Endel Puusepp

Endel Puusepp in September 1942

Endel Puusepp ( Russian Эндель Карлович Пусэп ; * May 1, 1909 in the Shalin area near Krasnoyarsk , Yenisisk Governorate , Russia ; † January 18, 1996 in Tallinn , Estonia ) was a Soviet pilot of Estonian descent.

Life

Puusepp was born in a so-called "Vyimov farm" in an Estonian farming family. These farms belonged to Estonian farmers who could no longer withstand the pressure of exploitation at home and therefore illegally resettled to Siberia . In 1927 the Regional Committee of the CPSU delegated him to study at the Estonian-Finnish Institute in Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg) . But already a year later, Puusepp intended to leave the institute because, at his request and with the support of the Komsomol of the Vasilevsky Island district, he wanted to become a student of the Leningrad Military Theoretical School of the Air Force. He completed his basic training in this field on an Avro-504K in Wolsk and in January 1931 he was promoted to military aviation after attending the Orenburg military aviation school. He then remained at this flying school for another five years as a flight instructor and advanced to senior instructor and squadron commander.

In the summer of 1935 he was transferred to the Jeysk Naval Aviation School, where he flew the TB-1 and TB-3 heavy bombers for the first time . His test flight for instrument flight training, which Puusepp received there, he completed in June 1937 as a total blind flight to Moscow and back, with the chief navigator of the air force IT Spirin on board as an examiner.

In 1937 Puusepp was finally assigned to the Soviet polar air fleet, where he remained until the outbreak of war as part of the crew of MW Wodopjanow .

As early as June 22, 1941, the entire Wodopjanow crew, in which Puusepp served as copilot, reported for military service. He became captain in command of a TB-7 (Petlyakov Pe-8) heavy bomber in the 412th DBAP. In this function he also took part in one of the first Soviet bombing raids on Berlin on the night of August 10th to 11th, 1941 . The TB-7 Wodopjanows (Puusepp flew as co-pilot as in the polar air fleet) had to make an emergency landing over Estonia between the front lines and only through Puusepp's knowledge of the Estonian language could a shepherd boy, who met the crew members, be able to find their way to the Soviet front point. He then continued to fly as the commander of a TB-7 in the 45th AD of the ADD. He flew the bomber on a remarkable stage flight to Washington, DC in May 1942, bringing the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov to negotiations. On June 20, 1942, Puusepp was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union . He remained in the 45th AD as a Pe-8 pilot throughout the war.

In May 1946, Puusepp was demobilized to the rank of colonel due to a spinal injury. He got involved in the reconstruction of the devastated Estonia and headed the main administration of car transport in the Council of Ministers for four years. For 13 years he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and for ten years he was Minister for Social Affairs of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic .

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Puusepp and his wife felt very bad financially. Since the couple were not Estonian citizens and had also served in the Red Army , they were denied a pension. In the winter of 1992/1993 they had no firewood for heating and had to live in a small wooden hut. In January 1996, Puusepp finally died in the capital Tallinn.

literature

• Ulrich Unger: Pe-8 - The Soviet long-range bomber , Brandenburg publishing house, Bln. 1993, ISBN 3-89488-048-1

Web links

Commons : Endel Puusepp  - Collection of images, videos and audio files