Alexander Golovanov is a well-known Russian military leader who served in the Soviet army. During the Second World War, he led the Soviet long-range aviation, as well as the 18th Air Army. After the war, he was appointed to lead all long-range aviation of the USSR. In 1944 he received the rank of Air Chief Marshal. In the history of the workers' and peasants' Red Army, he became the youngest marshal.
Childhood and youth of the future pilot
Alexander Golovanov was born in 1904. He was born on the territory of the Russian Empire in a large city - Nizhny Novgorod. His parents were famous residents of the city. Mother is an opera singer, and father is a captain of a tugboat. 8-year-old Alexander Golovanov was sent to study at the Alexander Cadet Corps. So even as a child, it was decided that in the future he would become a military man.
The hero of our article joined the Red Guard when he was still a teenager. In October 1917, he was only 13 years old. True, according to external signs, they gave him much more. He looked at all 16, and the growth was under two meters.
After the success of the October Revolution, he spoke for the power of the Soviets. Already in 1918 he began to earn a living himself. Alexander Golovanov in his youthwent to work as a courier in the Profsokhleb office, organized at the food commissariat.
Participation in the Civil War
Took part in the Civil War Alexander Golovanov. He was appointed as a scout in the 59th Infantry Regiment, which performed combat missions on the Southern Front. In one of the battles he received a shell shock.
Demobilized only in 1920. Even then Golovanov Alexander decided that the civil service was not for him. Therefore, he entered the so-called CHON. These are Special Purpose Parts. So at the dawn of the USSR, communist squads were called, which existed under various party cells. Their duties were to carry out guard duty at especially important objects, in every possible way to help the Soviet government in the fight against counter-revolution.
Initially, the ranks of CHON were formed only from party members and candidates for the party. However, by 1920, when Alexander Golovanov joined the ChON, active Komsomol members and even non-party members began to be accepted there.
At the same time, what is known about the hero of our article according to official documents is somewhat at odds with his autobiography written by himself. In the latter there is no mention of service in the CHON. Alexander Golovanov, whose photo is in this article, claims that in those years he worked in the supply department of the Red Army and Navy as a courier.
The next stage in his career was as an agent at Tsentropechat, and then as a handyman at the rafting of timber at the Volgosudstroy enterprise. Later he was an agent and electrician for the fifthVolga regiment of the GPU, which was based in his hometown - Nizhny Novgorod.
Service in the OGPU
In 1924 Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov entered the service of the OGPU. The biography of the hero of our article has been associated with this body over the next 9 years.
The OGPU was deciphered as "the united state political administration", which worked under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. It was formed in 1923 on the basis of the NKVD.
In the early years of the OGPU, Felix Dzerzhinsky was in charge, and from 1926 to 1934 - Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. Golovanov was engaged in operational work and worked in special departments. Progressed from commissioner to department head.
Twice took part in distant business trips to China. In particular, in the province of Xinjiang. At the very beginning of the 30s. Shortly before that, he became a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Arrest of Savinkov
The brightest page of his work in the OGPU was his participation in the arrest of Boris Savinkov. This is one of the leaders of the domestic Social Revolutionaries, a White Guard. Terrorist and revolutionary.
After the bourgeois February Revolution of 1917, he received the post of Commissioner of the Provisional Government. In August, during the advance of Kornilov on Petrograd, he became the military governor of the city. He offered the general to submit to the Provisional Government, but as a result he admitted his failure.
I did not support the October Revolution. Participated in the confrontation with the Bolsheviks, formed a volunteer army on the Don,supported Denikin. As a result, he emigrated from the country, tried to establish contact with the nationalists, but ultimately fell into complete political isolation.
Despite this, in order to eliminate Savinkov's anti-Soviet underground, the OGPU developed the "Syndicate-2" operation. Golovanov also took part in it. In August 1924, Savinkov secretly arrived in the Soviet Union, lured by operatives.
He was arrested in Minsk. At the trial, Savinkov admitted his defeat in the fight against the Soviet regime and the collapse of his own ideals. He was sentenced to death, soon the sentence was mitigated, replaced by 10 years in prison.
