659 IAP KOLDUNOV

[Paul Thompson]

Gabor, thanks again!

I’ve tracked down where I took the information about Boston night-fighters from. It’s on page 84 of Osprey’s “Soviet Lend-Lease Fighter Aces”, which says that 26 and 27 GAPI-DDs (Guards Air Regiment – Long Range Fighter) used A-20G-1s with Gneis-3 radar as night fighters. There is no reference to Breslau in that book, so I must have read that somewhere else, I’ll try to track that down. Did the Soviets use any night fighters at all over Budapest?

I was aware that the Soviet torpedo-bomber units ‘de-modified’ their Bostons, didn’t know the same was the case for bomber units. Soviet A-20Js and Ks must have been extremely rare, as your data shows. I’ve found that they received 665 A-20Bs and 1441 A-20Gs, so these were the dominant models.

The work you are doing is great, and I have the highest respect for it! It’s also good to know that the Russian archives are opening up to some extent, even if they have a bad reputation in the West, it is indeed a credit to them. I hope you can keep sharing information here, it is great to be able to access your knowledge! For my part, I’ll organise the notes I’ve got from that book and send them to you, I hope they can add a small bit of information.

Regards,

Paul Thompson