Vadim Fadeev was born on December 25, 1917 in the village of Fedkino, today Terengulsky district of the former Ulyanovsk region, in a family of teachers. He lived in Kuibyshev, graduated from the 3 courses of the Construction Institute and the local flying club, in which he was left as an instructor. Vadim was educated, well-read, sang superbly, very handsome - almost two meters tall, blond with blue eyes. In 1940 he was drafted into the Red Army, graduated from the Chkalovsky military aviation school for pilots.

On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War since August 1941. At first he fought as part of the 131st Fighter Aviation Regiment, flying an I-16 aircraft. Once, in the region of Kodyma (Moldova), V.I. Fadeev attacked a column of Romanian cavalrymen with a group of fighters. Having shot all the cartridges, he went down to the very ground and chopped the riders with the propeller of the aircraft.

In 1943, Lieutenant Fadeev arrived in the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, quickly mastered new equipment, became an excellent leader of the pair, and then the squadron commander. Vadim carefully kept the protocol issued by the commander of the Air Army - an instruction on issuing him a double food ration and a permit for individual tailoring of clothes and shoes. Of the ready-made uniforms, nothing suited him - everything was a bit.

His brilliant abilities as a fighter pilot were fully revealed in the battles in the Kuban. With a huge physical strength and endurance, he made 5 - 6 sorties a day. He often shot down several aircraft per flight, and once in one week he destroyed 10 aircraft personally and 1 in the group. By the end of April 1943, Captain V.I. Fadeev made 394 sorties, conducted 43 air battles and personally shot down 17 enemy aircraft.

One of the demons of his character was a disdainful attitude to danger and an underestimation of the enemy's forces. Sometimes he behaved easily recklessly - he could, having abandoned the management of the group, chase after a single "Messer"; connect a transmitter in flight and perform arias from operas; perform "circus" tricks at low altitude over the airfield. For mischief, he grew a beard for himself with a "shovel" - "for fear of enemies," as he said. His broad Volga nature and confidence in his extraordinary abilities often manifested themselves in an overestimation of his abilities.

Vadim Fadeev died in an unequal air battle on May 5, 1943. In the last sortie, he, having shown his often inherent self-confidence, decided to do it independently, and this was his fatal oversight. Breaking away from the center group of our fighters, led by A.I. Pokryshkin, he and his wingman Andrey Trud met a group of 12 Me-109 fighters. In this battle, Fadeev shot down 2 planes, but was not easily wounded and died returning to his airport terminal.

By that time, he had made more than 400 sorties and conducted 51 air flights. On his account there were 21 personal and 1 group victories (some sources give other figures, in particular - 17 personal and 3 group victories). Assault strikes destroyed up to 90 vehicles, 15 guns, 25 wagons and a lot of active enemy forces.

On May 24, 1943, for courage and military prowess shown in battles with enemies, Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. During the period of the war, he was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner (twice), and medals. He was buried in the central park of the village of Kievskoye, Krasnodar Territory. Streets in Kuibyshev and Kievskaya bear his name.

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Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev(December 25, 1917 - May 5, 1943) - Hero of the Soviet Union, fighter pilot, guard captain, squadron commander.

Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev was born on December 25, 1917 in the village of Fedkino, Terengulsky District, Ulyanovsk Region, into a family of teachers. He lived in Kuibyshev, where he completed 3 courses at a construction institute and an flying club, where he later worked as an instructor.

• In 1940 he graduated from the Chkalov Military Aviation Pilot School.
• In August 1941, he got into the active part.

Vadim Fadeev was tall and of strong build. At the front, he was given a personal double ration. According to contemporaries, he was cheerful and sociable, played the guitar well, sang, read poetry. As a joke, he grew a long beard, for which he received his call sign "Beard".

On November 27, 1941, the pilot of the 446th mixed air regiment, Fadeev, was shot down by artillery near the village of Bolshie Sala, northwest of Rostov, during an attack on enemy positions. He was able to "hold out" to his positions, achieved a meeting with the division commander, reported to him about the observed German forces and insisted on striking at them. In the battle formations of the infantry, he personally participated in the successful attack on the Five Brothers height. For initiative, resourcefulness, courage and heroism, senior sergeant Vadim Fadeev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on the proposal of the command of the ground forces. Then he was awarded an extraordinary military rank"lieutenant".

