Arkady Sergeyevich Boytsov

Arkady Sergeyevich Boytsov was born on 17 March 1923 in Podolsk in Moscow region, the son of an office worker. He was Russian. After secondary school he studied at a leather and footwear technical college in Moscow. In March 1941 he completed a flying club course and entered the Chernigov military aviation school for pilots, graduating in June 1942 and being posted to the 11th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the air defence forces. In the Great Patriotic War he flew 15 combat sorties, covering railway junctions and traffic and escorting high-priority special trains. That was his war: fifteen sorties over his own territory, with no air combat that the source reports. After the war he went on serving in the same regiment, became a squadron commander in the 16th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the air defence forces in early 1946 and remained with it until 1954. In 1951 he qualified as a first-class military pilot. His Hero of the Soviet Union was conferred for a different war. In January 1952 he was sent with the 16th Regiment to China and took part in the fighting over the Korean peninsula as a squadron deputy commander for political work. Between 21 January and 28 August 1952 he flew 55 combat sorties, fought more than thirty air battles, shot down six enemy aircraft — four F-86s and two F-84s — and damaged two more F-86s. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 14 July 1953 he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union, medal no. 10861. The source describes the posting in the language of the time, as a "government assignment" and the rendering of "international assistance"; the fighting he took part in was part of the war in Korea. On his return he served on in the air force: he graduated from the Air Force academy in 1958, commanded the 296th Aviation Regiment and was deputy commander of the 105th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Division from 1958 to 1962, graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1966, took command of an aviation division in 1968 and from 14 September 1971 was deputy commander of the air forces of the Volga Military District. He went into the reserve on 25 October 1976. Over his service he flew twenty types of Soviet and foreign aircraft — from the U-2, I-16 and MiG-3 to the Kittyhawk, the Spitfire, the Yak-15 and the MiG family — for more than two thousand hours. He lived and worked in Kuybyshev. He died on 15 June 2000 and is buried at Rubyozhnoye cemetery in Samara.