Growing up, his son Pavel nearly drowned three times, the first time when he was six, in the river , and a second time while travelling to school in by boat across a semi-frozen river. He declined to talk about the third time, but concluded that he was not destined to die by water, later carrying a handkerchief embroidered by his mother in his pocket as a talisman when he flew in action. He attended the pedagogical college in the nearby settlement of Sapozhok, graduating in 1940 with the specialty of a teacher in Russian language and literature. He joined the Soviet Navy in September that year, and was initially posted to Leningrad as an anti-aircraft battery gunner with the coastal defence forces. He served during the first years of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which began in 1941, and in 1943 graduated from the Nikolaev Naval Aviation School. Because of the war, the school had been evacuated to Bezenchuk, Kuybyshev Oblast. He was promptly posted to serve on the front lines from July 1943, as a crew navigator with Soviet Naval Aviation, rising to flight navigator from May 1944. In common with many of his compatriots, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in 1944.