Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev - a famous participant in the war against Nazi invaders, a fighter, twice he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. This happened in 1944 and 1945. In 1966 he received the title of Major General. We will tell about the most significant events of his fate in this article.
Pilot Biography
Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was born in 1917. He was born in the small village of Khokhly in the territory of modern Kurgan region. At that time it was the Chelyabinsk district of the Orenburg province. The family of Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was poor and very large. Parents worked as peasants, they had two sons and five daughters. By nationality, Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev was Russian. His mother died very early - in 1920, when the boy was only three years old, so his father was mainly involved in his upbringing.
Until 1932, Cyril's father worked on the land, and then decided to go to work on the construction of the Yar-Phosphorite railway line in the territory of the Kirov Territory. There he worked for two whole years.
When his father left, Cyril remained in the family for the chief with his brother Alexei, by then they were in school, responsible for their sisters, were in charge of the household, and the Father regularly sent them money.
Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev graduated from school in the village of Maloye Dyuryagino, which was larger than his relatives Khokhlov. Soon he went to build a road to help his father. At the same time, he began to study there at a secondary school at the railway stations of Peskovko-Omutinsk, Yar, and Kirs. Schools had to be changed as the team of builders who built the railway line advanced.
In 1934, the hero to whom our article is devoted came to a city called Shumikha, where he began working as a lineman. By that time, the features of workers in the railway professions were well known and known to him. The future pilot worked on the Ural railway lines mainly on a site called "Stone Booth". His father died during the war, he died on the battlefields in 1943.
Education
Evstigneev graduated from seven classes at the Shumikhinsky railway school in 1934. In the same year he moved to Chelyabinsk, where he was admitted to the number of students at the factory school. Cyril decided to master the profession of a turner at a tractor factory. He successfully graduated from college in 1936. The year before, he joined the Komsomol.
Labor career
Evstigneev began to work fully in 1936 at a pilot plant located in Chelyabinsk. After about six months, the leadership noted his hard work and zeal and transferred it to the fuel equipment workshop on the basis of the tractor plant. At the same time, Cyril begins to attend classes at the flying club in order to fulfill his childhood dream - to conquer the sky.
In 1938, Evstigneev was drafted into the army, he went to serve from the Traktorozavodsky district of Chelyabinsk, where he worked. Until 1939, he served in the field repair base in the Far East with the rank of Red Army. In 1941, he successfully graduated from the military school of pilots in Birmsk. In those days, it was located in the Amur Region.
At the front
When the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Evstigneev was initially left to serve at that very flight school in the Amur Region. He stayed there as an instructor until the very end of 1942.
Only after that did significant changes take place in the biography of Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev. He is sent to Moscow to the main headquarters of the air forces of the Soviet troops in order to begin to distill the American Aero Cobra aircraft from the United States of America; the Soviet Union receives them under Lend-Lease. But Evstigneev does not dream about this, he wants to go to fight to the front. He manages to realize this idea after a meeting in the capital with the famous Soviet pilot Soldatenko, who contributed to his sending to the front.
Around the same time period, Evstigneev became a member of the Communist Party, which was then also called the CPSU (B.).
Evstigneev at the forefront
At the forefront of the confrontation with the Nazis, the Evstigneev appears only in March 1943. He immediately actively joins the service, participates in air battles in the Kursk region. WWII pilot Evstigneev flies on a La-5 model fighter.
By the end of the year, he receives the rank of senior lieutenant. By that time, he had 144 sorties on his account, he took part in air battles many times, having shot down 23 enemy planes, and shot down three more planes as part of a group of Soviet fighters. Even then it becomes obvious that Evstigneev is a real ace pilot.
Hero's title
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Evstigneev for the first time received in the summer of 1944. At that time he was already commanding a squadron in the fighter aviation regiment, fighting on the Ukrainian front with the rank of senior lieutenant. In addition to the honorary title, he is awarded the Order of Lenin, as well as the Gold Star medal. By the way, Evstigneev already flies on the new La-5FN fighter, an improved version of the Da-5.
