The Gulag Study - Version 5 - Part II
These pilots claimed to have flown missions against Nazi targets using airfields in the Soviet Union. 81
Vorkuta-A German witness reported meeting U.S. Air Force member Bob (last name unknown), in July 1951. Bob had been stationed in Berlin as a U.S. Air Force bombardier. While visiting his girlfriend in the Soviet Sector in 1948 or 1949, he was arrested and sent to Vorkuta. He previously lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and spoke only English. Bob was 30-35 years old, five feet eight inches tall, and had dark hair. 82
Vorkuta-A source who had been imprisoned in Vorkuta reported meeting an American with the last name "Cox," whose physical description matched that of a West Point cadet named Richard Alvin Cox, who mysteriously disappeared from the U.S. Military Academy on 14 January 1950. 83
[Further investigation and analysis of the primary source document (NBG Team, 7051 st Air INTSERON, 7050 th Air INTSERGU Air Intelligence Information Report IR-255-56 dated 18 December 1956) 84 indicated the source probably met Private Homer H. Cox, a U.S. military policeman who was detained by Soviet authorities in East Germany in September 1949. Private Cox was detained in Vorkuta and released on December 29, 1953. 85 He returned to his home state of Oklahoma, and died of pneumonia in 1954.86
The primary source document stated: COX, first name unknown, from CHICHASHA (3501N/9755E) OKLAHOMA, 30-35 years old, blond, five feet eight inches tall. Source heard from fellow prisoners that this man deserted his military unit in West Germany.]
Vorkuta-A Lithuanian witness in Vilnius stated that, while a prisoner in a camp in Vorkuta, he met a prisoner who claimed to be a U.S. WWII pilot named John. 87
Vorkuta-A woman from Kiev reported that during interviews with former prisoners in the Vorkuta and Berlag camps, several claimed to have seen American pilots. The pilots were shot down during the Korean War. 88
{81 Zoltan Toth, Prisoner of the Soviet Gulag, (Gresham Books, 1978), pp. 62-64.
82 Allied Personnel Imprisoned in USSR, D-30477, HQ 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, June 15, 1955.
83 American Prisoner at Vorkuta Camp, USSR, Memorandum for the Record, Central Intelligence Agency, May 24, 1957.
84 Handling and Processing of Prisoners in USSR, IR-255-56, NBG Team, 7051st Air INTSERON, 7050 Air INTSERGU (USAFE), December 18, 1956, Air Intelligence Reports 1947-62 (AIR), Deputy Director for Collection and Dissemination (DDCD), Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Air Staff), Record Group 341 (RG 341), National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD (NACP).
85 The New York Times, December 30, 1953.
86 The Stars and Stripes, September 29, 1954.
87 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 231127Z Jun 95.
88 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 181139Z Nov 94. }
Vorkuta-The son of a Soviet engineer stationed at Vorkuta stated that of the several thousand persons in that camp complex, there were two black American soldiers, an American major, and several British citizens, as well as "other Europeans." 89
Vorkuta-During a press conference in 1999, a Russian journalist stated that in 1962, while living in Vorkuta, he conducted an expose on the KGB, presumably to highlight its good work at protecting the borders of the former Soviet Union. To present his findings, the reporter held a press conference with several KGB officers in attendance. The journalist asked the officers whether there were any U.S. servicemen in Vorkuta. He reported that one KGB officer commented, "Of course we have American prisoners from the Korean War here in Vorkuta." When asked to expound on this, the officer demurred, indicating that he did not want to discuss the issue any further. 90
Vorkuta-A female source, who was imprisoned in Vorkuta and Ukhta from December 1947 until December 1953, reported the presence of American or British, and French male prisoners in Vorkuta. Other female prisoners, who spoke French and English, told this to source in March 1953 while working at an excavation site in Vorkuta. The English-speaking male prisoners were supposedly airmen who had been arrested after bailing out of their aircraft. 91
Vorkuta-A CIA source reported in 1955 that among the prisoners in Vorkuta was an American citizen named Walter Kovalik. Kovalik was born in 1921. He was missing his right arm. Kovalik was arrested in Mongolia on an unknown date. He gave his address as 4406 South Hermitage Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. His sister Mrs. Frank (Katherina) Sarna lived at the same address. 92
Vorkuta-A female Austrian returnee interned from 1946 to 1955 reported meeting an American colonel in Vorkuta. In 1946, source met the alleged American, a Colonel Davison, in the Soviet prison located in the basement of a building at Tolbuchkinstrasse 48, Vienna in 1946. The Prison Commander was Lt. Colonel Dobrovolsky. Source's interrogator was named Ivan Ivanovich Petrov. Colonel Ponomorev, a member of the Soviet element of the Vienna Inter-Allied Command, handled Colonel Davison's case. A Major Orlov interrogated Colonel Davison. Davison was approximately 48 years old, and came from Ohio. He was arrested in February 1946 at the Hotel Erzherzog Rainer in IV (Soviet) Bezirk of Vienna after being entrapped by an Estonian dancer and Soviet agent named Helena Leit. Source later met Davison in Vorkuta in 1947. When source left Vorkuta in 1950, Davison was ill in the camp hospital. In 1953 in Verkhne-Uralsk source learned from two other American prisoners (see Chelyabinsk section) that Davison was out of the hospital and still in Vorkuta. 93
{89 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, p. 4-91.
90 Trip Report for TDY to Moscow and Perm, Russia, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, Gulag Research Team, June 2001.
