Soviet P-63 pilot, escaping with He 111 w.V1(s)

[Brian]

I am finding this saga most interesting! Can anyone put a date to the incident? And what unit did the He111 come from? Was it really carrying two V-1s when stolen?

I eagerly await the next instalment!!

Cheers
Brian

[marsyao]

Originally Posted by Josh Osborne

Marsyao, the suspicious circumstances of the escape certainly didn't help, but all former Soviet POWs went to the gulag after the war, since Stalin considered them "contaminated" by "western influences". Even members of the Lucy spy ring, who did more than anyone to help the Soviets win the war, were sent to the gulag.

Josh Osborne, you info is not correct,as Andrey said above, in the war time, the most of the liberated Soviet POWs were sent back to their units, and after the war, they were released and return home

[Andrey Dikov]

>I am finding this saga most interesting! Can anyone put a date to the incident?

February 8, 1945.


> And what unit did the He111 come from?

Luftwaffe researchers could guess.

According Soviet side descriptions Heinkel (He 111H-22???) belonged to some Kdo. attached to Penemunde testing centre. In some publications commander of this detachment named as Oblt. Carl-Heinz Graudenz (???).


> Was it really carrying two V-1s when stolen?

It seems yes. At least something wich looked like.

Try an online-translators:

http://www.airpages.ru/cgi-bin/pg.pl...&page=devataev

http://www.rednews.ru/article.phtml?...y=111=1&id=120

http://star-v.narod.ru/heroes/article1.htm

http://otvaga.vif2.ru/Otvaga/heroes/hero_030.htm

http://www.airwar.ru/history/aces/ac...devyataev.html

http://skydive1.h12.ru/aviation/su.p...00001031.shtml

[Josh Osborne]

Originally Posted by marsyao

Josh Osborne, you info is not correct,as Andrey said above, in the war time, the most of the liberated Soviet POWs were sent back to their units, and after the war, they were released and return home

I admit that I was wrong when I said "all SU former POWs". I should have said "some". Surely some were sent back to their units. Indisputably, some were sent to the gulag for no other crime than having been exposed to "western culture" even as a prisoner. Therefore, the fact that the hero of the He 111 escape was sent to the gulag was not due only to the suspicious circumstances. He was one of many tragic cases of a SU POWs who were victimized first by the Nazis, and then by their own government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
QUOTE
After WWII the number of inmates in prison camps and colonies rose again sharply and reached the number of approximately 2.5 million people by the early 1950s (about 1.7 millions of whom in camps). While some of these were deserters and war criminals, there were also repatriated Russians prisoners of war and "Eastern workers", who were universally accused of treason and "cooperation with an enemy" (formally, they did work for Nazis). Large numbers of civilians from the Russian territories which came under foreign occupation, as well as from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union after the war were also sent there. It was not uncommon for the survivors of Nazi camps to be transported directly to the Soviet labour camps.
UNQUOTE

[marsyao]

Josh Osborne, we are sure of out of topic here, but here is something you may found interesting, that was from "Axis history forum":

During the war most pows went straight back into the ranks. The vast majority of liberated Soviet pows after the war were reassigned to the Red Army, after screening. And I think people have tended to get confused between the screening camps and the gulags. Screening was intended initially to take 10 days. It later took around 2 months to process an individual (statements, story of captivity, cross-checking against other accounts and, if suspicious, interrogation). There's been quite a lot of research about this recently, most of it being done by Zemskov, Polian and Sevjakov. I've taken this from Polian (Deportiert nach Hause).

Of 4,400,901 citizens of the Soviet Union repatriated by 1 March 1946, 1,569,572 were former prisoners of war.

Of the total repatriated 4,199,488 had been filtered by 1 March (1,539,475 of them pows) and 57.8% had been released to go home, 19.1% had been reassigned to army units, 14.5% were working in reconstruction units, 6.5% (272,867 people) had been detained in NKVD camps and 2.1% were working in special teams dismantling industrial sites in Poland and germany for transport to the USSR.

Of the former pows 281,780 (18,3%) were sent home, 659,190 (42,8%) were placed in reserve units of the Red Army, 344,448 (22,3%) were placed in labour battalions and 226,127 (14,6%) were handed over to the NKVD. The other 27,930 (1,81%) were used in the dismantling units.


The released pows were mostly assigned to the Red Army. Thus 268,794 repatriated indiduals (some pows, some civilian workers) were assigned to reserve units in 1944, 779,406 in 1945 and 7,725 in 1946 (a total of 1,055,925). Most of the other pows went to construction battalions. Soviet documents show that construction battalions accounted for 344,448 released pows. Most of these batallions, which were run on military lines, were disbanded in September 1946.


