Mikhail Petrovich Zhukov

Fighter pilot of the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment and one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union of the Great Patriotic War (8 July 1941), Senior Lieutenant. Born on 10 November 1917 in the village of Ruzhbovo, Vologda province. He worked at a factory in Yaroslavl, trained at a flying club and graduated from the Chuguyev military aviation school. From the first days of the war he fought on the approaches to Leningrad with the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the air defence forces. On 29 June 1941, in an action over Pskov, he forced down a German Ju 88 bomber by driving it at low altitude into a lake. By a decree of 8 July 1941 three pilots of the regiment — Mikhail Zhukov, Pyotr Kharitonov and Stepan Zdorovtsev — were made Heroes of the Soviet Union. These were the first such awards of the Great Patriotic War, and they were deliberately publicised: the first weeks of the war called for examples of successful combat. He was killed in air combat near Sinyavino on 12 January 1943, covering ground forces during the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad. He served alongside and shared a surname with Marshal G. K. Zhukov, to whom he was not related; the coincidence is a frequent source of confusion.