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At a subsequent interview, Mr. Kazersky was shown a photo line-up of missing pilots and asked to identify the American he had met. He chose four photos as possibly being the one, one of which was that of Capt Mooradian.
Sighting No. 3. On 18 March 1993, TFR-M team members interviewed former prison guard Grigoriy Nikolayevich Minayev in St. Petersburg. Minayev claimed a guard from another battalion who worked at the maximum security prison in Mozindur (Mezhador), just south of Syktyvkar, Komi ASSR, told him in September 1983 of an American Korean War POW who was being kept there under maximum security (Osobiy Rezhim).
Sighting No. 4. On 26 March 1993, in response to the advertisement placed in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Alekandra Yakovelevna Istogina called TFR-M to report that her husband, Leonid Sidko, had met an American POW in Minlag Camp, Inta, which is located south of Vorkuta in the Komi ASSR. She stated that Sidko had met and served with the American from 1953 to 1954, whose name he remembered as Alek Muller Zayolitz. According to Istogina, her husband had described him as approximately 30 years old, had dark hair, and spoke Russian well. She said her husband indicated that the American was transferred with several Germans to Moscow in 1954.F82
Sighting No. 5. On 6 April 1993, TFR-M team members received a letter at the U.S. Embassy in Talinn from Mr. Elmar Vesker. Mr. Vesker stated that after Stalin's death in March 1953, an American named Boris Holtzman, was taken to Schahto Kapitalnaya Camp 75/1 in Vorkuta. The American spoke some Estonian and fluent English and Russian. He was about 175-180 cm tall, stout, round-faced, curly-haired. Mr. Veskar stated that the American was sent to the Soviet Union from China and captured. He was first imprisoned in a special camp in Moscow after which he was taken to Vorkuta.F83
Sighting No. 6. On 15 April 1993, TFR-M team members in Talinn, Estonia, received a letter from Mrs. Lidia Hallemaa. Mrs. Hallemaa enclosed a photo, taken in 1955 in a prison camp in Vorkuta, where her brother Otto Adler had been imprisoned. Adler told his sister that three or four Americans were imprisoned in the same camp. Mr. Adler is now dead.
Sighting No. 7. Japanese POWs. A Japanese POW from World War II repatriated from POW Camp No. 21 at Khabarovsk, stated that (1) he had heard from a camp guard that two Americans had been brought to Khabarovsk prison and were being investigated as spies; (2) he had heard from Soviet guards, prisoners, and laborers in April and May 1953 that 12 or 13 Americans, crew members of a military plane shot down by the Soviets were in a Khabarovsk prison; (3) he heard from prisoners in 1951 or early 1952 that an American fisherman, captured in the Gulf of Alaska, was brought to the Magadan region; and (4) he heard from a guard on a Soviet prisoner train at No. 2 station, Khabarovsk, in about June 1952 that there was a prison camp in the USSR for Americans only. Another Japanese reported that he had heard from the chief of the POW camp at Debin in October 1953 that an American Air Force officer was in a military hospital 500 miles north of Magadan (location unlocatable due to phonetic rendering). He reported that the officer had been sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1925 as a suspected spy.F84
Sighting No. 8. On 4 August 1992, Task Force Russia-Moscow team members interviewed Vladimir Yakovlevich Voronin, a prisoner in Semipalatinsk, who claimed to have met three Americans while serving an earlier sentence from 1951 to 1953 at the 5th Lagpunkt in Khabarovsk.
Sighting No. 9. On 22 March 1993 TFR-M received from the Central Russian Military Museum copies of a secret telegram and a top secret report from the files of the convoy troops which show the transfer in September 1953 of a Cecil August Stoner (NFI) from Khabarovsk to Moscow.F87
Sighting No. 10. On 7 April 1993, TFR-M received a letter from Artur Roopalu in Estonia. Mr. Roopalu stated that in 1951, he spent two days in a Vladivostok transit camp with two Americans. They had arrived there earlier and stayed after he left. These Americans did not have contact with other prisoners. One of them was abut 185 cm tall, well-built, dark, and the other was 180 cm tall. Mr. Roopalu heard in this camp that many Americans were taken from Khabarovsk to Magadan and from there to Kalama [Kolyma] or Puhtavanina.
Sighting No. 11. In August 1956 a recently returned Austrian prisoner of war, Mr. Albert Skala, reported to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna that he had known a U.S. Army officer, named Lieutenant Racek, with whom he had been imprisoned in the Soviet Union. Mr. Scala stated that the American was an officer of armored forces in Korea. Skala stated the he first met Racek in 1951 in Prison #2 in Irkutsk and that the two were cellmates there and subsequently in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow until the time of Skala's release in 1955.F88
Sighting No. 12. On 11 December 1992, a TFR-M team representative interviewed Romas Kausevicius near Vilnius, Lithuania. Mr. Kausevicius consistently repeated his story of meeting an American pilot named Robert in an Irkutsk KGB prison
Sighting No. 13. From 6-12 December 1992, TFR-M team members traveled to Irkutsk and Khabarovsk to investigate the claim made by Mr. Romas Kaluskevicius that he had met an American POW in transit prison Camp #7 in Irkutsk in the late Summer of 1950. TFR-M confirmed that Mr. Kaluskevicius was, indeed, imprisoned in Irkutsk in that period, ending on 3 August 1950.F 90
Sighting No. 14. On 6 April 1993, TFR-M received a letter from Enn Kivilo in Estonia. Mr. Kivilo stated that he was imprisoned in prison camp L/P 011 (50 km from Bratsk in the direction of Taishet) in 1952 and served with an American POW named Jimmy Braiton or Baker. The American was about 180 cm tall, had dark eyes, played chess very well. F91
Sighting No. 15. On 2 August 1993, TFR-M team members interviewed Mr. Boris Uibo in Estonia. Mr. Uibo stated that in 1952 he served with an American Korean War POW in Camp #18, a close-hold camp for foreign prisoners, near Potma in Mordova (Mordvin ASSR). This American's name was Gary or Harry and, according to Uibo, definitely an American shot down in the Korean War. The American and Uibo worked together making wooden chess pieces. Uibo described Gary as no older than 25. Uibo stated that there was a concerted effort by the Soviets to hide the fact that they were holding foreign prisoners. Sometime late in 1953, Uibo was transferred to a hospital in Camp #9 and lost track of Gary. Uibo said that Soviet citizen prisoners were permitted to write two letters per year in Russian so they could easily be censored, but foreign prisoners, including Gary, were not permitted this privilege even though they could have gotten someone to translate their letters into Russian.
Sighting No. 16. Sometime in the Winter of early 1954 after his release from Camp #9, Mr. Uibo was transferred to Camp #5 where he was assigned to work in the power station. It was at this camp that he met a black American pilot whom he described as 180 cm tall, slim, and athletic. He worked in a woodworking shop where furniture was made for the Kremlin. He believes that the American was still in the camp when he was released on 30 March 1955.F93
Sighting No. 17. On 22 June 1993, a TFR-M team representative interviewed Mr. Bronius Skardzius near Utena, Lithuania. Mr. Skardzius told of his encounter with Americans at a Novosibirsk transit prison about June, 1952. He stated that there were two American pilots in the group of prisoners brought into his small room. The other prisoners were Germans. The Americans told him they had been shot down in Korea. They were dressed in khaki shirts and trousers with no belts or shoelaces (the authorities did not allow these to be kept). The first American told him that he was a captain in the Air Force.F94
Sighting No. 18. On 13 April 1993, TFR-M team members in Tallin, Estonia, received a letter from Felix Pullerits. Mr. Pullerits stated that from 1953 to 1955 he was imprisoned along with an American pilot named Lieberman, in a prison camp of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), Building No. 18, near Salavati in the Ishinbai district of Bashkiria (Bashkir ASSR).F95
