The book "Silhouettes of aircraft of the USSR. A memo to a Red Army soldier." Patrikeev F., Moscow, Military Academy of the USSR, 1941.

The book "Silhouettes of aircraft of the USSR. A memo to a Red Army soldier." Patrikeev F., Moscow, Military Academy of the USSR, 1941

The book presented in the Stargift collection does not contain texts and instructions, it consists of illustrations. The title page of the publication is decorated with the inscription: "Fighter, commander, political worker — study and memorize the silhouettes of your planes! Knowing your planes, you can quickly identify enemy planes!" The clear and precise drawings show bombers, attack aircraft, naval aviation, fighter jets and passenger planes. And, of course, from the first pages, the reader is shown how to distinguish a Soviet military aircraft from a civilian one — in a military aircraft, red stars are applied to the wings from below and on both sides of the vertical tail fin, and in a civilian aircraft, the inscription "USSR", a dash, a letter and a number are applied to the sides on the fuselage and on the wings.

The military was founded in 1919 and still exists today. From the act of admission of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR Voroshilov K.E. as of May 1, 1940: "In terms of publishing books by the Military Publishing House, it is necessary to provide for the publication of literature on such topical issues of army combat training as: general tactics, tactics of small units, headquarters service, home front service and the armies of neighboring countries, and also, reference literature for the command staff of special branches of the armed forces."