PetrOs
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Joined: 11/11/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: adarbrauner
Did he survive?
He was badly injured the day he landed on the street, mid April 42. That plane was the first out of 5 he lost on that day. Before landing there he shot down 1 He-111. Second one got motor trouble after take off->swamp near airfield. Third one - shot one Me-109, took hits, landed wheels up on own field. Fourth was landed normally but with bad damage. Last take off of the day was an old I-16 type 5, which was declared unfit for combat but was still used for training. He shot yet another Me109 with it, but was riddled with 7.92 mm by the wingman. He was hit by at least 13 bullets mainly on arms and legs, the plane exploded under him, and the blast opened his parachute. Unconscious from blood loss he had luck to have landed just a few meters from the bomb shelter of a hospital, spotted, pulled in and saved. Declared not fit to fly, he returned to his regiment as political officer and trainer (as he was an ace with 14 kills so highly experienced). He started flying "illegally" on non-combat missions in winter 44/45 like testing planes after repair on from factory, and while testing a new Yak-9 with 37mm gun against a "normal" 20mm Yak-9, he spotted and surprised an FW190, taking just 1 37mm shell to down it, compared to around 50 20mm shells spent by the 20mm Yak to down the wingman of that FW. That caused a big scandal with regiment and division commanders reprimanded for letting "not flight fit" pilots to fly. He did not fly later anything more then Po-2, but went on serving as a political officer until 1949, finishing as a Colonel. He got a Hero of Soviet Union postwar.
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