Polian gives figures to show that the NKVD received 272,867 individuals by 1 March 1946. Sevjakov puts the figure at 338,107 of which 55,015 were civilians. The military special prisoners were classified by an order of Golikov and Chrulev on 18 January 1945 and were mainly pows who had been in German military or police units (the term Vlasovites covered most German military units composed of Soviet citizens for the Soviet authorities). A further 148,079 prisoners arrived in these camps up to 1947, most of them repatriated by agreement with the Americans or British.

So you can see that the idea that all pows returned to the Soviet Union were handed over to the NKVD for imprisonment or execution is an absolute myth. Of the prisoners of war retaken by the Soviets just over 14% were sentenced for punishment. Considering the number of Soviet citizens in German uniform that's not an especially huge amount (and I think it'd do you good to see how any European country dealt with collaborators - none of them were welcomed home).

And of course pows were asked questions during filtration. Numbers of camp polizei, collaborators and others were attempting to pass themselves off as pows. And, of course, Soviet authorities wanted to find those responsible and asked questions to find out. You can read Temkin's memoirs - he gives a complete account of his NKVD debriefing. And he was no friend of the SU - he emigrated in the 1960s. Many of the questions were designed to check which units guarded which prisoners so the guilty officers could be found - just as the Americans wanted to find

[Andrey Dikov]

Bravo, Marsyao! I'd be too lazy to do such a detailed answer. More so I still doubt it will convince the opponents.

>Therefore, the fact that the hero of the He 111 escape was sent to the
gulag was not due only to the suspicious circumstances.

Again. Devyatayev was NOT sent to any gulag. Read all his interviews and last publications. The tale about his gulag experience was created in late 80s - early 90s, when such stories were fashionable.

Answering your post and private message: I'm quite good in Soviet Air force history, and concern myself with VVS KBF (Red Banner Baltic Fleet Air Force) history. I know the fates of many former POWs, had read a lot of books, interviews (and interviewed some by myself) and other materials and I still can't give you a name of the pilot, who was really sent to gulag camp after Nazi camp.

If you know someone - please, give me a name.


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

Sorry, but this is not a serious reference. Wikipedia is an usual WWW trash can - popular mass plebs' history. It could be a good elementary reading, but not a serious reference in discussion.

[Graham Boak]

The He 111 could not carry two V-1s - poor thing was overloaded enough with one. If it was carrying two "somethings" then they were something else. None of which detracts from the achievement.

[Juha]

Thank Marsyao for this interesting info.
I can give a weak support to You, because in 80s I read some WWII Finnish interrogation reports on Soviet defectors interrogations. Few of them had told that they had made unsuccessful defection attempts before the successful one. When they had been caught they had got hard labour sentences but usually after a few months these were suspended and they were then sent to labour battalions or even back to front line with a hint that their case would be reconsidered after the war. So even the caught defectors were not shot out of hand in Red Army, at least not at Lake Onega area, which probably suffered more than average lack of troops in 1942-43.
Andrey, the story of Devyatayev’s gulag sentence is older, at least here in Finland. I heard or read the story in 70s.

Juha

[Carl-Fredrik Geust]

I think that the thread below has already come rather far from the original, interesting topic concerning the possible appearance of Soviet P-63 Kingcobras in Eastern Europe in WW II. I do not want to became involved in the unproductive yes-no poltical debate, but would merely want to return to the original problem.

According to a biographical article about the Soviet fighter ace V.S.Yeliseyev (Hero of RF 6 September 1996) published in the well-known Russian aviation journal MIR AVIATSII no. 3/1999 6 IAK (Fighter Aviation Corps of 16 Air Army) received 6 (six) Kingcobras in spring 1945. One of these Kingcobras was flown by Vladimir Yeliseyev (then serving in 67 Guards IAP, which was ex-436 IAP) during the Battle of Berlin from March 1945. As this article (written by Vladimir Ratkin) refers explicitely also to Yeliseyevs´s previous Airacobra-missions misidentification is excluded. The article is furthermore based on TsAMO-documents (war diary of 67 GIAP etc.). In my book "Red Stars Vol.4" I also indicated this use of Kingcobras by VVS in the European theatre, but my remarks seem to have passed unnoticed.
Carl

[Josh Osborne]

I would like to apologize for sidetracking this thread by making a political comment in a non-political thread, that was a mistake I will try not to repeat.

As to the fate of returning SU POWs, I see now that I was misled by a history book that I bought in '88 which contained incorrect information, information which unfortunately has been repeated in a lot of internet sources. Thanks to marsyao for the informative post. Someday I will have to make a trip to the library and update my information.