[HGabor]

As far as I know, Torda-S. 168 GvIAP had no Yak-3 fighters at that time. 236 IAD in 1944 had only 3 Saratov-built Yak-3s, S/N: 1013, 1113, 1213. In 1945 they were given to the new Yugoslav AF. 1213 was Сергей Сергеевич Щиров's famous yellow '12' in 267 IAP. (where 12 was yellow AC marking and AC number in the 13th batch, while 13 was the Yak-3 batch number in Zavod 292. Yak-3s, La-5FNs and La-7s rolled off the production line already factory-numbered. Their original marking was their AC number within their batch. This helped the ground crews on frontlines not to waste any time by painting numbers on their planes, maybe just overpainting existing factory numbers in squadron color. This system also helps modellers and aviation archaeologists to reconstruct crashed planes by their recovered AC serial number! This 'sweet' and practical marking system unfortunately did not apply to all AC types.)

I think in 1944 all these 3 Yak-3s belonged to 236 IAD, 267 IAP, not 168 GvIAP. So far all 236 IAD losses in 1944-45, for which I have the AC data were Yak-1b fighters (Yak-1b S/N: xxyyy, where xx was AC number within batch and yyy was the batch number. Unfortunately I think these were not factory-marked, so no idea about Yak-1b tactical numbers):

24157
17169
17170
16168
43181
10183
48172
27170
17170
32150
35169
11166
20174
48149
48177
29163

No Yak-7s, no Yak-9s, no Yak-3s among these, only Yak-1Bs!

Gabor