Who is Nikolay Gastello. Nikolai Gastello (1907–1941)

Biography

Father - Franz Pavlovich Gastyllo, Belarusian, originally from the village of Pluzhiny (now the Karelichsky district of the Grodno region, Belarus); in 1900 he came to work in Moscow (where his surname began to be pronounced in the Moscow manner - “Gastello”), worked as a cupola worker in foundries on the Kazan Railway.

Mother - Anastasia Semyonovna Kutuzova ( maiden name), Russian, was a seamstress.

In 1914-1918, Nikolai Gastello studied at the 3rd Sokolniki City Men's School. A. S. Pushkin. In 1918, due to a famine, he was evacuated to Bashkiria as part of a group of Muscovite schoolchildren. In 1919, he returned to Moscow, where he again entered the school. Nikolai Gastello began his career in 1923, becoming a carpenter's apprentice. In 1924, the Gastello family moved to Murom, where Nikolai became a mechanic at the Locomotive Building Plant named after. F. E. Dzerzhinsky, where his father also worked. In parallel with his work, N. F. Gastello graduated from school (now - school number 33). In 1928 he joined the CPSU (b). In 1930, the Gastello family returned to Moscow, and Nikolai went to work at the May 1st State Mechanical Plant of Construction Machinery. In 1930-1932, N.F. Gastello lived in the village. Khlebnikovo.

Service in the Red Army

• In May 1932 he was drafted into the Red Army by special recruitment. Sent to study at the aviation school of pilots in Lugansk
• Studying at the XI Military Aviation Pilot School (May 1932 - December 1933)
• Service in the 82nd heavy bomber squadron of the 21st heavy bomber aviation brigade based in Rostov-on-Don (1933-1938). Starting to fly as the right pilot on the TB-3 bomber, N. F. Gastello from November 1934 already independently piloted the aircraft

Doom

The feat of Gastello: versions and facts

Postage stamp dedicated to the feat N. F. Gastello. Regular mail, 30 kopecks.

Official version

Based on the report of the Sovinformburo, correspondents P. Pavlenko, P. Krylov wrote an essay “Captain Gastello”, which was published in the Pravda newspaper on July 10, 1941.

Noteworthy is the date of Gastello's feat, indicated in the article - July 3. Probably, the authors of the essay, having specified the correct spelling of the hero's surname and the facts of his biography, made a conclusion about the date of Gastello's death based on the date of the message from the Soviet Information Bureau. The article in Pravda had a wide resonance, Gastello's feat was widely used by Soviet propaganda.

According to the testimony of local residents of the village of Matski, one person from the alleged authentic Gastello plane parachuted from the wing of the falling plane and was captured by the Germans. The testimony of a local resident is confirmed by the document "List of irretrievable losses of the commanding and enlisted personnel of the 42nd Air Division from 22.06 to 28.06.41" signed by the head of the department of the combat unit, foreman Bokov. At the end of the names of Gastello's crew members listed by name, there is an addition: "One person from this crew jumped out with a parachute, who is unknown." At the same time, it is not clear where this information came from, because the report of Vorobyov and Rybas did not reflect this moment, and the inhabitants of the village of Matsky were already in the occupied territory. The design feature of the DB-3f bomber is that only the pilot can jump from the wing. This gave supporters of the alternative version a reason to claim that Gastello abandoned the dying board and crew for the sake of his own salvation. However, strictly speaking, it is not even entirely clear from which plane the parachutist jumped, which is referred to in the document signed by Bokov (not to mention the fact that witnesses could be mistaken in their observations that the jump was from the wing) - from a car subsequently taken for Gastello's car (that is, Maslov's plane) or indeed from Gastello's plane. It is also worth noting that Gastello, apparently, really tried to send his plane to the location of the enemy - otherwise it is difficult to explain why his DB-3f made a U-turn back to the village of Matski (and there was a German military unit there).

It is suggested that of the two equally likely candidates for the feat at that moment, it was Gastello who was chosen for several reasons:

• he was an ethnic Belarusian;
• his crew was international: Burdenyuk - Ukrainian, Kalinin - Nenets, Skorobogaty - Russian;
• he already had a downed Junkers-88 on his account;
• during the battles on the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939, he served in the same regiment together with the battalion commissar M. A. Yuyukin, who for the first time in aviation made a ramming of a ground target; according to some reports, N.F. Gastello was the navigator on the Yuyukin bomber during the ramming (this version is erroneous, it is not confirmed by the main researchers of the life of N.F. Gastello, including his son Victor Gastello).

