During the late 1930s in the USSR, Joseph Stalin was doing the whole 'cancel culture' thing before it was... well, such things have never been 'cool', so let's just say that he really went to town while clearing out his friends list. In what came to be known by most as 'The Great Purge', Uncle Joe began a paranoia-fueled campaign of oppression that affected hundreds of thousands within Russia. Many were sent to the gulag labor camps or to plain 'ole prisons, while many others were simply 'disappeared'.
With talents and skills making them too valuable to toss into the gulag or to simply 'disappear', many from various areas within the industrial sector were sent to prison, including an aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer named Vladimir Petlyakov, who had been accused of sabotage, espionage, and membership in the Russian Fascist Party. Initially sent to a plain 'ole pokey, Vlad was soon moved to a 'sharashka', a special prison where talented guys like him could continue to work in their areas of expertise, albeit under close scrutiny. This particular sharashka, located near Moscow, was reserved exclusively for aircraft designers and aeronautical engineers, and soon after his arrival Vlad was tasked with designing a high altitude fighter. Then, after requirements had changed from fighter to dive bomber, he was ordered to pull a redesign, with the result being the Petlyakov Pe-2. Despite classification as a dive bomber, the Pe-2 became quite a versatile type for the Red Air Force. In addition to its primary functions as an attack aircraft and bomber, the Pe-2 filled the roles of heavy fighter, night fighter, and reconnaissance bird. The aircraft was quite fast and was able to evade German fighters more often than not, making it one of the more successful bomber/attack types in the Red Air Force early on in the 'Great Patriotic War'. It was also the most numerically significant Soviet twin-engine bomber, with more than 11,000 being built.
Your blogmeister doesn't know Red Stars all that well, and has both vague and conflicting info as to the who/what/where/why/when and how of the Pe-2s shown in the photo below. All he knows is that it's a pretty cool shot of a cool lookin' jailbird.
Enjoy, and remember: if you ever wind up in the slammer, single out the biggest, toughest lookin' guy on your first day and clobber-hell-outta the SOB...
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