April, 1942- Germany's vicious blitzkrieg
continues to push deep into Soviet territory. In the north, the German armies are pushing
forward with the ultimate goal being the sacking of Moscow, seat of Soviet power. In the south, a German offensive pushes for
strategically important oil fields. If the Germans reach Moscow, the Soviet will
to fight could crumble, and the nation lost. If the Germans reach the southern oil fields,
no amount of willpower will be enough to stop a German offensive when the oil has dried
up. The Soviet Union is in dire straits indeed. American shipments of food, clothing, equipment,
and ammunition are keeping the Red Army on its feet. In fact, most Red Army soldiers hitch a ride
to the front on American-built trucks. Every week thousands of tons of American aid
arrives in the Soviet ports still able to receive the ships- but the one thing America
can't provide for the Soviet Union is soldiers with the will to win. Luckily for the Soviets, mother Russia has
at least one aviator who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'quit'. High above the front line, now only a couple
hundred kilometers from Moscow, Soviet aviator Aleksey Maresyev scans the skies for enemy
aircraft. He's a relatively young pilot, having been
flying combat missions for only a few months- but already Maresyev has distinguished himself
with three enemy aircraft downed in as many months. The Soviet air force is up against the legendary
Luftwaffe, combat veterans from the skies over western Europe- many of them veterans
of the failed battle of Britain. The campaign to subdue Britain from the sky
and prepare it for an invasion may have failed, but the German air force has cut its teeth
on British Spitfires, and now many of its most veteran aces prowl the skies over the
Soviet homeland. Maresyev flies a Yakovlev Yak-1, a comparatively
primitive aircraft versus the German Messerschmitt 109. The German Messerschmitt features a liquid
cooled engine and all-metal construction, second only to the Japanese Zero in performance
at the start of the second World War. The Soviets have been fighting a losing war
with shrinking resources, and are short on everything but men- the Yak-1 represents this
reality. With metal being a precious resource, the
Yak-1 features wooden plywood wings. A lack of standardized equipment and scarcity
of resources means that each aircraft is built with incredibly loose tolerances- after coming
off the assembly line a Yak-1 could have landing gear of different lengths, the wings set at
unequal angles. Final adjustments have to be made right before
delivery to the front lines. The shoddy construction leads to many accidents,
and yet also makes the Yak-1 extremely light and maneuverable. Skilled Soviet pilots like Maresyev learn
to use this to their advantage against the superior armed and armored Messerschmitts
they face. Today, Maresyev and his squadron find themselves
against a flight of German fighters escorting light bombers. Immediately the Soviets leap to the attack,
but the Messerschmitts are built tough and can take a pounding. To make matters worse, the Yak-1 features
less, and lighter machine guns- the Soviet philosophy being that they prefer accuracy
from their pilots and maneuverability over brute strength. Maresyev's Yak-1 is outgunned by the German
fighters, and soon he finds himself in a fiery dive to the frozen woods below. Coaxing what little control is left in his
aircraft, he manages to bring the nose up just enough to avoid pancaking into the ground
below, and the Yak-1 crashes through the tall trees. Maresyev is violently thrown out of his cockpit,
losing consciousness instantly. As he comes to, a dull pain shoots up his
legs. He's surprised to be alive, but with the Soviet
winter still not relinquishing its hold on the land to spring, he won't be alive for
much longer if he doesn't move fast. To make matters worse, he's crash landed behind
enemy lines, and no doubt a German patrol will eventually come looking for a survivor
after having seen the dramatic crash. Maresyev attempts to stand up and immediately
regrets it- his legs refuse to cooperate. Dragging them out of the thick snow, he realizes
he's shattered both of them in the crash. The severe winter cold has thankfully numbed
them, or else the pain would surely be enough to black him out again. Things don't look good for his legs, if he
doesn't get help soon he doubts he'll be able to keep them. Luckily, his arms are relatively uninjured,
and with incredible effort, Maresyev begins to crawl forward. He thinks about the last thing he saw before
crashing, building a mental picture of the landscape below his aircraft as he plots a
direction of travel back to friendly lines. The mental exercise helps keep his mind off
the incredible pain. From what he can remember of the landscape
he's now crawling through, he needs to travel Northeast to reach friendly lines. The bad news is he can't walk, and is going
to have to crawl every agonizing inch of the way back to safety. Maresyev has only a few emergency rations. Luckily, the abundant snow will give him plenty
