Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub (1920–1991) was the highest-scoring fighter pilot of the Soviet Union and of all the Allied air forces in the Second World War. In two years at the front he flew 330 combat sorties, fought 120 air battles and was credited with 64 enemy aircraft. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union three times and was the first Soviet pilot to shoot down a German Me 262 jet fighter.
An instructor who wanted to fight
Kozhedub was born on 8 June 1920 in the village of Obrazhiivka in today’s Sumy region of Ukraine. He learned to fly at the flying club in Shostka while studying at a chemical-technology college, and in 1940 he joined the air force and was sent to the Chuguev military aviation school. He was such a good pilot that the school kept him on as an instructor. When the war came he went on training pilots, and in the autumn of 1941 the school was evacuated to Shymkent in Kazakhstan.
Only in November 1942 was he posted to a combat unit, the 240th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which was flying the new Lavochkin La-5. He reached the front in March 1943, when his division was sent to the Voronezh Front.
Kursk and the Dnieper, 1943
Kozhedub scored his first victory on 6 July 1943, the second day of the Battle of Kursk, when he shot down a Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber. From then on his score rose quickly in the air battles over the Kursk salient, Belgorod and Kharkov and the crossings of the Dnieper. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for the first time on 4 February 1944, and for the second time on 19 August 1944; by then he had 46 victories in 256 sorties, and his regiment had been honoured as the 178th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment.
Many Soviet fighters of the time were paid for by public donations. Kozhedub flew an La-5FN marked “From collective farmer Konev, Vasily Viktorovich”, bought with money given by a beekeeper from the Stalingrad region – one of the best-known presentation aircraft of the war.
The free hunters of the 176th Guards
In the late summer of 1944 Kozhedub became deputy commander of the 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, an elite “free hunting” regiment equipped with the newest Lavochkin La-7. Its pilots looked for the enemy in pairs and small groups, using height and surprise. On 19 February 1945 Kozhedub shot down a Messerschmitt Me 262, the German jet fighter that was much faster than any piston-engined aircraft – the first Soviet pilot to do so. He fought over Berlin in the last weeks of the war.
On 18 August 1945 he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for the third time. He ended the war with 330 combat sorties, 120 air battles and 64 enemy aircraft to his name – the highest score of any Allied fighter pilot – and although his aircraft was damaged in combat, he was never shot down.
After the war
Kozhedub stayed in the air force. During the Korean War he commanded the 324th Fighter Aviation Division, whose MiG-15 pilots fought American aircraft over North Korea. He later held senior posts in the air force and the air defence forces, became a Marshal of Aviation in 1985 and retired the same year after 45 years of service. He died in Moscow on 8 August 1991 and is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
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