[Juha]

Hello Timothy
I agree, many of the RAF and Finnish AF aces were those pre-war regulars, on Finns probably most. On the younger ones; our No. 2, Wind (64½+10+2 confirmed+prob+dam) was born in 1919 as was also No. 8 Katajainen (30½+4+6). The youngest ones, born in 1921 or later were at least No. 10 Karhila (30¼+2+4) born in 1921, as were Alakoski (22+6+3), Leino (5+6+1), Pasila (8+1+2), Virtanen (6+2+0), Hillo (7⅓+1+0) and Trontti (5+1+1). Laitinen (9+1+0) and Nyman (6+0+0) were born in 1922 and Hattinen (4+2+3) and Keskinummi (4½+1+0) in 1923.

Juha

On 24 June 41 the Flight Leutenant of 2./LLv 24 (Brewster Buffalos) noticed that one of his pilots, Corporal Heimo Lampi, hasn't yet done his gunnery excercises so they began to build some ground targets for him and asked for an army co-op Fokker C.X to fly a target towing mission for Lampi on late afternoon 25 June 41, but Soviet SBs arrived earlier that day, Lampi got 2½ SBs of 201 SAP and other pilots and the F/Ltn decided that that will do and the F/Ltn phoned to the Army Co-op sqn to cancel the request for a target towing sortie.

Juha