THE TACTICAL SURPRISE WE PAID HEAVILY FOR.

 

          The raid on our capital city of Sophia on April 17th 1944 was the last one from a series of ten larger raids in our airspace. This time as targets selected were the central railway station and the Ilientzi railway station. (marshalling yards were also there) The bombs dropped were smaller in size and there were fewer civilians killed in comparison with the bombings done on January 10th and on March the 30th. This hit however brought to us the lost of too many combat pilots especially from the 2/6-th fighter regiment based near at Vrajdebna airfield not far from our base.

 

The aerial combat was the bitterest one we had over our territory. Half of our aircraft that fought in this battle were either shot down or damaged. It was a "Black" Easter holiday for us with 6 pilots killed, 4 jumped with parachutes, 6 landed in the fields outside the base and many aircraft returned to the base with badly damaged bodies.

 

The day was a religious national holiday and a nice day of the spring.It was not such for us, the fighters from our regiment. Like in all previous days, today we stay again alert, fully equipped and prepared for a take off when the eventual alert signal comes.

 

The signal really was not late today.

At 10.30 a.m. some large formations of 4-engine bombers, escorted and guarded by many fighters, flying around and under the bombers, have gathered   over the Albanian coast. Soon it was undoubtedly clear to our intelligence that the large hostile armada has as indented target our capital city - Sofia.

Our fighter regiment had on that day only 18 fighter planes prepared for combat. Because the loses in aircraft from previous air battles were still not covered.

         

The High Air force command gave order to our regiment to join in air the other regiment from Vrajdebna, before commencing any attack on enemy. Our high commanders however had little or no idea this day what our enemy consist from, the number of coming aircraft, their types etc.

 

The High Command only knew well about the aircraft that have already been in our airspace in previous strikes. Our intelligence was either not effective or may be not sufficient, so that the latest technical and tactical changes, taken by our enemy were not known and no preliminary precautions have been taken to deal with. There was also not any competent office above us that could firmly provide us with the necessary tactical knowledge about ways a modern battle should be carried out with an outnumbering enemy.

 

The High command knew well only that the number of foreign aircraft which are coming today to attack Sofia is large. It was very much obliged to do what it can for a maximal effectiveness in the use our two fighter regiments to defend Sofia. This however did not happen at all. And this was the main reason for the split and not coordinated actions of our two regiments leading to the fatal results of this combat.

 

          A pistol shot at 11.45 a.m.  signaled the take off in air of our regiment. As a leader of regiment today was appointed lieut. Luben Kondakov, the commander of our 2-th squadron. Following the failure of the two fighter regiments to unite in a group, our one has started alone to fight with the approaching enemy formation far enough from Sofia. The first attacks were commenced by us in the regions, northern of the town of Kustendil and the town of Dupnica. Our 1-st and 2-nd fighter squadrons were now ordered to intercept and attack the bombers, while the 3-th one had to keep fight with the enemy's fighter planes.

 

 

          The hostile formations flew already over the Samokov-Radomir line when the second regiment, taking off from Vrajdebna airfield, has engaged itself in the fight. All could be as normal as in previous combats if only our enemy had not surprised us that much this day, causing severe losses of men and aircraft to our fighters. Until today, the bombers were guarded only by “divided body”; two engine Lightning, easily detected from a sufficient distance.

 

This is why we looked around to see such enemy fighter planes, to press attacks on them or to escape from them in time. Today we also noticed the Lightning in due time. But we did not notice today that they are not so many as usually. We also missed to see  that today there are too many "single body" fighters in  our sky, even  more in numbers than the total of our both regiments could make. If some of us still noticed that something is wrong, what they just thought was that our fighters were far more today and that will be our advantage of course.

 

Others just thought that our regiment consisting of "Devoatins" had joined the battle too. What a bitter illusion! It was disclosed soon but not soon enough to avoid many victims and damages. Because those were not our air force planes, there also weren’t German fighters, arriving from the Nish or the Varba airfields. The planes were the American "Mustang" fighter planes. Probably also some Thunderbolts. The silhouette of a Mustang, seen from a distance from 900 feet or so was not different from this of a  Me-109, Gustav plane. If only a specialist could carefully look at them, he could see the slight difference which was only at the wing end-our wings were rounded and those of the Mustang were straight.

 

None of us could notice of course see this. And none of us knew that we will fight with Mustangs today. That was the reason we paid such a very high price in victims and aircraft losses.  The pilots from our other regiment who noticed the Mustangs from a distance just thought that they see planes of our unit

while our unit's pilots took the Mustangs for our mates from the other regiment. Eventually none of us did avoid them as an enemy. This trick may have been even planned in advance by our enemy, may be not, but it was very well exploited in the early battle.

 

So hostile Mustang fighters just waited for us to start our attacks with all our attention concentrated on our targets, and taking good positions, they confidently made their successful attacks from the rear. As usually we engaged ourselves with the bombers, not many of us engaged with the Lightning to keep them away from bombers.

 

 

The Mustangs did  "quietly" flew behind our tails and than suddenly attacked and shot to us. Just when some of the attacked fighters saw bright  traces of shooting around them ,coming from the rear,they looked astonished backwards  and realized the terrifying fact that the  enemy is on their tails. The illusion was sometimes going worst when  even after being attacked by Mustangs,  our fighter still flew

friendly towards the attackers, not recognizing the enemy. Some commanders with shaking plane's wings tried to call the unrecognized enemy for gathering in a group and were  astonished why these did not follow.

