Mikhail Protasovich
Stupishin
1916-1980
Mikhail Protasovich Stupishin was the navigator of the 198th assault Volkovysk Red Banner Aviation Regiment of the 223rd assault Yartsevskaya Red Banner Aviation Division of the 4th Air Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front, major. He was born in the village of Mikhalchikovo, now it is Kstovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region, in a peasant family. In the 1920s he moved with his parents Nizhny Novgorod (in 1932-1990, the city of Gorky). In 1929-1932, together with his older brother, he was brought up in the Anson orphanage in Gorky. He graduated from 7 classes here. Then he left for the city of Ivanovo, graduated from the Ivanovo Art College. In 1935 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the Voroshilovgrad Flight School on a Komsomol ticket. In 1937 he graduated with honors, but then he did not have a chance to become a military pilot. In the same year, his father, a responsible employee of the Ivanovo Regional Party Committee, was repressed. The young pilot was urgently demobilized and he left for Gorky. Stupishin worked as an instructor at the local aero club, and here he met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. In December 1941 he was drafted into the army again. During the first five months on the Western Front Stupishin he made 24 sorties on a light night bomber Po-2. In May 1942 he mastered the IL-2 attack aircraft, on which he fought until the last day. The attack pilot Stupishin led groups of planes to perform the most difficult and dangerous tasks. He participated in the Battle of the Kursk Bulge. He fought near Rzhev, Vitebsk, Minsk, Bialystok. He was wounded twice and concussed once. He went from an ordinary pilot to a navigator of the regiment. By August 1944 Major Stupishin had made 98 combat sorties to attack enemy manpower and military equipment and was presented with the title the Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1946 Major Stupishin was dismissed to the reserve. But he did not part with aviation, he joined the Civil Air Fleet. For two years he drove planes on international lines, flew to France, Italy, Switzerland, Greece. In 1948 he joined the polar aviation. He participated in many high-latitude expeditions, flew to drifting stations. In particular, in 1954, he provided the operation of the North Pole-3 station on the AN-2. For peaceful labor, he was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor. Mikhail Protasovich Stupishin participated in the first ultra-long flight on the route Moscow-Antarctica-Moscow, which took place from December 1961 to February 1962. Participants of the 7th Soviet Antarctic Expedition were transported to the Polar continent on IL-18 aircraft, crewed by M.P. Stupishin, and AN-12. For this flight, he was awarded the Order of Lenin. In 1963 he participated in an ultra-long flight to Antarctica again. Behind the shoulders of the Hero of the Soviet Union M.P. Stupishina had almost 4 million kilometers of air roads, 625 days in the air.
Address: Moscow, Butyrskaya str., 53, bldg. 1
