Sytov’s White-18
Lavochkin, La-5F (Type 37)
5-th GIAP , 207-th IAD/11-th GIAD, 3-rd SAK/1-st GSAK RSVGK, South-West Front/3-rd Ukrainian Front, circa south-west of Voroshylovograd ( Modern day Lugansk), Ukraine, late summer/early autumn 1943 [1]
Flown by a commander of the 3rd squadron, deputy commander and a navigator of the 5-th GIAP, Hero of the Soviet Union, Guards Senior Lieutenant Ivan Nikitovich Sytov. (An Ace with 23-28 victories, 19-25 personal and 4-3 shared) [2]
White-18 was built with the funds donated by the collective farmers of the Gorkiy region and might have been assigned to sergeant Sytov in late February 1943 (Or possibly around July 1943) [3] . By this time Ivan Sytov had already scored one air victory while flying a Yak-1 with the 788-th IAP in defence of Stalingrad in September of 1942. Having joined the 5th GIAP at the end of 1942, Sytov started to fly Lavochkin’s La-5. The 5th GIAP began flying these planes in battle from 19th of December 1942 [4]. It is with the 5th GIAP, while flying a La-5 airplane, that Sytov would cement his place in fighter aviation history, by downing 24 more airplanes personally and 3 as part of a group in the skies near the eastern borders of Ukraine.
26 year old’s skill and rank grew quickly and it wasn’t long before Sytov gained mastery in the art of air battle, earning the respect of his comrades who referred to him as the ‘Fighter of fighters’ . One of Sytov’s favourite requests to his commanders was “Let me clean up the sky”. They would let him. He would fly and ‘clean up’ [3]. Like his skill, his reputation grew also. His heroic feats were admired by the front-line newspapers which wrote about him on more than one occasion. One example of this can be found in the newspaper “Известия” (‘Izvestiya’, translates to ‘News’), which was published on the 17th of August 1943. It gave an account of one of his battles:
“Guards Lieutenant Ivan Sitov with his Lavochkin-5 fighter unit noticed a group of Junkers-87 flying under the cover of Focke-Wulf-190 fighters.
‘Watch the air and cover me, I'm attacking’ - Sytov ordered to his wingman - junior lieutenant, komsololets Nikitin, and swiftly rushed to attack the German bombers. Crashing into the German formation like a lightning, the brave pilot shot down one Junkers and immediately, without exiting the attack, with a well-aimed burst into the tail he sent a second bomber to the ground. Then, quickly soaring upwards, he fell on the leading German. The Hitler’s man dodged the first attack of the guardsman. But the Soviet pilot rushed into the second attack and the leader of the Junkers group shared the fate of his two wingmen.”[5]
Though Sytov did down three Ju-87 (Stuka) bombers on that day, it is likely that he might have only downed two of them in one sortie, and the article above probably exaggerated his success for propaganda purposes.
Other accounts describe Sytov engaging in unequal air battles with a numerically superior enemy. On one such occasion Sytov is described to have engaged 4 enemy Me-109s, which were joined by another 5 Me-109s. Thus Sytov was forced to fight 9 Me-109s alone. This was happening at low altitude on the outskirts of the city of Kharkiv and the citizens of the city watched the battle in awe from the ground. Having selected a suitable moment Sytov attacked and shot down one of the Me-109s and then dove towards the ground in the direction of central Kharkiv, flying just above the rooftops and waving the wings of his La-5 as a greeting to the cheering people below. This was described as his 26th victory [3]. It’s worth noting that this was probably another embellished story, because according to M.Bykov’s research no Me-109 was downed in the vicinity of central Kharkiv around the time of Sytov’s 26th victory.
Going back to the first victories scored in a La-5, it might be worth looking at each of them and trying to figure out which might have been scored in White-18.