91 Russian Forced Labor, Penal, and Correction Camps in Ukhta and Vorkuta, 59A-B-2792D, 7050 AISW (USAFE), July 29, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
92 American Held in Soviet Prison, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, October 19, 1955.
93 Amembassy Vienna to State, American Citizens Detained by the Soviet Union, October 20, 1955, 611.61241/10-2055, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP. }
Vorkuta-Source reported meeting an American soldier named Sheridan who claimed the Soviets kidnapped him in Germany in 1949. 94
Vorkuta Camp One-A CIA source stated in 1954 that a person who claimed to be an American flyer had been in Vorkuta since 1948. 95
Vorkuta Camp One, Nine/Ten, and Eleven-A German source was interned in Vorkuta from July 1950 to June 1953. On numerous occasions he spoke with a fellow prisoner who claimed to be an American. The prisoner claimed to be a U.S. Army corporal named Bill Matthiuk, a member of the U.S. Occupation Forces in Berlin. He was arrested in Potsdam in 1948 after falling asleep on a train. At the time, he was twentyfive or twenty-six years old, stout, dark blond with bushy eyebrows. Source last saw him in December 1952. 96 [This is possibly Private William T. Marchuk. United States Army. Private Marchuk was reported absent without leave February 1, 1949 in Berlin. He was imprisoned in Vorkuta and other camps in the Soviet Union until his release to U.S. authorities on January 8, 1955.]
Vorkuta Camp Three-Repatriated American John Noble reported that shortly after his arrival at Camp Three, he had spoken with a Yugoslavian national. The Yugoslav told him that several months before, an American Navy reconnaissance plane had been downed by the Soviets over the Baltic Sea and that eight of the ten crewmembers had survived. The survivors were being held in the Vorkuta area. However, they were told that the United States Government had accepted the official Soviet statement declaring them dead. This effectively doomed their chances of ever returning to America. Noble was never able to identify the survivors by name. However, he heard repeatedly from other inmates who were transferred from one camp to another that Americans were held in the same camps from which the transferees had come. 97
Vorkuta Camp 5-153/5-OR-A Ukrainian source stated that towards the end of 1949 he met two American military officers who were musicians. 98
Vorkuta Camp Six-A German witness reported that he knew a U.S. Major Schwartz from 1951 until 1952. Schwartz had been stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, when Soviet security police in Kassel, West Germany, kidnapped him in 1949. The American, last seen by the witness in 1952, spoke Russian and English. He was described as being 51 to 56 years old, five feet ten inches to six feet tall, 165 to 175 pounds, dark hair, dark complexion with protruding teeth and a missing upper front tooth. 99
Vorkuta Camp Six-A returned German reported that, while interned from March 1950 to January 1954, he occasionally conversed with prisoners who claimed to be U.S. citizens. In early 1953, source met a colonel in the U.S. Army; approximately 50 years old, five feet eleven inches, slender with gray hair. He claimed the Russians kidnapped him in the Russian Sector of Vienna in 1948, while he was making a trip by car with his girlfriend. Source stated this prisoner was still in Camp Six when he left Vorkuta in January 1954.
Once in January of 1954 at the tailor's shop, the same source met an alleged U.S. Army soldier named Joe, approximately 40 years old, five feet seven inches, slender, with dark blonde hair. Joe had a scar over his right eye and limped on his right leg. He was sentenced to five years hard labor in 1945 and had been "free" since 1950. He lived in exile in the Vorkuta area with a Russian woman. Joe worked as the head of the bathhouse for Coal Mine 29. 100
Vorkuta Camp Nine-An Austrian journalist imprisoned in various camps from 1948 until 1954, claimed to have known a naturalized American, Colonel Brandenfels, in Vorkuta in 1951. (Brandenfels was reportedly the name he used before becoming an American citizen.) The American had been stationed in Berlin after WWII and was picked up in a bar in the Soviet Zone. 101
Vorkuta Camp Nine-While detained in Camp Nine in 1952, a former German POW heard rumors from camp guards and officers that Americans were detained in Vorkuta. In early 1952, the camp's security officer, Fedor Nikolayevich Kolesnikov, told the source he had seen the American officers. The source also spoke with the Chief of State Security for Vorkuta, Mishanov, who acknowledged KolesnikovÕs statement.
The source reported that seven American military prisoners were reportedly detained in the Vorkuta Mekhanicheskiy Zavod (The Vorkuta Mechanical Factory) Camp Complex, Camp 23 or 25-one lieutenant colonel, two majors, two captains, and two civilian engineers. Another American prisoner was detained in Camp Nine and worked in Coal Mine Eight. Source remembers the latter American's name as Johnny Thomson or Johnny Chemson. This American prisoner reportedly told the source that he had been the first engineer of an American vessel anchored at Port Author, USSR (no time frame reported). The engineer went on a short errand ashore, was arrested for illegally entering the harbor area, and sentenced to six to seven years in the Vorkuta Gulag.
{94 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, p. 4-82.
95 Soviet Concentration Camps in the Vorkuta Area, Information Report, April 23, 1954, Central Intelligence Agency.
96 Area Description of Vorkuta, 52B-11085A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), December 7, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
