This seemingly ordinary shirt became an exhibit at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in the early 1990s. How did it find its way into the museum's walls? Why was it placed in a prominent position among the numerous items on display for visitors to see?

There is only a short note next to the exhibit, stating that the shirt belonged to the brave pilot Yakov Smushkevich. When conducting a tour, the museum staff always stops at this exhibit. The story of the exhibit's history is highly engaging for the visitors. However, let's take things in order.

...Summer of 1937. Airport near Madrid in Spain. In front of the plane's ramp, two people were standing by a car. The car's driver was a Spaniard, and his passenger had the bearing of a military man.

"Farewell, General Douglas. Spain will not forget you!" the driver said in a choked voice.

- Goodbye, brother, - a strong man's handshake is better than any farewell words. It carries the memory of the military days shared with a friend in the Republican army, the battles, and the fallen comrades.

The plane's engines roared with effort. We have to go. The general looked at his comrade-in-arms one last time, and then, as if remembering something, he opened his suitcase. After rummaging through his meager belongings and finding nothing suitable, he glanced at his personal items.

"Keep it as a keepsake!" And the general handed the Spaniard one of his new shirts...

The plane took off into the sky. It was carrying the legendary General Douglas back to Russia. It would be many years before the people of Spain learned that the famous Soviet pilot Yakov Smushkevich had fought for the Republicans under the name of General Douglas...

Yakov Vladimirovich was born in the village of Rakishki in the Novo-Alekseevsky district of the Kovno province, in the family of a poor craftsman.

He participated in the Civil War, first as a company political officer, and then as a regiment commissar on the Western Front.

After the Civil War, he was appointed political instructor for an aviation unit, and later served as a squadron commissar.

On July 1, 1936, a counter-revolutionary uprising broke out in Republican Spain. On August 28, 1936, the Soviet government issued an order to send volunteer instructors and modern military equipment, including aircraft, to Spain. One of the first internationalist volunteers was Brigadier General Yakov Smushkevich. At the suggestion of People's Commissar Kliment Voroshilov, he was appointed Senior Military Advisor for Aviation.

They traveled to Spain illegally. Smushkevich was given a passport in the name of Douglas. On September 10, 1936, 33 Soviet pilots, led by Yakov Vladimirovich, arrived in Cartagena.

Smushkevich formed bombing and assault units, created air groups for port protection, and developed a system for guiding epipages to their targets. And his efforts paid off.

... March 1937. The Republicans had a small force near Guadalajara, holding an 8-kilometer front and only securing the heights and communication hubs. The enemy sent a large mechanized force against them.

During a reconnaissance flight, Smushkevich noticed that a large convoy of Francoist troops was beginning to enter the area.

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in the gorge. A few minutes later, the military advisor's plan was executed, and 30 attack planes struck the enemy's head and tail. Then, 40 bombers dropped bombs on the enemy, and 45 fighter planes provided cover fire. The enemy was defeated.

Smushkevich's high combat skills, excellent organizational abilities, courage, and heroism during the Spanish Civil War were highly appreciated in his homeland. On June 25, 1937, Smushkevich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the brave pilot's victories were not limited to defeating enemies.

... Smushkevich was assigned to command the air parade in Moscow on May 1, 1938. On the morning of April 30, he arrived at the Central Airfield to test the flagship aircraft. He took off, but before he could gain altitude, the engine failed due to a technician forgetting to open the oil supply valve. The forced landing on trees resulted in the pilot being transported to the Botkin Hospital in critical condition. His skull was injured, his back was burned, and his legs were broken in several places. For two weeks, Smushkevich was on the verge of life and death. When he regained consciousness, his first question was, "Will I be able to fly?" At that moment, the doctors were not even sure if he would be able to move.

Could. He forced himself to walk through the pain, leaning on crutches, then on a stick. I got back behind the wheel of the car. After some time, the plane, which was at the helm of Smushkevich, took off into the air. So he won a victory over himself!

The front-line biography of the brave pilot continued. For his courage in the battles on the Khalkhin Gol River, Yakov Vladimirovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and he became one of the first to receive this high title twice.

