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Antanas GustaitisLithuanian aircraft designer, engineer, brigadier general of the Lithuanian Army
Date of Birth: 26.03.1898
Country:  Lithuania |
Content:
Biography of Antanas Gustaitis
Antanas Gustaitis was a Lithuanian aircraft designer, engineer, and brigadier general of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. He served as the commander of the Lithuanian military aviation from 1935 until its liquidation in 1940. Gustaitis was also a military pilot and participated in combat operations.
Early Life and Education
Antanas Gustaitis was born on March 26, 1898, in the village of Obialine in the Mariampol County of the Suwalki Governorate. He came from a prosperous peasant family, and his parents, Kazimeras and Pyatronele, were well-to-do farmers. Antanas was the youngest child in the family, with three older brothers and two sisters. He was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith.
Gustaitis attended the Mariampol Elementary School, where the instruction was primarily in the Russian language, with only one lesson per week dedicated to the Lithuanian language. Despite this, he excelled academically and often helped both his younger classmates and peers. Mathematics was one of his favorite subjects.
After completing elementary school, Gustaitis successfully passed the entrance exams and enrolled in the Mariampol Boys' Gymnasium, where his older brother was already studying. The gymnasium offered a classical education, with courses in Russian language and literature, Lithuanian, German, Latin, and Greek languages, religious studies, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics, cosmography, general, Russian, and Polish history and geography, drawing, gymnastics, and music. The instruction was also conducted primarily in the Russian language. Gustaitis excelled in the exact sciences and was considered the top student in his class. In his free time, he enjoyed playing chess, reading, playing the mandolin, and participating in sports. All the students lived at the gymnasium.
Academic Pursuits and Military Service
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 disrupted the lives of the residents of the Suwalki Governorate. Those living in the proximity of the front line were ordered to leave their farms and retreat 16 kilometers away from the front. In 1915, with the German offensive on the Eastern Front, the evacuation of industrial enterprises, government institutions, and later educational institutions commenced. The Mariampol Gymnasium was initially evacuated to Vilnius and later to Yaroslavl. With a travel allowance of 10 rubles, the students followed the gymnasium. The Committee of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna for providing temporary assistance to those affected by the war and the Lithuanian Society for Assistance to War Victims, led by Martynas Ichas, took care of the students. On May 28, 1916, Antanas Gustaitis graduated from the Yaroslavl Gymnasium with an average score of 4.76 on a five-point scale.
After submitting an application and successfully passing the entrance exams, Gustaitis enrolled in the Imperial Alexander I Institute of Railway Engineers in Petrograd in September 1916. After completing the first year, he was supposed to be immediately transferred to the second year. However, in 1917, a mobilization of students born in 1898 into the Russian army was announced. Realizing that he could be sent to the front, Gustaitis applied for admission to the Odessa Sergei Artillery School and later to the Petrograd Konstantin Artillery School. Later, after his arrest in 1941, Gustaitis stated that he served in the artillery from May to October 1917. After the October Revolution in 1917, he finally returned to Lithuania.
Due to the practice of naming Lithuanians in the Russian Empire, the Lithuanian endings of a person's name and surname were removed, and a patronymic was added. As a result, Antanas Gustaitis was known by different names in Russia. In a 1916 photograph from his student file, he signed as Anatoliy Gustaita, and in the certificate he received after being accepted into the Petrograd Institute of Railway Engineers in the same year, he was recorded as Antoniy Kazimirovich Gustaitis.
