[chiefs70]

The latest issue of Military History magazine has an interview with a former member of the Polish Home Army who were tasked with collecting the supplies dropped by the Allies. It is a very interesting read. I am always fascinated by the lesser known stories from WWII and this fits the bill.

[Berkut76]

Originally Posted by Bluenosed Bastard

Sounds as if the crews who were shot down were better off landing in German hands rather than the Ruskies????

While Stalin let the Warsaw uprising to be brutally suppressed, it's simply unfathomable to imaging that the allied airmen would have been mistreated in any way by the Red Army soldiers.

The USAAF conducted a lot of shuttle missions during the war involving landings in the Soviet-held territory, particularly during the Ploesti bombing campaign and there was no animosity between the two sides.

Another thing worth mentioning that while the Soviet Union maintained the "non-aggression" pact with Japan throughout most of the World War II and interned allied flyers who crash landed on its territory following raids over Japan and its occupied territories over in the Far East, the small fighter squadron based on Sakhalin and Kamchatka was under strict orders to provide all necessary protection to the damaged US bombers once they cross into neutral territory. The side benefit of such policy to the Stalin's regime was an acquisition of B-29 bomber that landed on the Soviet airstrip following the raid on Japan. This specimen was later copied by the Tupolev bureau and went into production as a Tu-4.

Regards,

Sergey