97 Sworn Affidavit to President Richard M. Nixon by John Nobel, May 26, 1973, p. 1.
98 KARTA, 2003, p.10.
99 U.S. Personnel in Soviet Custody, XE-030477, 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, November 20,1957.
100 U.S. Citizens, Interned in Russian Convict Camps at Vorkuta, 49-D03-886/1-0554, Office of Special Investigations (USAFE), April 27, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
101 U.S. Citizens Reportedly Detained in USSR, Headquarters United States Forces in Austria, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, September 20, 1954. }
The source doubted whether the Soviet authorities would release him after he completed his sentence. He believed that the engineer would have been forcibly settled somewhere in the Urals. Source also noted that the Soviet authorities seemed proud of having American officers in custody. 102
Vorkuta Camp 13-A German interned from November 1950 to June 1953 reported meeting an American soldier while working in Coal Mine 13. In November of 1950 source became acquainted with a man named Frank who claimed to have been an army sergeant in the Berlin motor pool. In early 1949 Frank had been at a restaurant in BerlinNeukoelln near the border of the U.S.-Soviet sectors. He decided to return home via a short cut through the Soviet Sector. Russian soldiers arrested him while still in the U.S. zone. He was sent to Vorkuta in October 1950, and was transferred to an unknown labor camp in November 1951. Frank was 27 to 30, six feet tall, dark hair, olive skin, broadshouldered with athletic build. He spoke German with an American accent and Russian. His parents were allegedly Russian. 103
Vorkuta Camp 223/III 104-A German returnee who was interned from June 1950 to December 1953 reported meeting a man who claimed to be an officer in the U.S. Army. From 1951 to the summer of 1952 the source occasionally spoke with a prisoner who worked as the camp bookkeeper. He spoke fluent English as well as German, French, and Russian. He claimed to be a U.S. Army colonel who at one time was the military attaché in Leningrad. Source described him as approximately 35 years old, five feet eleven inches, slender, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He had a twisted mouth. He left Vorkuta in the summer of 1952. 105
Vorkuta Coal Mine One-A Polish witness arrived at Vorkuta Coal Mine One in 1950. Other prisoners pointed out to him an American colonel. He appeared about 60 years old, was quite tall, broad-shouldered, and pale. He wore a quilted jacket and did not converse with other prisoners. After some time the camp administration summoned the colonel, returned his gold ring and watch, and released him from Vorkuta. 106
Vorkuta Coal Mine One-A Polish witness claimed to have met an American pilot in the summer of 1946. They could not understand each other, but the witness was able to understand that the pilot "fell down" from a plane. He was tall (six feet), slight of build, dark-skinned, with an oval face. He looked robust. The witness saw him in the camp for a few days, and did not know what became of the American. 107
{102 American Prisoners in Vorkuta, 59A-B-2673 E, 7050 AISW (USAFE), September 29, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
103 U.S. Prisoners in Vorkuta, D-58-B-3353 B, 7050 AISW (USAFE), April 15, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
104 223/III (3), the postal code for Special Camp Number Six, Rechlag, Lagotdelenie Number Three.
105 U.S. Officer, Interned in Russian Convict Camp North of Vorkuta, 49-D03-1121/2-0654, Office of Special Investigations (USAFE), June 2, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
106 KARTA, 1998, p. 3.
107 KARTA, 1998, p. 3. }
Vorkuta Coal Mine One-A Polish source who was at this camp in 1954 heard that an American colonel downed over East Germany (near Berlin) was among a group of prisoners who arrived that year. 108
Vorkuta Mine Two-A witness reported that between 1946-1947 he was imprisoned with an individual who claimed to be an American pilot who had seriously injured himself when he bailed out of his plane after it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He had large scars on his face, was taciturn and spoke Russian poorly. He was later transferred to another camp. 109
Vorkuta Coal Mine Six-A Polish witness recalled that an American arrived at the camp around June of 1953. Other prisoners told the witness that the American was a pilot from a spy plane downed by the Soviets. The American was approximately 40 years old, over six feet tall with an oval face and a shaved head, wearing a quilted jacket (like everybody else). His Russian was very poor. The witness saw him while the Polish prisoners were being prepared for release. 110
Vorkuta Coal Mine Six-In 1954 this Polish witness came into contact with an American and had a short conversation with him (The source's English was poor, and the American could not speak Russian). The American stated that he was a colonel in the U.S. Army, captured in Vienna by Soviet agents. He looked about 40 years old, of medium height, thickset, with dark or auburn hair. The witness left the camp in 1953 [sic] and did not know what happened to the American. 111
Vorkuta Mine Six-A Ukrainian witness stated that in 1952 he met an individual who claimed to be an American citizen of Ukrainian descent. He claimed to have been arrested for spying while on a mission in Lvov in 1949. He was described as disabled, tall, with a round face and wavy blond hair. He was approximately 30 years old. 112
Vorkuta Coal Mine Seven-A Polish witness reported that he met an American colonel, kidnapped in Berlin. The American recounted that at first he had been sent to Moscow (Lubyanka Prison). He was originally sentenced to death, but the sentence was somehow commuted to 25 years' imprisonment. He was sent to Vorkuta and worked in Coal Mine Seven, where the source first met him. The witness met him a second time between May and June 1954 in prison in Tayshet, while being moved from Tayshet to Krasnoyarsk.
{108 KARTA, 1998, p. 3.
109 KARTA, 2003, p. 10.
110 KARTA, 1998, p. 4.
111 KARTA, 1998, p. 4.
112 KARTA, 2003, p. 10. }
The American told the witness that, after the uprising in Coal Mine Seven in Vorkuta in 1953, he had been sentenced to death because of his participation in the uprising. However his sentence was commuted to ten years in a camp somewhere in the Irkutsk District. The American was of average height with blond hair and was about 45 years old. 113
Vorkuta Mine Nine-A German witness met a U.S. Navy ensign named Sobeloff [Sobelev], reportedly captured in China in 1948, when Communist forces took control of the country. Sobeloff claimed to have been the captain of a U.S. vessel at the time of his capture. He was Russian by birth, but a U.S. citizen. He was last seen at Vorkuta Mine Nine in November 1955. 114
Vorkuta Mine Nine/Ten-A witness reported that an American citizen was imprisoned here between 1949 and 1953. The other prisoners were banned from contact with the purported American. He was approximately 40, of medium height with dark hair. 115
Vorkuta Coal Mine Eleven-A Polish witness was moved from Coal Mine Nine/Ten to Coal Mine Eleven in Vorkuta. While at Coal Mine Eleven, he came into close contact with an American officer named Langier, who had been captured by the Soviets somewhere in Eastern Asia and sentenced for espionage. Langier worked at the baths. He spoke some Polish and claimed he had some Polish friends in the USA. The source believed Langier was from Alabama. He was tall, fair-haired and very friendly. Langier sometimes shared food with the source. He also helped him transfer back to Coal Mine Nine/Ten (Langier had a good relationship with the camp doctor). When the witness was released in 1954, the camp at Coal Mine Eleven no longer existed. The witness assumed that Langier had been moved somewhere else earlier. 116
Vorkuta Coal Mine 16-In 1951 or 1952 a Polish witness remembered meeting a young American 20-25 years old, thin, medium-sized, who spoke Russian and worked at the baths. The witness believed he had been captured in Germany. The witness also heard rumors about an American plane downed over Latvia near the town of Limbava and that the crew was imprisoned in one of the camps. 117
Vorkuta Coal Mine 29-In 1955, a German source imprisoned in Vorkuta from September 1950 to June 1953 reported meeting an American citizen named Harry. Harry's last name sounded like "Waterwolf", but he was always addressed or referred to as "Ami". Harry spoke almost fluent Russian and some German. The source spoke some English allowing the two to communicate. Harry claimed to be a member of a control board that examined an air crash between an American and a Soviet aircraft in the Soviet Zone of Germany near Berlin.
