Outside Berlin, in the rest of Germany, Clay had the 1st Infantry Division, and the 1st and 2nd Constabulary Brigades. The 1st Constabulary Brigade had been fleshed out by the addition of the 18th Regimental Combat Team from the 1st Infantry Division, so the division was a regiment short.
As for combat air strength, the US Air Force Europe, under the command of Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay, had no bombers assigned and only two fighter groups, totaling 75 F-80 jet fighters in the 36th Fighter Group based at Fürstenfeldbruck and 75 P-47s in the 86th Fighter Group at Neubiberg. (Two B-29 squadrons later sent to Germany remained under Strategic Air Command control.)
There were also major British and French military units involved in the occupation, but unified Allied military command had been dissolved shortly after the end of World War II, and NATO had not yet been created. While their respective commanders and staffs coordinated operations to the degree their national command authorities allowed, they had neither a unified chain of command nor a common plan to conduct the defense of Western Europe.
This aggregation of forces faced a Soviet garrison in Germany estimated at 273,000 ground troops with 4,000-5,000 tanks and 1,400 combat aircraft.16
To counterbalance the Soviet conventional predominance, the United States had the atomic bomb. But what it did not have until just about the start of the Berlin Blockade was a war plan for using the bomb. James V. Forrestal, the first US Secretary of Defense, convened a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Truman’s “Little White House” at the naval base at Key West, Florida, in early March 1948. The purpose of the meeting was to draw up a unified short-range emergency war plan and the first unified military budget. The war plan was called “Halfmoon.”17
General Bradley described the plan as follows:
“This was the first formal and comprehensive enunciation of what later became known as a strategy of nuclear ‘massive retaliation.’ If Russia launched an all-out war, its huge Army overrunning Western Europe (as we assumed), we would respond by dropping atomic bombs on the Soviet homeland—mainly population centers—with the aim of destroying the Soviet government and breaking the Kremlin’s will to wage war. The bombs would be carried to Soviet targets by our B-29 and B-50 heavy bombers, staging from bases in England and Egypt, and in the Far East, Okinawa. Air Force studies had suggested that 133 atomic bombs dropped on seventy Soviet cities would be required. Since we then had only about fifty bombs, the plan was to launch the strategic air attack against Russia on D plus 9 with twenty-five bombs, follow up with another twenty-five, then continue the attack with bombs coming right off the production line.”18
While well aware of this weakness, the United States determined to stay in Berlin. Following a series of meetings in Washington, the President met with senior leaders on June 28 and decided “we would stay period.”19 Truman also approved the dispatch of two wings of B-29s to Britain and two squadrons of B-29s to Germany.20
In Germany, Clay had already taken steps to make sure the US could stay. On June 26, he called General LeMay and asked that all available transport aircraft be used to supply Berlin. This was the formal beginning of the Berlin Airlift. The first aircraft landed in Berlin later that day, delivering 80 tons of milk, flour, and medicine.21
On the diplomatic front, the Allies concluded that the Soviet game was to offer to trade, lifting the Berlin blockade in return for a suspension of the London initiative to create a government in the western occupied zones of Germany. The Soviets wanted a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers to discuss the German problem. Neither Washington nor London was willing to agree to that proposal while the blockade was in force.22
But the US Air Force and the British Royal Air Force began to rewrite the script as they worked out the ways and means to supply not just the Allied garrisons in Berlin, but the citizens, too. By the end of July, the USAFE and RAF were averaging 2,500 tons a day against a target of 2,000 tons of food for both the city and the garrison. With more aircraft, they were confident they could get to 3,500 tons a day. But while that would sustain the city during the summer, it would not meet the winter needs for coal.23
There was a solution to the problem. This had several component parts. First, use more large aircraft by phasing out the twin-engined C-47s in favor of an all four-engined C-54 force. Second, open more capacity to receive aircraft in Berlin. And finally, reorganize the airbases from which the transports were launched in the western zones.
