Polina Denisovna Osipenko is one of the few female representatives awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Why was this woman so honored? This will be discussed in the article.
Childhood and youth
What interesting things will the biography tell us? Polina Osipenko was born on October 8, 1907 in the village of Novospasovka. In the family where she grew up, eight children were brought up, not counting herself, and the head of the family was an ordinary worker, so the family could only dream of financial well-being. This factor did not allow the purposeful girl to get a good general education - she graduated from only two classes of the church school. To help the family get out of a difficult financial situation, the girl had to start working at a very young age. For some time she worked as a nanny, and then became a laborer.
Work and training
After the revolution, Osipenko Polina Denisovna worked at a poultry farm, where her first meeting with the dream of heaven and height took place. The plane, which was controlled by a girl, landed on the local field. It was her image that played on the imagination of twenty-year-old Polina and became an example, a dream.
Parallel to the work, Polina Denisovna Osipenko studied at an educational institution for evening visits, and in 1929 she graduated from the courses in the direction of "Instructor for the Organization of Poultry Farming." The girl stood out for her industriousness and quick wit, so after a short period of time she became the head of the collective farm poultry farm.
The heroine’s marriage and his importance in choosing her life path
The year 1926 was marked by marriage. Her chosen one was the pilot of military equipment Stepan Govyaz, who lived with her in the same village. It was he who prepared the young girl to receive education in a school with a military orientation named after Myasnikov, whose main specialization was the education and training of pilots.
Unfortunately, Polina Denisovna Osipenko, whose biography is presented to your attention in the article, could not enter this educational institution the first time. In order to regularly observe the planes and strive for her goal, the girl went to work in the dining room located at this facility. The institution had many training sites where it was necessary to bring food. They did it on the U-2 aircraft machine. In carrying out these flights, pilots from time to time allowed Pauline to “turn the helm”. Thus, she mastered her first airplane control skills.
The acquisition of new skills in piloting only enraged a girl in love with the sky. The desire to fly haunted her. In pursuit of her dream, she again and again turned to the leadership of the pilot school with a request to enroll her in the ranks of students. Thanks to her perseverance and timely appeal to K.E. Voroshilov, who had come to them at that time, Osipenko still achieved a positive result - she was accepted to school.
Success in the implementation of the dream was overshadowed by the separation of Pauline with her husband. He was sent to the Rostov region and repressed there.
Records and exploits
The year 1933 is celebrated in the life of Polina Osipenko by the end of a military school of pilots. In the same year, she was sent to a military flight unit in Kharkov, where she managed to show all her abilities. Her ability to fly airplanes surprised and delighted everyone, so by 1935 she was already a flight commander. Love for the sky and flight did not stop the girl on her laurels. Soon, Polina transferred to the Moscow military district, and then became an inspector of the air forces at the General Staff.
The fearless woman began to perform real feats in 1937. In one year, she managed to break several world-class records for the height of the aircraft. At first, she overcame a takeoff of 6 thousand meters, which was the record result of Negron, a pilot from Italy. In the May days of 1937, the pilot reached 9 thousand meters on an unloaded plane. And two days later, Osipenko achieved the world standard, breaking off the ground by 7 thousand meters with a load of 1 ton.
Having achieved excellent results in high take-offs, Osipenko Polina Denisovna, a female pilot, began to overcome the highest distances of flights over long distances. And already in 1938, Osipenko’s crew surprised with a fantastic record of flight range in a closed curve. At the same time, Kliment Voroshilov issued an admission and selected a crew for the long-distance flight of Polina Osipenko from south to north. The second pilot was Vera Lomako, and navigator Marina Raskova. It was in this composition that women accomplished the great feat of overcoming the highest result of long-distance flight directly. For more than ten hours, with a load of 5.5 tons, they crossed a distance of 2372 km.
Overcoming the way to the Far East
The next heroic achievement of Polina Osipenko is considered to be a flight to the Far East, for which the girl was given the title of co-pilot. No one was sure that Polina would agree to such conditions, but the fact of the flight was important for the young woman, regardless of her ranks or ranks. Valentina Grizodubova, who underwent a very long and high-quality training specifically for commanding an aircraft on long-distance flights, was appointed Commander-in-Chief in this matter. Marina Raskova retained her position and made a flight in the rank of navigator.
The plane, called "Homeland" hit the road on September 24, 1938. Having headed for the Far East, the flying machine for a long time traveled blindly, due to growing cloud cover. The navigator M. Raskova determined the correct direction only by instruments. But this problem was not the only one in the way of the brave pilots. Soon they were overtaken by icing. The girls had to maximize the rotation of the screw, in order to clean the blades from the accumulating ice. In addition, the pilots missed refueling in Komsomolsk-on-Amur due to loss of connection with civilization. Communication was interrupted after the Urals. Closer to the Sea of Okhotsk, a light came on in the plane reporting a critically low gasoline residue. According to estimates, it should have been enough for no more than 30 minutes. Based on this situation, crew commander Valentina Grizodubova decided to land the aircraft in the taiga. Such a landing was very dangerous for the navigator sitting in front, so Raskova received an order for a parachute jump.
The plane was planted near the Amguni River. Due to the previously lost opportunity to communicate with the land, no one could even guess the landing point of the "Homeland". The search for the missing aircraft was carried out from the Baikal waters to the Sea of Okhotsk. They were looking for both air forces and ordinary people living in nearby villages. The plane was found only on the third of October; it was spotted by one of those involved in the search for aircraft. For persistent and brave women a boat was sent under the name "Far Eastern". It was he who picked up the heroines in the taiga wilderness.
Reward for stamina and courage
Despite the fact that the brave pilots had to endure, they still managed to set a record for further migratory travel. Their plane flew 6450 km, which overshadowed the results of previous champions. The result was more than 1,500 km. It was for this feat that all three were awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union.
After Osipenko stood out in such a heroic event, she had the opportunity to become a teacher and assistant to fighter pilots.
Polina's death
Soon after the astounding success, Hero of the Soviet Union Polina Denisovna Osipenko paid for her passion for heights. Together with Anatoly Serov, she flew blindly, in which one of the pilots must control the aircraft from a closed cockpit, and the other instruct him. The catastrophe occurred at a time when Osipenko acted as an instructor, and the plane was Serov.
The country reacted to the death of the heroine with all-union mourning. V. Molotov himself carried the ashes of Polina Osipenko to the Kremlin wall, where she was buried.
Polina Denisovna Osipenko: awards of a great woman
For a short period of her life, Polina Osipenko received two Orders of Lenin, the first of which she deservedly went to her in the summer of 1938. She was also awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the medal “XX years of the Red Army”.
The memory of heroin left for centuries
Many streets and avenues of different cities received "names" in honor of P. Osipenko after her death.
- The native village of Polina acquired a new name, sounding like her name.
- Educational institutions such as the Odessa Aviation School and the Dnepropetrovsk Aero Club are named after her.
- In Berdyansk there is a monument to the great heroine.
- In the territory where she died, a memorial obelisk is installed.
- L.A. Kolesnikov developed a new variety of lilacs and named it after Polina Osipenko.
- A monument to Polina was erected in the city of Kokshetau (Kazakhstan).
Polina Denisovna Osipenko was not just a woman, she was a strong, courageous and aspiring man. It was this that helped her achieve such pinnacles of life and stay in the hearts of people even after death.