21 April 1913 – 18 August 1943

Kuzmin in 1943 after being made Hero of the Soviet Union.

Kuzmin was born in Nagornoe in the Krasnodar district on 21 April 1913 and entered the Soviet Army in 1930.
In 1932, he started training as an aircraft mechanic. He graduated from the Volsk Military Air Collage and served in this capacity until 1939.

He won the Order of the Red Banner for his efforts during the war with the Japanese at the Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia in 1939 were he served as aircrew. Upon applying for pilot training, he was sent to Kacha Military Air Collage. He was graduated as a pilot in 1940 being posted to the 161 IAP as a Starshii Leitenant.

He fired his guns in anger for the first time in the evening on 27 June 1941 when he combined forces with his wingman to knock down one Ju88 each near Lepel, south of Polsk, flying the Polikarpov I-153 (in his 7th sortie in a I-153). While returning home they spotted a lone Ju88, which was attacked by Kuzmin. Just as he was on the point of firing, he found his guns were jamming and resorted to ramming. The bomber went out of control and crashed while Kuzmin parachuted to safety (alternatively force-landed his damaged I-153 back on his airfield).
Kuzmin was awarded a second Order of the Red Banner for this combat.

The regiment then withdrew to the Bryansk area where he single-handedly took on a formation of nine Ju88s on 19 November 1941. Two of these fell from the sky in flames before a gunner made his mark and in an instant Kuzmin’s fighter was engulfed in flames. He temporarily lost consciousness but was lucky enough to regain control and put his aircraft down in a snow-covered filed. He had however come down in enemy held territory and he became a POW. A few days later however, he escaped, killing the guard. After coming back to the Soviet side his legs were found so seriously injured that his left foot and part of his right foot had to be amputated.

Following his remarkably quick recovery he joined with the 239 IAP as a squadron leader on Kalinin Front in March 1942 and participated in a number of missions prior to moving with the unit to Stalingrad.

He was to make a big name for himself in the hellish inferno over the Volga and on 2 September 1942, Kapitan Kuzmin claimed two Ju88s.

On 22 September claimed a double while leading his La-5s to destroy five Ju87s for no losses.

On 2 October 1942, Kapitan Kuzmin claimed two Ju88s.

Next day Kuzmin achieved two more kills when his squadron stormed into a formation of fifteen Ju87s near Mamayev, six of these being shot down. Unfortunately, Kuzmin was hit by return fire and wounded in his abdomen but managed to make a successful forced landing.

He claimed one more victory during October even if some sources claim that he was wounded between 3 October and November 1942.

On 21 January 1943, he claimed another double.

On 29 January, he claimed a double while leading five La-5s to score six kills without loss.

Further combat over Stalingrad ran his tally to 15 while his squadron was credited with downing 27 enemy planes throughout the battle.

He was decorated with the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin on 28 April 1943 in recognition of 15 and 6 fractional (shared) victories and 270 sorties consisting of 30 escorts, 70 reconnaissance, 15 ground attack and 90 air-to-air combats as of January 1943.

Kuzmin in front of his La-5N.

He was then posted to the glorious 9 GIAP forcing down a Bf109 on his first sortie with the unit on 30 May 1943.

On 18 August 1943, he was flying wing to Polkovnik Morozov, the regiment commander, when they had a tussle with Bf109s near Pavlovsk. Major Kuzmin had to bail out but unfortunately his parachute didn’t open fully and he was killed. This was his second mission in a Bell Airacobra.

At the time of his death, Kuzmin was credited with 3 biplane victories and a total of 21. These were claimed on 280 sorties. There seems to be a great deal of confusion regarding Kuzmin’s claims and some of the above mentioned must have been mixed up regarding dates and with shared claims. There are also some confusion regarding the types of aircraft flown by him in the various combats.

Claims:

Kill no.	Date	Time	Number	Type	Result	Plane type	Serial no.	Locality	Unit
	1941
	27/06/41	Evening	1	Ju88	Shared destroyed	I-153		Lepel	161 IAP
	27/06/41	Evening	1	Ju88	Shared destroyed	I-153		Lepel	161 IAP
1	27/06/41	Evening	1	Ju88 (a)	Destroyed	I-153		Lepel	161 IAP
2	19/11/41		1	Ju88	Destroyed	I-153		Bryansk	161 IAP
3	19/11/41		1	Ju88	Destroyed	I-153		Bryansk	161 IAP
	1942
4	03/07/42		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed	Yak-1			239 IAP
5	03/07/42		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed	Yak-1			239 IAP
6	02/09/42		1	Ju88	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
7	02/09/42		1	Ju88	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
8	22/09/42		1	Ju87	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
9	22/09/42		1	Ju87	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
10	02/10/42		1	Ju88	Destroyed	La-5			239 IAP
11	02/10/42		1	Ju88	Destroyed	La-5			239 IAP
12	03/10/42		1	Ju87	Destroyed	La-5		Mamayev	239 IAP
13	03/10/42		1	Ju87	Destroyed	La-5		Mamayev	239 IAP
14	mid/10/42 (b)		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed				239 IAP
	1943
15	22/01/43		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed			Stalingrad area	239 IAP
16	22/01/43		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed			Stalingrad area	239 IAP
17	29/01/43		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
18	29/01/43		1	Enemy aircraft	Destroyed	La-5		Stalingrad area	239 IAP
19	30/05/43		1	Bf109	Destroyed	Yak-1			9 GIAP
20	18/08/43		1	Bf109	Destroyed	Airacobra		Pavlovo Kurgan	9 GIAP
21	18/08/43		1	Bf109	Destroyed	Airacobra		Pavlovo Kurgan	9 GIAP

Biplane victories: 3 and 2 shared destroyed.
TOTAL: 21 and 7 shared destroyed.
(a) Claimed in a “taran” ramming attack.
(b) Kuzmin claimed 1 aircraft after a scramble. Some sources states that he was wounded during this period.

Sources:
Sovetskiye asy - Nikolay Bodrikhin, 1998, kindly provided by Ondrej Repka.
Stalin's Eagles - Hans D. Seidl, 1998 Schiffer Publishing, ISBN 0-7643-0476-3
Stalin's Falcons - Tomas Polak and Christhoper Shores, 1999 Grub Street, London, ISBN 1-902304-01-2
Additional information kindly provided by Christer Bergström.