Photos of soldiers and officers of the Normandy-Neman squadron with Soviet pilots

An extremely rare front-line photograph in good collector's condition. There are traces of pasting into the album on the back. The size is 118*172 mm. From the front-line album of an officer of the 123rd Bomber Regiment. Guarantee of authenticity.

Normandie—Niemen (French: Normandie-Niemen) was a French fighter aviation regiment (1 IAP Normandie— Niemen) that fought during World War II against the Axis forces on the Soviet-German front in 1943-1945. The regiment took part in the Battle of Kursk in 1943, the Belorussian operation in 1944, and the battles to defeat German troops in East Prussia in 1945. On October 16 and 17, Normandy, which participated in Operation Gumbinnen, an unsuccessful offensive against East Prussia, broke the record by shooting down 41 German aircraft without losses. On November 28, 1944, for military services and courage shown during air battles during the battles for the liberation of Lithuania and during the crossing of the Neman River, by order of the Supreme Commander—in-Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces, I. V. Stalin, the regiment was awarded the honorary name "Nemansky", and since then it has been called the Normandy-Neman regiment. During the fighting on the Soviet-German front of World War II, the regiment's pilots flew 5,240 combat missions, conducted about 900 aerial battles, scored 273 confirmed victories, 36 unconfirmed, and damaged more than 80 German aircraft. The losses during the fighting amounted to 42 pilots. In total, 96 combat personnel passed through the squadron during the fighting.