Above, Baltabek Dzhetpysbaev, a Kazakh "Hero of the Soviet Union". Found on Kazahstanskaya Pravda. Tinet can probably help me to glean his heroic deeds from the article.
Amet-Han Sultan, air ace of the USSR, Crimean Tatar. Wikipedia tells us that he
received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union twice. During World War II, he participated in 150 air combats with 30 enemy planes downed individually and 19 in group. After World War II, he became a test pilot. He met his unfortunate demise in a plane crash on February 1, 1971. During his lifetime, he was known to have personally tested over 100 planes.His father was reputedly a Lak (an ethnic group of Daghestan). Photo from airaces.narod.ru - more photos at pilotenbunker.de, which also has some details about how he fared during Stalin's persecutions of Crimean Tatars.
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Dzhetpysbaev was a comissar of the 3rd battalion of the 23rd guards rifle regiment in the Panfilov division. It seems that there were some problems with him getting his orden, which he had earned through "bogatyr-like" deeds.
"He wasn't any attack pilot and no glider pilot, either. But the round-faced Dzhetpysbaev, like all (or almost all) strong and tall people of bogatyr-like constitution, was very goodhearted and always with a smile. His brown eyes were always shining with a special friendliness. They had seen all, those eyes."
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