School of Pilots https://web.archive.org/web/20160307002320/http://kachinets.ru/face.php?id=3141
• The site of the newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda" http://old.redstar.ru/2008/02/07_02/3_05.html