Flew reconnaissance and liaison for the army in the fighting against the Red Army and Polish forces.

The air arm was born in the middle of the wars that followed the First World War. An aviation unit formed within an engineering company on 30 January 1919 became an independent Aviation Division on 12 March, and its first new aircraft — eight LVG C.VI reconnaissance machines bought in Germany — had arrived on 27 February. Other aircraft were taken as war booty and repaired in the army’s own workshops. English Wikipedia says the airmen were active in battles with the Red Army and with Polish units. The first Air Squadron was formed on 22 September 1920 under Lieutenant Jurgis Dobkevičius, the pilot who, according to Wikipedia, flew the most sorties. In October 1920, during the staged mutiny in which General Żeligowski’s troops took Vilnius, the first aircraft with a Lithuanian crew was shot down; its pilot, Juozas Kumpis, was badly injured and died a prisoner. The operations were small, but they gave the service its founding generation, among them Dobkevičius and Antanas Gustaitis.

Outcome Lithuania secured its independence but lost Vilnius to Poland after Żeligowski’s action of October 1920.

Wikipedia dates the Kumpis shoot-down to 4 October 1920, a few days before Żeligowski’s advance of 8–9 October; the date is given here only as October 1920. Whether the air arm also flew against the Bermontians in 1919 was not confirmed.

Flying for

Lithuanian Military Aviation (Karo aviacija)

Where

Lithuania

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Soviet Russia and Poland

Aircraft

LVG C.VI, captured and repaired types

Losses

Juozas Kumpis, commander of the First Air Squadron, was shot down in October 1920 and died a prisoner of the Poles; Vytautas Rauba had been killed in a crash, not in combat, on 12 May 1920. Total losses were not found.

Sources

Wikipedia · Lietuvos kariuomenė

Did not resist; the government accepted the Soviet ultimatum of June 1940 and the air arm was dissolved.

In mid-1940 Lithuania had 117 military aircraft and some 230 pilots and observers, a third of them home-built ANBOs, with Gladiators and Dewoitines bought in 1937 as its best fighters. None of it was used against the Soviet occupation. On 27 August 1940 the Aviation Chief, Brigadier General Antanas Gustaitis, was compelled to chair the commission that liquidated Lithuanian military aviation, and Wikipedia gives 23 October 1940 as the formal date of disbandment. Personnel and aircraft were reorganised into Red Army aviation. Gustaitis taught at Vytautas Magnus University; fearing arrest, he tried to cross into Germany, was caught on 4 March 1941, taken to Moscow and shot on 16 October 1941. At least one ANBO 41 later flew with the Luftwaffe as a trainer and liaison aircraft. The absence of a fight was a political decision, not a military one, and it left the restored state of 1992 with nothing but memory to build on.

Outcome The Lithuanian air arm ceased to exist until 1992.

The personnel and aircraft transfer figures come from English Wikipedia and were not confirmed on an official page.

Flying for

Lithuanian Military Aviation

Where

Lithuania

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Soviet Union

Aircraft

ANBO IV/41, Gloster Gladiator, Dewoitine D.501, Fiat CR.20

Sorties

0No combat sorties.

Losses

According to Wikipedia, 77 senior officers, 72 junior officers, 59 privates and 20 aircraft passed into Red Army aviation units; the fate of the rest of the 117 aircraft was not confirmed. Brigadier General Gustaitis was shot in Moscow on 16 October 1941.

Sources

Lietuvos kariuomenė · Wikipedia · Wikipedia · Wikipedia

Hosts allied fighter detachments at Šiauliai and, from 23 July 2004 until the L-39 was retired, flew national air policing tasks with L-39ZAs.

Lithuania has had no fighters of its own since 1992, so its airspace is policed by NATO allies. The first four Belgian F-16s landed at Šiauliai at 16:47 on 29 March 2004, the day Lithuania joined the Alliance. By March 2024 the mission had reached its 64th rotation, and 17 allied nations had deployed, from Polish MiG-29s and Romanian MiG-21 LanceRs to American F-15Cs, German F-4Fs and French Rafales. A second base at Ämari in Estonia was added in 2014, and NATO says Lielvārde in Latvia has been able to host aircraft since 2024. The Lithuanian Air Force’s own role is host nation support at Šiauliai, the national air surveillance picture fed into BALTNET, and, for two decades, the L-39ZA, which from 23 July 2004 flew national air policing tasks. From November 2024 the detachments were reinforced to eight fighters, and in 2026 the Romanian and French jets shot down drones over Estonia and Latvia. The fighters that answer a Russian aircraft over the Baltic are therefore never Lithuanian.

Outcome Continuing; in 2026 NATO turned the mission into an air defence posture.

NATO and Wikipedia date the first arrival to 30 March 2004; the Lithuanian ministry and armed forces give 29 March 2004. Allied rotation types before 2024 are taken from Wikipedia’s table as a finding aid.

Flying for

Lithuanian Air Force (host nation and L-39ZA air policing)

Where

Baltic airspace

Alongside

NATO

Aircraft

L-39ZA (Lithuanian), allied fighters

Sorties

Lithuanian sorties not published. The ministry publishes weekly allied scramble data: two scrambles between 25 February and 1 December 2024, six in the week of 21–27 September 2026.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Lithuanian losses found.

Sources

Ministry of National Defence · Ministry of National Defence · Lietuvos kariuomenė · Lietuvos kariuomenė · NATO · Wikipedia · Ministry of National Defence · Ministry of National Defence · Ministry of National Defence · Ministry of National Defence