14th October 1942 Erich Hartmann took off for his first combat mission as a wingman of feldwebel Eduard ‘Paule’ Rossmann. By that day Hartmann was 22 years old lieutenant of 7.III/JG-52.
Immediately after take-off they’ve received order: “Seven fighters and three Il-2 are attacking the road near Prohladniy. Intercept and destroy.”

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8 August of 1941 bombers group of Order of the Red Banner Baltic Navy Air Forces performed first in the WWII Soviet bomb strike on Berlin.
This event was widely presented in media and had great influence on the moral of all Soviet people, which was extremeley necessary that time.

It happened immediately after StG77 under command of major count Shenborn has landed after their first flight that day (22.06.1941) - Soviet bombers has appeared from nowhere. Nobody knew where they came from - from some distant airfields, from the ones that just were attacked or from some undetected ones.

But still, they were coming - waves of 10, 20, 30 twin-engine bombers in close formation. They even were able to drop some bombs - but not many, very soon appeared Luftwaffe fighters and all of the bombers were destroyed. It were strange, hopeless attacks, bombers were holding straight on course, without any manoeuvres to avoid AA or fighters. They had awfull losses, nobody came back home. But when German fighters were destroying 10 bombers, it were coming 15 more.
Squadron commander capt. Herbert Pabst from 6/StG77 has reported: “They were coming till the end of the day. Only near our airfield we saw 21 bombers crash sites. Not a single bomber survived.”

Source: Cajus Bekker “The Luftwaffe War Diaries”

About 20-30 crews from KG2, KG3 and KG53 had a special order. All of them had experince of blind flights. By the 3:00, when bombers were crossing border, they had 5700 meters altitude - maximum available. Their task was to strike three Soviet airfields far away behind lines exactly at 3:15, till that moment to stay undetected.

Unlike a year ago, when Western operation has started, this time “Zero” hour was set by the ground forces, not by the Luftwaffe. Ground forces wanted to attack with sunrise, but they wanted to be protected against enemy air forces. Luftwaffe was able to operate only when sun is up, so ground troops would have to wait.
So was found decision “in the middle” - several bombers crew in the dark has crossed the border, all other units has joined them later. The task was fullfilled completely - bomb strike was absolutely unexpected.

Totally it was 4 air fleets, alltogether they counted 1945 planes, 1280 of them were ready to fly. It were: 510 bombers, 290 dive bombers, 440 single-engine fighters and 40 twin-engines fighters, plus 120 longe-range recon planes.

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When the situation in the Karelian Front was getting too critical went Finnish diplomatic delegation to Moscow to negotiate for the terms of peace. Peace negotiation started on 8 March 1940. Finnish army was supported by Western countries and their sympathies were with Finland.

Soviet Union saw the danger that the on going war could escalate to an international crisis and so rattled tight rules for the peace. Finland had nothing to do but to accept the terms in the critical situation. So took the cease-fire effect on 13 March 1940 at 11.00 hours as told on the peace treatment. Finland had stopped the Red Army at the critical moment on the Gulf of Finland but suffered several area losses for the Soviet Union under the peace treatment or the peace of Moscow after 105 days of fighting.

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On January 6. 1940 17 Soviet 6. DBAP’s Ilyshin DB-3M bombers took-off from an airfield in Viro to make a bombrun to Kuopio. The First nine bombers got there without problems and dropped their loads but the remaining eight bombers at heels got too much west and near Utti were Finnish 4/LLv 24 (4. flight of Fighter Squadron 24) was based at the time.

Lt. Sovelius was at the time flying with his Fokker D.21 (FR-92) and saw the bombers coming and shot one of them down. The remaining seven DB-3Ms continued their way to Kuopio and dropped their bombs without any success.

At the same time lt. Jorma Sarvanto had started his Fokker on the ground and scrambled to chase the remaining bombers. lt. Sarvanto got his aircraft behind the bombers which were now flying in two ‘vic’s. Sarvanto went to 20 metres behind a bomber and opened fire to its left engine which blazed up. Then he continued same way by killing the rear turrets first, then left engine and moving to the right engine. When he had downed six planes he noticed that he was out of ammo and had to break out with only one DB-3M surviving from his fire. The last one was also downed by Finnish pilots.

When lt. Sarvento landed back to the base he had shot down six bombers in just four minutes! All bombers had fallen between Utti and Tavastila. With this achievement lt. Sarvanto became Finnish first fighter ace in just four minutes.

The Fokker D.21 /FR-97) lt. Sarvanto was flying had got 23 hits without any serious damage. Foreign press was immediately astonished by the case because nothing like this hadn’t happened in the war this far.

Source:Osprey-Fighter Aces 4: Finnish Fighter Aces.