The Great Patriotic War left the descendants many names of the great Soviet pilots. One of them is Maria Ivanovna Valley. She was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.
early years
Dolina Maria Ivanovna was born on December 18, 1922 in Sharovka, a village located in the Omsk region. Her parents were ordinary Siberian peasants and Ukrainians by origin. The girl’s father fought in the Civil War and lost his legs there.
Due to the incompetence of the breadwinner, the family moved to Zaporizhzhya region, where the girl graduated from an eight-grade high school. The child was always attracted to airplanes. In 1939, the girl graduated from the Kherson Aviation School. In order to get there, Maria Ivanovna Dolina added two years to her age, so that in all official documents the year of her birth was marked as 1920. Many of her peers went on such maneuvers, especially when the war started, and the military commissariats did not have time to accept everyone who wanted to be at the front.
In the Red Army
Unlike many war heroes who became military only because of the attack of the Wehrmacht, Maria Ivanovna Dolina received all the necessary professional skills in peacetime. After graduating from an aviation school in Kherson, she began to work as an instructor pilot in Osoaviahima. She lived in Dnepropetrovsk and Nikolaev.
When the war began in 1941, Maria Ivanovna Valley was immediately included in the ranks of the Red Army as a valuable specialist. First, the girl fought in the 587th bomber aviation regiment. Her combat vehicle was the Pe-2 aircraft. It was a dive bomber developed at the Kazan Aviation Plant.
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War
The pilot made her first combat mission in the vicinity of Stalingrad, where the fate of the whole war was largely decided. Subsequently, Maria Dolina was constantly transferred from front to front. She fought in the skies of the Kuban, Northern Caucasus and Kursk. At the final stage of the war, the pilot took part in the liberation of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Baltic states.
In skilled hands, the Pe-2 became a deadly weapon against German opponents. And Maria Ivanovna Dolina, of course, was a real professional, even despite her very young age. Almost every combat mission ended with losses in the camp of the enemy. In "Pe-2", Maria Dolina had an equally brilliant navigator - Galina Dzhunkovskaya.
In the 125th Aviation Regiment
In 1943, Maria Dolina received a new appointment. She became deputy commander in the 125th Guards Women's Bomber Aviation Regiment. Then this military formation received the name of another famous Soviet pilot - Marina Raskova, who died near Saratov during a flight to the front.
Pilots of the regiment, where Maria Dolina served, destroyed the enemy’s equipment, manpower and defenses on the banks of the Volga River, where in 1943 there was a turning point in the entire Great Patriotic War. "Pe-2" provided a breakthrough of Soviet tanks during the famous Battle of Kursk.
Fight over Crimean
Almost every pilot of the Great Patriotic War had a battle, which almost became the last. There was such a case and the Valley of Maria Ivanovna. The pilot received the task of destroying several targets near the Kuban village called Crimean. In the sky above this place on June 2, 1943, her Pawn suffered significant damage - a fragment of an anti-aircraft shell hit one of the engines.
Maria Dolina led the left link of the squadron. At that moment, when the target was already very close, the engine of the car began to work intermittently. The plane began to stray. The crew of the Valley lagged behind the main squadron, in which he performed a combat mission. But even with this state of the car, the crew continued the battle. Ground targets were bombed, and the goal set by the command was completed. On the way back, the Pe-2 came under the new fire of several German fighters.
In the battle, the machine gunner on the Pe-2 ran out of ammunition. The valley in such conditions decided to decline. In this position, one of the Messers caught up with her. The plane came close, so that the pilot saw the face of the German enemy. Through the windshield he gestured with the Valley, first one, and then two fingers. The woman did not understand the meaning of the gesture. Only then they explained to her that the German pilot kindly asked how many calls to bring down her car. But nothing happened. In a stubborn skirmish, the Valley crew knocked out the enemy Me-109 and FW-190.
However, a fire broke out in the Soviet Pe. The valley was not blinded by the fire just because Galina Dzhunkovskaya put on her glasses on time (the pilot's hands were always busy). Maria miraculously landed a plane just two kilometers from the front. As soon as the crew hurriedly left the car, it exploded.
In Belarus
In total, Maria Ivanovna Dolina during the war conducted 72 sorties. When the Soviet army liberated Belarus, the pilot noted several particularly striking and successful operations in the air. For example, on July 26, 1944, she destroyed a strategically important section of the railway near Orsha, which the Germans used to transport resources.
Many echelons with ammunition and other important objects were bombed by Maria Ivanovna Dolina. Photos of the young aviator began to get into Soviet newspapers in the rear and at the front. Her bold departures were shown throughout the country as examples of courage and professionalism.
During the battles over the Belarusian Borisov, the Dolina crew dropped a pennant with a letter to the residents. In the message, the pilot urged compatriots to quickly restore their hometown. When, after 15 years, the residents of Borisov celebrated the anniversary of his release, local journalists remembered the pennant dropped. They had to work hard to find Maria Valley, who at that time lived in the Baltic states. Employees of the Belarusian newspaper conducted several interviews with the famous pilot. These recorded conversations later formed the basis of biographical essays about Maria Dolina.
After the war
After the defeat of Germany in August 1945, the Valley received the well-deserved title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The woman decided to stay in the Air Force. Until 1950, she was deputy commander of one of the Soviet bombing regiments. At 28, she went into the reserve.
Subsequently, work in the CPSU became the path chosen by Maria Ivanovna Dolina. The hero of the Soviet Union lived in the Lithuanian city of Siauliai, where she graduated from a party school. In the 60s, the former pilot worked in the Latvian institutions of the CPSU and lived in Riga. She was elected to the local Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Since 1983, Maria Dolina has lived in Kiev. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she received Ukrainian citizenship. She died in Kiev on March 3, 2010 at the age of 87. The burial place of the famous pilot became the local Baikoe cemetery.