Myasishchev Mischief: The Bison and the Bomber Gap

Barely a few years since the end of the Second World War, tensions are mounting between former allies as the United States and Soviet Union became increasingly distrustful of one another. The showdown between democracy and communism is beginning all across the globe as the Soviets expand their sphere of influence across eastern Europe and into Asia. With the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949, the United States was on a higher state of alert in dealing with the Soviet Union. As the United States conducted the first test flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber in 1952, the Soviet Union responded by developing their own jet powered bomber designed to carry a destructive payload from the Soviet Union deep into the heart of North America. At the time, the only heavy bomber available to the Soviet Air Force was the Tupelov Tu-4 Bull which was a reverse engineered copy of the American B-29 Superfortress but the piston powered bomber was too slow for Soviet leaders who wanted a bomber propelled by jet engines to carry bombs into the United States. The task of designing and fielding such a bomber fell upon the Myasishchev Design Bureau. 

The Soviet design first took to the air in 1953 before being revealed to the public on May Day 1954, when the Myasishchev M-4 Molot or 'Hammer' flew over Moscow's Red Square. The existence of such an aircraft in the Soviet arsenal took the United States by surprise, completely unaware that the Soviets had been developing a jet bomber. The jet bomber was given the NATO reporting code of 'Bison' following the alliance's practice of issuing names to Soviet aircraft corresponding with the type of aircraft being identified. In July 1955, American observers saw 28 Bison bombers flying in two groups during a Soviet airshow at Tushino near northwestern Moscow. The United States government came to believe that the bomber had been placed in mass production for the Soviet Air Force, and the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that 800 Bisons would be on ready alert by the beginning of 1960. 

On 15 February 1954, aviation publication Aviation Week printed an article describing a new Soviet jet bomber capable of carrying a nuclear bomb to the United States mainland from their bases in deep in Soviet Russia. The aircraft they referred to was the Myasishchev M-4 Bison. Over the next year and a half these rumors were debated publicly in the press, and soon after in the United States Congress. Adding to the concerns was an infamous event in July 1955. At the Soviet Aviation Day demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield, ten Bison bombers were flown past the reviewing stand, then flew out of sight, quickly turned around, and flew past the stands again with eight more, presenting the illusion that there were 28 aircraft in the flyby. An elaborate deception formulated by Soviet military planners.

Western analysts calculated from the illusionary force of 28 aircraft, judged that by 1960 the Soviets would have 800. The classified estimates however, led American politicians to warn of a "bomber gap". The "bomber gap" was a term to define a belief that the Soviet Union had gained a strategic advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers that were capable of attacking the United States. The concept was widely accepted for several years, and was used as a political talking point in order to justify a great increase in American defense spending. At the time, the USAF had just introduced its own strategic jet bomber, the B-52 Stratofortress, and the shorter ranged B-47 Stratojet which was still suffering from a variety of technical problems that limited its combat availability. USAF staff started pressing for accelerated production of the larger B-52 Stratofortress, but it also grudgingly accepted calls for expanded air defense.The Air Force was generally critical of spending effort on defense, having studied the results of the World War II bombing campaigns and concluding that Stanley Baldwin's pre-war thinking on the fruitlessness of air defense was correct: the bomber almost always did get through. Like the British, they concluded that money would better be spent on making the offensive arm larger, deterring an attack. The result was a production series consisting of thousands of aircraft. Over 2,000 B-47s and almost 750 B-52s were built to match the imagined fleet of Soviet aircraft.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was skeptical of the perceived bomber gap idea from its inception. With no evidence to prove or disprove the logic, he agreed to the development of the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady high altitude reconnaissance aircraft to provide an answer to the lingering question . The first U-2 flights started in 1956. On one early mission known as Mission 2020 flown by Martin Knutson on 4 July 1956, a U-2 flew over Engels airfield near Saratov and photographed 20 M-4 Bison bombers on the ramp. Multiplying by the number of Soviet bomber bases known to exist, the intelligence suggested the Soviets were already well on their way to deploying hundreds of aircraft. Ironically, the U-2 had actually photographed the entire Bison fleet; there wasn't a single bomber at any of the other bases. Similar missions over the next year finally demonstrated this beyond a doubt, and at least in official circles that the gap had been disproven. It was later learned that the Soviet Bison was unable to meet its original range goals and was limited to a range of roughly about 8,000 km. Unlike the United States, at that time the Soviets lacked overseas bases in the Western Hemisphere and therefore the M-4 would not be able to attack the US mainland and return to land at a friendly airbase. 

In the end it was not the Soviet Air Force (VVS) that wanted the Bison, but rather Naval Aviation (AV-MF). Though it could still not bomb Washington, D.C., the Bison had a sufficient range to fulfill the need for a long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft. In 1959, the 3M variant broke numerous world records; however, it was thought by the West (and would continue to be thought so until 1961) that the 3M variant was the original M-4, meaning that the capability of the M-4 was vastly overestimated by Western intelligence agencies.Interest in the Myasishchev Bison waned, and a total of only 93 were produced before production of the bomber ceased in 1963. The vast majority of these were modified for used as tankers or maritime reconnaissance aircraft; only the original 10 shown at the air show and nine newer 3MD13 models served on nuclear alert with the Soviet bomber force.

Neither the M-4 nor the 3M ever saw combat service, and none were ever modified for low altitude penetration attack, as the American B-52 Stratofortresses were. No Bisons were ever exported to the Soviet Union's allies. The last aircraft, an M-4-2 fuel tanker, was withdrawn from service in 1994.

So the legacy of the Bison was largely preserved in the aftermath of the bomber gap controversy which through American miscalculations resulted in a massive buildup of the United States Air Force's strategic bomber fleet, which peaked at over 2,500 strategic bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. Realizing that the mere belief in the gap was an extremely effective funding source, a series of similarly nonexistent Soviet military advances were constructed in the following years of the Cold War in a tactic now known as "policy by press release." Other deceptions included claims of a nuclear-powered bomber, supersonic VTOL flying saucers, and ultimately only a few years after the "bomber gap" came a "missile gap."

Penetrating the Blockade: How Operation Vittles sustained an encircled City

The year was 1945, Berlin much like the rest of Germany lay in a state of ruin. Her streets and buildings were pockmarked with the graffiti of war. Shell craters, smashed windows and twisted figures of stone, mortar and steel littered the streets stretching towards the sky like some grotesque carcass reaching to achieve a final grasp. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the defeated nation was dead, committing suicide to escape the western Allies held bent on bringing him and his legion of cronies to justice for the crimes they had committed over the span of some twelve years. The nation was in a state of dispair facing an uncertain future as foreign forces occupied the wartorn land. As per the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences earlier in the year, Germany was carved up into zones of occupation administered by military forces of the wartime Allies. These sectors encompasses areas associated to the current positions of the Allied armies at the time and in a minature reflection of this, Berlin would reflect the division of the nation. Berlin, a once great city  had suffered catastrophic damage. Once boasting a population of 4.6 million people before the Second World War, it was now reduced to nearly 2.8 million people with only the capacity to produce 2% of the food needed to support the population. The forces of the United States, United Kingdom and France were not permitted to enter the war ravaged city until nearly two months after Germany had capitulated, during which time the local populace suffered brutal reprisals at the hands of the conquering Soviet Red Army.

