Von Hardesty - Red Phoenix Rising: The Soviet Air Force in World War II

MODERN WAR STUDIES

Theodore A. Wilson

General Editor

Raymond A. Callahan

Jacob W. Kipp

Allan R. Millett

Carol Reardon

Dennis Showalter

David R. Stone

James H. Willbanks

Series Editors

Von Hardesty
and
Ilya Grinberg

University Press of Kansas

2012 by the University Press of Kansas

All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hardesty, Von, 1939

Red phoenix rising : the Soviet Air Force in World War II / Von Hardesty and Ilya Grinberg.

p. cm. (Modern war studies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7006-1828-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7006-2866-7 (ebook)

1. World War, 19391945Aerial operations, Soviet. 2. World War, 19391945Aerial operations, German. 3. Soviet Union. Raboche-Krestianskaia Krasnaia Armiia. Voenno-Vozdushnye SilyHistoryWorld War, 19391945. 4. Germany. LuftwaffeHistoryWorld War, 19391945. I. Grinberg, Ilya, 1955II. Title.

D792.S65H36 2012

940.54'4947dc232011042399

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10987654321

The paper used in the print publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

To Patricia Hardesty and Roza Grinberg

7. Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Albert Kesselring during the Barbarossa campaign

German soldiers at Demyansk

fighter

83. Il-4T torpedo bomber with a 45-36AV torpedo on its way to the target

The authors wish to acknowledge those who generously offered assistance during the preparation of Red Phoenix Rising: The Soviet Air Force in World War II . James F. Gebhardt and Richard Muller provided expert knowledge on the Soviet Air Force and the Luftwaffe, respectively; their critical analyses and willingness to share key data are profoundly appreciated. The research for this book, by design, reached out to representatives of a whole new generation of scholars in the Russian Federation and Ukraine who greatly enhanced our knowledge of Soviet airpower in World War II: Vladislav Antipov, Oleg Bezverkhniy, Michael Bykov, Vitaliy Gorbach, Sergey Isayev, Dmitriy Kyenko, Sergey Kuznetsov, Dmitriy Linevich, Oleg Rastrenin, Valeriy Romanenko, Andrey Simonov, Vasiliy Tashkevich, Michael Timin, Igor Utkin, and Igor Zhidov. For the special maps used in this book, we wish to acknowledge the work of Terry Higgins and Zach Downey-Higgins. In addition, we are grateful to Konstantin Chirkin, Carl-Fredrick Geust, Dmitriy Karlenko, Oleg Korytov, Aleksey Pekarsh, Gennadiy Petrov, Valeriy Romanenko, Thomas Salazar, Hans-Heiri Stapfer, and Glen Sweeting for generously supplying photographs for the book.

At the University Press of Kansas, Michael Briggs deserves special thanks for his oversight of and enthusiasm for this study of the Soviet Air Force. Other staff at the press deserve mention as well for their numerous and substantive contributions, including Susan Schott, Larisa Martin, and Linda Lotz. Finally, thanks to indexer Patricia N. Hardesty.