Soviet - Romanian Air Combats in August 1940?, Which Soviet IAP, pilot/s did it?

Soviet Romanian air combats in August 1940?

At the end of August 1940 there was a three dogfights between the Soviet and Romanian aircraft (25-26.08.1940).

The Russians shot down two Romanian planes (an IAR-37 and PZL’s fighter), wounding and killing of Romanian aircrew/pilot.

I wonder what the Soviet fighter unit (IAP), the pilot reported these successes (eg. shooting down the PZL’s plane on 26 August 1940)?

Regards,
mw

Hi mirekw,

What is the source of these claims?

Sid

You may find it From Barbarossa to Odessa vol. 1, but there is wrong given a PZL type as a PZL P.7a, which was not, but it was a Polish PZL P.11.

Next in Russian book written by Mieltiuhov, there are so info without any details of involved types, units pilots' names.

There is one sure victory on 26.08.1940. So, the sources are more or less in English or in Russian. There were also an info on this forum a few years ago too, so it is "well know" case.

regards
mw

Was it a PZL P 11 c? Were the planes "interned" from Poland after September 1939 pun into regular service, and if so in what units? Did any Polish pilots serve in ARR after 1939?

To complete Mirekw question, how were the Romanian aviation units distributed in territory in June-August 1940?

I found some info here (not about units, pilots etc):
http://www.unstory.com/august-1940-razboi-...a-fronturi.html
see the paper fragments.

If I am not wrong, Horia Agarici shot down in the summer of 1940 a Soviet airplane that ventured inside what was left of Romania, after the Red Army occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina.

And I am using the chance to ask :
Was any I.A.R. 80 involved against Soviet airplanes, in the summer of 1940 ?

Sid,

I am glad to see that you are still active.
Regards,
Florin

The I.A.R.80 was still under development in the summer of 1940. The first seven planes joined Grupul 8 Vanatoare in February 1941.
HTH
Radu

BTW.

What time came to air combat crew IAR-37 on 25.08.40?

mw

Probably is Nicolae Polizu

Nicolae Polizu was another one of Romania's "flying aristocracy". He was born at Hârlau on 2 July 1904 in a family related to the Ghica princes. He graduated high school in Bucharest after WWI and then went on to practice boxing, fencing, tennis, ski, rugby and ice hockey.

In the spring of 1939 he approached a new and more fascinating sport: flying. He went first to the "Mircea Cantacuzino" Flying School and then to the Prahova Air Club at Strejnic and obtained his pilot license on 14 June 1939. He then, as the international situation worsened, went to the Military Flight School at Tecuci. which he finished in 1940 and received the rank of sublocotenent aviator (2nd lt.), but in reserve. He was mobilized and assigned to the 5th Fighter Group (in the 51st Squadron), which had just received He-112Bs.

The 51st Fighter Squadron was transferred on 21 August to an airfield in Transylvania to counter the incursions of Hungarian reconnaissance aircraft over Romanian territory. But due to the poor characteristics of the He-112B, they were not able to. On 27 August, the new locotenent aviator (1st lt.) Nicolae Polizu apparently intruded into Hungarian airspace and attacked a MKHL Ca-135bis from the Hungarian 3rd Bomber Group and damaged it and wounded a radio operator/gunner. The bomber had to make an emergency landing on the Debrecen airfield. Polizu claimed the victory and it was confirmed.

In February 1941, as more Bf-109Es became available, two new squadrons were formed with some of the most promising pilots ARR had. Polizu was assigned to the 57th Fighter Squadron and began training on the new aircraft with German instructors. These two squadrons (57th and 58th) joined the 56th in the 7th Fighter Group, which would become the elite unit of the Romanian fighter force in 1941-44.

The group began flying war missions from the first hours of Operation Barbarossa. But the first victory for Polizu came three days later, on 25 June. He was part of a patrula (Romanian for Schwarm) under the command of lt. cdor. av. Alexandru "Popicu" Popisteanu (the CO of the 7th Fighter Group), which was escorting several Romanian He-111H3s to bomb the Basarabeasca railway station. After the bombs were dropped, Popisteanu returned to strafe the remains. An I-16 dived after him. Polizu spotted him and alerted the lt. commander. The leader ordered him, calmly, to take care of it and soon the Rata was going down in flames, becoming Polizu's first victory in 1941.

However, he had to wait more than a month for his next victory. On 5 August Polizu encountered a VVS bomber formation escorted by 8 I-16s. He attacked the bombers first, but after after two attacks he hadn't achieved anything. The fighters engaged him, but he managed to shoot one of them down before several German Bf-109s appeared and chased the Ratas away.

Four days later he and adj. av. Iolu claimed one victory each after an engagement with 12 Soviet fighters. His score increased again on 16, the same month, when his patrula shot down three aircraft, as air activity around Odessa intensified. Thus he became an ace with five confirmed kills.

