Leytenant Anatoliy Vasilevich Sitnikov 1920 - 25 May 1943
Sitnikov was born in Grozny in 1920.
In May 1943, Serzhant Sitnikov served in the 71 IAP-KBF. During this time, the unit was equipped with Polikarpov I-153s.
In the afternoon on 21 May 1943, a Finnish Messerschmitt section took off from Utti. The formation was led by luutnantti Evinen and the wingmen were kersantti Leino and kersantti Mauno Kirjonen (Kirjonen had previously been shot down by a I-153 flown by
Vladimir Shavrov on 22 July 1941).
The Finnish aircraft met a formation of Russian I-153s over Lavansaaari and Kirjonen reported:
"We engaged 7-8 enemy I-153 fighters at the height of 1000m NW of Lavansaari. I attacked head -on against two of the Russians. When I looked down I saw a MT attack them from below. I made a turn and after this I saw three machines go down. The MT had lost 2/3 of its right wing and one of the I-153s had lost both wings on the other side. The planes crashed near each other 5-8 km west from the northern tip of Lavansaari. The other I-153 crashed south of these two. I saw one pilot to land with his parachute and Evinen told me that it was a Russian one because the parachute was a square one."
What he had seen was Serzhant Sitnikov making a “taran”-attack on the Finnish Messerschmitt Bf109G MT-228 (W.Nr 13890) over Lavansaari and safely parachuted after the ramming.
The Finnish pilot luutnantti Tauno Saalasti of 2/LeLv 34 was killed when his aircraft crashed at 15:28. Saalasti was 27 years old and was from Sippola.
Four days later, on 25 May, Sitnikov performed a second “taran” attacked when he rammed and destroyed another Bf109 over Lavansaari Island but this time he wasn’t lucky and was killed when his fighter crashed.
Sitnikov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Sitnikov ended the war with 2 biplane victories.
Soviet biplane fighter aces - Anatoliy Sitnikov