A signed photograph of Mikhail Devyataev, a Hero of the Sovi...

Hammer

£35.00

A signed photograph of Mikhail Devyataev, a Hero of the Soviet Union, who was a Soviet fighter pilot and POW held on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea at the Karlshagen I concentration camp during WW2.

The camp used forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war in its work which related to the German V1 and V2 Rocket Programme, and Mikhail is known for his incredible escape from the Nazi concentration camp where on the 8th February 1945 he along with nine other prisoners stole the camp commandant's He 111 H22 bomber (which he piloted) and escaped to Russian territory.

Upon his escape to safety, he was detained by the Russian N.K.V.D. and was sent to a penal colony, treated as a traitor for many years until in 1957, after the head of the Soviet space program Sergey Korolyov personally presented his case, arguing that the information provided by Devyataev and the other escapees had been critical for the Soviet space program.

His escape story:

Devyataev managed to convince three other prisoners (Sokolov, Krivonogov and Nemchenko) that he could fly them to freedom. They decided to run away at dinner time, when most of the guards were in the dining room. Sokolov and Nemchenko were able to create a work gang composed only of Soviet citizens, as they did not know foreign languages with which to communicate freely and coordinate their plans with other inmates.

At noon on 8 February 1945, as the ten Soviet POWs, including Devyataev, were at work on the runway, one of the work gang, Ivan Krivonogov, picked up a crowbar and killed their guard. Another prisoner, Peter Kutergin, quickly stripped off the guard's uniform and slipped it on. The work gang, led by the "guard", managed to unobtrusively take over the camp commandant's He 111 H22 bomber and fly from the island. Devyataev piloted the aircraft.

The Germans tried to intercept the bomber unsuccessfully. The aircraft was damaged by Soviet air defences, but managed to land in Soviet-held territory.