9 December 1943 - YAK 1 loss (Lipfert's 74th victory)

[HGabor]

Adriano, thank you and good luck to your project! Good news: I almost forgot, but finally found the pics: few years ago one of our researcher friends found the remains of a soviet La-5 in the Tardos-Tarján area. Even the smashed spinner has been found. After cleaning the nice, original red color became visible! Now I must say that the 530 IAP probably had red spinners and white rudders... So .... I think there is a good chance, that this recovered spinner belonged to Suhorukhov's downed plane on January 4, 1945 that Lipfert described in his diary...!

Gabor

[Nick Hector]

Sheer brilliance, Gabor

I am with Adriano on this one: keep up the good work and please pass our regards to the amazing guys that are researching the archives and excavating the crashes

[HGabor]

Thank you Nick. Just a few days ago son of Gv.Capt. Armen Artemovich Karakozov visited Nagymányok, Hungary and the crash site of his Dad that he never knew... His Dad was the captain of soviet 14 GvAP DD B-25 Mitchell (S/N. 42-32474, Red '12') on August 9/10, 1944 when Fw. Eckart Ulmer (8./NJG 6) downed them. Their Mitchell unit flew partisan supply-drop missions over Yugoslavia and German night fighters were hunting for them during their approach. According to the soviet mission report that we have, they took off from Kalinovka and dropped the No.2527, 2526, 2553, 2540, 2525, 2567, 2575 and 2619 supply containers at Samarica, Croatia. They were downed on their way back over Hungary. In the village original crash photos showed the wrecks and '474' was visible on it. Yurii visited the site in the forest with my friends' team and wanted to be there alone for a while... Then he took a bag of soil ... when ironically 2 more pieces of melted aluminum chunks were found. After having a nice lunch, reviewing the recovered wrecks of his Dad's plane, placing flowers to the memorial of the six, once "unknown" soviet airmen in the village, he returned to Russia. It's shocking to see as he places flowers to his own father's memorial... He also took some soil to the brother of one of his father's crewmembers whom he knows, and who was too old now for the trip and could not come with him. Another "case" is closed. Hard to say anything.

[Nick Hector]

Originally Posted by HGabor

Thank you Nick. Just a few days ago son of Gv.Capt. Armen Artemovich Karakozov visited Nagymányok, Hungary and the crash site of his Dad that he never knew... His Dad was the captain of soviet 14 GvAP DD B-25 Mitchell (S/N. 42-32474, Red '12') on August 9/10, 1944 when Fw. Eckart Ulmer (8./NJG 6) downed them. Their Mitchell unit flew partisan supply-drop missions over Yugoslavia and German night fighters were hunting for them during their approach. According to the soviet mission report that we have, they took off from Kalinovka and dropped the No.2527, 2526, 2553, 2540, 2525, 2567, 2575 and 2619 supply containers at Samarica, Croatia. They were downed on their way back over Hungary. In the village original crash photos showed the wrecks and '474' was visible on it. Yurii visited the site in the forest with my friends' team and wanted to be there alone for a while... Then he took a bag of soil ... when ironically 2 more pieces of melted aluminum chunks were found. After having a nice lunch, reviewing the recovered wrecks of his Dad's plane, placing flowers to the memorial of the six, once "unknown" soviet airmen in the village, he returned to Russia. It's shocking to see as he places flowers to his own father's memorial... He also took some soil to the brother of one of his father's crewmembers whom he knows, and who was too old now for the trip and could not come with him. Another "case" is closed. Hard to say anything.

Gobsmacking....

As I am sure you know (...but for the benefit of other forum users....)
That one was just the first of two legitimate victories that Ulmer achieved that night. Three quarters of an hour later, he shot down 43-3507/"Red 4" of 14 GAPDD. That was the crew of GvLt. Pchelov KIA. The plane burned down a house, with a young boy killed by burning fuel

[HGabor]

Correct. Our team has recovered that B-25 Mitchell too at Akasztó, but found no living relatives of the killed crew yet.
Gabor