The western portion of the nation would see the British taking responsibility for most of the northern part of the country, the Americans taking responsibility for the southern part of the country and both turning over two small portions of their zones of occupation that barely contacted each other along the French border over to the forces of France. The eastern portion of the nation would go to the Soviets. One area of protest came with the status of Berlin, which put forces of the United States, United Kingdom and France some 100 miles inside the Soviet zone of occupation. The areas under Soviet control, produced much of the food that fed the nation and thus the regions under American and British control largely relied on food imports from the very beginning. With the United States, United Kingdom and France largely instilling the principles of democracy to their post war areas, the Soviet Military Administration forcibly unified the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands 'Communist Party of Germany' and the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands 'Social Democratic Party of Germany' to form the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands 'Socialist Unity Party of Germany' claiming that it would not occupy a Marxist-Leninist or Soviet stance on its body politics. Immediately after its formation, the SED Party called for the establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime in the form of a parliamentary democratic republic. Under this ruse, the Soviets suppressed all activities of non SED aligned political parties and expatriated many factories and equipment as well as their technicians, managers and skilled personnel to regions deep in the Soviet Union.

Soviet leader Josef Stalin made his true intentions clear before the smoke of the Battle of Berlin had even fully cleared, telling German communists that he planned to undermine the authority of the British in their zone of occupation and force the United States to withdraw within the span of two years and thus he would unify Germany as a single communist nations under Soviet control.

One of the loopholes in the agreements reached by the western Allies was that there had never been any formal agreements guaranteeing rail or road access to Berlin through Soviet occupied territory. The first signs of ensuing tensions began when the Soviets imposed a limitation on the amount of cargo that could enter its territory. The Soviets set the limitation at only ten trains per day by only one single rail line. Believing the Soviet limitations were temporary at most, the Allies shrugged it off and began proposing addition alternatives to the Soviet Union which were rejected by the Soviets. In a move to further put a squeeze on the Allies in Berlin, the Soviet Union enforced the utilization of only three air corridors into Berlin with access to Berlin being authorized only from Hamburg, Bückeburg and Frankfurt. As the situation between the former allies began to deteriorate, the Soviets halted the delivery of agricultural goods from their zone of occupation into Berlin. This was countered accordingly when the American Commander, General Lucius Clay halted shipments of dismantled industrial goods from western Germany to the Soviet Union.

Angered by the American action, the Soviets began a campaign to undermine the Allies by slandering the American mission in Germany and hinder the administrative work of all four zones of occupation inside Berlin. Having surviving harsh treatment, forced emigrations, severe political repression and a particularly rough winter of the 1945–1946 period, Germans in the Soviet zone of administration were growing extremely hostile to the Soviets and their plans. Local elections in 1946 resulted in a massive anti-communist protest vote across the city, especially in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Berlin's citizens overwhelmingly elected non-Communist members to its city council reflecting an overwhelming 86% majority. The clouds of trouble had begun building on the horizon.

In January 1948, the Soviets began stopping American and British trains bound for Berlin to confirm the identities of passengers onboard the trains, With the Marshall Plan being enforced across, western Europe the Soviets began orchaestrating a plan to force the Allies to align their interests along with the wishes of the Soviet Union through further regulating access to Berlin. To test the waters, on 25 March 1948, the Soviets issued an order that hindered the movement of traffic between the American, French and British zones of occupation and Berlin stating that no cargo could leave Berlin without the expressed approval of the Soviet Commander.Each truck or train would be searched by Soviet authorities before it would be allowed to leave the city. On 2 April 1948, General Clay halted the use of military trains and ordered that all cargo be flown in and out of the city by air. This venture would be known affectionately as the 'Little Air Lift'. On 10 April 1948, the Soviets eased their restrictions but continued to harass Allied traffic in and out of the city. The Soviets then began a campaign of violations of West Berlin's airspace with their own military aircraft which resulted in a deadly incident on 5 April 1948 when a Soviet Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter collided with a British European Airways Vickers VC.1 Viking transport near RAF Gatow resulting in the deaths of all aboard the colliding aircraft.

The final calm before the store occurred when on 9 April, the Soviets first demanded that American communication equipment in Soviet territory be withdrawn thus preventing the use of navigational beacons to designate air routes. This was followed by a Soviet declaration demanding barges from the west to obtain a special clearance before entering Soviet occupied areas. With the introduction of the new Deutsche Mark in the western part of the country, the Soviets stated that the only currency allowed into Berlin would be one that they issued in a move to keep Germany weakened and in a state of recession. By the time the Soviets began to introduce their own currency into Berlin, the western Allies had already transported 250,000,000 Deutsche Marks into the city and it quickly took over as the standard currency of all four sectors of the city. The introduction of the Deutsche Mark and the Marshall Plan which would bring upon an economic miracle to the nation was seen as a move to undermine Soviet intentions and Stalin interpreted this a provocation against him. He now wanted the Allies out of Berlin completely.

On 18 June 1948, the Deutsche Mark was announced as the new currency to be used in the allied zones of occupation. The Soviets responded by halting all passenger trains and traffic on the autobahns of Berlin. On 21 June, the Soviets refused entry to an American military supply train and sent it back to American territory in western Germany. On 22 June, the Soviets introduced their own new currency that it called the 'Ostmark' for use in it's zone of occupation as a method to undermine the integrity of the Deutsche Mark. Also on the 22nd of June a Soviet official sent a memorandum to the Americans, British and French in the city stating that both their forces and the population of Berlin would be subjected to economic and administrative sanctions that would lead to the circulation in Berlin of only the currency of the Soviet occupation zone. This was followed by a propaganda campaign in which the Soviets denounced the United Kingdom, United States and France by radio, newspaper and loudspeaker. With a large Soviet military exercise on the outskirts of the city, rumors began to circulate of an impending Soviet invasion and occupation. German communists added to this state of aggitation when they staged protests, riots and attacks against pro-West German leaders in Berlin.

The Berlin Blockade would begin on 24 June 1948, when the Soviet forces halted all communications on land and water between the western zones and Berlin. This was quickly followed by the halting of all rail and water traffic in and out of Berlin. The next day, the Soviets halted all supplies of food to the civilian population of western Berlin as well as cut the flow of electricity from power plants in eastern Berlin to the West. For the time being, road access to the city was still authorized but only after a fourteen mile detour to a ferry crossing. The official reasoning was that Soviet forces were conducting repairs to critical infrastructure. Traffic from the western zones of occupation bound for Berlin were blockaded and all arguments permitting to the occupation rights in western Berlin fell on deaf ears. Only Soviet good will towards the western Allies made access to Berlin possible, but with no formal agreement in place the Soviets could negotiate the terms of usage of transit routes in and out of its zone of authority any way that it wished.

