87303 WWII SOVIET PILOTS

Military Air Force (in Latin, Russian: Wojenno-Wozdusznyje Siły, abbreviated as VVS or WWS) is one of the types of Soviet armed forces that emerged shortly after the October Revolution of 1917. The intensive development of the Soviet military aviation took place from the beginning of the 1930s, when this type of military force was enlarged, but also new types of aircraft were introduced, such as I-15 or I-16 fighters or bombers such as SB-2 or DB- 3. It is worth adding that some of these types of aircraft, used during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), were not significantly inferior to their Italian or German counterparts in its initial period. However, the advent of machines like the Me-109 and He-111 changed this state of affairs. It can be assumed that the introduction of new aircraft to VVS indirectly accelerated in 1939-1941 - especially fighter machines such as the Yak-1 or the LaGG-3. However, in the initial period of the war with Germany (1941-1945), the Soviet air force suffered enormous losses. They can be explained by the shortcomings of the well-trained officer cadre (the aftermath of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s), the inferior individual training of Soviet pilots compared to their German opponents or the inferior tactics used by Soviet pilots. However, in the course of World War II, these deficiencies were to a greater or lesser extent made up for, and the Soviet air force was powered by new (good or very good) types of aircraft, to replace the entire Yakovlev family of planes: Yak-3, Yak-7 or Yak-9. The achievements of the Soviet aviation industry were also not in the parade, which from June 1941 to May 1945 produced approx. 157 thousand. machines! It is worth adding that WWS was the only air force in World War II to introduce a program to train women for airline service as fighter and bomber pilots. The effects of this program were, for example, the achievements of Lidia Litwiak or Jekaterina Butanowa.