Mikhail Karpeyev

. Karpeyev saw action flying these aircraft during the early part of the war. Karpeyev was born on 21 November 1922, to a Russian peasant family in the village of Yakimovo (now part of the city of Cheboksary), in Cheboksarsky Uyezd, Chuvash Autonomous Oblast, in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. He studied at school number 4 in Cheboksary, and also attended the city's aeroclub, graduating in 1940. In October 1940, he joined the Red Army and enrolled in the Sverdlovsk Military Aviation School for Pilots, graduating in August 1941 with the rank of sergeant. ==Wartime service==

Karpeyev first began flying sorties around Leningrad and during the siege of the city. In February 1942, he was seriously wounded during a combat mission, spending six months in hospital. ==Postwar service==

With the end of the war, Karpeyev remained in the armed forces, travelling to Grozny in 1946 to take the advanced qualification courses for squadron commanders, and in 1952 graduated from the Air Force Academy. In May that year he was appointed deputy head of flight training at Kachinsk Military Aviation School, initially in Michurinsk, and relocated to Stalingrad in 1954. In May 1960, he became head of the training and flight department at the Kharkov Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots. Between December 1962 and February 1966, Karpeyev was on a special mission to Afghanistan, and on his return he became head of the school's department of air force tactics. ==Retirement and later life==

, the highest Soviet military award Karpeyev retired from the military on age grounds on 1 April 1978, leaving with the rank of colonel. He went to work as a senior engineer at the Kharkiv Tractor Plant until 1993, and continued to be active in patriotic activities, and with schools and universities. He had received numerous awards and honours over his long career. In addition to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the Order of Lenin, he had received two Orders of the Red Banner, on 14 July 1944 and 19 April 1945, the Order of Alexander Nevsky on 29 April 1945, two Orders of the Patriotic War First Class, on 7 February 1945 and 11 March 1985, the Order of the Red Star, the Order "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" Third Class, 29 medals, and the title of . His name is recorded in Kaliningrad on the memorial Heroes of the Storming of Königsberg. At the time of his death he was the last Hero of the Soviet Union living in Kharkiv Oblast. ==References==