As the Battle for Stalingrad was ending, the 5th GIAP took part in the Voroshylovogradskaya Operation “Skachok” (translates to “The Jump”) 29th January-18th February 1943. Around this time Sytov scored:
02.02.1943 1 x Ju-87 Voroshylovka (Ukraine)
03.02.1943 1 x He-111. north-east Messarosh. (Ukraine?) in Sytov’s award list this victory is listed as ‘taran’ ‘ramming attack’ , but operational documents do not support this.
04.02.1943 1/4 x He-111 south-east Majaki (Ukraine)
The victories above were probably not scored in White-18 if White-18 was indeed a La-5F because the first La-5F planes started to be produced and supplied to the front units from late February 1943. Even if we’ll presume that White-18 was one of the earliest La-5Fs to be built and sent to the front, which is unlikely judging by the late-style tactical number on White-18, the first victories would have started from late Feb onwards, in other words they would be some of the following:
22.02.1943 1 x FW-190 Novoveselaya-Mezhovaya (Ukraine)
03.04.1943 1 x Me-109 south of Semenovka (Ukraine?)
04.04.1943 1 x Me-109 Petropol’ye-Kamyshevaha (Ukraine)
04.04.1943 1 x Me-109 south of Kamenka (Russia?)
Vozdushnaya Operation 6th May - 8th May 1943
06.04.1943 1 x Me-110 south of Yarovaya (Ukraine)
After the operation:
06.05.1943 1 x Me-109. south of sovhoz Gornyak (Ukraine?)
21.05.1943 1 x Me-109 east of Privol’noe (Russia?)
08.06.1943 1 x Me-109 Malinovka (Malynivka, Ukrane?)
On the question of “when did Sytov start to fly a La-5F?” there is a little bit of clarification in the book called “Гвардейцы в воздухе” (Guards in the air) [3] with the following statement describing the events around July 1943 (during the battles in the area of Izyum): “The regiment received La-5 aircraft with more powerful, so-called boosted engines.” This statement, if true, suggests that White-18, being a plane with a “boosted engine” (La-5F with the M-82F(boosted)engine as opposed to the earlier La-5 with the un-boosted engine), was received in July 1943 or later, not earlier. If this is so then the victories scored in White-18 would have started from some time in July and therefore might have been the following:
Izyum-Baravenkovskaya Operation, 17th July - 27th July 1943.
09.07.1943 1/2. x FW-189 east of Gremyachiy (Ukraine)
16.07.1943 1/2 x He-111 st. Studentok (Ukraine)
16.07.1943 1. Me-109 south outskirts of Zavodskoy (Ukrane)
17.07.1943 1 Ju-87 south of Petropol’ye (Ukraine)
17.07.1943 2 Ju-87 south-east of Velikaya Kamyshevaha (Ukraine)
19.07.1943 1 x Me-109 Dmitrievka (Ukraine)
20.07.1943 1 x Me-109. south of Dolgen’kaya (Russia?)
Belgorodsko-Kharkovskaya Operation “Rumyantsev”, 3rd August - 23rd August 1943. and the Donbasskaya Operation, 13th of August-22 September 1943
17.08.1943 1 x FW-190 south-east of Vernopol’ye (Ukraine?)
17.08.1943 1 x Me-109 Kurul’ka-1 (Ukraine)
18.08.1943 1. He-111 south of Vernopol’ye (Ukraine?)
18.08.1943 1 Me-109 Brazhevka. (Ukraine?)
22.08.1943 1 Me-109 south of Kurul’ka-1. (Ukraine)
23.08.1943 1 Me-109 north of Dolgen’kaya (Russia?)
27.08.1943 2 He-111 Knyazhnoe (Ukraine)
On the 16th of October 1943, Ivan Sytov, while heading a group of La-5s, engaged enemy fighters in the area close to the city of Zaporizhya (Ukraine). Having ran out of ammunition Sytov continued to fight on, conducting the battle via his radio. When his fuel was out Sytov went for his last attack. He rammed his La-5 into the enemy fighter, destroying the enemy, but in the process succumbing to the enemy fire and perishing himself [6] According to German records no such incident occurred and no victory is assigned to Sytov on the 16th of October 1943 by the Soviets either.
