It is no secret that the Soviet Union was not really ready for their entry into WWII. This was particularly true when it comes to the Red Air Force. During the mid/late 1930s, the USSR had world quality fighters and bombers. What they then did was sit on their laurels and went into a program of upgrading what they had. The problem was that no only was the upgrading very slow, but also was rife with problems.

During the pre-war days, the USSR annexed (as in invaded) the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. It was a fairly bloodless takeover as these small nations were in no condition to put up any sort of opposition to a nation dozens of times their size and power. One of the things that needed to be done was to build up the Soviet military presence in these areas. So many regiments were formed, pilots and ground crew trained in a fairly hurried fashion and plans were made to develop infrastructure.

There is where the issue became major. Not only was the Red Air Force unable to provide materials and manpower to develop these bases, but there was a distinct lack of modern aircraft. The attempts to upgrade extant airframes was in shambles. The new engines that were part of that upgrade proved to be extremely unreliable to the point that airframes equipped with these new engines were forbidden to fly. This meant that when a unit did get aircraft, it was the same, obsolete I-15b/153/16 fighters and SB bombers. 'New' aircraft, such as the Su-2 and Yak-2/4 were built in very small numbers and were unable to pass the state acceptance tests in terms of performance. Other, newer planes, such as the MiG-1 and Yak-1, and IL-2 were still in the prototype stage and were generally unavailable until just short of the start of the Great Patriotic War.

This book is the first of three volumes that covers the story of the bases, units, aircraft, and personalities surrounding the buildup and operations in the Baltic states in the year or two prior to the German invasion. It basically covers until late 1940. We get insight into the issues the Red Air Force was having at the time as well as developments in getting infrastructure up and running. In addition to this, there is a short biography of every commander of every unit assigned to this particular area. Add into this many excellent period photos and color profiles and you get an exceptionally well researched book on a subject that is fairly unknown to most of us.

July 2026

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