Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Josh Osborne
According to Wikipedia, the "evidence" that p-63 saw service on the eastern front was identification by pilots and flak crews (no official reports or photos) and the memoirs of "a member of Pokryshkin's squadron who published his memiors in the '90s". I have no idea who this pilot would be, if these memoirs are reliable, or if they are even available in English.
About the story of a group of escaped POWs and the He 111: if it was real, wouldn't there be several feature motion pictures made by now? This story makes the Great Escape seem like a stroll in the park.
|
Josh Osborne, that incident actually was simple than thought,Mikhail Devyatayev managed to disguised his pilot identidy in POW camp, German in the POW camps did not he could fly an airplane, and he was sent to an island as a labor to build and maintain the German airport, one day, when he and other 9 Soviet POWs found a He-111 on the runway when they were working, and there were no Germans around, so that Devyatayev and his fellows quicky take a vote and decide to take the risk( a risk indeed, Devyatayev was a fighter pilot, never flew a mulit-eninge airplane before !), then they simply lined up, climbed into the He-111, start the engine and took off, Germans realised what was happening only too late, and before the Flak could open fire, they were gone.
In this case, I do not blame those NKVD guys found hard to believe Devyatayev's story