Klebanov, Samuel Yakovlevich (pilot)

Becoming a Pilot

Born in 1910 ^[3] in the city of Orsha. At the age of 13, having read the magazine “ Herald of the Air Fleet ”, he became interested in aviation and joined the pioneer squadron “ Air Fleet ”. According to the drawings of the model from the magazine, for six months I glued an aircraft model, which was honored to be in the aircraft corner of the pioneer squad club. He was engaged in aircraft modeling circles, built dozens of models, and repeatedly participated in competitions of aircraft models.

In 1927 he was admitted to the glider section just organized in Leningrad . The section was engaged in the construction of a glider, the public instructor of the section was Valery Chkalov , the designer and supervisor of the work was Oleg Antonov , a student at the Polytechnic Institute, and the future general designer of the famous Anov. Under his leadership and according to his drawings, in an abandoned barn in Duderhof, the circle members built the OKA-3 glider in a year.

In 1929, Samuel Klebanov was sent to the sixth All-Union Glider Competition, and upon his return he was awarded the title of Glider Pilot.

In 1930 he graduated from the flight school of Osoaviahim , two years later - the 3rd Joint School of Pilots and Aviation Techniques of the Civil Air Fleet , Balashov airfield ^[6] .

Since 1932 he worked in Leningrad, in the Northern Directorate of the Main Directorate of Civil Air Fleet Aeroflot , while continuing to engage in gliding, flew many gliders on the G-9 .

Aviation of the North: 1935-1936

In 1935, the Nenets okrug executive committee was born in Naryan-Mar , consisting of two U-2 and two pilots: the first - Vitaly Suschinsky and the second - Samuil Klebanov (then came Raskidnoy and Kavetsky) ^[7] .

The memories of Klebanov of that period were left by the Naryan-Mar journalist Georgy Pavlovich Vokuev, who at that time was 11 years old:

“He was short and looked like a boy. Pilot, but no solidity. He was rarely called by name, but by patronymic and even more so. Just Mulia - diminutive from Samuel. And the girls, needless to say, looked at him, called even more tenderly: Mulechka. He was 25 years old, and he was racing with us, excitedly playing bast shoes and chasing the ball across the field to stupor. ”

In the 1935–36 season, the pioneers of the Nenets routes performed a miracle - 267 accident-free flights (107 of them were made by Klebanov, 150 by Suschinsky ^[7] ), with a total length of 26,427 km, eight new routes were opened with a total length of 2,470 km.

By July 1936, Klebanov’s raid was 1,436 hours, of which 119 on Nenets routes.

By the decision of the Nenets District Executive Committee, he was awarded a bicycle and a prize of 500 rubles.

From certification on Klebanova S. Ya. Of that time:

“Has sufficient willpower. Proactive and decisive, disciplined. Possesses a great initiative. Well developed. He works on himself, is keenly interested in the latest aircraft technology. Flies willingly, with a sense of healthy competition, especially in undeveloped areas and in difficult conditions "

Klebanov generalized the experience of flying over the district: he determined the peculiarity of the tracks in solid tundra whiteness, described the procedure for securing the aircraft in cases of emergency landing in the tundra, developed recommendations for uniforms at extremely low temperatures (malitsa, toboks, sheepskin jacket ), equipment for the aircraft, and even filling emergency on-board rations ( chocolate , condensed milk , biscuits , butter ), since canned meat and fish froze tightly.

In 1936 he was recalled to Arkhangelsk, in 1938 Klebanov was appointed senior pilot of the Arkhangelsk airport, which was at that time in the village of Kegostrov , then Klebanov was transferred to Leningrad, the chief pilot of the Northern Department of the Civil Air Fleet (GVF) .

World War II

At the beginning of the war, Klebanov was a junior lieutenant , commander of the bomber’s crew of the 212nd long-range bomber air regiment ADD .
During the first three months of the war, it made 23 sorties, including 8 nights.
Three times Klebanov was shot down over the territory occupied by the enemy, twice he planted a burning car and returned to the unit.
On September 27, 1941, the Klebanov crew bombed German armored units north of Poltava , after which they were attacked by a pair of Me-109 fighters . One Messer was shot down. Klebanov managed to draw the front line on a burning plane and land it, saving the lives of seriously wounded airborne shooters.
He was awarded the Order of Lenin .

ORDER No. 29 ON 42 MAIN COMMAND AIRCRAFT DIVISION

October 1, 1941, Yelets
Contents: On the heroic actions of crews ml. lieutenants: Grechishkina V.K. , Klebanova S. Ya. and lieutenant Bondarenko I.I.
September 20, 1941, when flying at an enemy airfield near the mountains. P., on which up to 20 Me-109 and 12-15 transport vehicles of the Yu-52 type were based, crews of 212 ml. Lieutenant Grechishkin V.K. and Lieutenant Bondarenko I.I. completely destroyed on the ground 5 Me-109 and at least 6 Me-109 and Yu-52 damaged. On 27.9.41, crew 212 of the air regiment (crew commander Jr. Lieutenant Klebanov S. Ya.), After successfully completing a combat mission while moving away from the target, was attacked by two Me-109s. As a result of a long air battle with the radio arrows, ml. Sergeant Bychkov V.F. and Jr. Sergeant Zotov V.A. one Me-109 was shot down. After the eighth attack, the second Me-109 managed to knock out a ml plane. Lieutenant Klebanov. Arrows radio operators ml. sergeants Bychkov and Zotov, having ten or more wounds, heroically defended their crew until the last opportunity. Having on board the aircraft seriously wounded gunners-radio operators, crew commander ml. Lieutenant Klebanov on a burning padded plane decided to reach his territory and land there. With tremendous exertion of all forces, pilot Klebanov brought the plane to the front line, landed at the location of its ground units.

