Pavel Stepanovich Kutakhov CBE (; – 3 December 1984) was a flying ace during World War II who went on to become Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Forces between 1969 and 1984. During his career he held a variety of commands and visited several countries receiving Soviet military aid.
Early life
Kutakhov was born on to a Russian family in Malokirsanovka village. His father died in 1918, but with the support of his older brothers he began to attend school. After completing his seventh grade of school in Taganrog in 1930 he trained to become a tram driver, but soon after completing training in 1933 he developed an interest aviation, so until 1934 he worked as a mechanic at an aircraft factory. Shortly before entering the military in mid 1935 he graduated from the Taganrog Industrial Institute. One year after graduating from the Stalingrad Military Aviation School in November 1938 he entered combat in the Winter War, having earlier been assigned to the 7th Fighter Aviation Regiment as a flight commander. On 24 December 1939 he was shot down by friendly fire from Aleksey Storozhakov, who mistook his Polikarpov fighter for a Finnish plane. However, he managed to bring his crippled I-15b over Soviet territory to make a forced landing. While the plane was damaged beyond repair, Kutakhov was soon able to return to flying with his unit, tallying 131 sorties by the end of the war and rising to the position of deputy squadron commander. He then trained to fly the I-153 fighter and later the MiG-3 until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
World War II
Upon the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Kutakhov was deployed to the warfront with his unit as a deputy squadron commander, but by July he was reassigned to the 145th Fighter Aviation Regiment (later renamed as the 19th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment in April 1942). Later that month he gained his first aerial victory, having shot down an Fieseler Fi 156 Storch. He did not gain any further aerial victories until 1942, having switched to flying the Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3, although all aerial victories he gained while flying that plane were shared. In mid 1942 he began flying the Bell P-39 Airacobra, which he gathered the remainder of his shootdowns on. By the time he was nominated for the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 17 February 1943 he had been promoted to the position of squadron commander and totaled 262 combat sorties. Later that year he saw several very intense aerial combats; as a result he was shot down on 27 March, but he survived due to his parachute, and then on 21 June he allegedly shot down the Messerschmitt Bf 109 piloted by Heinrich Ehrler, forcing him to escape by parachute and be evacuated by a rescue plan, although the incident is not mentioned in German or Western sources. In May 1944 Kutakhov was promoted to commander of the 20th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, after which he flew in combat much less due to his seniority, but nevertheless he gained one last aerial victory in December that year (a Bf 109). By the end of the war he accumulated 327 sorties, participated in 63 dogfights, and was credited with at least 12 solo aerial victories, seeing combat in the battles for Leningrad, Karelia, Murmansk, the Arctic, Svir-Petrozavodsk, and Petsamo-Kirkenes.