1954 — Sep 4, Soviet Migs shoot down USN P2V Neptune off Hokkaido, Sea of Japan– 10

–13 Spyflight.co.uk. “Boeing B-29 / F-13A / RB-29A / RB-29A Washington / RB-50.”
–10 Peterson. “Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns.” 1993, p17.

Narrative Information

Peterson: “4 September 1954.

(U) Over a year passed after the 29 July 1953 shootdown [of a USAF RB-50 over the Sea of Japan (p. 12)] and after the armistice was signed, ending three years of fighting in Korea, before the sixth American reconnaissance aircraft fell victim to Soviet interceptors. All was not love and roses in the interim, however. Six U.S. reconnaissance aircraft were attacked by Chinese Communist fighters during the fifteen-month period; two were shot down….

“(SC) [original classification] No timely COMINT reporting could be found that directly covered the 4 September 1954 incident, a USN P2V (Neptune) on a reconnaissance mission over the Sea of Japan shot down by two Soviet Naval MIG-17s from Unashi. The P2V crashed, with a crew of ten, not far from where the RB-29 wreckage was sighted on 13 June 1952 and where the RB-50 had been shot down fifteen months earlier…

“(SC) USAFSS later published a study that indicated that two minutes prior to the attack, with the Navy Neptune located more than twenty nautical miles from, but heading directly north toward, the Soviet coastline, COMINT had reflected the Soviet air surveillance radar tracking stations changing the designation of the Neptune from ‘suspicious’ to ‘hostile.’ Tracking indicated that the ill-fated aircraft turned southwest and continued to fly for another seventeen minutes before apparently crashing into the sea…” (Peterson, Michael L. “Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns.” Cryptologic Quarterly, 1993.

Spyflight.co.uk. “7 Sep 54 RB-50 shot down off Hokkaido in the East Sea/Sea of Japan all 13 crew lost.” (Spyflight.co.uk. “Boeing B-29 / F-13A / RB-29A / RB-29A Washington / RB-50.”)

Sources

Aftergood, Steven. “NSX Declassifies Secret Document After Publishing It. Federation of American Scientists, 5-14-2012. Accessed 4-27-2023 at: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2012/05/nsa_secret/

Peterson, Michael L. “Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns.” Cryptologic Quarterly, 1993, 44 pages. Accessed 4-27-2023 at: https://irp.fas.org/nsa/maybe_you.pdf

Spyflight.co.uk. “Boeing B-29 / F-13A / RB-29A / RB-29A Washington / RB-50.” Accessed at: http://www.spyflight.co.uk/rb29.htm