Zakarpattia Bf 109 G-6

[comrade harps]

Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6
a/c 1B, 1st Fighter Eskadrylʹyi, Zakarpattia Army Air Corps
Personal mount of Captain Hennadiy Zubov, January 1944



Zakarpattia emerged as an independent nation in the aftermath of WW1. Occupied by the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was part of the short-lived nationalist West Ukrainian National Republic and was then occupied by Romania before being invaded by the Hungarian Soviet Republic in the summer of 1919. Claimed as the Ukrainian Zakarpattia Oblast by the Bolsheviks, the region was also subject to significant or total territorial claims by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. To resolve these conflicting claims it was the French who, at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, successfully pushed to create an independent nation. The small nation's sovereignty was guaranteed in part by the 1919 Paris Treaty and by its membership of the Little Entente and treaties with Poland and Romania.




Zakarpattia survived the claims made on it during the periods of the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award thanks largely to the servile efforts of a pro-German government installed as the result of an August 1938 military coup. Zakarpattia joined the Tri-Partite Pact (Axis) in July 1940 and survived intact the Hungarian territorial claims associated with Second Vienna Award of November. The Zakarpattia Expeditionary Army (ZEA) invaded Ukraine on 1 July 1941.




When the Red Army launched the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive in Ukraine in late December 1943, the Zakarpattia Army Air Corps had two fighter squadrons committed to the front. These were the 1st and 4th Fighter Eskadrylʹyi, both equipped with the Bf 109 G-6. Captain Hennadiy Zubov was Zakarpattia's leading ace with 27 confirmed kills at the start of the campaign on 24 December 1943 and on 7 January 1944, he scored his 30th kill.



Captain Zubov's personal mount was a Bf 109 G-6 marked 1B (aircraft B of the 1st Fighter Eskadrylʹyi) and painted with a fox on the cowling (signifying his status as an ace). Of note is that the plane carries Luftwaffe-standard balkenkreuz on its wing surfaces. Balkenkreuz were adopted by the Zakarpattia Army Air Corps in February 1942 to replace their yellow and blue roundels, which were prone to being confused with the blue and yellow shields carried by the aircraft of the Ukrainian Red Army Air Force. However, the fuselage roundels were replaced not by balkenreuz, but by adding blue stripes to either side of the yellow eastern Front theatre identification band, thus retaining the nationalistic colours of Zakarpattia.



Recalled home for a series of celebrations and to receive a Knights Cross, Captain Zubov was posed next to his personal mount for a series of propaganda pictures on the 9th of January. A week later, more pictures of Zubov standing next to his plane were taken for propaganda purposes, this time by Red photographers. Seeing which way the war was going and disgusted by the Nazi control over his homeland, Zubov had defected. Joining the Ukrainian Red Army Air Force, he rose to the rank of Regiment Leader.

[zenrat]

Looks good comrade.

[NARSES2]

Looks good comrade.

Does indeed