Soviet aviation has been getting a considerable amount of press in the last 15 years or so since so much of what was once either 'secret' or not easily available for research has been been opened up to historians. That has allowed books such as this one to be written to show how huge the effort was of the Soviet Union during their Great Patriotic War against the Germans. The sacrifices of Soviet airmen was quite high compared to their Western counterparts and much of that was in flying ground attack missions.

The IL-2 bore the brunt of this type of fighting, and while the plane was designed to protect the occupant(s) as much as possible, a huge number of them were shot down by gunfire from both enemy aircraft and ground fire. It is a good thing that so many were produced. The IL-2 is up near the head of the line in terms of most highly produced aircraft of WWII with some records stating that 43,000 came off the assembly lines.

The other aspect of this book covers what are known as Guards units. These were highly decorated units whose soldiers and airmen not only got the best equipment, but were better paid, and had more amenities than the standard unit. To have the title 'Guards' bestowed on a unit, it had to be superior both it its abilities to follow through on its missions, but also to be the best politically. Often times an otherwise exemplary unit would not meet all the criteria due to a one-time inability to fulfill its mission, or to have a unit commander that was not up to the specs required.

Nevertheless, Guards units were the cream of the crop and author Oleg Rastrenin does an excellent job of telling their story from the opening days of the war, through the development of the Guards program, until the end of the conflict. He concentrates on what had to be the most dangerous job, ground attack, and the aircraft that at one time comprised over 1/3 of all aircraft in the Soviet air force; the IL-2.

This story is superbly illustrated with period photos of the men and some of their aircraft. Of course, we see quite a few 'hero' and 'camaraderie' images that were so beloved by the Soviet leadership, but also images of the sort of havoc that the IL-2 could wreak on German forces. In line with other books in this series, there are several pages of color profiles by artist Andrey Yurgenson to show us how some of these aircraft appeared.

All in all, another superlative book in the Combat Aircraft series. One I know you will enjoy reading.

April 2008

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