When
No. 151 Wing RAF arrived in 1941, the airfield was the base of the 72nd SAP-SF (Composite Aviation Regiment-Northern Fleet) commanded by Colonel Georgii Gubanov, part of the Northern Fleet Air Force (Major-General
A. A. Kuznetsov) of the Naval Air Fleet. The 4th Squadron of the 72 SAP-SF (Captain
Boris Safonov), flying
Polikarpov I-16 fighters, was also based at Vaenga. The airfield had an adequate surface of compacted sand, a large oval about long, on its east-west axis. The airfield was in a bowl surrounded by hillocks and woods and was found to get very, very bumpy in wet weather. The front line was about to the west and the airfield facilities were almost invisible, being well dispersed, dug in and camouflaged among the hillocks and growths of silver birch. There was a tarmac road about long along which lay buildings but there were only cart tracks and paths linking the buildings and huts. The airfield was under occasional attack by the and Russian soldiers guarded the airfield from positions in the woods around the perimeter. With the autumn rains and the number of lorries driving people to and fro, the tracks quickly became potholed. The aircraft hangars were part-buried for camouflage but had been built for the Polikarpov I-16s and were too narrow for the Hurricanes; Russian workers appeared to widen them, working-non-stop until the enlargement was complete. Accommodation was in brick buildings and wooden huts, the huts being found to be unkempt and some infested with lice. The bedding was new, the food was ample, though some considered it to be a little greasy and the sanitation was hideous, leading to the British naming the main latrine, directly over a cesspit, "The Kremlin". Co-operation from the Russians was excellent; Isherwood established rapport with the Soviet commanding general and arranging bomber escort tactics with the local air commanders. == Cold War ==