Photo of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Colonel of the Red Army Air Force I.A. Lakeev

The original photo is in good collector's condition. The size is 88*140 mm. There are traces of pasting into the album on the back. Guarantee of authenticity.

Ivan Alekseevich Lakeev (February 23, 1908, Sloboda, Kaluga Province — August 15, 1990, Moscow) was a Soviet fighter pilot, ace pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (1937). Major General of Aviation (06/14/1940).

In the Red Army since June 1931, he was drafted on mobilization by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In the same year, he graduated from the Leningrad Military Theoretical School of the Red Army Air Force, then, in 1933, from the 14th Engels Military School of Pilots. From July 1933, he served as a junior pilot and senior pilot in the 127th Aviation Squadron in the Smolensk and then Bryansk aviation brigades of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District. Since March 1936, he has been a junior pilot of the 107th Fighter Squadron of the 83rd Fighter Aviation Brigade of the Belarusian Military District.

In 1936, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the CCCH leadership decided to send Soviet military volunteer specialists there. In early November, a group of 31 fighter pilots from the 83rd Brigade arrived there, including Lieutenant I. A. Lakeev. During the fighting, he commanded an I-16 squadron, flew 312 combat missions, and conducted 50 aerial battles. According to some reports, during his business trip, he personally shot down 12 enemy aircraft and 16 in a group, which makes him one of the most productive fighter pilots of the 1930s. He returned to his homeland in August 1937.

Since August 1937, he has been a test pilot at the State Aviation Plant No. 1 in Moscow. From September 1937, he was a squadron commander of the 24th Aviation Brigade of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District (Lyubertsy). From March 1938, he became commander of the 16th Fighter Aviation Regiment, and from December 1938, he served as head of the Fighter Department of the Red Army Air Force Directorate. In this position, in May 1939, he was sent to the combat area and participated in the battles on the Khalkhin Gol River until the end of August 1939, as Deputy commander of aviation of the 1st Army Group of Commander Ya. V. Smushkevich for fighter aviation. In September 1939, he was seconded to the Kiev Special Military District to serve as commander of the district's Air Force for fighter aviation, and participated in the Red Army's liberation campaign in Western Ukraine. In October 1939, he was seconded to Leningrad to organize the city's air defense, and from December he participated in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940.

In mid-March 1940, he was appointed Deputy Chief of the Flight Technical Inspection of the 1st Directorate of the General Directorate of the Red Army Air Force, and from October 14, 1940, he was appointed Deputy Inspector General of the Red Army Air Force. In June 1940, with the introduction of general ranks, he was awarded the rank of Major General of Aviation (in three years he rose in rank from lieutenant to general). In March 1941, he was appointed deputy commander of the 14th Mixed Air Division of the Kiev Special Military District (division headquarters - Lutsk) for "shortcomings in his work."

Participant of the Great Patriotic War since June 22, 1941. He fought as part of a division on the Southwestern Front. From the beginning of July 1941, he was at the disposal of the Commander of the Southwestern Front Air Force, was the representative of the front headquarters for the Kiev Air Defense, Deputy Commander of the Southwestern Front Air Defense for fighter aviation. Since January 1942, Major General of Aviation I. A. Lakeev commanded the 524th Fighter Aviation Regiment on the Volkhov Front.

From March 10, 1943, he commanded the 235th Fighter Aviation Division on the Southwestern, North Caucasian, Voronezh, and 1st Ukrainian fronts. He proved to be an excellent division commander, under his command it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in November 1943 and became known as the Red Banner, and for excellent performance of command tasks, the division became the Guards Division on August 19, 1944 and was renamed the 15th Guards Fighter Aviation Division. He commanded it until the end of the war as part of the 8th Air Army on the 4th Ukrainian Front.

For all 4 years of the Great Patriotic War, General Lakeev was constantly in the active army. He participated in the border defensive operation in Western Ukraine, the Kiev defensive operation, in the Battle for Leningrad, in the air battle in the Kuban, in the Battle of Kursk, in the Izyum-Barvenkovskaya, Donbass, Dnieper airborne, Zaporozhye, Kiev, Zhytomyr-Berdichevskaya, Korsun-Shevchenko, Nikopol-Krivoy Rog, Proskurov-Chernivtsi, Odessa, Lviv-Sandomierz, Iasi-Kishinev, East Carpathian, West Carpathian, Moravian-Ostrava, Prague offensive operations. By the end of January 1945, he had flown 62 combat missions on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, shot down 1 German aircraft (in the air battle in the Kuban in June 1943).

After the Victory, he commanded the same division in the Carpathian Military District. From October 1947, he attended Advanced Training Courses for Commanders and Chiefs of Staff of Aviation divisions at the Air Force Academy, after which he was appointed commander of the 13th Guards Fighter Aviation Division of the 73rd Air Army of the Turkestan Military District in 1948. Since December 1950, he has been studying again. In 1952 he graduated from the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy. Since 1952, he served as an assistant commander of the 22nd Air Army of the Northern Military District. He retired in July 1955 and lived in Moscow. He died on August 15, 1990, and was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery.