52 year old Cold War mystery solved

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-21 04:11am

Spy Plane Shot Down In Baltic Found
The Telegraph (UK)
6-20-2003
Spy plane shot down in Baltic found(Filed: 20/06/2003)

A Swedish spy plane flying a mission on behalf of British intelligence which was shot down by the Russians in 1952 has been found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, ending one of the enduring mysteries of the Cold War.

After a three-year search by Swedish historians it was confirmed that wreckage discovered in the sea off the country's east coast was of the DC3 shot down with its crew of eight by a Russian fighter. The aircraft was half-buried in sand. The crew's remains were not found. When the plane was shot down it was claimed that it had been intercepted on its way back from a training flight. But it emerged later that the DC3, equipped with the latest British surveillance gear, had been spying on Soviet radar stations in the Baltic republics at the behest of Britain and America.

A team led by Carl Douglas, an historian, Ola Oskarsso, an entrepreneur and Anders Jallai, flight captain, spent three years searching 270 square miles of sea floor for the plane. "I cried," Mr Douglas said, as he described the moment the plane's hull, bearing Sweden's national symbol of three crowns, emerged from the sand under 300 feet of murky water east of Gotska Sandon island, 80 miles from Stockholm. The slow, bulky DC3, nicknamed "Flying Hut" by pilots, was an easy target for a Soviet MiG.
Another plane sent to search for the DC3 was also brought down.

The Soviet Union admitted shooting down the second plane, saying it had violated Soviet airspace, but kept silent on the DC3 until 1991, when a pilot told a Swedish diplomat that he brought it down. Marshal Evgeny Shaposhnikov, then Soviet defence minister, visited Sweden in 1991 and apologised to relatives of the plane's crew. Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War but co-operated with NATO.

Though it was no mystery that the DC3 had indeed been downed, what was speculated was that the plane was forced to land and the Swedish crew taken prisoner.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-21 04:20am

I saw this a little earlier. Its unusual that they brought it down over water, though this was a time when RB-36's and RB-47's roamed as will over the Soviet Union and the PVO was probably itching for a kill.

A great many people think Powers U-2 was the only plane the Soviets shot down along perhapes with a Korean airliner, in reality the US lost over a dozen planes and many nations such as Sweden lost them as well. The Cold war was far hotter then most today think it was.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-21 04:33am

Yeah a Russian who served with the PVO up until 1997 (I believe the PVO was absorbed into the VVS the following year) said that he saw a big billboard listing dozens of PVO victories from 1948 onwards.

Post by **Coyote** » 2003-06-21 03:36pm

The issue of KAL flight 007 has been in the news not too long ago (well, a coule years or so) amidst claims that the plane was shot down during a major air battle between US and Japanese aircraft vs. Soviet planes. Theoretically hundreds of aircraft were engaged in this battle and the KAL flight wandered into the fray and got taken out.

Has anyone heard anything else about this or is it urban legend?

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-06-21 03:49pm

Coyote wrote:The issue of KAL flight 007 has been in the news not too long ago (well, a coule years or so) amidst claims that the plane was shot down during a major air battle between US and Japanese aircraft vs. Soviet planes. Theoretically hundreds of aircraft were engaged in this battle and the KAL flight wandered into the fray and got taken out.

Has anyone heard anything else about this or is it urban legend?

I think its a UB cause what i heard there was an American spyplane around there at that time,and the pilot of KAL 007 is partly to blame he never said a word on his radio.

RadiO · Post by **RadiO** » 2003-06-21 06:43pm

There was the claim that KAL 007 was deliberately acting provocatively to light up Soviet air defence systems, for the benefit of a RC-135 in the vacinity. If I had to support a theory that the incident was something other than a ghastly mechanical, navigational and/or doctrinal fuckup on both sides, that would be the one I'd pick.
I certainly prefer it to the theory advanced by the TV movie where the airliner had cameras onboard. That kind of thing did apparently happen in the '40s and '50s, but would it still be so with all the surveillance hardware available in the mid '80s? Doubt it.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-21 06:47pm

Coyote wrote:The issue of KAL flight 007 has been in the news not too long ago (well, a coule years or so) amidst claims that the plane was shot down during a major air battle between US and Japanese aircraft vs. Soviet planes. Theoretically hundreds of aircraft were engaged in this battle and the KAL flight wandered into the fray and got taken out.