West Berlin was now in a critical state. It had on hand only enough food for 36 days, and enough coal to last for only 45 days. Military forces in West Berlin numbered only a force of 8,973 Americans, 7,606 British and 6,100 French in contrast to a force of one and a half million Soviet troops in East Berlin and the Soviet zone of occupation which surrounded it. On 13 June 1948, General Clay sent a cable to Washington D.C. reaffirming his stance in West Berlin and declaring that their would be no withdrawal from Berlin. While, the Soviets celebrated their blockade of Berlin and anticipated the withdrawal of western forces from eastern Germany, General Clay called the Soviets bluff, believing that the Soviets would not intentionally initiate World War III, especially not having just barely recovered from World War II. With limited options at his disposal, Clay heard numerous proposals from Allied leaders including an aggressive response to the blocakde proposed by General Curtis LeMay, the Commander of United States Air Forces in Europe in which waves of Boeing B-29 Stratofortress strategic bombers and fighter escorts would engage Soviet airbases while ground troops in western Germany would attempt a breakthrough to reach encircled Berlin. This plan was ultimately rejected by Clay.

With time running, out Clay authorized the use of Berlin's airways to undermine the Soviet blockade. This was a move that the Soviets had not counted on. On 30 November 1945, the Allies had recieved in writing the approval for free access to Berlin via three twenty three mile wide air corridors. Further undermining the Soviet blockade, the usage of cargo aircraft could not justify the Soviets identifying them as posing a military threat to its forces in eastern Germany and thus put them in a very delicate position when the aircraft refused to turn back of either engaging and shooting them down or backing down. Shooting down unarmed humanitarian aircraft would put the Soviets in violation of their own agreements and cause a political uproar and backlash against the Soviet Union that it would not want. Clay initially approached LeMay with an inquiry regarding whether or not his aircraft could move amounts of coal to support the operations of the city. LeMay promptly responded that his planes could carry anything required. When they approached the British forces, it was confirmed that the British had already been conducting their own airlift in support of British forces in Berlin.

During the 'Little Air Lift' British military planner Air Commodore Reginald Waite made calculations towards the resources required for supporting the entire populace of the city. His calculations equated to a requirement of seventeen hundred calories per person per day, in the form of 646 tons of flour and wheat, 125 tons of cereal, 64 tons of fat, 109 tons of meat and fish, 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes, 180 tons of sugar, 11 tons of coffee, 19 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons of whole milk for children, 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking, 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables, 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese to support the population of Berlin. In conclusion nearly 1,534 tons were needed daily to keep the over two million inhabitants of the encircled city alive. Additionally beyond the food needs, West Berlin needed to be kept heated and powered, which would require another 3,475 tons of coal and gasoline to be flown in.

Initially ill prepared in comparison to the British, the Americans began organizing the positioning of planes to support the operation. The entire thing would get the final green light when General Albert Wedemeyer, US Army Chief of Plans and Operations visited Europe and endorsed the operation. Wedemeyer had overseen the largest airlift of the Second World War when American aircraft flew from bases in India, over the Hump in the Himalayas to China in the war against Japan. The ensuing operation would be dubbed 'Operation Vittles' by the Americans, 'Operation Plainfare' by the British and 'Operation Pelican' by the Australians when they committed additional airlift capailities in September 1948. On 24 June 1948 General LeMay appointed Brigadier General Joseph Smith, then the headquarters commandant for USAFE at Camp Lindsey, to serve as the Provisional Task Force Commander of the airlift operation.  On 25 June 1948 Clay gave the order to launch Operation Vittles. The next day a force of 32 Douglas C-47 Skytrains lifted off for Berlin hauling 80 tons of cargo, including milk, flour, and medicine. The first British Royal Air Force aircraft lifted off headed for Berlin on 28 June. At that time, the airlift was expected to last for only a duration of three weeks.

By 1 July, the system was set into motion with C-47s and Douglas C-54 Skymasters arriving in mass at Rhein Main Air Base. Rhein Main would serve as a solely C-54 base with Wiesbaden operating a mixture of C-47s and C-54s. The aircraft would fly northeast and enter West Berlin through southern air corridor designated the American corridor and land at Tempelhof Airport, offload their supplies then exit through the central air corridor designated the British corridor. Upon reaching the British zone of occupation, the aircraft would then turn south and return to their respective bases. The British Royal Air Force operated a similar resupply system, flying southeast from several airports in the Hamburg area through their assigned corridor into RAF Gatow in the British Sector, and then also returning out on the central corridor. They would then turn for home or land at Hanover depending on the circumstance. Unlike the Americans, the British also ran several round trip operations using their southeastern corridor. On 6 July, RAF Avro York and Douglas Dakotas (the Dakota was the British designation for the C-47 Skytrain) were joined by Short Sunderland flying boats of the Royal Navy. Flying boats operated from Finkenwerder on the Elbe River near Hamburg, flying to the Havel River adjacent to RAF Gatow. The corrosion resistant hull of the Sunderlands better suited them to the particular task of delivering baking powder and other salt products to the city.

A maintenance system was soon coordinated to accommodate the large number of flights. Crews would work three eight hour shifts rotating between C-54s and C-47s. Aircraft were scheduled to take off at an interval of every four minutes, staggered at an altitude of 1,000 feet higher than the preceding aircraft. The initial aircraft would operate at a height of 5,000 feet and each aircraft adding an additional 1,000 feet for each of five aircraft before the sixth aircraft would return to a 5,000 foot operational profile. The first week of the airlift saw an average of only 90 tons of supplies per day reaching West Berlin, this number would increase to nearly 1,000 tons per day by the end of the second week. Soviet authorities in the East ridiculed the operation declaring it a futile attempt to save face against the superior Soviet authority.

On 28 July 1948, Major General William H, Tunner arrived at Wiesbaden Airbase to take command of the airlift operation. Having also had experience with the airlift operation in the China-Burma-India campaign, he set about to reorganize the entire operation. On 13 August 1948 a C-54 crashed at Tempelhof and burst into flames at the end of the runway and a second C-54 landing behind it burst the tires of its landing gear trying to avoid the wreckage. A third Skymaster made a ground loop maneuver on an auxiliary runway and Tempelhof was closed when the control tower lost control of the situation, a move that greatly embarrassed Tunner. Although no one was killed in the crashes, the incident became known as 'Black Friday'. As a result of the Black Friday crash, Tunner ordered that Instrumental Flight Rules be in effect at all times regardless of visibility. In addition to this he instituted a policy that each aircraft would only have one chance to land at the airport, any aborted landing would result in the aircraft returning to its base in western Germany. Sighting easier convenience for loading and unloading of aircraft, Tunner soon made the decision to replace all C-47s with C-54s or larger aircraft.

Pilots were forbidden to leave their aircraft for any reason while on the ground in Berlin and military jeeps were converted into mobile snack bars often staffed with German women to distribute refreshments to the crews while they remained at their aircraft. Clearance documents and flight information were given to the pilots while they snacked. As a result of this method, the time on ground from the shutdown of engines on the ramp, unloading and turn around before heading back to Wiesbaden or Rhein Main was set at only thirty minutes. Operating profiles were later also adjusted with flights launching every three minutes instead of four with 500 foot separation rather than 1000, stacked in altitude from 4,000 to 6,000 feet operating altitude. Maintenance was strictly emphasized and given the highest priority to maximize turn around time to implement a goal of 1440 landings in West Berlin each day. This figure would mean, an aircraft would be landing in West Berlin for every minute there was in a day. The Germans countered the problem of manpower, with Berliners serving as unloaders and airfield repair crews, a task which was rewarded with additional rations. As the crews began to improve their execution of duty, unload times dropped dramatically and a record was set first when an entire 10 ton shipment of coal was offloaded from a C-54 in a span of ten minutes and then later a twelve man crew unloaded another 10 ton shipment from a C-54 in five minutes and forty five seconds.

