Don't hope to get rid of books (Umberto Eco)
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1000 night sorties

14.99 €
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1000 night sorties
14.99 €
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The front-line fate of the author of this book is amazing and unique. During the war, pilot Konstantin Mikhalenko made 997 confirmed combat sorties and still survived! Moreover, in flight he was not protected by the armor of the Il-2, nor by the aircraft guns of the Yaks and Lavochkins - only by the wood and percale of the open cockpit of the Po-2, that same "heavenly slow-moving fighter", an unpretentious worker of peacetime, which in the terrible years of the war became a night bomber. Think about it! Almost 1000 times the young graduate of the Kharkov Military Aviation School had to fly through the deadly traces of anti-aircraft machine guns and exploding shells, under the blinding rays of searchlights, at minimum altitude and without the ability to open a parachute if a terrible blow split his "flying shelving". Po-2 pilots flew reconnaissance and bombing missions for the enemy day and night, transported ammunition to their troops and evacuated the wounded. Our soldiers jokingly called the Po-2 a "maize duster", the Germans - a "coffee mill" and "Russfanner". But the contribution made to our Victory by this small plane and its fearless pilots was enormous. It is not for nothing that the Motherland appreciated the merits of many of them, including the author of these memoirs, with the highest award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
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