In October 1944, Evstigneev received a promotion. He becomes the captain of the guard, having made an additional 83 missions over the past time, during which he shot down twenty enemy aircraft. Mostly flies on La-5F. This is a special aircraft, which was built exclusively at the expense of the beekeeper Vasily Viktorovich Kornev, who worked on the Bolshevik collective farm on the territory of the Budarinsky district. This is a collective farm in the Stalingrad region (now this settlement is located near Volgograd).
On February 23, 1945, pilot-ace Evstigneev was awarded another Gold Star medal. He serves on the Second Ukrainian Front, leads a squadron of an aviation fighter regiment.
By the end of the war, the Hero of the Soviet Union Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev, in total, already had about three hundred sorties. In total, he takes part in almost 120 air battles, personally shooting down 52 enemy aircraft. The Great Patriotic War pilot finishes in Hungary, already being deputy commander of a fighter guards air regiment in the 14th guards air division. At that time, has the rank of major aviation guard.
Air victories
The list of K.A. Evstigneev’s air victories is really impressive. If he sums up the statistical results, then, in total, the ace made 283 sorties during the war years, took part in 113 air battles.
In total, 52 fascist bombers were shot down, and three more enemy aircraft were destroyed as a result of group sorties.
Post War Service
After the end of World War II, Evstigneev remained in the army. He received the post of commander of an aviation fighter regiment. At the same time, he raised the level of his education. For example, he is completing the Higher Flight Tactical Courses, after another six years the Air Force Academy.
From 1955 to 1958, he served as chief of staff of the school for retraining flight personnel, which was located in the city of Frunze on the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan.
In 1960, Evstigneev became a graduate of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. After that, he began serving at the Kachinsky Higher Military Aviation School named after Myasnikov, heading the headquarters there. Later, he was the head of the operational department at the headquarters of the air forces of the North Caucasus Military District. Then he was transferred to the service in Kiev as deputy commander of the Air Army No. 73.
Gradually, Evstigneev continued to receive promotions. He was the chief of staff of the air forces of the North Caucasus Military District, then deputy commander in the same headquarters, and then in the department of educational institutions, which was based at the main headquarters of the air forces of the Soviet Union.
He was awarded the title of Major General for his successful service in 1966.
In 1972, he was dismissed with the rank of Major General of Aviation, Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev. The reason was the achievement of the age limit for military service. At that time, the hero of our article turned 55 years old.
After the resignation
Having retired, Evstigneev settled in Moscow. He lived in the center, in Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Lane, at number 25. Directly opposite his house was the famous church of Cyril and Athanasius.
Evstigneev was once married. In 1945, he married his fellow soldiers Maria Ivanovna Razdorskaya, who was three years younger than him. They lived together all their lives. Maria Ivanovna survived her husband for 11 years, having died in 2007.
In the summer of 1996, Evstigneev died after a long illness at the age of 79. All this time he remained to live in the capital. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.
Memory of the pilot
The memory of Evstigneev preserved in many parts of Russia. In the city of Shumikha, Kurgan region, where he began his career as a lineman, a bronze bust of the Hero of the Soviet Union was installed. First, he appeared in the city garden, and over time was moved to the park, which received the name of Evstigneev, fresh flowers were planted at its foot.
In the same city, a memorial plaque was installed on the building of school No. 2. It was this institution that Evstigneev graduated from. In 2005, the Agro-Construction College in Shumikha was officially awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union Evstigneev and another famous Soviet fighter pilot Sergei Ivanovich Gritsevets, who was also twice a Hero of the Soviet Union. At the college, a museum is organized in which Evstigneev's personal belongings are stored. In particular, his overcoat, tunic, cap, as well as the fragments that the doctors took from his many wounds. They were brought to the Kurgan region by students who personally met with the pilot back in 1985.
Kurgan Aviation Sports Club was named after Evstigneev.
In 1982, the Military Publishing House published memories of the hero of our article called "Winged Guard". In 2006, the book was reprinted by EKSMO.