Has anyone heard anything else about this or is it urban legend?

The Soviets decided to shoot because KAL airliners had been violating their airspace for months to save fuel. They intercepted every one and supposedly threatened KAL, but they kept coming, finally they got fed up and took the next one down when it refused to turn out of there airspace.

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2003-06-21 06:59pm

The Swedish intelligence operations during the Cold War were surprisingly extensive, considering the small size of the country.

Their military even had a highly secret intelligence agency called the IB, Informationsbyrån, which operated against East European powers (and Finland), in close co-operation with the CIA, Israeli and West European intelligence agencies. Their another task was to monitor the activities of domestic threats: Swedish communists, other radical left-wing organisations, as well as some potential terrorist threats such as PLO.

The IB reported directly to the military command and the Social Democratic government. When a Swedish newspaper revealed their activities to the public, it caused a massive political scandal in Sweden in the early 70's. Jan Guillou, one of the journalists who uncovered the illegal IB activities, later became the most succesful Scandinavian author ever for his spy novels about a Swedish agent Hamilton.

OT: Some of Guillou's books have been made into films. The newest (and unfortunately worst) of them, "Hamilton" has Mark Hamill playing the role of the film's main villain. Peter Stormare is Hamilton.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-21 07:08pm

RadiO wrote:There was the claim that KAL 007 was deliberately acting provocatively to light up Soviet air defence systems, for the benefit of a RC-135 in the vacinity.

The -135 series was not deployed until 1956.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-21 07:13pm

Howedar wrote:
RadiO wrote:There was the claim that KAL 007 was deliberately acting provocatively to light up Soviet air defence systems, for the benefit of a RC-135 in the vacinity.
The -135 series was not deployed until 1956.

KAL 007 was shot down in 1983

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-06-21 07:17pm

I thought that some RB-47s were shot down during the Cold War.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-21 09:09pm

Frank Hipper wrote:I thought that some RB-47s were shot down during the Cold War.

Later yes, but in the early 50's they along with the RB-36's where basically immune. Soviet fighters could sometimes match their speed and altitudes but didn't have the fuel for an actual interception. A few areas like Moscow had enough defenses to keep them away, but for the most part the planes wandered at will until large numbers of SA-2's showed up.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-21 10:16pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Howedar wrote:
RadiO wrote:There was the claim that KAL 007 was deliberately acting provocatively to light up Soviet air defence systems, for the benefit of a RC-135 in the vacinity.
The -135 series was not deployed until 1956.
KAL 007 was shot down in 1983

For some reason I thought he was talking about the Swedish aircraft that went down in 1952.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-21 10:54pm

Howedar wrote:For some reason I thought he was talking about the Swedish aircraft that went down in 1952.

I see

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-22 12:58am

Coyote wrote:The issue of KAL flight 007 has been in the news not too long ago (well, a coule years or so) amidst claims that the plane was shot down during a major air battle between US and Japanese aircraft vs. Soviet planes. Theoretically hundreds of aircraft were engaged in this battle and the KAL flight wandered into the fray and got taken out.

Has anyone heard anything else about this or is it urban legend?

Never heard that one. In any case, the Soviet FLAGON pilot who did it told a Western writer exactly what happened back in 1989-90. I'll post what he said if anyone wants?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-22 01:08am

Coyote wrote:The issue of KAL flight 007 has been in the news not too long ago (well, a coule years or so) amidst claims that the plane was shot down during a major air battle between US and Japanese aircraft vs. Soviet planes. Theoretically hundreds of aircraft were engaged in this battle and the KAL flight wandered into the fray and got taken out.

Thats worth a pretty gigantic

:wtf::wtf:

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-06-22 08:08am

Sea Skimmer wrote:I saw this a little earlier. Its unusual that they brought it down over water, though this was a time when RB-36's and RB-47's roamed as will over the Soviet Union and the PVO was probably itching for a kill.

A great many people think Powers U-2 was the only plane the Soviets shot down along perhapes with a Korean airliner, in reality the US lost over a dozen planes and many nations such as Sweden lost them as well. The Cold war was far hotter then most today think it was.

Heh, Ill say. My flatemate is one of the guys who did the missile intercepts work. He fired a lot of missiles.