What color where the bubbletop P-39 and P-63 Kingcobras ?
Green ?
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This is in a museum in Finland:
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I asked Chat GPT, as I already investigated the issue with it, but somehow now it comes back with quite a bit more:
Karhila's Finnish victory list records:
- 4 July
- Bf 109G MT-460
- Vatnouri
- claimed P-51. Wikipedia
But the Soviet loss reconstruction for that day identifies:
- 1 Yak-9, 13 IAP, VVS KBF
- failed to return from a mission over the Bay of Vyborg
- time approximately 06:57 Finnish time
- pilot Captain Stepan Danilko, killed/MIA
- the researchers specifically identify this loss with Karhila's claim.
- Karhila's sortie/claim is given as approximately 05:50–07:15, in the Tuppuransaari area.
In other words, this isn't merely "there happened to be a Yak-9 lost somewhere in Finland that day." The Soviet aircraft was a
13 IAP KBF Yak-9 operating in the Bay of Vyborg at virtually the same time and place as Karhila's supposed P-51 engagement. Axis History Forum
There was actually
a second 13 IAP Yak-9 lost on July 4, but that one was brought down by Finnish AA and the pilot,
Nikolai Yegorov, survived after being recovered from the water. So it isn't the obvious candidate for Karhila's victory.
Axis History Forum
This is even more interesting.
Karhila's official victory list says:
- 7 July
- Bf 109G MT-461
- Vatnouri
- claimed P-51. Wikipedia
The Soviet loss reconstruction says:
- 1 Yak-9, 13 IAP, VVS KBF
- lost in an air combat in the Bay of Vyborg
- approximately 21:00
- pilot Junior Lieutenant Rafail Tebenkov, killed/MIA.
- The Finnish research explicitly identifies it with Karhila's Yak-9/P-51 claim.
- Karhila's claim was made in the Uuras area, approximately 19:30–20:45 Finnish time. Axis History Forum
So again we have:
Karhila claim: P-51, Vatnouri/Uuras area, evening
Actual Soviet loss: Yak-9, 13 IAP KBF, Bay of Vyborg, evening
And there were
two additional Yak-9s lost that morning, but these belonged to
14 GIAP and were claimed by German JG 54 pilots Thyben and Frädisch. They were therefore unrelated to Karhila's evening encounter.
Axis History Forum
So the relevant sequence becomes:
| Date | Karhila's claim | Soviet loss matching area/time | Result |
|---|
| 4 July | P-51, Vatnouri/Tuppuransaari | Yak-9, 13 IAP KBF, Bay of Vyborg, 06:57 | Very strong correspondence |
| 5 July | Yak-9, Tuppuransaari | — | Karhila explicitly identified a Yak-9 the next day |
| 7 July | P-51, Vatnouri/Uuras | Yak-9, 13 IAP KBF, Bay of Vyborg, ~21:00 | Very strong correspondence |
| 10 July | Yak-9, Uusikylä | — | Another ordinary Yak-9 identification |
This substantially changes the evidential situation from merely saying
"perhaps Karhila confused Yak-9s with Mustangs."
We now have
two independent Soviet Yak-9 losses from 13 IAP KBF, on the exact two dates on which Karhila claimed P-51s, in the Bay of Vyborg/Uuras–Tuppuransaari/Vatnouri operational area. The researchers who have reconstructed the losses actually associate those Yak-9s with Karhila's claims.
Axis History Forum
And there's an especially telling detail:
13 IAP was flying Yak-9s, while the notion that these were Soviet P-51s has no basis in the operational record. The contemporary Soviet loss documentation therefore gives us a very concrete alternative identification.
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The thing that surprises me is that Karhila obviously
knows what a Yak-9 looks like, yet he misidentifies them as P-51s half the time. Odd, but not as odd as P-51Ds being there on that day...
My guess is there could be a difference of appearance between Yak-9s: Some could be a broken up two-tone of grays, maybe even green and black if they were painted the old way, but some where just a single light gray on top. That might have been enough to thrown him off.
Where there any P-39 VVS units in that area?
