CHAPTER SEVEN

SOVIET VICTORIES

Due to the simple fact that most of the Luftwaffe’s jets were used to combat the Allied aerial onslaught in the West, fighter pilots of the Red Army Air Force (Voenno-Vozdushniye Sily Krasnoy Armii, VVS KA) in the East had scant opportunities to engage such aircraft until the Red Army began to close in on central Germany. Because of the sheer number of jets shot down by the USAAF and RAF, history has lost sight of the fact that a handful of Soviet pilots, several of them aces, downed at least five Me 262s and Ar 234s in the closing months of the war.

The first Soviet pilot to do so was Maj Ivan Kozhedub, the leading Allied ace with 62 confirmed victories and three times a Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU). He was serving with the 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (Gvardveyskiy Istrebitelniy Aviapolk, or GIAP) at the time of his success against the Me 262, having joined the Lavochkin La-7-equipped unit on 21 August 1944 upon its creation. By this late stage in the war Kozhedub had received two HSU awards and been credited with 48 aerial victories. In this unit each pilot was assigned his own aircraft and would fly with the same wingman. Kozhedub’s new wingman was Maj Dmitrii Titarenko, who would end the war with 23 victories to his name.

The first Soviet pilot to shoot down a jet was Maj Ivan Kozhedub, the leading Allied ace with 62 confirmed victories and three times a Hero of the Soviet Union. He was serving with the La-7-equipped 176th GIAP when he claimed an Me 262 shot down south of Frankfurt. Kozhedub’s victim, Unteroffizier Kurt Lange of 1./KG(J) 54, was killed when his fighter literally disintegrated in mid-air after being hit by 20 mm cannon rounds (Gennady Petrov collection)

On 19 February 1945, Kozhedub and Titarenko were patrolling an area south of Frankfurt at 10,000 ft when they spotted an unidentified aircraft flying in the opposite direction down the River Oder. Many years later, Kozhedub recalled;

‘Titarenko and I were on a “lone wolf” south of Frankfurt when I noticed an aeroplane below us at an altitude of 350 metres [2170 ft]. It was flying along the Oder at a speed that was marginal for my La-7 to match. Nevertheless, I made a quick “about-face” and started pursuing it at full throttle, coming down so as to approach it from under its “belly”. My wingman opened fire, and the Me 262 began turning to the left, over to my side, losing speed in the process. That was the end of it. I would never have overtaken it if it had flown in a straight line. The main thing was to attack enemy aeroplanes during turns, climbs or dives, and not to lose precious seconds chasing them.’

Kozhedub had closed to within 500 yards of his unsuspecting victim, Unteroffizier Kurt Lange of 1./KG(J) 54, and was just about to open fire with his 20 mm cannon when he saw green tracer rounds flying past the Me 262. Titarenko had seemingly spoiled Kozhedub’s chances of claiming a rare victory over a German jet by firing too early. As the Soviet ace subsequently related, the enemy pilot, now fully aware that he was under attack, broke left towards Kozhedub, who fired a highly accurate burst that caused the jet to disintegrate in mid-air. Lange did not survive the encounter, which gave Ivan Kozhedub his 58th aerial success.

Just over a month after Kozhedub’s victory, on 22 March, Lt L I Sivko, a non-ace with Yakovlev Yak-9-equipped 812nd IAP, shot down an Me 262 that was attacking an Ilyushin Il-2m3 Shturmovik. Minutes later Sivko in turn fell victim to another Me 262 from 10./JG 7, the latter possibly being flown by high-scoring jet ace Oberleutnant Franz Schall – 16 of his 133 victories were claimed in the Me 262.

As the Red Army closed in on Berlin, the situation presented many VVS-KA units with the opportunity to occasionally engage jets. Amongst the successful pilots was Lt Gen Yevgenii Savitskii, who was the highest ranking Allied pilot to claim a jet victory. By mid-1944 he had risen to the rank of lieutenant general and been placed in command of the 3rd Fighter Aviation Corps (Istrebitelniy Aviakorpus), which included more than 200 fighters – mainly Yak-1Ms.

