Mikhail Zakharovich Bondarenko

Mikhail Zakharovich Bondarenko was born on 7 (20) October 1913 in the village of Bogdanovka in Poltava province, now Yahotyn district of Kyiv region. He was Ukrainian and finished seven years of village school in 1927. He was in the army from August 1936, graduating from the Kharkiv military aviation school for pilots in 1937 and from the Kacha school in 1939. He fought in the Soviet-Finnish war as a junior pilot of the 148th Fighter Aviation Regiment, flying 17 sorties on the I-153 Chaika fighter. After that war he served in the air force of the Baltic Military District. In June and July 1941, as a flight commander of the 241st Assault Aviation Regiment on the North-Western Front, he fought in the defensive battles in the Baltic, flying 25 sorties on the I-153. In August 1941 he converted to the Il-2 ground-attack aircraft. From September 1941 to December 1942 he was a flight commander, then a squadron commander and regimental navigator of the 198th Assault Aviation Regiment, and from December 1942 to November 1943 inspector for piloting technique of the 3rd Assault Aviation Corps. He fought in the defence of Moscow and at Kursk. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 6 June 1942 for 63 combat sorties, with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star no. 581. By a decree of 24 August 1943, Major Bondarenko received a second Gold Star, no. 7/II. Over his operational service he flew 94 combat sorties, 79 of them on the Il-2. From 1943 to 1946 he studied at the Air Force academy at Monino, after which he commanded an assault aviation regiment in Poland. He did not die in the war: on 27 July 1947 he drowned while swimming in the Oder near the town of Oława in Lower Silesia. He was thirty-three. He is buried in his native village of Bogdanovka.