Senior Lieutenant N. Ya. Totmin was born into a farming family. He completed seven years of school, two years at the Kansk Agricultural Technical School, and a flying club, and worked on a collective farm. He joined the Red Army in 1939. In 1940, he graduated from the Bataysk Military Pilot School named after Hero of the Soviet Union A.K. Serov.

From June 1941, he participated in the Great Patriotic War, serving as a pilot in the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment (39th Fighter Aviation Division, Leningrad Front), flying the I-16. By June 22, 1941, the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment had 46 I-16 aircraft (including three malfunctioning ones) and 20 Yak-1s.

On July 4, 1941, Sergeant Major Nikolai Totmin performed the first head-on ramming in aerial combat.

The duty flight, which included Sergeant Major Totmin, engaged superior enemy forces in an aerial battle during a raid by an enemy group of Ju-88s, escorted by six Me-109s, on the Rozhkopolye airfield. Late in the battle, when Totmin's ammunition ran out, he was attacked from above by a Messerschmitt. Totmin accepted the fight, ramming the enemy head-on. The collision, which the Nazi attempted to evade, resulted in the death of the German pilot and his aircraft. One of Totmin's winglets was destroyed, but the pilot managed to eject.

Air Force Marshal A.A. Novikov later wrote: "I would like to speak in a little more detail about the heroism of nineteen-year-old Siberian Komsomol member Nikolai Totmin: his ramming is the highest form of heroism. In a fierce battle near Rozhkopolye with twelve enemy aircraft, Totmin expended all his ammunition. He could have tried to evade the enemy, and no one would have blamed him. But Totmin decided otherwise: he had to fight to his last breath. He was out of ammunition, but he had a ramming option. And so the Komsomol member went for a head-on ramming! Such a thing had never happened in the history of world aviation. The enemy pilot tried to evade the strike, but was too late, and the Soviet fighter crashed into the enemy aircraft. Totmin, by some incomprehensible miracle, survived and parachuted to safety.

For this feat, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On Conferring the Title of Hero of the Soviet Union on the Commanding Staff of the Red Army" of July 22, 1941, for "exemplary performance of command missions on the front lines in the fight against German fascism and the courage and heroism displayed in doing so," he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin, and the Gold Star medal.

The courageous pilot subsequently encountered the enemy in the skies on numerous occasions. By this time, the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment was part of the 2nd Fighter Air Corps of the Leningrad Air Defense (later the 7th Fighter Aviation Corps) and was re-equipped with fighters from American allies. Р-40 "Warhawk".

By the end of 1941, the regiment had 22 such aircraft. He spent virtually the entirety of 1942 engaged in heavy combat with enemy aircraft, reconnaissance missions, and ground-attack missions against Wehrmacht columns. October arrived, and Nikolai Totmin had risen to the rank of senior lieutenant. On that fateful day, October 23, eight Kittyhawks from the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment, under the overall command of Senior Lieutenant Shishkan, took off to escort a group of Il-2 attack aircraft. Upon approaching their target, the Soviet fighters split into two groups: four Kittyhawks, with Totmin among them, ascended, while the other four remained with the attack aircraft. The 2nd IAK combat report log recounts what happened next: “At an altitude of 1,000 meters, a flight of four Kittyhawks was attacked by two Me-109s, which were joined by two more Me-109s, and the Kittyhawk group engaged them in aerial combat while banking. As a result of the aerial combat, Senior Lieutenant Totmin was shot down. His crew observed his crash near settlement No. 1, 18 km north of Tosno.” The second flight of Kittyhawks did not engage in combat; Il-2 attack aircraft carried out an attack on the Tosno railway station without losses. The list of lost personnel of the 158th IAP notes that: “The aircraft and pilot crashed in territory temporarily occupied by the enemy.” Of the German claims from the 54th Fighter Squadron, which confronted our pilots that day, two are known to have been for Soviet fighters: one from Knight's Cross recipient M. Stotz, the other from the lesser-known expert A. Dettke. Moreover, the latter's claim (mistakenly listed as a LaGG-3) is more accurate in terms of time and coordinates. Thus ended the life of Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Yakovlevich Totmin.

During his year of service in the Great Patriotic War, N. Ya. Totmin flew 93 combat sorties and fought in 29 air battles, destroying seven German aircraft. Senior Lieutenant Totmin died on October 23, 1942, in an air battle 18 km north of Tosno. His plane crashed into a swamp in occupied territory.

A street would later be named after him not only in Krasnoyarsk, but also in his native Ust-Yarul, Tosno, and the village of Irbeyskoye.

In the spring of 1990, parts of the plane and Totmin's remains were discovered by a search party near the village of Gladkoye. Subsequently, the Government of the Leningrad Region and the Administration of the Irbeysky District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, with the consent of the deceased's family, decided to bury Nikolai Totmin's remains in his hometown of Ust-Yarul.

Bibliography

• "Stalin's Aces" /Thomas Polak/

Confirmed Victories
1941
July 4		Ju 88		I-16	158th Air Regiment
-//-		Bf 109	(ram)	-//-	-//-
July 20		Н/д		I-16	158th Air Regiment

• Bulletin of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 34 of August 2, 1941

November 19, 2025.
A.A. Novikov's mention of the incomprehensible miracle of Totmin's rescue is no exaggeration. When a wing collapses, the difference in lift causes the aircraft to rapidly rotate, making it extremely difficult to escape under the resulting loads...
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