Evstigneev’s White-78
Lavochkin, la-5F (Type 39)
178-th GIAP of the 14-th GIAD, 3-rd GIAK, 5-th Air Army, 2-nd Ukrainian Front, circa March 1945, circa Budapest, Hungary
Flown by the two-times Hero Of the Soviet Union, number 4 top-scoring Allied fighter Ace (52 personal + 3 shared victories), deputy commander of 178-th GIAP, Guards major, Kirill Alekseevich Evstigneev.
Those who have read the info on ‘Evstigneev’s White-14 La-5FN’ and ‘Kozhedub’s White-14 La-5F’ pages, already know that Kirill was one of the greatest fighter Aces of all time. At one point during WW2 (in June 1944 to be precise, by which time he had 49 personal victories [1]) he was the third highest-scoring Soviet (and therefore Allied) Fighter Ace, behind only two other pilots - Gulaev and Pokryshkin. He served in the same regiment as, and was friends with, the future number one Allied fighter Ace of WW2- Ivan Kozhedub. Kirill scored all of his victories behind the controls of various La-5 airplanes during his time in the war and White -78 was one of them. In fact, it was allegedly the 5th and the last La-5 flown by Evstigneev in WW2, following the crash landing of White-14 on the 17-th of Feb 1945.
In early spring of 1945, when Evstigneev might have flown the White-78, 178-th GIAP’s main task was to storm the “knots'“ of enemy resistance, escort bombers into the Esztergom-Komarno region, and provide cover for the ground forces from enemy air strikes [2]. In addition to these tasks, Evstigneev with his wingman Mudretsov, performed free-hunting sorties covering vast sectors, with Evstigneev freely choosing strike targets and flight courses. Usually the chosen course followed along the roads or into the estimated flight paths of enemy aircraft.
During one such free-hunting sortie, Evstigneev and Mudretsov attacked a column of five enemy trucks which were transporting soldiers and pulling a small cannon. The Lavochkins approached the column from the back and descended on the enemy from the hight of about 400-500 meters, sending a burst of bullets into the first and second truck, flying so low that their propellers were said to almost touch the trucks. Then their Lavochkins soared back up into the air and repeated the strafing attack, this time striking the column from the front. The leading car in the column started to smoke and blocked off the road, the second rolled on its side and fell into the ditch, the rest of the trucks congested behind them, with the enemy soldiers scattering into the surrounding fields. At this point Evstigneev noticed a larger column of trucks moving from the north. Turning their planes and approaching the column from the direction of the sun Evstigneev and Mudretsov attacked, ploughing it with lead from the first car to the last. This time the Germans returned fire. The bullets flew all around the two airplanes, between them, on the left, on the right and at the back. Evstigneev likened this experience to being amongst Christmas trees with Christmas lights turned on.
Evstigneev’s last victory and allegedly the only victory scored in White-78 was :
26.03.1945, 1 FW-190, Budapest [3] (Hungary)
Evstigneev said this about it in his memoirs- a book called ‘Winged Guards’:
‘The memorable day of the 26-th of March 1945 stands before my eyes as though it happened thirty six minutes ago and not thirty six years ago. On that day I downed my last, 56-th enemy plane, according to my personal battle score’… [4]
Here is how it happened:
Evstigneev led 8 Lavochkins, all loaded with bombs, on a mission to provide cover to their ground forces when he noticed 8 Focke Wulf fighters below them . The enemy fighters were following a similar course as Evstigneev’s group. Evstigneev made a quick decision to immediately attack the enemy , trying to prevent them from reaching the Soviet ground forces. But what to do with the bombs the Lavochkins were carrying? So Evstigneev commanded his group to drop the bombs off on top of the flying enemy aircraft. Though of course the bombs missed the enemy planes, they made the Lavochkins lighter thus readying them for the dogfight. The Germans aware of what was happening, dropped their bomb load also and pointed their planes higher in a 180 degree turn to try and gain altitude and position themselves for the fight. The Lavochkins at this point had the altitude advantage. Though Evstigneev described their Lavochkins as ‘old’ he also said that ‘they were no worse than the Focke Wulfs’. The enemy attempted to position themselves on Lavochkin’s tails, flying in pairs, and the Lavochkins tried to do the same. Both sides either dived sharply or soared into the sky, sending bursts of fire in each other’s direction but missing. This continued for about 5-7 minutes.
Then Evstigneev and Mudretsov soared upward and Ternyuk and Mokin ended up in a position to attack a pair of WF-190 which now happened to be flying below Evstigneev’s pair, while yet another 2 WF-190s were attempting to target Ternyuk’s and Mokin’s Lavochkins from behind. As Evstigneev and Mudretsov looped their planes around, Evstigneev gave the command to attack the 2 WF-190s which followed Ternyuk and Mokin. Evstigneev targeted the leader and Mudretsov aimed at the wingman and they both pressed ‘fire’ at the same time. Karpov, Chuchaev, Revenko and Skovorodchenko in the meantime blocked off the other enemy fighters. Though the FW-190 that was targeting Ternyuk’s plane tried to dodge Evstigneev’s attacks, White-78’s long burst of lead nevertheless reached it as Evstigneev shouted :
‘This is for Nikolay[5] you bastards, for those you have wasted!’ , not recognising his own voice, raspy from strain and fury.
After Evstigneev downed the enemy Foke Wulf, the battle atmosphere immediately changed and the enemy fighters left the area. [6]
The final fate of White-78 is unknown.
