Cold War history question for our vets

[Timthinker]

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has told an interesting story about direct and "unofficial" Soviet involvement against the Israeli Air Force. Some years ago, Soviet advisors kept chiding the Egyptian Air Force about their poor combat performance against the Israelis. So, the Egyptians allowed several Soviet pilots to fly combat missions and demonstrate their skills. The Soviets were shot down, thereby giving the Egyptians a sense of smug satisfaction.

The Cold War is replete with such stories as I am sure we will read at THR, if not elsewhere on the Web.


Timthinker

 

[Sistema1927]

There were plenty of "hot" incidents during the "cold war".

I spent some nail biting times during a 14 month tour in Korea, some 30 years after the "armistice".

 

[Ron James]

The question, "Was the Scorpion carring any nuclear weapons". Well I let my typing fingers engage with out engaging my brain and I posted No, the Scorpion was not carring any nuclear weapons,. Well, did some checking and I was wrong, seems the Scorpion was carring two nuclear torpedoes. When you're wrong, you're wrong and I was wrong, My apologies.:banghead:

 

[TallPine]

Quote:
I had a buddy who was in the Army in Germany about that time.

me too. I have heard a similar story from at least half a dozen people. sometimes they were "in" on it, other times it happened while they were there and somehow the army told them all about this super secret incident.

My buddy was a clerk at a hospital, one day(night?) somebody came in and asked him what to do with all these bodies. He replied "What bodies?"

Now, he was prone to speculation on minimal facts, but I've never known him to just fabricate something. If that was the case, he would have "been" a Green Beret etc instead of a clerk-typist

 

[sacp81170a]

Speaking of Cold war stuff, I was in Central America in 1986-87. There was some neat stuff going on down there.

JTF 11, 1983.

 

[Deanimator]

Reference the USS Scorpion, minutes before all contact was lost, the Scorpion reported that they were in contact with a Soviet summarine and asked for instructions. The concenus is that yes, the USS Scopion was sunk by a Soviet Sub. It was not carring nukes of any type

There's a story about this in the current issue of Military History Quarterly (MHQ), not exactly an Art Bell type publication.

The author believes that the Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet submarine.

 

[Deanimator]

Never forget that more than 20 million (23.5 mil is the number I've seen) Russians died to stop the Nazis. I think that their debt has been paid in full.

Stalin and the Soviet Union made it possible for Hitler to START the war, by keeping him well supplied with strategic materials, that kept crossing the frontier until MINUTES before the start of Barbarossa.

Stalin ensured that Hitler had a ONE front war in 1939, splitting Poland between them.

Of course Stalin SLAUGHTERED the Soviet armed forces without a hostile shot being fired, or a foreign boot treading on Soviet soil. The purges of the armed forces literally decapitated the Red Army to the point where it was only Hitler's signature stupidity and arrogance which allowed the Soviets to recover sufficiently to overcome the disasters of '41 and '42.

And don't think for one INSTANT that the GULAG skipped a beat during the war.

If you're wounded in both legs, you don't get to claim valor for both of them if you're the one who shot yourself in one of them in the first place.

 

[alsaqr]

The story about Scorpion is intriguing. i was told by a couple of Navy anti-submarine types that there was a Soviet killer sub hear the Scorpion when she was sunk. Supposedly, a Navy anti-submarine aircraft was tracking the Soviet sub and dropped magnetic pingers on it. This p'od the skipper of the Soviet boat and he fired an anti-submarine torpedo at the Scorpion.

 

[Mauserguy]

Interestingly, the Squalus was raised, a great technical and human triumph at the time, and patched up and put back into commission as the Sailfish. During the war her crews called her the Squail Fish. I met a guy who survived it at one of my father's Sub-Vet WWII meetings.
Mauserguy

 

[another okie]

There are two Lichtenfels, one in Hesse and one in Oberfranken, which we call Franconia, a subdivision of Bavaria (Bayern). The one in Oberfranken is a pleasant town on the south bank of the Main river, which was indeed very close to the border with the DDR. It is also the seat of a district called Lichtenfels, which goes north of the town to the old border.