Sighting No. 19. During the week of 19-26 April 1993, TFR-M team members interviewed Mr. Apollinaris Klivecka in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mr. Klivecka stated that while imprisoned in the Kairakam (Death Field) he worked in the infirmary at the camp near Norilsk. In 1953 shortly after Stalin's death (March), he was ordered to inspect twenty prisoners who were waiting at the guard gate. He stated that two of them were so emaciated and exhausted that he recommended they be placed in the infirmary. One of them was a Japanese officer from the Kwangtung Army captured at the end of World War II. The other was an American pilot, named Robertson. The American spoke fluent Korean and also used a Korean name, Kim Sung Chung. He spent three months recuperating and regaining his strength. Since the infirmary was shorthanded, he was trained as a nurse's aid. Mr. Klivecka stated that Robertson and he lived in the same barracks until his release in January 1955. The American explained that he had been shot down over North Korea but had not been captured immediately. Since he spoke Korean, he turned himself in claiming that he was fleeing South Korea and that his mother was Korean, his father European. Korean officials sentenced him to a work camp where American POWs were imprisoned, especially pilots. When one of them recognized him, his Korean captors interrogated and tortured him. After he revealed his identity, he was turned over to the Soviets. Since he used two names, he was accused of espionage and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. After Stalin's death, all the prisoners received Red Cross packages except the American.F96
Sighting No. 20. The weeks of 3-14 May 1993, TFR-M received a letter from Mr. Valentinas Piekys, Vilnius, Lithuania who wrote that he had been a political prisoner in the Kapchikan Komsomolsky Camp near Norilsk. He stated that in 1949-1950 two Americans in military uniform were brought to the camp. They were in the camp for three months and then sent to some other place.F97
Sighting No. 21. During the week of 19-26 April 1993 in Vilnius, Lithuania, TFR-M team members received a letter from Mr. Povilas Markevicius. Mr. Markevicius wrote that in the Spring of 1952 he met two American prisoners while imprisoned in Kemerovo Oblast. The Americans said they had been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. He described the one he had conversations with in poor Russian as about 170-173 cm, of swarthy completion, and with dark hair. The other American was taller and with auburn hair. The main topic of conversation was always escape. One rainy and windy night in the Spring the Americans actually did escape. Usually when escaped prisoners were caught, their dead bodies were put in the middle of the square to threaten others. However, he did not see any dead bodies after this incident.F98
Sighting No. 22. In April 1993, TFR-M team members in Vilnius, Lithuania, received a letter from Mr. Jokubas Bruzdeilinas who was imprisoned in a camp for political criminals at the Dzezhkazgan Mines, Karaganda Oblast, Kazakh SSR. Mr. Bruzdeilinas wrote that he served with an American pilot of the rank of major named Joseph shot down in either Korea or Vietnam. His date of birth was approximately 1920. This argues for an officer in the Korean War. Mr. Bruzdeilinas also wrote that the pilot was a Lithuanian American which was why he was put in a camp for Lithuanian prisoners. F99
Sighting No. 23. During the week of 3-14 May 1993, TFR-M received a letter from Mr. Jonas Zilaitis who wrote that he had served in the Kengyro Camp, Dzezkagan Oblast, in the Kazakh SSR. He claimed to have met a black American pilot there approximately at the time of a prisoner rebellion in May-June 1954.F100
Sighting No. 24. On 12 January 1993, a retired Ukrainian military veteran telephoned the U.S. Embassy in Kiev that he saw an American citizen in a prison camp in Russia's Archangelsk Oblast in 1969 or 1970. He did not meet the man personally but heard him speak English. The veteran identified himself only as "Viktor" said he had been assigned to the labor camp (Vypravno- Trudova Kolonia) in the Archangelsk provincial center of Yerstevo as a driver. Viktor characterized the American prisoner as robust and taller than average. Viktor was never told his name and heard no more about him. Viktor put his age at late 50s to early; 1960s.F101
The Soviet and Americans sources and documentation already discussed present a consistent and mutually reinforcing description of Soviet operations to transport U.S. Korean War POWs to the USSR.
