Soviet Union-Lost but not forgotten-Part 5

U-2 spy plance wreckage kept at Moscow.

In July 1957, the U.S. established a secret U.S. intelligence facility in Pakistan. It was in Badaber, 16 km from Peshawar. Badaber was an excellent choice because of its proximity to Soviet Union’s Central Asia republics. This enabled monitoring of missile test sites, launch pads and other communications during the tensed cold war periods.


On 9 April 1960, the U-2 spy plane of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) crossed the South national boundary of Soviet Union in the area of Pamir Mountains and flew over four Soviet top secret military locations: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, the Tu-95 air base, the Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) test site of the Soviet Air Defense Forces near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam missile range. The Soviet Air Defense Forces detected the plane at 04:47hrs when it flew away by more than 250 km from the Soviet national boundary and avoided several attempts of interception using MiG-19 and Su-9 during the flight. After U-2 left the Soviet air space, it was clear that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had successfully performed an extraordinary intelligence operation. Soviets knew that their anti-aircraft systems weren’t effective. However, next time the Soviets hit back! Perhaps, in the best way possible.


Gary Powers undergoes trial in the Soviet Union.


The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on May 1, 1960 when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. At first, the United States government denied the plane's purpose and mission, but later it was forced to admit its role when the Soviet government produced the plane remains, photographs and the surviving pilot Gary Powers. The incident happened before two weeks of the scheduled opening of an East-West summit. The incident was a great embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower refused to apologize and Nikita Khrushchev, the then General Secretary of the USSR, boycotted the East-West summit.

What really happened?

On May 1, 1960, thirteen days before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit conference in Paris, a U.S. Lockheed U-2 spy plane left US base in Badaber on a mission to over fly the Soviet Union to photograph ICBM sites.
The Soviet missile system was not yet up to the mark! Fighter planes like MiG-19’s and Su-9’s were sent to intercept the aircraft. According to the reports, it is believed that the missile fired from a SAM (Surface to Air Missile) hit the spy plane first and it also destroyed a Soviet interceptor plane in the missile salvo. Due to secret policy of the Soviet Union, many such incidents and details still remain a mystery and still unanswered. The pilot Gary Powers was captured by the Soviets.

Four days after Powers disappeared, NASA issued a very detailed press release stating that an aircraft had "gone missing" north of Turkey. The press release speculated that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still engaged, even falsely claiming that "the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties."


Nikita Khruschev inspects the wreckage.

Then the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev said that a "spy plane" had been shot down but intentionally made no reference to the pilot. As a result, the Eisenhower Administration, thinking the pilot had died in the crash, authorized the release of a cover story claiming that the plane was a "weather research aircraft" which had strayed into Soviet airspace. The White House gracefully acknowledged that this might be the same plane, but still proclaimed that "there was absolutely no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet airspace and never has been" and attempted to continue the facade by grounding all U-2 aircraft to check for "oxygen problems."



Newspapers in the 1960's describing the U-2 incident.

On May 7, Khrushchev sprang his trap and announced, ” I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] are said.
Powers was actually still alive; unfortunately his plane was also essentially intact. The Soviets managed to recover the surveillance camera and even developed some of the photographs. Those photographs were taken over the USSR during the espionage mission. Powers’ survival pack, including 7500 rubles, jewels were recovered.


The SA-2 type missile used by the Soviet Union to shoot the aircraft.

The Paris Summit between president Dwight Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev collapsed in large part and the Cold War continued. Khrushchev left the talks on May 16. Powers pleaded guilty and was convicted of espionage. The incident severely compromised Pakistan security and worsened relations between the Soviet Union and Pakistan. Pakistani General Khalid Mahmood Arif while commenting on the incident stated that, "Pakistan felt deceived because the US had kept her in the dark about such clandestine spy operations launched from Pakistan’s territory." As Soviet Union launched satellites and designed missiles, cold war tensions also grew proportionately.

Soviet Union-Lost but not forgotten-Part 4

Nikita Khruschev was the Soviet leader as USSR achieved great milestones.

Soviet Union designed world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. It was known as R7 ‘Semyorka’ or as SS-7 Sapwood (as known in NATO). Using this Sputnik 1 was put on orbit. Sputnik 2 was launched on November 3rd, 1957, which carried a living being, a dog-named ‘Laika’. Laika was actually a street dog found in Moscow. It was selected because Moscow dogs would fare well in adverse conditions, as Moscow itself is very cold. It was a one-way trip. The mission provided scientists with the first data on the behavior of a living organism in the space environment.


