IVBIA-45 VVS fighter pilots manual

[Evgeny Velichko]

Thx a lot, Martin, for this words.

Il-2 COMBAT losses in WW II:

Shot down in air-to-air combats: 2557
Shot down by AAA: 4679
Destroyed on land in the airfields: 109
Failed to return from combat mission: 3414

Totally: 10759
Also, 807 Il-2 were lost in Fleet regiments during 1941-45 as combat losses.

About VVS pilot losses:

Assault pilots - 7837;
Fighter pilots - 11874;
Bomber pilots - 6613;
Reconaissance pilots - 587;
Auxillary aviation pilots - 689.

Rest in Peace. Your bravery and sacrifice for freedom of Motherland will be never forgotten.

Martin - follow the link, You will find a Combat Diary of 47 shap Order of Red Star order of Ushakov "name of Feodosia". It is written by V.P. Gilyarevsky, gunner of Il-2 of this regiment. (Document is in Word format)

It shows all actions of this regiment, claims, losses - all of it - from the begin to the end of WW II service of that regiment. It is in russian, but nowday there are many Translator Software. It couls be easily translated I hope.

Next:

This is loss list of 4 shap , for 26.6.41 to 13.7.41.
4 shap - in future - the famous 7 gshap, in wich flew many well known and very scilled assault pilots, and one of them, HSU V.Emelyanenko, wrote a book am his memories (reveiw of that book You can find on TOCH).
4 shap was the first assault regiment of VVS, wich was equipped with Il-2, just few weeks before war.

After very hard and intencive actions in june-july 1941 in Belorussia, Berezina area, 4 shap lost all Il-2's, and was transferred to reinforcement. 26 pilots were lost during that actions.

And last for today:

Logbook of T. Lyadsky, Hero of the Soviet Union. He flew as a Il-2 pilot in 92 gshap, from 1942 to 1945. He made 185 combat mission to attack enemy ground troops, 87 of them as a group leader.

This is must read. Withound any "propaganda referenses", this very tragic diary shows the blood of low level attacks, missions without fighter escort, air-to-air fights againts german fighters... Losses, losses, losses... Feelings of a average VVS pilot in WW II. This diary was never published before. (Document is in Word format)

P.S. I'll post Maslov's books on monday.