Yekaterina Budanova - Last Mission

Last Mission

On 19 July 1943 she flew her last mission, near Novokrasnovka. That morning she took off for an escort mission and near Antracit in Luhansk Oblast she was involved in a dogfight with Bf 109s. Inna Pasportnikova later recalled:

"She spotted three Messerschmitt going on the attack against a group of bombers. Katia attacked and diverted the enemy. A desperate fight developed in the air. Katia managed to pick up an enemy aircraft in her sight and riddle him with bullets. This was the fifth aircraft she killed personally. Katia's fighter rapidly soared upward and swooped down on a second enemy aircraft. She "stitched" it with bullets, and the second Messer, streaming black smoke, escaped to the west. But Katia's red starred fighter had been hit; tongues of flame were already licking at the wings."

Budanova managed to put out the fire and force landed in no-man's land. By the time local farmers came to pull her from the aircraft, she was already dead. They buried her on the outskirts of the village of Novokrasnovka. The pilots who shot her down were Georg Schwientek of JG 52 or Emil Bitsch, of 8./JG 3, the only two pilots that claimed a Yak-1 on Novokrasnovka on 19 July 1943.