Memoirs of a Soviet Long-Range Aviation Navigator — 250+ Combat Sorties, 1941–1945

[Larmeesol]

Hello,

I would like to share a book that my family published in 2025 from the memoirs of my grandfather, Vladimir F. Borzhimsky, a Soviet Long-Range Aviation navigator and WWII veteran.

The book is titled “Long-Range Aviation Navigator. About Friends and Comrades…” and is based on his own memoirs written after the war, together with materials and stories about his fellow airmen preserved in our family archive.

Borzhimsky served as a navigator in Soviet Long-Range Aviation and flew more than 250 combat sorties. His memoirs cover wartime operations connected with the Leningrad Front, Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, Königsberg and Berlin, as well as his final combat sortie in April 1945.

A substantial part of the book is also devoted to the men he served with — aircrews who returned from missions and those who did not, their combat experiences, captivity, and the everyday life of flying and ground personnel.

These are not modern historical reconstructions. The texts were written by a direct participant in the events and remained in our family archive for many years. We decided to preserve them as a book and produced a small family edition of only 50 copies.

The book is in Russian and was published in St. Petersburg in 2025.

I am attaching several photographs and original pages so that anyone interested in Soviet aviation history can see what the publication contains.

If anyone here is researching Soviet Long-Range Aviation, its units or aircrews, I would also be very interested to hear from you. There may be information in the memoirs that is useful beyond our family history.

Русскоязычным участникам форума буду рада подробнее рассказать о книге и ответить на вопросы.

[Swoose]

The aircraft on the cover of the book looks like an older SB bomber used early in the war.  Did he fly on that type of plane?  What other type of aircraft did he serve as a navigator on?  You and your family are very fortunate to have that memoir.

[Sita]

4 часа назад, Swoose сказал:

The aircraft on the cover of the book looks like an older SB bomber used early in the war.  Did he fly on that type of plane?  What other type of aircraft did he serve as a navigator on?  You and your family are very fortunate to have that memoir.

DB-3 more likely