In 1943, after being wounded and due to a conflict with the regiment commander, Fadeev was transferred to the rear. After that, he got into the 16th Guards Fighter Regiment to A.I. Pokryshkin, where he became a squadron commander. He proved himself not only as a strong air fighter, but also as a competent, resourceful tactician:

By the end of April 1943, Captain Fadeev made 394 sorties, conducted 43 air battles and personally shot down 17 enemy aircraft and 3 in the group. Result: 20 downed enemy aircraft.

Shortly before his death, documents were sent to confer on him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

On May 5, 1943, while on a mission to cover his troops in the area of ​​​​the village of Krymskaya, on a P-39 aircraft, he broke away from Alexander Pokryshkin's link and was spotted by a Me-109 group. The couple broke up and a fight ensued. Fadeev was wounded and pulled home. His wingman, Andrei Trud, could not tear himself away from the Me-109 and could not provide cover for the leader. Fadeev was able to land the plane in the floodplains of the Adagum River, but died from blood loss. His body was found only on July 11.

On May 24, 1943, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command at the front and the courage and heroism of the guard shown at the same time, Captain Fadeev Vadim Ivanovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

He was buried in the central park of the village of Kyiv, Krymsky District, Krasnodar Territory.

He was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner.

Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev .

Vadim Fadeev was born in the Kuibyshev region on January 7, 1917. After high school entered the flying club and graduated in 1938. Worked as an instructor. In January 1940 he was sent to military school pilots. In July 1941, at his request, he was seconded to the active army.

At first he fought as part of the 131st Fighter Aviation Regiment, flying an I-16 aircraft.

Once, in the region of Kodyma (Moldova), Vadim Fadeev attacked a column of Romanian cavalrymen with a group of fighters. Having shot all the cartridges, he went down to the very ground and chopped the horsemen with the propeller of the aircraft. Fadeev received his first Order of the Red Banner in the harsh year of 1941 near Taganrog. Finding himself in a difficult moment among the foot soldiers, he raised them to the attack and, setting an example of courage and courage, together with them recaptured the dominant height from the enemy. During the war years, the story about this case of an old soldier, a participant in the liberation of Rostov-on-Don, passed from mouth to mouth.

In 1943, Lieutenant V.I. Fadeev arrived in the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, quickly mastered the new equipment, became an excellent lead pair, and then a squadron commander. Vadim carefully kept the document issued by the commander of the Air Army, the order to issue him a double food ration and a permit for individual tailoring of clothes and shoes. Of the ready-made uniforms, nothing suited him, everything was not enough.

His brilliant abilities as a fighter pilot were fully revealed in the battles in the Kuban. Possessing great physical strength and endurance, he made 5-6 sorties a day. Sometimes he shot down several planes per flight.

From August 1941 to May 1943, Fadeev made 434 sorties, participated in 51 air battles, shot down about 20 enemy aircraft, destroyed 80 vehicles, 15 guns, and up to 200 enemy soldiers and officers with assault actions. Paired with his wingman A. Trud, who later became a Hero of the Soviet Union, he shot down 44 enemy aircraft.

Vadim Fadeev died in an unequal air battle on May 5, 1943. In the last sortie, breaking away from the main group of our fighters, led by A.I. Pokryshkin, he and his wingman Andrey Trud met a group of 12 Me-109 fighters. In this battle, Fadeev shot down two planes, but was seriously wounded and died while returning to his airfield.

On May 24, 1943, for courage and military prowess shown in battles with enemies, Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The nephew of Vadim Fadeev turned to the editorial office, saying that neither the plane nor the body of the legendary pilot had yet been found.

hero boy
We seem to know everything about our legendary countryman, pilot-hero Vadim Fadeev. We have a school that bears his name, a street named after him, a square ... I remember very well the portrait of a bearded pilot in a leather helmet, mounted above the entrance of a small green garden that existed on the site of the Kozlovsky house on Prospekt that had not yet been built at that time Lenina, 1. Sparks shone in the pilot's eyes, his mouth broke into a wide smile. It seemed that he himself was ready to participate in the games that the surrounding children arranged in the park named after him. Only later did I find out that he really was just a boy when his last flight ended in tragedy. 25 years - today is the age of a young man just entering adulthood. And at that time he had two Orders of the Red Star, the Order of Lenin, and was presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Official version
The image of this fidget, brave man, strong man and great clever person for us embodies the best features of the Samara character, the breed of those powerful Volgarians who made the pride of Russia - singer Fyodor Chaliapin, fearless aviators Nesterov, Golovanov, Chkalov. So many memories, so many books have been written about him, as well as about his idol pilots! Here, for example, is what is reported in the article “Soviet aces on Lend-Lease fighters” about the military fate of Vadim Fadeev: “Along with Pokryshkin and Rechkalov in 1943, the star of Fadeev Vadim, who had the nickname Beard, shone in the air regiment. He started the war on the Southern Front as a junior lieutenant, flying an I-16. And soon he became a real ace.