He scored victories both in September and October, thus becoming the top scoring Romanian ace in 1941, with 8 kills. For this he was one of the three Romanian airmen who received the highest Romanian military award: the "Mihai Viteazu" Order, 3rd class. The other two were awarded posthumously.

Apparently, he did not participate in the 1942 campaign. This is easy explainable, through the fact that he was a reserve officer. But he could not stay away from the front, even though it would have been easy for him. In March 1943, he was again part of the 7th Fighter Group, which then was assigned to JG 3 Udet, where it suppose to convert to the more modern Bf-109Gs.

His first kill in 1943, which was also going to be his last, came on 3 April, during a free-hunting mission. He and his wingman, adj. av. Laurentiu Catana, were patrolling in the Izyum sector, when they spotted several unidentified aircraft below them. They dived and saw that they were several Yaks pursuing two German He-111s. They attacked, but did not obtain any results. Polizu then saw that a Yak was closing in on his wingman from behind, so he made a climbing turn, trying to surprise him. The Soviet saw him and tried hide in the clouds. The Romanian ace followed him with full throttle and caught up. After several bursts from his weapons, the horizontal stabilizers and smoke started to come out of the engine. The Yak fell 5 or 6 km from Izyum. Adj. av. Laurentiu Catana also managed to shoot down a Yak in the engagement, his first victory.

One month later, on 2 May, lt. av. Nicolae Polizu's Bf-109G was damaged in a dogfight. As he was trying to bring it home, he crashed close to the airfield, the ammunition exploded and he died in the fire. Thus the 7th Fighter Group lost one of its best pilots. Ironically, his place was taken by cpt. av. Constantin Cantacuzino, who eventually became the Romanian top scoring ace of WWII.

Lt. av. ® Nicolae Polizu had obtained 10 confirmed victories and one probable one, during over 160 missions and at least 52 dogfights.




[B][I][U]

The I.A.R.80 was still under development in the summer of 1940. The first seven planes joined Grupul 8 Vanatoare in February 1941.
HTH
Radu

Well, I hoped a little bit, knowing that the maiden flight of the prototype was in May or June of 1939.
(I can open your book for the exact day, but I just don't want to do it in this moment. )
I learned from some documentaries that in the 1930's, in all advanced countries, it took about 4 years from the start of a design to the serial production.
That's a little bit shocking, but I can understand it, as I was also trained to design in the old fashion, preceding the advent of computers.
Also the prototype workshops from those days did not have available the stuff of our days: CNC tools, 3D printers etc.

This post has been edited by Florin on March 02, 2016 02:51 am

(...) I learned from some documentaries that in the 1930's, in all advanced countries, it took about 4 years from the start of a design to the serial production.(...)


One thing this project, the second production, and the third is the availability of the parts. IAR-80 aircraft was folding, where a large portion came from the western countries: France (aluminum sheets), Belgium (weapon).

The coming war and the war broke these contacts fast deliveries. It also had a huge, decisive influence on the ability and the volume of fast, serial production in 1940-41.

mw

Source - Net. From a web-site, the timeline of 1940 events :

1940.06.01 ... incident with a Soviet aircraft flying in the airspace of Romania for 62 km.
1940.06.25 19:30 USSR. The Moghilev-Podolsky border guard unit. In the area of the 5th border-post, the Soviet airspace was violated by a romanian unmarked aircraft. The aircraft was shot from the border-post, with no results.
1940.06.26 During the day, the Soviet airspace was violated by 5 romanian aircraft that were fired by the soviet border guards with sub-MGs.
1940.06.27 USSR. The Moghilev-Podolsky border guard unit. Romanian planes three times violated soviet airspace in the areas of the 13, 8 and 19th out-posts. In all cases, the romanian airplanes were fired by the border-guards with sub-MGs.

It seems that was all...

Another topic about those events
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=276

What was a PZL? It was the PZL P.11 A No7-46

as George siad a few yeras ago:

(...) In my data base is PZL P-11A No.7-46,sure one from Polish Air Force from 1939,in formation with Cpt.Av.Rata D-tru and Srg.Av.Cristoloveanu Gh.
About the BB,nothing.
IAR-37 Nr.39 Esc.18 Obs. pilot Srg.Av.Macri C-tin,Obs.Slt.Ionescu Ioan,
Cap.Zugravoiu Cristache.


regards

mw

PS

All PW NKWD units had an order to fire too all planes, the same was before 1939 on Polish-Soviet Border, planes were shot, if the PW NKWD's units could fire.

The same was on German-Soviet border excluding a few weeks or even days before 22.06.41. All bodrer units, including fighters were forbiden to fire to German planes in June 1941.