However, the version that there was some kind of “choice” between Gastello and Maslov for the role of a “hero” is unlikely: Gastello’s heroic death was reflected in the reports of Vorobyov and Rybas, while there was no evidence of Maslov’s plane crash, he was considered “missing without a trace".

Criticism of the alternative version

A number of researchers (first of all, the son of N.F. Gastello - retired colonel Victor Gastello) question the facts on which the alternative version is built and dismiss it as completely untenable. In their opinion:

• the testimony of Vorobyov and Rybas is the main and irrefutable evidence of Gastello's feat;
• the evidence that the plane that crashed in the Matskovsky swamp was piloted by Gastello is untenable;
• the discovered remains of Maslov and his crew indicate that his plane did not ram, but crashed into the ground on a “low-level” flight (another version is also possible - Maslov tried to ram the enemy column, but missed; an indirect confirmation of this hypothesis is the discovery of the wreckage of Maslov’s plane at a small - only 170-180 meters - distance from the road)
• the absence of the remains of Gastello indicates that he did indeed make a "fiery ram"; as a result of the explosion of a convoy with fuel and ammunition, neither the aircraft nor the remains of the crew can be identified.

Data

In the history of the feat of Gastello, the following can be considered reliable facts:

• the planes of Gastello and Maslov crashed during a combat mission on June 26, 1941;
• the crash site near the village of Dekshnyany, which was considered the site of the ramming of N.F. Gastello, is actually the site of the death of Maslov's aircraft.

Establishing the truth is complicated by the fact that the witnesses of Gastello's ramming - Senior Lieutenant Vorobyov and Lieutenant Rybas died in 1941, the 207th DBAP was disbanded in September 1941, many documents of the air regiment were lost both during the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war period.

This is how the famous “fire ram” was depicted: Nikolai Gastello rams tanks and tankers with fuel alone and on a fighter

Myths about the feat of Gastello

As during the Great Patriotic War, so in the post-war period, the Soviet propaganda feat Gastello stood out from among the many similar ones, served as an example of heroism and self-sacrifice. In this regard, several persistent misconceptions about N.F. Gastello and the uniqueness of his feat have developed in the public mind:

Gastello made the first ever ramming of a ground target if we take all the "fire rams" - both ground and sea targets - then the first such ram was made by the Chinese pilot Shen Changhai on August 19, 1937. Gastello made the first ram in the history of the Great Patriotic War The first ram in the history of the Great Patriotic War was made by the Soviet pilot D. V. Kokorev on June 22, 1941 at about 4 hours and 15 minutes , but in fact he made his ram 10 minutes later than Kokorev). Gastello made the first ground target ram in the history of the Great Patriotic War The first ground target ram in the history of the Great Patriotic War was made by the Soviet pilot PS Chirkin on June 22, 1941. Gastello rammed not a tank column, but an anti-aircraft battery This misconception was formed due to the fact that the crash site of the plane near the village of Dekshnyany, officially considered the place of Gastello's feat, is located about 180 meters from the road. There was another version: Gastello rammed a mechanized column, which was refueling away from the road. Gastello accomplished his feat alone. This misconception was formed due to the fact that when talking about the feat of N. F. Gastello, the members of his crew, as a rule, were not mentioned. Gastello rammed while flying a fighter This misconception arose from the fact that fighter pilots were the main characters in aviation in post-war fiction. A number of works were created (for example, the play "Gastello" by I. V. Shtok, 1947), in which N. F. Gastello accomplished his feat on a fighter. Gastello was a navigator in the crew of M. A. Yuyukin, who made the first ever ramming of a ground target on August 5, 1939, during the events on the Khalkhin Gol River. This misconception supported the continuity of the heroic "ramming traditions", Yuyukin was called Gastello's "mentor". In fact, the name and surname of the navigator M.A. Yuyukin, Alexander Morkovkin, is precisely known (he jumped with a parachute directly in front of the ram). Gastello was a fellow soldier of Yuyukin.

Memory

• N. F. Gastello was forever enrolled in the lists of the second squadron of the 194th separate Guards Red Banner military transport regiment.
• Playwright Isidor Vladimirovich Shtok in 1947 wrote the play "Gastello", in which the hero makes his "fiery ram" alone and on a fighter jet.

