Cherepkov Joseph Denisovich
(1912–1942)

Soviet polar pilot.
Born in the village of Luchitsa, Osipovichsky district of Belarus, in the family of a carpenter who built houses. With 14 years went as an unskilled worker on the railroad.
In 1929, Cherepkov, on the advice of friends who studied at the Moscow Military School of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, arrived in Moscow, but by age could not go to school and remained in it free-lance. He worked as a messenger, registered a secret mail, which he trusted as a member of the Komsomol, spent his free time on the airfield, following the flights of test pilots. Becoming a witness to the accident M.M. Gromov, who miraculously escaped by parachute, Shards did not only not abandon the desire to become a pilot, but even more entrenched in his intention.
In 1930, at the mandate commission for admission to the school Cherepkov first met with P.G. Golovin, who also entered the school, although he was by that time a world-famous glider pilot. They became friends, and Golovin, as a senior, took him under his care.
After graduating from school in April 1931, Cherepkov received a referral to agricultural aviation and flew to Tiflis. Here he hunted arsenic pests of agriculture, sowed rice from an airplane. A year later he was transferred to the Northern Urals, where he was exploring forest fires, carried out forest valuation. The work in agricultural aviation turned out to be a magnificent school of flight skills for Cherepkov.
After three years of work, Cherepkov was drafted into the army and sent to the Far East, where he flew first on an R-5 plane, and then as a second and first pilot in a bomber squadron.
After serving in the army for a year and a half beyond the time limit, Cherepkov demobilized and arrived in Moscow as an experienced pilot. At this time, pilots who landed the first drifting station at the North Pole were honored. Among them, Cherepkov recognized his friend Golovin. They warmly met, and Golovin suggested that the young pilot go to polar aviation.
Began a harsh work life. Cherepkov became a linear pilot on the Ob airline, carried passengers and cargo on the route Tyumen - Obdorsk. After the transfer of the Ob line to the Aeroflot, Cherepkov was transferred to the Moscow group, which included in the summer and in the winter he drove aircraft from Moscow to Yakutsk. After a while he began to work in Yakutsk all the time. For three and a half years of work in Yakutsk, Cherepkov flew to various regions of Siberia, flying a total of over 300 thousand kilometers and having spent 2000 hours in the air.
In the war years Cherepkov continued to serve in the polar aviation, serving the needs of the Northern Sea Route. In August 1942, he flew out to ice reconnaissance and did not return to the base. Missing. The Arctic can keep a secret. On the same plane was the hydrologist of the Arctic Research Institute Ivan Gavrilovich Ovchinnikov.
Cape in the north of Jackson Island archipelago Franz Josef Land. Named by Soviet cartographers in the 1950s.