by Kevin Wright
The encoding system is best explained by the following examples: GAZ-66 BB41101 was a GAZ-66-mounted flat- or near-flat-roofed body with one window and one side access panel in the body and was No. 01 in the 411 series of box-bodies. ZIL-131 BB23103 was a ZIL-131-mounted deep-chamfered-roof body with three windows and one side access panel that was No. 03 in the 231 series of box-bodies. The photographic information was collated with other source information (defector reports, association with deployments and units) to determine each box-body’s individual function. This was especially important when defining the C4I associated vehicles at unit and formation level. The number of individual box-bodies ran into several thousand that were all faithfully recorded and disseminated in a series of HQ USAREUR books.
SPN-30 Paint Box Radar-Jamming System
Identifying the function and components of the SPN-30 Paint Box radar jamming system (see image 61) was the result of joint British and US analysis over a thirteen-year period. The system consisted of three box-bodied vehicles mounted on URAL-375 or URAL-4320 6 × 6 truck chassis. One vehicle contained the systems generators and was easily recognised by the two large roof-mounted exhausts. The other two vehicles contained the antennae, jamming and other communications equipment. The system first appeared in 1978 in the area associated with the air defence jamming battalion of the Front ECM regiment at Schönwalde. Over the next nine months British and US PIs held regular meetings with the UK MoD in London and HQ USAREUR at Heidelberg to examine their findings. After much debate, discussion, measurement, and analysis of the various cones, antennae, support systems and its deployment, the consensus was that the system was an air defence jammer targeted against the ‘E’, ‘F’ and ‘G’ band terrain-following radars used by RAF Tornados and USAF F-111 fighter-bombers. It was also believed to have the capability to jam the E-3 AWACs system used by the USA, UK and NATO. The final report on the system by 6 Int Coy was accepted by Technical Intelligence (Air) at the UK MoD in its entirety. Further analysis revealed the presence of eight Paint Box systems in the air defence jamming battalion, with each system consisting of a jammer vehicle, an operations vehicle and a generator vehicle. The systems deployed in pairs which gave GSFG four complete mobile systems.
The East Germans also acquired the system and later one of the PIs who had been involved in the 6 Int Coy and BRIXMIS analytical efforts was given the opportunity to examine a former East German Paint Box system. He said that: ‘It was gratifying to see that all the time and hard work spent by 6 Int Coy, BRIXMIS and the Americans analysing the system was confirmed, so our time was not wasted.’
Conclusion
The large numbers of installations, unit changes, equipment modernisation programmes and near-constant exercise programmes kept the personnel and aircraft involved in watching them under constant pressure. This was made all the more difficult by the lack of Soviet transparency and a smattering of deception. But diligent work, close co-operation and common sense managed to produce a wealth of carefully organised intelligence reporting on the people and equipment that would face the NATO Allies if the Cold War in Germany went ‘hot’. It also begs the question of what the Soviets knew of the West’s air reconnaissance activities that collected this intelligence.
Notes
1 The ‘1910’ reports were named after the two Soviet divisions they examined: 19 MRD and 10 GTD.
2 Maskirovska – Russian term denoting concealment and deception efforts designed to mislead the enemy.
3 Bates (2001), p. 19.
4 The National Archive: PRO PREM 11/3698 – minute from Chairman JIC (Sir Norman Brook) to PM, 30 May 1961, and PM’s approval of flights, 1 June 1961.
5 H. Neubroch (2001), ‘RAF Element BRIXMIS: Further recollections of Operational Experiences 1957–59’, RAF Historical Society Journal, No. 23, pp. 106–15.
9
WHAT DID THE OPPOSITION KNOW?
While the Kremlin is basically flexible in its reaction to political realities, it is by no means unamenable to considerations of prestige. Like almost any other government, it can be placed by tactless and threatening gestures in a position where it cannot afford to yield.
The Sources of Soviet Conduct (George Kennan, 1947)
The primary question concerning Western Corridor and BCZ flights has always been: just what did the Soviets and East Germans know about them? The simple answer is probably quite a lot. Significant, and growing, anecdotal evidence shows that Soviet military personnel were well aware of the reconnaissance flights. More difficult to determine are the questions following on from that fact, including: what level of detail did they know? Why did they tolerate them? Why did they not protest and harass them more?
Contact with Russian and German embassies in London has yielded little. There was no response from the Russians, although the Germans believe that many of the detailed East German files were probably exported to Russia in the interregnum between the fall of The Wall in 1989 and German reunification in October 1990. Supporting this contention is Peter Jefferies’ recollection of seeing photography of the MfS (‘Stasi’) HQ in Berlin-Karlshorst in early 1990 with military cargo trucks backed up to every available entrance and being loaded with material from the offices.
The limited available official information, together with the accounts of some participants, presents a picture that shows the Soviets and East Germans had a very clear idea of the true purpose of Allied reconnaissance flights and that the knowledge of them was widely disseminated through the military at least. What is more difficult to ascertain are the reasons why the Soviets seemed to tolerate these flights and even appeared to display equipment and operations knowing full well that they would be seen. To start with, there were plenty of simple, overt ways that could have given the Soviets knowledge of Corridor and BCZ reconnaissance flights.