• Gastello - a village in the Poronaysky district of the Sakhalin region
• Them. Gastello - a mine in the Tenkinsky district of the Magadan region

Streets in many cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan bear the Gastello name, including Kharkov, Lipetsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kulebaki, Samara, Ulan-Ude, Sochi, Vladikavkaz, Minsk, Novoaltaisk, Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Volgograd, Bataysk. Monuments to N. F. Gastello are installed:

• on the highway Minsk - Vilnius, at the place where, as it was believed, N. Gastello made his ramming (1976)
• in Lugansk (on the territory of the former Voroshilovgrad Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators)
• in the village Radoshkovichi, in the park on the square that bears his name
• in the village Khlebnikovo (now - the territory of the city of Dolgoprudny), near school number 3, which bears his name
• in the city of Choibalsan, Mongolia in the courtyard of school number 1, which bears his name. The Mongols position this monument to Gastello, first of all, as a pilot - a participant in the battles at Khalkhin Gol
• in Odessa (Ukraine) on the street bearing his name, there is a school number 31 named after. N. Gastello. Opposite the school, in a small square, there is a monument to Nikolai Gastello.
• in the Omsk region, on the territory of the children's health camp. Captain Gastello.
• in the city of Ferghana, Uzbek SSR, a monument was erected on the territory of the regiment of the Military Transport Aviation, bearing the name of Gastello.

In Ufa there is a stadium named after N.F. Gastello. In the city of Kyzyl there is a park of culture and recreation named after N.F. Gastello. In the city of Khabarovsk, a square is named after the hero. In Belarus (Minsk region, Zelenoe) there is a children's health camp named after. N. F. Gastello

see also

• List of aviators who made a fire ram during the Great Patriotic War

Notes

1. Award sheet in the electronic bank of documents "Feat of the People" (archival materials of TsAMO, f. 33, op. 793756, d. 10, l. 278-280)
2. In some sources, it is erroneously called D. Pruzhany.
3. Skripko N. S. Captain Gastello // For near and far targets. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1981. - S. 81.
4. . REGNUM (June 19, 2006). Archived from the original on June 25, 2012.
5. Now - the territory of the city of Dolgoprudny
6. Summary of the Soviet Information Bureau. July 5, 1941
7. Source spelling preserved
8. P. Pavlenko, P. Krylov. Captain Gastello // Truth: newspaper. - 1941. - No. of July 10.
9. Aviation Major General E. I. Kopyshev: "Let's defend the truth about the Victory in the Great Patriotic War!"
10. Brothers of Nikolai Gastello
11. Zaitsev A.D. Weapon of the strong in spirit. - Monino, 1984.
12. Roman Larintsev and others. To the ram! // Aviation and Time. - 2003. - No. 5. - S. 25.
13. , With. 229
14. The letter was lost
15. Igor A. Gulyas Fragments of the combat use of IL-4 // Aviation and Time. - Kyiv, 1998. - No. 1. - S. 18.
16. Anton Sidorenko. Where are you, Captain Gastello?
17. , With. 228
18. Igor Gulyas. Victories of Soviet pilots on the first day of the war.
19. Website "Air Ramming" (See Statistics for 06/22/41.)

Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello - (born April 23 (May 6), 1907 - death June 26, 1941) - Soviet pilot, captain, Hero of the Soviet Union (1941 posthumously). Graduate of the Luhansk Military Aviation Pilot School (1933). He took part in the battles in the area of ​​the river. Khalkhin-Gol, the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic War.

1941, June 26 - during the performance of a combat mission, a shell hit the gas tank of his bomber, a fire broke out, the crew of the aircraft could use parachutes, but the captain sent the burning aircraft to a cluster of Nazi armored vehicles.

The ground target ram, carried out by Gastello and his crew members, lieutenants Anatoly Burdenyuk, Grigory Skorobogaty and senior sergeant Alexei Kalinin, became a symbol of heroism and devotion to the Motherland. Gastello's name is worn by the streets in many cities and towns. On the site of Gastello's feat, near Radoshkovichi (Belarus), a monument was erected to the heroic crew.

Biography of Nikolai Gastello

Father - Franz Pavlovich Gastyllo, Belarusian, originally from the village of Pluzhyny. Mother - Anastasia Semyonovna Kutuzova (maiden name), Russian.

