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Aleksandr Pokryshkin - the air tactician

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Aleksandr Pokryshkin was born on March 19, 1913, he showed curiosity at an early age for how things work, and earned the nickname “engineer” from his friends.

Pokryshkin enlisted in the Soviet Army in 1931, and he was assigned to an aviation school. His dream seemed like it was about to come true. Unfortunately, the aviation school was closed, and the students were transferred to aircraft mechanic school.

Pokryshkin took it upon himself to become a pilot, he joined a civil aviation club, he studied hard, passing all exams on theory and at last piloting a plane. He finished the whole curriculum of the aviation school in a month, and with honors. The instructors were dumbfounded by Pokryshkin, noting the way he “felt” the aircraft.

When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Pokryshkin was stationed in Moldova. During the first days of World War II, Pokryshkin shot down a Bf-109 fighter. On July 3, he was shot down by flak cannons behind German lines, but managed to return to his unit in four days, despite his injuries.

In 1943, Pokryshkin was assigned to the Kuban region in southern Russia. There, he developed some new fighter tactics against the Luftwaffe units. On April 29, 1943, eight P-39 Airacobra fighters, one of which he piloted, attacked three squadrons of Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers escorted by Bf-109 fighters. As many as 12 German aircraft were downed in this battle, with Pokryshkin shooting down 5 of them without the loss of a single one of his supporting aircraft.

In September 1943, Pokryshkin shot down three Ju-88 aircrafts in a single pass. This spread his fame as an ace pilot, because the move was performed at low altitude. Later that year, he took a flight on his own initiative and shot four transport aircraft over a stormy Black sea.

In June 1944, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was given the 9th Guards Air Division. but he continued to fly. In July 1944, he led 8 fighters against 50 Ju-87’s and won. On August 19, he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title for the third time. Pokryshkin was the first to receive the rank for three times before the end of the war. On May 9, 1945, Pokryshkin shot down a German aircraft in the skies over Prague – the last aircraft destroyed in the European theatre of war during WWII.

When the war ended, Pokryshkin had 65 confirmed kills (6 jointly with other pilots), with the majority scored in the first two years of the war. Aleksandr Pokryshkin was one of the leading fighter pilots of World War II, Marshal of Soviet aviation and the first pilot to be awarded Hero of the Soviet Union three times during the war. He made a total of 650 sorties, participated in 139 air battles, and has an official record of 59 downed enemy planes.

War Thunder team