The Winged Guards: There Is Delight in Battle!

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union K.A. Yevstigneev during the Great Patriotic War achieved 53 victories personally and another 3 as part of a group (the fifth result in Soviet aviation—more only shot down Kózhedub, Pokryshkin, Gulaev, and Rechkalov). What’s more—an unusual case: two enemy aircraft, Ju-88 and Me-109, Yevstigneev “sent to the ground” in his very first aerial combat! Meanwhile, the much-praised German aces never managed to shoot him down—although, standing out even among desperate Stalin’s hawks, he never dodged combat and up to the very end of the war did not avoid head-on attacks, even against six-cannon “Fokkers.” No wonder his motto was Pushkin’s “There is rapture in battle!” Immediately after Yevstigneev’s victory was presented for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union a third time, but the nomination was never approved. And the censor heavily “cut up” his memoir book. In this edition, these memoirs are printed without omissions.