Evstigneev stats at the end of WW2 stood at: 283 Battle sorties, in which he engaged in 113 air battles and scored 52 personal and 3 shared victories[3].
Noteworthy visual characteristics
Please Note! The illustration of the right side (Port side) of the airplane is hypothetical.
General) Though it’s hart to tell, the plane appears to be painted in accordance with the Grey/Grey camo pattern (more on this in the ‘closeup images’), with the stars in the usual 6 positions.
The plane looks quite aged/weathered in the photo reference. Evstigneev described their La-5s as being ‘Old’ referring to one particular battle in March 1945. He went on to say that despite being old , their La-5s were no worse then the WF-190s which they fought in that battle. In that air-battle Evstigneev downed one of those FW-190s.
1) The logo is a cyrillic letter ‘F’ , representing the ‘F’ modification of this La-5 variant. It usually appears on the engine cowling as indicated by ‘1a’ and on the tip of the tail as indicated by ‘1b’. Note that the logo on the engine cowling looks like it’s been stencil-sprayed in white directly over the camouflage colour, as per the one on the tail. This is different to the usual logo colour on the engine cowling which is normally red ‘F’ sprayed over a white circle background.
2) Based on the photo reference the propeller blades might have been painted black with the paint chipped/rubbed off at the tips.
3) The plane must have been fitted with the bomb-carrying attachment. In describing his last victory of WW2 (which is presumed to have been scored in White-78) Evstigneev mentions that his plane, as well as the other Lavochkins he commanded, were carrying bombs during that mission.
4) Note the antena arrangement. This arrangement appeared on the later models of La-5F and La-5FN modifications. It is more common to the La-5FN planes.
5) The white chevron allegedly appeared on some airplanes of the 3 GIAK (3-rd guard’s fighters, Yassi’s, Red Bannered, order of Suvorov, aviation corps). It also appeared on Evstigneev’s White-14 La-5FN, .
6) The heat protection panels appear to be unexpectedly clean from soot in the photo reference, considering that the plane by March 1945 would have been relatively old and well used. Maybe the plane was washed not too long before the photo was taken?
7) The reds on Evstigneev’s White-78 might have been slightly faded. Apparently when the reds used on Soviet WW2 planes faded they turned slightly orange. An extreme example of the ‘fading to orange’ can be seen HERE .
8) The serial number of this plane, according to the research of Alexandr Stankov, was 39211278. I have used this number in my artwork. The serial number appeared on the tail indicated by ‘8a’ and on the horizontal stabilisers (top and bottom) and elevators.
9) The slogan reads: ‘От Колхозника Конева ’ which translates to ‘From the collective farmer Konev’. It’s hard to know if the slogan appeared on the left side of the airplane also and what it looked like. Aleksandr Stankov who allegedly has been in touch with Evstigneev when Evstigneev was still alive, drew the left side of this plane with the slogan present. I haven’t been able to find out A. Stankov’s reasoning for why he drew it where he drew it, but to stay consistent with his art I drew the slogan on the left side also. Please note! the positioning of the slogan on the left side of the plane in my artwork is hypothetical.
It has been suggested by some that the slogan didn't actually appear on White-78 at all, but that an artist drew the slogan on top of a photograph, before the days of Photoshop.
10) ‘Не Становиться’ caution translated roughly to ‘Don’t stand’.
11) There seems to be a dark spot on the wing in the area indicated by the arrow (and indicated in green in the close-up photo below). Granted, the photo is very bad quality and this dark spot might simply be a defect in the photograph. But there is also a chance that this part was a freshly repainted repair job of some sort. Theoretically, this dark spot shouldn’t appear on the camouflage in this part of the plane if the plane was painted in accordance with the 1943 Grey-Grey camouflage. Based on the clues which we can detect in the photograph (indicated in red in the photo below) this plane appears to have been painted with Grey-Grey camouflage pattern design. Another clue is the fact that the photograph was made sometime after February 1945 by which time all Lavochkins (in theory) should have been painted with Grey-Grey camo pattern which was introduced in 1943.
Here are a few closeup images to help illustrate the points above. More closeup images are On Patreon
Footnotes
[1] This is based on the information and the victories listed in the foreword to Evstigneev’s book called Крылатая гвардия. «Есть упоение в бою!» Second edition. Published by Yauza, 2013
[2] Taken from page 136 of Evstigneev’s book called Крылатая гвардия. «Есть упоение в бою!» Second edition. Published by Yauza, 2013
[3] Taken from Mikhail Bykov’s book called ‘Все Асы Сталина’ (All of Stalin’s Aces), page 375. Youza-press, 2014.
[4] Taken from page 137 of Evstigneev’s book called Крылатая гвардия. «Есть упоение в бою!» Second edition. Published by Yauza, 2013
[5] Nikolay Artamonov was a fighter pilot from Evstigneev’s regiment who did not come back from a battle mission earlier that day on the 26-th of March. His plane was shot down and unable to bail from the airplane, the injured and bleeding Nikolay pointed his burning fighter into a concentration of enemy soldiers and armour perishing in the explosion on impact.
[6] This is my re-telling of the battle described by Evstigneev on page 138 of his book called Крылатая гвардия. «Есть упоение в бою!» Second edition. Published by Yauza, 2013
SUmmary of the LINKS TO THE REFERENCE Images and videos
http://ava.org.ru/iap/178g/la-5f_78_evstigneev-sept-1944.jpg
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