AT THE TIME OF PUBLICATION, NO SINGLE VOLUME IN ENGLISH HAD EVER APPEARED IN THE WEST DEALING WITH THIS INTRIGUING SUBJECT AREA. ONCE RESTRICTIONS RELAXED IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION, THE RECORDS OF THEIR ELITE PILOTS' DEEDS - DETAILED IN THIS BOOK - CAME TO LIGHT. Although initially equipped with very poor aircraft, and robbed of effective leadership thanks as much to Stalin's purges in the late 1930s as to the efforts of the Luftwaffe, Soviet fighter pilots soon turned the tables through the use of both lend-lease aircraft like the Hurricane, Spitfire, P-39 and P-40, and home-grown machines like the MiG-3, LaGG-3/5, Lavochkin La-5/7/9 and the Yak-1/3.