After only a month of operations, daily flight operations flew more than 1,500 flights each day and delivered more than 4,500 tons of cargo, enough to keep West Berlin sufficiently supplied. Supply shipments improved to a rate of 5,000 tons a day.

One of the most memorable moments of the Berlin Airlift was known as 'Operation Little Vittles' this occurred when Colonel Gail Halvorsen used his off time to fly into Berlin and shot a series of home movies with a handheld camera. One day upon encountering a group of German children he introduced himself and he handed out two sticks of Wrigley's Doublemint gum and promised that if the children did not fight over the gum, he would bring more when he returned to Berlin. As he left, the German children divided up the gum as best they could and inquired as to how they would know that it was him when he returned. His reply was that he would wiggle his wings. The following day on his approach to Berlin, he put inputs into the controls which rocked the aircraft and he dropped chocolate bars attached to hankerchief parachutes to the children below. Everyday the number of children would increase and so to did his airdrops. Soon Base Ops at Tempelhof began receiving stacks of mail addressed to 'Uncle Wiggly Wings', 'The Chocolate Uncle' and the 'Chocolate Flier'. Initially Halvorsen's exploits were met with dissatisfaction from his commanding officer but ultimately the gesture was approved of by General Tunner who designated the mission as 'Operation Little Vittles' adding additional airplanes and pilots to Halvorsen's venture. When news of Operation Little Vittles reached the United States, children across th country enthusiastically donated candy of their own to be dropped to the German children. Some children even participated by attaching parachutes to the candies that would be dropped over Berlin. Soon, major manufacturers nationwide became involved. In the end, over three tons of candy were dropped on West Berlin, and the "operation" was designated as a success. The candy dropping aircraft were christened 'Raisin Bombers" or "Candy Bombers" by the German children.

In response to the mounting airlift operation, the Soviets first countered by offering free food to anyone who crossed into East Berlin and registered their ration cards with the Soviet authorities. The Soviet move was ultimately rejected by West Berliners. The Soviets then ramped up their propaganda campaign against the people of West Berlin utilizing psychological warfare and declaring that all of Berlin fell under Soviet authority. They further declared that it was only a matter of time before the Western allies abandoned the city and the populous of West Berlin. As further measures, Soviet and German communist harassed democratically elected officials from West Berlin that had to conduct its business in the city hall which was located in the Soviet sector of the city. In an effort to harass the airlift itself, the Soviets often attempted to impede on the arrival of inbound aircraft by varying means including buzzing transports with Soviet fighters, scheduling parachute jumps in the paths of the air corridors and using searchlights to disorient pilots flying at night. Try as they may, none of the Soviet measures were effective in hampering the operation.

By the onset of winter, estimates for amounts needed to sustain the population in winter were adjusted and the transportation force was enhanced when the Royal Air Force added larger Handley Page Hasting transports to their available fleet. To accommodate for winter operations, Tunner hired a force of majorily former Luftwaffe ground crews to maintain the airfields. Due to weight restrictions imposed on the airfields at RAF Gatow and Tempelhof Airport, and the stresses put upon them by the rotations of C-54s, a 6,000 foot asphalt runway was constructed at Tempelhof to better accommodate the air fleet. The French although entangled in the Indochina War supplied several aging Junkers Ju-52 transports to supply its personnel in Berlin. French aircraft flew into Tegel on the shores of Lake Tegel. There was one problem with this, the approach to Tegel Airfield was hampered by the placement of a Soviet radio tower in proximity to the airfield. After the Soviets refused to remove the tower, French General Jean Ganeval ordered that the tower be demolished and on 16 December 1948, the tower was blown up much to the delight of the Berliners. The destruction of the radio tower would spark widespread protest from the Soviets. When General Ganeval's Soviet counterpart General Alexej Kotikow, asked him angrily by phone how he could have committed such an act, Ganeval is said to have replied laconically, "With dynamite, my dear colleague."

To improve control over the air traffic entering and exiting Berlin, the newly developed Ground Controlled Approach radar system was sent to Europe and installed at both Tempelhof and  Fassberg in the British Zone in West Germany, a measure which guaranteed operations in all weather conditions. Soon the only hinderance on flight operations would prove to be the weather itself. The months of November and December 1948 were the worst of the entire operation. On many occasions aircraft would fly to Berlin only to be met with a thick layer of fog which prevented landing and they were forced to return to West Germany. On one occasion on 20 November 1948, forty two aircraft departed for West Berlin, but only one managed to there. At one point, West Berlin only had enough coal for one week of operation. The shortage was made up for ultimately when weather conditions improved and more than 171,000 tons of supplies were delivered in January 1949, followed by 152,000 tons in February, and 196,223 tons in March.

By April 1949, General Tunner declared that he wanted to do something big to boost the morale of everyone involved in the operation. On Easter Sunday, he set to break all records and he would do so by only hauling coal thus in preparation for this coal was stockpiled for the effort. By the time it was completed, 12,941 tons of coal had been delivered in 1,383 flights to West Berlin, without a single accident. A welcome side effect of the effort was that operations in general were boosted, and tonnage increased from 6,729 tons to 8,893 tons per day in the days following the Easter operation. In total, the airlift delivered 234,476 tons in April of 1949. On 21 April, it was recorded that the tonnage of supplies flown into the city exceeded amounts that were previously brought into the city by rail.

The Airlift operation proved an embarrassment to the Soviets and the Easter operation was the nail in the coffin. On 15 April 1949, the Soviets announced that they were willing to lift the blockade of Berlin. After a series of negotiations on 4 May 1949, the Allies reached an agreement which would end the Blockade in an eight day period. The Soviets relented and removed their blockade of Berlin at 12:01 on the morning of 12 May 1949. The British drove a convoy through Berlin as a symbol of the victory of the airlift and the first train from West Germany arrived in West Berlin at 5:32am. Celebrations erupted across West Berlin to commemorate the lifting of the Blockade. Flights however would continue into Berlin to build up a surplus of supplies in case the Soviets tried to blockade the city again in the future. By 24 July 1949, three months worth of supplies had been stockpiled at facilities in West Berlin, ensuring that there was ample time to restart the Airlift if it were required. The Berlin Airlift officially came to an end on 30 September 1949, after fifteen months of continued air operation. In total the United States delivered 1,783,573 tons and the United Kingdom 541,937 tons, totaling 2,326,406 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on some 278,228 flights to airfields in West Berlin.

The Royal Australian Air Force bolsted this number further with the  delivery of 7,968 tonnes of freight and 6,964 passengers while flying 2,062 sorties. The force of C-47s and C-54s together flew over 92 million miles during the operation, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun. At the height of the Berlin Airlift, one plane was landing at an airfield in West Berlin every thirty seconds. The cost of the Airlift was 101 fatalities including 40 Britons and 31 Americans, mostly due to crashes. Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the duration of the operation. Financial responsibility of the Airlift was shared between the United States, United Kingdom, and West Germany. Some 692 transport aircraft were engaged in the Berlin Airlift, of which more than 100 were operated by civilian aviation entities.

