: 1942 year. During an aerial battle, the plane of a Soviet fighter pilot crashes in the middle of a protected forest. Having lost both legs, the pilot does not give up, and a year later he is already fighting on a modern fighter.
Part one
Accompanying Ilya, who were going to attack the enemy airfield, fighter pilot Aleksey Meresyev got into the “double ticks”. Realizing that he was facing a shameful captivity, Alex tried to twist, but the German managed to shoot. The plane began to fall. Meresyeva vomited from the cockpit and threw it onto a big-leafed spruce whose branches softened the blow.
Waking up, Alex saw next to him a skinny, hungry bear. Fortunately, there was a gun in the pocket of the flight suit. Having got rid of the bear, Meresyev tried to get up and felt burning pain in his feet and dizziness from contusion. Looking around, he saw a field on which there was once a battle. A little at a distance was visible, the road leading to the forest.
Alex turned out to be 35 kilometers from the front line, in the middle of a huge Black Forest. He had a difficult path along the reserved wilds. With difficulty pulling off his high boots, Meresyev saw that his feet were numb and crushed by something. Nobody could help him. Gritting his teeth, he got up and went.
Where there used to be a sanitary company, he found a strong German knife. Growing up in the city of Kamyshin among the Volga steppes, Alexey did not know anything about the forest and could not prepare a place for an overnight stay. After spending the night in the young pine forests, he looked around again and found a kilogram can of stew. Alex decided to take twenty thousand steps a day, resting through every thousand steps, and eat only at noon.
It became harder to go every hour, even sticks cut from juniper did not help. On the third day, he found a makeshift lighter in his pocket and was able to bask around the fire. After admiring the "photo of a thin girl in a colorful, colorful dress", which he always wore in the gymnast’s pocket, Meresyev stubbornly went on and suddenly heard the noise of motors in front of the forest road. He barely managed to hide in the forest when a column of German armored cars drove past him. At night, he heard the noise of battle.
The night snowstorm has taken the road. Moving has become even harder. On this day, Meresyev invented a new way of moving: he threw forward a long stick with a fork at the end and pulled his mutilated body to it. So he wandered for two more days, eating a young pine bark and green moss. In a jar of stew, he boiled water with lingonberry leaves.
On the seventh day, he stumbled upon a barricade made by partisans, in which there were German armored cars that had overtaken him earlier. He heard the noise of this battle at night. Meresyev began to scream, hoping that the partisans would hear him, but they, apparently, had gone far. The front line, however, was already close - the wind carried the sound of the cannonade to Alexei.
In the evening, Meresyev discovered that the lighter ran out of fuel, he was left without heat and tea, which at least slightly dull the hunger. In the morning, he could not walk from weakness and "some terrible, new, itchy pain in the feet." Then "he climbed to all fours and crawled east into the bestial way." He managed to find some cranberries and an old hedgehog, which he ate raw.
Soon, his hands stopped holding him, and Alex began to move, rolling from side to side. Moving in the middle of oblivion, he woke up in the middle of a clearing. Here the living corpse, into which Meresyev turned, was picked up by the peasants of the village burnt by the Germans, who lived in the dugouts nearby. The men of this "underground" village went into the partisans, the remaining women were commanded by Mikhail's grandfather. He settled Alexei.
After a few days spent by Meresyev in half-forgotten, his grandfather gave him a bathhouse, after which Alexei became completely ill. Then the grandfather left, and a day later brought the squadron commander, in which Meresyev served. He drove a friend to his native airfield, where he was already waiting for the ambulance plane, which transported Alexei to the best Moscow hospital.
Part two
Meresyev was hospitalized by a famous professor of medicine. Alexei’s bed was put in the corridor. One day, passing by, the professor came across her and found out that there was a man lying there, 18 days crawling out of the German rear. Angry, the professor ordered the patient to be transferred to an empty "colonel" ward.
In addition to Alexei, there were three more wounded in the ward. Among them - a badly burnt tanker, a hero of the Soviet Union, Grigory Gvozdev, who avenged the Germans for the deceased mother and bride. In his battalion he was known as a "man without measure." For the second month, Gvozdyov was in apathy, was not interested in anything, and was expecting death. Claudia Mikhailovna, a pretty middle-aged ward sister, took care of the patients.
Meresiev’s feet turned black, and his fingers lost their sensitivity. The professor tried one treatment after another, but could not defeat gangrene. To save Alexei's life, his legs had to be amputated to the middle of the calf. All this time Alexey was rereading letters from his mother and his bride Olga, who could not admit that both legs were taken from him.