1924 - the Gastello family moved to live in the city of Murom, where his father got a job as a cupola worker in a steam locomotive repair plant. In those days, Nikolai was 17 years old, he got a job as a mechanic at the same plant, while studying at a secondary school. 1928 - the future hero became a communist, about then he became interested in sports. Nikolai was excellent at skating and skiing, and also jumped with a parachute. 1930 - the Gastello family returned to Moscow, where a young guy got a job as a standard fitter at a machine-building plant.

1932 - Nikolai Gastello entered the Luhansk Pilot School. From 1933 to 1941, Gastello was the commander of a long-range heavy bomber aircraft in the city of Rostov-on-Don. 1939 - fought at Khalkhin Gol, was a squadron commander, and in June 1940 he participated in the annexation of Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. In the same year he was given the rank of captain.

Nikolai Gastello in his youth

Personal life

Little information has come down to us about the personal life of the pilot Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello. It is known that Gastello was married. Nikolai Frantsevich and Anna Petrovna had two sons, who were not destined to wait for their father after the war.

Feat Gastello

1941, June 26 - a squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment under the command of Captain N. Gastello was sent to strike at the fascist military columns advancing to Minsk.

There was no fighter cover. The squadron met the German convoy in the area of ​​the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi highway. Dropping to 400 meters, they dropped bombs on enemy tanks and vehicles. After leaving the attack, Gastello ordered his wingmen Vorobyov and Rybas to return to the airfield, and he himself flew to another road, a country road. There was also a column along it. Having descended to an extremely low height, he walked along it. Shooters Kalinin and Skorobogaty, firing machine-gun fire, were able to destroy 12 German vehicles. Enemy anti-aircraft guns opened fire on the bomber.

The plane was shot down. The fuel tank caught fire. It was not possible to bring down the flame, it was not possible to reach their own. And Captain Gastello directed the burning car to the center of the mechanized column of the enemy.

So the legendary "fire ram" or ram of Gastello's ground target was made, which will become a model of courage and self-sacrifice. The crew of the bomber died heroically. They did not want to leave the plane on parachutes and went to their death with their commander. Subsequently, the pilots who made the "fiery ram" were called Gastellites.

Lieutenants Vorobyov and Rybas, who arrived at the airfield from the Gastello link, filed a report outlining everything that had happened. Captain Gastello was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and on July 10, 1941, the Pravda newspaper glorified this feat throughout the country.

1951 - exhumation. Who performed the feat?

The only witnesses of Gastello's "fiery ram" - lieutenants Vorobyov and Rybas, soon died. Vorobyov, returning from a combat mission, was shot down on August 23 near the city of Orel, and Rybas died on November 15, 1941. After their death, the story of the legendary ram began to acquire new details.

1951 - on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the feat of Gastello, they decided to exhume the hero of the Soviet Union and his crew for a subsequent solemn burial. However, at the site of the alleged grave of Gastello, the remains and things of his colleague were found - the commander of the 1st squadron of the 207th regiment, captain Alexander Maslov and gunner-radio operator Grigory Reutov.

During further investigation, it was possible to find out that at the place where, as previously thought, Gastello rammed an enemy column, the crew of Alexander Maslov, who was considered missing, crashed. At the same time, he disappeared on the same day when the feat of Gastello was accomplished.

Then, not far from the death of Maslov, in the Matskovsky swamp, another plane was discovered. It contained one charred corpse with a letter addressed to Skorobogataya and a tag from the engine - "M-87B" with the number 87844, which was identified as part of the wrecked Gastello bomber. At that time, they kept silent about this, and a bust of Gastello was erected at the site of the death of Maslov's plane. And before perestroika, everyone safely forgot about it.

New versions

The 90s of the XX century raised the secret of Gastello along with other "secrets" of the USSR. The author of the new version was a retired major Eduard Kharitonov, who suggested that A. Maslov was the one who committed the "fiery ram", because the remains of his crew were discovered.

1996 - Maslov and members of his crew were posthumously awarded the title of Heroes of the Russian Federation, and streets with their names appeared in many cities. True, in the wording of the award in 1996 there was not a word about the fact that it was A. Maslov who made the ram.

According to another version, not a single crew managed to make a fiery ram.

Captain Maslov, who was trying to ram a German column on a burning bomber, missed and crashed in a field, 200 meters from the road. Gastello, who took off later, according to some of the assumptions, tried to send the wrecked plane to enemy positions in the village of Matski, but the IL-4 could not reach it and fell not far from the target, into the Matskovsky swamp, where it was later discovered.

