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Also visit our Armies of the Second World War databases, including orders of battle and unit histories for ground forces of the Western Allies, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union.

In memory of my son and his wife, taken from us and their young children by a drunk driver.

ISBN: 0-9780696-0-9
Pages: x + 150

Publisher's Note; Veteran's Note; Historian's Note; Acknowledgements; Preface; maps; photos; diagrams; charts; tables; documents; color profiles; Notes; Bibliography; Appendices; Index

   As far as we can ascertain, there just aren't many English-language histories of Soviet air units during the Great Patriotic War, so arrival of this title from Canada immediately caught our attention.
   Aviaeology seems to be a new outfit and they've lavished quite a bit of attention on this release. In the first place, the pages are illustrated with a large number of black-and-white wartime photos, but they've evidently undergone computer enhancement because they are almost without exception crisp, clear, and free from the traditional Soviet "picturization" quality. Furthermore, the pages are full of very spiffy maps, color profiles of Soviet and German aircraft, scale drawings, and so on. Visually, this lends a bright, magazine-like quality to the book, making it a pleasure to leaf through.
   While the text is heavily supported by photos and graphics, it stands well enough on its own, telling the story of the 812th Fighter Air Regiment in four chapters and twenty-one appendices.
   The first chapter describes formation of the 812th in March 1942 outside Moscow and initial operations with the Kalinin Front in July and August. The Regiment, reorganized and re-equipped, moved to the Stalingrad sector at the end of September. In December 1942 the 812th was effectively disbanded when it turned over its aircraft to other regiments and most of its pilots were transferred to various other units. It was soon reborn with an influx of new pilots transferred from the Far East, and it is this "second birth" of the unit with which the book is primarily concerned. The ensuing three chapters chart the combat history of the 812th Fighter Regiment from spring 1943 through May 1944 in the Kuban, the southern Ukraine, and over the Crimea.
   Each chapter includes an overview of the ground and air situation in which the 812th operated. The bulk of the text, however, follows fighter mission after fighter mission. The pilots seem to have flown an incredible number of sorties and spent huge amounts of time in their cockpits in the air. Although they certainly achieved their fair share of victories, they also suffered constant losses, and the roster of personnel remained perpetually in a state of flux as new pilots replaced those who were killed, wounded, or captured.
   The pages are rich with detailed reports of air-to-air combat. Here's an interesting account of how the 812th managed to compel a Me 109 to fly into captivity:

   At this time a rare event occurred in the corps, one seldom repeated throughout the war. The deputy commander of the 812th IAP, Kapitan Pavel Tarasov, managed to lead a Bf 109G-4/R6 (Wr. N 14997) to Soviet lines and force it to land. The operational summary of 4th Air Army on this day notes:
   "A group of Yak-1 pilots formed a ring around a Bf 109 and forced it to land near Mayskiy, south of Slavyanskaya. The pilot was taken into custody."
   Here is what happened. After accomplishing the mission for covering ground troops, Kapitan Pavel Tarasov noticed that a single Bf 109 was below and to the right of his group. Deciding to attack the enemy, Tarasov and a Yak with a black prop spinner quickly came up behind the Messerschmitt. He crowded the German fighter toward the ground, and both fighters led the German toward Soviet territory. Kapitan Tarasov wanted to deliver the captured German fighter to his own airfield, but the Bf 109 attempted to escape several times with energetic maneuvers. On the approach to the Kuban River, in the Slavyanskaya area, the Messerschmitt deviated toward the west, ignoring Tarasovs instructions, conveyed by way of machine gun tracers. Carefully approaching the German fighter so that the pilot could see him, Tarasov instructed him where to land with arm and hand signals—to the left and below. For complete clarity he drew his hand across his throat and gave another warning burst. The German ignored him and Tarasov fired one burst at his tail, after which the German force-landed south of Slavyanskaya in the area of Mayskiy village.
   As Tarasov observed, a large crowd of people gathered around the grounded Messerschmitt, while the Yak with the black spinner disappeared in the direction of Novotitarovskaya. They never managed to determine whom it belonged to. Because the spinners of the 812th IAP aircraft were white, it was presumed that it belonged to a 278th IAD regiment.
   The captured German pilot turned out to be Uffz. Herbert Meissler from 7./JG52. But the most interesting thing was that the aircraft that had fallen into the hands of the 812th pilots had belonged to Leutnant Eric Hartmann, who by the end of the war had become the leading ace among all warring powers. Just two days before this episode, on 25 May, Hartmann made a forced landing in this aircraft—his fifth over a short period of time. His commander sent him on leave and his fighter, after repair, was given to Meissler. He was captured on his first flight in this aircraft! After the war, returning from captivity, Meissler stated that he made his forced landing because of a "navigation error." But, as they say, "after a fist fight, don't mouth off."