{113 KARTA Center's research project (KARTA): Searching for Information on American Citizens Gone Missing During World War II and After it in the Territory of the USSR, Final Narrative Report for the Period February 1-December 31, 1999, p. 3.
114 SOBELOFF, Eugene, D-30477, 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, August 3, 1956.
115 KARTA, 2003, p. 10.
116 KARTA, 1999, p. 3.
117 KARTA, 1998, p. 4. }
Source could not recall the circumstances of Harry's arrest. He was transported from Berlin to Moscow, where he was placed on a transport to Vorkuta with the source. In July 1951, Harry transferred to the camp that served Coal Mines 10, 14, and 16. In 1953 while in Moscow, source heard from a fellow prisoner that Harry was still in Vorkuta. Harry's parents were Americans living in Japan when he was born. He was described as 28 years old, six feet one inch tall, dark blue eyes, thin blond hair, very slender with tattooed arms and chest. The left side of his face appeared paralyzed with the skin hanging loose. His left eye had a reddish appearance, which he stated was the result of an air crash. 118
Vorkuta Mine 29-A Ukrainian witness reported meeting an individual in 1954 who claimed to be an American colonel who had been abducted in Germany after the Second World War. He was of medium height, approximately 40 with red hair. He was educated and spoke Russian well. The purported colonel lived with the Russian prisoners and worked at the mine's warehouse. 119
Vorkuta Coal Mine 40-A Polish witness recalled that in early September of 1951 or 1952Ñafter some kind of Russian-American incident in Berlin-a large number of Germans were brought to Vorkuta. They came mostly from Berlin (both East and West) and around 20 ended up in Coal Mine 40. One German from this group was about 45 years old, a doctor and disabled soldier who had a platinum plate in his skull. He related that during a rail trip to Vorkuta he had met in the carriage an American major who had been captured on a street in Berlin near the East-West border. He believed there were a total of three Americans in this convoy and that, at a transfer point, they were directed to other coal mines in Vorkuta. 120
Vorkuta Mine 40-An eyewitness reported that in 1950 he met a tall, 35-year-old American pilot named John Czekman. 121
Vorkuta Distribution Camp 61-A former German POW reported direct contact with a U.S. major (five feet nine inches tall with blue-gray eyes, moustache, and slim build) who claimed to have been kidnapped in 1945 while the Americans were still at the Elbe River. The Soviets sentenced him to 25 years for espionage. He wore an American uniform. 122
Vorkuta Pit 40-Austrian witnesses claimed to have met a naturalized American who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. His adopted name was Bizet. The Soviets referred to him by his birth name, Wasiljevski. He was supposedly taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1945 in Korea, where he was serving with the U.S. Navy. The Soviets reportedly did not recognize him as a U.S. citizen. 123
{118 Forced Labor Camp in Vorkuta, 52HD-55-29A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), January 11, 1955, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
119 KARTA, 2003, p. 10.
120 KARTA, 1998, p. 5.
121 KARTA, 2003, p. 10.
122 Americans Imprisoned in the Soviet Union, III-33330, Region III 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, 11 December 1953.
123 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-94. }
Vorkuta Transit Camp-A German source reported that in August 1949 he met an individual who claimed to be a U.S. Army colonel. This individual remarked that he was on a secret mission in the Soviet Zone of Germany when arrested. He was described as between 44-45 years old, five feet seven to five feet nine inches tall, with dark hair and a slender build. He claimed to have been a spy in Germany during World War II. He spoke fluent German with no accent and was never heard to speak English. 124
Vorkuta Transit Camp-A German source reported that, between October 4 and 18, 1949, he saw a U.S. Army colonel. He was in U.S. uniform without insignia, stout, five feet nine inches, 40-45 years old with dark blond hair. Source did not speak with the alleged American; however, a German lieutenant general named Schartz spoke with him in English. General Schartz later told source that the man had claimed to be a U.S. colonel arrested in the Soviet Zone of Vienna. General Schartz did not believe the man was really an American but was an informer posing as one. 125
Vorkuta Transit Camp 58-A former German POW claimed to have had direct contact with an Army or Air Force colonel (five feet eleven inches tall with dark blond hair) during the week of August 21-25, 1949. The U.S. colonel spoke perfect German. He claimed to have been dropped behind German lines during WWII to conduct espionage and was captured in East Germany. 126
Vorkuta OLP Eight-While in the hospital of OLP Eight from September 1949 to March 1950, a German source was in the same ward as an American citizen. The American's last name ended in "ich". He was 58-60 years old, slender with black hair, between five feet nine and five feet eleven inches tall. The alleged American was born in San Francisco of Yugoslavian decent. He was employed on an American vessel as chief engineer. In 1946, while on a trip from Port Duna, Soviet authorities arrested him in Vladivostok. When source was released from the hospital, the American had recovered considerably and was expecting to be repatriated. 127
Vorkuta OLP Nine-While detained in separate labor camp section OLP Nine in 1953, a former German POW heard from a driver that approximately 19 miles north of Vorkuta was a Camp of Silence (the inmates of the camp did not have to work, and were not eligible for mail privileges). According to the driver, who was an ex-prisoner engaged in hauling supplies to various camps, this Camp of Silence held Americans and British captured in Korea. 128
{124 Area of Vorkuta, 56A-5120-A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), June 30, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
125 Source's Experience in Penal Labor Camps in Vorkuta, 51-B-13376-H, 7050 AISW (USAFE), 26 March 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
126 Americans Imprisoned in the Soviet Union, III-33330, Region III 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, December 11, 1953.
