Ivan Kozhedub

Chief Marshal of Aviation Ivan Mykytovych Kozhedub (Ukrainian: Іван Микитович Кожедуб; June 8, 1920 — August 8, 1991) was a Soviet military aviator of Ukrainian descent and a World War II fighter ace. Kozhedub took a part in the Korean War as a commander of the 324th Fighter Air Division. He is credited with 64 +2 (P-51) individual air victories, most of them flying the Lavochkin La-5 - the top scoring fighter pilot on the Allied side during World War II. He is one of the few pilots to have shot down a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union on three occasions (4 February 1944; 19 August 1944; 18 August 1945).

Early life

He was born in the village of Obrazhiivka, a settlement in the Sumy region in the Ukrainian People's Republic. He was the youngest of five children. For two years he attended a school for young workers, and in early 1940 graduated from the Shostka chemical technical school. Kozhedub learned to fly aircraft in the Shostkinsk aeroclub and joined the Soviet army in 1940. He graduated from the Chuhuiv Military Air School in 1941 at the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but he was retained as an instructor. Kozhedub remained at the school for two years where he trained many young Soviet pilots.