Red Wings in the Winter War 1939-1940

[Dénes Bernád]

Dear Carl, congratulations for your newest book! I have ordered it and was informed that the parcel is on its way to Hungary. I am looking forward to reading it soon.

[Fanair]

Congratulations Carl i'm reading this book it is very interesting like the others you published

(sorry for my english !)

Alain (from France)

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

Three short and easy questions.

Carl, congratulations on the new edition of the book, :-).

Each author, a few years after the previous edition, has a variety of new thoughts, additions and corrections that he would do in the new version.

1. What's new in this last version?

2. What new thoughts / reflections have you introduced after these few years (what you forgot about, you missed in previous books)?

3. How much old photo material did you remove, and how much did you give new?

All in all, questions are so simple that they are easy to answer. Thank you in advance...


Best regards
mirekw

[Carl-Fredrik Geust]

Mirek,

for your question 1 - see my post #8 of April 20, 2020.

Question 2 - a general remark (which I think all readers will note) is the huge imbalance of number of aircraft and bombs dropped by the opposing sides (which is now even more pregnant than before): when the Finnish Air Force could dispatch a a half dozen aircraft (at most) for any mission, while the Soviet Air Force was correspondigly able to operate with HUNDREDS of combat aircraft!

Fortunately this imbalance was to a certain extent compensated by the fighting spirit and tactical skill of the Finns (who after all were fighting for the freedom and independence of their motherland). The Soviet Union lost approx 1000 aircraft, of which only half in combat - thus some 500 aircraft were lost during the long ferry flights (even from the Far East and Pacific Fleet, accidents, loss of orientation, pilot errors etc.

Some 900 Soviet aviators were lost (of which the Red Army Air Force lost some 800 aviators, and the Naval Air Forces lost some 100 aviators), including over 100 aviators who became POWs in Finland.

The Finnish AF lost correspondingly 50 aircraft (of which two thirds in combat) and 70 aviators (of which five became POWs in USSR).

The Winter War was - and will forever remain the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR of FINLAND!

Question 3 - I have not exactly counted the photos, but the number of photos in the new book are considerably bigger than in RS 7, partly because the material of RS 5 (Soviet naval AF) is now integrated in the new book. Furthermore several (some 50) new photos are added (both portraits of Soviet AF officers and also several a/c photos), many already existing photos are replaced by prints of higher quality, and many earlier unidentified photos are now identified.

Another general observation is that very many (maybe most?) Soviet AF officers (including fighter aces) with prominent careers in the (Soviet) GPW got their combat baptism in the Winter War against Finland! Today several Russian military historians admit that the Finns teached the Russians how to fight against a (formally) superior enemy in an Arctic environment. Without this lesson the outcome of war against Germany 1941-1945 could well have been have been different...

[Dénes Bernád]

What Carl (rightfully) wrote reinforces what I keep mention for a couple of decades now: World War Two for the USSR started on 17 September 1939, not on 22 June 1941!
I am looking forward to reading the book.

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

Thank you for the answer.

However, I will push you down with questions.

I wonder if you have also included the activities of the northern fleet in the last book. In fact, it was not large (72 SAP VVS NF and reconnaissance squadrons), had made few combat flights. This aviation did not suffer any combat losses, except non-combat losses, when it burned in a hangar of 15 MBR-2 during this war.

Have you included the participation in the war of the NKVD border protection squadrons?

Did you also consider the participation of civil aviation, which became transport and liaison aviation.

Did you describe long range flights without visibility in DC-3 by Aleksandar Golowanow?

"Today several Russian military historians admit that the Finns teached the Russians how to fight against a (formally) superior enemy in an Arctic environment. Without this lesson the outcome of war against Germany 1941-1945 could well have been have been different..."

Interesting view but not true. A large proportion of senior officers (actually older commanders) who fought in the Winter War (earlier over Poland or Spain), but unfortunately fell victim to Stalin's purges from May to July 1941.

In this case, the main teacher was Germany (LW), who had a significant technical advantage (for example, radio equipment in each Me 109, etc.). Tactical German advantage, coordination of activities between tank and air units allowed Germany to gain and maintain an advantage in the air until 1944.

The Winter War taught the crew of Soviet bombers to fly combat operations without escorting fighter - they began only from February 1940. Then they very fast forgot about it.

In 1941, a few thousand crews of bombers paid for it with their lives. Apparently the Russians did not exactly do their homework from the Winter War.

The second thing the Russians began to introduce radio stations to their all produced fighters only from 1943 as standard equipment. It is difficult to talk about any advantage, learning when pilots cannot communicate during a combat flight.

The Russians suffered a lot because most of their own fighters (MiG-3, Łagg-3 Yak-1, Yak-7B, etc.) did not have radio stations for a long time. The radio was often only on the commander's plane.

However, the Germans taught them that a radio station in their own fighters is necessary. And that it happened after 2 years of the Great Patriotic War, is another matter of the length of learning about it.

After all, in May 1945 the Russians captured Berlin, but the overall cost of victory turned out to be terribly great.

In fact, this victory cost the entire Soviet nation enormously much.

In the case of such terribly huge losses, what lessons are these, what important experiences of the Winter War can the Russians talk about?

Regards

mirekw

[Carl-Fredrik Geust]

Mirek, thank you for your interesst in book. First your new questions:
- yes, VVS SF (Air force of the Northern Fleet) is included (and the 14 MBR-2 amphibians of 118 MRAP destroyed by hangar fire 14 January 1940 are mentioned). Also included are the Air components of the Ladoga and the White Sea Flotillas - all these Naval AF units were already dealt with in the old Red Stars Vol.5),
- likewise there is a 10 page section (with 23 photos) describing the units of the mobilized Civil Air Fleet, and Aleksandr Golovanov is naturally mentioned (with portrait),
- but I doubt whether the NKVD Border Guards really had any "own" aircraft in the Karelian border regions - there is no mentioning of such in the recent detailled history of the Soviet Border Guards 1939-1941 (Пограничныйе войска на западном направление в предвоенные годы 1939-1941, Граница 2018)

Concerning the Soviet "learning process" after the Winter War - this process started in the post-mortem conference led by Stalin in Kremlin in April 1940 (the protocols of which have been published in Russian and in Finnish), and had not reached intended results at the German attack in June 1941.

The Russian current opinion which I mentioned in my previous answer was expressed by several prominent Russian historians during a Finnish-Russian Winter War seminar at the Finnish Embassy in Moscow in December 2019, where I gave a lecture about the Finnish Air Force in 1939-1940.

Mirek, I do agree in general with your view, but although the discussions during the reception after the formal seminar were very open-minded, this was in my view not the correct venue for a debate about the meaning of these interesting statements, which the Finns present accepted at face-value.

The main Russian participants included the Head of the Russian National Archive Administration (and several Heads of various local archives) and the former Head of FSB´s Archive.