At the end of 1942, the pilot was sent to the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. At the end of April of the following year, he was promoted to captain and became commander of the third squadron. By that time, he had 394 sorties, in which he scored 17 individual victories and three in a group (43 air battles). And Vadim accepted death as a hero. Here are the official data: “On May 5, 1943, while on a mission to cover his troops in the area of ​​​​the village of Krymskaya on a P-39 plane, he broke away from Alexander Pokryshkin’s link and was spotted by a Me-109 group. The pair broke up and a fight ensued. Fadeev was wounded and pulled home. His wingman, Andrey Trud, could not break away from the Me-109 and could not provide cover for the leader. Fadeev was able to land the plane in the floodplains of the Adagum River, but died from blood loss. His body was only found on 11 July.”

non-healing wound
But it turns out that far from everything is known about the fate of Vadim Fadeev. On the eve of Victory Day, the editorial office of SG received a letter from his relatives, who report that they still do not know the place of Vadim's burial and it is completely unclear what actually happened on the day of his alleged death.

Kirill Kalnin, the hero’s nephew, a microbiologist from the USA, writes: “May 5 marks exactly 74 years since my uncle Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev, Hero of the Soviet Union, 26-year-old ace pilot, two-meter hero boy, went missing in the Kuban, gentle son and brother, broad soul, faithful friend, joker, wrestler, musician, colloquial artist, singer. This year, on December 25, he would have turned 100 years old. On that day, May 5, 1943, Dima radioed that he had landed, but was seriously wounded. And that gave us hope."

Further, Kirill Kalnin tells that his grandmother received in 1943 only a notification that her son was missing. There were no reports that he died! And this did not give her, left alone with two daughters in her arms, the right to receive payments due to the family of the deceased Hero of the Soviet Union. Vadim's father could not bear the news that his son was missing, and soon died of a heart attack.

The fate of the legendary pilot haunts his entire family for many decades. They interviewed Vadim's friends. His commander and friend Alexander Pokryshkin said that, to the surprise of the pilots, after the report of the wingman who returned to the base that Vadim had been shot down, a search group was not immediately organized. A few months later, the aviators were told that the body of the hero, who fell on the strip, on which the battles continued for a long time, was found in the swamps and buried on the spot. But they were never told the exact place of burial.

There is an official grave of the hero near the village of Krymskaya, where his last battle took place. The Vadim sisters, along with their children and pathfinders from the Kuibyshev school, which bears the name of Fadeev, came there and searched at the crash site, sent an official request to the local authorities. The only thing they managed to establish is that there is no hero’s body in the grave. After the war, one of Vadim's comrades told them that, being seriously wounded, the pilot was allegedly taken prisoner, then to Auschwitz, where he led the uprising of prisoners.

“This is quite in the spirit of my uncle,” says Kirill Kalnin, “but we submitted a request to the archive of the museum of this death camp and received an answer that my uncle’s name is not listed there.

Kirill Kalnin emphasizes:

- It would be much easier if you could come to the grave of your uncle and cry, but his mother and sisters were deprived of this too. To tell the truth, I want certainty already. What, when and where happened to him, what death he took, where he was buried. This is very important for relatives! I would like to find his grave, without this he is not yet dead, he has not left.

Therefore, on May 9, the pilot's relatives went out with his portrait to the procession of the Immortal Regiment. The Great Patriotic War will end in our souls for real only when the last of her soldiers is buried ...