According to the official version, in 1925 he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a fifth floor window. The room where he was taken for interrogation had no bars on the windows. There is an alternative version, according to which he was killed by the OGPU. In particular, Alexander Solzhenitsyn expounds it in his novel The Gulag Archipelago.
Golovanov is a civilian pilot
In 1931, Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov was seconded to the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry, where he was the executive secretary. The following year, he began to actively master the profession of a civil aviation pilot. Graduated from the OSOAVIAKHIM school (an analogue of the modern DOSAAF).
In 1933 he was hired by Aeroflot. Thus began his aerial career. Until the very beginning of the confrontation with the Nazi invaders, he flew on civilian flights. Went froman ordinary pilot to the head of department and, finally, the chief pilot.
An important milestone in his career was 1935, when Golovanov was appointed head of the East Siberian Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet. It was based in Irkutsk. Alexander Golovanov built a career in civil aviation.
In 1937, during the purges among the communists, Golovanov was expelled from the party. However, he managed to avoid arrest. Moreover, he went to Moscow, as he himself said, "to seek the truth." And he succeeded. The Metropolitan Party Control Commission ruled that his exclusion was erroneous. True, he did not return to Irkutsk. He was left in Moscow as a pilot. He performed well in the capital. A short time later, Golovanov was already considered one of the best civil aviation pilots in the country, he became the chief pilot of a special purpose squadron.
In 1938, the hero of our article set an enviable record. His total flight experience was one million kilometers. In Soviet newspapers, they began to write about him as a "millionaire pilot". For this, he was awarded the badge "Excellent worker of Aeroflot". Moreover, all his flights were accident-free, which in those days, when a person was just beginning to conquer the airspace, was a great achievement. He becomes a truly popular person in the country. His photo is even published on the cover of Ogonyok magazine.
During the Great Patriotic War
Golovanov got experience of participating in hostilities even beforehow the Nazi invaders attacked the Soviet Union. In 1939 he took part in the battles of Khalkhin Gol. It was an undeclared local armed conflict that lasted several months on the territory of Mongolia. On the one hand, Soviet troops and Mongols participated in it, and on the other, the Empire of Japan.
The conflict ended with the complete defeat of the Japanese division. Moreover, the USSR and Japan assess these events differently. If in Russian historiography they are called a local military conflict, then the Japanese speak of them as the second Russo-Japanese war.
A little later, Golovanov went to the front of the Soviet-Finnish war. This war lasted a little less than six months. It all started with the fact that the USSR accused Finland of shelling. Thus, the Soviets placed the entire responsibility for the fighting on the Scandinavian country. The result was the conclusion of a peace treaty, according to which the USSR ceded 11% of the territory of Finland. Then, by the way, the Soviet Union was considered an aggressor and expelled from the League of Nations.
Having taken part in both of these conflicts, Golovanov met the Great Patriotic War as an experienced military pilot. As early as the beginning of 1941, before Hitler's attack, he wrote a letter to Stalin, in which he justified the need to specially train pilots for long-range bomber flights. Especially in inclement weather, and also at extreme heights.
In February, he had a personal meeting with the Generalissimo, as a result of which he was appointed commander of a separate regimentlong-range bomber aviation. In August, he already received the post of commander of a long-range aviation division. And in October, another title was granted. Major General of Aviation received Alexander Golovanov. The Great Patriotic War allowed him to prove himself on the air fronts. On the eve of the new year 1942, he began to lead the long-range aviation division at the headquarters of the supreme commander.
Air Marshal
In 1942, the hero of our article began to lead long-range aviation. In May, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. From then until the very end of the war, he was the main one in all Soviet long-range aviation. At the same time, he enjoyed sympathy, respect and trust from the commander-in-chief Stalin. So getting the next military ranks was not long in coming.
