Рыбин, Ю. В. Советские асы на Харрикейнах в годы Второй Мировой Войны / Юрий Рыбин . – [Б. м. ] : Osprey Publishing, 2012. – 97 с. : ил., портр. – Англ. яз.

C H A P T ER TWO 30 Gavrilov spotting them as they closed from behind. Opening his throttle, he broke away from his pursuers, who focused their attack on Basov. When the latter failed to return to base, it was initially thought that he had perished, as several searches for him revealed nothing. The following note appeared in the regimental diary; ‘The regiment has lost one of its best men, one of Stalin’s proud falcons, our respected comrade Vladimir Basov.’ But there was good news ten days later. Basov was reported as lying severely wounded in a hospital bed. He later stated that he had shot down two Brewsters —claims not confirmed by Finnish records —during an uneven dogfight. The career of squadron commander Capt Vladimir Basov, however, came to an end at the same time. The wounds he had received fighting the B-239s were so severe that he was unable to return to action. With 240 combat sorties to his name, he had completed more missions than any of his colleagues up to that point in the war. Basov had survived eight dogfights, during which he claimed five individual and one shared victories. He was awarded the order of the Red Banner on 27 October 1942. Gavrilov, by comparison, had flown 95 operational sorties and survived eight dogfights by the beginning of August. He received his second Order of Lenin for his achievements by order of the commander of the Karelian Front, dated 12 October 1942. By the end of 1942 only four Hurricanes and three Kittyhawks remained in service with 152nd IAP, and all were defective. The combat report for the month of December noted that ‘the regiment did not engage in any military action while based at Segezha airfield because its equipment was not up to full strength, there was a lack of combat activity by ground forces and weather conditions were bad’. 152nd IAP was down to just two Hurricanes and three Kittyhawks by March 1943, and shortly thereafter it was reformed in a three squadron Hastily camouflaged w ith a handful of branches cut down from nearby trees, a heavily exhaust-stained Hurricane IIB rests between sorties at an undisclosed airfield on the Karelian Front during the summer of 1942 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com