The ace who rewrote Soviet fighter tactics, the only soldier awarded Hero of the Soviet Union three times during wartime
At the General Staff Academy, when a classmate recounted being shot down by a Soviet fighter in 1941, Pokryshkin listened and said, embarrassed: 'That was me.'
One of the highest-scoring Allied aces of WWII and the first three-time Hero of the Soviet Union. Enlisting as a mechanic, he became a pilot only after 39 transfer requests. Seeing the VVS routed in 1941 under obsolete tactics, he obsessively recorded and analysed air combat, developing the 'altitude-speed-manoeuvre-fire' formula, the three-tier 'Kuban stepladder', and the pendulum patrol. His tactics proved decisive in the 1943 Kuban battle (official tally: 650 sorties, 53 kills). Mechanically honest, he clashed with superiors, reached general only after Stalin's death, and refused to inflate Brezhnev's war role. Served as Deputy C-in-C of PVO and Chairman of DOSAAF.
Career Timeline
- 1932–1933Graduated 3rd Perm Aviation School, aircraft mechanic
- 1934–1938Senior Aviation Mechanic, 74th Rifle Division
- 1939Graduated Kacha Military Aviation School, assigned to 55th Fighter Regiment
- 1941–1944Squadron commander and deputy commander, 55th/16th Guards Fighter Regiment
- 1944–1945Commander, 9th Guards Fighter Division; Berlin and Prague operations
- 1948Graduated Frunze Military Academy
- 1949–1955Deputy Commander, then Commander, 33rd/88th Fighter Aviation Corps (Rzhev)
- 1955–1956Chief of Fighter Aviation, North Caucasian PVO Army
- 1957Graduated General Staff Academy
- 1958–1968Commander, 52nd Fighter Aviation Army → Commander, 8th Independent PVO Army
- 1968–1972Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO)
- 1972–1981Chairman, Central Committee of DOSAAF
- 1976–1985Candidate Member, CPSU Central Committee
- 1979–1984Member, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
- 1981–1985Inspector-Adviser, Group of Inspectors General, Ministry of Defence