On 1 July 1960, a United States Air Force Boeing RB-47H-1-BW Stratojet, tail number 53-4281 took off on a day-long, electronic reconnaissance mission over the Barents Sea. Six days later, the U.S. Air Force realized it was missing. The plane, assigned to the 38th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, had taken off from RAF Brize-Norton in Oxfordshire, England. The mission, code-named BOSTON CASPER, was conducted in international airspace north of Murmansk, in the Soviet Union’s northwest region.
The aircrew of the RB-47H consisted of six persons: the commander of the aircraft was Maj. Willard George Palm; the co-pilot or shooter – Capt. Freeman Bruce Olmstead; the navigator or photo – Capt. John Richard McKone; and three electronic countermeasures operators – Maj. Eugene E. Posa, disguised as Captain; Captain Dean Bowen Phillips; Captain Oscar Lee Goforth.
At Monchegorsk Air Base on the Kola Peninsula, Captain Vasily Ambrosievich Polyakov from the 174th Guards Red Banner Fighter Aviation Regiment likewise sat on alert in his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 fighter. The game was all but over when he recalled, nearly a decade later, the scramble to intercept the American reconnaissance flight. Guided by radar controllers, he flew to the north-northwest until he identified the RB-47.
Polyakov began to waggle his wings as if to indicate to the bomber to proceed the way to follow him, but there came no reply. Shortly thereafter it started to give him orders to shoot down the aircraft. He made a firing pass, expending 111 rounds from the MiG’s three 30 mm autocannons. He saw the RB-47 roll inverted and disappear into the clouds below, without seeing any parachutes or the aircraft crash.
The navigator, Captain McKone, reported that the RB-47 was operating at 28,000 feet and 425 knots, roughly 50 miles to the north of Cape Holy Nose. The reconnaissance aircraft had continued to make small course corrections instead of diving further north while attempting to avoid Soviet airspace and was still over international waters. The ground track of the RB-47 was being followed by NATO ground-based radar.
Captain Olmstead returned fire with the B-47’s two 20 mm autocannons, expending about 462 rounds. The first pass across the bows of the MiG put two of the three engines of the left wing out of commission. He reported that in the subsequent spin, the bomber started to come apart but that he and Palm were able to recover the aircraft, only to subsequently be engaged by a second firing pass across the nose by Polyakov, which forced them to bail out. The derelict RB-47 continued flying northeast for an estimated 200 miles.
According to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the RB-47 was still airborne 20 minutes later, over the high seas, 200 miles from the point claimed by the Russians to be the southernmost Soviet land mass. A MiG-19 scored an air-to-air missile victory on its first combat mission.
A National Security Agency document shows that after the shootdown, probably all six crewmen bailed out, but only two—Captains Olmstead and McKone—survived the splashdown into the icy Barents Sea. After hours in freezing water, the two were rescued, though McKone suffered a crushed vertebra from the ejection. The bodies of Major Palm and Major Posa were recovered, while Captains Goforth and Phillips were never found and presumed dead.
The pair was arrested by Soviet secret police and taken to Lubyanka Prison, where experienced extensive interrogation. McKone would not be given any medical treatment for his broken back until July 15- after which he would spend the next 97 weeks in traction. It was only after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, on orders of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as a gesture of goodwill, that Olmstead and McKone were allowed to leave prison; they returned to the United States on January 27, 1961.
Boeing RB-47H Stratojet was a high-subsonic speed strategic bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, designed to locate electronic signals in the air and identify them. The airplane was designed with a tandem two-pilot cockpit and a separately located navigator’s station in the nose, while behind it was a reconnaissance compartment for three electronic intelligence officers. The RB-47H was powered by 6 General Electric J47-GE-25 turbojet engines, and it had a maximum speed of 516 knots at 15,000 feet. It was then fitted with two M24A1 20 mm autocannons in a tail turret operated remotely.
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 was a twin-engine, single-seat supersonic interceptor with a speed level that made it the first series of aircraft to be produced by the Soviets. Three Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 23 mm cannons armed the power plant of this aircraft: two Tumansky RD-9B afterburning turbojet engines. The MiG-19 single-place, twin-engine, power plant coupled with three Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 23mm cannons, one sitting on either side of the fus.
This Cold War incident identifies the stakes of high tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. It underscores the fact that the age was dangerous for any kind of reconnaissance.