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Command of the 259th Fighter Air Division, 1943

Command of the 259th Fighter Air Division, Afrikanda, Murmansk region, January 1943 In the middle sits division commander, lieutenant-colonel Semen Stepanovich Yachmenev (3 personal / 5 group aerial victories). At the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union he was commander of the 92-th fighter aviation regiment (IAP) formed in the Ukraine where ~80% of pilots were from the local natives. The regiment fought permanently from 22 June until the end of the defense of Kiev on September 16, 1941. The staff of the 92-th IAP broke out of the encirclement, destroying in the ground battles 7 German tanks and two hundred Nazis. Under the command of Yachmenev until August 1942 92-th IAP made 4308 sorties and conducted 843 air battles, shot down 132 aircrafts of Luftwaffe. On the left sits assistant division commander, commander of 609th IAP Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Leonid Akimovich Gal'chenko - famous Soviet ace (24 individual / 12 aerial victories).