Mustang over Finland?

Hello members.On the webside virtualpilot .fi one can read that Kyosti Karhila downed two Mustangs over Vatnouri(4.7.+7.7. 44).I cannot find this location,but I assue it is in finland.My question :how comes a Mustang over Finland?Navigation error?Regards,Achi

I know nothing about this instance, but there are several options.

1. They very well could have been on a recon mission. Remember that Finland was allied with Germany for quite some time.

2. As far as I know the USSR received some P-51s from the RAF for testing. Maybe they were some of these.

3. The aircraft were misidentified and were actually Russian P-39 Airacobra's.

I honestly have no information on any of this however. Maybe someone else here might be able to shed some light on it.

Hello Achi
they were in fact Yak-9s of 13 IAP, KBF.

Juha

did a quick search and found this...much to my surprise. the US must have given some of the older A or B models to the soviets....

MH: Another unusual plane on your victory list is the North American P-51 Mustang of which the Soviets received only 10. Could you describe your two encounters with the Mustangs?
Juutilainen: The only time we saw Mustangs was during the peak of the Soviet summer offensive of 1944. The Mustangs we met were older models, with Allison engines. On June 26 we had just been escorting Bristol Blenheim bombers and were returning over the front line when I saw a Mustang approaching me from my right side in a right turn with his belly toward me. I yanked the throttle to idle to let it slide past me. The Mustang pilot, however, recovered his turn and then saw me. He also pulled his throttle back, and I saw long flames backfiring from his exhaust pipes. He also kicked his rudder to slow down, but I was doing the same thing, and because I had started sooner than he, the Mustang slid right out in front of me. The Mustang pilot then went to full power and tried to shake me off his tail with a climbing turn. In so doing he made his last mistake and flew directly in front of my gunsight. I fired, and soon the Mustang was burning in the forest near Tammisuo. Two days later my section was returning from a reconnaissance mission and made the usual detour to have an aerial engagement before returning to base. Soon we saw an Il-2 formation coming toward us escorted by three Mustangs. One of them pulled left and the other two went into a dive. In a tight diving turn I went after the airplane that had broken left, firing short bursts to break the pilot's mental backbone. It worked, for he apparently got nervous and went into a dive. The pilot kicked his rudder, but much too rapidly, only causing the tail to waggle while his plane stayed rather comfortably in the middle of my sight. The target was at an altitude of about 150 feet when it caught fire and crashed into the tall pine trees.

from website:
Ilmari Juutilainen, page 02

bobbysocks said:

MH: Another unusual plane on your victory list is the North American P-51 Mustang of which the Soviets received only 10. Could you describe your two encounters with the Mustangs?
...
from website:
Ilmari Juutilainen, page 02

Click to expand...

Misidentification again, see:
Discrepancies in Ilmari Juutilainen's Aerial Victories

Hello
in short the question of Finns meeting Mustangs over Karelian Isthmus during Summer 44 was simply that pilots were told that they might meet Mustangs and after that, not very surprisingly, pilots began to report contacts with Mustangs, which were in fact misidentified Yaks.

Juha

i can see how that would/could be. i just did a quickie search and came up with that. diving into it more i can see where there wasnt operational mustangs there. the soviets had a few from shuttle missions ( the 357th took part in some of them ) and left a few planes that broke down there. kind of an amusing side ...i found an book..Aviation lend-lease to Russia: historical observations By Igorʹ Petrovich Lebedev @

Aviation lend-lease to Russia ... - Google Books

anyways HE had some of the fighter IDs all messed up...i wonder if the russian knew what they were flying ...

I see where this fin ace was told by the intelligence officer that he had shot down a P 38 as well...

Thank you all for reply.Exchanging with Yak 9 is reasonable for me.Regards,Achi