Other sources claim that on the 13 of October 1943, Sytov was shot down and killed by JG 52s Oberfeldwebel Walter Jahnke. [7]
Either way, it would be fair to agree that Sytov and his plane (White-18?) perished in an air battle in mid-October 1943.
At the time of Sytov’s death he flew 250(+) battle sorties and engaged in about 100 air battles, scoring up to 25 personal and 3 shared victories, making Sytov one of the leading Soviet/Allied Aces at that time.
Noteworthy visual characteristics
Please Note! The artwork on this page is based on limited photo reference. Much of it is therefore hypothetical.
1) The White spinner and front part of the engine cowling were the identification marking of the 5-th GIAP.
2) Based on the research of Miloš Veštšik, White-18 was a La-5F airplane (Type-37). Indeed, there seems to be a very faint hint of a potential ‘F’ logo (Cyrillic letter ‘F’ inside a circle) on the bottom left photograph in an infographic created by Miloš. It is also possible that the logo was absent.
3) ‘Эскадрилья Валерий Чкалов’ (Eskadril’ya Valeriy Chkalov)- translates to ‘Squadron Valery Chkalov’. This inscription appeared on the airplanes built with the funds which were raised and donated to the ‘Red Army war fund’ by the workers of the Gorkiy (Today’s Nizhniy Novgorod) region. Many collective farms participated in this ‘fund raiser’ and a total of about 60, 000,000 roubles was raised , a further 1.1 million was raised by the Fire Brigades of the Gorkiy region- astronomical amounts of money for that time. Even schools participated in the collection of funds for the E.V.Ch airplanes, and at least one airplane was known to have been built with these.
These funds were enough to build about 200 airplanes, mostly La-5s and some LaGG-3s, which were distributed across many different units, including the 5 GIAP, as well as 11 IAP, 21 IAP, 159 IAP, 193 IAP, 4 GIAP KBF, 41 GIAP, 111 GIAP, 180 GIAP, 3 IAK.
Valeriy Chkalov was a famous Soviet test pilot who died in 1938 during a test flight of a Polikarpov I-180. He was from the Nizhniy Novgorod (former Gorkiy) region, which is why the airplanes bare his name.
Massimo Tessitori did some good research on the ‘Eskadrilya Valeriy Chkalov’ and it’s worth visiting his website HERE to learn more about the “Eskadrilya”.
Based on the research by Miloš Veštšik, the inscription was interpreted as ‘yellow’. Another option could be a ‘faded/rubbed off’ red over white, in other words - a ‘pink’ inscription. This latter option is probably less likely because when the inscriptions were painted red the part of the inscription that covered the star was usually left white. But there is no white inscription visible over the top of the red star, meaning that either the word ‘Валерий’ was completely missing or it was painted with a different ‘dark’ colour which isn’t visible on a red background in a B/W photo. I chose to interpret the colour as ‘yellow’ as per Miloš’s illustration. Note that the distance between ‘Валерий’ and ‘Чкалов’ might have been wider than usual, or the word ‘Валерий’ might have been missing completely, as shown below.
4) The small starlets represent Sytov’s victories. A description under a photo published in a newspaper “Известия” ‘(Izvestiya), number 172, dated 23.07.1943, says that Sytov (At that time) downed 19 airplanes (though it adds that another two were downed in one of his latest air battles). I have interpreted this as 19 personal victories because we can indeed see 19 starlets painted in two rows in the photo.
By this time Sytov already had 3 shared victories and indeed, in addition to the 19 starlets we can see at least one more starlet, it’s under the first two. It was probably painted solid white, the reason is because ‘shared’ victories were usually represented by ‘hollow’ white starlets, however, because this particular starlet is painted over the red background, it could be mistaken for a ‘red’ starlet that’s outlined with white had it been painted with only a white outline, so it was probably painted solid white. We’d expect that there were probably two more hollow white starlets somewhere on the plane. The positioning of the two hollow white starlets that I’ve painted, is hypothetical.