On November 19, 1939, Yakov Smushkevich was appointed Chief of the Red Army Air Force. In this new position, his organizational talent as a military leader was fully revealed.

Here is how A. Shakhurin, who had just been appointed People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry, described his first meeting with the Chief of the Air Force: "What I saw was astonishing. First of all, the office looked strange: a bed was attached to the desk, and a dining table was next to it. As Smushkevich later explained to me, his illness sometimes forced him to work while lying down...

Yakov Vladimirovich, leaning on a cane, hurried to meet me, although I tried to stop him. He greeted me as an old acquaintance, and I immediately realized that I could be completely honest and get straight to the point.

In order to improve the training of flight personnel, Yakov Vladimirovich proposed the creation of the Military Academy of Command and Navigation Personnel of the Air Force, which is now named after Yuri Gagarin, using the specialists and material resources of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. He also initiated the formation of a strategic bomber unit in the Air Force for operations against targets deep in the enemy's rear. (Interestingly, in August 1941, long-range bomber crews, along with naval aviation, carried out a raid on Berlin.)

Smushkevich was a strong supporter of the aviators. Beria once accused Smushkevich of allegedly protecting "enemies of the people." In response, I heard that it was he, Beria, who disarmed the aviation, arrested the best aviators. The polemic was then stopped by Stalin. But Beria did not forgive such attacks...

Gradually, the distinguished military commander was pushed aside from his command of the air force. However, there were no serious concerns. Moreover, many believed that the introduction of new ranks (Yakov Smushkevich was promoted to the rank of general on July 4, 1940) was a way for the generals to distance themselves from the brigadiers, division commanders, corps commanders, and army commanders who had been accused of "treason."

But this was not the case. Beria continued his cunning game, developing the version of the so-called "military conspiracy".

This time, the Air Force suffered particularly significant damage.

Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Commander of the Air Force, Lieutenant General of Aviation P. Rychagov, Head of the Air Defense Directorate, Colonel General G. Stern, Assistant Chief of the General Staff for Aviation, Lieutenant General of Aviation Ya. Smushkevich, Head of the Air Force Academy, Lieutenant General of Aviation F. Arzhenukhin, and Head of the Main Directorate of Long-Range Aviation, Lieutenant General of Aviation I. Proskurov were all repressed.

All secrets eventually come to light. It is painful to read the investigative files with the torturers' testimonies about how Smushkevich rolled on the floor and moaned during the terrible interrogations, and how Stern lost consciousness after being tortured... While captains commanded the regiments on the front lines, the henchmen of "the first friend of Soviet pilots" brutally beat hundreds of doomed military specialists in the basements...

On the night of October 15-16, 1941, in connection with the offensive of the Nazi troops near Moscow, the central office of the NKVD was evacuated to Kuibyshev. The most important persons under investigation were also transferred there. On the personal instructions of Beria, A. Laktionov, P. Rychagov, Ya. Smushkevich, G. Stern and others were shot near Kuibyshev on October 28, 1941.

It was not until 1954 that Smushkevich's wife and daughter were informed that Yakov Vladimirovich had been posthumously rehabilitated.

Years later, Smushkevich's daughter, Rosa Yakovlevna, was invited to Spain for a memorial event commemorating the war. She visited the places where her father had fought.

One evening, when Rosa Yakovlevna was visiting Spain, an elderly woman approached her. It was a seemingly incomprehensible event. The woman showed her the shirt that General Douglas had given to her father, a chauffeur, during the war. The daughter of a military pilot accepted this gift from the Spanish woman as the most precious.

After returning to her homeland, she kept the shirt at home. "But since the early 1990s," Sergey Vladimirovich Kozhin, an employee of the museum, told us, "the exhibits dedicated to our military's participation in combat operations in Spain and Khalkhin Gol have significantly expanded. In this regard, we asked Smushkevich's daughter to donate several memorable photographs and her father's shirt, which she brought from Spain, to the museum." This is the story behind this exhibit.

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