Mayor Sergey Ivanovich Gritsevets in China?

[Håkan]

Hello Mirek,

The only source I could find that claims that he made a claim in China on 29 April 1938 is Polak's "Stalin's Falcons", which is somewhat dated (published 1999).

In Soviet Fighters in the sky of China, Part II by Anatolii Demin, 2000 Aviatsiia Kosmonavtika 10 (translated by George M. Mellinger) his name isn't mentioned among the Soviet pilots making claims in this combat.

However later in this articles series he is mentioned together with Kravchenko in "Quickly a group was organized there of fighters with Chinese and Spanish experience, the best known of them being S. A. Gritsevets and G. P. Kravchenko, who again distinguished themselves in air combat and became the first Twice Heroes of the Soviet Union." It seems that I've always have misread this as a statement that Gritsevets also was in China (thus verifying Polak's claim) .

Thus I'm bound to agree with you that it seems that he in fact wasn't in China.

Thanks Mirek to bring up this interesting subject!

Hopefully there are more readers on this forum that can add more to the story about this interesting pilot.

Best wishes/Håkan

[Andrei Demjanko]

I have details of Sergey Ivanovich Gritsevets' early service as follows: Gritsevets joined RKKA in 1931. He was sent to 3rd Military School of Pilots and Observers at Orenburg and graduated as a pilot in 1932 In September 1932 he was posted to Kievsky Fighter Aviation Detachment and in 1933 to the 1st Red Banner Fighter Aviation Eskadrilya im.Lenina in the Transbaikalsky Military District, were he served as Flight (Zveno) commander. In 1935 he led record flight of six I-16's on the Bochkarevo-Spask Dalny route with landing at Khabarovsk, completing this flight in 3 hours ten minutes. In 1936 Gritsevets was posted to aerobatic and air combat course at the 8th Military School of Pilots in Odessa, and after completing the course he remained at this school as instructor. In 1938 St. Lt Gritsevets was posted to 20th Military School of Pilots at Kirovabad were he trained Spanish airmen to fly Soviet fighters. It's there he had volunteered for service in Spain.