The flight logbook belonged to Vladimir Alexandrovich Chigvintsev, a cadet of the Ufa flying and parachute training club. Such wartime ‘logbook’ was the main document in which the service and professional qualification of aviation flying personnel was recorded accurately.
The USSR State Defence Committee issued a special resolution dated October 1941 which prescribed all those liable to military service and young people of the preinduction age to undergo training in particular specialities. In compliance with this document 193 thousand people underwent military training courses under the Universal Military Training programme of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) starting from October 1941 up to July 1944. The system trained more than 30 thousand snipers, riflemen for all kinds of weapons, signal men, sappers, soldiers with special skills for all combat arms of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Bashkiria organized courses to train junior lieutenants and mid-rank command personnel for the front using the facilities of the machine gun and infantry schools of the South Urals Military District.
It also concentrated here military training establishments evacuated from the besieged Leningrad such as: Second Artillery School, Air Surveillance, Warning and Communications Military School. Thousands of draftees were sent by the military commissariats to these and other schools, for example, to the Sevastopol Anti-Aircraft Defence Artillery School.
During the hard times of the Great Patriotic War the OSOAVIAKHIM (Society for Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defence) of the Bashkir ASSR was a large defence multifunctional institution on training and retraining of reserve cadre to replenish the personnel of the army units.
The OSOAVIAKHIM was guided and actively assisted by the military department of the Bashkir regional communist (Bolshevik) party committee. Special emphasis was placed on the training of pilots, paratroopers and specialists for the USSR Air Forces.
In training the flying contingent for the military aviation units a tremendous role was played by the flying clubs of the Bashkir Republic. The Ufa flying club (1st category), the Sterlitamak and Beloretsk clubs (4th category) had already functioned in Bashkiria by the time the war broke out. It is these schools, as well as two training squadrons redeployed to the Bashkir ASSR from the western regions that gave initial knowledge to the future airmen. Before the war OSOAVIAKHIM’s schools trained cadets in 11 defence specialities, but in war time training was conducted in as many as 22 qualifications.
Historical facts say that before 1944 the OSOAVIAKHIM trained: 4022 snipers, 2717 machine-gunners (for mounted machine guns), 5277 machine-gunners (for light machine-guns), 1617 mortar men, 1336 automatic rifle men, 187 tank destroyers, 1337 radio operators, 1830 telephone operators, 1116 telegraph operators, 400 seamen. Among the trainees there were 11,316 women. 30.4 thousand met the standards and were awarded the Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge.
The front needed well-trained fighters who possess certain skills and abilities. For this reason all activities of the sports, defence and young communist league organizations were focused on just one task: to train military specialists for various units of the Red Army.
The USSR State Defence Committee issued a special resolution dated October 1941 which prescribed all those liable to military service and young people of the preinduction age to undergo training in particular specialities. In compliance with this document 193 thousand people underwent military training courses under the Universal Military Training programme of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) starting from October 1941 up to July 1944. The system trained more than 30 thousand snipers, riflemen for all kinds of weapons, signal men, sappers, soldiers with special skills for all combat arms of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Bashkiria organized courses to train junior lieutenants and mid-rank command personnel for the front using the facilities of the machine gun and infantry schools of the South Urals Military District.
It also concentrated here military training establishments evacuated from the besieged Leningrad such as: Second Artillery School, Air Surveillance, Warning and Communications Military School. Thousands of draftees were sent by the military commissariats to these and other schools, for example, to the Sevastopol Anti-Aircraft Defence Artillery School.
During the hard times of the Great Patriotic War the OSOAVIAKHIM (Society for Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defence) of the Bashkir ASSR was a large defence multifunctional institution on training and retraining of reserve cadre to replenish the personnel of the army units.
The OSOAVIAKHIM was guided and actively assisted by the military department of the Bashkir regional communist (Bolshevik) party committee. Special emphasis was placed on the training of pilots, paratroopers and specialists for the USSR Air Forces.
In training the flying contingent for the military aviation units a tremendous role was played by the flying clubs of the Bashkir Republic. The Ufa flying club (1st category), the Sterlitamak and Beloretsk clubs (4th category) had already functioned in Bashkiria by the time the war broke out. It is these schools, as well as two training squadrons redeployed to the Bashkir ASSR from the western regions that gave initial knowledge to the future airmen. Before the war OSOAVIAKHIM’s schools trained cadets in 11 defence specialities, but in war time training was conducted in as many as 22 qualifications.
Historical facts say that before 1944 the OSOAVIAKHIM trained: 4022 snipers, 2717 machine-gunners (for mounted machine guns), 5277 machine-gunners (for light machine-guns), 1617 mortar men, 1336 automatic rifle men, 187 tank destroyers, 1337 radio operators, 1830 telephone operators, 1116 telegraph operators, 400 seamen. Among the trainees there were 11,316 women. 30.4 thousand met the standards and were awarded the Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge.
The front needed well-trained fighters who possess certain skills and abilities. For this reason all activities of the sports, defence and young communist league organizations were focused on just one task: to train military specialists for various units of the Red Army.
