[HGabor]

Some side-notes to November 17, 1944:

Since Hungarian fighters did not claim soviet fighters this day, all soviet fighters (Yaks) lost in a dogfight should be sought out among the German claims!

Pilot-cosmonaut, Gv.Capt. Beregovoy's plane was not lost, only damaged in the Hatvan area, therefore it is not listed in any official loss-report of the 90 GvShAP. However, one pic shows the damage of his left wing. I have read about it in some memoires in which -of course- no further details were mentioned, like exact time and/or place. See his fancy, and famous IL-2m2, No.'22' below.

The 5 VA, 331 IAD, 122 IAP fighter-escort of 5 VA, 4 GvShAD, 90 GvShAP IL-2m3s between 12:50-14:00 local:

Yak-1B, S/N: ?????, '5' - Ml.Lt. Mihail Yakovlevich Pugin -Number questionable*
Yak-1B, S/N: 38179, '8' - Ml.Lt. Mihail Semenovich Erko
Yak-1B, S/N: 22172, '22' - Maj. Anatolii Dmitrievich Drozzhikov
Yak-1B, S/N: 45170, '45' - Ml.Lt. Ilya Egorovich Kostenko

Yak-9M, S/N: 2615390, '90' - Ml.Lt. Vasilii Evstafevich Stadnik
Yak-9M, S/N: 2615394, '94' - Ml.Lt. Victor Nikolaevich Gaponov (MIA/KIA)

* Yak-9M, S/N: 2715305, '05' was lost on November 16, 1944. How did they replace No.'5' in 1 day? True, Yak-1B, S/N: 06179, '6' was lost on November 16, 1944 and Yak-9M, S/N: 2715306, '06' was lost on November 17, 1944. Perhaps 5 and 05 were different. Anyways, no plane with '5' is listed in 122 IAP plane-inventory on January 01, 1945 (with single digit only: Yak-1B: 50160, '3', Yak-9T: 0915396, '3', Yak-1B: 04168, '04', Yak-1B: 38179, '8'), so perhaps it was written off as wear and tear still in late-November, December, 1944.

Gabor