From the response of the administration of the Krymsky district of the Krasnodar Territory to a request from relatives:
“Based on the data of the military commissariat of the city of Krymsk and the Krymsky region, municipal institution"Crimean Museum of Local Lore" we report the following. Vadim Ivanovich Fadeev, born in 1917, died on May 5, 1943 in an air battle near the village of Krymskaya (now the city of Krymsk, Krasnodar Territory). The plane and the remains of the pilot were not found. According to eyewitnesses of the air battle, the downed plane fell on the territory between the village of Krymskaya and the village of Melehovo. Investigation work in the post-war years was not carried out due to the swampiness of the area. The name of the Hero of the Soviet Union V.I. Fadeev is symbolically immortalized in the lists on a mass grave in the Plavnensky farm of Kyiv rural settlement municipal formation Krymsky district.

F adeev (correctly - Faddeev) Vadim Ivanovich - squadron commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (216th mixed aviation division, 4th air army, North Caucasian Front), guard captain.

Born on December 13 (25), 1917 in the village of Fedkino, now Terengulsky district, Ulyanovsk region, in a family of teachers. Russian. He lived in the city of Kuibyshev (now Samara), where he graduated from the 3rd year of the construction institute and the flying club, where he was left as an instructor.

In the Red Army since 1940. In 1940 he graduated from the Chkalov Military Aviation Pilot School.

I met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War in one of the fighter regiments in Siberia. Wrote a report about sending to the front.

Member of the Great Patriotic War since August 1941. Sergeant Fadeev fought in the 446th, 131st, 630th (since December 1941) fighter and 762nd mixed aviation regiments. On the I-16 plane, he flew as a wingman for the future Hero Vladimir Istrashkin. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1942.

Fadeev was distinguished by high growth (about 2 meters) and a powerful physique. Subsequently, at the front, he was personally issued a double ration. For his cheerful and sociable character, he enjoyed the love and respect of his comrades. He read a lot, played the guitar well, sang beautifully. There were legends about Fadeev's sorties at the front. Possessing great physical strength and endurance, he made 5-6 sorties a day. At the same time, his attitude to danger sometimes reached the point of recklessness. For mischief, he grew his beard "with a shovel" - "for the fear of enemies," as he said. And his call sign was appropriate - "Beard".

On November 27, 1941, during a sortie, the I-16 Fadeev was shot down. The pilot reached the neutral zone and moved to his positions. But then ... he led a group of infantrymen who attacked a high-rise, over which he himself had just flown in a wrecked plane. The fighters captured the height, destroying a mortar battery, several enemy firing points and armored cars. For this land battle, pilot Fadeev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and soon received the first officer rank of "lieutenant".

In one of the sorties, having spent ammunition, Fadeev attacked a Romanian cavalry unit from a strafing flight using an aircraft propeller as a weapon.

In 1942, after being wounded and due to a conflict with the regiment commander, Fadeev was transferred to a reserve regiment in the rear. In August 1942 he was enrolled in the 16th Guards Fighter Regiment to A.I. Pokryshkin. He was promoted to flight commander and then squadron leader. By that time, Fadeev had 1 personal air victory on his account.

In air battles in the North Caucasus, along with Pokryshkin, the Glinka brothers, Fadeev became the most productive ace of the Kuban battle. By April 28, 1943, Captain Fadeev completed 394 sorties, conducted 43 air battles, shot down 17 enemy aircraft and 1 in the group. He was the first of the pilots of the 4th Air Army who fought in the Kuban, presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

At kazam of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 24, 1943 for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the invaders and the courage and heroism shown by the guard to the captain Fadeev Vadim Ivanovich posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

The Hero did not have time to receive the award. The performance went around the authorities, but the fighting continued ... On May 5, 1943, Vadim Fadeev died in an unequal battle. The Germans hunted for him, as well as for other Soviet aces. On that day, he collided with 12 Nazi fighters, according to some reports, he shot down two planes, but he himself was seriously wounded. The pilot managed to land the damaged plane in the floodplain, but, having lost consciousness, died from blood loss. The forced landing site was found only a few days later.

By that time, Vadim Fadeev had made more than 400 sorties, conducted 51 air battles and shot down 17 personally and in a group of 3 enemy aircraft **.

He was buried in the central park of the village of Kyiv, Krymsky District, Krasnodar Territory.

Captain of the Guard (1943). He was awarded the Order of Lenin (05/24/1943), two Orders of the Red Banner (12/23/1941, 04/22/1943).

The name of the Hero is carried by the streets in the city of Samara and in the village of Kyiv. Busts of V.I. In Samara, on the house in which he lived, and on the street that bears his name, there are memorial plaques.