In 1974 Colonel Gail Halvorsen, the original 'Candy Bomber' was decorated with the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz 'Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany', one of Germany's highest medals for his actions during the Berlin Airlift.

Shturmovik Reborn: The Soviet Air Force and the Sukhoi Su-25

With the success of the Ilyushin design Il-2 Bark and Il-10 Beast ground attack platforms employed against Nazi forces during the Great Patriotic War, Soviet commanders realized the need for capable close air support aviation to assist ground forces early on. As technological advancements progressed and jet technology began to overtake the development of propellor driven designs, the problem soon began to arise in the form of replacement of these earlier designs in the ground attack capacity. By the 1960's Soviet fighter bombers in active service were unsuitable for ground attack roles. Their high operational speeds made them unsuited for delivering precision strikes and their loiter and time on target were minimal. Another drawback to existing Soviet fighter bombers such as the Sukhoi Su-7/ Su-17 Fitter, Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed and Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-23 Flanker was their lack of suitable armored plating to protect the pilot and vital systems from ground fire. Having researched the influences that made the Ilyushin designs so successful during the Great Patriotic War and taking into consideration the drawbacks of existing fighter bomber designs, Pavel Sukhoi founder of the Sukhoi Design Bureau along with a team of aerospace engineers began preliminary design work for a new design that would meet the requirements of both the of the Ministry of the Aviation Industry and the Ministry of Defense.

The official request for a new battlefield close air support aircraft was issued by the Soviet Air Force in March of 1969. Four Soviet design bureaus responded to the announcement of the competition: Sukhoi, Yakovlev, Ilyushin and Mikoyan-Gurevich. Sukhoi's design officially designated as the T8 had been finalized in 1968 with the first two prototypes being built in 1972. The first of the prototypes was unveiled during the Soviet May Day holiday of 9 May 1974, however it would not take to the air until 22 February 1975. The competition was soon narrowed down between the Sukhoi T8 design and the Ilyushin designed Il-42. However following a series of fly offs and trials before the Soviet Defense Ministry, the Sukhoi design was chosen over the Ilyushin type and awarded a production contract.

Production of the Sukhoi design now designated as Su-25 would begin at Factory No.31 located in Tbilisi in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. With the first production models being delivered to the Soviet Air Force in 1978. It would be given the NATO reporting code of 'Frogfoot'.

The Su-25 has an all metal trapezoidal wing mounted at the shoulder of the fuselage, and a conventional tailplane and rudder system. The overall construction of the aircraft utilizes different metals and materials with nearly 60% of the airframe being made of aluminum, 19% steel, 13.5% titanium alloy, 2% magnesium alloy and 5.5% other materials. Initial versions of the Su-25 were equipped with twin R95Sh non-afterburning turbojets. The aircraft was designed as a single seat airframe with a single GSh-30-2 30mm cannon mounted in a compartment beneath the cockpit. The pilot sits in a titanium bathtub similar to that of the American Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt and entry into the cockpit is by a hinged canopy. The cockpit is relatively cramped and the pilot sits rather low in the enclosure a trade off in visibility for protection to the pilot at the controls. A periscope assembly is attached to the top of the canopy in an attempt to improve rearward visibility for the attack pilot.

The Su-25 does not have a television guidance system but does have a nose mounted laser rangefinder for target designation capabilities an a DISS-7 doppler radar for navigation. It could operate in both day and night environments and is equipped with the SO-69 identification system, which serves as a friend or foe designation transponder. For defensive measures, the Su-25 has several countermeasures installed on the airframe, the first is the SPO-15 radar warning receiver and the second is a system of chaff and flare dispensers capable of punching off 250 flares and chaff to confuse enemy guidance systems.

In its role of close air support, the Su-25 would mount weaponry on eleven hardpoints with the capability of carrying 8,818lbs of ordnance. Weaponry included an assortment of UV-32-57 57mm, B8M1 80mm rocket pods, S-24 240mm or S-25 330mm rockets, Kh-23, AS-9, Kh-25L, Kh-29 air to surface missiles or an assortment of 1,000lb bombs with 250 rounds of 30mm ammunition for the GSh-30-2 30mm cannon.

The first Soviet Air Force unit to receive the new type was the 200th Independent Attack Squadron, based at Sitalcay air base in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. The first eleven aircraft arrived at Sitalchay in May 1981. Soon afterwards this unit would be deployed to Afghanistan in support of Soviet military operations in the embattled nation. Throughout the duration of the Soviet counterinsurgency campaign against the Islamic Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Soviet Air Force Su-25s launched nearly 139 guided missiles of varying types against Mujahideen positions in the wartorn nation. On average, each Su-25 flew 360 combat sorties per year, a total considerably higher than that of any other combat aircraft type in Afghanistan. By the end of the war, nearly 50 Su-25s had been deployed to airbases in Afghanistan and carried out a total of 60,000 combat sorties. Between the first deployment in 1981 and the end of the war in 1989, 21 aircraft would be lost in combat operations.

Su-25s were also deployed to airfields in the German Democratic Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to support Soviet interests in the region and to counter NATO forces in the region. In the event of war with NATO, Su-25s would serve in similar roles to that of the American A-10 and British Harrier attack platforms flying close support missions against NATO positions utilizing their slow speed and design characteristics to get down in the folds of the terrain of the low altitude structure and provide accurate support for advancing Warsaw Pact forces. For self defense against intercepting NATO fighters, the Su-25 could carry the AA-2 or AA-8 air to air missile. The 30mm cannon would be employed against armored targets although, the Su-25s 30mm cannon did not match the rate of fire of the American GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon mounted on the A-10.

Like all Soviet designs, the Su-25 was a rugged machine designed with simplicity in mind and with the capability to operate in the harshest of conditions from roughly prepared airfields. It would go on to serve in successor nations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continues as a potent battlefield platform in the modern age.

The Man with a Smile that lit up the Cold War: Yuri Gagarin

Coinciding with the massive arms buildup that became symbolic of the Cold War, was an increasing international interest in space exploration. Whether the motives behind the interest in space were to progress weapons technology, develop ways to gather intelligence on opponents without their immediate knowledge or to increase national prestige will never be precisely known however, the Cold War era drastically paralleled the often tumultuous series of events known as the Space Race. Both the United States and the Soviet Union launched a series of missions some manned or unmanned, some successful and some meeting with tragedy in hopes of outdoing the other to increase the national image of their nation. With the launch of the first artificial satellite known as Sputnik I on 4 October 1957 by the Soviet Union, there was no turning back. The stage was now set for the exploration of space, a realm which would come to be deemed 'the final frontier'. With a satellite in orbit, the Soviets soon turned their attention towards putting the first human in orbit around the Earth. The man that would be selected for the mission would be a young Russian by the name of Yuri Gagarin.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near the town of Gzhatsk, Russia in the Soviet Union on 9 March 1934. His parents worked on a collective farm in socialist fashion endorsed by the Soviet government. His father Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin was a carpenter and bricklayer by trade, and his mother Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina was a milkmaid. Yuri was the third of four children born to the Gagarins. The family suffered greatly when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. Gagarin's hometown of Klushino would fall to Nazi occupation in November of 1941 as the German Wehrmacht advanced towards Moscow. During the occupation, a German officer took over the Gagarin's residence and forced the family into a mut hut on the land behind the family home. The family would spend nearly a year and a half living in the tiny mud hut before advancing Soviet forces liberated the village but not before Yuri's older brother Valentin and older sister Zoya were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labor in 1943. With the end of the Great Patriotic War in 1945, and the Soviet victory over fascism, Yuri's older siblings returned home and in 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk where Yuri would advance his secondary education.