In the spring of 1954, a new worker, who had previously served as a radio operator
aboard fishing vessels belonging to the Far Eastern Flotilla, arrived at the Leningrad Gold-
prospecting Brigade in Partizanskit (Udereslu District, Krasnoyarskii Region). He recounted
that, in n when he was fishing some forty miles from the Island of Okusiri in the
Sea of Japan, he "forced his way into" discussions about a certain aircraft that had crashed
Within a few minutes, a "radio message" arrived from the base of the Trawler Fleet, stating that
all vessels belonging to the flotilla were to commence at once a search for the crewmembers.
Immediately thereafter, an encoded message arrived from the base's deputy political officer
directing that the "enemy spy pilots," or their corpses, if they were found, be brought at once
"under the strictest secrecy" to the coast guard ships belonging to the Border Patrol Just one
point was not clear From whom was this "strictest of secrets" being kept? From the fishermen
of an enormous flotilla scattered across the oceans and seas-who were supposed to be the ones
searching for those involved in the crash? For days, it seemed that the entire communications
network was saturated with transmissions by crews of the search aircraft Then, suddenly,
everything went silent
A week later, we radio operators were informed in the Port of Ol'ga that an American
military spy plane had been downed over our territorial waters by air defense (PVO) units, had
fallen into the sea and that the entire crew had perished Why were they so incredibly quick to
bury the Americans, who, unlike our pilots and sailors, had top-quality personal rescue gear? .
Two months later, the captain of the fishing vessel on which the worker served served, returned
from Khabarovsk (He had been visiting with his sister there ) He told the radio operator that not
all the crew members of the "American" [aircraft) had, in fact, died "back then" (in June) and that
ten of those people were now in pre-trial solitary confinement in a prison in the city of
Svobodnyi, near Blagoveshchensk To keep them away from curiosity seekers, they were
transferred there immediately from the internal prison of the Khabarovsk MGB [i e , Ministry of
State Security, predecessor organization of the KGB, trans ] The worker added that his captain
was unfazed by this and that he knows the truth -- His sister was married to "just about the most
prominent figure in the Khabarovsk Regional Committee" [of the Communist Party, trans] In
reply to the worker's question, "What happens now"," the captain answered.
"They will be squeezed for what is required And, of course, they will finish them off
They'll be worked to the bone and shipped off to Zeya and not for the first time
Svoboduyi is where they have their principal drowning base In echelons, straight from the
trains, they had been drowning people for thirty years like nothing And that's all They
definitely will be counted in all the docunents as having drowned See, even TASS made the
announcement: They fell, as it were, into the sea"
The report alarmed me a great deal
In the very beginning of 1953, a courier from the Udereiskii Regional KGB
summoned me to the Nizhne-Angarskoe Geological Reconnaissance Directorate in Motygino
I was informed that, at the direction of the senior geologist, Ivanchenko, I was being sent to handle an emergency situation at the Northern mining enterprise On that same day, with an
escort and two geologists, we flew off to Krasnoyarsk We were met there by representatives of
the director of the Regional GRU He reported that, together with other specialists, I was to fly to
the north, where a ChP (Extraordinary Event) took place at one of the enterprises constituting the
"integrated system" A crust of ice within the ground had burst apart and flooded the area of the
elevator Responding to my retort that I lacked the proper educational background, and, therefore,
the results of my expertise (or my suppositions) would be considered incorrect. He waved in
front of my face a thick folder with my "Personal File " the discussion, he
announced, "Around here what matters we not your diplomas but your actions! Don't get
gloomy, young man Go! You do your work and I'll worry about freeing you from exile. . ."
