Great pilots

" WW2 Aces book"
***
As I tend to do, going off on a tangent, I briefly looked up lists of American, British, German and Soviet Aces (including two women, Lydia Litvyak and Katya Budanova, both KIA) of WW II. The "kill" numbers for the German and Soviet pilots again emphasizes the scale of the carnage that occurred on the Eastern Front; a reality that is under appreciated in the West.

 

In the battle of the Kursk Salient the German army lost more tanks per day than Patton commanded. At one point the line of Russian artillery was lined up axle to axle for miles. When a vehicle needed to go forward one of the guns needed to stop shooting so it could be moved out of the way.
As I recall 70% of the German over the road transport was horse drawn. Numbers vary but I have read as many as a million and a half German horses died on the Russian front.

You are 100% correct.

As for the number of kills in air combat. Most forces rotated men in and out of combat. Germany and I believe Russia did not. Also Russia had a lot of stone age equipment. All of the German stuff was pretty good. Those are 2 reasons for the big disparity between our forces and theirs in kill numbers. Dick Bong was in combat for 2 1/2 years with a number of periods off. The big hitters in Germany and Russia were in it all the way.

 

I visited the Soviet Union during its dying days. Visited war memorials in Moscow and Leningrad. At that time, there were veterans of The Great Patriotic War, wearing their medals, acting as guides, staff, etc. A few mentioned to American tourists that they didn't think that their country's efforts to defeat Germany were appreciated in the West; obviously annoyed them. As an example, the estimated number of Soviets killed in combat at "Kursk" was approx. twice all US combat deaths for WW II, all theaters.

 

They'd be right. Look at how many western movies were about the war on the Russian front or look on Amazon or in the library for recognizable titles of serious works about the Russian Front. Largely our historians act as though it never happened. There are some good books but pretty obscure and usually a translation of a Russian author.

I read a great and detailed book on the siege of Stalingrad. Translated from the original Russian.

Our cost in that war was bad enough but not near as dear as the Russian cost was. It provides some insight why the Russians were as brutal as they were when the tide turned. They wanted payback.

 

" At one point the line of Russian artillery was lined up axle to axle for miles."
******
I remember very well, during the Cold War, that Truman and especially Eisenhower were call "traitors" for allowing the Soviets to occupy Eastern Europe and Eisenhower for allowing the Soviets to capture Berlin. The American public never would have tolerated the casualties that would have incurred; they obviously never researched the scale and casualties of the Battle of Berlin.

 

Read Omar Bradleys autobiography. He was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the period.

One of my brothers is named Douglas after some General. My Father really wanted him to ignore the Yalu and take on the Chinese and get it over with. But Bradley puts that time in context.

 

There is a fantastic book about women Soviet pilots called "The Night Witches"-- Nadia Popova was particularly amazing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Popova

 

Especially interesting that she survived the war. (I need to do yard work but here is an interesting one; maybe there needs to be an obscure history thread

HISTORY'S DEADLIEST FEMALE SNIPER: 'LADY DEATH'

https://www.history.co.uk/article/lyudmila-pavlichenko-lady-death-historys-deadliest-female-sniper#:~:text=Born in present-day Ukraine,the hearts of German soldiers.
****
She was on a US tour to encourage public support for second front and was called by US reporters, Girl Sniper or asked why her uniform made her look fat, etc. Her response:
"‘GENTLEMEN. I AM 25-YEARS-OLD AND I HAVE KILLED 309 FASCIST OCCUPANTS BY NOW. DON’T YOU THINK, GENTLEMEN, THAT YOU HAVE BEEN HIDING BEHIND MY BACK FOR TOO LONG"

 

The Economist wrote a fantastic obituary for Nadia when she passed in 2013... this will give you a flavor:

WHEN their hair was chopped off—as it had to be when they joined one of the Soviet Union’s three women-only air-force regiments—some of the women looked just like boys. Add in the bulky flight jackets, the too-big trousers and the size 42 boots, all made for men, and they could have passed for male pilots, just about. Not Nadia Popova. Somehow she managed, with a cinched waist here and a few darts there, to look like a Hollywood star. Between sorties she would fluff her hair, pressed flat by her leather flying helmet, in her tortoiseshell mirror (as at the centre of the picture above). Before each flight she would pin to her uniform a beetle brooch, which also served as a lucky charm. Beside her wooden cot in whatever shed they were sleeping in—once a cowshed—she kept a white silk blouse and a long blue silk scarf, in case she had to make a really feminine impression.

