Shooting at Hua Gou
Version one: false target
"What for?" - For many years, Lyudmila Ivanovna Proskurina asked herself, hurrying to work past a monument in Vladivostok Square. Here, in a mass grave, the ashes of her father - the navigator Ivan Mulin - rest. Like most of those flying the fateful flight, he was young - 32 of the year. And like all twenty senselessly dead, he never fought for Kim Il Sung and did not shoot down American planes in the Korean sky.
In the flight list of the ill-fated flight IL-12 there was not one of the "Stalin falcons" ...
Who went aboard that day?
In my hands is a small booklet of the former military pilot, Vladivostok journalist Mikhail Chevychelov "In the Korean sky - Russian trace." Circulation - tiny, 300 copies, so that was enough for their own. The chapter "The Bloody Point of the Korean War" contains details that have not yet been replicated by anyone.
“The day of July 27, 1953 turned out to be extremely hot and humid,” the author writes. “The crew commander, Captain Dmitry Glinyany, and his assistant, senior lieutenant Ivan Ignatkin, checked the list of passengers at the ramp. Many of them knew the pilots well. This were military aviation doctors - lieutenant colonels of the medical service and major. In addition to them, young officers flew on vacation - captains, lieutenants ...
“Commander, when are you supposed to be home?” - Asked one of the passengers.
“We'll have time for dinner,” Captain Earthen promised cheerfully.
“Lucky ones,” remarked one of the mourners ... "
He jinxed ...
Once, as Lyudmila Ivanovna Proskurina told before her death, a military man came to her (she kept incognito until the end of her days) and discovered a terrible secret: Il was something of a false target. It was supposed to fly from Port Arthur to Vladivostok not by doctors, but by high-ranking military leaders. The Americans were preparing a spectacular attack against the higher command of the Soviet Navy.
They already had an experience of such a “hunt”. In 1943, the American F-38 Lightning fighters were waylaid and shot down an aircraft with the Japanese commander-in-chief, Admiral Yamamoto.
But the Soviet generals and admirals, told the informant, for some reason, flew home is not July 27, but a few days later ...
This version is confirmed by the writer Igor Seydov, the author of books about Soviet pilots, aces-heroes of the Korean War:
"That day, in Port Arthur, a party conference of the Navy base was indeed held. The Americans assumed that on that day the command staff of our Navy would be taken out from the Liaodong Peninsula on board the IL-12. But the party conference was delayed, and since the plane was given limited time for the flight, instead of the bosses, members of the medical board were sent on it fleet and young officers. The Americans apparently did not know that changes had taken place at the last moment. They specifically hunted for this aircraft, and for its interception, the four of Captain Parr were raised. The death of innocent people is a black spot on all the 5th US Air Force in Korea. And forever remain on the conscience of this pilot. "
Infographics "RG" / Mikhail Shipov / Konstantin Volkov
Version Two: Ralph Parr's Ambitions
“Ralph Sherman Parr was one of the best American aces,” says military historian, former intelligence chief of the Pacific Fleet Air Force, reserve colonel Pavel Levshov. - There is a version that he really wanted to have time to become a double ace, and for this you need another - the tenth - downed enemy. So he shot the sitting duck, as the combat pilots called the transport aircraft. Doubtful for ace victory. And frankly, I don’t really believe in this version, if only because on July 27, on the day of the truce, American aviation made other raids on the airfields in China ...
But there is another, much more important question.
“The command of the US Air Force officially forbade its pilots to fly over the Chinese border river Yalu Jiang,” continues Levshov. - There was a mutual ban: they do not fly over the river, we are for parallel 38. But on July 27, the American air armada did not go into the dozens — hundreds of kilometers of Chinese territory. Why?
Ralph Parr himself testifies:
American pilot Ralph Parr, shot down our passenger IL-12. Photo: Motherland
"... I flew a fighter-reconnaissance fighter on an" orange "degree of readiness. At 12 hours. 30 minutes. I found an enemy plane when he was under my plane. After making two identification calls, I saw 12 "big red stars. During the third run I opened fire. Both engines of the enemy's aircraft caught fire, and then the plane exploded ..."
