The Sunday Star (June 9, 1946)
U.S. destroyers sold to Russia by Britain downed U.S. plane
By Capt. Robert C. Durham
The writer is a veteran of 39 combat missions over Europe. In 1944 he was assigned to a special detachment of the United States Strategic Air Forces under Col. Bernt Balchen. He helped to bring back to England for study by American and British scientists the first V-2 rocket which fell intact in Sweden.
NEW YORK, June 8 (NANA) – Back in the days of the so-called phony war when neutral America convoyed supplies across the Atlantic to aid the British cause, Winston Churchill appealed to President Roosevelt for some fast destroyers to help bolster the British fleet.
In order to make the transfer of the ships more palatable to the American people a deal was worked out whereby the United States would receive 99-year leases to world bases in return for the outright gift of a number of destroyers of the four-stacker class.
These destroyers were supposed to be desperately needed to keep the Union Jack flying over the North Atlantic. Yet in September of 1944, eight of these same destroyers were lying at anchor in Kola Inlet just north of Murmansk, flying the Hammer and Sickle of the Russian People’s Commissariat to the Navy!
Given 2,800-mile mission
At that time I was a member of a crew which was to attempt one of the longest missions flown in the European theater of operations. We were to take off from an airport in Northern Scotland, drop two Norwegian Army lieutenants by parachute about 100 miles southwest of Petsamo and return to Scotland, a flight of some 2,800 miles. The mission was being flown as an operation of British Supreme Intelligence.
We took off shortly after noon on September 20, with Lt. Col. Keith Allen, one of the American Air Line’s senior pilots before the war, and Maj. David Schreiner of Columbus, Ohio, alternating as pilots. I was acting as navigator and bombardier and Lt. Lester Schick, T/Sgt. William Jesperson, T/Sgt. Albert Sage, T/Sgt. Albert Krasevac, S/Sgt. Neil Richards, and S/Sgt. William Bollinger completed the crew.
Just before reaching our target our No. 1 engine caught fire and the propeller had to be feathered. Col. Allen succeeded in completing the task assigned us and then it was decided to make for Murmansk, since it was impossible to return to Scotland, and Petsamo was occupied by the Germans.
Displayed distress signals
Approaching Murmansk every effort was made to identify the plane to the Russians. Distress signals were sent in international “Q” code. We were carrying the Russian colors of the day for just such an emergency. These were fired as rapidly as possible. We turned on all the plane’s lights, yet as we came in at less than a thousand feet, every Russian land battery and all the units of the fleet opened fire. The plane was soon enveloped in flames and Col. Allen ordered the crew to bail out. He remained at the controls. Fighting to keep the plane in the air long enough to allow us to get clear. He gave his life, but saved every member of his crew.
Several of the first to jump landed in the waters of the inlet, but they were fished out. Due to the long distance between the parachute landings it was nearly two days before the entire crew was assembled at the British Naval Hospital at Vaenga, a small suburb of Murmansk. After two weeks there the British battleship Rodney brought us back to England.
Russians refuse to talk
During our stay at Vaenga I had ample opportunity to talk with a number of Russians as well as many of the British representatives. Two of the ex-American destroyers were tied up at a dock in the harbor and we were permitted to go on board. It was difficult to get the Russians to do much talking since familiarity with foreigners subjects any Russian to possible exile or worse.
We learned, however, that Russia had a few light units in a minor fleet in the Baltic and a heavy cruiser and some light units in the White Sea. Their principal navy, however, was the northern fleet at Murmansk, under the command of Adm. Golovko.