Laika was the first dog in space.

Sputnik 3 was an automatic scientific laboratory spacecraft. It was conically shaped and was 3.57 m long and 1.73 m wide at its base. It weighed 1,327 kg. The scientific instrumentation (twelve instruments) provided data on pressure and composition of the upper atmosphere, concentration of charged particles, photons in cosmic rays, heavy nuclei in cosmic rays, magnetic and electrostatic fields, and meteoric particles. The outer radiation belts of the Earth were detected during the flight. Its tape recorder failed, so it could not map the Van Allen radiation belt.


Sputnik 2 which carried Laika.

Sputnik 4 was launched as a test-flight of the Vostok spacecraft that would be used for the first human space flight. This spacecraft, the first of a series of spacecraft used to investigate the means for manned space flight, contained scientific instruments, a television system, and a self-sustaining biological cabin with a dummy of a man. The spacecraft was designed to study the operation of the life support system and the stresses of flight.

Meanwhile, Khruschev continued with other reforms. During Nikita Khrushchev’s rule Soviet Union developed rapidly. Khrushchev was primarily responsible for introducing liberal reforms in agriculture and industry. He established Warsaw pact in response to NATO. Initiated talks and promoted peaceful co-existences. Soviet Union overtook US virtually as a superpower, only during Khrushchev’s era as it created progress in both space research and missile development. After Stalin’s death, there were a lot of differences with the Chinese republic’s, which even lead to Sino-Soviet split, which shocked the world as two communist countries became foes. Differences with People’s Republic of China grew more as Khrushchev refused to help Chinese Nuclear program. More action was yet to come as World moved closer to world war.


Sputnik 3.

The Virgin Lands Campaign was an initiative by Nikita Khrushchev to open up vast tracts of unseeded (virgin) steppe in the northern Kazakh SSR and the Altay region of the Russian SFSR(Soviet Federal Socialist Republics, a part of the Soviet Union), started in 1954. In the first year of the programme, 190,000 km² were ploughed; in 1955, an extra 140,000 km² were ploughed. With all this new land, a vast number of people were brought from all over the Soviet Union. The first harvest on the Virgin Lands, in 1956, was a stunning success. Of the 125 million tonnes of grain produced in the Soviet Union that year, more than half of it came from one eighth of the country. The Soviet Union was producing twice as the West. The scheme was therefore considered to be a huge success, as it enabled the USSR to feed its people. However, in the long run it didn’t help USSR much as the nutrients in the soil were used up and due to lack of proper storage system lots of grain were wasted.

-To be continued

Soviet Union-Lost but not forgottten-Part 3

Sergei Korolyov was the Chief Architect of Soviet space programs. His sudden death in 1966, dampened Soviet dreams to land first on the moon.

The Cold war took a new dimension when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, the Sputnik 1 on October 4th, 1957. For a nation recovering from a devastating war, it was great news. The United States had believed itself to be the world leader in space technology and thus the leader in missile development. The surprise Sputnik launch and the failure of the first two U.S. launch attempts proved otherwise.



A photo of the R-7 ICBM similar to the one used for Sputnik launch.

Has the Soviet education surpassed the rest of the world? What did the “commies” do? The Soviet Union stunned the world by launching Sputnik. This could be due to the fact that education was free in the USSR. It was compulsory and child labor was strictly prohibited. Moreover, women were given equal opportunity. No wonder the first woman to be in space was a Soviet, Valentina Tereshkowa.


Sputnik on the launchpad before launch.


The control system of the Sputnik Rocket was tuned to provide an orbit with the following parameters: perigee height - 223 km, apogee height - 1450 km, orbital period - 101.5 min. The chief constructor of Sputnik 1 was M.S.Khomyakov. The satellite carried two antennas designed by the Antenna Laboratory of OKB-1 led by M.V.Krayushkin. Each antenna was made up of two whip-like parts: 2.4 and 2.9 meters in length and had an almost spherical radiation pattern, so that the satellite beeps were transmitted with equal power in all directions, making reception of the transmitted signal independent of the satellite's rotation. The whip-like pairs of antennas resembled four long "whiskers" pointing to one side, at equal 35 degrees angles with the longitudinal axis of the satellite.




Sputnik 1 launched using R-7 ICBM.