As for the reports of Vorobyov and Rybas, their reliability is being questioned. Firstly, the original reports have not survived to this day, and secondly, according to supporters of alternative versions, the pilots who left the battle might not have seen the ram, linking it with smoke from the crash of the bomber. It is impossible to refute or confirm these versions; the last eyewitnesses died in 1941.

Heroes of the "fire rams"

Examples of courage, similar to the feat of Gastello, were not isolated among Soviet pilots. According to the calculations of military experts, only in the first year of the war, 152 feats were recorded, when a burning aircraft became the last weapon of the pilots. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, Soviet pilots made "fire rams" about 500 times. The first place belongs to the crews of the bombers, their number is 288. More than 800 people during the Patriotic War became the heroes of the "fiery rams".

Gastello Nikolai Frantsevich - commander of the 4th aviation squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment of the 42nd long-range bomber aviation division of the 3rd long-range bomber aviation corps, captain.

He graduated from the seven-year school No. 25 named after Pushkin in Moscow. Since 1924, he lived in the city of Murom, Vladimir province, worked as an apprentice rodman, molder and cupola operator at the Murom Locomotive Plant named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky. From 1928 he again lived in Moscow, in 1930-1932 he lived in the village of Khlebnikovo (now part of the city of Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region). Since 1930, he worked as a fitter and standardizer at the State Mechanical Plant of Construction Machines named after May Day.

Since May 1932 - in the Red Army, he was drafted into the Air Force according to a special recruitment. In 1933 he graduated from the 11th Luhansk Military Aviation Pilot School named after the Proletariat of Donbass. In 1934-1938 he served in the 82nd heavy bomber aviation squadron, then in the bomber aviation brigade in Rostov-on-Don: co-pilot, senior pilot, ship commander. From May 1938 he commanded a detachment in the 1st heavy bomber aviation regiment. In 1940, the regiment was relocated to Velikiye Luki, and in early 1941, to the Borovskoye airfield in the Smolensk region.

He fought on the Khalkhin-Gol River as part of the 150th high-speed bomber aviation regiment. Member of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. In May 1941, Captain Gastello was appointed commander of the 4th squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment (42nd long-range bomber aviation division, 3rd bomber aviation corps, DBA).

Member of the Great Patriotic War from the first day. He made his first sortie on June 22, 1941 at 5.00 o'clock. In the first days of the war, the regiment suffered heavy losses. The remaining pilots and aircraft on June 24 were consolidated into two squadrons. Captain Nikolai Gastello became commander of the 2nd squadron. Completed 3 sorties. During the bombing of the airfield by an enemy aircraft on June 24, 1941, an enemy aircraft was shot down from the ground by machine-gun fire.

On June 26, 1941, while performing the next flight on a combat mission, his DB-3F bomber was hit and caught fire. Captain Gastello N.F. sent a burning plane to the accumulation of enemy troops near the village of Radoshkovichi on the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi highway ...

By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 26, 1941, for the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the Command on the front of the fight against German fascism and the courage and heroism shown to the captain Gastello to Nikolai Frantsevich He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (posthumously).

Military ranks:
senior lieutenant (1935),
captain (1940).

He was awarded the Order of Lenin (07/26/1941, posthumously).

Memorial Museum of the Hero of the Soviet Union N.F. Gastello was opened after the war in Murom and settled in the house where he lived in 1924-1928 (Gastello street, house number 14). In front of the entrance to the museum, a monument to the Hero was erected by the Belarusian sculptor A.O. Bembel. Subsequently, materials from the museum were transferred to the local history museum, and the monument was moved to the square in front of the railway station, where it is still located. The name of the Hero is one of the streets of the village of Khlebnikovo (the city of Dolgoprudny), Dolgoprudny School No. 3, a monument is erected there. Monuments were also erected in Moscow, Ufa, Lugansk (Ukraine), Choibalsan (Mongolia), at the place of death near the village of Radoshkovichi (Belarus). Streets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Minsk and other cities are named after Nikolai Gastello. Schools in Moscow, pos. Khlebnikovo, Murom, in the village of Radoshkovichi, enterprises and educational institutions in many settlements of the former USSR. Memorial plaques have been installed in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don. In the USSR, the name of the Hero was given to the 194th Guards Regiment of Military Transport Aviation, but by now the regiment has been disbanded.