127 U.S. Citizen in Hospital at Vorkuta, 51B-13892A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), July 1, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
128 Urban Area of Vorkuta, 51A-10623, 7050 AISW (USAFE), July 12, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP. }
Molotov (Perm)
Molotov (Perm)-A CIA report dated September 2, 1952 cites the location of Soviet transit camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. The following indented paragraphs have been excerpted from that report: 129
Since July 1951, according to new information, several transports of Korean POWs passed through the ports of Bukhta (near Vladivostok), Okhotsk and Magadan. Each ship contained 1,000 or more prisoners. Between the end of November 1951 and April 1952, transports of POWs were sent by rail from the Poset railway junction on the Chinese-Soviet frontier. Some were directed to Chita in Eastern Siberia and some to Molotov, European Soviet Russia, west of the Ural Mountains.
Information about non-Asiatic POWs was received on April 30, 1952 from the Gubakha railway station in the Komi-Permyak National District, in Northwestern Siberia. According to this information, about 300 POWs were transported by rail from Chita to Molotov in February 1952. The prisoners were clothed in Soviet-type cotton padded tunics with no distinctive marks. They were first transported from the railway station to the MVD prison and then sent by rail, in a train consisting of 9 wagons, to Molotov on or about April 5, 1952. The train was heavily guarded by railway guards of the MVD.
In March this year transports of POWs passed through from Khabarovsk to Chita and from Chita to Molotov roughly every fortnight. They were in small groups of up to 50 persons. According to latest information, dated 30 June 1952, the prisoners, after arriving in Chita, were first sent to the local MVD prisons, and then, after a sufficient number of them had been assembled, were sent further to Molotov. It is most probable that POWs are undergoing some sort of investigation and selection process while in the MVD prison in Chita. Some of them are retained in prison in Chita for a long time, while others are sent directly by rail to Molotov and other industrial regions in the Ural Mountains.
{129 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952. }
From December 1951 up to the end of April 1952, several railway transports of American and European (probably British) POWs were seen passing at intervals of 10 to 20 days through the Komi-Permyak National District in Northwestern Siberia. These transports were directed to Molotov, Gubakha (Northeast of Molotov), Kudymkar (Northwest of Molotov), and Chermos on the Kama River North of Molotov. The prisoners were clad in cotton-padded gray tunics and pants and wore civilian caps, so-called "Sibirki". They had no military insignia. They spoke among themselves in English, and they knew no other languages, except a few words of Russian.
During the journey they remained locked in heavily guarded wagons and were not allowed to leave them. They received their meals from MVD guards. Each wagon had small windows on two levels. Each window was barred and covered by opaque glass. According to information gathered between April 1 and 20, a certain number of American POW officers, among whom was a group referred to as the "American General Staff", were kept at that time in the Command of the Military District of Molotov. Some of the POWs were accommodated in the building of the MVD in Molotov, having been subjected most probably to interrogations. They had been completely isolated from the outside world.
In the town of Gubakha and in the industrial regions of Kudymkar and Chermos there were three isolated camps and one interrogation prison for American POWs from Korea, according to information dated February and April 1952. Prisoners kept in the three labor camps were employed on the construction of a new railway line. In one of these camps, called GAYSK about 200 Americans were kept. They were employed in workshops assembling rails and doing various technical jobs. These camps were completely isolated from any civilian camps located in neighborhood. Political control was carried out by the local Party organization, headed by (first name unknown (fnu)) Edovin, a delegate from the Obkom of the Komi-Permyak National District. All these camps were under the charge of (first name unknown) Kalypin, a Soviet officer of unknown rank who was sent from Molotov in February 1952.
In some camps situated near the Gubakha railway, which are called "Zapretchdelanki", [Russian term difficult to translate - means "isolated plots"] about 150 Americans were kept, probably soldiers and NCOs. An interesting thing was that from these camps one to three POWs were taken every few days by officers of the MVD for transportation to Gubakha or Molotov. They never returned to their camps and their fate remained unknown. According to the supposition of persons acquainted with MVD methods, these POWs had been observed in the camps by specially assigned agents of the MVD, who knew the English language and thus were able to identify those individuals who were very hostile to the Communist regime and ideology and those who could be considered sympathetic. Those belonging to the first group were most probably sent either to prison or to especially hard labor camps for extermination; the others were probably sent to special political courses in Molotov.
Solikamsk-A stateless refugee who was detained by the Soviets from February 14, 1950 until May 18, 1955 reported meeting five American servicemen. In June of 1954 source was in a camp near Kirov when a fellow inmate informed him that five Americans were being held in a cell nearby. A few days later, he transferred by train to the Central Dispensary at Solikamsk.
The train arrived in Solikamsk at 4:30 pm on 19 June 1954. The prisoners were ordered to disembark and line up by nationality. Source noticed five men to his right and began speaking to the closest in German. The man told source his name was Room or Rum and that he and the other four men were Americans. He was wearing an American or British army uniform without insignia or devices. He was 28 to 33 years old, approximately six feet two inches tall, dark eyes, and brown hair. He had a bad case of eczema on his head. He spoke excellent German.
The other four had common faces, wore prisoner clothes, and spoke poor German. Source stated they used German words peculiar to Berlin. Source had the impression Room was the leader of the group. Source spoke with Room for approximately five minutes before the guard told them to be quiet and marched the five Americans away separately from the group. Room told source that they were being taken to a camp in the Molotov area, Gardinsky region, postal district Bondiuk, post office box AM 244 9/2. He requested source notify American authorities if he was ever released. 130 [Note: AM 244 was the postal code for Usol'skii Corrective Labor Camp, "Usol'lag" in Solikamsk.] 131
{130 U.S. Personnel Imprisoned by the Soviet Forces, D-30477, Headquarters 66th Counter Intelligence Corps Group, June 13, 1955.
