View Single Post
  #1  
Old 21st January 2017, 13:40
GMichalski's Avatar
GMichalski GMichalski is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Spain
Posts: 380
GMichalski is on a distinguished road
Victors or cause 4 losses 102 GvIAP 1944

Hi,

i search about these 4 losses in this interesting web:
http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/englis...akov/index.htm


Overall, we had fewer losses in combat. Whom did we lose in combat? Here is a photograph of me with my squadron commander, Morozov (I was his deputy) alongside Cobra bort (tactical) number 055. They shot him down in 1944. Who shot him down—the Finns or Germans—we don’t know. All four died. They were flying at low altitude, buzzing the border, toward the Finnish side, toward Priozersk. He was leading a four-ship and took Kolya Galanin and two young pilots with him.
We had just received replacements. I had said, “Arkasha, I’m going to fly with you, as you are going to fly with the young and inexperienced pilots. I’m going to go with you.”
“No, you have your own young pilots to worry about. I will go with them and show them the battle area.”
I was also in the air; I heard over the radio that they were in a fight. I heard my call sign—“21,” and his—“20.” I asked, “Where are you, ‘20’? Where are you fighting?”
But communications was interrupted and we never heard from them again. We lost the entire four-ship flight. There was no trace of them.
Later we learned that they had been shot down. They found Kolyamagin in the bay, already after the war, in his Cobra. They never found the other three. (17 June 1944, the following did not return from a combat mission on P-39s: Senior Lieutenant Arkadiy Ivanovich Morozov; Junior Lieutenants Nikolay Yakovlevich Galanin, Kolyamagin, and Vorobev.)

regards
__________________
"If you return from a mission with a victory, but without your Rottenflieger [Wingman], you have lost your battle."
Dietrich Hrabak

"The wingman is absolutely indispensable. I look after the wingman. The wingman looks after me....."
Francis S. "Gabby" Gabreski,

"The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first."
Adolf Galland
Reply With Quote