Commentary by Russian military blogger Andrey Chervonets
A particularly long life and a particularly difficult fate, Hero of the Country
Reshetnikov Vasily Vasilyevich - participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, Hero of the Soviet Union, former commander of the Long-Range Aviation of the USSR Air Force Vasily Reshetnikov left us at the 104th year of his life.
At the time of his feat in the Great Patriotic War, Vasily was a captain of the guard, commander of a squadron of long-range bombers Il-4. By the time of the award, he had flown 204 sorties, of which 192 were night missions. He flew to bombard objects in Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw, Koenigsberg, Danzig ...
Among other things, his crew destroyed a fighter in an air battle, 10 bombers on the ground were destroyed. At the end of the war, he had 307 sorties in his asset. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Gold Star medal No. 1055 was awarded on 07/27/1943. Aviation Colonel-General Reshetnikov retired in 1986. One of the Tu-160 strategic bombers was named after him.
In general, his biography is very rich. And even a brief retelling of it draws on an extremely interesting and serious story in terms of volume. And not a single feature film or television series has been made about this person. What an incredible life path. Read it, you won't regret it.
Link is in Russian, but translatable.
I will show my readers something else. I compiled the table myself in 2020, and then supplemented it in the summer of 2021. In it, those who participated in the Great Patriotic War received the Star for the feats committed then and celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Victory in 2020. Only twenty-one Hero of the Soviet Union.
Table at the link is a graphic, all in Russian language
In the summer of 2021, 11 of them remained. Now, after the departure of Vasily Vasilyevich, from the Heroes of the Soviet Union of that wartime, only one person remained among us (as far as I know) -Kravtsov Boris Vasilievich.
Link is in Russian, but translatable.
Boris Vasilyevich Kravtsov, born in 1922, at the time of his feat, senior lieutenant of the guard and commander of the intelligence of the artillery division. On October 24, 1943, with reconnaissance, he crossed the Dnieper in the area of ​​​​the city of Zaporozhye, corrected the artillery fire, and, being surrounded, caused fire on himself.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Gold Star medal No. 3636 was awarded on March 19, 1944. Discharged from the army with the rank of captain in 1944 after being seriously wounded. On January 28, 1960, Kravtsov was appointed 1st Deputy Prosecutor of the RSFSR, and in January 1971 he became the Prosecutor of the RSFSR. From April 12, 1984 to June 7, 1989, Boris Vasilyevich served as Minister of Justice of the USSR. In general, you can read about all the Heroes that are in my table. The link for each has a brief information, and if you click on the last name, a link will open with an interview with the Hero, where each of them talks about his life and exploits.