of what he needs the most though: water. It's a major risk to eat snow, but he has
little choice- the frozen snow may drop his core body temperature and bring him closer
to hypothermia, but if he doesn't get water into his body blood loss and dehydration will
kill him before starvation or German soldiers will. The crawling is absolutely exhausting, the
pain breathtaking. Yet Maresyev refuses to quit, and in the first
day alone crawls a few hundred meters. It's painfully slow going, but he only has
a few miles to go to get back to friendly lines. Maresyev realizes he has yet another huge
problem though- he can't crawl to any of the known Soviet positions, as he'll be spotted
by the Germans long before he gets there. Instead, he'll have to crawl through the forest
to remain hidden, then once he believes he's behind friendly lines, crawl out of the forest
and towards where he hopes Red army positions will be. In essence, he's adding miles to his already
difficult journey- but Maresyev has no other choice. It is officially do or die time, and Aleksey
Maresyev has zero quit in him. During the day, Maresyev digs himself into
snowdrifts in order to stay hidden. Snow is an incredibly good insulator, and
he manages to keep warm despite the grip that winter still has on the land. Traveling at night, he stays out of sight
of any Germans that stray too close. Maresyev rations what little food he has,
supplementing his meager diet with edible roots and even tree bark. He allows snow to melt in his mouth before
swallowing the water so that he can keep his core body temperature stable, and treats his
wounds as best he can during his frequent rests. Surprisingly, he's in pretty good shape after
a crash from ten thousand feet in the air- other than his legs that is. Even if he managed to receive immediate medical
attention, it's doubtful he'd be able to keep both legs. With several days of crawling through the
snow behind him, Maresyev is growing increasingly confident that he'll end up losing both of
his mangled legs. Frostbite has set in on his feet, even as
the cold helps numb the pain and keep infection from setting in. Yet the weather is slowly turning, and by
the time Maresyev begins his nightly crawl the snow is barely starting to refreeze after
turning to slush during the daytime sun. All the moisture is not just pushing Maresyev
closer to hypothermia, but allowing infection to set in on his devastated legs. Aleksey Maresyev has now been crawling to
safety for over two weeks. His food has long since run out, and he continues
to scavenge what he can, but the forest offers little more than tough tree bark to chew on. His legs are beyond saving now, Maresyev can
smell the sickly sweet smell of rot setting in. He's put tourniquets on both his legs to prevent
the infection from traveling to the rest of his body through the blood stream, but there's
no telling how successful such crude measures are going to be. Maresyev has already accomplished the impossible,
surviving 18 days in the wilderness and crawling with serious injuries several miles across
a frozen forest. But he's not ready to quit just yet- not as
long as there's invading Germans destroying his homeland and killing his people. The will is strong, but the body is failing,
and just as Maresyev fears he's going to lose consciousness for the last time he's surprised
to discover several civilians rushing towards him. They're residents of a nearby village, shocked
and horrified to discover the downed Soviet aviator. Loading him up onto a wooden sled, the villagers
rush him to a nearby Soviet military camp. Maresyev has done it- he's survived 18 days
behind enemy lines and crawled miles back to safety. After his incredible feat of endurance and
survival, Aleksey Maresyev would receive much needed medical care. Unfortunately he would lose both legs to gangrene,
but Maresyev would refuse to allow his injuries to leave him out of the fight. The Soviet Union's toughest fighter pilot
still had plenty more Germans to kill. As soon as he was fitted with prosthetics,
Maresyev demanded he be returned back to his old unit and allowed to fly again. Doubtful of his abilities given his physical
state, the Red Army would put Maresyev back through ground and air training before at
last approving him for flight duty. On June, 1943, Maresyev was once again back
in the cockpit of a Yak-1, earning an additional 7 kills by the end of the war and bringing
his total count to 11 downed enemy fighters. Aleksey Maresyev would go on to earn the Gold
Star, highest military honor of the Soviet Union, for his incredible feat of survival
and battle prowess both. With no more Germans to shoot down, Maresyev
retired from the military one year after the war, and would go on to live a relatively
quiet and uneventful life- clearly having packed an entire lifetime's worth of excitement
and trouble into an 18 day freedom trek behind enemy lines. A book written of his exploits however would
go on to become mandatory reading in many Soviet schools, lasting to this day. Now go watch this- the insanely crazy story
of a tiny soldier, or click this other video instead!
