The Spy Who Changed History

by Svetlana Lokhova

  Shumovsky directed the removal of the entire Arado works and its staff to the Soviet Union. Ilyushin then designed a two-engined prototype jet bomber based on the AR-234, which was built in time to make its maiden flight in front of the crowds at the 1947 Tushino air show. As was a common problem, the aircraft’s Achilles heel was its underpowered engines. While the Russians were producing variants of German jet engines, the British had stolen a march in terms of the reliability, durability and fuel economy of their engines. The British post-war Labour government gave the Russians their advanced Nene jet engines in 1946. This time the method of acquisition was simple; the Russians merely asked for them. The Russian airframes with their swept wings were already the most advanced in the world, and now the excellence of the design was complemented by a powerful engine. In combat in the skies over Korea, the simple MiG-15 would demonstrate that the Soviets had overtaken America in the field of jet fighter design.

  • • •

  There remained a thorny problem. The Soviets needed a strategic bomber with the capability to deliver their planned atomic response. On 6 June 1945, Stalin chaired the State Defence Committee and gave Tupolev a tough new assignment.7 He was to deliver into mass production a Soviet version of the most powerful strategic bomber in the world, America’s B-29 Superfortress. In August 1945, two B-29s would fly the missions that dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. A single plane could now drop one bomb with the destructive power of the load of 2,000 others.

  It was a measure of how far Shumovsky and Tupolev had succeeded in modernising Soviet aviation manufacturing techniques that such a project could even be attempted. In 1931 the Soviet aircraft industry had struggled to produce outmoded biplanes. Now, having survived a major war, the Soviets were confronting the technological challenge of building the most advanced aircraft in the skies. Most daunting of all was that the feat was to be accomplished in just two years. The B-29 was a pressurised high-altitude plane with an enormous range and operational ceiling. As fast as most fighters, it was constructed with alloys unknown to Russian factories and featured a fire control computer allowing a single operator to fire all the weapon turrets.

  The Russians did not start at square one. The Soviet intelligence operation in America was reported to have obtained as early as 1943 a partial blueprint of the Superfortress’s design, and this had been sent to Stan in Moscow.8 By June 1945 the completed B-29 was well known to them. The first information on the proposed new high-altitude heavy bomber had come courtesy of the US First World War ace and legend Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who visited the USSR in 1943. Rickenbacker was shown aircraft factories and front-line military units. In conversation with his English-speaking guide he indiscreetly mentioned the performance characteristics of the new bomber, and the conversation, including the valuable information about the new plane, was reported. The Soviets began the systematic collection of information about the B-29 through official and unofficial channels alike. General Belyaev, head of the Purchasing Commission in the US, asked to buy the B-29 in 1943 and again in 1945 to use against the Japanese. The requests were ignored.

  During US operations against Japan in 1944, three damaged but airworthy US B-29s landed in Soviet territory. The aircraft had to be interned as the Soviet Union and Japan were at that stage still at peace. The crews were kept in a comfortable stockade which the Japanese could inspect at any time. The camp was porous, with the airmen ‘helped’ to escape to rejoin US armed forces based in Iran. The planes could not be returned. Instead the Russians inspected, repaired and test flew them. Soviet scientists and pilots became familiar with the innovative aircraft. American sources suggest that one plane had even landed with some of its operational manuals on board. In 1944 TsAGI published a long article revealing all the details of the world’s first modern pressurised high-altitude plane.

  One of the American B-29s, nicknamed ‘Ramp Tramp’, was flown to the Central Airfield in Moscow on 11 July 1945 and squirrelled away in a large hangar. After an initial inspection by Tupolev and his assistants, it was meticulously and painstakingly dismantled.9 Each of the thousands of separate parts was studied by a team of designers and technologists. Each item was carefully weighed and photographed, and a technical description prepared. The parts were next subjected to spectral analysis to ascertain the construction material. Several tens of thousands of drawings were made. Unsurprisingly, the B-29’s technology and structural materials were entirely different from those in use in the domestic aircraft industry. American production standards were also far stricter than in Russia. Each new part would have to be made in a Soviet factory to a near perfect standard.

  The initial order was for twenty aircraft. To reach the required manufacturing standards, a leading figure of the aircraft industry announced at a special meeting to discuss progress on the Tu-4 project in December 1945 that ‘it will take tremendous work to raise our aviation manufacturing culture to these new, very high levels’.

  The Russians sought to accelerate the programme by purchasing in the United States some of the components they could not manufacture. These included the engine starters, the AN/APQ-13 advanced radar, the VS-733 blind landing systems, the wheels, the Hamilton Standard propellers, bearings, cockpit instruments, and the spark plugs for the motors. But it was impossible to purchase such items without arousing suspicion, so every single component had to be made in the USSR, which was ultimately to their advantage as it forced through a leap forward across industries. The NKAP stipulated: ‘All orders for the Tu-4 aircraft must considered to be the priority.’10 Revolutionary new metal alloys were developed from the spectral analysis and the state-of-the-art technology recreated. At the end of the exercise ‘Ramp Tramp’ was reassembled.

  The Tupolev version of the B-29, officially named the Tu-4 and later given the NATO codename ‘Bull’, was not as is sometimes claimed an exact copy of the B-29. The Tu-4’s Russian engines were derived originally from a Curtiss-Wright design. Its sophisticated radar systems and friend-or-foe identifier evolved from captured German equipment, as the US had refused to officially supply the Russians with any radar technology under Lend Lease. When the US manufacturers built radar into their planes, USAAF technicians would take it out before delivery to the Soviets, although substantive intelligence on radar had been provided by William Perl and Alfred Sarant, members of the Rosenberg spy ring, while the US Navy, unaware of the requirement to remove the technology, had supplied some planes with radar. The defensive armament on the plane was considered inadequate, so the machine guns were enhanced with more powerful Nudelman cannons in remodelled turrets. The Tu-4 would have been more difficult to attack than a B-29 if it had ever been involved in combat.

  The Tu-4 was designed as a metric aircraft. Each component had to be analysed and converted to a metric equivalent with the help of Shumovsky’s calculation tables, meticulously worked out at the BNT. The crucial decision concerned the gauge of the aluminium sheets that covered the plane’s vast surface area. There was no metric equivalent to the American ⅛ inch gauge. If the Russians selected a gauge that was too thick or too thin, there might be a dramatic impact on the aircraft’s performance. But the complete Tu-4, when assembled, weighed within a few per cent of an American B-29, showing how accurate the calculations had been. The Soviets’ main problem was a failure to master the technique of making curved plexiglas without causing distortion. Despite the amount of clear glass all round the cockpit, the distortion meant it was a challenge for the pilot to see out of the first Tu-4s.11

  • • •

  The early August air display gave Tupolev and Shumovsky an unmissable deadline. The traditional ‘Aviation Day’ flypast in front of holidaying Moscow crowds was to be held for the first time since the end of the war, and everything must be ready and perfect. The launch of the Tu-4 was a direct challenge to America’s supremacy in the air. A crucial message was to be delivered that August day: that Stalin and the Soviet Union were challenging America’s nuclear monopoly hea
d on.

  Even before America dropped ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there had been grave international concern that a single state might have a monopoly on such destructive power. The fear that Nazi Germany would be that state had led the international scientific community to approach President Roosevelt with a proposal to build the first bomb. The US had refused to share its nuclear secrets even with the British, who had contributed so much to the programme. On 8 August 1945, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee sent President Harry Truman a message in which he referred to the pair as ‘the heads of the Governments which have control of this great force’. Truman refused to accept the comparison. For the next year Attlee attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Truman to grant the access to the scientific information which the British believed they deserved, given their extensive involvement in the original research. In the meantime, they had restarted their own independent work to build what was now known as a deterrent.

