guards flag, Taran was the standard-bearer. That year he received a minor head injury during a mission to bomb an enemy airfield. In September he began flying with a new aircrew, and by 30 November 1943 he was nominated for the title Hero of the Soviet Union again for flying 350 sorties, during which two enemy crossings, fifteen supply warehouses, and eight aircraft on the ground were destroyed in addition to starting 39 fires. He was awarded the title again on 13 March 1944 before leaving the 81st Regiment in July. In July 1944 he became a flight inspector for the 6th Long-range Aviation Corps. In that role he approved nine pilots for night flights and reviewed 76 more pilots. In April he was made commander of the 240th Bomber Aviation Regiment, which carried out 190 sorties during spring 1945 and was tasked with bombing tank columns, ammunition storage facilities, bridges, airfields, and trains as well as photographing bombed areas. Throughout the war he flew 356 sorties, of which 316 were at night. He flew in the battles over Ukraine, the Caucasus, Kuban, Kursk, Leningrad, Belarus, Lviv, the Baltics, Konigsberg and Berlin. Postwar Taran remained in command of the 240th Regiment until April 1946, after which he became a squadron commander in the 199th Guards Bomber Regiment. From March 1948 to May 1951 he served as a flight inspector in the 4th Guards Aviation Corps, which used the B-25 and Tu-4. He then was appointed as commander of the 251st Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment, which he remained in until being made deputy commander of the 15th Guards Heavy Bomber Division in December 1954; in July 1955 he was promoted to commander of the division, and in 1957 he was promoted to the rank of general-major. After graduating from the Military Academy of the General Staff he became the commander of the 79th Heavy Bomber Division in December 1958; the division used the Tu-95. He then held a variety of flight training and staff posts before retiring in 1979 as a general-lieutenant. From then until 1984 he worked as a designer for the Tupolev Bureau. He died in Moscow on 14 September 2005 and was buried in the Troekurovsky cemetery. Awards and honors Soviet Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (20 June 1942 and 13 March 1944) Order of Lenin (20 June 1942) Order of the October Revolution (21 February