The satellite had one-watt supply and it used zinc-silver batteries. The satellite sent signals at 20.005 and 40.002MHz with pulse duration of 0.3 seconds under normal pressure and temperature conditions. Analysis of the radio signals was used to gather information about the electron density of the ionosphere. Temperature and pressure were encoded in the duration of radio beeps, which additionally indicated that the satellite had not been punctured by a meteorite. If the temperature inside the satellite exceeded 36 °C the fan was turned on and when it fell below 20 °C the dual thermal switch turned off the fan. If the temperature exceeded 50 °C or fell below 0 °C, another control thermal switch was activated, changing the duration of the of radio signal pulses. Sputnik 1 was filled with dry nitrogen, pressurized to 1.3 atmospheres. For the pressure control the satellite had a barometric switch, activated when the pressure inside the satellite fell below 0.35 kg/cm² (approx 0.34 atmospheres), changing the duration of radio signal impulse.


Sputnik 1 Image.

The designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite watched the launch from the range. After the launch they ran to the mobile radio station to listen to signals from the satellite. They waited about 90 minutes to ensure that the satellite had made one orbit and was transmitting, before Korolyov called Khrushchev, the then General Secretary of the Soviet Union.


Newspapers published in USA. Amateur radio operators having short wave receivers received the signals from Sputnik as it orbitted the earth.

As United States continued propaganda projecting the USSR as an evil empire, the Soviets continued to discover new things. The signal received from outer space was heard as “beep-beep”. Amateur radio operators having short wave receiver tuned the sets to 20 Mega hertz cycles to hear the Sputnik’s beep. The Sputnik’s beep was an intercontinental outer space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of national superiority.

-To be continued.

Soviet Union-Lost but not forgotten-Part 2

US tanks in operation fighting against North Korea.

Although the US and the Soviet Union were allied against the Axis powers during World War II, the two states disagreed sharply both during and after the conflict on many topics, particularly over the shape of the post-war world. The war had either exhausted or eliminated all of the pre-war great powers leaving the US and USSR as clear economic, technological and political superpowers.

Berlin Blockade was the first major International crisis of the Cold War. Soviet Union blocked access to Berlin. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet controlled regions to start supplying Berlin with food and fuel, thereby giving them nominal control over the entire city. However, American airplanes dropped food packets over Berlin in pre-arranged air corridors. This was humiliating to the Soviets and it strained US-Soviet relations. Later the Soviets lifted their blockade.


B-29 bombers of United States bombed Korean cities indiscriminately.

Korean war worsened Soviet-US relations. Korea had been a unified country since the 7th century. Unfortunately for the Koreans, one of the recurring themes in their history involves fending off both China and Japan, occasionally simultaneously. To Japan, a late arriving player in the game of great powers, Korea seemed a natural fit in their sphere of influence. The Japanese declared Korea was their protectorate and expanded their control over local institutions through over Korean opposition. At the close of World War II, forces of both the Soviet Union and the United States occupied the peninsula in accordance with an agreement put forth by the United States government to divide the Korean peninsula. Though the eventual division of Korea was considered at the Potsdam Conference, the wishes of the Korean people to be free of foreign interference were not considered.


B-29 in flight.

North Korea was under communist rule and it invaded South Korea in an attempt to unify Korea. North Korean army struck in the pre-dawn hours of June 25th, 1950. The North claimed Republic of Korea Army (ROK) troops under the “bandit traitor Syngman Rhee" had crossed the border first and that Rhee would be arrested and executed.



MiG-15 used by North Korean during the Korean war.

President Harry S.Truman had made a statement on June 27, 1950 ordering the United States air and sea forces to give the South Korean regime support. The Soviet Union's foreign minister accused the United States of starting armed intervention on behalf of the Republic of Korea before the Security Council was summoned to meet on June 27. The 38th parallel was the border between North and South Korea. North Korea rapidly invaded but it was stopped by Allied troops. Very soon they were chased back b allied troops. Soviet Union supplied ammunitions, aircrafts to fight against the invaders. US were very afraid of the communist expansion and to contain communism US created NATO. A ceasefire was later declared and Korean De-militarized zone was created.




105mm-Howitzer gun in operation. US troops firing at North Korean positions.

Soviet Union created Warsaw Pact in response to NATO treaty. The pact was a Soviet initiative aimed at countering NATO. East Germany, Hungary, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and the Soviet Union were the founding members. The stage for Cold war was now set as these two great powers got ready to play dangerous games.