 

The illusion was finally detected and told to all by the radio. Now a strange fight has been started when  everyone of us was suspected to be an enemy. The fight in the air looked as a giant bee swarm ball with many angry bees, flying to and from it in all directions. The ball has moved  slowly closer to Sofia city.

Soon a fortress dived down, engulfed in smoke and flames. Than another bomber started  smoking, a third  one too. Our kick back in reply to the  intruders was bitter enough for the enemy but we  gave too many victims.

 

The enemy pilots fought also with all their efforts and with the advantage they had of being  many , they flew upon us non-stop managing to   prevent many of our attacks. In this  not favored situation for us  our regiment's commander Lieut. Luben Kondakov was suddenly surrounded by two 4-s. Being "pressed by the pliers" he somehow maneuvered and slipped out from the crossfire once or twice shooting to any of the followers when possible. Eventually the prevail in numbers they had decided the outcome. We were engaged in fight and we couldn't come to help him  but we saw how his plane was shot and crashed to the ground in flames. One more of us, a nice fellow and a capable pilot and commander was lost. The plane being flown by the  commander of the second Vrajdebna regiment was also hit. He managed to bale out but in the hurry  did not unplugged his radio-bonnet and was "hanged"  on the tensioned radio-cable at 18000 feet above the ground. He has temporary lost consciousness but luckily  had waked up again just before falling on the ground.

 

 

 We was than hospitalized for along time with blood in his eyes and was always with dark glasses on them. He was not allowed to fly any more. 

 

Several hostile fighters managed to  surround our sec. lieut. Ivan Stefanov. He struggled very bravely, trying to slip away from the fire circle around him but he did not. The enemy was quicker and again numerous. A serial shot hit the fuel tank of his plane, the plane was engulfed in flames and dived down to the area west from the town of Dupnitza.  Kondakov was a close friend of me, we were such since our first steps in the aviation. His death has hurt me deeply. And this of Ivan Stefanov. He was also a good fellow .

I flew forgetting that I am on a fighter plane. I was dazed for several minutes not seeing with my eyes and not aware of the danger around me. I prepared to commence an attack still thinking about the tragic ends of the pilots who died one by one in front of me. "Yesterday was one, today another, and who is the next tomorrow? Always the same way-in the flames of their own planes."

 

But the combat  wakes me up and occupies again my mind. I stopped thinking about the killed mates and started my attack. I press firmly the gun's trigger decided to revenge for the killed pilots. The battle turned  successful for several of our  fighters, they  did seriously damaged some of the bombers but couldn't trace them far to watch results, being too engaged with  many fighters of the enemy.

 

Lieut. Nikolai Yordanov, commander of the 2-nd squadron , pulling out from an attack saw a white smoke after the right engines of a bomber. Sec. Lieut. Boris Damev saw from a distance of 150 feet,  the light of an explosion in the tail of a Liberator, it was seen by his wingmen serg. Stefan Konzov too.

Serg. Dako Dakov has made 3 attacks on a bomber at 9000 feet height .He  noticed an explosion in the tail of the bomber after his first attack and another explosion in the  left engines, after the second attack. No result has been seen after his 3-th attack.

 

The rest of our regiment's fighters   returned to the base of Bojuriste after  finishing their ammunitions. Many of the planes being flown by them had punched bodies or wings. The 2-nd fighter regiment  from  Vrajdebna airfield  however was badly hit  this day, loosing both men and aircraft. They were left with only one  commander of squadron-lieut. Asen Kovachev, who was schoolmate of me from the fighter pilots school.

 

The regiment lost too many good pilots this day  but still  the high spirit and readiness for protecting the homeland was alive. Although not so many of them now the pilots of this regiment participated in the next  battles taking off in air from the Karlovo airfield, where they were soon relocated in order to fill up again the lack of  pilots and planes. Besides the commander of the regiment, who survived after parachuting, two more pilots saved their lives with jumping by parachute. Lieut. Nedialko Bonchev jumped with parachute after he rammed a bomber in its tail, thus executing the second "live torpedo hit" in our aviation history (*see the added story bellow). Later in the "fatherland's war" against the German troops which Bulgaria started after change of our government in Sofia took place, Bonchev engaged in a combat ,jumped again with parachute but was captured by the Germans in Yugoslavia.

 

The lost men on this day from the 2-nd regiment were all good and brave pilots-lieut. Arnaudov, lieut. Popov, sec.lieut. Vesselin Rachev and a sec. sergeant. Our air-force fighters were given  a very good lesson in this "Black Easter battle". It was the lethal warning to us fighters  that in air we must always take an unidentified  plane as an enemy and not trust him until the moment when his signs of identification are clearly known by us. Our high command was very confused from the bad outcome of the battle. The command obviously very concerned about our future  promised to get  some help to us very soon. Probably there were receiving some promises from our German ally . 

 

In consequence of the  requests for help our command probably made , a meeting between the German and Bulgarian commanders of fighter regiments was arranged, and a German squadron of fighter planes was based at Varba airfield, near Radomir.

 

 

It seemed that the promise for a vigorous help  was not fulfilled. Some High command officers visited us in the airfield of Bojuriste and told us that soon we will be  enforced to become in ratio 1:1 with our enemy's fighters. We didn't believe  much them and we were right. All the enforcement we got were only those  15  German fighters, based in Varba. Not only the ratio remained the same ,it even became worse - 1 : 20 or higher in enemy's benefit. Although with decreased number of fighters, we  continued to kept ourselves ready to protect our capital city any time. What however has changed since was that our trust in the higher political and military command has been lost.