This Russian anti-aircraft battery, commanded by Senior Lieut. N. Sosynov, had shot down five enemy aircraft. Accurate marksmanship of such men as Sosynov’s, in conjunction with brilliant work by the Soviet Air Force, played great havoc with the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front. A competent observer estimated in 1943 that the total German losses in Russia to be some 40,000 planes, leaving the Luftwaffe there a mere shadow of its former self, and consisting largely of obsolescent types.
