Expedition Leaves For the Former Airfield

Szöveg: László Szűcs | 2012. augusztus 14. 8:58

The Hungarian expedition that left Szolnok for Ilovskoye, Russia on August 13 comprises soldiers and civilians. During the 11-day field trip, the researchers and historians are going to comb those former sites on the one-time Eastern front that played an important role in the history of Hungarian aviation and the legal predecessors of the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base.

The fighters of Szolnok used to be stationed at Ilovskoye airfield, and this is the area where Vice-Regent vitéz István Horthy lost his life. The 70th anniversary of the air disaster falls on August 20, 2012", WO1 Károly Magó, a staff member of the Szolnok Aviation Museum and the leader of the expedition told us.

He added that at the time of the Don breakthrough the airfield had been declared a defensive area where troops from Szolnok, Cluj-Napoca and Mátyásföld were stationed. A 750-strong force was fighting on the frontline until the 4th Corps withdrew and the Hungarian soldiers separated from their units were recovered.

“Besides the airfield, we are going to locate István Horthy’s crash site, and then we move on to find the memorial to the tragedy that was erected not exactly at that crash site", Károly Magó informed us.

The next task will be to conduct a complete survey of Ilovskoye airfield, since at present there are no sketches or maps showing how this airfield looked like 70 years ago. The surviving photos show some buildings, and by looking at the satellite images accessible via the internet one can clearly discern the former aircraft stands too. While at the airfield, the expedition hopes to find some traces suggestive of the aircraft having been disassembled, as they presume that the planes left on the ground were disassembled after the Russian breakthrough, the leader of the expedition christened “Szolnok-Ilovskoye 1942–2012" stressed.

The next stop on the field trip will be at Podserednye, a small village close to the airfield where the Hungarians attempted to break out of the Russian encirclement. It was at the fork of the village where Lt.-Col. Kálmán Zétényi-Csukás, the commander of the Szolnok unit died – he was the highest-ranking Hungarian air force officer who fell in World War II. Maj. Roland Kálinger, the military chaplain of the expedition will celebrate here a field mass for the memory of the victims, WO1 Magó told us, adding that finally the expedition will visit the crash site of a plane near Uriv, because this aircraft presumably had Hungarian marking on it.