On June 26, 1941, in the afternoon, Gastello flew out at the head of a DB-3F flight to strike at German troops in the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi area, advancing on Minsk. There was no fighter cover. Our pilots found a German convoy moving along the highway. Dropping to 400 meters, they dropped bombs on enemy tanks and vehicles. After leaving the attack, Gastello ordered his wingmen Vorobyov and Rybas to return to the airfield, and he himself headed for another road, a country road. There was also a convoy along it. Dropping to an extremely low height, he walked along it. Shooters Kalinin and Skorobogaty, firing from machine guns, disabled 12 vehicles (including cars and a staff bus). German anti-aircraft guns opened fire on the aircraft. From the hit of an anti-aircraft projectile, the DB-3F caught fire. Gastello turned back to his territory. The fire flared up more and more. It was not possible to knock down the flame by sliding. Gastello realized that he could not reach his own, and decided to send the burning plane to the German military unit located in the village of Mocki. He deployed his plane over the forest, but did not reach the village - the plane crashed at the edge of the forest. Crew members died together with Gastello: navigator Lieutenant A.A. Burdenyuk, gunner-radio operator senior sergeant A.A. Kalinin and shooter Lieutenant G.N. Skorobogaty (a pilot of the same regiment, he asked for it on a sortie instead of a regular shooter). All of them were posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.

The explosion was seen by the wingmen when they flew up to Radoshkovichi (a rather large settlement on the map) and in the report they tied a battle to it. For a long time it was believed that the crew of Captain Gastello died while ramming an enemy column on the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi highway. A monument was erected at this place. Many years after the war, it turned out that another crew of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment, commander of the 3rd squadron, captain A.S., died there. Maslova (in 1996, all crew members were awarded the title of Hero of Russia).

By order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Captain Gastello N.F. forever enlisted in the lists of one of the aviation regiments. Monuments to the Hero were erected in Moscow, Minsk, in the urban-type settlement of Radoshkovichi, Molodechno district, Minsk region and on the territory of the Voroshilovgrad Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators. A memorial plaque was installed on the building of the Moscow school No. 270, where he studied. Collective farms, state farms, factories, factories, streets, pioneer squads, mine number 30 in the city of Kizel, Perm Region, and a motor ship were named after him.

Many thanks for preparing the biography to Alexander Melnikov.

FROM THE AWARD LIST OF THE SQUADRILL COMMANDER OF THE 207th LONG-TERM BOMBER AVIATION REGIMENT, CAPTAIN GASTELLO NIKOLAY FRANTSEVICH

The commander of the 4th air squadron of the 207th air regiment, Captain Gastello Nikolai Frantsevich, for his short military activity in the fight against the arrogant enemy - Hitler's fascism, wrote glorious lines in the history of our brave pilots and is worthy that the Soviet people know one of the most devoted sons of their Motherland. From the beginning of the Patriotic War until the last day of his life, he made three sorties. All of them were carried out accurately, with excellent results.

On June 24, in the morning, in anticipation of a combat mission, the flight and technical staff of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment was at the airfield in their places, waiting for orders to fly to the enemy.

The presumptuous fascist Yu-88 aircraft, having on board a pilot awarded by Hitler for his barbaric actions with three crosses, including an iron cross, appeared at an altitude of 80-100 meters above the airfield. Having passed the first time, he turned around and, choosing a parking lot for aircraft, opened fire from the front and hatch machine guns, concentrating fire on the aircraft on which Captain Gastello was at that time. Captain Gastello with a long and well-aimed burst, direct fire disabled the right engine and mortally wounded the pilot. The insidious enemy tried to leave, but could not. His fate was decided by making an emergency landing, he was taken prisoner.

On June 26, Captain Gastello with the crew: Burdenyuk, Skorobogaty and Kalinin - led the DB-3 link to bomb the presumptuous Nazis. On the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi road, a line of enemy tanks appeared near Radoshkovichi. Gastello's link, having dropped bombs on a pile of tanks accumulated for refueling and shooting the crews of fascist vehicles from a machine gun, began to move away from the target. At this time, the fascist shell caught up with the car of Captain Gastello. Having received a direct hit, engulfed in flames, the plane could not go to its base, but at this difficult moment, Captain Gastello and his courageous crew were busy with the thought of preventing the enemy from entering their native land. According to the observation of Senior Lieutenant Vorobyov and Lieutenant Rybas, they saw how Captain Gastello turned around on a burning plane and led him into the thick of the tanks. A column of fire enveloped the tanks and fascist crews in flames. The German fascists paid such a high price for the death of the pilot Captain Gastello and the death of the heroic crew.

