normandie-niemen regiment

Normandie-Niemen Regiment was a unit of Free French volunteer fighter pilots who fought Nazi Germany alongside the Red Army during the World War II. The first 12 Free French pilots were assigned to the Soviet Union on August 17, 1942. On September 1 they formed two squadrons assigned to the 303rd Fighter Aviation Division of the 1st Air Army under Major General Zakharov. They were equipped with Soviet Yak fighters and initially named 3rd Fighter Group Normandie. Pilots began active service on March 22, 1943. The group fought in three campaigns and in the battles for Smolensk, Belarus, Lithuania and East Prussia. After July 1944 Stalin renamed the group Normandie-Niemen and gave it the status of a regiment after it had participated in the Soviet victory at Alitous on the Niemen River. The German Army Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, in turn, ordered all the captured Normandie pilots shot. By the end of the war the group had grown to four squadrons. Pilots accrued 273 confirmed air victories and 36 probable ones. On October 17, 1943 Charles de Gaulle awarded the units the citation of Companion of the Liberation. Four of the pilots were awarded with the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The pilots returned to France on June 20, 1945.

Normandie-niemen Regiment

See also