The following day - it was January 8th - along with two geologists from Motygine and
another three specialist from the "26th [Post Office] Box, (Krasnoyorsk), we flew out toward the
Island of Dikson. (approximately 2,000 kilometers to the north of Krasnoyarsk) Two or three
days later -- there was a blizzard and the airports were closed -- we flew for about three hours to
the village of Solnechnyi (?) on Bol'shevik (an island in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago)
There we once again "sat" because of the weather Finally, after flying across the Vil'kitskn
Gulf, we landed in the tundra, some 160 kilometers from Chelyuskin Bay The site was called
"Rybak"
It was inmates who worked here at the mining enterprise since the camp was right next to
the mine The reason for the emergency situation -- an ignorance of elementary engineering --
could have been clarified without having to fly out to the site Its consequences could have been
eliminated as well by instruction from a competent engineer What was needed were experienced
pyrotechnic specialists and demolition experts And they sent us a demolition-qualified inmate
tall, exhausted by hunger and the Artic, with a very characteristic, slightly elongated artistic face
on which the unnatural protrusion of gray eyes in sockets sunken from emaciation revealed
someone ill with exophthalmos goiter In an accent clearly that of an English speaker, he also
only identified himself as a citizen of the United States of America, Allied Officer Dale His
statement did not appear to make any impression on my colleagues In fact, on the return trip,
already in Krasnoyarsk, one of them heard me say "Tell me, please An American! An ally
And also in the camp" He retorted "And they're not only in Rybak You have as many as
you want of them in Strelka! So much for our 'so-called allies'"
Somewhat later, after having returned to Udereya, I asked those who had escaped from
Strelka about our "allies" Yes, they knew about the Americans, but they had no contact with
them From the very moment of their arrival on the territory of the Enterprise, they were all kept
in isolation
I was unable to converse with the American prisoner Dale The camp guards
"monitored" me very closely Even before we entered his area, I and all the others were warned
that it was strictly forbidden to speak with anyone!
Six days later, we flew to Dikson Only then did I learn that we were in a uranium mine.
In Kranoyarsk I was compelled to sign a non-disclosure statement with regard to
everything that I had seen and heard in Rybak In Noril'sk, many years later, a colleague who
had worked with me in Udereya at the time in question, related that many of the Americans "who
had fallen into our hands in 1945 from the liberated Fascist camps" were held in Rybak and
probably perished there. "
My status as an exile did not permit me to clarify anything at all about those Americans
who were alive from the aircraft downed in the Far East This applied even in the case of those
Americans who were located much closer -- in Rybak or in Strelka But at least in the case
of Rybak I had a chance to see one of them with my very own eyes! I could also not but believe
those who fled from Strelka, who trusted me with their lives, and who understood perfectly the
price of such information
But then, in Udereya, my sad experience showed that the "flow" of Americans from
the prisoner of war camps in Germany and in the Far East, and now from Korea was proceeding
at a robust pace, filling in the bottomless hell of the GULag I first met these people in Peveka
There, in the region to which I was sent after the hospital (as a result of an accident in "Zemlya
Bunga") four Americans, specialists in automation systems, were being detained They were sent
there from the mining camps of the Northwestern Directorate of Sevvostlag to delve into the
functionality of mobile electric power stations that reached Chaunskaya Guba under the Lend-
Lease program . Later, at the very beginning of navigation in the Sea of Okhotsk, I met a still
another group of Americans in the summer of 1948, at the Magadan transfer point in the Bay of
Nagaev There were 14 of them and they had just been taken from the holds of a ship
transporting slaves: helpless, enfeebled by a week-and-a-half's worth of tossing on the seas,
hunger, exhaustion, and desperation I cannot single out anyone of them They all appeared
uniformly lifeless and faceless But I recall how many of them there were and the number of their brigade
"1014." I recall the name of their brigade leader Geldol'f He, too, was
indistinguishable from the others, except, perhaps, by his height He was tall and, for a tall
person, very round-shouldered. It is difficult for me to remember anyone's individual features,
anyone's eyes, because in enormous barracks with three levels of wooden cots it was dark and
hazy, as in a crypt What I also recall is the physical appearance and name of the American
doctor in the group of fourteen, a small but thick-boned fellow named Gertsige
And this is all that I can recall about the meeting in the Bay of Nagnev
Both the brigade leader and the doctor knew a bit of German. They said that they had
served with the navy somewhere out at sea There they were seized by the Japanese in 1943
They were detained in camps, first in the Philippines (?), then in Manchuria, outside of Harbin,
where they were duped by Soviet "liberators " There was very little opportunity to communicate
with them One night they were taken off to the depths of Kolyma, into the bottomless abyss
of its vastness We were incomparably better off A week later we were loaded into the hold of a
military transport heading into the Bay of Vanin, toward construction site "501" . .
