Poltava defence in June, 1944

[HGabor]

Hi Folks,

does anybody know which Soviet Yak-9 IAP was responsible for the air defence of the Poltava airfield, where the Luftwaffe destroyed more dozens of American heavies and fighters in June, 1944?

As far as I know one Soviet Yak-9 also got destroyed still on the ground. Which was this Soviet Yak unit and were there any serious military consequences of the failure of the fighter defence...? Thanks,

Gabor

[Nokose]

HGabor, I don't know what IAP was defending the field but remember reading about the raid. The only thing they could have really done was probably have caught the reconn plane that followed them to the field. The VVS didn't have a night fighter unit that I'm aware of though. The book I saw had a picture of the raid showing flak tracers going up into the night sky. I believe it also listed more then one VVS fighter as destroyed.

[yogybär]

IIRC the VVS did very well have night fighter units at Poltava, but the sov. nightfighters were not worth the name: Equipped only with single-engine A/C (Yak and P-40 i.e.) and unable to use "WildeSau"-tactics or similar (using moonlight i.e.).

In the KG4-unit-history @ Motorbuchverlag, VVS-nightfighters in 1944 are described as more or less "no threat at all". On the other hand, the daylight fighters were already in 1943 so good that these ops were cancelled.

[Nokose]

I saw this book on the internet of one of the B-17 pilots who was there, "My Franitic II Adventure in WWII" by Dr Arthur L. Adams. It looks like a simple book of his memiors but might give some first hand info.

[Nokose]

Red Phoenix by Von Hardesty pages 201-203 has this raid showing 44 USAAF B-17's and P-51 destroyed also states 15 VVS aircraft destroyed. On the day that they landed Bejamin Kelsey wanted to take his P-51 back up to shoot down the LW recon plane but was refused permission by VVS base CO. Base was bombed after midnight for 1 1/2 hours by 80 Ju88 and He111. US officers complained of poor AA defence and were later ordered by US general Carl Spaatz not to critize the VVS defence of Poltava. VVS General A.R. Perminov told them that VVS fighters had been sent out before the raid to disrupt the LW airfields to prevent the attack.