How the U.S. Bombed the USSR on October 8, 1950

In the Far East, in the Khasansky district of Primorsky Krai, there is the village of Perevoznoye. A kilometer from this village was the military airfield "Dry River". Few people know that several decades ago it was bombed with impunity by American pilots. This attack on Soviet territory took place on October 8, 1950 ...

October 8, 1950 at 4:17 pm According to local time, two US Air Force Lockheed F-80C "Shooting Star" ("Meteor") fighters violated the state border of the USSR and, deepening almost 100 km, attacked the Soviet military field airfield Dry River, 165 km from Vladivostok, in the Khasansky district. As a result of the shelling by US Air Force aircraft in the parking lot, seven aircraft of the Soviet squadron were damaged, one burned down completely.

That autumn, the war on the Korean Peninsula was already in full swing. Volleys rumbled very close to our common state border with the Koreans. In addition, the Americans and their allies did not stand on ceremony with respect for international law. Combat aircraft of a potential enemy made systematic flights near Soviet cities and military bases. Although the USSR did not officially participate in the war, it came to armed clashes.

Such was the military-political background at that time in the Far East. It is not surprising that the units and formations of the Soviet Armed Forces in those parts were in constant tension. Alarms, orders for immediate dispersal followed one after another. On October 7, 1950, just such a one came to the 821st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 190th Fighter Aviation Division, armed with old American Kingcobra pistons, obtained under Lend-Lease during the Great Patriotic War. The pilots had to urgently fly to the field airfield of the Pacific Fleet Dry River in the Khasansky district of Primorsky Krai, 100 kilometers from the Soviet-Korean border. By the morning of October 8, all three squadrons of the regiment were already in their new location. What happened next was something almost unbelievable.

On Sunday at 4:17 pm local time, two American jet planes suddenly appeared over Dry River. The Americans, who are barely visible from the ground - they were going high enough - suddenly descend sharply, literally at low level flight lay a turn over the airfield, open fire and drop four bombs.

One Soviet plane explodes. Another turn - and the "Meteors" begin to shoot from machine guns. Seven more of our cars were hit. Having shot all the ammunition within a few minutes, the Americans calmly fly away. There was no chase: it was pointless to chase the Meteors on the Po-2s that remained unharmed or the Kingcobra pistons. Half of our 20 aircraft survived.

“There was a day off. Everyone was resting on the sea, and then they flew in. They circled around, fired machine guns at the planes and disappeared behind the hills. I was already 13 then,” recalled Grigory Boldusov, a resident of the village of Dry River, who still lives there.

It is very important that for several decades both American pilots who participated in the air raid on the USSR, the wingman Allen Diefendorf and the leader Olton Kwonbek, in their defense, insisted that they de lost their course due to bad weather and shot the airfield by mistake.

The weather, as already mentioned, was excellent that day. On the fuselages of Soviet aircraft, characteristic marks were clearly visible that had nothing to do with the "feathering" of Korean fighters. The Americans were well aware of who they were bombing. By the way, Kwonbek already worked for the CIA in those years. Subsequently, after retiring from aviation, he served on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The Russians did not have planes or missiles ready to repel our attack. It was Sunday afternoon. It was like Pearl Harbor for them,” Kwonbaek wrote cynically in his memoirs.

The commander of the 64th Aviation Corps at that time, Lieutenant General Lobov, was sent a summary of the dead - the Americans killed almost a quarter of the people who remained at the airfield that day. Several officers went on leave - it saved their lives. And several other officers were visited by girlfriends from neighboring Slavyanka - they were later taken to be buried in the regional center.

A report on the dead has been sent to Moscow, the night of October 9 is falling. A long night during which no one at the airfield slept a wink of an eye. Everyone was waiting for the next raid. The next morning, having not received any directives from the capital, General Lobov announces an order: to consider the air strike as the beginning of the Third World War. Bring all formations to full combat readiness. Why did the general give such an order without waiting for directives from Moscow? Perhaps he just lost his nerve, it turned out that the raid was not the first attack by the Americans. It's just that very few people knew about it then.

On October 9, the USSR submitted an official note of protest to the UN. The government of the Soviet Union was greatly concerned. They could not understand - either this was the beginning of the third world war, or the mistake of the pilots.

