Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, which had been reorganized to be composed entirely of flying aces to counter German air offensives in the area. The regiment included Mikhail Baranov, the most successful Soviet ace at the time, and Lydia "Lily" Litvak, the first female flying ace. Over Stalingrad in August 1942 Amet-khan had to parachute out of his plane for a second time after his Yak-7B was shot down. From November 1942 until the end of the war he remained the commander of the third squadron of the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. After retraining to fly a Bell P-39 Airacobra in 1943 he fought over Rostov-on-Don and saw heavy combat over the Kuban area as part of the campaign to retake control of Taganrog, Melitopol, and the Crimean Peninsula. On 24 August 1943, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his success in contributing to the aerial defense on the Southern, Bryansk, and Stalingrad fronts, as well as over Moldova, southern Ukraine, and Yaroslavl. Although not recorded in official Soviet documents, British historians Thomas Polak and Christopher Shores attributed a second aerial ramming of a Ju 88 to Amet-khan, taking place over the Battle of Stalingrad in winter of 1943. Only seventeen Soviet pilots are known to have executed two aerial rammings; two Soviet pilots executed three rammings, and one pilot, Boris Kovzan, who committed four, holds the record for most aerial rammings. From 18 to 20 May 1944, he was permitted to take a three-day vacation from combat to visit his family in Alupka, not long after the Soviets retook control of Crimea, bringing several of his friends, including fellow Hero of the Soviet Union Pavel Golovachev. One morning, an NKVD officer barged into the Amet-khan house attempted to force Amet-khan and his parents to leave Crimea, but they initially refused to leave and a struggle ensued until Amet-khan identified himself as a Hero of the Soviet Union to the NKVD officer who had attacked him and his status as a war hero was confirmed by Pavel Golovachev who was present at the scene. The NKVD officer then began questioning him about his ethnic background, decided that Amet-khan was technically Dagestani, and explained that there was an order to deport the entire Crimean Tatar people and that his brother Imran was wanted for collaborating with the Germans. Throughout the day the NKVD continued to deport