As the Soviets saw the airlift become better organized and more successful, they began taking steps to put pressure on it. However, unlike for the ground access routes, there had been a written four-power agreement to establish and operate the air corridors. This agreement, concluded by the ACC on October 25, 1946, put the Soviets in the position of having to violate an arrangement to which they were a party if they wanted to disrupt the airlift.24
In the case of Clay’s armed convoy proposal, Soviet interference with the convoy could place Allied troops in the position of having to fire the first shot on Soviet Zone territory, thus arguably placing the responsibility for any subsequent war on the Allied powers. In the case of supply by air, to halt the airlift the Soviets would have to be the first to use armed force, in violation of an international agreement to which they were a party, placing on them the responsibility for starting the war.25
Harassment by the Soviets began to grow. They conducted aerial maneuvers in the corridors, sending bombers through in formation or fighters to buzz the airlifters. They fired anti-aircraft artillery at targets towed behind their own planes so shells would burst in the corridors. They fired ground flares up into the corridors. On 55 occasions ground fire was found to have hit airlift aircraft.26
The crisis built to its peak in October. Apparently fearing that weather alone (November is the worst month for flying weather in Germany) would not halt the airlift, the Soviets increased military incursions into the corridors; there had been two in August and seven in September, but three occurred during the first ten days of October alone.27
Berlin: October 13, 1948
On Wednesday, October 13, there occurred another midair collision, this time between a buzzing Soviet fighter and a C-54 from the US 61st Troop Carrier Wing.28 Once again, all aboard both aircraft were killed.
Clay received an eye-witness report of the incident. Having taken over command of the airlift on July 29, Brigadier General William Tunner had established a three-minute interval between transport aircraft in the stream in the Berlin corridor.29 Thus, when the Soviet fighter collided with the C-54, the crew of the following C-54, the Mary Jane, saw the whole event unfold ahead of and 1,000 feet above them.30
Colonel Lawrence Richmond, Clay’s Air Staff Officer, brought into Clay’s office two of the Mary Jane’s crew and Sergeant Burt Haskins, the radar operator who had been on duty in the Berlin Air Safety Center covering that part of the corridor at the time of the accident. Returning their salutes and telling them to take seats, Clay asked: “Larry, what happened out there this morning?”
Richmond replied: “It’s April 5th all over again. Just like the British Viking, a Soviet fighter buzzed a C-54 from the 61st and managed to hit it at 6,000 feet about 15 miles out from Tempelhof. Both aircraft went down, no parachutes were seen. It happened in the left half of the corridor.”
Clay asked: “And these men witnessed the collision?”
Richmond said: “Captain Black and Lieutenant Fiorino were pilot and co-pilot of the C-54 right behind the aircraft that was involved in the collision. Sergeant Haskins was sitting at the radar screen in Berlin Air Safety Center and watched it happen on radar.”
Clay asked Black: “What did you see, son?”
Captain Roger Black replied: “It was a normal flight, cloudy but with some breaks in the deck above us at 10,000 feet. We were at 5,000 feet, right on schedule three minutes behind the C-54 ahead of us. We’ve been here since August, so we’re used to seeing Soviet aircraft in the corridor. We heard a warning over th
e radio from Berlin Air Safety Center—I know now that it was Sergeant Haskins speaking—that unknown high-speed aircraft were operating in the corridor above the cloud deck at about 20,000 feet, and they were changing headings, speeds, and altitudes without warning. We thought: ‘Oh no, here they come again,’ and just after the warning, here come several fighters diving down through a hole in the clouds.”
“Then what happened?” Clay asked.
Black continued: “We counted four Yaks coming toward us, and two split to the left of our heading and dove down toward the deck, and two pulled up and broke to their left, our right, into level flight just below the cloud deck. Then the pair that had gone low pulled up in front of us, behind and below the C-54 ahead of us, while the pair under the cloud deck did a roll reversal and headed down at the C-54 from above and behind. I think they were intending to startle the crew by passing just above and in front of that aircraft in a dive, but one of them miscalculated, and cut it too close. He struck the right inboard engine with his wingtip. His wing snapped, and so did the 54’s, and they both cartwheeled down. We saw no parachutes from either plane.”