Human Sources – German Employees
The Allied forces in Germany and Berlin employed several thousand German citizens in their installations and offices. Many had relatives, often elderly, in the GDR, which made them susceptible to coercion and possible recruitment as agents. Although most were in relatively low-level positions, such as mess staff and cleaners, there were others who worked in positions such as pay and administration clerks. These employees should not have had any access to operational details but would have been able to observe and report activities, especially unusual ones, unguarded conversations and the personal foibles of military personnel, which could have been used as a potential recruitment tool.
After German reunification in 1990, one of the RAF Gatow Officers’ Mess barmen was exposed as having been an East German agent for some time. As a barman he was in a position to overhear conversations, some of which were inevitably ‘shop’, and to ‘talent spot’ for potential recruits, either voluntary or pressed. Besides the personnel directly employed by the military, there were also those employed by the various welfare and support organisations such as the British NAAFI, the French Économat and US BX and PX, who could overhear gossip and conversations that would all add grist to the intelligence mill.
Ample opportunities existed to gather low-level intelligence from apparently innocuous sources. For example, in the early days the RAF Gatow Station Flight authorisation book was probably in open view in the hangar office so it could have been overseen by anyone in that office. The phrase ‘Berlin Ring – Photo’ was entered in the ‘Purpose of Flight’ column. Doubtless other similar opportunities would have existed.
Military Media
Another open and fruitful low-level intelligence source was the military media with their plethora of official service newspapers such as Sixth Sense and The Stars and Stripes, together with the many station and garrison magazines that named units and personalities and recorded events. The military radio and TV stations like the American Forces Network (AFN) and the British Forces Network (BFN), later the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), provided details of units, locations, people and service life in Germany. The extent and value
of information gathered by low-level agents and overt sources is now very difficult to determine more than twenty-five years after they stopped. Suffice it to say, they made the work of Soviet and GDR intelligence officers a lot easier than that of their Western counterparts.
Operating Units
Unlike the Red Army, one of the first things an Allied unit erected on arriving at a new location was a sign that proclaimed its presence. Whilst the French were quite open that their unit was connected with electronics, the British and Americans tried to conceal their air reconnaissance activities within apparently innocuous units. The British ‘hid’ their aircraft in the legitimate Communications Squadron that operated light transport flights within Germany and to Britain. The USA put its aircraft in support squadrons that overtly operated courier flights and carried passengers and cargo to provide a veneer of respectability, as well as operating the reconnaissance flights. A cursory examination of the subordination of the 7405 SS/7405 OS, and the other support squadrons’ roles, would have soon made the hidden agenda apparent.
ATC Clearances, Call Signs and Flight Patterns
At a daily routine level, an initial indicator of a possible spyflight in the Corridors would have been the filing of the flight plan with the BASC. The departure bases of RAF Bückeberg or RAF Wildenrath for the British, Lahr or Metz-Frascaty for the French and Wiesbaden or Rhein-Main for the USA were all known by the Soviets to house reconnaissance associated units. However, these airfields also hosted legitimate transport units, so knowing the originating airfield was not conclusive evidence of nefarious activity.
Aircraft call signs depended on the flight’s operator and could have been an indicator of a non-standard flight. Until at least 1977, the RAF Communications Squadron used the Transport Command’s five-letter identification letter system that began with ‘M’. By the early 1980s, 60 Squadron had adopted the RAF transport aircraft call sign ‘Ascot’ followed by a four-figure flight identification number – Pembrokes used the ‘Ascot 8XXX’ series. This identified the flight, not the aircraft operating it, so the call sign could not be permanently associated with an individual aircraft.
The French allocated ‘civil’ registrations as ATC call signs to their military aircraft and each individual aircraft had a unique ‘F-XXXX’ registration that it carried throughout its service life. Connecting ‘F-XXXX’ to an individual aircraft was a simple matter.
Until around the mid 1970s, US transport aircraft used call signs that started with the operator (e.g. MAC) followed by a contraction of the aircraft’s tail number. Associating the tail number with an individual aircraft was a simple matter. When the C-130s joined the 7405 OS in 1975 they changed to tactical call signs. Training missions often used ‘Herky’ (as used by many standard transport C-130s), followed by two numbers and ‘Ask’ followed by two numbers on operational flights.
The Soviets’ awareness of call sign associations with particular aircraft and their role becomes clear in an account from US airman David Brogg. Between 1964 and 1975, C-97G 53–0106 operated Project Creek Flea and used its tail number as part of its ATC call sign. To extend and retract the many antennae on the aircraft involved micro-switches that sometimes malfunctioned, especially in winter. From inside the aircraft, it was impossible to tell how much of the antennae might still be extended. In such situations:
The procedure was to declare an emergency and exit via the Centre Corridor, the shortest one … One December day in 1966, the ice would not let the antennae stow securely for three days in a row. After declaring the third emergency on the same aircraft, on the same week, the Soviet controller in the BASC turned to his US counterpart and asked: ‘What is the matter with your spy plane this week? This is the third time he has not landed here.’1
All flightplans recorded the actual numbers of personnel on board the aircraft, for use in case of an accident, rather than trying to disguise the real numbers onboard. This may have helped give away a flight’s true purpose to the Soviets.