In 1950 at the age of 16, Yuri was enrolled into an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the  Lyubertsy Steel Mill near Moscow. Along with his apprenticeship, Gagarin took evening classes for young workers to advance his education. He graduated vocational school in 1951 with honors in the trades of moldmaking and foundry work where he was then enrolled into the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors and other farming machinery. It was here where Gagarin's future would ultimately begin to take shape when he volunteered for weekend training as an air cadet in a local Soviet aeronautics club. It was from here that he developed an interest in aeronautics and flight. While earning extra money as a dock laborer on the Volga River, he paid for flight lessons first flying biplanes before progressing to the Yakovlev Yak-18 Max two seat training airplane.

When he graduated from the Saratov Industrial Technical School, Yuri Gagarin was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1955, where upon recommendation he was sent to the First Chkalov Air Force Pilot's School located in Orenburg, in southern Russia close to the border with the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. It was here that in 1957 he learned to fly the Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15 Fagot jet fighter. He would graduate from Orenburg on 7 November 1957. After graduation, Gagarin and his new bride Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva a graduate of the Orenburg Medical School were assigned to the Luostari airbase in the Murmansk Oblast located not far from the Soviet border with Norway. Harsh weather conditions at the Luostari airbase made flight operations difficult and dangerous but nonetheless Gagarin was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force on 5 November 1957 and on 6 November 1957 he was promoted to the rank of Senior Lieutenant.

Following the successful launch of the Sputnik I satellite a month earlier in October, the Soviets began focusing on the next step of preparing to put a man in orbit around the Earth. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev began planning for the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution that had brought communism to power in the Soviet and wanted a spacecraft to be launched on 7 November 1957. A more advanced satellite was under development however it would not be ready in time to meet Khrushchev's deadline so instead a new craft would be built to partake on a mission that would again bring the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the forefront of the world as they would repeat the championing of the Sputnik I launch. This would lead to the launch of Sputnik II. As little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living organisms at the time, and methods for reentry had not been developed at the time, a stray dog named Laika was chosen to partake in the mission. Laika became the first animal to orbit the Earth, however she would die within hours of the launch from overheating.

The success of the Sputnik II mission proved to Soviet officials that a living passenger could survive being launched into space and endure weightlessness. The journey to human spaceflight was now underway.

In 1960, Yuri Gagarin along with 19 other candidates were selected for the Soviet space program. From here he along with five others would graduate to become members of the elite Sochi Six which would go on to become the first cosmonauts of the Vostok program. After submitting to rigorous tests examining their physical and psychological endurance the selection came down to two candidates Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov as to whom would be the first man into space. With his physical prowess as an avid player of ice hockey, and basketball as well as his small stature, Yuri Gagarin was chosen to be the Soviet Union's first cosmonaut to orbit the Earth.

The launch into Earth's orbit would be conducted on 12 April 1961, when aboard the Vostok I space craft, Yuri Gagarin would be propelled into history becoming the first human to enter outer space as well as orbit the Earth while Vostok I conducted the first orbital flight of a manned vehicle. Vostok I was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. When he returned to the Soviet Union from outer space, Gagarin was hailed as a national hero to the Soviet Union. For his accomplishments in the advancement of the Soviet space program, Gagarin was made a Hero of the Soviet Union on 14 April 1961.

His fame skyrocketed worldwide as he toured the world visiting both Germanies, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Egypt and Finland to promote the Soviet feat. He also would visit the United Kingdom touring both London and Manchester. It was a great propaganda victory over the West for the Soviet Union. With his sudden fame, Gagarin suffered a series of setbacks which took its toll on the young pilot including bouts of alcoholism and on atleast one occasion he was caught having an affair with a nurse by his wife. The encounter and subsequent flight of Gagarin resulted in a permanent scar above his left eyebrow after he hit his face on a kerbstone while fleeing the room.

On 12 June 1962, Yuri Gagarin was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet Air Force and on 6 November 1963 he would be promoted to the rank of Colonel. He would be restricted from any further flight activities as it was feared the national hero of the Soviet Union would be lost. He would be a backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov, when he would be launched into space aboard the Soyuz I space craft. The launch was contested by Gagarin who argued that the appropriate safety measures had not been taken and ultimately the launch ended terribly when upon reentry the Soyuz I space capsule crashed to Earth following a parachute failure. Komarov would become the first human to be killed during a spaceflight. The death of Komarov took its toll on Gagarin, and Soviet authorities permanently barred Gagarin from any further space flights. With no further spaceflights in his future, Gagarin began focusing on requalifying as a fighter pilot.

On 27 March 1968, the Soviet Union's worst fears were realized when Yuri Gagarin was killed during a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base near the town of Shchyolkovo in the Moscow Oblast. Yuri Gagarin and his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin had been flying a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15UTI, the two seat trainer variant of the MiG-15 jet fighter. It was reported that a Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon fighter, a much larger aircraft than the MiG-15 was flying a test in the vicinity of Gagarin's flight plan although it was to fly at an altitude well above the course Gagarin and Seryogin were to fly. The weather on the day of the crash was poor with heavy rain and a low cloud formation which severly limited visibility. At the time of the crash, Alexei Leonov who was a friend of Gagarin's was scheduled to perform parachute jump training when he heard two large booms. The first boom was determined to be the sound of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier and the second to be the sound of an aircraft colliding with the ground. The booms were within seconds of each other followed by an abrupt silence.

When the crash site was located investigators first found Seryogin's body but Gagarin's was nowhere to be found. It wouldn't be recovered until the following day thus dashing Soviet hopes that he had atleast ejected and survived the crash. Leonov identifed Gagarin's body by a mole on Gagarin's neck. Witnesses to the crash told an investigation board that they had seen the Su-15 streaking from the cloud formation with its tail section ablaze and smoking however it was flying much lower than the mission profile had authorized. According to witnesses it was flying closer to 2,000 feet not the 33,000 feet filed in the test report. A larger aircraft like the Su-15 has the power to roll a smaller aircraft like a MiG-15 over if they come too close to each other. The timing between the two booms indicated that the aircraft were about 30 feet apart at the time of the accident. The momentum of the Flagon flying at nearly supersonic speeds shook Gagarin's MiG from the sky, forcing it into a spiral dive and the aircraft impacted the ground at a speed of some 470 miles per hour killing Gagarin and Seryogin instantly. There was only 55 seconds between the pilot's last communication and the impact with the ground.

The identity of the other pilot was never identified and official reports covered up the incident blaming the crash on a bird strike, or alcoholism amongst other theories. Regardless at the age of 34, the man who was said to possess a smile 'that lit up the Cold War' was dead. 

The Nuclear Bear: The Soviet Union and the Quest for the Atomic Bomb

The Cold War even though largely a state of conventional arms build ups across the world was defined by one type of weapon more destructive than any force unleashed in warfare thus far. A weapon with the ability to obliterate armies and reduce entire cities to masses of smoldering twisted metal and in some cases burn hot enough to turn sand to glass. This type of weaponry was none other than the nuclear bomb. The great period of mistrust between once great allies that had banded together to share a common interest in defeating the fascist powers of Nazis, were now divided along ideological lines with the powers of the communist nations of the East challenging and undermining the powers of the largely democratic West.

It is hard to pinpoint when exactly the race for a new type of destructive weapon originated but theories of nuclear physics can be traced to the late 1890s with names like Henri Bacquerel, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein all contributing to the emerging science of nuclear physics. By the 1930s, scientists across Europe and North America were conducting research into nuclear studies. This research would be slowed by the onset of the Second World War, but it is also acknowledged that atleast several powers were interested in developing atomic weapons. In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler poured a large amount of research and materials into the development of a nuclear weapon however his ambitions to develop an atomic weapon never materialized beyond the production of heavy water.

In the United States, the Manhattan Project successfully created an atomic weapon with the first ever detonation of an implosion type bomb at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. The success of the American atom bomb led to the development of 'Little Boy' a gun type bomb deriving its explosive power from nuclear fission of the element Uranium 235 and 'Fat Man' an implosion type bomb with a plutonium core which were both dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 respectively. The dropping of these bombs brought about the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War.

Authorities in the Soviet Union, followed the American project with great interest. Despite the measures of intense security applied to the program, Soviet agents were able to penetrate into the heart of the Manhattan Project largely thanks to a man named Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs had begun spying for the Soviet Union after coming from the United Kingdom to the United States in 1943. He was sent to the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico where he worked on implosion projects which led to the development of the plutonium core bomb. It was around the time of Fuch's arrival in the United States in 1943, that Soviet premier Josef Stalin became interested in the development of an atomic weapon for the Soviet Union. In 1944, intelligence gathering operations related to nuclear research in foreign nations was turned over to the Soviet NKVD the dreaded secret police of the Soviet Union and the infamous Lavrentii Beria. The NKVDs infiltration of nuclear rings around the world not only reached into the United States but Nazi Germany as well and as a result many German scientists were forcibly taken to the Soviet Union at the end of the war to advance Soviet nuclear ambitions.

By the end of the Second World War, the Soviets had compiled a great amount of information regarding the nuclear programs of the West and had begun conducting tests of their own however there was one major problem to the development of an atomic weapon in the Soviet Union: Where would the Soviets acquire uranium?

With no domestic sources of uranium within the Soviet Union, the Soviets turned to captured uranium confiscated from the remnants of the Nazi nuclear program in the initial years following 1945. The Nazi uranium had been mined from the Belgian Congo, for Belgian development but had fallen into German hands during the subsequent invasion and occupation of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1940. In later tests uranium would be mined from locations in the German Democratic Republic, Peoples Republic of Czechoslovakia, Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, Peoples Republic of Romania and the Peoples Republic of Poland. It wouldn't be until years later that significant sources of uranium would be discovered and mined from within the Soviet Union itself.

Surrounded by intense secrecy, the Soviet nuclear weapon program progressed enough that by 1949, the Soviets had developed and constructed their own atomic bomb. The bomb was designated as RDS-1 by the Soviet authorities and unofficially nicknamed 'First Lightning' by the Soviets. The United States subsequently nicknamed the weapon 'Joe 1' in reference to the Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The bomb known as RDS-1 was exploded on 29 August 1949. at Semipalatinsk, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The weapon had a yield of 22 kilotons of TNT and by virtue of utilizing a plutonium core and being of the implosion type, the bomb was similar in design, construction and detonation to the American 'Fat Man' bomb which had been dropped on Nagasaki years earlier. This was hardly the first time that the Soviets had developed a design from an existing type originating in the United States. In 1944, the Soviets had impounded four American Boeing B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers that had made emergency landings in the Soviet Union and reverse engineered the aircraft designating their copy the Tupelov Tu-4 Bull. The Tu-4 was used for aerial delivery of later Soviet nuclear test bombs.

The test site at Semipalatinsk was prepared with laborers erecting houses of wood and brick as well as bridges and a simulated public transit system within the vicinity of the planned site of detonation. In addition to this varying armored vehicles, 50 aircraft and nearly 1,500 animals were brought to the location to study the effects of the bomb on both structures and life. The bomb detonated with its explosion being 50% more powerful than originally anticipated by the Soviet scientists.

The United States caught wind of the Soviet nuclear tests when the United States Air Force detected the products of radioactive fission in the atmosphere and pinpointed the location of the nuclear fallout as originating from the Kazakh SSR. The method of detection which would come to be known as the 'Green Run' would be utilized by American reconnaissance aircraft into the future. First confirmation of the Soviets possessing the nuclear bomb came on 23 September 1949, when US President Harry S. Truman announced that the Soviets had exploded their own nuclear device. The explosion of the device soon sparked a new Cold War arms race for an even more powerful nuclear weapon, the hydrogen or H-Bomb.

The Soviets would go on to develop and test several other RDS designated atomic bombs including:

• RDS-2, a 38.3 kiloton uranium implosion type bomb with a levitated core which was detonated on 24 September 1951. Dubbed 'Joe 2' by the United States
• RDS-3 a 41.2 kiloton device utilizing a composite levitated plutonium core with a uranium 235 shell. The weapon was significant in that it was the first air delivered atomic bomb in the Soviet Union being delivered by Soviet Tupelov Tu-4 from an altitude of over six miles. The device detonated at a height of over 1,300 feet above the ground. Nicknamed 'Joe 3' by the United States.
• RDS-4 was a test into smaller tactical nuclear weapons. The boosted fission type utilized the levitated plutonum core design with a yield of 28 kilotons. It was air dropped again from a Tu-4 on 23 August 1953 utilizing the warhead of an R-5M medium range ballistic missile.
• RDS-6 was the Soviet Hydrogen Bomb which garnered the nickname 'Joe 4' by the United States. The nuclear initated fission rather than fusion weapon had a yield of 400 kilotons. It was detonated on 12 August 1953
• RDS-9 a reduced capability variant of the RDS-4 with a roughly 3-10 kiloton yield was intended for development for Soviet nuclear torpedoes. The RDS-4 in torpedo form was tested underwater on 21 September 1955.
• RDS-37 which was the first true Soviet hydrogen bomb of the megaton range was detonated on 22 November 1955. The weapon was a  multistaged radiation implosion thermonuclear device.
• RDS-220 was the largest and most powerful nuclear device ever detonated. As an allusion to the size of the weapon and its intended result of destruction it was nicknamed the 'Tsar Bomb'. The weapon was a three staged hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons which was equivalent to ten times the amount of explosives used in all of World War II. The bomb was detonated on 30 October 1961. The Tsar Bomb was not pressed into service by the Soviets, used instead as a prestige weapon to demonstrate the capabilities of Soviet military technology. The explosion of the RDS-220 burned so hot, it was reported to have been able to cause third degree burns at a distance of 62 miles from the point of explosion.

