Viktor Nosov (pilot)

While still alive, Nosov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on January 20, 1945 by order of the Commander of the Baltic Fleet "For the outstanding performance of combat missions during the Great Patriotic War, and for bravery and heroism". In April 1945, December 1947, and June 1953, he was nominated for posthumous award of Hero of the Soviet Union; these petitions were not successful, but he was awarded the post-Soviet equivalent, Hero of the Russian Federation, by Presidential Decree №187 of February 23, 1998.

On February 10, 1945, Nosov was made a full lieutenant.

On Nosov's sixth combat mission, on February 13, 1945, his A-20 was in the southern part of the Baltic Sea (at about .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}55°23′00″N 19°00′00″E / 55.38333°N 19.00000°E / 55.38333; 19.00000) attacking a transport of 6000 tons displacement when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire and burst into flames. Nosov flew his burning plane directly into the transport, which blew up and sank. Besides Nosov, his navigator (Second Lieutenant Alexander Igoshin) and gunner (Sergeant Fedor Dorofeev) perished. This was the war's first deliberate ramming of an enemy ship in the Baltic Sea.

A memorial in his birthplace of Sengiley was dedicated in 1965 and street there is named after him, a street in Kaliningrad is named Victor Nosov Street, and there is a monument to Nosov and his crew on Cape Rozewie in Puck, Poland, north of Gdańsk (the former Danzig). The inscription on the plaque there reads "On February 13, 1945, the Soviet airmen Victor Nosov, Alexander Igoshin, and Fedor Dorofeev died for our freedom and yours..." (the phrase "For our freedom and yours" has long been associated with Poland).

In October 1944 Second Lieutenant Nosov reported to 51st Mine-Torpedo Regiment of the Baltic Fleet air force, equipped with American-made A-20 Boston twin-engined light bombers. He flew his first mission on October 18. From December 1944 he flew anti-shipping missions against German transports in the Baltic Sea and the port of Libau. He and his crew flew six sorties, their role being to fly in advance of the torpedo bombers and lay down suppressive fire on the enemy's anti-aircraft weapons, a dangerous task.

transferred to the aviation school in Stalinabad, and in 1943 was enrolled in the Levanevsky Naval Aviation School, where he earned his pilot's certification.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union occurred on June 22, 1941, when Nostov had just turned 18. He was first sent to infantry training, but soon

Victor had an older sister (Zinaida Petrovna) and a younger brother. In 1939 his family moved to Stavropol-on-Volga where he attended Secondary School #1 and become interested in radio engineering. After being graduated from 8th grade he entered a factory school and worked as a fitter at the radio station.

Victor Petrovich Nosov (Russian: Виктор Петрович Носов; March 26, 1923 – February 13, 1945) was a Soviet war hero of World War II (called, in Russia, the Great Patriotic War).

Nosov was born on March 26, 1923, in the town of Sengiley in Ulyanovsk Province (then named Simbirsk Province), in a family of Russian ethnicity.

Victor Nosov's father, Peter Ivanovich, worked as a prosecutor. Peter Nosov had started as a court courier at age 14, being appointed secretary of the Simbirsk district court in 1914. In 1918 Peter Nosov married Taisii Vasil, after which he was graduated from college and served as a judge and prosecutor. Since prosecutors were then not allowed to work in one place for more than five years, the family lived in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), Ardatov, Novodevichy, and Stavropol-on-Volga (now Tolyatti).