Alexey Petrovich Maresyev was born in 1916. He was three years old when his father died of wounds shortly after the end of the First World War in 1919. As a child, Alexey was often ill: he barely survived malaria, and as a consequence was diagnosed with rheumatism.

Maresyev finished eight grades of school in Kamyshin, and then enrolled in a vocational training program at a local factory. He studied to become a turner and started working. From childhood, Alexey Maresyev dreamed about aviation. He applied to a flight school twice, but he was refused admission due to poor health.

In 1932, a commission arrived in the village of Permskoye, as Komsomolsk-on-Amur was called until December of that same year. The commission decided to establish a shipbuilding and aviation plant there. Maresyev came to Permskoye in 1934. While he was working on the construction of the aircraft factory, he was attending an aero club.

In 1937, Alexey Maresyev was drafted into the Red Army and appointed an aircraft technician on Sakhalin. Over several years of service, Maresyev serviced the Polikarpov R-5 and I-15 aircraft. In 1940, he graduated from the Bataysk Aviation School with the rank of second lieutenant, but continued to work at the educational institution as an instructor.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War — in August 1941 — Alexey Maresyev was sent to the Southwestern Front, to the 296th Fighter Aviation Regiment. The officer was an experienced pilot, and on August 23 he made his first sortie.

Already in the spring of 1942, Maresyev became a flight commander in the 580th Fighter Aviation Regiment on the Northwestern Front. At the beginning of April 1942, the Yak-1 fighter aircraft, piloted by Alexey Maresyev, was hit by the enemy. The pilot was seriously injured while landing and had to crawl for over two weeks to make his way to his comrades.

He developed gangrene. Doctors of a Moscow hospital, where the wounded Maresyev was taken, were able to save his life; however, he had both his legs amputated below the knee. A few months later, Alexey Maresyev began using prostheses and exercising. In June 1943, he returned to the ranks of fighter pilots. He made his first flight using prosthetics in the skies above the Oryol region, shooting down three German planes. During the Great Patriotic War, Alexey Maresyev, Hero of the Soviet Union, made 86 sorties, shot down 11 enemy aircraft, and seven of them — as a double-amputee.