Attack of the Airacobras: Soviet Aces, American P-39s, and the Air War Against Germany

By Dmitriy Loza

Book Overview

During its titanic military struggle with Germany, the Soviet Union received a major boost with the arrival and deployment of nearly 5,000 Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter planes-courtesy of America's Lend-Lease program. The impact was dramatic, as the Soviets quickly adapted the planes into a devastatingly lethal force. Dmitriy Loza's account, admirably translated and edited by James Gebhardt, vividly re-creates the battle campaigns of this odd coupling of capitalist planes and Marxist pilots and shines a bright light on a little known part of the air war on the Eastern Front.

The P-39 proved to be the right plane at the right time for a beleaguered Red Air Force. Built for short range and relatively low altitudes, the P-39 was equipped with a powerful engine and weapons that enabled it to outduel and eventually dominate the Luftwaffe from the Caucusus foothills to Berlin.

Focusing on the combat operations and daily life of one unit--the 9th Guards Fighter Division--Loza refutes the myth that the P-39 was used mainly as a "tank buster" or "flying artillery." Instead, its primary mission was to protect Red Army operations from aerial attacks by the enemy. So despite the occasional strafing of trains, truck convoys, and troops, most P-39 operations involved attacks on Luftwaffe bombers and dogfights with their fighter escorts.

Center stage in Loza's story are the P-39 pilots and ground crews themselves, including remarkable Captain Aleksandr Pokryshkin and Major Gregoriy Rechkalov, two of the Soviets' top four aces. In addition, Loza details the organization and operations of the unit's noncombat personnel--who refueled and maintained the aircraft, cleaned and reloaded the guns, packed the parachutes, treated the wounded, guarded the airfields, and commanded the squadrons and regiments.

Based on interviews with Soviet veterans and extensive access to squadron histories and logbooks, Loza provides a rare and insightful look at what it was like to live and fight in this victorious air unit.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700616543
• ISBN13: 9780700616541
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 386 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Great read for an IL2FB Sim Pilot - Revolutionary Tactics

As an enthusiastic sim pilot, I found this book absolutely facinating! American pilots were destroyed in the P-39, while the Soviet pilots defeated German 109's and 190's in the Cobra. This book explains how it was done.Alexandr Pokryskin was the Soviet hero that developed new tactics that use the Cobra's awsome firepower to rule the Eastern Front. This writing dispells the myth that the Cobra was used as an air-to-ground attack aircraft. In fact, it was an air superiority fighter on the Eastern Front.I was able to employ tactics explained in this fabulous book in the flight sims IL2 & IL2FB to great effect. Also, a hither to unknown (to me at least) part of WWII came alive for the first time. I knew very little about the Eastern Front. I highly recommend this book to any aviation enthusiast.

As good as it gets, so far

This book gets into the day-to-day operational life of a RussianP-39 squadron. It's an excellent reference of life outside of the cockpit, and yet still let's you know that the P-39 was more than competitive against Me-109's & FW-190's. The point isn't stated exactly, but the reason they WERE competitive is that combat on the Russian Front was generally below 15,000 ft, and never above 20,000 ft. Remember, neither side was using high-altitude, long-range stategic bombers, it was all low-level tactical aviation.Still, the book doesn't get into the airplane specifics I would like, i.e. . . how specifically it was better than the 109/190, or even how it compared to their own MiG's, Yak's, LaGG's.The point is, it's a great book on the operational use of the P-39, and is worth reading.