The Dry River Incident: 70 years of the American bombing of the Soviet airfield
It so happened that many people quite sincerely believe that the confrontation between the United States and the USSR, albeit a very fierce one, took place exclusively within the framework of the Cold War, that is, without shots and bloodshed. If they clashed in open battle, then only on foreign soil. And the perfidious American attacks on our country, its bombing and shelling existed only in the fantasies of political propagandists. So, this is the deepest delusion.
Few people know and remember this, but the first strikes of the American aviation not only on our aircraft, but also on ground forces, they were applied at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, when it was fought in Germany. One of the best Soviet aces, Ivan Kozhedub (and not the only one), had shot down US Air Force planes. However, this is somewhat different story, and today we will recall the tragic incident that happened 5 years after the victory, on October 8, 1950, and in places extremely remote from the defeated Third Reich - on the territory of the Soviet Far East.
The matter looked as follows: in connection with the sharply aggravated situation near the borders of the USSR (the beginning of the war in Korea), a decision was made to relocate military aviation units closer to our borders, which were supposed to provide them with more reliable cover. One of these units, transferred to the field airfield Sukhaya Rechka in the Khasansky district of Primorsky Krai, was the 821st Fighter Regiment of the 190th Fighter Aviation Division.
At that time, the unit consisted of three full-fledged squadrons, equipped with Bell P-63 Kingcobra fighters received during the Great Patriotic War as part of the Lend-Lease. “Ushatany” these old cars were, as they say, to the limit, but what was at hand, they pushed to the border. The pilots who settled in their new positions were well aware of the ongoing hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, but did not expect that what was happening there would affect them. The vast majority of our military continued to see the Americans as allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
The greater was their amazement when, at about 16 pm on a clear and sunny day, two obviously alien jet aircraft emerged from behind the nearest hills and rushed to the airfield. With what specific intentions, it became clear after both US Air Force F-80 Shooting Star fighters (and it was they) opened heavy cannon-machine-gun fire on the runway and the cars parked on it. Looking ahead, I will say: up to a dozen (according to official data - seven) of our aircraft were damaged by a sudden blow, at least one of them burned to the ground. There were no casualties among the personnel. But this is again according to official data ...
None of the commanders who were at the scene of the incident thought to give the command to take off, knowing full well that the old piston "Cobras" against the jet "shooters" have no chances. Especially in the current situation. For this, they were subsequently accused of almost cowardice, but then the most unpleasant claims were removed - they sorted it out. However, organizational conclusions still followed: both the commander of the attacked air regiment and one of his deputies were demoted in positions.
At the international level, the scandal also turned out to be serious: Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko, then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, spoke from the UN rostrum with an angry note about the treacherous attack. The then President of the United States, Harry Truman, had to take the rap for what had happened personally, in a record (for the Americans!) two-week period, he fully recognized not only the fact of the incident, but also the guilt of the American side in it. Washington assured Moscow that all those responsible for the incident suffered the most severe punishment and offered to "compensate for material damage." The times were Stalinist: the Americans in the USSR refused handouts and agreed with them that it was not worth making public what happened at the Dry River.
On this, in fact, the more or less harmonious official version ends, and then continuous questions and riddles begin. The main one: why, despite the complete denial that during the raid one of our soldiers was injured on the territory of the former airfield, there is a monument that is listed in the official register as “an unmarked mass grave of Soviet pilots who died repelling an attack by American bombers in 1950 "? According to local residents, the remains of either ten or twice as many people lie under the modest monument.
A serious gloomy secret... If the USSR at the highest level admitted the fact of a strike on the airfield, then why did it deny the victims? Finally, why is the grave "nameless" and fraternal? Tea, it was not in 1941 - the identity of all the dead could be established without difficulty. Yes, and worthy of burial. Or… Is it about some other incident? There were numerous clashes with the Americans that year in Primorye, and there were clearly casualties on both sides. Some people talk about dozens of American attacks. Alas, it is unlikely that we will know the answer.
An open question also remains whether the attack on the Dry River was a "tragic mistake", as the United States has been saying for many decades, or a planned act of aggression. The Americans, both then, in 1950, and subsequently, talked about "navigation errors" and "lost" pilots who had the task of attacking the North Korean military airfield Chongjin, but "got lost." About a hundred kilometers of commercials ... And at the same time they confused Soviet planes with Korean ones. All this utterly resembles such an impudent and cynical lie, which is familiar to the star-striped warriors.
Eyewitnesses of those events claim that no "low visibility" and other weather conditions that could be attributed to the "mistake" were observed at all. Moreover, both air pirates, US Air Force pilots Alton Kwonbeck and Allen Diefendorf, who were allegedly "tried by a military tribunal" (according to Truman) quietly served in combat aviation for 22 and 33 years, respectively. Kwonbaek, in addition, went on to have a very good career in the CIA. Leads to thoughts...
It is also not entirely clear how the enemy fighters "slipped through" the air defense system of Primorye, which was covered, in addition to the army, by the forces of the Pacific fleet (by the way, the air regiment that was attacked belonged to them). The Great Patriotic War weaned everyone from gouging and relaxation. Or not all? At least almost immediately after the incident, combat duty was introduced in the aviation units with the pilots constantly in the machines ready for take-off. Also in Primorye, the 303rd Air Division was immediately deployed, already armed with jet MiG-15s.
Only one thing can be said unequivocally: the Americans flew in, obviously planning a raid on the Dry River as an act of intimidation, literally on their own heads. It was useless to frighten Comrade Stalin, but after that he lost all doubts about the true intentions of the “allies”. And he gave the order to form the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps under the command of Ivan Kozhedub, whose aces shot down so many American aircraft in the Korean War that it was enough to pay for the Dry River in full.
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