CONAN

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CONAN's Medals:

	Order of the Red Star CONAN was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his first aerial kill during a sortie.

	Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class CONAN was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War for shooting down 4 enemy aircraft during the Korean campaign. WOOF!

	Order of Glory 2nd Class CONAN was awarded the Order of Glory 2nd Class for shooting down 2 enemy fighters in KOREA during the 14.00 hrs mission.

	Order of the Badge of Honour CONAN was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour For contributions in the establishment of the Expert Wingman Program for the 69.GIAP

CONAN's Story:

My name is Herbert Moreton Pinfold but everybody here calls me CONAN. My God! What a ghastly name! How could one of His Majesty's loyal servants find himself flying with this rag-tag bunch of malingering gits? The story is too long for this page, but I suppose an abbreviated version is called for.

My history of flying with the VVS goes back to visits I made in the summer of 1937 to both Frunze and Monino for summer studies while I was teaching at Cranwell. I wonder if I would have gone if I could have known what lay beyond that door! As it is, I have made so many friends here, I think I have a little borscht running through my veins!

After that summer, I returned to Cranwell for one last term. I was then posted to the Trans-Jordan for a year - I still have sand in my kit! - where I specialized in dealing with unsavoury foreigners. This talent would land me in the pot later! The winds of war began to blow that summer of 1939 and I returned to England to train on the Hawker Hurricane and was posted to RAF Northholt with the Game Cocks of No. 43 Squadron just in time for the opening of the Battle of Britain. I found I learnt quite a lot under Squadron Leader J. V. Badger and was privileged to have flown with him the day he won his DFC. We moved to Tangmere that August as Fighter Command kept us hopping all about and we were getting set to move yet again to Usworth, when I was notified I was promoted Squadron Leader and was to assume command of No. 56 Squadron which was then at North Weald.

I flew and fought with No. 56 for just five months - a lifetime it seemed - with some of the finest chaps a man could be honored to command. We hopped about to Boscombe Down, Middle Wallop and back to North Weald in that short eternity until Eddie Ryder relieved me in January of 41 and I went up to Fighter Command to work in the Operations Center. In June, the 23rd as it is etched in my memory the day after Germany launched Barbarossa, I got a call from Headquarters to Go have a chat with Lord Dowding about my future. You can imagine the sinking feeling!

It was a rather one sided chat! Lord Dowding thanked me for my service and said my name had come up in a conversation just that morning with the Americans who were having secret discussions with us about providing aircraft to both us and the Russians. I recalled with dread the fact that I had spent a summer in Russia before the war and had experience working with the less civilized side of aviation from my Trans-Jordan experience. Oh, my! He was posting me to the Soviets to be a liaison! Not only that, I would be undercover as they didn't want it known I would be flying with them nor that we would be helping the Yanks move Hurricanes and P-39s to them.

I first showed up in Leningrad on the first of July before Jerry had gotten too close and flew for a brief stint with the 249th IAP. What a great, but very unlucky group! Heroic fighters but most were shot down - I thrice nursed a badly damaged LaGG-3 back to base myself - and the VVS disbanded the unit and sent several of the pilots to the 69th Guards and so, not long after, here I am!

I love flying with these surly chaps! Once you get to know them they are as civilized as a daily diet of Vodka and Borscht allows! They are great pilots but about the most worthless bunch of officers I have ever seen! Vodka and malingering and malingering and Vodka! It's a bloody wonder they ever find an operative brain cell to use for flight! I spend most of my time flying, planning training (if only they would listen!) and trying to blend in as the lowly Starshina they awarded have promoted my undercover character.

Well, back to the salt mines! I shouldn't say that as they actually sent one of the former commanders there a short while back! If I can get this mangy poodle they keep for a mascot to stop humping my leg for a moment, I think I'll go give Jerry a bit of what for!