On January 4, 2013, at the age of 95, the best fighter pilot of the jet era, Yevgeny Pepeliaev, died. During 11 months of hostilities during the Korean War, he shot down 19 American aircraft in aerial combat. This is the number of victories confirmed by foreign researchers. Officially, he was credited with 20 victories.
Over the past 65 years no one has shot down anyone else, although active battles of the Air Force took place in the skies of Vietnam, the Middle East, Asia.
Evgeny Georgievich Pepelyaev was born on March 18, 1918 in a workers' barrack in the Bodaibo gold mines. The difficult Siberian childhood tempered the character, and the passion for hunting taught him to make quick decisions, be able to hide the beast and choose the moment for an accurate shot. These qualities were very useful for the future fighter pilot.
An example of Evgeny was his elder brother Konstantin - a military pilot who died in 1941 in an air battle over Lake Ilmen. It was under his influence that his younger brother entered the flying club, and in 1938 he graduated from the Odessa Military Aviation School of Pilots. He mastered flying on the I-16 aircraft, and received the rank of junior lieutenant. He went to serve in the Far East in Belogorsk. And there a meeting took place, which determined the career of a young pilot for the rest of his life. In a mock battle, he completely outplayed the future Air Marshal Yevgeny Savitsky, then still a captain, deputy commander. The proud and vindictive Savitsky, who promoted preference partners in ranks and positions, subtly hindered the career of ace No. 1 of the reactive era all his life. Therefore, Yevgeny Pepelyaev spent 30 years with the rank of colonel, and received a pension as a squadron commander, not a division commander.
In the Great Patriotic War, Pepeliaev managed to attend a combat training in November 1943 on the Belorussian Front. But a lull reigned on the front line, and in 10 sorties there was not a single collision with the enemy. In the summer of 1945, the deputy commander of the 300th fighter aviation regiment (iap) flew about 20 sorties during the war with Japan. And later he was appointed commander of the regiment.
In December 1947, he graduated from the Higher Flight-Tactical Courses for the Advanced Training of Officers, where 76 Heroes of the Soviet Union studied with him, was sent to the post of regiment commander, but was only appointed deputy commander of the 196th IAP in Volosov near Moscow.
In early 1948, a government decree was issued on the fight against accidents in the Air Force, which strictly punished the commanders. The result has been a reduction in flights and simplified training tasks. And this coincided with retraining for new jet technology. Evgeny Pepelyaev wrote in his memoirs: "From the experience of combat training of the 196th Aviation Regiment, I can firmly say that the flight personnel for the period 1946-1950 in combat training degraded." At the same time, Pepeliaev himself flew under the test program for Yak-15 and La-15 aircraft. The next jet aircraft was the legendary MiG-15 in May 1950, which Evgeny Pepelyaev mastered very quickly and began to teach other pilots himself.
In October 1950, when landing at Pepeliaev's MiG-15, the landing gear was removed. Since the corresponding indicator did not exist, he did not notice this and landed on the belly. The plane burned down. The result was a strict collection with monetary deductions, the appointment of the commander of the 196th Guards. IAP, the designers put light bulbs on the chassis, and made changes to the instructions for pilots.
Promotional video:
The regiment was part of the 34th Air Division under the command of the Thrice Hero Ivan Kozhedub, intended for operations in Korea. The regimental commanders themselves selected volunteers, 90% of whom had combat experience of the Great Patriotic War.
In fairness, it should be said that the war was started by the leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung. The Southerners suffered a heavy defeat, but then the Americans and their allies intervened under the UN flag. And now the North has suffered a heavy defeat. His fate hung in the balance. China intervened in the process, sending a million volunteers to fight. And the Soviet Union, which shared weapons and specialists.
This was the first war of the jet era. In it, jet technology was massively used by all sides, for which the United States was completely unprepared. After almost unpunished bombing of Japanese and German cities, they expected an equally easy march on Korea. Did not work out.
It was vitally important for the Soviet Union and the PRC to preserve the DPRK, a buffer zone with the US military sphere of influence. From this point of view, Soviet pilots fought for the geostrategic interests of their homeland. Ultimately, the border between the two Koreas was established along the 38th parallel, in the same place as before the war.
MIGI GO TO ATTACK
The regiment arrived at the airfield near the city of Dongfeng in North China on New Year 1951. All were dressed in a kind of Chinese military uniform with red chrome boots. The pilots collected the planes brought in containers, flew around them, prepared for hostilities. Evgeny Pepeliaev himself played a huge role in this. He began by individually training each of his 30 pilots, then taught them how to interact in a group. For three months, all the pilots of the regiment were trained according to the standards of the 2nd class, and almost a third fully corresponded to the 1st class. This became the basis for future victories. The combat performance of the 196th regiment is amazing: 108 enemy aircraft shot down, and its losses - 10 aircraft and four pilots.
Evgeny Pepelyaev formulated tasks in the war as follows: “My pilots and I understood perfectly well that we were not fighting for our Fatherland, not for our loved ones, but we were protecting our friends and comrades, following the orders of our command and our government. Therefore, I did not demand from subordinates to shed blood and give their lives, at any cost, performing a combat mission. I didn’t call for sacrificing ourselves for the sake of destroying enemy aircraft, but we were determined not to let the enemy shoot down our comrades, and most importantly, to prevent the bombing of defended objects, to force the enemy out of our area by fighting. Our air combat tactics were more defensive than offensive. I set the task - after the war, everyone should return home with victory."
On April 1, 1951, a regiment of 30 MiG-15s arrived at the base at the Andong airfield near the border of the DPRK. The main combat mission of Ivan Kozhedub's division was to provide cover from air strikes for a hydroelectric power plant and a railway bridge on the Yalu River in the Gixu region (DPRK) and the main supply lines of Chinese volunteers and DPRK troops between the Yalujiang and Anxiu rivers.
