Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin (1913–1985) was one of the greatest fighter pilots of the Second World War and the first person ever to be made a Hero of the Soviet Union three times. He fought from the first day of the German invasion, flew through the great air battles over the Kuban in 1943, commanded a fighter division by the end of the war, and became famous as much for the air-combat tactics he developed and taught as for his own score.
From mechanic to fighter pilot
Pokryshkin was born on 6 March 1913 in Novonikolayevsk, today Novosibirsk, in Siberia. He wanted to fly from boyhood, but when he entered military aviation his flying school was closed and its students were retrained as aircraft mechanics. He served as a mechanic for several years, filing request after request to be allowed to train as a pilot, and studied flying in his spare time. In the end he qualified as a fighter pilot and was posted to the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment.
1941: the first days of the war
In June 1941 Pokryshkin was a senior lieutenant with the 55th Fighter Regiment in Moldavia, flying the MiG-3, and his airfield was bombed on 22 June, the first day of the war. The next day, on a reconnaissance flight with his wingman, he was attacked by five German fighters and shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 – his first victory. In the first weeks of the war he was himself shot down by anti-aircraft fire behind the German lines and spent four days getting back to his unit.
In the autumn of 1941, when two other pilots had crashed trying to take off in sleet and rain, Pokryshkin flew a reconnaissance mission at low altitude in the same weather, found the German armoured column the command had lost track of, and brought the information back with almost empty tanks.
A new way of fighting
The defeats of 1941 convinced him that Soviet fighter tactics were out of date. He drafted his own ideas in meticulous notebooks, studied every combat and worked out tactics built on height, speed and the vertical manoeuvres that the newer fighters made possible. His regiment became the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and in 1942–1943 was re-equipped with the American Bell P-39 Airacobra supplied under Lend-Lease.
The Kuban air battles, 1943
In the spring of 1943, over the Kuban region east of the Crimea, some of the biggest air battles of the war were fought as the Germans tried to hold their bridgehead on the Taman peninsula. Here Pokryshkin had his most successful period, and his tactics proved themselves against the best German fighter units. He became the highest-scoring pilot ever to fly an American-built aircraft. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union on 24 May 1943 and for the second time on 24 August 1943.
Three Gold Stars
In June 1944 Pokryshkin was promoted to colonel and given command of the 9th Guards Air Division. He was officially forbidden to fly combat missions any more, but he still went up from time to time. On 19 August 1944, for 550 combat sorties and 53 official victories, he received his third Gold Star – the first person ever to be made a Hero of the Soviet Union three times, and the only one to receive the third award during the war. His official final score is 65 victories. His division fought on to Berlin in 1945.
After the war
Pokryshkin stayed in the forces, served in the Air Defence Forces and rose to the rank of Marshal of Aviation before retiring in 1981. He wrote several books of memoirs about the air war. He died on 13 November 1985 and is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. In Novosibirsk a street, a square and a metro station bear his name.
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