The captured Yak-1B fighter of the squadron commander of the 148th Fighter Regiment of the Red Army Air Force, Leonid Smirnov, at the German airfield.
From the report of May 6, 1943:
“Captain Smirnov Leonid Dmitrievich, born in 1913, a native of Kharkov, commander of the Air Force 148 IAP, did not return from the combat mission to cover his troops in the Neberdzhaevskaya district by a Yak-1 plane. On the account had 7 + 4 downed enemy aircraft.
The whole four of them disappeared – Smirnov, Dronov, Tsirikov, Sviridov. “
The inscription on board the aircraft: “To Stalin’s falcon Smirnov Leonid from the workers of the Frunzensky district of the Saratov mountain.”
Location: USSR
Date: 1943