In the first battles, some of the disadvantages of the MiG-15 with the RD-45 engine appeared. The Soviet fighter successfully fought the F-80 and F-84 attack aircraft, and the F9F Panther carrier-based fighters. But in the fight against the F-86 Saber fighters, he lacked engine power. Fights with them were difficult and did not always end with the victory of the Soviet pilots. Therefore, Pepeliaev immediately began to bombard his superiors with demands to re-equip the regiment with more modern MiG-15 bis with a VK-1 engine. However, the leadership itself understood the need for such a replacement. It happened already at the end of April.
The regiment commander has a lot of worries, especially at his new base. Therefore, Evgeny Pepelyaev rarely managed to fly himself. The first air battle took place only on May 20, 1951. The pilots of the 196th regiment in two eights flew to the aid of 20 fighters of the 18th Guards. iap, who matched with almost 40 "Sabers". The first eight was led by Evgeny Pepeliaev and immediately threw it into battle with 12 enemy aircraft. Going into the tail of one of the F-86, he hit him with a cannon burst from a distance of 500-600 m.
According to the results of decrypting the film of cinema-photo machine guns (KFP), Pepeliaev was awarded a victory. However, as it was later established, the American pilot managed to reach the base and land. But the plane was written off. So the victory was counted quite legally.
AT THE LIMIT OF FORCE
In August, the American command, having concentrated more than a thousand aircraft, launched Operation Strangle (Strangling) with the aim of stopping traffic on the territory of the DPRK, interrupting the supply of Chinese and North Korean troops. Massive attacks on communications began. To repel them, it was necessary to lift an entire air division into the air, or even two. In air battles, more than 100 aircraft sometimes converged.
On October 6, Colonel Pepeliaev shot down two F-86As. American pilot Bill Garrett, who came under fire from his guns, later described this battle. He tried to leave in a wrecked car: “The coastline was approaching quickly, but it was still several miles away. Then I saw that the Yellow Sea was at low tide … There was a huge strip of coastal mud, quite smooth in appearance and soft, and suitable for a forced landing."
The fighter plunged into the silt. Bill Garrett dumped into the open sea in a rubber boat from a rescue kit, and was soon picked up by a search and rescue amphibian. And the Soviet specialists got an almost intact Saber with working avionics. Soon he was delivered to Moscow and served the development of Soviet aviation. This was the fifth victory of Evgeny Pepelyaev, that is, he earned the title of ace.
Evgeny Georgievich won the most victories in November 1951. By this time, he had acquired serious combat experience, perfectly studied the enemy's tactics, his weaknesses and strengths. And most importantly, he knew his MiG-15bis perfectly, performed any aerobatics on it and perfectly fired at air targets. And another important factor is health. He withstood almost outrageous overloads, although he did not have an anti-overload suit, which was worn by American pilots.
On November 8, two victories were won. It should be noted that the ammunition load of the N-37D aircraft gun is 40 rounds and is fired in 9.5 seconds. The firing time of the ammunition load of the NS-23KM cannons is 8 sec. NR-23KM cannons - 5.6 sec. You need to be able to get close to the maneuvering enemy, catch in sight and hit with one short burst. Then there will be shells for another such burst of 3-5 seconds in order to shoot down two planes in one battle. Pepeliaev fired in bursts in one second and never fully consumed the ammunition load. Only a real ace is capable of this. However, on that day Pepeliaev won two combat missions with a difference of two hours.
But on November 28, he shot down F-86E and F-86A in one battle. In addition, he destroyed one aircraft each on November 27 and 29. Total: four wins in three days. And on December 1, he shot down the 15th plane - F-80 "Shooting Star". The pilot jumped out with a parachute and was captured.
At the beginning of 1952, the regiment, which had been in Korea for 12 months, was fighting to the limit. The fighters have a hard job. Flights and air battles at altitudes of 7-9 thousand meters, overload on bends, nervous tension. Not surprisingly, due to pressure drops, the ears were constantly hurting, the nose was bleeding, the spine hurt, the whole body broke. We flew on pain-relieving injections. And they were out of order - for health reasons, more and more pilots were not allowed to fly by doctors. In January, a maximum of two eights of MiGs could fly. The regiment commander always led them into battle.
On January 11, 1952, the 196th regiment conducted the last air battles. On this day, Evgeny Pepelyaev "cut down" the 19th enemy aircraft. And on February 1, the division departed for its homeland. The 414 days of the war trip are over. Pepeliaev's regiment had the most victories and the smallest losses among the fighter regiments. Evgeny Georgievich himself flew 109 combat missions, scored 19 victories in 38 air battles. This is according to the estimates of foreign aviation historians who worked with archives and analyzed the memoirs of pilots from the United States and other countries. Officially, he has 20 victories. Other sources name 23 victories. Pepeliaev admitted that he twice gave the film gun films, which recorded the hit, to his wingman Alexander Ryzhkov, who covered him and did not have the opportunity to attack the enemy, while risking much more. Ryzhkov died in December 1951. On account of his three personally shot down planes and three in the group.
The counting was carried out on the basis of CFP films. In short-term combat at high speeds, the pilot often did not see whether he had hit the enemy's plane or not. It happened that the Americans were credited with seven shot down MiGs, when, according to Soviet data, only one plane was lost. If the Yankees believed that the MiG was severely damaged, they recorded 0.5 victories. With such halves, we got a decent score.
Evgeny Pepelyaev believed that not all the victories recorded at his expense and at the expense of other pilots are reliable. He spoke with confidence about his 10-11 victories. Real heroes are always humble.