Soon, the fifth patient, a heavily shell-shocked commissioner Semyon Vorobyov, was transferred to Meresyev’s ward. This cheerful person managed to stir and comfort his neighbors, although he himself was constantly in great pain.
After amputation, Meresyev went into himself. He believed that now Olga would marry him only out of pity, or because of a sense of duty. Alex did not want to accept such a sacrifice from her, and therefore did not answer her letters
Spring came. The tankman came to life and turned out to be “a cheerful, talkative and easy person.” The Commissioner achieved this by organizing a correspondence with Grisha with a student at Anyuta Medical University, Anna Gribova. The Commissioner himself, meanwhile, was getting worse. His shell-shocked body was swollen, and each movement caused severe pain, but he fiercely resisted the disease.
Only to Alexei the Commissar could not pick up the key. From early childhood, Meresyev dreamed of becoming a pilot. Having gone to the construction site of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Alesay with a company of the same dreamers he organized an aero club. Together they “won the space from the taiga for the airfield”, from which Meresyev first flew into the sky on a training aircraft. “Then he studied at a military aviation school, he taught young people in it,” and when the war broke out, he went into the army. In aviation was the meaning of his life.
Once the Commissioner showed Alexey an article about a pilot from the First World War, Lieutenant Valerian Arkadyevich Karpov, who, having lost his foot, learned to fly a plane. To the objections of Meresyev that he did not have both legs, and modern aircraft are much more difficult to fly, the Commissioner replied: “But you are a Soviet man!”
Meresyev believed that he could fly without legs, and "he was possessed by a thirst for life and activity." Every day Alexei did the same set of exercises for his legs. Despite severe pain, he increased the charge time by one minute every day. Meanwhile, Grisha Gvozdyov fell in love with Anyuta more and more and now often looked in the mirror with his face disfigured by burns. And the Commissioner was getting worse. Now, at night, nurse Claudia Mikhailovna, who was in love with him, was on duty near him.
The bride Alex did not write the truth. They were familiar with Olga from school. After parting for a while, they met again, and Alex saw a beautiful girl in an old friend. However, he did not have time to say decisive words to her - the war began. Olga was the first to write about her love, while Alesay believed that he, legless, was not worthy of such love. Finally, he decided to write to the bride immediately after returning to the flight squadron.
On May 1, the Commissar died. In the evening of the same day, a newcomer, fighter pilot Major Pavel Ivanovich Struchkov with damaged kneecaps, settled in the ward. He was a cheerful, sociable person, a big lover of women, to whom he was rather cynical. The next day the Commissioner was buried. Claudia Mikhailovna was inconsolable, and Alexei really wanted to become “a real person, the same as the one who was taken away on the last journey”.
Soon Alexei was tired of the cynical statements of Struchkov about women. Meresyev was sure that not all women are the same. In the end, Struchkov decided to charm Claudia Mikhailovna. The chamber already wanted to protect her beloved nurse, but she herself was able to give the major a decisive rebuff.
In the summer, Meresyev received prostheses and began to master them with his usual stubbornness. He walked for hours along the hospital corridor, first resting on crutches, and then on a massive old cane, a gift from the professor. Gvozdyov had already managed in absentia to express herself to Annie in love, but then he began to doubt. The girl had not yet seen how disfigured he was. Before discharge, he shared his doubts with Meresyev, and Alexei thought: if everything works out for Grisha, then he will write the truth to Olga. The meeting of lovers, which was watched by the whole chamber, turned out to be cold - the girl was embarrassed by the scars of the tankman. Major Struchkov was also unlucky - he fell in love with Claudia Mikhailovna, who hardly noticed him. Soon Gvozdyov wrote that he was sent to the front, without informing Anyuta. Then Meresyev asked Olga not to wait for him, but to marry, secretly hoping that such a letter would not frighten true love.
After some time, Annie herself called Alexei to find out where Gvozdyov had disappeared. After this call, Meresyev cheered up and decided to write to Olga after the first plane he shot down.
Part three
Meresyev was discharged in the summer of 1942 and sent to be treated at the Air Force sanatorium near Moscow. A car was sent behind him and Struchkov, but Alex wanted to take a walk around Moscow and try his new legs for strength. He met with Anyuta and tried to explain to the girl why Grisha had suddenly disappeared. The girl admitted that at first she was embarrassed by the scars of Gvozdyov, but now she does not think about them.
