Top left
The Yak has been based in
the UK since March 2015.
It previously fl ew on the
German civil register.Above left
A view of the pilot’s seat
inside G-OLEG.Left
Will Greenwood’s Yak is a
popular and agile airshow
performer.by Richard
Grace’s Air Leasing
company – the Sywell,
Northampton-based organisation
having won an enviable reputation
for the restoration and operation of
warbirds – and Oscar-Golf is now
based at Goodwood aerodrome in
Sussex.
The debut of Will’s Yak-3UA on the
British airshow circuit coincided with
the 75th anniversary of the founding
of the famous Normandie-Niemen
regiment. Celebrations were staged
in France and Russia and Will was
able to demonstrate the fighter to
appreciative British audiences.
EASTERN FRONT
COMRADES
In June 1941 talks took place
between French leader in exile
General Charles de Gaulle and the
Soviet Union regarding greater
co-operation between the two
nations, which included Free French
forces fighting the Germans on the
eastern front.
Groupe
de Chasse
3 ‘Normandie’
(GC 3 – 3rd
Fighter Group)
was created on
September 1,
1942 with an
establishment of 12
pilots and 47 ground
staff, initially at Rayak
in the Lebanon. After a
period of training, it became
operational during the Battle of
Kursk in July 1943.
By November the unit had scored
72 confirmed ‘kills’, but only six of
the original dozen pilots were still
alive. In 1944, GC 3 was expanded
to regiment size and converted to
Yak-9s.
Will’s aircraft depicts the Yak-3
flown by Louis Delfino, who took
command of GC 3 in October 1944.
Delfino earned his wings in July
1934, becoming a reconnaissance
pilot. On May 17, 1940 he became
commandant of GC 2/9’s fourth
squadron. Flying outmoded Bloch
MB.152s, Delfino fought in the
Battle of France, scoring seven ‘kills’
by the end of June 1940.
By 1943 he was in Dakar, Senegal,
on coastal patrols in Curtiss H-75A
Hawks, but yearned for action. He
joined the Russian squadron in
February 1944 and succeeded Pierre
Pouyade as the head of the regiment
on November 12, 1944.
By that time the unit was operating
a mixture of Yak-3s and Yak-9s from
Doubrovka in Russia and Gross-
Kalweithchen in East Prussia. It
was at the latter base that pilots and
ground crew of the unit became thefirst French citizens to enter German
territory.
During this campaign Soviet supremo
Joseph Stalin ordered the regiment to
style itself ‘Normandie-Niemen’ to
commemorate its participation in the
Soviet Offensive. (For more details
about the unit, see the March 2017
FlyPast.)SUCCESS AT A COST
By the end of World War Two, the
Normandie-Niemen regiment had
claimed 273 enemy aircraft shot
down plus another 37 ‘probables’.
This success came at the cost of 42
pilots killed and ten taken prisoner,
while a total of 87 aircraft were lost
in combat.
Thirty of the regiment’s pilots
achieved ‘ace’ status. Delfino was
credited with 16 confirmed victories,
of which seven were achieved in
Russia.
Honours awarded to the unit
included the Légion d’Honneur,
Croix de la Liberation, Croix de
Guerre and Médaille Militaire from
France. The Soviet Union presented
the Normandie-Niemen with the
Order of the Red Banner and the
Order of Alexander Nevsky, plus 11
citations. Four pilots became ‘Heroes
of the Soviet Union’.
Appointed Inspector of the French
Air Force’s fighter wings in 1951,
Delfino finished his career as
Inspector General in 1964. He died
four years later, aged 56. In his native
Nice, the Boulevard du Général
Louis Delfino is named in tribute to
a gifted warrior awarded the Grand
Croix de la Légion d’Honneur,
France’s highest order of merit for
military valour.“The Normandie-Niemen regiment had
claimed 273 enemy aircraft shot down plus
another 37 ‘probables’. This success came
at the cost of 42 pilots killed and ten taken
prisoner”
March 2018 FLYPAST 97