Interned planes in the USSR
 

Can you tell me if any Japanese planes were interned in the USSR and how many US planes were interned there and what happened to the crews?

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

CPaige - Internees of the Arctic Air Campaign
Book: The Last Flight of Bomber 31 by Ralph Wetterhan
Lists AAF and Navy Aircraft Interned by Date , Serial , Type , Pilot , Squadron.
List of over 300 Names of Crewmen Interned - Repatriated
Also , 3 20th AF B - 29s Interned
1 B-25 from Doolittle Raiders
8th AF and 15th AF Pilots / Crew that landed in Russian territory
were usually Repatriated without much Delay.
Mike

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

IIRC, the Russians are tested an A5M Claude. Postwar presumably they had a lot more.

In turn, (not an official exchange!) the Japanese tested an early LaGG 3. They didn't like it much, but then neither did anyone else, including the Russians.

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

When Russia and Japan had their border scrimmages I always wondered if any planes landed intact or almost intact on the other side. I wondered what each thought of each other planes.

Reading books about aces of Japan or Russia. It looks as there was many combat claims during their scrimmage.

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

About captured planes I don't know, but as for the losses during the Khalkin-Gol fighting in the summer of 1939, they were, AFAIK (these figures are most probably approximate only), the following :

- 164 Japanes airplanes (among them 93 Ki-27s and 3 Ki-10s), without breakdown between combat and non combat losses (Soviet claims were 645, including 590 in flight). But I have no detailed source.

- 145 Soviet planes in combat. And 60 more to other causes. (Japanese claims were 1260). Again, no detailed source for material losses, but what can be held for reasonably accurate is that 100 VVS personnel died, 59 went missing, and 102 were wounded.

Most (70%) Japanese losses were suffered in the last month of the conflict, while Soviet ones are apparently more equally distributed between June and September. One can already see that the high overclaiming rates which was later often seen in the Asian combat zone during WWII. It remains to be seen however whether there was a later evaluation of the claims on one or the other side.

All that taken into account, it'd be surprising if there wasn't one or another captured airplane or, at least, wrecks in sufficiently good state to analyse the enemy's material.

Hope that can help you,

Kolya.

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

Hi,

Elaborating on my last post about Soviet losses, I tried to guess what the human losses could tell us about possible material losses (If anyone has suggestions about the methodology, these are most welcome) :

Among the 261 killed, wounded, and missing VVS men, there were 44 NCOs and privates. If I am not mistaken, these can only be gunners (or possibly ground personnel), because at the time (this changed later), all operational pilots and navigators were officers.

Gunners were mostly used on 3-seat SB bombers. If all personnel losses were among flying personnel and the whole crew had the same fate (not realistic, but we will consider it so for the calculation's purpose), to these 44 presumed gunners must be added 88 other crewmembers. And thereafter 129 officers, presumed pilots remain among the losses. Which leads to 173 crews among killed, missing, and wounded (159 killed-missing, 102 wounded).

A number of aircrews must have parachuted to safety (some being among the wounded), planes have probably come back with casualties on board, and I don't know if some of the casualties were suffered on the ground,... So, it's absolutely impossible to draw definite conclusions without additional data, but for what that's worth, I'd consider the figures are compatible with a total loss of 205 airplanes. If the real figure is different, it shouldn't be very far from that.

Kolya.

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

Hello cpaige5.

Interned for Japanes, i don't know. Captured, certainly... a lot! On august 1945 the 8th, soviet forces in the extreme est were faced by 1 000 000 japanese soldiers , 1215 tanks and 1907 planes. All of them were either captured on their airfields, either destroyed.

About US planes, I don't know exactly the number, but if the crews of heavy bombers were given back in "due dilligence", the planes systematically were kept in the USSR. So in late summer 1945, the 45 TBAD unity was using about 25 B-17 and 29 B-24 in its both régiments.
AFAIK, all this planes were collected more or less damaged, then restored on the ETO. * No information about planes interned in Siberia, sorry.

*"Mir Aviatsii 2/2001"

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

CPaige,

Although no specifics on numbers, you may like this story on what the USSR did with some interned B-29 bombers: http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/USSR.html

Regards,

Leendert

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

Another story of an interned US aircrew here: http://www.geocities.com/tempelhof.geo/samsavignac.html (same story also on http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com.../0004page.html)

Several B-25s and B-24s landed at Petropavlosk on 11 September 1943.

Regards,

Leendert

Re: Interned planes in the USSR
 

Hello Graham

In fact russians also tested a Ki-97 plane, captured in Nomonhan aera.

By the way, were is it possible to read Japanese flight reports from the LaGG-3?

Regards