This volume is on Soviet Fighters. To be specific, it is on captured Soviet Fighters put back into service for the Finnish Air Force. Like many of the combatants, the Finns had no problem repairing damaged aircraft that had come down in their territory. Unlike many others, some of these were actually used in combat and were able to provide some successes. Germany, for example, had quite a haul of captured aircraft after over-running various nations, but generally used these planes as liaison or, in the case of fighters, as advanced trainers. They even refurbished and sold some of this war booty to other nations (which is how Finland acquired some additional I-153 and I-15 fighters).

These planes were not used in large numbers; at least not in the numbers of the Brewster 239 or Bf-109G. Some were less than a handful while others were, as mentioned above, augmented with purchased war booty from Germany.

Basically, there were four types used: One was the Lagg-3. Three of these of different series were used at various times.

Next was the Polikarpov I-16, and again, three of these, which includes one two seat trainer, were in use at various times.

The most numerous were the biplane Polikarpovs, the I-153 and the I-15bis. The I-153 was the most widely used with many of these in operations and equipping special flights operating in Northern Finland among other places. These aircraft were probably the most successful in knocking down Russian planes.

In the end, one has to wonder if all the work involved in putting some of these planes into service was worth the work. Yet others proved their worth.

Typical of this series, the book is bi-lingual with one side of the page/photo captions in Finnish and the other in English. Any charts and aircraft histories are in Finnish but can be somewhat decyphered.

What makes these books such gems are the photographs. They are large and very crisply done. Each aircraft type has a large array of images accompanying it, including 'before' images of downed planes that were repaired. Add to it the excellent profile drawings on the inside covers and back and it makes for an outstanding book. One that I can highly recommend.

November 2005

Review book courtesy of  Kari Stenman Publishing, where you can order your copy of this and several other superb books on the Finnish AF.

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