Hello Chris
Thanks a lot for the info!
I don’t have a copy of that Stanley’s book, even if I have some books on the photo intelligence, even Stanley’s ‘
To Fool A Glass Eye’ but yes, Soviet fighter pilots were not allowed to shoot down German PR planes but IIRC were at some point allowed to try to persuade them to land. Timin in his Timin, Mikhail,
Air Battles over the Baltic 1941 (Warwick: Helion, 2018) only mentions that after 10 April 1941 the German recon activity over the Baltic region dropped sharply. “
In total over the course of one or two days flights were only recorded on 11, 12, 17 and 18 April and on 8 May.” But he mentioned that one reason for that was the transfer of German recon activity to a zone comprising the Western Special Military District, and the Kiev Special Military District. Active operations over the Baltic region resumed from the end of May.
In the book there is a map giving the German penetrations into the Soviet airspace over Lithuania and Latvia which were observed by Soviets from 1 January to 10 April 1941. It gives plane types, dates and times and flight paths. In the text he gives descriptions of the flights between 24 January and 5 March 1941 (9 flights, giving a/c type or as unidentified and its route, all interception attempts were unsuccessful but the last plane was fired upon by AA artillery) and between 3 and 10 April (22 flights, a/c type, altitude, routes, Soviet reactions, now interceptions were sometimes successful, but German planes turned away when they saw the Soviet fighters, in one case on 5 April, ‘He 111’ H=4.000 Soviet fighters fired 20 warning burst of mg-fire while the German plane flew out to sea and in one case 17 fighters were sent to intercept a Do 17 at 4.000 m which turned away when encountering the Soviet fighters). On the 15 April Ju 86 P case I found this
Mirek Wawrzynski 18th December 2013 20:41 Re: Ju-86P and R losses
15 Apr 41 D-APEW shot down VVS fighters crew POW later escapes
It was force landing not shot down due to eginge failure, one owa earlier switch off. Of course Ju 86 was detected and chatched by Soviet pilot from 46. IAP on I-16. Pilot did not open fire to it or "victim". Plane forece landed on Soviet territory near Równo (ex-Polish town). From the thread J
u-86P and R losses http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=36176
Juha