The Il-2 on display at the National Air and Space Museum, a two-place version sometimes referred to as the Il-2M3, is an example of the most effective of the Il-2 variants. This aircraft, assigned to the 211th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment of the 307th Ground Attack Division, was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on March 15, 1944. The Il-2 was operating alone near the village of Pustoshka, possibly defending a battalion named after Aleksandr Matrosov. The battalion was wiped out and the Il-2 crashed on the ice covering Kryakovsky Lake and then sank. The gunner, Sergeant Goncharov, was killed; the pilot, Lt Ivan Maksimovich Andreyev, born in 1919, escaped alive but was captured. He survived the war and returned to Russia. In about 1992, the Il-2 was discovered by a Canadian aircraft broker and removed from the lake. It was sent to an aircraft repair facility in St. Petersburg, where it was restored by Russian aircraft mechanics, some of whom had worked on Il-2s during the War. It was donated to NASM by the U.S. Army Center for Military History on April 3, 1995. NASM seeks further information on the fate of Lieutenant Andreyev, as well as unit histories of the 211th Ground Attack Aviation Regiment and the 307th Ground Attack Division.