   Actions usually proved more deadly:

   The defense of the crossing site over the Sivash continued to cost the lives of young mladshiy leytenants. The experten of JG52 in their Bf 109s kept them under constant pressure. Mladshiy Leytenant Mikhail Karasev died 2 days later. He and his wingman sortied in a pair of Yak-9s on Monday, 13 March at 0815. They spotted a group of 20 Ju 87s escorted by eight Bf 109s approaching at their patrol altitude of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). In attempting to disrupt the dive bomber formation and interrupt its mission, they closed on them rapidly. Flying literally inside the enemy formation, they broke it up with bursts of cannon and machine gun fire. One of the escorting Bf 109s damaged Karasev's aircraft, after which the pair withdrew from the fight to return to their airfield. The engine on Karasev's Yak quit. He lowered the gear and attempted to reach home base in a glide, but lost altitude too quickly. On force-landing in the Zakharovka village area, the aircraft nosed over, caught fire, and pinned the pilot.
   Such a death of combat friends placed a heavy burden on the hearts of their comrades. In the course of combat missions, the living would often exact personal revenge on the enemy with all their efforts. On this day, squadron commander Ivan Fedorov shot down his 20th enemy aircraft, an Fw 190 fighter bomber in the crossing area.
   Aerial engagements in the crossing area did not slacken through the following day. At noon. Mayor Tarasov and Starshiy Leytenant Fedorov shot down an Fw 190 each, almost simultaneously. Two and one-half hours later, Pavel Tarasov reduced the fighter aviation strength of the Luftwaffe by yet another Bf 109, while Kapitan Tishchenko and Mladshiy Leytenant Tikhomirov each destroyed a Ju 87.

   Not every page covers aerial combat. One interesting incident involves a court-martial and its subsequent impact on pilots who failed to receive decorations to which they were fully entitled. For the most part, however, the book focuses on military operations and battles in the air.
   The authors liberally intersperse their own text with recollections from veterans of the 812th as well as passages from the unit's war diary, making for chapters both informative and dramatic. The multitude of maps, diagrams, and charts also adds a great deal to the text. For example, the diagram and explanation of "rakurs" (aspect angle, or deflection) help make sense of various dogfighting situations.
   Among more than twenty appendices the authors provide tables of victories (date, time, pilot, pilot's score, type of aircraft downed, and location), pilots lost (name, date, cause), twelve pages of scale drawings, and a unit chronology.
   Considerable amounts of care have gone into this volume, both in the research and writing by Antipov and Utkin and in the translation, editing, and production work by the team in Canada. While it should come as no surprise that a Soviet air regiment could have such an scintillating existence leading to a high quality unit history, it does seem rather remarkable that we've had to wait so long to see this kind of work from the Russian side of the Eastern Front become available in English.
   In any event, we're looking forward to more late-blooming unit histories (air and otherwise) of this quality translated from the Russian originals, and we're hoping this is only the beginning of a long, strong run of informative, attractive books from Aviaeology. It should be noted, by the way, that a second volume of this unit history, following the 812th Regiment all the way to Berlin, waits in the wings.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Aviaeology.
   Thanks to Aviaeology for providing this review copy.

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Reviewed 5 November 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone