Download or read book Lentolaivue 24 written by Kari Stenman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated throughout with photographs and detailed aircraft profiles, this book tells the story of the Finnish air force's most successful fighter unit. Finland's premier fighter squadron during World War 2, Lentolaivue 24 (Flying Squadron 24) first saw action during the bloody Winter War of 1939-40, when the Soviet Red Army launched a surprise attack on the small Scandinavian country - the squadron enjoyed great success against numerically superior opposition. LLv 24 was once again in the thick of the action following the outbreak of the Continuation War in June 1941. As this detailed volume shows, LLv 24 claimed 877 kills, and its pilots won five direct and two indirect Mannerheim Crosses (Finland's highest military award) out of a total of 19 presented to all Finnish soldiers. Most top aces also scored the bulk of their kills flying with this unit.