Just thought I'd throw that in. I don't know anything about any incidents there.

It is true that American forces captured more ground in 1945 than they were "supposed" to and so withdrew from some ground as the Red Army approached. There was an agreement between the "allies" about who would occupy what. The Soviets were surprised we honored the agreement.

 

[jrfoxx]

Quote:
SOme of the info gathering EC-130s do have
equipment we would not want to have examined
but a few years ago, maybe more there was the incident
of a chinese fighter that collided with one of our
spook 130s and it 'lost' the 130 was forced to land
on mainland CHina - we got the crew back a couple of
months before the aircraft was returned. The crew said
the orders to destroy secret manuals etc. was unrealistic
in terms of their ability to do this

I remember when that happened. It was a little tense with them holding the crew hostage. It wasn't a C130 though, it was a Navy plane. P3 Orion I believe, unless the newspapers reported it wrong.

U.S. Navy EP-3.Happened while I was in.I met the crew.They said it was all pretty scary, and I'm VERY inclined to beleive them. And yes, we destroyed everything of any value in the plane prior to landing, as is standard procedure.

 

[Pilgrim]

Also does any one know what happened to the Soviet POW who did survived the German camps? Very interesting, fight for your country and if you survived you weren't a hero, instead you were sent to a Gulag in a very cold place to be worked to death.

Josef Stalin's position at the time was that a Soviet soldier who was captured didn't fight hard enough, therefore he was not politically reliable. He was an enemy of the Soviet state.

Pilgrim

 

[RoadkingLarry]

alsaqr posted: The story about Scorpion is intriguing. i was told by a couple of Navy anti-submarine types that there was a Soviet killer sub hear the Scorpion when she was sunk. Supposedly, a Navy anti-submarine aircraft was tracking the Soviet sub and dropped magnetic pingers on it. This p'od the skipper of the Soviet boat and he fired an anti-submarine torpedo at the Scorpion.

There are no doubt hundreds of stories about what happened to the Scorpion and I'd be willing to bet 99% is torpedo room BS. Some of them I've probably repeated myself.
One thing to keep in mind, in those days the Scorpion was one of the fastest Subs at sea and had the best underwater SONAR platform in existence at the time. The Soviets had not as yet fully benefited from the espionage carried out by Walker and our boats were still an order of magnitude "better" than what they had in the water.
On the other hand there is still a scuttlebutt story that the Soviets lost one of their boats soon after.

Just remember we lost 99 sailors that day, Thats one of the downsides of bubbleboats in a incident that results in a sinking you can pretty much count on a loss of all hands.

http://www.oneternalpatrol.com/uss-scorpion-589.htm

 

[macadore]

Originally Posted by ilbob
I seem to recall reading once that only one country ever repaid their debt to the US from the WWII Lend lease program. Can't recall which one it was, but it was not the SU.

It was Finland from WWI

We invaded Russia in 1918, but nothing came of it.

http://www.historywiz.com/invasionrussia.htm

 

[tbtrout]

I am sure there are plenty of firefights that did not happen.

 

[Hook686]

One really never knows .... I have a friend (Marine Major) who told me he was wounded during the Vietnam war. He was not receiving any VA recognition because his wounds, he alleged, occurred in Laos. His unit had a job of intercepting Chinese/NVA patrols taking captured US flyer's to Hanoi. His unit was to intercept and free the prisoners, or see them die in the effort.

Was he real ? Hmmm I do not know, but I'm not quick to judge him. I was a nuclear chemistry technician during this period in a Secret USAF laboratory in Sacramento, California. I was carried as Electronics Technician, and my discharge papers showed me as an Aircraft Radio Repairman. I met this guy simply because the USAF provided no medical care in 1970 when I was contaminated with ionizing radiation in the lab (secret labs have no accidents).

To this day, the Organization I worked for will not allow me to discuss my work then ... it still remains highly classified, perhaps more so today viewing the world politics. Can I believe this guy ? Yes I can. Can you believe him, or me ? Of course not.

Unless you do work, our government does not do, where the Secretary will, and does disavow you and the work, it seems impossible. I, by personal experience, will never doubt such a scenario, as possible.