Please note that, as is often the case, the number of the victory starlets on Sytov’s plane doesn’t correspond perfectly with the dates and the number of his confirmed victories (I base confirmed victories on Mikhail Bykov’s research).
Below are some possible ways of interpreting the starlets in the photo reference. I have chosen to use the first option.
5) Note that the star seems to be painted closer to the front of the plane than usual on the ‘Type-37’ La-5s in the Green-Black camouflage.
6) The tactical number is in a late-style large number font. This helps to suggest that the airplane was most likely a La-5F because earlier La-5 planes and even some early La-5Fs had the ‘early-style” (Small) digits used for the tactical numbers.
These late-style (large) digits, when painted over the top of the Green/Black camouflage, most likely had a black outline as opposed to the later ‘blue’ which appeared with the Grey/Grey camo.
7) ‘От колхозников и колхозниц Горьковской Области’ ( Ot kolkhoznikov i kolkhoznits Gor’kovskoy oblasti) - Translates to ‘From the collective farmers(male) and the collective farmers (female) of the Gorkiy region’.
This is the inscription that appeared on the starboard side of most E.V.Ch. airplanes built with the funds collected by the farmers.
I used photos of ‘White-99’ and ‘White-40’ as my reference for painting the starboard side slogan on ‘White-18’.
Here are a few closeup images to help illustrate the points above. Full set of closeup images is On Patreon
FOOTNOTES
[1] The info about the date and location is based on a photo published in a newspaper “Известия” ‘(Izvestiya), number 172, dated 23.07.1943. The title under the photo says ‘South-West of Voroshylovograd’. Found on here http://soviet-aces-1936-53.ru/abc/s/sytov.htm
[2] 28 victories (25 personal and 3 shared) is based on Mikhail Bykov’s research in his book ‘Все Асы Сталина 1936-19553’ (All of Stalin’s Aces 1936-1953), published by Yauza-press, 2014, page 1168-1169.
However, other sources indicate 23 victories (19 personal and 4 shared).
[3] Based on the book called Гвардейцы в воздухе. Ильин Н.Г., Рулин В.П., ДОСААФ, 1973, Page 138. The book says: “He shot them down in a machine built with the funds of Gorky collective farmers and handed over to him in February”.
All other info marked with [3] is based on the same book.
[4] Based on ‘Все Истребительные авиаполки Сталина’, by Vladimir Anokhin and Mikhail Bykov. Published by ‘Yauza press’, ISBN 978-5-9955-0707-9 , page 30
[5] The description of the battle is a translation (by me) from a newspaper article called ‘Victory of the pilot Sytov’, from newspaper ‘Izvestiya’ , number 193, dated 17.08.1943. Found on here http://soviet-aces-1936-53.ru/abc/s/sytov.htm
[6] This info is according to https://warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=229
[7] Info based on a Wikipedia entry about Ivan Sytov. Their info is taken from:
Bergstrom, Christer (2008). Bagration to Berlin - The Final Air Battles in the East: 1944 - 1945. Allan. ISBN 978-1-903223-91-8. OCLC 645448987. Page 29.
LINKS TO THE REFERENCE IMAGES AND/OR VIDEOS
Artwork and photos in the infographic by Miloš Veštšik
http://ava.org.ru/iap/5g/la5f_18_sytov_max.jpg
Photos from other sources:
http://soviet-aces-1936-53.ru/abc/s/sytov10.jpg
All the work presented on this is page is subject to updates and revisions in the light of new information which might present itself. If you have any new information relevant to this page or disagree with anything that's presented here, then please feel free to contact me through the Planes in Profile Facebook page. Thanks:)
