Igor Aleksandrovich Kaberov was a World War II Soviet fighter pilot revered for bravery and valour of the highest order. This book contains his graphic account of war on the Eastern Front against the German invaders, based largely on personal diaries he kept while serving with a fighter squadron. Previously unpublished outside the Soviet Union, his story concerns the efforts of his squadron to repel German forces and is focused particularly on the desperate siege of Leningrad, one of the greatest feats of endurance in the history of warfare. There are vivid descriptions of dogfights with German fighters, the dreadful conditions that prevailed in Leningrad during the siege, and a rare insight into how a Soviet fighter squadron lived and fought.
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The number of Soviet aviators in World War II who survived it is small, and the number who lived long enough to write reasonably frank memoirs is smaller still. In this abridged translation of his 1976 memoirs, Kaberov, a 28-kill ace and Hero of the Soviet Union, focuses on his year and a half with Soviet Naval Aviation, defending Leningrad from the war's opening and through the murderous siege, of which he provides several nightmarish vignettes, until it was broken in early 1943. He faced all the standard perils and pleasures of flying fighters--confused superiors, faulty intelligence, the loss of comrades, equipment failures, scoring kills, and meeting his family--and also some things outside the Western fighter pilot's usual experience, such as improvised grass airfields and paranoiac commissars and, above all, the sure knowledge that he and his comrades were fighting off the extinction of their country and people. A book that adds usefully to World War II aviation history, at least for sophisticated readers. Roland Green
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting, but disappointing East Front epic,
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This review is from: Swastika in the Gunsight: Memoirs of a Russian Fighter Pilot 1941-45 (Hardcover)
Until lately, it's been rare to find any literature on WWII from the Russian perspective...at least in Roman languages. Thus, Kaberov's first-person account of air combat and life on the front in the Leningrad sector of the Eastern Front is eagerly awaited: a rare glimpse of the trials of a young Navy pilot fresh out of flight school when Barbarossa opens in the summer of 1941.The real strength of this book lies in the author's pointed attempts to "remember the heros": the book is full of anecodotes of Kaberov and his comrades, their deeds and their tragic demises. How the war affects a small village where Kaberov ditches his plane in one of his first I-16 engagements comes full circle, and offers both poignancy and a sense of patriotism and redemption. However, the book disappoints aficianados of air combat in its frustrating lack of detail on the actual battles. There are few meaty descriptions of the aircraft flown, the tactics used, the planes' foibles and strengths, aside from a few brief comparisons of the LaGG-3 and the Yak, and a critical examination of the Hurricane, which Kaberov's unit flirted with briefly in 1942. Combat seems glossed over from first contact until one plane or another plummets earthward. One doesn't get that "describe the dogfight with your hands" feel that is a great part of the best 1st person accounts. Also, there is a lack of operational detail, and aside from a few maps, the reader does not get enough of a sense of how the war was progressing at various points and why. It is true that Kaberov had a relatively low rank through most of the book, and might not have been privy to this information at the time, but since it is written in retrospect, some contextual detail of the war would have been welcome. One interesting omission: Kaberov describes a desperate and successful aerial defense of the battleship Marat, yet fails to mention the ship was finally sunk just a few days later. Still, this book is an entertaining, brisk read, and is far better than the complete absense of any Russian accounts of the war for Russia in the 1940s.
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It could have been interesting, but..,
By "perttiripatti" (Finland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Swastika in the Gunsight: Memoirs of a Russian Fighter Pilot 1941-45 (Hardcover)
If you like pure a propaganda then this is the book for you. That is a pity since Igor Kaberov seems to be by all means a brave and trustworthy pilot. It only seems to be so, that it has been impossible to write any unbiased or neutral text in former Soviet Union. All the Russians are devoted and brave and the enemy is always fearful and unskilled. If the bomber tries to evade Kaberov by going inside cloud he is at least treacherous by nature. Some of the details are hard to believe. During 1942 in one particular fight Kaberov and his mates shoot down several Finnish 2-motor Capronis. The exact date is not mentioned. There were no Capronis nor any 2-motor fighters in Finnish Air Force. I find, that it is a pity, that there is no neutral memoirs told by Red Air Force. I mean in style like the books of Pierre Clostermann or Helmut Lipfert. There must have been Many distinguished pilots, who had had a lot to tell, but maybe it is too late now. They must all be well over 80 by now.
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