Clay asked: “What did the other Yaks do then?”
Black responded: “They rejoined in a three-plane formation and circled the crash site at low altitude—we passed to the right of them and lost sight of them as we called in the collision to Tempelhof and to Group back at Rhein-Main.”
Clay said: “Lieutenant Fiorino, that’s what you saw, too?” Fiorino responded: “Yes, sir.”
“And you were in the corridor at the time of the collision?”
Black responded: “Yes, sir. We were maybe a little left of the center line, because there was a southeast wind blowing and we were trimmed into it, but we could see the ground and we were okay.”
Clay then turned to Sergeant Haskins, asking: “Was the collision in the corridor?”
Haskins, sitting on the edge of his chair and working his hat with both hands, responded: “Yes, sir. Impact was about six miles north of the centerline, still four miles inside the corridor. Sir, those Yaks were dancing in and out of the cloud deck for 20 minutes before the collision. I asked Captain Jefforts, my shift commander, to take it up with the Soviet liaison, Captain Zorchenko, but he was nowhere to be found. Jefforts told me to make repeated radio announcements to our aircraft as long as the Yaks were there.”
“And where did our aircraft come down?” asked Clay.
Black said: “He went down to our left, more toward the edge of the corridor, but still in it, I’m sure.” Haskins added: “Yes, sir, he was still about three miles inside the corridor when I lost him off the scope.”
Turning to Colonel Richmond, Clay said: “Get me General LeMay on the horn. Then write up a report on the collision and send it to Washington. The Air Force will send one in from the 6lst, but I want one to Bradley ASAP!”
Richmond left with the witnesses, and had the call placed to LeMay. Buzzed by his secretary, Clay picked up the phone.
“Curt, it’s the Soviets again. This time we’ve lost a C-54 to a midair. I’m going to see Sokolovsky, but I want fighter cover for our airlifters in the corridor as soon as you can do it.”
LeMay replied: “General, you know we’re short on fighters, but we’ll do it. I’ll have the first flights up later today.”31
LeMay, notoriously a man of few words, was concerned that if things were going to get out of hand, his only fighter force would be strung out from Frankfurt to Berlin and back again through the central corridor, in penny-packet-sized groups that would be easy prey for massed Soviet fighters.
“‘I decided the best way to do this was to put the F-80s from the 36th Fighter Group into top cover by flights. We only had 75, and usually only around 60 were flight worthy at any time—something we’d have to improve upon and quick. In the 86th Fighter Group, all we had were P-47s—outclassed by the front line Soviet fighters, but maybe useful. I decided to run the 75 P-47s also as flights, but between the F-80s and the transport stream. That way, the fast jets would be high, and the medium speed P-47s would be close to but always above the slower transports. The Soviets, even with radar, would have trouble fitting any more of their games into our transport stream without some of our fighters being near. Yeah, I know that’s not how my B-17s were covered by P-51s during the war, but these weren’t bombers, and this wasn’t war—at least not yet.’”32
After giving instructions to LeMay, Clay called Sokolovsky, with whom he had believed he had a friendly relationship.33 It took until the next day to arrange the meeting. Sokolovsky demanded that Clay come to his headquarters at the Soviet Military Administration in Karlshorst.
Berlin: October 14, 1948
Clay was escorted into Sokolovsky’s office, in the former German military cadet school’s officers’ club. Clay did not speak Russian, nor did Sokolovsky speak English, so each had an interpreter present.
“Good morning, Marshal, how are you today?” Clay greeted Sokolovsky. Sokolovsky responded: “General, I am well.” Skipping the normal pleasantries, he continued: “I understand you urgently requested this meeting. What do you wish to discuss?” Clay stiffened, then referred to a paper his staff had prepared and which he had cleared with Washington.
