Captain Nikolai Gastello is one of the most famous heroes of the Great Patriotic War:

on June 26, 1941, he committed the so-called “fire ram”, dying during a combat mission.

They tried to question the feat, but the fact remains: when it comes to hero pilots, the name of the Soviet captain is one of the first to be remembered.

In the history of the Great Patriotic War, the surname Gastello became a household name. Pilots who committed a “fiery ram” began to be called “Gastellites.”
In total, during the Great Patriotic War, 595 “classic” air rams were carried out (by aircraft), 506 rams by aircraft on ground targets, 16 sea rams (this number may include rams by naval pilots on enemy surface and coastal targets) and 160 tank rams.
But the numbers, of course, may be different, because there were many more of our Heroes.

History of the feat:
On June 26, 1941 – a few days after the start of the war – the crew under the command of Captain Gastello flew out to bomb a German mechanized column moving along the Molodechno-Rodoshkovichi road. There were four people on the plane: the crew included lieutenants Anatoly Burdenyuk and Grigory Skorobogatiy, senior sergeant Alexey Kalinin. The attack started successfully: the plane managed to accurately place several aerial bombs into the accumulation of German equipment, and then fire at the fleeing soldiers.

The chronicle of that day became known thanks to other participants in the combat flight – senior lieutenant Fyodor Vorobyov and lieutenant Anatoly Rybas. Before their eyes, Captain Gastello turned the crippled plane, from which smoke was coming out, towards the column. And then he drove the car straight into the thick of German tanks and vehicles. Until the last, the crew fired at the enemy from the plane engulfed in flames: none of its members tried to leave the bomber. Then there was an explosion: the plane crashed into a column. A lot of German equipment burned down. The price of the feat was high: the entire crew of the DB-3F died.

At the beginning of July, the whole country heard a report from the Soviet Information Bureau about the fiery ram. A month after the feat, Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. His surname became a symbol of heroism and self-sacrifice: despite the fact that many pilots died in this way during the war years, it was Captain Gastello who went down in history forever.continue