Once in the Corridors a reconnaissance flight’s meandering course and varying altitudes would have been obvious to the BARTCC radar controllers. They were used to the normal Corridor flights that strictly adhered to a course close to the Corridor’s centreline and maintained their assigned altitude. The reconnaissance crews explained their deviations as ‘equipment failure’ or ‘crew training’, but these must have been glaringly obvious to the Soviet representatives in the BASC. Once in the BCZ the US flights generally flew around it for up to thirty minutes before landing at Tempelhof, unlike normal flights that went directly to their destination airfield.
East German Border Guards watching the RAF’s comings and goings at Gatow would have seen how the Pembrokes parked with their passenger door facing the hangar so that the number of personnel onboard could not be observed and verified. At Tempelhof, the ‘fence watchers’, some of whom were probably East German or Russian agents, would see up to fifteen men disembark from the C-130 and later see the same number of personnel embark again for the return trip – very different from a standard C-130 cargo flight.2
The Aircraft
Associating an individual aircraft’s identification number with its call signs and known roles provided a reasonable indication of why it was in the Corridors. Efforts were made to conceal sensor hatches and antennae; they were not always successful because they had to be opened to allow the systems to operate. In the Corridors and BCZ where the aircraft flew below 10,000ft, such openings would often be clearly visible from the ground to the naked eye or to watchers using binoculars, or similar optical viewers.
Pembroke pilot Brian King told us that once, when on leave in Berlin with his family, ‘I heard a familiar engine tone and looked up to see this Pembroke flying an unmistakable photographic pattern over the city’. RAF PI Andrew Scott recalled seeing a Pembroke flying over Rheindahlen taking photographs of the Headquarters buildings. ‘As it came over you could see the hatch open underneath and a camera shutter moving, so I don’t think it ever fooled the Russians!’ Peter Jefferies also remembers this, or a similar, flight in around 1976 or 1977.
Harassment in the Corridors
From the outset the Russians harassed flights in the Corridors, but this was inconsistent and not directed solely at ICFs. The level of harassment depended on the international political temperature at the time. In the late 1940s/early 1950s there was often harassment of flights and incidences of Russian fighters opening fire on Allied military and civilian aircraft using the Corridors. This was especially true in the lead-up to the Berlin Blockade and Airlift. The fighters sometimes flew very close to aircraft, causing crashes and fatalities, such as the BEA Viking and Yak-3 collision over Dallgow-Döberitz in April 1948.3
There were certainly many near misses, but these were generally attributed to accidental miscalculation, or excessive zeal, rather than deliberately planned and officially sanctioned action, although the possibility that there was a mix of both cannot be totally discounted.4 There were also instances when Soviet fighters practised interception techniques on aircraft in the Corridors. In times of heightened international or local tension, there were likely to be more ‘interceptions’ and close fly-bys to demonstrate to the West the Corridors’ vulnerability. This was especially true in 1961 and 1962 when the second Berlin crisis approached its climax. Incidents that involved large numbers of MiG fighters operating within the Corridors and intercepting aircraft were discussed by the British Cabinet in February 1962.5 Overall, Corridor incidents may well have been under-reported to avoid drawing unwanted attention to reconnaissance flights.
In 1962 the US complained to the Soviets on a number of occasions about the interception of its Corridor flights, although few resulted in formal diplomatic protests. On 23 July, two MiGs closed to within a hundred feet of a Carol Ann CT-29 (49–1910) some 10 to 15 miles north of Tempelhof. Later on the same day, a US Overseas Airways DC-7 was shadowed for some seven to eight minutes about 70 to 80 miles west of Berlin in the Souther
n Corridor. The ‘interception’ took place at around 4,000ft and at one point a MiG was only 20yd from the DC-7 and flying ‘in a manner which endangered the DC-7’s safety’. The US protest added that this was the fourth serious incident in seven days.6
Frank Doucette, flying aboard the Hot Pepper C-54, recounted that:
Flying in the South Corridor, we got caught with the camera door open, working. The MiG pilot looked and waved. We waved back and took his picture. When we got to Berlin we contacted ‘Homeplate’ and they said for us to go to Châteauroux Air Base, France. When we got there, we were directed into a large hangar with engines running. We shut down and there was sitting another C-54 with the same tail number. Imagine that!
The crew returned to Wiesbaden in the re-marked aircraft and for the next week continued to ‘trail their coat’ along the Corridors. ‘Captain Stan Sturgill, First-Lieutenant Ron Hummel and I flew the Corridors at maximum altitude and at its edge. We had parachutes, steel pots, and blood chits, but the Soviets didn’t take the bait as they could see the distinctive large belly radome was absent.’
One of the most serious harassment incidents was the interception of a Pembroke. On 17 January 1972 XL954 was intercepted by three MiG-17’s which thundered by in line astern. Rob Fallon, one of the navigators, described how their Pembroke, flying close to the edge of the Southern Corridor, suddenly started bouncing around: