A 104-year-old veteran of two wars told why he loves MK

This fall, the editors of Moskovsky Komsomolets received a letter from the Moscow Veterans House with a story about a veteran of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet-Japanese War, Vladimir Dmitrievich Bozhenov. He turned 104(!) in June. As it turned out, Vladimir Dmitrievich has been reading MK throughout almost his entire adult life. He is the same age as our newspaper, which also dates back to 1919. MK journalists went to visit the veteran, talked with him and gave him a subscription to his favorite newspaper.

– I don’t remember now what year I’ve been subscribing to the newspaper. I don’t read other newspapers, I like MK – both the international situation and the internal life of the country – everything is covered! – says Vladimir Dmitrievich.

He uses a wheelchair, has difficulty hearing, but remembers well the events he had to endure.

– I was born in Nizhny Tagil. I grew up with my father, lost my mother in early childhood, I don’t remember her at all. At that time there were many different diseases that could not yet be treated.

I owe almost everything I have achieved in life, first of all, to my father. With only one grade of education behind him, he worked as a mason and a repairman for open-hearth furnaces. My father always supported me, wanted me to study, helped me. While still at school, I had tentative plans to serve the required time in the army and then get a job as a power plant duty officer. But it turned out the way it happened,” recalls Vladimir Dmitrievich.

Back in 1941, he was one of the first to sign up as volunteers. He was 22 years old. After a medical examination, he was sent to study at the Smolensk Rifle and Machine Gun School. By that time the school had already been evacuated to Udmurtia, to Sarapul. Afterwards he was sent to Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk – “MK”), where the Air Force Engineering Academy named after N.E. Zhukovsky was transferred from Moscow.

“I had almost a higher civilian education – the last year of the Ural Industrial Institute, but I didn’t have any military education – so they sent me to the Zhukovsky Academy,” explains the veteran.

Then there was service in aviation units, participation in the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945. After the war, Vladimir Dmitrievich continued to serve in the Armed Forces of the USSR. In 1950 he was transferred to Moscow, to the Main Headquarters of the Air Force. In 1971, with the rank of engineer-colonel, he was first transferred to the reserve and then retired.

The veteran warmly recalls his years of service:

– I was always lucky with my colleagues and commanders. They helped me, I helped them. At the Air Force General Staff, he followed the example of front-line soldiers, such as Colonel Ilya Dmitrievich Bakhtiyarov and General Rostislav Sergeevich Tersky.

In conclusion, we presented the veteran with a certificate for subscription to “Moskovsky Komsomolets” and a bouquet of flowers, and wished him health.

Help “MK”.Vladimir Dmitrievich Bozhenov was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Red Star (twice), medals “For Military Merit”, “For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, “For Victory over Japan”, “Veteran of the Armed Forces” THE USSR”.

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“Senior technical lieutenant Bozhenov has been working in this position since May 1945. In a short time, he perfectly studied and mastered the new material part of the radar station and fully trained his staff to work on it.

When servicing the flight of SI-47 aircraft on a special mission from Voroshilov to Moscow and back, the radar station supported monitoring of the flight of aircraft on the direct and return route. When the planes returned to the Vozdvizhenka airfield in conditions of a dark night and poor visibility, thanks to the help of the radar station, the planes maintained the given course and arrived exactly at the airfield. Comrade Bozhenov was at the station all the time and skillfully supervised its work, which greatly contributed to the excellent completion of the assigned task, for which he deserves to be awarded the medal “For Military Merit.”

From the award list. July 5, 1945.

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“He is devoted to the Lenin-Stalin Party and the socialist Motherland, politically consistent, and morally stable. During the war with the Japanese invaders, he provided continuous surveillance of enemy aircraft, as well as his own aircraft, thanks to which the division command was always aware of the situation in the air. Despite the extremely mountainous terrain in the combat area, Comrade Bozhenov, through persistent personal work, was able to ensure observation of the area of ​​​​operation. Conclusion: for his skillful leadership in detecting enemy aircraft and the actions of his own aviation, he deserves to be awarded the Order of the Red Star.”

From the award list. August 26, 1945.