Pyotr Vasilyevich Bazanov

Pyotr Vasilyevich Bazanov was born on 10 January 1923 in the village of Rameshki in Shakhovskaya district of Moscow region. After factory apprentice school he worked at the Lyublino foundry and engineering works and trained at the Podolsk flying club. He was conscripted into the Red Army by the Podolsk military commissariat in January 1941, trained at the Myasnikov 1st military school for pilots and flew the UT-2 and UTI-4. He joined the 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment in August 1942 from the 13th reserve fighter regiment and converted to the La-5. He was in action from 23 September 1942. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union on 26 October 1944 as deputy squadron commander of the 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (235th Fighter Aviation Division, 10th Fighter Aviation Corps, 2nd Air Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front), with Gold Star no. 5286. The available source gives his score as two different figures: in one place 22 aircraft alone and 6 shared, in another 18 alone and 2 shared, against 362 combat sorties and 62 air battles. The discrepancy is reproduced as it stands, because the source gives no ground for preferring one figure to the other. He went on serving in the air force after the war. He converted to jets in 1947, flew the Yak-15, MiG-9 and MiG-15, and took part in converting fighter regiments to new types. He graduated from the air force academy in 1958 and from the senior officers' higher academic course in 1973. He flew more than twenty types of combat aircraft and helicopters, among them the MiG-17, MiG-19, MiG-21 and MiG-23, and was still flying the MiG-23 in 1984. He commanded a fighter regiment and then a division, and was made a Distinguished Military Pilot of the USSR in 1966. From May 1972 to April 1974 he commanded the 1st Red Banner Air Army in the Far East. He then served on the air force main staff and retired in 1985. He chaired the veterans' council of the north-eastern administrative district of Moscow and was an honorary citizen of Ivano-Frankivsk. He died on 4 September 2003 and is buried at Troyekurovskoye cemetery. A bust stands on the avenue of heroes in Shakhovskaya and a memorial plaque on the avenue of heroes in Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi.