Photo of the Hero of the Soviet Union, who made an aerial ram three times, A.S. Khlobystov

The original wartime photograph is in very good collector's condition. The size is 50*77 mm. There are traces of pasting into the album on the back. Guarantee of authenticity.

Alexey Stepanovich Khlobystov (February 23, 1918 — December 13, 1943) was a fighter pilot, captain of the Guards, Hero of the Soviet Union. One of two Soviet pilots (along with N. V. Terekhin) who carried out an aerial ram three times, with two ramming in one battle.

He was born on February 23, 1918 in the village of Zakharovo. Russian. He graduated from grades 7 and the Ukhtoma Aero Club. He worked as an electrician at the Karacharovsky Mechanical Plant, then at the Research Institute of Metallurgical Engineering in Moscow. In the Red Army since 1939. In 1941, he graduated from the Kachin Military Aviation School of Pilots. Member of the CPSU since 1942. On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War from the first day. He fought on the Karelian Isthmus. He opened his combat account on June 28, 1941, destroying a Ju-87 dive bomber. In the fall of 1941, he shot down his fourth plane in an air battle, but he himself was forced to land on the tops of pine trees. I was in the hospital for a month. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Then he fought on the Volkhov front. In January 1942, he joined the 147th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Karelian Front, based in the village of Murmashi in the Murmansk region. He was enlisted in the Komsomolets of the Arctic squadron, created with funds raised by the workers of the Murmansk Region[3]. On April 8, 1942, in a group battle, he shot down three enemy aircraft: one with machine—gun fire, two with a battering ram, after which he was able to land the car at his home airfield. On May 14, 1942, he made his third ram. Wounded in the first minutes of the battle, Khlobystov sent his burning plane to the Me-109, and he managed to parachute out. By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On awarding the title Hero of the Soviet Union to the commanding staff of the Red Army Air Force" dated June 6, 1942, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Medal for "exemplary performance of combat missions of the command at the front of the struggle against the German invaders and his bravery and heroism". The star." I learned about the award of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in the hospital.

He died on December 13, 1943, on a P-40 aircraft, flying on a combat mission paired with his wingman Alexander Kolegaev. According to one version, he died in aerial combat. According to another, based on the testimony of a captured German pilot, commander of the 9th detachment of the 5th Fighter squadron, Hauptmann Hans Hermann Schmidt, the planes of Khlobystov and Kolegaev accidentally collided in the air over German territory. Both pilots flew American P-40 (Kittyhawk) fighter jets. For Kolegaev, this was one of the first sorties, perhaps the collision was his fault.

Khlobystov and Kolegaev's planes were found in the summer of 2009 on different sides of the Pechenga highway, just in that area. It took the search engines several years to collect all the wreckage of aircraft and human bones (and no remains were found near Kolegaev's plane at all). The cars were identified by their factory numbers (Khlobystov's number was 1134). It took 4 years for the search engines from the Icarus detachment (Zaozersk, Murmansk region) to collect all the fragments and work with the archives. On October 22, 2013, the remains of A. S. Khlobystov were solemnly buried at the military cemetery in Murmashi, where many of his fellow soldiers are buried.