Ivan Proskurov
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Ivan Proskurov | |
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| Native name | Иван Иосифович Проскуров |
| Born | 18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1907 |
| Died | 28 October 1941 (aged 34) |
| Service years | 1931–1941 |
| Rank | Lieutenant general |
| Conflicts | Spanish Civil War World War II |
| Awards | Hero of the Soviet Union |
Ivan Iosifovich Proskurov (Russian: Иван Иосифович Проскуров; 18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1907 – 28 October 1941) was a Soviet pilot and recipient of the title Hero of the Soviet Union, best known as the chief of military intelligence who tried in vain to warn Joseph Stalin that the Red Army was ill-prepared to defend the USSR against a German invasion – unwelcome advice which apparently cost him his life.
The son of a railway worker, he was educated at the Kharkov Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture and worked as a farm labourer in the village on the Dnieper, and later as a factory worker, and joined the Communist Party in 1927. He enlisted in the Red Army in 1931, and trained at the Stalingrad school for military pilots in 1931–33.[1] After graduating, he became a flight instructor. In 1936, he made a record-breaking flight to Khabarovsk, in the Far East, in 54 hours and 13 minutes, to deliver an engineer and spare parts to the famous Soviet pilot, Valery Chkalov, who had damaged his plane in an accident. In September 1936, he was secretly sent to Spain to assist the republican side in the Spanish Civil War. From February 1937, he was commander of the First Bombardment Squadron, during the defence of Madrid, but was recalled to Moscow shortly after Soviet aircraft bombed a German battleship off Ibiza, killed 31 German sailors, and provoked Hitler to retaliate by bombing Almería.[2] On his return, he was rapidly promoted, as the higher ranks of military were decimated in the Great Purge. In 1938, he was appointed head of the Second Special Aviation Army on the Far Eastern Front.
