> Finnish pilots were several times listening in their airbases by radio soviet pilots talking about airbattles they've been though finns were not taking part of it. It happened coz soviet pilots wanted to show their commanders that they indeed were fighting and fighting successfully.
We met Finns only once in the air. We strafed airbases, trains, ground forces… All that we would see...
Once, I took off behind our squad. When I gained on them I saw that some aircraft was above our planes. By it’s silhouette appearance, I thought it was an I-15. So we strafed our target… What for? We were fighters, but we had an order to strafe… In general, we had no idea how to use our aviation to the full extent. That plane was hanging above us, with no intent on attacking, just making some strange maneuvers. Later we discussed this, and came to a conclusion that he was “showing off” in front of his superiors, trying to make them believe that he was fighting with us. When we were returning, already passed Vyborg, it dove and shot at Ivan Neustruev’s plane. No serious damage was done, since he had same caliber machine guns as we did, and it lacked destructive power. Couple of holes in engine cowling… That one was the only case when I saw Finnish plane in the air. Truthfully speaking, we simply did not notice that the Finns had any aviation at all.
About our losses during Finnish campaign… I know of 3 pilots being lost from 44th IAP. Priemov, Tyurin and Pasechnik. It happened almost at the end of war… Priemov was shot down by AAA, and he made forced landing on ice of some lake. Tyurin landed close to him, with intent to rescue him. But the Finns prevented him from takeoff with machine gun fire… Pasechnik brought squadron to the Ropsha airbase, and flew back to find out what happened. He was subsequently downed, as well…
When hostilities ended Blagoveshenskii flew there, and found out, that Tyurin and Priemov had committed suicide, while Pasechnik was captured by the Finns. In the end after torturing him they tied him to the armored seat back and drowned him in the lake. Their bodies were brought to Gorelovo and buried. And I can not recall any other combat losses by our brigade during that war.
Speaking of aircraft losses – in Gorelovo Blagovesheskii ordered a metal runway to be built, similar to what the Americans sent us later during war time. We lost about a dozen of planes due to it. Those planes which had rear wheel would scramble normally, but those that had rail would loose their tail. That metal runway was soon removed.
— What is your opinion – was that war really needed?
When it begun, we did not question our orders. Later I thought a lot about this matter. If there would be no GPW after Winter War, it would not be justified. But, if we did not move the border away from Leningrad in 1940, in 1941 most likely Leningrad would have fallen, since there would be no “safety bumper”, and eventually all of the war’s outcome may have been different.
È êñòàòè... - Olkor14.04.2009 12:27:58 (107, 295 b)
