Vladimir Ivanovich Bobrov

Vladimir Ivanovich Bobrov was born on 11 July 1915 in Luhansk into a working family. He finished ten years of school in 1930 and the factory apprentice school in 1932, after which he worked as a foreman fitter at the Luhansk locomotive repair works. He was called into the Red Army in 1934, graduated from a military pilots' school in 1936 and completed the higher aviation course for squadron commanders in 1941. From March to August 1938 he fought in the Spanish Civil War. The source gives his score for that war in two incompatible ways: 13 aircraft alone and 4 shared, or, by other accounts, 4 alone and 13 shared. Both are given and no choice is made between them here. He was at the front from the first day of the Great Patriotic War and shot down a He-111 on that first day. He was soon shot down himself, wounded and burned, and taken to hospital. After recovering he fought on the North-Western, Baltic, Kalinin and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, commanding in turn a squadron and then five fighter regiments — the 521st, 21st, 161st, 27th (which became the 129th Guards) and the 104th Guards. On 4 April 1943 he became commander of the 27th Fighter Aviation Regiment, and in early 1944 he was removed from that command. The source states that this happened, "by some accounts", because of personal animosity on the part of senior commanders; the reason is therefore not established and is not asserted here. Alexander Pokryshkin invited Bobrov into his 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Division, where from May 1944 he commanded the 104th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. By 24 July 1944 Bobrov had flown 424 combat sorties, fought 112 air battles and shot down 23 aircraft alone and 11 shared. By other figures — Nikolai Bodrikhin's study Soviet Aces — across his two wars he flew 577 sorties and 159 air battles for 43 personal and 24 shared victories. The discrepancy is reproduced as it stands. On 11 August 1944 Bobrov was recommended for the Hero of the Soviet Union, but Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Novikov and Colonel General of Aviation Konstantin Vershinin, in the source's words, "refrained from the recommendation". His regiment took part in the breakthrough of the German defences on the river Neisse and in the Berlin operation. After the war Bobrov went on serving, completed the course for air division commanders and chiefs of staff in 1952, and in 1960 was discharged to the reserve as a colonel. In 1966 he graduated from a law institute and worked as deputy director of the Giprokommunstroy institute. He lived in Kharkiv and died on 28 March 1970. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union by decree of the President of the USSR of 20 March 1991, posthumously, twenty-one years after his death and forty-six after the war, "for the courage and military valour shown in the years of the Great Patriotic War". The Order of Lenin and Gold Star no. 11645 were presented to his family.