28 October 2010
 
Cold War


(Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer. Photo copyright Ralph Petterson)

I was looking through my notes from my Willow interviews with Mac, and several hundred pages of letters from some cocky young lunatic who had been assigned to United States Forces Korea in 1980. They were carbon copies of originals, sent thirty years ago from a place far away in time.
 
Between the two, I think I liked Mac better at approximately the same time in the two respective lives. The young Lieutenant whose letters I examined seemed to be dangerously out of control. He wrote of martial law and military coups against a backdrop of personal conduct that was deeply troubling. I was not sure I liked him very much, which considering that he was me, added to my general sense of unease.
 
I may share some of the letters with you, but I need to think about that. They are a little scary.
 
I took a break from the massacre at Kwang Ju and turned to the Willow notebook. Both the letters and Mac’s story were elements of the long cold struggle between East and West.
 
It was easier to read about Mac. He was married and not crazy. He had been telling me about 1950, and waiting in Southampton to take possession of his American car, and made an additional note to inquire about what it was like to drive a left-handed car in a right-handed Britain.
 
He and his new bride Billie arrived in London to start work at the Headquarters on North Audley Street. The officer he was intended to relieve, one Ted Reiffenburg, had decided to extend his tour in exchange for a follow-on job he wanted, and the NELM Inteligence office, CAPT Ford, rotated Mac through all the major jobs in the division.
 
Mac was wearing Lieutenant Commander, having arrived four numbers above the cut line for “permanent” and “temporary” promotion on the biggest promotion list the navy ever had.
 
It was a critical factor in his decision to stay in the Service, which four years after the Japanese surrender had plunged in budget authority and personnel.
 
Military spending plunged from $90.9 billion in January 1945 to $10.3 billion during the second quarter of 1947. In May 1945, there had been over 8 million men under arms. The Navy began demobilization on V-J Day with nearly half that number, but by 1950, on the eve of the North Korean invasion, was less than a quarter of that. The massive demobilization was characterized by upheaval, waste, and confusion.
 
It was a dangerous time.
 
One of the reasons that Mac wound up meeting Dwight Eisenhower in Paris that day was precisely about the danger.

(Lavochkin LA-11 Fang fighter. Image copyright Militaryfactory.com.)

On the eighth of April 1950, Soviet Lavochkin LA-11 Fang fighters, shot down a US Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer (BuNo 59645) Turbulent Turtle of VP-26, Det A. Based from Port Lyautey, French Morocco, the Privateer was on a PARPRO mission launched from Wiesbaden, Western Germany. According to CINCNELM accounts, the incident happened over the Baltic Sea off the coast of Lepija Latvia.
 
The Soviets claimed the aircraft was intercepted over Latvia and had fired on the Soviet fighters during the interception. After the fighters engaged the Privateer, the Soviets reported that it descended sharply before crashing in international waters off the coast.
 
Wreckage was recovered, including two life boats that appeared to have been occupied. The crew of ten were never recovered, and presumed lost. In actuality, there is a distinct possibility some of them- maybe as many as eight- disappeared into the Soviet Gulag.
 
Nobody talked about it until and article years later appeared in der Speigel, which alleged that the incident may have occurred over German waters. The fate of the missing flyers was not directly addressed even in the joint reconciliation conference between the Russians and Americans after the Wall came down.
 
They were just gone in the cold sea. That is part of what Mac was up to, waging the struggle that went on, round the clock, for thirty-two years.
 
The young Lieutenant in Korea was part of it, too, only by then, things appeared to have gotten very strange indeed.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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