“Marshal, yesterday at about 1015 hours, one of your fighters was performing aerobatic maneuvers in the Frankfurt–Berlin air corridor, about 15 miles southwest of Berlin, in violation of the ‘Flight Rules for Aircraft Flying in Air Corridors in Germany and Berlin Control Zone,” and without prior notification to the Berlin Air Safety Center. As a result of these maneuvers, in violation of paragraph 20 of the Flight Rules which specifically ban aerobatic flying that endangers other air traffic, your aircraft collided with a US C-54 transport aircraft that was in straight and level flight within the designated corridor on a mission that had been properly notified to the Berlin Air Safety Center.”
Clay continued grimly: “The United States first strongly protests this violation by Soviet forces of the Flight Rules which the Allied Control Council, including Marshal Zhukov, approved on October 25, 1946, and demands that such violations cease immediately. The United States also requests access for its crash investigators and graves registration personnel to the crashed C-54 and the remains of its crew of three.”
Sokolovsky, stone faced, responded through his interpreter: “General, according to my information, that US aircraft was not in the proper flight corridor at the time of the accident. In fact, the US aircraft was conducting a provocation, flying into an air exercise area where one of our fighter regiments was conducting air-to-air combat training. Since the collision occurred outside of the area covered by the ‘Flight Rules,’ a fact that can easily be determined from the location of the crash site, your protest of a ‘violation’ is inadmissible. Moreover, as the Soviet representative to the Berlin Air Safety Center has made clear, repeated flagrant violations of these ‘Flight Rules’ by US aircraft have rendered that agreement void. I have instructions to present to you, the United States Military Governor, a strong protest of this deliberate violation of the Soviet Zone of Occupation in contravention of the Potsdam agreement, and to demand compensation for the loss of a Soviet pilot and his aircraft. In addition, the crash site of the aircraft conducting the provocation is in a restricted military zone. I have had no instructions from my government to permit foreign military personnel to enter the restricted zone. That is all I have to say on this subject.”
Clay listened to the translation of Sokolovsky’s remarks, and responded: “Marshal, my government’s position is clear. The accident happened in the corridor and was caused by the Soviet fighter’s prohibited aerobatics. Accordingly, I cannot participate in any discussion of compensation. I do once again repeat my request, on humanitarian grounds, for crash site access at least to recover the remains of the deceased flight crew.”
Sokolovsky, unmoved, responded: “General, I am awaiting instructions. Until I receive those instructions, I cannot act on your request.”
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With that, Sokolovsky closed the short meeting, and Clay was escorted out.34
Clay called LeMay again when he reached his headquarters: “Curt, you’re going to have to keep up the escorts. I’m calling Robertson now to get the BAFO [British Air Forces of the Occupation] to put up cover in the northern corridor. This time, Sokolovsky didn’t say it was an accident, and charged that we caused it as a ‘provocation.’”
LeMay said: “General, you know I’m going to have to get more help from the States if this keeps up. I’m also moving the fighters from Fürstenfeldbruck and Neubiberg up to Wiesbaden, so they have a shorter flight time to Berlin. But I backed you on the convoy, and I’m backing you on this, too. If we stand tall, the Russians will back down.”35
Clay then had a “telecon”36 with Secretary of the Army Royall and Army Chief of Staff General Bradley. He had already cabled to them the facts of the midair collision, his order that USAFE fly cover for the transports, and the proposed text for his meeting with Sokolovsky, which had been approved. Now, he wanted to talk strategy.
Bradley wrote: “We’re not in any condition to go to war with the Soviets. As you know, we only have an emergency short-term war plan, with nothing agreed with the Allies.”
Clay responded: “Yes, that’s so, but if we back down now, we will have to shut down the airlift, and that means we have to leave Berlin. You have a copy of our 30 Aug 48 plan for an orderly evacuation of Berlin. We have to move a minimum of 8,378 people, military and US civilians out of our sector alone, not counting the French, who would depend on us for their transportation, and any German civilians we want to protect from Soviet reprisals. Our people, their hand baggage, and light household goods require 546 C-54 loads and 91 C-47 loads alone, and that is before we add air transportable government property and records, which more than double that requirement. In short, it would take us three days in perfect weather without Soviet disruption or civil unrest in our sector to do the job. And I would not want to be on the last plane out.”37
Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War Page 3
