A career aviator, he was 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.

[3] Alexander Ivanovich Kamanin, Nikolai's uncle, lived a very long life, including 50 years of religious hermitage, and had a reputation of a holy elder.

Prior to his front-line assignments, Colonel Kamanin held a staff role in Central Asia, setting up 17 training facilities and shaping up fresh air force units.

On 25 August 1941, in agreement with the United Kingdom, Soviet troops crossed the border with Iran, eventually taking control over the northern part of this country.

On 20 July 1942, Kamanin was summoned to Moscow to organize, train and lead the newly conceived 292nd Ground Attack Air Division (292 штурмовая дивизия, 292 шад).

[6] On 25 July 1942, Kamanin arrived at his new command, only to find orders that the division had to send its fully manned, combat-ready aviation regiments to the front.

On 16 October 1942, in the days of the Battle of Stalingrad the division was assigned to front-line airfields near Andreapol, Tver Oblast and subordinated to Mikhail Gromov's Third Air Army targeted against Rzhev and Smolensk.

The division was engaged in the Battle of Velikiye Luki and Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive, which ended in German evacuation of Rzhev bridgeheads at an enormous cost to the Red Army.

The 292nd Division, credited with saving the Soviet offensive at Bely, Tver Oblast (8 December) and other tactical successes, was slowly bleeding, losing 20 pilots and 35 aircraft in two months, with no replenishments until January 1943.

At the end of the German offensive against Kursk, it was renamed Fifth Ground Attack Corps and dispatched to the front-line Second Air Army, targeted at capturing Belgorod.

In spring 1944, Kamanin obtained permission to fly personal missions in enemy territory and was engaged in deep reconnaissance of the Lviv area with Lieutenant Pyotr Schmigol (Hero of the Soviet Union, 1944).

Shortly before the battle, Ivan Konev prohibited any ground action until the air force provided reliable data on enemy formations.

Formally enlisted at the age of 14, Arkady served as a mechanic at a liaison squadron, where he learned practical flying skills by hitchhiking rides with real pilots, whom he asked to let him steer.

On one of these flights, Arkady managed to save the wounded Lieutenant Berdnikov, who crash-landed his damaged IL-2 near the front line, while retrieving the plane's reconnaissance film and returning safely to the base.

After the war Arkady decided to enter the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, wanting to learn to fly new types of aircraft.

[7] Kamanin was assisted by major general and Hero of Soviet Union Leonid Goreglyad, Colonel Boris Aristov (a skilled navigator with 232 combat sorties experience), and other notable war pilots.

The diaries present at least four sides of his activities prior to Yuri Gagarin's flight, all of which continued until Kamanin's retirement: Coordination of design bureaus developing life support systems for crewed spaceflight: spacesuits, parachutes, air regeneration etc.

He was skeptical about the value of these probes: "Venus launch is hardly a sensible endeavor: it delays crewed flight and decreases Rocket Force battle-readiness" ("Пуск на Венеру - затея едва ли разумная: она задерживает полет человека и снижает боеспособность ракетных войск").

[14] Kamanin left mission control 20 minutes after launch, as soon as Gagarin reported that he is safe in orbit, and rushed to Stalingrad in an Antonov An-12 transport.

Voskhod 2 was the most dangerous to date" ("Как это ни странно звучит, но самым надежным у нас был полет Гагарина.

On 4 October 1961, Gagarin injured his head in a bizarre jump from a balcony, ending up in a hospital and failing to attend the opening of 22nd Communist Party Congress.

On 24 October, Gagarin, bearing fresh evidence of plastic surgery on his torn eyebrow, made a brief appearance at the Congress; he later explained the scar as a routine tourist accident.

Kamanin campaigned for training and launching women cosmonauts since Gagarin's flight, but the subsequent publicity assignments separated him from decision-making.

By June 1964, Kamanin realized that the Soviet side had lost the space race;[25] he blamed Korolyov and Mstislav Keldysh for the lack of realistic long-term plans.

Odintsov was approved 5 April 1963, and in a few weeks proved himself completely incompetent to the task - a view allegedly supported by Korolyov and Marshal Rudenko.

[27] 17 July AirForce Military Council dismissed Odintsov; Kamanin campaigned to nominate 29-year-old Yuri Gagarin, but was stonewalled by his superiors Vershinin and Rudenko.

His successor, Vasily Mishin, backed by Mstislav Keldysh, started his own political campaign, targeted at capturing cosmonaut training facilities from the Air Force - which forever alienated Kamanin.

Two weeks later, before that paperwork was completed, Kamanin sent a bitter letter to Minister of Defense Andrei Grechko, explaining his view on military space program and rejecting as unnecessary "consultancy" employment.

[35] Selection of cosmonauts for the first orbital station, again, became a tug of war between Mishin and Kamanin,[36] while the Air Force continued recruitment of new military pilots like Vladimir Dzhanibekov.

Arkady and Nikolai Kamanin (played by Alexander Porokhovshchikov) are the characters of a 1978 Soviet film, Then You Will See the Sky ("И ты увидишь небо").