Just to finish this point I did not have any direct contact with Americans in Peveka I
saw them several times as they were taken by convoy to and from the port But a doctor from
Leningrad told me about them on numerous occasions The doctor even provided the names of two of them Filipp (Pill') Etth and Frederkink (or Frederling). I might be in error here That is
all
During the latter half of the 1960s, I once again had occasion to hear about the fate of the
crewmembers aboard the American plane downed in the Far East in June(?)1952 I was called
upon to fly out to Komsomol'sk-na-Amure on a business trip with the deputy director of my
institute. "those" years this fellow was the director of DAL'STROL,
i e , from the viewpoint of the Nurenberg charge sheet, he was a war criminal of the first order
and then, in a moment of particularly "sincere closeness," I made my decision
He was not in the least surprised by my question He replied at once
"Yes, at first ten people were alive. Yes, first they were brought to Khabarovsk But, then, of
course, they were sent off to Svobodnyi They were to have been met by people
from the Ministry of Defense They were not met, though You see, there was some screw-up
in Moscow Well, I can tell you that they were not met What happened to them after that, I do
not know And I would advise you not to know as well Let the leadership worry itself about
it "
Later that very same year, in Murmansk, an acquaintance who was a friend and
erstwhile colleague of the Deputy Director "throughout the Far East," repeated almost word-for-
word the testimony of the former DAL'STROI director but went on to clarify "The guys from
within 'worked over' the Americans so badly that only eight were take .And
those had nowhere to go after all that. And so what? Do know what sort of arrogance they
had? They were Americans! You understand !!!"
"They probably drowned them," I offered as a supposition
"Well, well! And how did you find that out? He probably bared his soul to you,
right?"
In 1973, I had my birthday celebration, to which I invited only my closest friends The
group included the husband of my classmate He was a general with an outstanding service
record.
Much was said over 19 years of complete mutual trust and affection While
accompanying the general after an evening at our home, I decided to ask him whether he knew
anything about "those" Americans [His reply ]
"I know only that they did not come over our way If that had been the case, they would be alive
and healthy And, by now, they would have been back home for a long time, across the ocean. I
know that Zhukov was aware of the extraordinary event (ChP) that occurred in the summer of
1952. I know that Zbukov immediately contacted Stalin directly with a request that be involve
himself in the fate of the American pilots, who as he understood, were lusted from the very
beginning as having perished But neither Stalin nor his underlings responded to the disgraced
marshal. Lastly, I know that, as soon as he became deputy minister of defense in 1953, the marshal directed a search for people and documents. But Beria's archives, as it were, had neither
those people nor the documents about them Probably, 'nothing was there any longer.' "
In the 1980s, I once again was in the Far East, to which I was inextricably drawn by
the undisclosed secret regarding the loss of the American aircraft My companion on these trips was
a new acquaintance I became acquainted with him and convinced him to transfer over to my
institute, into the scientific field, I must say, all for the same reason his many years of
involvement in the geographical area of constant interest to me Before we met, he was for many
years a supervisory official in two agencies in the capital and directed energy-related and
hydromechanical construction in the Far East And, as an advisor to the minister, he had to have
been closely acquainted with those who could have and rr ive known the truth about the
Extraordinary Event (ChP) of thirty years before Two years of persistent searching by him, who
unquestionably was himself intrigued by the idea of revealing the crime, shed no new light on the
course of events of the summer of 1952 or related details But he did learn the names of two
crewmembers of that aircraft, BUSH and MOORE, who will forever remain in the soil of the
Khabarovsk Region And however blasphemous this thought may appear to the uninitiated, let
people take my word By their horrible fate they were spared the vastness of the GULag's
underworld a prison isolation cell with the proud name "Svobodnyi," which is in close
proximity to Blagoveshchensk! And many others
[signed]
August 1983
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