In the war against Nazi Germany, the son of a top Soviet leader did not enjoy any privileges and was sent to fight with ordinary soldiers in the bloodiest battles.
Yakov Dzhugashvili
On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War broke out, and Joseph Stalin's eldest son, Yakov (whose real surname was Jugashvili), was the commander of the artillery company of the 14th Howitz regiment of the 20th Army. However, he did not participate in the war for a long time. On July 16, 1941, during the battle in Belarus, he was captured.
The Germans soon figured out who they had caught and did everything they could to persuade him to cooperate. Yakov rejected all of their practices. He said I wasn't killed and I was ashamed of my father.
In order to rescue Lieutenant Dzhugashvili, they launched several rescue operations, but all of them ended in failure. Germany, through the Red Cross, offered Stalin a proposal to exchange Yakov for a captured general at Stalingrad, but Stalin flatly refused. Stalin's daughter Svetlana Aliluye recalled from her father that the Germans proposed exchanging their own people for Yasha... As if I were going to bargain with them! No, war is war.
The Germans failed to use this unusual prisoner of war for propaganda, and their attitude toward him changed from benevolent to extremely cruel. On 14 April 1943, Yakov Zhugashvili pounced on the barbed wire of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and was shot dead by a guard. It is still unknown whether he wanted to commit suicide, escape, or whether the whole incident was carefully planned by the Germans.
Vasily Stalin
At the beginning of the war, Stalin's youngest son Vasily served at the air force headquarters in Moscow. Vasily graduated from a pilot school in 1940. He didn't like to be in the rear and didn't want people to think he had a good position, which was his father's credit.
In the summer of 1942, Vasily Stalin was finally given the task of going to the front, and in February of the following year he was appointed commander of the 32nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. He actively participated in air combat, flew 26 sorties, and personally shot down two enemy aircraft.
In February–March 1943, we shot down 12 enemy aircraft, including 3 of Vasily's involvement, recalled Sergei Dorgusin, commander of his regiment's squadron. It should be said that, as is customary, it was Vasily who attacked them first, after which the planes got out of control, and then we eliminated them. According to our flying conventions, these planes can be considered to have been shot down by Vasily, but he is more inclined to think that it is the result of the team's efforts. I asked him this question once, but he just waved and said, no.
The son of the Soviet leader always carried no parachute when carrying out his mission. He himself had decided that he had no right to fall into the hands of the enemy alive.
Colonel Stalin ushered in the end of the war as commander of the 286th Fighter Aviation Division that took part in Operation Berlin. Vasily Josefovich was awarded more than a dozen military medals, including three Red Banner Medals, one of the highest in the SOVIET Union.
Leonid Khrushchev
Leonid Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, the future leader of the Soviet Union, became an experienced pilot long before World War II. He began flying in 1933. During the Soviet-Finnish (Winter) War, he signed up as a volunteer to go to the front lines and flew more than 30 sorties aboard the AR-2 dive bombers.
At the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany, Khrushchev was serving in the 134th High-Speed Bomber Aviation Regiment. He often flew three or four times a day, sometimes without even fighter cover.
On July 26, 1941, when his plane returned from a mission, it was attacked by a group of German fighter jets. Leonid Nikic managed to reach his own airport and landed his plane, which was covered with enemy bullets, but his leg was badly injured while landing. The plane 'nose up', that is, overturned. The radio operator managed to climb out of the cockpit, the navigator Brenov was killed in the air, and Leonid hung upside down in the compressed cockpit for about an hour. With the help of a mechanic, he was pulled out of the cockpit with a severe fracture in his leg and taken to hospital, recalls his comrade-in-arms Victor Fomin.
In the winter of 1942, Khrushchev returned to the front and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his bravery in battle. However, he never wanted to fly a bomber anymore, and after retraining, he switched to flying fighter jets.
The last battle of Lieutenant Khrushchev took place on March 11, 1943, near the town of Zhizdra, 300 km from Moscow. His body has never been found, and for a long time he was listed as missing.
Timur Frunze
Timur Frunze had two fathers, both of whom were high-ranking figures in the Soviet leadership. His biological father was Mikhail Frunze, a prominent revolutionary and military minister. By the early 1930s, however, Both timur's parents had died, and he was adopted by Frunze's successor, Clement Voroshilov.
Timurmikhailovich decided to join the army and first entered an artillery school. However, he was fascinated by the sky, and in 1940 he graduated with honors from a military pilot school.
Frunze could have developed into a true master. In less than two weeks, as a member of the 161st Fighter Aviation Regiment, he flew 9 missions on the Northwest Front, shooting down two enemy aircraft himself and shooting down another enemy aircraft of the same group.
However, fate did not give Timur Mikhailovich enough time to reach his full potential. On January 19, 1942, not far from Old Russa, his aircraft fought a group of German fighter jets, and he was killed.
The Mikoyan brothers
Anastasia Mikoyan was vice-chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (the Soviet government) and all three of his sons fought in World War II. Following the custom of the children of Soviet leaders, they also joined the Air Force.
The eldest son, Stepan, served in the 11th Fighter Aviation Regiment and fought in the Battle of Moscow, flying 10 sorties. One of them nearly killed Stepan Anastasovich. On 16 January 1942, his Yak-1 was mistakenly shot down by another Soviet fighter jet. The pilot managed to land the burning plane "on its stomach". Mikoyan was burned and broke a leg, and local villagers rescued him and took him to a field hospital.
By the fall of 1942, Stepan Mikoyan had recovered from his injuries and was flying again. He had not yet taken part in the Battle of Stalingrad, in which, as he mentions in his book, he was always on the verge of preventing the enemy from reaching the facility or helping his comrades out of their predicament.
Stepan's younger brother, Vladimir, joined the same battle after graduating from a crash course at a pilot's school in February 1942. On September 18, 1942, at the age of 18, Vladimir, the youngest pilot in his regiment, was killed in his first formal battle. After his brother's death, Stepan was temporarily banned from flying combat missions.
According to a gruesome anecdote, Stalin summoned his son Vasily, commander of the 32nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, where Stepan Mikoyan had served, saying: "Timur Frunze is dead, Leonid Khrushchev is dead, Vladimir Mikoyan is dead." Can you guarantee that you are not next?
Nevertheless, before the end of the war, Captain Stepan Mikoyan managed to carry out dozens of combat missions. He was also involved in the escort of particularly important planes and trains.
Michael's third brother, Alexei, also managed to survive. As a member of the 12th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, he flew 19 sorties until the end of 1944, when he suffered spinal and facial injuries due to a tyre failure during landing. After being discharged from the hospital, he returned to the plane until the end of the war. (Power talks about the world / Zhang Mi)