131 M.B. Smirnov, Spravochik Sistemy Ispravitel'no-Trudovykh Lagerey v SSSR,(Moskva,Rossia: Zven'ya, 1998), pp. 433-434. }
Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg)
Nizhne-Isetskiy-A German POW, who was incarcerated in the Nizhne-Isetskiy Forced Labor Camp saw three Russian-born Americans working as mechanics. Two of them were more than forty years of age; the third was nineteen years old and did not speak Russian. They sang American songs, and, when the German inquired, he learned from fellow POWs that the three men were arrested aboard a ship by Mao's police in Shanghai, China, imprisoned, transferred to the Soviet authorities, and lived as free laborers in Sverdlovsk. 132
Nizhniy Tagil Strict Regime Camp-An Austrian returnee reported meeting a U.S. sergeant and corporal in late 1952. One was believed to have been kidnapped in Vienna. 133
Sverdlovsk-A German POW was incarcerated in the Sverdlovsk City Jail from February to July 1951, where he met one U.S. and one British citizen. The American was James Pushkan, born 1916 in Manchuria. His mother was Manchurian, and his father was an American merchant. Pushkan was about six feet tall, blond, blue eyes; he spoke fluent English, French and Russian. Pushkan reportedly joined the U.S. Navy when he was 20 years old and served as a lieutenant on a cruiser during World War II. After the end of the war, he separated from the U.S. Navy and went as a civilian to Shanghai, China. He subsequently traveled to Shenyang (Mukden) in 1950 to look for his parents. In Shenyang, he was arrested by the Soviets, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. He was later transferred from the Sverdlovsk City Jail to an unknown prison camp in May 1951.
The German POW also met a British citizen by the name of Soja Aginski. Aginski was born in 1909 in Vladivostok, Russia. His parents fled Russia following World War I, and lived in the United Kingdom, where Aginski studied law. He reportedly served in the British Navy as a military judge, and earned the rank of major. He was captured in China, where he was living illegally following World War II. While in the Sverdlovsk jail, he wore civilian clothing and possessed a British military coat. Aginski was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and transferred to an unknown prison camp with Pushkan. 134
{132 Socio-Political Information, 272130-56-B-4321A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), January 20, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
133 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-90.
134 Area Description of Sverdlovsk, 51-A-9352A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), February 24, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP. }
Chelyabinsk
Verkhne-Ural'sk-An Italian returnee reported meeting an American Army major in a camp in Verkhne-Ural'sk in 1953. The American's parents were Hungarian; he was born in the United States. At the end of World War II the major was in Hungary and later was present at the Nurenberg trials. He returned to Hungary as a civilian and was arrested by the Soviet Secret Police. He was sent to prison in Baden, Soviet Zone of Austria, where he spent three years and from there was transferred to Verkhne-Ural'sk in 1951, remaining there, in poor health, until May 1953, when he was transferred to Moscow. 135
Verkhne-Ural'sk-An Austrian woman detained in the Soviet Union from 1946 until 1956 reported meeting two American officers in Verkhne-Ural'sk. One gave his name as Captain Peterson. He was approximately 30 years old and claimed that he had been kidnapped in Vienna while working at General Mark Clark's headquarters in 1946. Source first met Captain Peterson in 1953 and last saw him in 1955 at Vladimir Prison. The second individual whom the source alleged to have met was a Captain Sing Oisman, who was approximately 30 years old at the time and had supposedly been kidnapped in Vienna in 1949. Source last saw Captain Oisman in September 1953 at Verkhne-Ural'sk. Both Peterson and Oisman reportedly told the source that 27 Americans were being held in the Krasnoyarsk Region. 136
Verkhne-Ural'sk-Source reported meeting a U.S. Army captain named George Mackelly. Mackelly claimed to have been stationed in Hanover, Frankfurt am Main, and Berlin. The Soviets arrested him in Berlin in 1950. 137
Chelyabinsk PW Camp-Source met an American who arrived in camp in July 1950 along with three German prisoners. The American was called 'Yam'. He claimed to be a lieutenant who had been shot down over eastern Germany in 1945. He was transferred to the Soviet Union when the Red Army captured the hospital where he was recuperating. He was described as approximately 40 years old, fair with a slim build. He spoke English, German, and Russian. His parents allegedly owned a large farm or estate in New York State. At the end of July 1950 source and the American were transferred to Shakhty. The American was transferred to Rostov Prison in September 1950 for beating a guard. 138
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk Transit Prison-During an interview in 1993, a witness in Lithuania described an encounter with Americans at the Novosibirsk Transit Prison around June 1952. The witness stated there were two American pilots in a group of prisoners brought into his small room. The other two or three prisoners were German. The Americans reportedly told him that they had been shot down in Korea. They were dressed in khaki shirts and trousers with no belts. The first American told the source that he was a captain in the U.S. Air Force. The source could only recall that the captain was tall and had a red beard. He could not remember any details about the second individual. 139
{135 Amembassy Vienna to State, Alleged American in the USSR, December 6, 1954, 261.1111/12-654, Prisons and Camps USSR No. 3, Operations Section Files, 1949-54, Operations Section (POW Desk), Office of Naval Intelligence, Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Record Group 38, NACP.
136 Amembassy Vienna to State, American Citizens Detained by the Soviet Union, October 20, 1955, 611.61241/10-2055, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP.
137 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-66.
138 Alleged US Citizens in Russian Hands; HQ USFA, AC of S, G2 (SSB/CIB) APO 168, US Army; 3August 3, 1955.
139 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 070842Z Jul 93. }
Krasnoyarsk
Kirovskiy-In his memoirs (provided to the Russian Side in November 1999), a former Soviet citizen quoted seven people who claim to have seen Americans in Kirovskiy. Excerpts from his memoirs: 140
1. [In the] fall, 1951, a group of American POWs from Korea arrived in a camp by the town Kirovsk, in the Krasnoyarsk area. However, in the beginning of 1952, they disappeared. In any case, during the liquidation of the prison camp during the winter of 1951 and into 1952, they were not part of the prisoners who were transferred to Motygino (to the south)....
2. A worker from Kirovskiy witnessed how, late at night, during Russian Christmas, a group of 20, maybe slightly more, were led from the camp along the Veniaminovky Road.
3. Another witness and her friend claimed that during the last days of December 1951, more than 20 prisoners, wearing bare threads and half frozen, were moved along the road to Veniaminovsky.
4. A witness in Veniaminovky, stated that on Christmas "we had a present which the NKVD delivered to the town (half frozen prisoners). They did not speak Russian. They only said 'American, American,' and 'eat, eat.' ... Then in the morning, around 6 am, they were taken and marched further."