And here is an extract from the Act of Investigation into the circumstances of the death of the Il-12 593 of a separate transport regiment of the Air Force THF, stored in the funds of the Central Naval Archive (one of the few documents declassified in this case):
"At 11 hours. 16 min. VNOS stations (aerial surveillance, alerts and communications. - Auth.) Noted the IL-12 plane following the flight route over Huadian, and at 11 hours. 18 min. In the same area found Two groups of F-86 aircraft, 4 aircraft in each group, heading north.
In 11 hour. 26 min. A point of the Il-12 aircraft met with one of the F-86 groups over the point of Hua-Gow, after which the IL-12 aircraft did not mark the radar stations.
According to the testimony of local residents, between 11 and 12 hours of the day on July 27 they heard an unusual sound and shooting in the air, then an explosion followed. After the explosion, they saw a large burning plane falling from which objects were separated in the air. At the site of the fall of the IL-12, the following were found: on the cabin and 19 fuselage there are holes from a heavy machine gun; 6 of twenty corpses has bullet wounds.
... All the collected materials confirm that the Il-12 was attacked in the 11 hour. 26 min., Shot down and fell in 4 kilometers from the village of Maoeroshan, Jilin Province. "
2 August was published a concise message: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union A.A. Gromyko handed a note of protest to US Ambassador C. Bohlen over the fact that "4 American fighters who invaded the People's Republic of China attacked and shot down in the city of Huadian , in 110 km from the Sino-Korean border, Soviet passenger aircraft IL-12, which made a regular flight from Port Arthur to the USSR along the established route. "
It would seem that an international scandal should break out. But the tragedy in the Chinese sky is no longer remembered. Only two years later, when the urns with the ashes of the dead were finally buried in Vladivostok and a monument was erected, the regional party newspaper mentioned this in a tiny note ...
Why not give the obvious course of investigation?
Three days after the death of the IL-12, we punished the Americans by shooting down their reconnaissance aircraft B-50. Photo: Motherland
Version Three: Revenge of the Soviet Pilots
Diplomats and officials were still silent when they took revenge "unofficially" for IL-12. Two days after the tragedy over Hua Gou, 29 on July 1953, off the coast of Primorye, south of Askold island, our MiG-17 fighters shot down an American reconnaissance aircraft B-50.
It took more than forty years before this fact was confirmed by declassified documents. At the same time, the names of the pilots 88go Guards. the destructive air regiment of the Air Force of the Pacific Fleet, awarded for that battle with the Orders of the Red Banner, - Guards Captain Alexander Rybakov and Guards Senior Lieutenant Yuri Yablonovsky.
"Top Secret. To the USSR Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union, Comrade Bulganin N. A.
I report ... The detection area ... of the wreckage "B-50" ... located in 40-45 km southeast of the place where the intruder was shot down by our fighters. This circumstance gives a good reason to believe that the plane was shot down over our territorial waters and during sharp planning from a height of 7000 m at a speed of 400 km / h in a southeast direction through 6-7 minutes fell in the area of 55 km southeast of Askold island .
Fleet Admiral N. Kuznetsov
30 July 1953
“I associate the decisive actions of 29 July with the downed IL-12,” said Pavel Levshov, the former chief of reconnaissance of the Air Force of the Pacific Fleet. - That was the adequate response of Pacific airmen to the destruction of our transport aircraft. The fact is that in those years the Americans made flights near our territory systematically. This was considered normal. But they were not shot down. And here...
According to our arguments, - continues my interlocutor, - an American plane violated the airspace of the Soviet Union. The other side denied this. Proving your case is simple: we need a radar mark of the target and tracing paper of the air defense posts. But none of the documents of the investigation such "material evidence" does not appear. And it is unknown whether they survived at all. Until now, many documents relating to the Korean War have the “Top Secret” stamp.
However, even without archives it is clear: the war in Korea is story how yesterday's allies became enemies.