Having pulled out seriously wounded gunners-radio operators from a burning plane, crew commander ml. Lieutenant Klebanov handed the wounded to the hospital, and he himself appeared at the headquarters of the combined arms unit, after which he appeared with his navigator in his unit.

On November 14, 1941, the crews of Samuil Klebanov, Nikolay Kovshikov and Nikolay Bogdanov were tasked with delivering a bombing attack on the large port city of Koenigsberg . The crew of Nikolai Kovshikov did not return from this mission.
Since December 1941 - in the 748th long-range air regiment ^[2] .
By April 1942, S. Klebanov had already completed more than 60 sorties, was awarded the second order of the Red Banner, and was appointed deputy squadron commander.

Last Departure

On the night of April 15-16, 1942, long-range aviation brought down attacks on long-range communications of the enemy. The Klebanov DB-3F plane was the last to perform the task of aerial photography of the raid results; the plane did not return from the mission.

From combat report No. 29 of the Aviation Headquarters DD of April 16, 1942:

“The 748th air regiment, with eight planes, flew out to bombard the railway junction of Vitebsk. 7 aircraft completed the mission and landed at their airport. One plane (senior lieutenant Klebanov) did not return from the mission. There is no data on the fulfillment of the task and its location. ”

According to German sources, on the night of April 15-16, 1942, two Russian planes were shot down in the vicinity of the Vitebsk airfield, but the reports were not preserved in the archive ^[8] . Memoirs of Nikolai Grigorievich Bogdanov ^[9]

The crew of Samuel Klebanov died. I learned the circumstances of his death from the participants of the raid on the Vitebsk airfield ... Klebanov bombed the airfield one of the last. Having dropped bombs, his plane sank to a low altitude and began to shoot the surviving aircraft of the enemy from machine guns. Several cars broke out, and Klebanov’s plane continued to circle above the parking lots. After some time, the Nazis came to their senses and opened fire from all calibers of anti-aircraft artillery. One of the bursts of a small-caliber anti-aircraft gun hit a brave plane, and they fell with their burning car right on the airfield.

About the funeral of Klebanov by the Germans with military honors, with reference to information received from the partisans, it is said in the memoirs of the Chief Air Marshal A.E. Golovanov ^[10]

Officially considered missing April 15, 1943 ^[11] . The exact circumstances of the death are not known due to the secrecy of the documents; attempts by the cousin of M. Klebanov, the famous archivist Giorgi Ramazashvili to gain access to the documents, were unsuccessful ^[12] . Searches for the crash site or burial site, conducted in 1988 and 1997, were also inconclusive ^[8] .

Samuel Klebanov is one of the prototypes of the Kaverinsky Sani Grigoriev.
Shortly before the war, Kaverina was introduced to Klebanov by the writer Lev Uspensky , at that time Klebanov was already the chief pilot of the Northern Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet in Leningrad.
V. A. Kaverin recalled the meeting with Klebanov:

The writer rarely manages to meet his hero in his material embodiment, but our very first meeting showed me that his biography, his hopes, his modesty and courage fully fit into the image that I imagined in the future (in the second volume) of my Hero Sanya Grigoryev ... He belonged to the number of those few people whose word is never ahead of thought.

In the Kaverinsky collection “Literator” there is a letter from Kaverin to Klebanov dated March 14, 1942:

... I read in Izvestia that you flew to bomb Germany, and I felt real pride in portraying at least a small fraction of your life in Two Captains. With all my heart I congratulate you on the orders - already two - so quickly. I have no doubt that you are a real person and a man ...

Kaverin also recalled Klebanov in his “Letter to Readers” ^[13] :

I must note that a huge, invaluable help in the study of flight affairs was given to me by Senior Lieutenant Samuil Yakovlevich Klebanov, who died the hero’s death in 1943. He was a talented pilot, a dedicated officer and a wonderful, clean man. I was proud of his friendship.

From the biography of Klebanov, the writer took the story of a flight to the Vanokan camp: a blizzard suddenly started on the way, and a catastrophe was inevitable if the pilot did not use the way he fixed the plane he had invented. Klebanov later described this method in a scientific journal.
In the novel after Leningrad, Sanya Grigoriev studied at the Balashov Flight School , like his prototype, and then worked there as an instructor until 1933.

The North People’s Museum of Aviation in Arkhangelsk has an exposition dedicated to S. Ya. Klebanov, including his Order of Lenin .

• Yuri KANEV - Captain, who did not become captain , Weekly newspaper "Choice of the NAO", issue No. 26 (314) August 01, 2014
• Lydia MELNITSKAYA - There lived a brave captain ... (inaccessible link) True of the North, August 14, 2002 (151)