5. A hunter and driver, from the town of Chinuel, saw from his car, a number of prisoners who did not speak Russian, being marched along the road...this was early in the morning, around Christmas... The next day, around 7 am, he was going back to Kirovsk and saw the prisoner column moving toward the town of Kamenka (and the lake).
4. One more witness worked in the town of Kirovsk. In February 1952, while hunting, in the area where the Kamenka and Porenda rivers meet, he came across an area where he suspected people were buried. The ground was overturned and his dogs were picking up strange scents.
{140 The Memoirs, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, pp. 7-11. }
7. A cleaning lady in the camp made a list of 22 names of citizens of the USA who were in the camp by Kirovsk during the winter of 1951 to 1952. She was able to take a pencil to the Americans and have them record their names and addresses on pieces of newspaper. She smuggled these pieces out of the camp, put them in a can and buried them.
Many names on the list match those of missing service members from the Korean War. These include:
Foster 1LT Robert Foster,SGT Elmer Foster, and PFC Robert Foster are missing
Hatch SFC Robert Hatch is missing
Leon PFC Chang Jay Park Kim assumed the name "George Leony" upon his capture in order to disguise his Korean heritage...reported to have died in a POW camp in Korea. 141
Miller There are 42 missing Millers
Davis There are 39 missing Davis
Johnson, Hubert CPL Herbert Johnson is missing
Morin CAPT Arthur Morin and CPL Fernand Morin is missing
Larson PFC Gerald Larson is missing
Boyar Cpl Andrew Boyer and CPL William Boyer are missing
Fisher There are 8 missing Fishers
Helfand PFC Osvaldo Galvan is missing
Kaiser MSGT George Kyzer is missing
Noril'sk-A Polish witness heard from fellow prisoners that two Americans, probably pilots, were in the camp. They were described as being around 30-35 years old. 142
Noril'sk "Bear Stream" Mine-A Ukrainian witness stated he saw a tall, American pilot between the age of 20 and 23 years old at this mine in 1947 or 1948. 143
Noril'sk "Medvezhka" 144 Camp-A witness reported seeing six or seven American prisoners at this camp in 1946-47; he thinks they were later taken to Tayshet in Irkutsk. 145
{141 Amendment to a Study of Repatriation U.S. Military Personnel Sept 25, 1953 Amended Oct 6, 1953, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff J-2, Headquarters Far East Command, Oct 6, 1953, p. 2.
142 KARTA, 1998, p. 7.
143 KARTA, 2003, p. 11.
144 From the Russian for bear, same as "Bear Stream" mine.
145 KARTA, 2003, p. 11. }
Noril'sk Camp Four-A Polish witness claimed to have worked with 36-38 American POWs from the Korean War (pilots shot down near Vladivostok) in the early 50s. He recalled the name of one of the prisoners, Scott, but was unsure if this was the first or last name. 146
Noril'sk Camp Four or Five-A Polish witness claimed to have been in the camp with an American for about one year. The American was pudgy and fair-haired, and did not speak Russian. 147
Noril'sk Camp Five-A Polish witness met an American or English pilot, probably a captain, in Norilsk in the first half of 1953. This pilot carried out reconnaissance flights during the Korean War, and, due to bad weather and instrument failure, landed at Dal'niy, USSR. He was arrested and sentenced on espionage charges. According to the witness, the pilot was approximately 30 years old, tall, dark- haired, and looked healthy. Under his prison clothes he wore an "English" military blouse. The source did not know the pilot's eventual fate. In May-June 1953 the camp inmates staged an uprising, and in July, the witness, one of the revolt's leaders, was transported to Kolyma, where he stayed until 1956. 148
Noril'sk Camp Nine, Cement Plant Five-A witness in Lithuania said that he was working with the third camp division near Cement Plant Five at Norilsk Camp Nine in 1953. Camp gossip alleged that a heavily guarded corner facility in the camp was for American POWs from Korea. The witness observed these prisoners from a distance of about 110 yards. They were young white males dressed in prison garb. He felt it was significant that during the prison uprisings in May-June 1954 these special prisoners were quickly removed. He had no idea what happened to them. 149
Noril'sk Camp Eleven-A French doctor who was incarcerated in various camps in the Soviet Union from June 1941 until February 1957 reported hearing about an American Air Force officer imprisoned in Camp Eleven of the Norilsk camp complex near Dudinka. The alleged American officer was attached to the United States Military Aid Group training Turkish pilots in Turkey. In 1951, he made a forced landing inside the Soviet Union near Erevan. The American was still in Norilsk as of September 1953. Source never personally saw this individual. 150
{146 Trip Report for TDY to Poland, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, 1998.
147 KARTA, 1998, p. 7.
148 KARTA, 1998, p. 6.
149 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 070752Z Jul 93.
150 Amembassy Paris to State, Report of U.S. Air Force Officer in Soviet Prison Camp, April 9, 1958, 611.61241/4-958, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP. }
Noril'sk Camp 54-An eyewitness reported that between 1951-56, U.S. airmen were kept in a separate barracks from other prisoners in this camp. They were escorted to and from work under special surveillance. The witness apparently knew this information from hearsay. 151
Noril'sk Dudinka Transit Camp-A Lithuanian witness reported seeing American WWII officers at the Noril'sk Dudinka transit camp in August of 1946. 152
Rybak-In his memoirs (provided to the Russian Side in November 1999), a source wrote that in the very beginning of 1953, he was sent to handle an emergency situation at the northern mining enterprise called Rybak. One of the technical experts he worked with was a demolition-qualified inmate, who he described as tall, exhausted by hunger and the Arctic, and having a very characteristic, slightly elongated artistic face. His unnaturally protruding gray eyes in sockets sunken from emaciation revealed someone ill with exophthalmic goiter. In an accent clearly that of an English speaker, he identified himself as a citizen of the United States of America, Allied Officer Dale.
