Great Patriotic War (Communists v Nazis) Pilot Interviews

I came across these links while researching the IL2 Flight Sim Website.

Soviet pilot interviews in English seem pretty sparse on the ground so, I found some fascinating reading here.

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/3431087335

Edited to give you an idea about living conditions for Guards Lieutenant Benedikt Ilyich Kardopoltsev. Participated in the GPW from 10/43 till 5/45, flew La-5 and La-7….

“We spent 1,5 – 2 month in ground houses in the camp. There were millions of fleas! All of our group got malaria. In the morning and in the evening we would be freezing, then high temperature. There even were two death cases. I came to the point, when I could only drink water and “Khinin”, which did not help a bit, I could not eat… By this time we were sitting in Kurdamir, which is the most malarious place in whole Soviet Union. But the airfield there was great.
Our group begun to fly La-5, but I could not even move. My squadron commander Chirkin came to me and said:
«Do you feel all right?»
I tried to look as good as I could:
«Well…»
«Get your self to the airfield and start flying».
When I used to return from the trining flight my knees were shaking, not because of fear, but because of weakness or malaria attack. Luckily I was pretty good, so I finished La-5 program really fast. I was sent to the 2-nd ZAP near Gorkii. First thing in ZAP was 20 flights to each pilot. Take off, landing, aerobatics, route flights… And malaria ended instantly.”

😮