During one of his missions with the 209th Bomber Regiment, on 26 July 1941, his gunner was killed when the plane was shot down by the enemy, but Golubev survived with injuries to his leg and neck.

Having managed to land on safe territory, he was taken to a medical battalion and treated for his injuries, but when he returned to his unit a few days later it turned out that the commander of his regiment had already sent a death notice to his family, believing him to be dead.

For his actions in that battle as squadron commander and for flying an additional 148 sorties on the Il-2 after his first nomination he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union again on 24 August 1943.

[4][5] While he was assigned to combat he flew on the Western, Central, Don, Southwest, and Byelorussian fronts in the battles for Kharkov, Rostov, Kursk, Oryol, Stalingrad, Pripyat, and other cities.

[7] In November 1943 he was sent to attend the Air Force Academy in Monino, where he died during a crash of a practice flight in an Il-2 on 17 May 1945 and was buried in the Novodevichy cemetery.