shot down two Fw 190s on 5 April near Roslavl while escorting a Petlyakov Pe-2 bomber. Eight days later, three pilots were shot down; three Fw 190s were also shot down. The squadron fought in the July Battle of Kursk, in which group commander Jean Tulasne and deputy commander Albert Littolff were killed. Pierre Pouyade, who joined the squadron after deserting from Vichy in Indochina, became commander. It became the focus of Soviet propaganda, and Wilhelm Keitel decreed that any French pilots were to be shot on sight. In August, French mechanics commanded by Alex Michel and Louis Duprat were sent to the Middle East and replaced by Soviet mechanics at the order of Captain Sergueï Agavelian. On 11 October, de Gaulle awarded the squadron the Order of Liberation. Only six pilots remained from the original group, which had 72 air victories, by the time GC 3 moved to Tula on 6 November. In their first year at the front, they claimed 86 kills (77 confirmed, 9 "probables") and 16 enemy aircraft damaged against a loss of 25 Yak fighters. Second campaign (1944) The squadron become a regiment in 1944, with a fourth escadrille reinforced by North African pilots. After training on the more-advanced Yakovlev Yak-9D fighter in Tula, the regiment rejoined the front for its second campaign. The campaign was fought near Doubrovka and Gross-Kalweitchen (in East Prussia) until 27 November 1944. The following day, Joseph Stalin gave the regiment the name Nieman (making it Normandie-Niemen) in recognition of its participation in the battles to liberate the Neman River region; it was common to give Soviet units the battle honour names of places at which they had fought. On 16 October, the first day of an unsuccessful offensive against East Prussia, the regiment's pilots claimed 29 enemy aircraft destroyed with no losses; twelve more German aircraft were shot down the following day, again with no losses, for a two-day record. The regiment was based in Germany by November, the first French troops in Germany since the September 1939 Saar Offensive. At the end of the month, Colonel Pierre Pouyade ordered the 303rd Aerial Division emblem (to which Normandie-Niemen belonged) painted on the Yaks. Pouyade was released from command at the end of the year; replaced by commander Louis Delfino, he returned to France with other veteran pilots. By the end of 1944, 201 kills were claimed. The regiment went