Thank you very much for the willingness to help us. The Anglo-American squadrons with crews are no longer needed in Transcaucasia. The main battles are being fought, and will be fought, on the Central Front and in the Voronezh area. I should be most grateful if you would expedite the despatch of aircraft, especially fighters, but without crews, whom you now need badly for use in the areas mentioned.

A feature of the Soviet Air Force is that we have more than enough pilots but suffer from a shortage of machines.