Safonov, Boris

Safonov, Boris Feoktistovich 

Born Aug. 13 (26), 1915, in the village of Sin’iavino, now in Plavsk Raion, Tula Oblast; died May 30, 1942. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Sept. 16, 1941, and June 14, 1942). Naval fighter pilot; lieutenant colonel (1942). Member of the CPSU from 1939. Son of a worker.

Safonov joined the Red Army in 1933. He graduated from the First Red Banner Military Pilots’ School in 1934 and served in the arctic region from September 1940. In the Great Patriotic War, Safonov commanded a squadron of the 72nd Air Regiment and then the 78th Air Regiment and the 2nd Guards Red Banner Air Regiment of the air forces of the Northern Fleet. He made about 300 combat flights and personally shot down 22 aircraft. He died in an air battle while repulsing a mass enemy air attack on a convoy of allied ships going to Murmansk. An urban-type settlement in Murmansk Oblast has been named after him. Safonov was awarded the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, and a British order.