Red Army Air Force pilots share their stories of WWII combat and life on the front lines in this collection of interviews with Russian war veterans. The onset of war in the summer of 1941 was a disaster for the Soviet Air Force. In a matter of weeks, most of the Soviet frontline aircraft were destroyed by the Luftwaffe onslaught, and the casualty rate among the pilots was cripplingly high. Yet the surviving few learned a great deal from their harrowing battle experience. In time, they formed the core of the fighter force that turned the tables on the Germans and eventually won air superiority over the Eastern Front. In Barbarossa and the Retreat to Moscow, Soviet fighter pilots share their recollections of going into battle against the relentless German invaders. Organized chronologically, the interviews in this volume tell the story of devastating defeats in 1941, the difficulties of regrouping and retraining, and the ultimate victory of 1945.
