 Nowotny flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 E @-@ 7 " White 2 " on his 24th operational mission on 19 July 1941 and claimed his first two enemy aircraft , both Polikarpov I @-@ 153 biplanes of Voenno @-@ Vozdushnye Sily ( VVS — Military Air Forces ) KBF 's 12 OIAE / 61 BAB , over Saaremaa . He was shot down in the same engagement by Alexandr Avdeev , also in a Polikarpov I @-@ 153 . According to Soviet archives , no Soviet aircraft was lost in the engagement . Nowotny spent three days in a dinghy in the Gulf of Riga – on one occasion almost being run down by a Soviet destroyer – until finally being washed ashore on the Latvian coast . 
