RED STAR AIRACOBRA

Memoirs of a Soviet fighter ace, 1941-1945. Evgeniy Mariinsky, a Soviet fighter ace and Hero of the Soviet Union, shot down twenty enemy aircraft in aerial combat over the Eastern Front between 1943 and 1945. He frequently engaged enemy fighters and bombers, shot down many but was himself shot down several times. This is his extraordinary story. His vivid inside view of the ruthless war in the air on the Eastern Front gives a rare insight into the reality of fighting and tactics of the Red Army Air Force. In his own words, and with a remarkable clarity of recall, Mariinsky describes what combat was like in the air, face to face with a skilled, deadly and increasingly desperate enemy. The reader can follow his career from an unskilled novice who has just arrived at his regiment through to him becoming an ace, and Hero of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of experienced commanders. The terrifying moments of action, engagements with enemy fighters, forced landings, nervous strain before attacks, loss of comrades and everyday life of pilots - all these aspects of a Soviet fighter pilot's experience during the Great Patriotic War are brought dramatically to life in his memoirs. Mariinsky describes tactics which enabled him to have an upper hand in dog-fights against experienced German pilots. The grand strategy of the campaigns across the Eastern Front is less important here than the sequence of engagements that were the first-hand experience of the author. It is this close-up view of combat that makes Mariinsky's reminiscences of such value.