Canberra Over Stalingrad - Penetrating Russia's Area 51

[Music] in early 1953 returning German scientists who had been forced to work for the Soviets after the war reported to US and British intelligence that the Soviet Union had an advanced missile testing site at kapustin yar a remote location 60 miles east of Stalingrad on the Volga River Western intelligence wanted photographs of Caspian yah but it was deep behind the Iron Curtain no satellites existed to photograph from space so the only way was by aircraft but the famous u-2 spy plane had not yet entered service and the United States Air Force did not possess any other aircraft capable of such a long-duration flight from West Germany to Cass Putin yaw and back fortunately the u.s. is closest ally Great Britain did in the Canberra b-2 bomber of the time the Canberra was the only aircraft in the world with the range speed and altitude capable of pulling off such a daring mission avoiding Soviet defences the u.s. made a formal request to Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill who gave his assent the mission would be flown from debasht at airbase a US base eight miles southeast of Bert's burg in West Germany the Canberra would fly one thousand six hundred and three miles to the target via Kiev Kharkov and Stalingrad Stalingrad was later renamed Volgograd a journey of about four hours at a cruising speed of around 420 knots Soviet air defenses were based on anti-aircraft guns and mig-15 jet fighters the mig-15 could attain a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet stripped of all excess weight and with its bombe filled with extra fuel tanks the Canberra was fitted with a special spy camera with a 100 inch lens although the squadron responsible has never been named number 5 400 was the likeliest candidate and was engaged in secret photo reconnaissance missions over Eastern Europe much secrecy still sir this mission with official denials from the British government however former Soviet fighter pilots sent to intercept the intruder as well as an oral history from Robert a Murray deputy director of the CIA in the 1950s confirmed the missions existence several academics have also written about the flight in various publications the cumulative evidence allowing a fairly precise picture of the operation to be recreated to avoid Soviet air defenses the Canberra flew the mission at 46 to 48 thousand feet making it difficult for defensive MiG's to engage one day in August 1953 a Canberra b2 or pr3 with a crew of two took off in the early morning from gable stat headed directly east crossing Czechoslovakia Poland and the Ukraine Soviet air defenses tracked the intruder on radar and scrambled fighters in a desperate attempt to intercept and shoot down the aircraft but the canberra was hard to find at 48 thousand feet the mig-15s lacking onboard radar eventually some MiG's got lucky and found the RAF plane but the mix struggled to maintain the same altitude as the Canberra he resorted to attempting to climb up behind the intruder squeeze off a few 23 millimeter cannon shells and then they would stall and rapidly December for trying again the camera did not deviate from its flight path husbanding its fuel reserves but as it approached Cass Putin yarc the unarmed British aircraft was finally hit one MIG pilot got a lucky shot a few cannon shells hitting the raf bomber the damage was slight but nonetheless caused a slight vibration in the airframe the attacking MiG's couldn't keep up the Canberra made a successful photo reconnaissance run over Cass Putin yaw but the cannon shell induced vibration caused the photos to be slightly blurred reducing their usefulness the Canberra then headed 772 miles into Iran then very friendly with Britain and America and landed after an extraordinary flight of two and a half thousand miles through Soviet airspace at the height of the Cold War such a flight was never again thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also support my channel at PayPal and patreon details in the description box below [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 545,000

Rating: 4.9622245 out of 5

Keywords: Canberra Over Stalingrad - Penetrating Russia's Area 51, Mark Felton Productions, English Electric Canberra, MiG-15

Id: RM3AEkM-4JY

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2019

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