The heroic destiny of Mikhail Devyataev, fighter pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, honorary citizen of the city of Kazan and the Republic of Mordovia is not a myth, although it resembles a Hollywood blockbuster with a twisting and thrilling plot. He passed through four death camps and on February 8, 1945 he managed to escape from the concentration camp on the island of Usedom aboard a Heinkel 111 bomber with 9 Soviet kamikaze prisoners. The island of Usedom was home to the top-secret German missile center in Peenemünde, where the world's unique V-2 ballistic missiles, the weapon of vengeance, as Hitler called them, were tested. Historians have called it a miracle that the Heinkel 111, whose controls Mikhail Devyataev learned practically in the air, could not be shot down by German fighters sent on alarm.
Devyataev provided the Russian command with highly strategic information about the military range and the secret test center on Usedom. This information made it possible to successfully attack Usedom, and the information that Devyataev passed on to the Soviet intelligence services served as the basis for the creation of the first Soviet rocket R-1 by Sergei Korolev, and probably greatly changed the course of the Great Patriotic War.
