Nikolai Kamanin, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Nikolai Kamanin

Soviet aviator and military commander

Date of Birth: 18-Oct-1908

Place of Birth: Melenki, Russia

Date of Death: 11-Mar-1982

Profession: astronaut, writer, military personnel, politician, aircraft pilot

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin (Russian: ??????´? ?????´??? ????´???; 18 October 1908 – 11 March 1982) was a Soviet aviator, awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 for the rescue of SS Chelyuskin crew from an improvised airfield on the frozen surface of the Chukchi Sea near Kolyuchin Island. In World War II he successfully commanded an air brigade, air division, and air corps, reaching the rank of Airforce Colonel General and Air Army commander after the war.
It was at this time that his son, Arkady Kamanin, became a fighter pilot at the age of 14, the youngest military pilot in world history. From 1960-1971, General Kamanin was the head of cosmonaut training in the Soviet space program.
He recruited and trained the first generation of cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova, Gherman Titov and Alexei Leonov.
Kamanin was the Airforce representative to the space program, a proponent of manned orbital flight and Airforce influence over the Space Race.
His diaries of this period, published in 1995-2001, are among the most important sources documenting the progress of the Soviet space program.