Soviet nuclear weapons programs were usually tested in intense secrecy at closed cities known as Atomgrads. These Atomgrads would be used specifically for nuclear weapons research and development and would remain closed throughout the duration of the Cold War and even into the post-Cold War era. Ten such Atomgrads were identified each one for specific purposes ranging from weapons design, research, plutonium production, uranium enrichment or warhead assembly.

The advent of a Soviet nuclear program and the success of the Soviet nuclear tests led to a lengthy arms race between the United States and Soviet Union with both powers maintaining vast nuclear arsenals throughout the Cold War and dominating a way of life for over half a century. 

The Case of the Disappearing Thunderstreaks: Luftwaffe Thunderstreaks in West Berlin

In the years before the construction of the Berlin Wall, there were frequent incidents of territorial violations on both sides of the Iron Curtain. A great number of these violations occurred in Germany, due to the close promixity of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany. It was recorded that on average two NATO aircraft would stray across the border violating East German airspace each month. In contrast to this, Soviet military aircraft would stray across the border into West Germany at a much greater frequency than their NATO adversaries. In a four week period alone in late August and early September, there were 38 violations of West Germany's airspace by Soviet pilots. Some airspace violations were deliberate attempts to provoke the West into responding and testing their resolve to launch and intercept the intruders and yet others were accidental caused by the inherent difficulty of determining the border line of East and West from the air.

Due to the Potsdam Agreement and later the Four Powers Agreement, West German military elements were not allowed to enter West Berlin. Only military forces of the victorious former western allies were permitted to enter West Berlin. This actually applied to not only West German military forces but also West German civil airliners and aviation services as they would have to cross the territory of the German Democratic Republic. In the aviation realm, the only authorized entry corridors into West Berlin across East German territory were three air corridors. One of these corridors was to be flown from Bremen or Hamburg then to Tegel Airport in the French sector of West Berlin. This corridor was the Northern Corridor. The Central Corridor consisted of Hanover, Düsseldorf, Köln or Bonn before entering Gatow in the British sector of West Berlin. The final corridor or Southern Corridor could be flown from Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich or Nuremberg before flying into Tempelhof Airport in the American sector of West Berlin.

Cold War tensions greatly intensified with the Berlin Crisis of 1961 when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev initiated a series of threats towards the Western Allies. His goal was to force the western Allies and their military forces out of Berlin and thus effectively end the Allied presence deep in the heart of Communist territory. On Saturday 12 August 1961, members of the East German Volkspolizei and soldiers of the Nationale Volksarmee began tearing up roads and emplacing barriers around West Berlin as they began construction of the Berlin Wall. During this period, military forces of the Soviet Union were present as they faced off against Allied military forces to prevent intervention in their activities. This action immediately caused a new wave of difficulties in relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. A month later with the world still holding its breath with the situation in Berlin, there would be yet another incident that could potentially set off a war in Germany.

 The date was 14 September 1961 a month after the construction of the Berlin Wall, and NATO military planners mobilized military forces of France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and West Germany for a military exercise it called Exercise Checkmate. The West German Luftwaffe's Jagdbombergeschwader 32 or '32nd Fighter Bomber Wing' stationed at Lechfeld Airbase near Augsburg, West Germany was to send fighter bombers on a triangular flight path from Würzburg to Laon, and Memmingen before returning to base. Two Republic F-84F Thunderstreak fighter bombers flown by Feldwebel Peter Pfefferkorn and Stabsunteroffizier Hans Eberl took off from Lechfeld and proceeded on the assigned flight course. Somewhere along this route, Pfefferkorn's magnetic compass malfunctioned, misreading his actual position by between 40 to 60 degrees. Additional problems were encountered by a stronger westerly wind than had been reported by weather reports. The pilots began so disoriented while navigating their flight course that the misidentified Liège, Belgium for Reims, France.

The pilots were soon tracked by Allied radar near the town of Warburg in southern Westphalia heading east towards the Inner German Border and the town of Königs Wusterhausen near Berlin. In the process of communicating with one another and trying to pinpoint their exact location, the disoriented pilots missed radio calls from Allied radar stations attempting to notify them of the impending violation of East German airspace. It wasn't until reaching a position north of Leipzig, that the pilots initiated a mayday call which was picked up by French controllers at the Tegel Airport in West Berlin. Immediately the controller authorized the Luftwaffe pilots permission to land their planes at the airports facilities. The planes had gone unnoticed by American controllers at Tempelhof Airport due to a focus on a Pan Am Airlines DC-6 operating in the Southern Air Corridor.

When American controllers picked up the pair of West German aircraft in East Germany, the controllers noted a large force of Soviet fighter aircraft pursuing them all but unsuccessfully. In risk of a potential shoot down and inciting an international incident, the American controller radioed to both pilots ordering them not to turn around and heading back into the intercepting Soviet force but to continue heading for West Berlin. The decision was made for the pilots to land at Tegel Airport in the French zone of West Berlin rather than Tempelhof in the American zone because Tegel had a longer runway than Tempelhof and was better suited for accommodating jet aircraft. Following the orders of the American controller at Tempelhof, the pilots continued on their course and were able to locate a cloud bank. Utilizing the heavy cloud cover, the aircraft evaded their pursuers and successfully landed at Tegel without further incident.

With both Luftwaffe F-84s secured upon landing at Tegel, the French authorities began the process of justifying their actions to the Soviets in East Berlin stating that technical difficulties required both aircraft to make an emergency landing at the airport. As a result, West German Minister of Defense Franz-Josef Strauß in accordance with West Germany's standing foreign policy of not acknowledging the German Democratic Republic, issued an apology to Soviet representatives in West Germany's capital of Bonn. The Soviet response was initially mulled before they sent a response protesting what it stated was West German provocation and threatened to shoot down any aircraft that violated East German airspace in any future incidents. 

Immediately following the incident, Defense Minister Strauß and Luftwaffe Inspector General Josef Kammhuber had the commanding officer of Jagdgeschwader 32 transferred and they initiated a policy where any commander who's aircraft violated international borders would be immediately relieved of their commands and replaced. Both pilots that had partaken in the incident Feldwebel Peter Pfefferkorn and Stabsunteroffizier Hans Eberl were grounded and their flight status cancelled. Both pilots were then transferred to a Luftwaffe ground unit at Lechfeld.

As for the two Luftwaffe F-84s, upon their arrival at Tegel Airport they were placed in secured hangars out of view and access to the aircraft was severly restricted. Members of the media were forbidden to take pictures of the aircraft. Initially, it was believed that the two fighters were smuggled out of West Berlin having had their Luftwaffe schemes stripped from the fuselage of each aircraft and being repainted in United States Air Force livery before being flown from Tegel and returned to the Luftwaffe in West Germany. Another account stated that both aircraft had been disassembled by American crews and flown back to West Germany in American transports piece by piece. This theory was substantiated by the arrival of two United States Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster transports at Tegel Airport from Rhein Main airbase near Frankfurt am Main.

In reality, the French authorities in the French sector of West Berlin ordered that the two West German fighters remain hidden at Tegel and that they 'disappear'. Both aircraft were then buried on the grounds of Tegel Airport. In the years following the burial of the two fighter planes, the incident was generally forgotten and the Cold War carried on. Lost and for the most part forgotten it wasn't until years later that the aircraft were accidentally rediscovered during expansion and upgrade programs to Tegel Airport during the late 1970s.