Pilot Gastello and his crew are not in our ranks, he died a hero's death in the fight against German fascism, but his memory will long be kept in the hearts of those people for whose happiness Captain Gastello Nikolai Frantsevich fought and died and his crew.

The heroic deed of Captain Gastello is now known to the whole country, poets and writers, together with the people, have composed songs and battle stories about the glorious crew and its commander.

To the infinitely devoted son of our Motherland and Party, the courageous, brave falcon of Soviet aviation, who died a hero's death in the fight against German fascism, we petition for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Commander of the 207th Regiment Captain Lobanov
Military Commissar of the 207th Regiment Battalion Commissar Kuznetsov

Gastello House-Museum, Murom. Copy.

According to the publication: "Workers of the Ivanovo and Vladimir regions during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945)". Ivanovo book publishing house, 1959, p. 469-471.

Added by Sergey Kargapoltsev

On June 26, 1941, at the age of 34, Soviet military pilot Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello died in battle. On this day, the crew under the command of Captain Gastello flew out to bomb a German mechanized column. However, an enemy projectile damaged the fuel tank of Gastello's aircraft, and he made a fiery ram - sent a burning car to a mechanized column of the enemy. The plane crashed into the enemy "crowd" of tanks and cars, and the air of the battle was shaken by a deafening explosion. All crew members were killed.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 26, 1941, Gastello was posthumously awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" with the Gold Star medal and the Order of Lenin.

We present you some interesting facts, criticism and an alternative version of the feat of Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello.

Photo by Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello

Gastello's feat received extensive press coverage. On July 5, 1941, in the evening report of the Soviet Information Bureau, he was first mentioned: « The heroic feat was performed by the squadron commander Captain Gastello. An enemy anti-aircraft gun shell hit the gasoline tank of his aircraft. The fearless commander sent the plane engulfed in flames to the accumulation of vehicles and gasoline tanks of the enemy. Dozens of German cars and tanks exploded along with the hero's plane..

Postage stamp (1944), dedicated to the feat of Gastello

Correspondent essay "Capital Gostello", made on July 10, 1941 in "Pravda" after the message of the Soviet Information Bureau:

“At dawn on June 26, in different sectors of the front, the pilots gathered at the loudspeakers. The Moscow radio station spoke, the announcer was an old acquaintance in his voice - he immediately breathed home, Moscow. The Information Bureau report was transmitted. The announcer read a short message about the heroic deed of Captain Gastello. Hundreds of people - in different sectors of the front - repeated this name ...

Long before the war, when he worked with his father at one of the Moscow factories, they said about him: “Wherever you put it, everywhere is an example.” He was a man stubbornly educating himself on difficulties, a man who was saving his strength for a great cause. It was felt that Nikolai Gastello was a standing person.

When he became a military pilot, this was immediately confirmed. He was not famous, but quickly rose to fame. In 1939, he bombed the White Finnish military factories, bridges and pillboxes, in Bessarabia he threw out our paratroopers in order to keep the Romanian boyars from plundering the country. From the very first day of the Great Patriotic War, Captain Gastello, at the head of his squadron, smashed fascist tank columns, smashed military installations to smithereens, broke bridges to pieces. Captain Gastello was already famous in the flying units. People of the air quickly get to know each other.

The last feat of Captain Gastello will never be forgotten. On June 26, at the head of his squadron, Captain Gastello fought in the air. Far below, on the ground, there was also a battle going on. Motorized units of the enemy broke through to Soviet soil. The fire of our artillery and aviation held back and stopped their movement. Leading his battle, Gastello did not lose sight of the ground battle.

Black spots of tank clusters, crowded gasoline tanks spoke of a hitch in the enemy's combat operations. And the fearless Gastello continued his work in the air. But now a shell of an enemy anti-aircraft gun breaks the gasoline tank of his aircraft.

The car is on fire. No exit.

So, how do you end your journey here? To slip, before it's too late, by parachute and, once in the territory occupied by the enemy, to surrender to shameful captivity?

No, this is not an option.

And Captain Gastello does not unfasten his shoulder straps, does not leave a flaming car. Down to the ground, to the crowded tanks of the enemy, he rushes the fiery lump of his plane. The fire is already near the pilot. But the land is near. Gastello's eyes, tormented by fire, still see, singed hands are hard. A dying plane still obeys the hands of a dying pilot.

