Red Devils Over the Yalu

Igor Ataevich Seidov was born in 1960 in the city of Ashkhabad, in today's Independent Republic of Turkmenistan. In 1983, having graduated from a specialized technical college, he went to work as an engineer for a television company in Ashkhabad, but after moving to Russia in 2001, for a television company in Maikop. At the end of the 1980s, the author became fascinated with aviation history, and in particular the participation of the Soviet Air Force and Soviet Air Defense Force in the Korean War. In 1992, he began his literary work, and has since published more than 20 articles in a variety of Russian, Ukrainian, Czech and Spanish aviation journals. In 1998 he published his first book on the Korean air war, Krasnye d'iavoly na 38-I paralleli [Red Devils on the 38th Parallel] with the assistance of the veteran Soviet fighter pilot A.A. German. The book came out in a second, revised edition in 2007. In 2006, the author co-authored with Iurii Sutiagin a biography of the top Soviet ace in the war Nikolai Vasil'evich Sutiagin, an edited version of which was published in English by Pen & Sword in 2009. In 2010, the Russian publisher Russkie Vitiazi published his latest work, Sovetskie acy koreiskoi voiny [Soviet aces of the Korean War]. Today he continues to live and work in the city of Maikop. Stuart Britton is a freelance translator who resides in Cedar Rapids, IA. He is responsible for a growing number of translated Russian military memoirs, battle histories and operational studies, which saw an explosion in Russia with the opening of secret military archives and the emergence of new Russian scholars who take a more objective look at the events and historical figures. Two works that received prizes or prominent acclaim were Valeriy Zamulin's Demolishing a Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk 1943 and Lev Lopukhovsky's The Viaz'ma Catastrophe, 1941: The Red Army's Disastrous Stand Against Operation Typhoon. Notable recent translations include Valeriy Zamulin's The Battle of Kursk: Controversial and Neglected Aspects and Igor Sdvizhkov's Confronting Case Blue:Briansk Front's Attempt to Derail the German Drive to the Caucasus, July 1942. Future translated publications include Nikolai Ovcharenko's analysis of the defense, occupation and liberation of Odessa, 1941-1944, and Zamulin's detailed study of 7th Guards Army's role and performance in the Battle of Kursk against Army Detachment Kempf.