This was also the young woman—she was 19 or 20 then—who could turn her aircraft over and dive full-throttle through raking German searchlights, swerving and dancing, acting as a decoy for a second plane that would glide in silently behind her to drop its payload of bombs. That done, the second plane would act as decoy while she glided in to drop bombs herself. She made 852 such sorties in the second world war as a pilot in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later named the 46th Guards in honour of its courage. Once, over Poland in 1944, she made 18 sorties in a single night. The aircraft were old two-seater biplanes, PO-2s, originally training planes, made of canvas and plywood with open cockpits. When it rained, water ran over the instruments; when the planes were shot at, shrapnel tore the wings to shreds. There was no radio and, to save weight, she never wore a parachute. If you were hit, that was it.

She was a wild spirit, easily bored; she loved to tango, foxtrot, sing along to jazz. It made her feel free, which was also why at 15 she had joined a flying club without telling her parents. A pilot had landed his aircraft one day outside their town, Donetsk in Ukraine, astonishing as a god fallen to earth, in his leather jacket. From that moment she too wanted to soar like a bird. Walking towards a plane, every time, she would get a knot in her stomach; every time she took off, she was thrilled all over again.

Often she flew in pitch dark and freezing air. In an aircraft so frail, the wind could toss her over. Its swishing glide sounded, to the sleepless Germans, like a witch’s broomstick passing: so to them she was one of the Nachthexen, or Night Witches. To the Russian marines trapped on the beach at Malaya Zemlya, to whom she dropped food and medicine late in 1942, she sounded more like an angel. She had to fly so low that she heard their cheers. Later, she found 42 bullet holes in her plane.

 

I read that large areas of the Kursk battle fields were left untouched after the battle and remained that way for at least ten years. Military equipment, boots, clothing, and germans were left as they fell. The battle field area was huge and contained two salients, north and south.

 

Very good example of why it is always so hard to defeat an enemy fighting for their home. Never is the motivation higher. At Stalingrad they were starving and freezing and they still fought and defeated the best equipped Army in the world.

 

“The Aviators”
This is a great commercial. imo ..... this is the full/extended version. ..... You've probably seen the short version on TV.



.

 

I had the opportunity to visit Barrancas National Cemetery this morning after spending a few minutes at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola. I took this picture of Cook Cleland's headstone. Cook was a truly great pilot, and has been a hero to me since I was a small child. It saddens me that I lived only a short drive away from him in 2007 but missed the opportunity to meet him before he passed away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Cleland

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

"At Stalingrad they were starving and freezing"
****
At the 1000 day siege of Leningrad, 1.2-1.5 million civilians starved to death and 500,000 soldiers died. Curators at the Hermitage museum were dying of starvation but first priority was the art collection.

 

It's a great commercial. I never imagined there'd be a 3:20 version of it!

 

Downloaded this from Audible a couple of days ago after seeing it mentioned in a blog. Didn't expect much but I finished it quickly and enjoyed it. It's basically a bio of the B-24 and George MacGovern. Again reminded ,me of how young the WW II soldiers were...MacGovern was 22 y/o as the commander, the enlisted crew were in their late teens. I didn't vote for MacGovern but at the time because of his strong opposition to the Vietnam war, IIRC, the Republicans pictured him as a pacifist/p****/traitor....for a guy who survived 35 combat missions. I still remember that pi****g me off at the time.

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Wild-Blue-Audiobook/B004WPWQQK?ref_pageloadid=ejWjmjT6kl8nvhXD&ref=a_library_t_c5_libItem_B004WPWQQK_0&pf_rd_p=80765e81-b10a-4f33-b1d3-ffb87793d047&pf_rd_r=8XZXXBVJ6CAQCX1N6805&pageLoadId=mIIYS4WFZn4GPFak&creativeId=4ee810cf-ac8e-4eeb-8b79-40e176d0a225

 

A magnificent commercial, made even better. It brought me to tears.

 

A salute to John Cruickshank, who is the oldest surviving holder of the Victoria Cross from World War II. The story of his mission, in which he sank a U-boat while piloting an RAF Catalina in the face of heavy defensive firepower (and where he had to make an additional pass because his depth charges would not release on the first one), is told in the July issue of "FlyPast" magazine. John just celebrated his 104th birthday in May!

Also note that today, July 10, is the 84th anniversary of the generally accepted start of the Battle of Britain.