In the sanatorium Alexei settled in the same room with Struchkov, who still could not forget Claudia Mikhailovna. The next day, Alexey persuaded the red-haired nurse Zinochka, who danced the best in the sanatorium, to teach him how to dance. Now, dance lessons have been added to his daily exercises. Soon the whole hospital knew that this guy with black, gypsy eyes and a clumsy gait had no legs, but he was going to serve in aviation and was fond of dancing. After some time, Alexei already participated in all the dance evenings, and no one noticed how severe pain was hidden behind his smile. Meresyev less and less "felt the shackling effect of prostheses."
Soon Alexey received a letter from Olga. The girl reported that for a month already, along with thousands of volunteers, she had been digging anti-tank ditches near Stalingrad. She was offended by Meresyev’s last letter, and would never forgive him if it weren’t for the war. In the end, Olga wrote that everyone was waiting for him. Now Alexei wrote to his beloved every day. The sanatorium was worried, like a ruined anthill, everyone had the word "Stalingrad" on their lips. In the end, vacationers demanded an urgent departure to the front. A commission from the Air Force manning department arrived at the sanatorium.
Upon learning that having lost his legs, Meresyev wanted to return to aviation, the first-rank military doctor Mirovolsky was about to refuse him, but Alex persuaded him to come to the dance. In the evening, the physician watched in amazement as the legless pilot dances. The next day, he gave Meresyev a positive opinion for the personnel management and promised to help. Alexey went to Moscow with this document, however, there was no Mirovolsky in the capital, and Meresyev had to submit a general report.
Meresyev was left “without clothing, food and money certificates”, and he had to stay with Anyuta. Alexey rejected the report, and sent the pilot to the general commission in the formation department. For several months Meresyev went to the offices of the military administration. They sympathized with him everywhere, but could not help - the conditions under which they were accepted into flight forces were too strict. To Alexey’s joy, Mirovolsky headed the general commission. With his positive resolution, Meresyev broke through to the highest command, and he was sent to flight school.
For the Battle of Stalingrad, many pilots were required, the school worked with maximum load, so the chief of staff did not check the documents of Meresyev, but only ordered to write a report on obtaining clothing and food certificates and remove the dandy stick away. Alexey found a shoemaker who fashioned the straps - with them Alexey attached prostheses to the foot pedals of the aircraft. Five months later, Meresyev successfully passed the exam to the head of the school. After the flight, he noticed Alexei’s cane, got angry, and wanted to break, but the instructor stopped him in time, saying that Meresyev had no legs. As a result, Alexei was recommended as a skilled, experienced and strong-willed pilot.
Alexei stayed at the retraining school until early spring. Together with Struchkov, he learned to fly on LA-5, the most modern fighters at that time. At first, Meresyev did not feel "that magnificent, full contact with the machine, which gives the joy of flying." It seemed to Alexei that his dream would not come true, but Colonel Kapustin, the political commissar of the school, helped him. Meresyev was the only legless fighter pilot in the world, and the political officer gave him extra flight hours. Soon Alexey mastered the control of the LA-5 to perfection.
Part four
Spring was in full swing when Meresyev arrived at the headquarters of the regiment, located in a small village. There he was issued in the squadron of Captain Cheslov. That same night, a battle fatal for the German army on the Kursk Bulge began.
Captain Cheslov entrusted Meresyev brand new LA-5. For the first time after amputation, Meresyev fought with a real adversary - single-engine dive-bombers Yu-87. He made several sorties a day. He could read letters from Olga only late in the evening. Alexey learned that his bride commands a sapper platoon and has already managed to receive the Order of the Red Star. Now Meresyev could “speak with her on an equal footing,” but he was in no hurry to reveal the truth to the girl - he did not consider the outdated Yu-87 a real enemy.
The fighters of the Richtofen air division, which included the best German aces flying on modern Fock-Wulf-190, became a worthy enemy. In a difficult aerial battle, Aleksey shot down three Phoke Wolfs, rescued his wingman and barely reached the airfield on the remains of fuel. After the battle, he was appointed squadron commander. Everyone in the regiment already knew about the uniqueness of this pilot and were proud of him. That evening Alexei finally wrote the truth to Olga.
Afterword
Polevoy came to the front as a correspondent for the newspaper Pravda. He met with Alexei Meresyev, preparing an article on the exploits of guards pilots. Polevoy wrote down the story of the pilot in a notebook, and wrote the story four years later. She was published in magazines and read on the radio. Major Meresyev heard one of these broadcasts and found Polevoy. During the years 1943-45, he shot down five German planes and received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, Alex married Olga, and they had a son. So life itself continued the tale of Alexei Meresyev - a real Soviet man.
