Having received a baptism of fire over Khalkhin Gol, during the Great Patriotic War Georgy Osipov made 124 combat missions as the leader of a squadron and regiment - first on the domestic SB bomber, then on the Lend-Lease Douglas A-20 Boston. Only a few of the bomber pilots like him, who went through the entire war from bell to bell, from the summer of 1941 to Victory Day, survived: “I look around and see how all nine aircraft of the second squadron are flying in a clear formation and on fire. So, burning, they reached the target, dropped bombs on the fascist tanks - and only after that the battle order was disrupted, the bombers began to turn left and right, and the crews began to jump with parachutes...” “The line hit my plane. The dashboard is broken. Splashes of glass from the side window of the cabin showered my face. It smelled like alcohol. Zhdanov reported that the left side of the fuselage was torn apart by the fighter’s fire, the hydraulic system was broken, then he fired several more bursts and reported that the cartridges had run out...”