"Yak Attack"

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At the controls of his Yakolev Yak-3 bearing the colours of the Normandie-Niémen fighter group, Roland de la Poype obtains his fifteenth aerial victory by downing a Focke-Wulf W 190 on 23 October 1944. It was the group's 182nd aerial victory on the Eastern Front.

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At the controls of his Yakolev Yak-3 bearing the colours of the Normandie-Niémen fighter group, Roland de la Poype obtains his fifteenth aerial victory by downing a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 on 23 October 1944. It was the group's 182nd aerial victory on the Eastern Front.

Roland Paulze d'Ivoy de la Poype was born on 28 July 1920 in Les Pradeaux, France. At the age of 19, he joined the French air force as a cadet pilot and fled to England when Germany invaded France. He flew with the Free French air forces, and later with the Royal Air Force's No 602 Squadron "City of Glasgow". He volunteered to be part of the Free French contingent on the Eastern front, the future G.C. 3 "Normandie".

Arriving in the USSR in November 1942, he obtained his first confirmed aerial victory on August 31, 1943 by destroying a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber. De la Poype often flew with Marcel Albert, another French ace of the "Neu-Neu". He was credited with 16 aerial victories and was made Hero of the Soviet Union.

After the war, de la Poype became the French air attaché in Belgium and later Yugoslavia. He left the air force in 1947 and began a successful career as engineer and businessman. He is, amongst other achievements, the inventor of the DOP "berlingot" package and contributed to the design of the Citroën Mehari car.

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Artist: Roy Grinnell

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