Pavel Galkin

Life & Legacy

Pavel Andreyevich Galkin (Russian: Павел Андреевич Галкин; 15 December 1922 – 15 June 2021) was an officer of the Soviet military who held a number of posts in Soviet Naval Aviation, reaching the rank of colonel. A veteran of the Second World War, he was a recipient of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Galkin entered the armed forces in 1940, shortly before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union the following year, and was initially assigned to the Soviet Navy as an anti-aircraft battery gunner with the coastal defence forces. Following the outbreak of war he studied at the Nikolaev Naval Aviation School, graduating in July 1943, as a crew navigator and was sent to the front lines. Initially assigned to the 29th Bomber Aviation Regiment at Murmansk as part of the Northern Fleet, flying the Petlyakov Pe-2, Galkin was subsequently transferred to the 9th Guards Torpedo Aviation Regiment, in the 5th Torpedo Aviation Division, flying the Boston A-20G. He was part of the aircraft crew of Yevgeny Frantsev and Semyon Antipichev, who together scored notable successes against enemy forces. In 1944 Galkin and Frantsev were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Galkin was unable to take part in a later mission, during which Frantsev and Antipichev were killed.
Galkin remained in the armed forces after the war, graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1956, and becoming a teacher at the Kachinsk Military Aviation School, and later the Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School, until his retirement in May 1978. Though retired from active service, Galkin maintained his connection with the armed forces, working as head of the educational and methodological office at the Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School between 1982 and 1996. In retirement Galkin lived in Yeysk, working in veterans' affairs, before his death in 2021 at the age of 98. He had received numerous honours and awards over his long career.