Aleksey Maresyev
Soviet aviator (1916–2001)
Aleksey Petrovich Maresyev (Russian: Алексей Петрович Маресьев; 20 May 1916 – 18 May 2001) was a Soviet and Russian military pilot who became a Soviet fighter ace during World War II despite becoming a double amputee.
Biography
Before joining the army in 1937 Maresyev worked as a turner and then participated in the construction of Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
In 1941, he graduated from the Bataysk Military School of Aviation. He began his flights as a fighter pilot in August 1941. He had shot down four German aircraft by March 1942.
On 5 April 1942 his Yakovlev Yak-1 was shot down near Staraya Russa, after which he was almost captured. Despite being badly injured, he managed to return to the Soviet-controlled territory, braving blizzards and german patrol units. During his 18-day-long journey his injuries deteriorated so badly that both of his legs had to be amputated above the knee. Before the surgery he was lying on a stretcher with a sheet over his face and considered to be a hopeless case due to the extent of his injuries in addition to suffering from gangrene and blood poisoning. One doctor offered to operate on him and thereby saved him, but told him he would not lose his legs.
“Aleksey Maresyev” enters the record as soviet aviator (1916–2001). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aleksey, Maresyev and Soviet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q381987. VIAF identifies the subject as 30670997. The Library of Congress control number is n50067222. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2001, 1937 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aleksey Maresyev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.