  For the all-important Tushino display, Tu-4s with the serial numbers 001 to 003 were manufactured, prepared and test flown by July. Hundreds of factories and thousands of workers had given their all for this day. Thanks to its importance, Tupolev travelled to the distant city of Kazan dressed in his general’s cap to supervise the post-factory testing of each plane. One of the Soviets’ top test pilots, Mark Gallay, who flew one of the planes in the parade, marvelled at the advance in Soviet bomber design represented by the Tu-4. He well remembered the bad old days of open cockpits and thick flying suits; in contrast, the Tu-4’s pressurised environment maintained a comfortable interior temperature in flight. Gallay noted that this remarkable plane flew at the speed of a fighter, at the height of an experimental plane, and had the range of a reconnaissance aircraft.12 Everything worked perfectly – except that no one was able to locate the button which turned the heating down. Gallay and his crew flew to Moscow in tropical heat.

  B-29 Superfortress

  Tu-4

  Dismantling of B-29 ‘Ramp Tramp’, Moscow, 1945

  The Tushino Air Display was an important summer holiday for ordinary Muscovites as well as the great and the good. Tens of thousands flocked out of the city by tram, train and even river boat. It was important to arrive early to secure the best viewing spot.13 Those watching the display traditionally wore white clothes, necessary to keep cool in the sweltering heat of the summer of 1947.

  Stalin arrived in an upbeat mood. Resplendent in his generalissimo’s uniform, specially tailored in blue in honour of the air force, he chatted and smiled with the Minister of Defence and the head of the VVS. Standing nearby in civilian clothes was Beria, who was there to see the aircraft purpose-built to drop the atomic bomb that he was close to perfecting. Tupolev was dressed for once in a smart general’s uniform decked with medals, including the treasured ‘Hero of Socialist Labour’, the only medal Stalin himself wore. With all the preparations complete he was confident. He had been informed that the Tu-4s, his special surprise, were airborne.

  Shumovsky was there with his family to witness the climax of his work in America and Germany. The Soviet Union was about to showcase its jet fighters and bombers. The Western diplomats gathered in their enclosure expected the jets, but the Tu-4’s entrance was to be a complete shock.

  Within the last few days, the head of the air force, Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Golovanov, had decided to lead the fly-past himself, piloting the first Tu-4.14 The many aircraft for the show formed up several miles from Tushino, circling as they awaited their opportunity to make a high-speed pass low over the parade ground. For the pilots of the Tu-4, these were harrowing moments; they had to watch out for a myriad of smaller twin-engined planes in close proximity, while also keeping formation with the inexperienced air marshal. The two test pilots had some hairy moments following their leader. His turns were not long and smooth but hurried and sharp.

  At last, it was time for the Tu-4s to open the parade with their grand entrance. Throttles were opened to full as the three planes began their first fast, low pass over the crowd. Everyone was expecting bombers – traditionally it was always the large planes that were the crowd pleasers – but the dots approaching at speed in the distance were not, as expected, obsolete pre-war aircraft. The hum of the approaching engines was loud and distinct. Even from a distance, the sheer scale of the planes was obvious to the naked eye. As the planes closed in on the airfield, each formed into a shape unfamiliar in Soviet aviation. The three Tu-4s passed low over the crowd, the roar of their engines announcing that Stalin had a potent strategic bomber force at his disposal. As it dawned on the assembled foreign observers that America’s dominance of the skies was over, Stan Shumovsky allowed himself an inward smile.

  POST-SCRIPTUM

  The success of Shumovsky’s work from 1931 would be epitomised in the manufacture of hundreds of Tu-4s. The Soviet Union had caught up with and overtaken the best America could make. The construction of this first ultra-modern plane and its supporting technology was a fitting conclusion to his mission to modernise the Soviet aviation industry. The Tu-4 was the father of a whole family of Soviet strategic bombers.

