T. T. Khryukin
| Timofey Khryukin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 June 1910 Yeysk, Russian empire |
| Died | 19 July 1953 (aged 43) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Allegiance |
 Soviet Union
|
| Awards |
 
|
Timofey Timofeyevich Khryukin (Russian: Тимофе́й Тимофе́евич Хрю́кин; 21 June 1910 [O.S. 8 June], in Yeysk – 19 July 1953, in Moscow) was a Soviet aviator, Spanish Civil War volunteer, and colonel-general of the Soviet Air Force. Emerging from an impoverished working-class background, he rose to command the 8th Air Army and 1st Air Army during the Second World War, being twice decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union before his death following a period of illness caused by a road accident.
Khryukin was born on June 21, 1910 in the southern town of Yeysk in the Kuban Oblast (present-day Krasnodar Krai) of Imperial Russia into a poverty-stricken family. Khryukin's father worked a mason; his mother assisted supporting the family as a laundrywoman working for petty wages.
At the age of eight, Khryukin began working for well-off cossacks, but eventually ran off, spending several years wandering the countryside in the years preceding the Bolshevik Revolution. His formal education, which did not began until at age 15 in the midst of the socialist campaigns to eradicate illiteracy; around this time he found employment in various jobs involving manual labor, including as a porter and railway depot employee. After joining the Komsomol at age 16, the young Khryukin made his way to regional secretary of the organization and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1929. Following a brief stint at a school of agriculture he joined the Soviet armed forces in 1932 and was sent to for training to an army aviation school in Luhansk, which he completed the following year.
...
Wikipedia