Grigory Andreyevich Rechkalov

Fighter pilot of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General of Aviation, and one of the highest-scoring Soviet aces. Born on 9 February 1920 in the village of Khudyakovo, Perm province (now Sverdlovsk region). He graduated from the Perm military aviation school. He met the war on 22 June 1941 with the 55th Fighter Aviation Regiment — the same unit in which Alexander Pokryshkin served. Wounded on the first day of the war, he returned to the regiment and fought to the end, rising from line pilot to regimental commander. He flew the I-153, I-16 and Yak-1, and from 1943 the P-39 Airacobra, taking part in the air battles over the Kuban, in Ukraine, Poland and Germany. His score is 61 individual victories together with several shared; among Soviet pilots this places him second only to Ivan Kozhedub. Some researchers note discrepancies between regimental records and summary returns, a problem common to the counting of air victories generally. He was made Hero of the Soviet Union on 24 May 1943 and 1 July 1944. He remained in the air force after the war and died in Moscow on 20 December 1990.