  When it mattered, during the days between 1941 and 1945, the Soviet factories and their trained workers had won the war of production over Germany. Shumovsky’s legacy was to establish an equilibrium in Soviet and American capabilities that lasted the length of the Cold War. Both superpowers were equipped with nuclear weapons and long-range bombers, the ultimate tools of the Douhet strategic bomber philosophy that envisaged aircraft as the ultimate weapon. But soon America and the USSR would deploy fleets of nuclear-armed bombers that neither side could or would use.

  Deputy Director Shumovsky left TsAGI shortly after the public flights of the Tu-4 and the first Soviet jet aeroplanes.1 For his service to the Motherland, he was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War Grade I and the Medal for Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War. It was time to pass the baton. Tupolev’s son was heading the design bureau, Stalin’s son was flying Tu-4s, and Shumovsky’s elder son Yuri was at work in a secret aircraft factory. Professor Shumovsky started a new career in education, helping to found the Moscow Physical Technical University along similar lines to MIT.2 He was later the Soviets’ choice to be appointed head of UNESCO (the United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture), although he was prevented from taking up the position when, given their belated discovery of his espionage activity, the US objected to his candidature. Nonetheless, he worked for many years in Paris as a deputy director of UNESCO, making a valuable contribution to the improvement of education in the developing world.3 Shumovsky died on 1 October 1984.

  Professor Shumovsky in 1982, with his MIT graduation picture in the background

  APPENDIX I

  Biography of Stanislav Shumovsky

  1902 Born in Kharkov.

  1918 Graduates after 5 years at Realschule (science school), Shusha.

  August 1918 Volunteers for Red Army.

  Appointed section commander Pyotr Ipatov’s detachment.

  1919 Appointed Head of machine-gun section of 7th Regiment of the 2nd Stavropol Rifle Division.

  April 1920 Appointed Commissar (political instructor) and Field Adjutant of 32nd Rifle Division,11th Army, based in Baku and Dagestan.

  July 1920 Appointed Staff Military Commissar of the 281st Rifle Regiment, 32nd Rifle Division.

  May 1921 Head of Information, Political Department, 32nd Rifle Division, based in Derbent.

  July 1921 Head of Registration and Allocation, and Head of Mobilisation Department, Political Directorate, Samara and the Volga Military District.

  December 1922 Head of Organisational Instruct Department and Head of Registration-Mobilisation Unit of Political Department, 33rd Rifle Division, Samara, Zhizdra.

  May 1924 Commissar of Engineering Department, 33rd Rifle Division, Mogilev on Dnieper.

  September 1924 Senior instructor for special units, Political Department, Smolensk, Western Military Distr
ict.

  December 1924 Trainee pilot-observer, 2nd Independent Reconnaissance Squadron.

  September 1925 Executive organiser of the party collective, electro-mining school of the Baltic Fleet, Kronstadt.

  1926 Death of Adam Shumovsky.

  September 1926 Leaves army.

  Head investigator for military affairs, People’s Commissariat for Finance, Moscow.

  August 1929 Student at Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School.

  October 1930 Student at the Special Courses of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Leningrad.

  September 1931 Student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

  June 1934 Graduates with a BSc from MIT.

  March 1935 Leave of absence from MIT for Tupolev trip.

  June 1936 Completes Master’s degree at MIT. Thesis on ‘The Effectiveness of the Vertical Tail of the Aircraft for Various Combinations of Wing and Fuselage’. Appointed Deputy Plenipotentiary for the Commissariat of Heavy Industry, based at AMTORG in New York.

  February 1939 Leaves USA to be appointed Deputy Chair of Technical Council, People’s Commissariat for Aviation Industry, Moscow.

  June 1940 Deputy Head of Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TSAGI) and Head of its Bureau of New Technology, Moscow.

  October 1941 Secondment to USA to join Soviet Purchasing Commision.

  May 1943 Returns to USSR, Head of Bureau of New Technology, TsAGI.

  1944 Medal for Defence of Moscow.

  1945 Order of the Great Patriotic War Grade I.

  1946 Medal for Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War.