On October 20, US President Harry Truman, speaking at the UN, admitted the guilt of the United States and expressed regret that the American armed forces were involved in the incident with the violation of the border of the USSR and damage to Soviet property. He stated that the regimental commander had been dismissed and the pilots had been handed over to a military tribunal, that the attack on the territory of the Soviet Union was "the result of a navigational error and poor calculation" by the pilots. And also - that the commander of the aviation formation, which included the F-80s, was removed from his post, and disciplinary sanctions were imposed on the pilots.

Despite the fact that the incident seemed to be over, the 303rd Aviation Division was immediately relocated from the Moscow region to the Far East, which included jet MIG-15s. The troops were put on alert. The situation in the units was alarming. Everything was ready for the start of World War III...

Of course, the Americans carefully prepared an air strike on the USSR for several months. To do this, several of the latest Lockheed jets were transferred from Japan to the South Korean base of Daegu - previously only piston F-51s were placed at the base. Initially, four crews were supposed to bomb the Soviet village, but on the morning of October 8, two Meteors suddenly showed breakdowns. But the mechanics, who had studied these machines well, did not have time to bring them to the base. Two pilots had to fly - Kvonbek and Diefendorf ...

The Americans continued to defend the version of pilot error until 1990.

According to the commander of the 64th Aviation Corps at that time, Lieutenant General Georgy Lobov and the former pilot of the 821st Aviation Regiment V. Zabelin, there could be no mistake. The Americans should have seen perfectly where they were flying and what they were bombing. It was a clear provocation. According to Zabelin, “the Americans perfectly saw where they were flying. We flew 100 kilometers from our border with Korea. They all knew very well. It was invented that the young pilots got lost. Most likely, the bombing was carried out purposefully, and the incident was a pure provocation on the part of the United States.

However, in any case, this is not the only mystery of those events. The archival documents of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR speak only of Soviet aircraft destroyed and damaged as a result of a sudden attack. And not a word about human losses.

“After this incident, the 64th Aviation Corps was urgently created and began to prepare for rearmament,” recalled the pilot of the 821st regiment, Nikolai Zabelin. - After the attack, combat duty was also introduced in the regiments. This has not happened since the end of World War II. Sat from dawn to dusk in the cabins and around. There was a feeling of an imminent war ... "

Not so long ago, one of the owners of the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. in Washington to the question of a Russian journalist: “What do you know about the incident that took place in 1950 at the Dry River airfield? In your opinion, was it a provocation or a mistake?" He replied: "This incident has become a disgrace to the United States. The very idea that the two pilots did not know where they were, did not know the location of the Soviet border and were unable to understand what airfield they were attacking, seems incredible. The US said the strike was due to a navigational error and a misjudgment of the situation. The Air Force commander was removed, and the pilots were punished. The states offered to pay for the damage. The USSR decided not to stir up a scandal.” And a former participant in the fighting in Korea added: “The incident on the Dry River is still hushed up, and most likely you will not be able to find a person in the USA who would have heard about it ...”

In the list of monuments of the Khasansky district of Primorsky Krai, number 106 is "a mass unmarked grave of pilots who died during the reflection of American bombers in 1950." It also indicates that the grave is located near the village of Perevoznoye, the former territory of the military town of Dry River.

It is strange, of course, that the grave is unmarked. It is strange that the military archives are silent about her. In our country and in the Great Patriotic War, the fallen were buried anywhere and anyhow, without caring about the mark on the map. Then they said that there were allegedly no victims during this bombardment - only military equipment was damaged. But no one can say exactly how many dead are in the grave. Someone says -10 people, and someone - more than two dozen.

In a report classified for half a century addressed to the commander of the 64th Aviation Corps, Lieutenant General Georgy Lobov, 27 people were killed as a result of that same airstrike. Residents of Perevozny say that not everyone was buried in a mass grave then - the bodies of several civilian employees were taken to the regional center, to Slavyanka.

Today, several dozen people live in the village of Perevoznoye. At the cemetery, where the victims of the American air raid were buried, the graves are more or less well-groomed - a few residents still keep the memory of the dead.

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