Soviet and US Air Combat 1950-1991
When the Cold War Turned Hot in the Air
Between 1949 and 1991 hundreds of incidents occurred where armed Soviet/Russian aircraft confronted or were confronted by armed American military aircraft and combat threatened. In most of these incidents radar locks (threatening a missile launch) and aggressive flight resulted in one side breaking off and retreating for home. Sometimes actual combat ensued. Twenty US Aircraft were downed by the Soviets during the Cold War. There became almost regularly scheduled interception missions. During height of Cold War, a pair of Soviet Tu-95 Bears would fly from the Kola Peninsula to Cuba down the east coast of the United States while being escorted continuously along the way by armed US fighters. Information on these missions, shrouded in secrecy over the decades, began to be declassified in the mid to late 1990s.
The bloodiest period started in 1950 when Soviet fighters shot down a US Navy patrol craft over the Baltic Sea off of what is now Latvia. From then until 1962 the blood flowed as American aircraft penetrated Russian airspace and paid the price. In a twelve year period 19 more US planes, mainly reconnaissance aircraft, were destroyed in one sided fights with Russian MiGs. In most instances it was claimed officially by the United States government that the downed plane had been on a routine weather reconnaissance flight, navigational training flight, electromagnetic research flight or atmospheric testing flight when it was attacked by Soviet fighters and shot down over international waters. The Russian position was generally that the aircraft had either penetrated Soviet airspace or actually over flew Soviet land and was shot down. In several of the cases the Soviet Union stated that it had nothing to do with the loss of the aircraft, as with a USAF C130 that went missing over soviet Armenia in 1958. US planes also drew blood on a few occasions. On September 4, 1950 a US Navy F4U Corsair shot down a Soviet A-20 bomber while it was on a reconnaissance flight too close for the Navy's comfort. On October 8, 1950 two lost USAF P-80 Shooting Stars strafed 20-30 parked Soviet fighters (including US-lend leased P-63s!) at a military airstip 40 miles outside of Vladivostok while on a bombing misson over North Korea. In December of that same year a tail gunner aboard a US Navy P2V Neptune splashed a Soviet MiG that was trying to shoot it down while on a recon mission over Vladivostok.
All Russian documents turned over post cold war state that in most cases the U.S. plane fired on the Soviet fighters first and that they were forced to return fire, destroying it. When both countries set up the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POWs/ MIAs in 1992 to try and recover the remains of the aircrews lost, the US side acknowledged that in most cases the plane in question actually had been on an intelligence gathering mission.
Of all of the claims of losses the Russian members of the Joint commission turned over information that admitted to shooting down all of the aircraft on the list except for three. On 10 September 1956, a USAF RB-50 stationed at Yokota AB, Japan, was lost over the Sea of Japan. There was a very powerful storm, Typhoon Emma, in the area. A USAF RB-57 was lost over the Black Sea in December 1965 and on 5 June 1969 A US Air Force RC-135E disappeared off of Alaska. The Russian members of the Joint Commission stated in 1992 that they had nothing to do with the loss of the craft and this has been accepted.
In return for their help solving these mysteries the Russian members of the Joint Commission requested information on 28 specific Cold War era incidents of Soviet losses of aircraft, submarines and personnel. These included the shoot down of an unarmed Il-12 transport by as USAF F-86 over North Korea in 1953. American statesmen turned over information that enabled the Russian to recover the remains of missing Soviet era military personnel from the 1979-1989 Afghan conflict as well as leads as to what happened to seven missing advisors captured by Somalian forces in the Ogaden War in 1978. In 1992-93 the United States government turned over artifacts of a Soviet Golf class submarine secretly salvaged by the CIA in 1974 including the ships bell and a video of the burial at sea of six soviet navy sailors that had been recovered. In 1968 a Soviet Tu-16 Badger crashed into the sea with no survivors after buzzing the USS Essex navy task force off of Norway. Film of the incident was turned over to the Russians in 1992 which finally dispelled lingering concerns that the bomber had been shot down as it showed the plane clipping a wing and cart wheeling in a low turn.
Today these sacrifices and exploits are remembered in the United States. The centerpiece of the National Security Agency's Vigilance Park at Fort Meade, Md. is a C-130 aircraft, refurbished to resemble the C-130A which was downed over Soviet Armenia in September 1958.
In a recent Reuters article after two Tu-95MS Bear bombers buzzed the US base on Guarm Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force. was quoted "It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet [U.S.] aircraft carriers and greet [U.S. pilots] visually,"
Sources
By Any Means Necessary: America's Secret Air War in the Cold War William E. Burrows
Military Aircraft of the Cold War Jim Winchester
The Official reports of the US-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs
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