The names of Soviet pilots from an American aircraft, who collapsed during the Second World War and found when searching for the Tu-154, collapsed

The names of the dead pilots of the American bomber "Boston" from the times of the Great Patriotic War, discovered at sea near Sochi after the December crash of the Tu-154 , are established by the search engines of the Krasnodar Territory from the Kuban bridgehead society.

Fragments of the aircraft were found 500 meters from the coast of the Adler district. The fuselage with a combat body kit lay at a 12-meter depth. The liner was in service with the 63rd bomber air regiment (63 BAPs) and crashed when taking off from the Adler airfield on November 15, 1942. All four crew members died during the crash. Presumably, the fighting task of the pilots was the bombing of enemy objects on the Black Sea coast.

Kuban search engines thoroughly studied all losses of 63 BAPs back in 2009, when they worked at the site of the crew of another Boston on Mount Bash. Archival documents contain a record, which now perfectly approached the find in the area of ​​Sochi.

Among the members of the deceased crew of the bomber Douglas A-20 Havoc/DB-7 Boston:
commander - Lieutenant Nikolai Ivanovich Ilyin;
Senior scorer - Lieutenant Petr Kirillovich Pozdnyakov;
Radist shooter - sergeant Andrei Fedorovich evenings;
The shooter is the younger sergeant Mikhail Tikhonovich Shomin.

According to archival documents, on the night of November 15, 1942 at 01:50, the crew of Lieutenant Ilyin on the A-20 a-20 Boston N12705 flew out on a combat mission from the Adler airfield. Having gained a height of 150 meters and moving from the airfield by 5 km, the plane went down sharply and crashed into the water at an angle of diving.

On January 19, 2017, rescuers were raised from the bottom of one of the engines of the bomber. And although its factory number could not be installed, the analysis of the losses of the air regiment indicated that this is the only aircraft of this type, the victim of the catastrophe in the Adler region, Interfax reports.

The search engines began the search for relatives of the dead heroes to tell them the exact place of the death of the pilots.

The public organization "Kuban bridgehead" works in places of battles of World War II in the Krasnodar Territory. Today, the search engines discovered and reburied more than 5 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers, installed and investigated about 250 aircraft.

Douglas A-20 Havoc/DB-7 BOSTON-a family of aircraft, including attack aircraft, bombers, night heavy fighters. During the war years, they were supplied to the USSR on Lend -Lease - a program according to which the United States sent its allies in the Second World War military supplies, equipment, food, medical equipment and medicines, strategic raw materials. From 1941 to 1945, the USSR received on Lend-Lease of various goods, equipment and raw materials for $ 10 billion out of a total of $ 50 billion. As part of the program, about three thousand Douglas A-20 various modifications were delivered to the Soviet Union.