So life will end now - not an accident, not captivity - a feat!

Gastello's car crashes into a "crowd" of tanks and cars - and a deafening explosion shakes the air of battle with long peals: enemy tanks explode.

We remember the name of the hero - Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello. His family lost a son and husband, the Motherland acquired a hero.

The feat of a man who calculated his death as a fearless blow to the enemy will forever remain in memory.».

P. Pavlenko, P. Krylov

This article had a wide resonance, Gastello's feat was widely used by Soviet propaganda.

Through the efforts of Soviet propaganda, the feat of Gastello became one of the most famous in the history of the Great Patriotic War, and Gastello's name became a household name. "Gastellites" began to be called the pilots who made the "fiery ram". In total, during the period of the Great Patriotic War, 595 "classic" air rams, 506 rams by a ground target aircraft, 16 sea rams and 160 tank rams were made.

In the 1990s, a different version of events appeared in the media ( retired major Eduard Kharitonov became its author). Data were released on the exhumation of the alleged grave of Gastello in 1951. In connection with the fact that the remains of the crew of Alexander Spiridonovich Maslov were discovered there, it was suggested that Maslov was the author of the “fire ram” attributed to Gastello. In 1996, by decree of President Yeltsin, Maslov and all members of his crew were awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation (posthumously).

A number of researchers ( First of all, the son of N.F. Gastello - Retired Colonel Victor Gastello) question the facts on which the alternative version is built and dismiss it as completely untenable.

Establishing the truth and Gastello's feat is complicated by the fact that witnesses to his ramming died in 1941, the air regiment where he was commander was disbanded in September 1941, and many documents were lost both during the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war period.

Nicholas Gastello was destined to accomplish an immortal feat that remained in the memory of the people. Nikolai was born in Moscow in 1907. His father was from Belarus. At the age of 16, Nikolai began to work, and five years later he received a party card. In 1932 he was drafted into the Red Army. They chose him to be a pilot. The future hero was trained at the Lugansk Aviation School, after which he went to serve in the 82nd heavy bomber squadron. Gastello flew on a four-engine aircraft model TB-3.

Nikolai participated in the conflict at Khalkhin Gol and the Soviet-Finnish war as part of the 1st heavy bomber air regiment. Shortly before the start of the war with Germany, he received the rank of captain and became a squadron commander of the 207th long-range bomber regiment, which was in charge of BD-3f model bombers.

Nicholas was destined to prove himself on the third day of the war. While at the airfield, the captain shot down a German Junkers-88 aircraft from a machine gun. But the main feat in the life of Nicholas was ahead.

On June 26, 1941, the DB-3f crew consisting of Anatoly Burdenyuk, Grigory Skorobogaty and Alexei Kalinin went on a combat mission. The aircraft was commanded by Captain Gastello. The pilots were to bomb the German convoy on the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi road. Soon, the pilots noticed the enemy, having bombed, the plane headed for the base, when suddenly a German anti-aircraft missile hit the car. The team had a chance to escape, but the guys decided to do it differently. The burning plane, Gastello and his comrades sent to the convoy of German equipment ... Serious damage was inflicted on the enemy.

The feat of the Soviet soldiers was first reported by the Pravda newspaper. For his heroism and courage, Gastello was presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The remaining members of the bomber team received posthumously the Order of the Great Patriotic War, 1st degree.

After the war, historians found out that Gastello's crew was not the first to make a "fiery ram". It turned out that on the very first day of the start of the war on June 22, Lieutenant Chirkin, the commander of a fighter, sent his burning plane to a column of tanks. "Fire rams" were not uncommon among Russian pilots during World War II. The day after Gastello's feat, Lieutenant Tarasov sent his burning bomber to the German motorcade. On July 29, a tank column was destroyed in a similar way by Lieutenant Preseisen, and on July 4 by Captain Mikhailov.

During the war years, Soviet pilots made 506 "fire rams", 50 of them received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The rest were posthumously awarded orders. Historians are aware of 6 cases of "fiery rams" in the performance of which the pilots remained alive.

The name of Nikolai Gastello became widely known. Streets in many cities and towns of the former USSR are named after the brave pilot. Monuments to the hero have been erected in Moscow, Murom, Rostov-on-Don and Ufa.