BLACK RED CROSS STAR – The Air War Over the Eastern Front – VOLUME 2 Resurgence January-June 1942

By this time, Kapitan Dunayev’s main group was twenty-five miles to the east. As Shumilov started climbing in an easterly direction, he suddenly noticed tracer bullets passing on his right. He looked behind him, and the blood froze in his veins: Seven Bf 109s came diving against him.

Shumilov immediately throttled back. The MiG-3 appeared to stand still in the air, threatening to stall-a hazardous manoeuvre, but it succeeded. Three Bf 109s flashed past Shumilov and then broke in separate directions, probably to avoid gunfire from the MiG-3. Of course, the German pilots could not know that the Soviet fighter had no bullets to send against them. Unarmed, outnumbered seven to one, and with a terrible speed disadvantage, Shumilov realized that there was only one thing to do. When a fourth Bf 109 came dashing beneath his MiG, the Soviet pilot increased speed and pushed the stick forward.

The next moment, the propeller of his fighter struck the Messerschmitt’s cockpit. The impact was terrible. In a fraction of a second, the rotating propeller blades of the MiG-3 shattered the glass canopy of the Bf 109 and shredded the German pilot to the waist. Then, as both aeroplanes shivered and shook, the MiG’s propeller and reductor were violently torn away and the Soviet plane caught fire. Shumilov jettisoned his canopy and attempted to bail out, but the air current squeezed him against the fuselage of the descending aircraft. He felt he was falling helplessly to his death together with his doomed machine. For the second time in less than a week, burning fuel scorched his face and body.