The USSR's 'Bader'

I've started reading about the German/Soviet airwar ( a completely new area for me - there's always something new ! ). Vol II of 'Black Cross / Red Star' by Bergstrom/Mikhailov is currently available cheaply in UK book warehouses and it makes for absorbing reading.

I was completely unaware, for instance, that the Red Air Force had its very own 'Douglas Bader' - Lt. Aleksey Maresyev.

On April 4, 1942, Maresyev's Yak-1 was engaged in combat with a number of III./JG3's Bf109Fs and was shot down into pine trees.

Thrown clear, he regained consciousnes in deep snow ; both his legs were shattered. He survived in the wilderness for 19 days, his only source of food apart from a few frozen berries being a hedgehog which he caught.. Found by a detachment of Soviet partisans, he was picked up by his own Eskadrilya commander who flew into an improvised forest airstrip. At a military hospital in Moscow, doctors could not save Maresyev's legs due to gangrene ; they were both amputated below the knee.

In 1943, Maresyev returned to frontline service over Kursk and ended the war with 11 victories.

Although one could argue that Bader's injuries were more extreme ( amputation below the hip ), Aleksey Maresyev's ordeal and recovery must mark him out as a very determined individual.

 

What a story Martin. The guy was obviously a born survivor.

 

A true hero, indeed!

Good you're into this new field, Martin! Hope we can later discuss the air war in the eastern front, which is very interesting, but overlooked.

Also, check this:

http://wio.ru/

 

Yes - I'd always previously considered the Ostfront airwar to be too confusing, and I never really understood how all those Luftwaffe aces could have 200+/300+ victories....

But there seem to be some interesting books gradually coming out with access to Soviet information.....more money to spend !

 

I started looking up some of the websites on the subject and found this interesting weapon. The AG-2 aerial grenade used with the PE-2 twin engine aircraft. I am not too sure I would want to use it in formation but maybe it worked.
The PE-2UT trainer looks ugly as sin !!
Go to part six to read on the aerial grenade.
http://www.vectorsite.net/avpe2.html

 

An interesting interview : Marshal Ivan Kozhedub: WWII Fighter Pilot

http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/blkozhedub1.htm

 

Hello gentlemen,

I've got 2 nice books on this topic:
Dmitri Loza; Attack of the Airacobra's, Soviet Aces, American P-39's & The Air War against Germany.
Ivan Kaberov; Swastika in my gunsight.

I personally think the soviet fighters ( Yak series and Lavochkin ) were as good as any British or American fighters of the war!

Btw; the I-153 Chaika and the I-16 Ishak are the most beautiful WW 2 planes ! I fly them in 69.Giap online.

 

I've been looking, in particular, at some of the Soviet P-39 aces and their scores. Although this is not particularly an area of expertise for me it seems highly suspect that many of them actually accrued the scores they claim. In one example, a regiment claimed 79 kills that were overwhelmingly fighters and in particuar Me 109's. What makes the claims interesting is that the Me 109E is the most claimed fighter and that the claims are being made in late 1942 early 1943. (I don't have the breakdown in front of me at the moment to give the unit and exact claims but it was a P-39 unit).
This tends to run counter to German, US, and British scores where most high scoring aces and units shot down far more bombers and other non-fighters than fighter aircraft. I suspect that the Soviet claims are highly inflated. Any commentary on this or sources that can accurately verify these claims?

 

Not sure if that's the same bloke Martin but the book Russia's Heroes by Albert Axel describes one pilot who was shot down under similar circumstances and crawled several kilometers to rescue.

 

I would have to agree with you T.A. I think there was some public relations/propanganda on both sides during the war. Rudel and his 500+ tank kills seems alot for just one person. A good squadron perhaps but not one person. On the other hand I can believe Eric Hartman's 352 kills, but I am not sure I can explain or understand why I believe Hartman and not Rudel.

 

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about that seem highly exaggerated:

16th GIAP with 35 P-39 (various models) assigned flew 289 sorties and listed 79 kills for the month of April 1943. The kills are broken down as: 14 Bf 109E (were any of these even still flying in 1943?!), 12 Me 109F (given the rarity of this fighter that is quite a few particularly since production had long sense stopped on this model), 45 Me 109G (!!!), 2 Fw 190A, 4 Ju 88, 1 Do 217 (another rarity in the East) and 1 Ju 87D.
In the same period the unit stated it lost 19 P-39 plus two to accidents.
Of the individual pilots Aleksandr Pokryshkin claimed 10 kills (all Me 109) for the month. On April 9th he claimed seven alone but only received credit for two. On April 29 this pilot claimed 4 Me 109s shot down in a single engagement! Given the relatively small amount of ammo the P-39 carries I find this one hard to accept too. Grigorii Rechkalov claimed 7 Me 109 and a Ju 88 while Vadim Fadeev claimed 12 Me 109s for the month! At the time it was flying out of Krasnodar.
Overall, this regiment claimed 697 kills for the war.
With this much information alone it should be relatively easy to check Luftwaffe losses claimed in that area of the front against Soviet claims. I suspect the results will be far lower than the Soviet pilot's claims. I don't think that even the Soviet practice of having units with selected pilots of great skill could produce such results so consistantly.

 

I do believe that is the Soviet propaganda doing its job. No problem as long as it did raise the morale back in the wartime. Unfortunately I suppose there are no real records to tell the truth later on.

I do think the best example still is the Prokhorovka battle. There were tens of smoking tanks in the field but that was the 5th Guards tanks. Not Tigers and Panthers rammed to pieces.

 

@TA Gardner : if you check the Black Cross Red Star book quoted above, you'll see that the VVS usualy made overclaims.

The authors often give the claims for a given action and then the recorded losses for the other side : most often they don't match.

It's true for both sides.

 

One thing that is worth noting is the way the VVS recorded scores. Now in the west as far as I recall it was possible to get a 'part' of a kill, so if two pilots were after the same aircraft, both contributed to shooting it down, they would both be recorded as having half each right?

In the east, say 7 pilots contributed to shooting down an enemy aircraft, each of the pilots would record one kill. Thus even if there was only one enemy aircraft shot down the VVS may record a silly number of kills.

 

They kept separate count of both the regular kills and the shared kills.

When such a distinction si not provided by a given source, it's often hard to know it they're talking about regular kills only, or the aggregate of regular + shared.

 

I know the lists released in the press were the aggregate of shared and regular kills.

 

Funny I had come across this fellow myself recently. Quite a survival ordeal, I hadn't read about his 19 days! Thanks for posting. Makes Heinz Bars walk with a broken back behind Russian lines seem tame in comparison. Wouldn't wanna trade with either one of em though.

 

You guys are right this has always seemed to be an overlooked aspect of WW2/Patriotic war. Re. The high kill rating I understood that the Luftwaffe included ground hits in a pilots tally, ie aircraft caught on the ground/just taking off

 

The Lufwaffe had quite precise system of confirmation of victories. Using this, numbers are very trusthworhy. Btw., there were many people searching about this all the years after WW2, of course using comparation with known loses on other side. And if these numbers are not true, there should be many books about it, am I wrong? Sometimes there are exceptions, of course, i.e. recently I have read something about Hans Joachim Marseille, something like he was able to shoot down more aircraft, then were in air in that time...
On the other side, if you take reports of gunners of USAAF 8. Army, after about two of their airraids to germany there can be no Luftwaffe, because of it had all fighters shooted down by brave gunners...