Vasily Balashov Biography
Balashov was born in the year on the farm of Dor Rzhevsky district, Russian. He graduated from incomplete secondary school, and then the FZU school. He worked in the Rzhevsky car repair point. He began his service in the Soviet Army in the year. In the year he graduated from the Vorosholovograd military aviation school of pilots. On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War from the first day before the day of victory.
Pilot, deputy squadron commander of the 8th separate reconnaissance aviation regiment. He was wounded three times. Colonel of the reserve. After the war, he lived in Krasnodar. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to him on August 24. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin, three orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, two orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star, medals.
The appearance of our positions of the Nazi intelligence aircraft meant a new offensive by the enemy troops and the signal “In the sky - Rama! The enemy and our air intelligence officers also met just as wary. One of them was Vasily Balashov. In the ensuing battle, he knocks down one fighter, the second is burned by the navigator, but the third did not lag behind and for 10 minutes fired by our aircraft from a large distance, as a result of which he greatly damaged the control of the machine.
But, the crew, showing exceptional courage, completing his task, managed to put a damaged plane at his airfield. The pilot lost consciousness, and the plane went into a random fall. Having come to consciousness at an altitude of 2 thousand meters, Balashov brought the car to a horizontal position. Blooded by blood, overcoming pain, he brought a damaged plane to his airfield, thereby saved the life of the crew and an expensive car.
It is difficult to overestimate the Balashov made by the scout during the war. He especially distinguished himself in the battle for Stalingrad. Fulfilling the task of the command of the Stalingrad Front, Vasily Dmitrievich recorded the total area of square kilometers of the enemy occupied by the enemy, took about 4.5 thousand pictures. Penetrating into the deep rear of the enemy, being all the time under the shelling of enemy anti -aircraft guns, Balashov opened the enemy’s suitable reserves to Stalingrad, the accumulation of his forces in the Kalach, Morozov, Kotelnikovo, Zimovnikov region.
His pictures recorded over a thousand enemy aircraft of various types, tanks, cars, railway train, 32 bridges and crossings.