Since March 1943 - Colonel General. And on August 3, Alexander Golovanov - Air Marshal. During the war, he was appointed commander of the 18th Air Army, which directly concentrated all the country's long-range bomber aviation at that time. Despite his high ranks, Golovanov himself regularly participated in combat missions. In particular, he went on long-range bombing raids at the very beginning of the war. When in the summer of 1941, for one month, Soviet pilots carried out a series of aerial bombardments of Berlin.
This was preceded by massive bombing of Moscow, which began almost immediately after the start of the war. At that time, Goebbels even managed to declare that Soviet aviation was completelydestroyed, and not a single bomb will ever fall on Berlin. Golovanov brilliantly denied this bold statement.
The first flight to Berlin was carried out on August 7th. Soviet planes flew at an altitude of 7 thousand meters. The pilots had to keep their oxygen masks on, and broadcasting was banned. When flying over German territory, Soviet bombers were repeatedly detected, but the Germans could not imagine the possibility of an attack so much that they were sure that these were their planes. Over Stettin, searchlights were even turned on for them, mistaking the Luftwaffe for lost aircraft. As a result, as many as five aircraft were able to drop bombs on well-lit Berlin and returned to base without loss.
Golovanov was appointed commander of these sorties after the second attempt, which took place on 10 August. She wasn't as successful anymore. Of the 10 vehicles, only 6 were able to drop bombs on Berlin, and only two returned. After that, the hero of the Soviet Union Vodopyanov was removed from the post of division commander, and Golovanov took his place.
The hero of our article himself repeatedly flew over the enemy capital. German intelligence at that time noted that he was among the few who had a unique right to personal access to Stalin. The latter refers to him exclusively by name as a sign of special trust.
Stalin's flight to the Tehran conference, which was personally organized by Golovanov, is connected with the events of those years. We traveled on two planes. At the wheel of the second, covering, was Golovanov. And Stalin, Voroshilov and Molotov were entrusted to carry Lieutenant General of Aviation ViktorGrachev.
In 1944, Golovanov's he alth was seriously shaken. Spasms, interruptions in the work of the heart, respiratory arrest began to bother him. According to doctors, the reason for this was regular lack of sleep, which actually led to the destruction of the central nervous system. At the same time, it is worth noting that during the years of the war with Nazi Germany, Golovanov set a record for the Soviet armed forces, having risen from the rank of lieutenant colonel to chief air marshal.
Fate after the war
After the war, in 1946, Golovanov was appointed commander of the long-range aviation of the Soviet Union. However, two years later he was removed from his post. According to most, the reason was the state of he alth, which was greatly shaken after the war.
Golovanov graduated from the General Staff Academy. But even after that he could not return to the troops. There was no appointment. Nothing embarrassing, Alexander Evgenievich again wrote a letter to Stalin. And already in 1952 he commanded one of the airborne corps. It was a very strange decision. Never before in the history of aviation has a corps been commanded by a marshal of a military branch. It was too small for him. Golovanov was even asked in connection with this to write a request for a reduction in rank to colonel general, but he refused.
In 1953, after the death of Joseph Stalin, the hero of our article was finally sent to the reserve. After 5 years, he settled down as deputy head of the Civil Aviation Research Institute for flight service. Retired in 1966.
Bookmemories
Having retired, the hero of our article proved himself as a memoir writer. A whole book of memoirs was written by Alexander Golovanov. "Long-range bomber" - that's what it's called. In many ways, this biography is devoted to personal meetings and communication with Stalin. Because of this, during the life of the author, it came out with significant bills. Readers could see the uncensored edition only at the end of the 80s.
In 2007, the last edition of these memoirs by Alexander Golovanov took place. The bibliography of the author, by the way, has only one book. But that doesn't make her any less valuable.
Golovanov himself died in 1974. He was 71 years old. The funeral took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
Private life
Alexander Golovanov, whose family has always supported, married in his youth the daughter of a merchant of the first guild. Her name was Tamara Vasilievna. She was from the Vologda province. She survived her husband by more than 20 years. She died only in 1996.
They had five children. Four daughters - Svetlana, Tamara, Veronika and Olga, and one son - Svyatoslav. He was the youngest.
