Pavel Yakovlevich Golovachev (; – 2 July 1972) was a fighter pilot the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces during the Second World War who was twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. He is credited with gaining at least 30 aerial victories. Early life Golobachev was born on to a Belorussian peasant family in the village of Koshelovo, currently located within the Gomel oblast of present-day Belarus. During his childhood his family lived in the Vietka district, where his father worked as a forester before they moved to Chachersk district. After completing six grades of school in 1933 he entered trade school, which he graduated from in 1935 and subsequently began working at a timber processing plant. Having graduated from the Gomel aeroclub in 1938, he went on to enter the military, training at the Odessa Military Aviation School of Pilots, which he graduated from in 1940 at the end of 1940. He was then assigned to the 168th Fighter Aviation Regiment based in Crimea. World War II During the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Golovachev was stationed in Iași. Initially he flew ground-attack missions on the Polikarpov I-16, but in October he was transferred to the 69th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which was renamed the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment in March 1942. During a mission in the summer that year he was hospitalized for with shrapnel wounds after managing to make a belly landing when his plane was heavily damaged during mission; a group of four Bf 109s had engaged Golovachev and his wingman, shooting out the glass from his cockpit and instrument panel. Before his plane was hit Golovachev did manage to shoot down one of the attackers, but while returning to base he realized that the undercarriage was damaged too. Surgeons were unable to remove five remaining pieces of shrapnel. Not long after returning to combat, he was hospitalized again after crashing into the Don River on 23 August; after shooting down a Ju-88, he was hit by enemy cannon fire and lost consciousness. His LaGG-33 went into a spin. He managed to get the aircraft back into level flight after waking up, but the tail of the plane soon fell off resulting in him crashing into the river. When he was released from the hospital he was retrained to fly the Yak-1 and was assigned