To the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory! The most complete edition of Artem Drabkin's bestsellers “I Fought on the Il-2”! BOTH BOOKS IN ONE VOLUME! A unique collection of interviews with attack pilots of the Great Patriotic War. The whole truth about one of the most dangerous military professions. “Our Red Army needs Il-2 aircraft like bread, like air” - these are the words of I.V. Stalin's words, voiced in 1941, remained relevant until the very end of the war. Our fighters called the famous attack aircraft “a flying tank” and “humpbacked” (not only for the characteristic shape of the fuselage, but also because “the “silts” endured the entire war on its hump”), and the Germans dubbed it “Iron Gustav” and “Black Death” “However, contrary to post-war myths, the Il-2 cannot be considered “unsurpassed” or “invulnerable” - its armor protected only from bullets and shrapnel, and its flight characteristics were quite ordinary. It was made a formidable weapon by those who fought, died and won on the “silts” - the pilots and gunners of the attack air regiments of the Red Army Air Force. You will hear their living voices, their frank stories in this book: what they had to see and experience, what it was like to carry out bombing strikes under hurricane anti-aircraft fire and repel the attacks of enemy fighters, for which the “silts” were nicknamed the “Black Death” and what the price was paid for the Great Victory.