Version Four: Big Politics
Commander of the USSR Navy Aviation Yevgeny Preobrazhensky personally sat at the helm of the X-NUMX, who took command from Port Arthur a few days after the tragedy. Photo: Motherland
“A few days after the death of our Il from Port Arthur, the crew of Major Peter Bodnar flew along the same route,” we continue to read the memoirs of military pilot Mikhail Chevychelov. “For the steering wheel of the Li-2 transport plane next to the commander, the Soviet Navy Commander, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel-General Yevgeny Preobrazhensky ".
Yes, yes, that same legendary Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, who already in the beginning of August 1941 was bombing Berlin! It is unlikely that Colonel-General Preobrazhensky turned out to be 27 on July 1953 of the year in Port Arthur by accident.
"This is how a veteran of the Pacific Fleet, retired senior warrant officer Peter Panov, recalled that flight:" Transfiguration before taking off from Port Arthur himself took passengers on a plane. He knew many officers personally and took only those who could help him if the Yankees were attacked. Strictly ordered everyone to look both ways and report in person.
We took off, gained altitude, lay down the route. Hour flight. Radiogram: "They hunt for you! Be careful!"
"Enhance prudence!" - Preobrazhensky ordered and transferred the plane to climb. We entered the clouds, so dense that we could hardly see the wings of the wings. The clouds were powerful, many-tier - such a kind of layer cake. This "pie" also helped us get to the state border of the USSR ".
In the memoirs of Senior Ensign Panov, there are no names of high-ranking party and military officials (according to unconfirmed data, Marshal R.Ya. Malinovsky), who was personally provided by Hero of the Soviet Union Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, could also fly the Li-2. Most likely, the Americans hunted him too. And who knows if a new tragedy happened, in which direction would the pendulum of the “high relations” of the two superpowers swung ...
... Our bus stops on Stalin Street (in Chinese - Sidalin Lu), right at the signpost. In the city of Port Arthur (now called Lüshun), from where 62 a year ago flew from the Tuchenzi airfield on its last flight, the IL-12.
Here, as in many Chinese cities, there is a large Russian cemetery. Around the monument to "Stalin's falcons" - more than a hundred identical graves with red stars and gray airplanes. Soviet pilots who lost their lives in the Korean War for reasons of conspiracy were forbidden to be taken home with "200 cargo". We "did not participate" in that war. The great orders and Golden Stars of Heroes for their feats in the sky were sneaked in, without fanfare and witnesses. And those who did not survive, quietly buried in exile.
The American servicemen who died in the Korean War were opened in Washington a memorial, where tens of thousands of surnames are immortalized. And today we seem to be ashamed of something. And we still don’t know the names of the exact number of those who gave their lives in a completely secret "government trip" to Korea.
FROM THE HISTORY OF THE QUESTION
The Korean War (1950-1953) was the largest of the military conflicts that erupted after World War II. After the liberation of Korea from the Japanese in 1945 from the Japanese, the northern half of the country (before the 38 parallel) was under the control of the USSR, and the southern - under the control of the United States. Therefore, in 1948, the north became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), led by Communist Kim Il Sung, and the south - by the Republic of Korea led by anti-communist Lee Seung Man.
Wishing to unite the country, 25 June 1950 Mr. Kim Il Sung invaded South Korea and by the middle of August occupied 90% of its territory. However, the UN Security Council authorized dispatch of UN troops against the aggressor. The lion's share of them were American troops. In September, the US fleet 1950 landed a large landing force in the rear of the North Koreans. Thanks to this, the Americans and the South Koreans in just a few weeks not only liberated South, but also occupied almost the whole of North Korea.
It was then that the DPRK came to the aid - under the guise of "Chinese people's volunteers" - the troops of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). And the USSR transferred fighter air corps to the PRC, to airfields near the border with the DPRK. His MiG-15 (with DPRK identification marks) began to fight the UN air forces over North Korea.
By January 1951, the Chinese moved the hostilities to South Korea. True, in May they managed to push aside a parallel for 38, but it became clear that a stalemate was emerging in the war, in July peace negotiations began.
Nevertheless, the air war continued over the DPRK; ground operations were carried out. Only 27 July 1953 was a cease-fire agreement, and the peace treaty has not been signed to this day.
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