Romanian Air Force in the Caucasus 1942

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Hello Seaplanes and Andy,

of course, I searched on germandocsinrussia. Nothing relevant.
Obviously, the last hope is to find some mentions in the documents of the German 17th Army, in the temporary subordination of which were Romanian troops in the Caucasus direction.
I have looked at these documents before, but at that time I did not look for any mention of Romanian aviation in them.

Best regards,
Andrey

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Andrey,

This is very belated and not directly relevant but.....

An interesting site (http://www.iar80.org/cu-o-escadrila-de- ... n-crimeea/) has the operational history of the Romanian 49th Fighter Squadron on maritime protection duties in 1943-44. (This can be read in English as well). The unit's main role was to protect Axis convoys in and out of Sevastopol in the Crimea from Soviet air attack. (Today its bases in the Crimea are in use by the Russian Air Force and have been struck more than once by Ukrainian missiles and drones)

By this stage the IAR80 was becoming obsolescent and was outperformed by most Soviet types it faced. Nevertheless, the unit had 15 confirmed victories, most of them twin-engined bombers, (9 Bostons, 2 DB3s, 2 Pe2s, 1 IL2 and one Airacobra), and seven probables.

A new piece of information in it is that the Romanian and German air commands in Crimea tried to convert the IAR80C to carry depth bombs for anti-submarine work. Practice exercises were carried out but the conversion was not adopted.

The parent site of this article is dedicated to building a flying replica of the IAR80 and contains much other information on the IAR80/81.

Sid.

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Hello Sid,

Thank you! There really is some interesting material on the website. Although, on the whole, unlike in 1942, quite a lot is known about the Romanian Air Force’s involvement in 1943-44.
The content of the article raises some questions. Some of the events mentioned either didn't happen at all, or took place on different dates (admittedly, I have only checked a few of them).

Best regards,
Andrey