Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[HGabor]

Loss details of 5 VA, 331 IAD, 513 IAP Yak-9, S/N: 2515338 on October 27, 1944 on Debrecen airfield:

This day early morning 8 Bf 109 and 6 Fw 190 were strafing the Debrecen airfield in Eastern-Hungary. The attack immediately damaged 4 Yak-1s (on readiness) and killed, or wounded several personnel, including Yak-9 pilot, Ml.Lt. Alexandr Pavlovich Kutuzov, who later died of his wounds. His plane, Yak-9, S/N: 2515338 burned on the ground. It was written off by November 2, 1944.

The attack also destroyed 3 Po-2 night-bomber biplanes of 5 VA, 312 NBAD, 930 NBAP (S/N: 127107, 167109, 8257) and damaged 7 others. From 451 ShAP 2 IL-2, from 18 TAP (training unit) another 3 planes were damaged on the ground. From the fighters (on readiness) only one Yak-1B could take off, without any significant result, the others were completely supressed by the surprise attack. The other lost 513 IAP Yak-1B on the ground was No.20150 - without the pilot.

Only one 5 VA Yak-3 (Knut, 150 GvIAP, S/N: 3929212, ‘39’ - in dogfight) and a La-5FN (Gukov, 192 IAP, S/N: 39213433, ‘33’ - due to flak) was lost in the air this day, but none of them was related to Hartmann’s claim.

Gabor