In November 1944, Savitskii’s corps was withdrawn from the front for conversion to the Yak-3. Once this had been completed his unit was redeployed and attached to the 16th Air Army (Vozdushnaya Armiya) for the assault on Germany, which began in January 1945. The following month Savitskii and Maj P Okolenov engaged a lone Me 262 without success. In late March Savitskii spotted an unidentified twin-engined aircraft flying at very high speed, and he managed to fire several ineffective bursts before it escaped. The aircraft was later identified as a Me 262, and despite stating that he was unsure whether he had hit the aeroplane or not, Savitskii was given credit for shooting it down. He ended the war with a final score of 22 individual and two shared victories, making him the most successful general officer of the Soviet forces in aerial combat.

Lt Gen Yevgenii Savitskii, shown here standing in the cockpit of a Yak-7, was the highest ranking Allied pilot to claim a jet victory in World War 2. In late-March 1945, 34-year-old Savitskii, known as ‘Drakon’, engaged an unidentified twin-engined aircraft and fired several bursts before it escaped. The aeroplane was later identified as an Me 262, and Savitskii was credited with its destruction. He finished the war with 22 individual and two shared victories, making him the most successful general officer of the Soviet forces in aerial combat (Gennady Petrov collection)

Maj Arsenii Vorozheikin had the unique distinction of engaging an Ar 234 during the final weeks of the war in Europe, the high-scoring pre-war ace serving with the Yak-3-equipped 7th Guards Fighter Aviation Division at the time. A veteran of combat against the Japanese in the Khalkin Gol border clashes in the summer of 1939 and the Winter War in Finland later that same year, Vorozheikin had claimed 46 individual victories in five years of combat by the time he joined Frontal Aviation (Frontovoi Aviapolk) as its senior inspector pilot for combat preparedness in the autumn of 1944. This role allowed him to fly on a number of fronts, imparting his hard-won knowledge of aerial combat to young Soviet pilots.

A combat veteran, and ace, from the Khalkin Gol border clashes with Japan in the summer of 1939 and the Winter War in Finland later that same year, Maj Arsenii Vorozheikin engaged an Ar 234 over Berlin in mid-April 1945. The pall of smoke that hung over much of the German capital at this time prevented the Soviet ace from seeing the jet crash, and the victory, one of his last of the war, was not officially credited. Vorozheikin’s final tally totalled 63 victories in three wars (including 13 shared), of which 46 were claimed in World War 2 (Gennady Petrov collection)

Whilst working with units assigned to the Yak-3-equipped 7th GIAD in mid-April 1945, Vorozheikin was over Berlin when he bounced an Ar 234. The pall of smoke that hung over much of the German capital at this time prevented the Soviet ace from seeing the jet crash, and the victory, one of his last of the war, was not officially credited. Vorozheikin’s final tally totalled 63 victories in three wars (including 13 shared), of which 46 were claimed in World War 2.

On 27 April both JG 7 and JV 44 launched a number of sorties, and after downing a handful of P-47s, several pilots headed east. Here, they sighted a column of Soviet trucks, claiming 65 destroyed in strafing attacks. Shortly thereafter, a group of 20+ Il-2 Shturmoviks where spotted and attacked. The JG 7 pilots claimed six Il-2s destroyed for the loss of two of their own. The next day, Leutnant Ernst-Rudolf Geldmacher of 11./JG 7 was shot down and killed while taking off from Prague-Ruzyne. Although it is impossible to determine with any certainty, Geldmacher may have fallen to Yak-3 pilot Snr Lt Garri Merkvaladze of the 152nd GIAP. He finished the war with 15 victories (two shared) to his name. On the last day of April, ten-victory ace Snr Lt Ivan Kuznetsov of the 107th GIAP claimed an Me 262 destroyed – the last known jet claim made by a Soviet pilot. German records indicate that I./KG(J) 54 lost an Me 262A-2a and its pilot on this date, although it was listed as having fallen to Red Army anti-aircraft fire.