In Noril'sk, many years later, a geologist, who had worked with the witness 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...." 153
During a visit to Krasnoyarsk in September 2001, the Director of the human-rights organization "Memorial" confirmed the existence of Rybak. He commented that Rybak was a top-secret uranium mine located on the Leningradskaya River. Unlike the majority of Gulag camps, Rybak was not subordinate to the MVD. It is not known what entity controlled Rybak, but it is believed that several Soviet geologists worked at the camp. The camp was centered on a mining shaft, and the uranium ore was placed into river ships for transport. Because the camp produced very little uranium it was eventually destroyed and traces of the camp removed. No known archival records or memoirs of the camp exist. The Memorial director knew of the camp only through acquaintances that served as geologists for the Soviet Union. 154
Unknown location-While serving his sentence in the Krasnoyarsk Kray in 1949-1950, a Russian witness met with Japanese and Korean prisoners of war and conversed with them. They told him that, along with them, several Americans who had arrived at a camp's sub-section (lagpunkt) had been prisoners of war of either the Japanese or the Koreans; later they (Americans, Japanese, Koreans) all became prisoners of the Russians. 155
{151 KARTA, 2003, p. 10.
152 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 070752Z Jul 93.
153 The Memoirs, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, pp. 2-3.
154 Trip Report for TDY to Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, Russia, September 9-26, 2001, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, Gulag Research Team, 9 November 2001.
155 TFR 14, Task Force Russia, pp. 11-12. }
Irkutsk
Aleksandrovsk Central Prison-An Austrian returnee reported meeting in May 1955 an American military police first lieutenant named Gevi or Gevy Robinson. He was 47 or 48 years old. The Soviets arrested him in Berlin. He was not allowed to write. The prison post office box was 5110/51 Moscow. 156
Irkutsk-An Austrian returnee stated that while imprisoned in Irkutsk from September to December 1954 he met an American serviceman named 'Gaby'. Gaby claimed to have been stationed with an American military police unit in Berlin. The Soviets kidnapped him while he was standing watch in 1948. Source had learned some English while working for U.S. forces in Heidelberg; he was convinced that Gaby was a native English speaker. Gaby was not permitted to write or receive letters or packages. 157
Irkutsk Camp 19-A Ukrainian witness was sent to the Irkutsk Oblast in 1959. During a brief stay in Camp Four, he heard rumors that Americans were being held in Camp 19, about five miles away. He said he heard that a part of Camp 19 housed the Americans and that it was a particularly high-security zone, surrounded by an eight-yard fence, with several feet of barbed wire.
After having been caught stealing bread, he was sent to Camp 19 in March 1959 and immediately thrown into the "BUR" (Barak Usilennogo Rezhima - Disciplinary Barracks), located near the bathhouse and guard tower. Inside he was thrown on top of the badly bloodied bodies of two men lying on a makeshift table. He said that lying next to the bodies were seven gold teeth and part of an artificial jaw. It was obvious that the men had been beaten and had their teeth knocked out. He could not recall whether the teeth were completely covered with gold, or just the crowns.
The guards told him that the bodies were those of American officers and that the same would happen to him if he did not obey the rules. The witness said that it was impossible to discern the color of their skin or even guess at their age, due to the severity of the beatings. He said that he was sent off to wash up and that, when he returned, the bodies were no longer there. He later heard that the bodies were buried near the fourth guard tower, and the prisoners' clothes were doused with gasoline and burned. The witness added that he had heard rumors that there were another 18 Americans housed in the camp, aside from these two. He said these prisoners were gradually killed off between May and July 1959.
{156 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-63.
157 Alleged US Citizens in Russian Hands; HQ USFA, AC of S, G2 (SSB/CIB) APO 168, US Army; August 3, 1955. }
He claimed approximately once a week, one of these prisoners was taken out, forced to dig his own grave, stripped, and then shot. The camp guards told him that these victims were U.S. aircrews who had been taken prisoner in Korea. They were buried outside the camp, near the guard tower, separately from the other prisoners. He added this was not in the local cemetery, which was also located just outside the camp.
The witness could not recall the camp commandant's name. He recalled the surnames of two camp guards, Popov and Ivanov, but could not remember their first names or patronymics. 158
Tayshet-A former German POW reported direct contact with U.S. Army Captain Johnny Anderson from 1951-1953. Captain Anderson was reportedly stationed in Berlin in 1946, and was arrested while drunk in the Soviet sector. The source believed that he might have been in the Air Corps. 159
Tayshet-A female German prisoner detained in Irkutsk Prison Camp Nine from September 1949 to May 1953 reported that a female Lithuanian prisoner told her about a prison camp in Tayshet that contained approximately seven hundred male American, British, and French prisoners. These prisoners did not work. The female Lithuanian prisoner had spent time in Tayshet but did not know where or how these men were taken prisoner. 160
Tayshet-Source stated that in 1953 he met an American U.S. military police sergeant named Robert Robinson. Source described him as approximately 36 years old with a stomach ailment. He claimed the Soviets arrested him in Vienna in 1948. Robinson was not allowed to write letters. The camp address was Post Office Box 5110/37 Moscow. 161
Tayshet-Bratsk Chuna Camp 19-A Polish witness claimed that at the end of the summer of 1951 or 1952, an American escaped from Camp 19 at Chuna, on the Tayshet - Bratsk railway, 90 miles from Tayshet. 162
Tayshet Camp 20, Farm 25-A Japanese returnee reported that in the period of 1949-1950 he had direct contact with an American flyer, about 40 years old, tall, with a ruddy complexion. The flyer was shot down over the Baltic States while on an aerial reconnaissance mission and sentenced to 20 years. He was burned in the crash, leaving scars on his right cheek and left leg, necessitating the use of a cane. He spoke some Russian. 163
{158 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 291316Z Dec 98.
159 POW Returned from USSR, MI OPS 69, Commanding Officer, 532d Mil Intel Bn, December 12, 1955.
160 MVD Penal Camps in the Irkutsk Area, E-56B-B-4959A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), February 11, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
161 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-69.
162 KARTA, 1999, p. 4.
163 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-41. }
Tayshet Camp 26-A German civilian returnee reported meeting U.S. Air Force Major William Thompson. According to the source, Major Thompson made a forced landing, and was arrested by the Russians, who sentenced him to twenty-five years for espionage. He spent the years 1944 to 1948 in Budenskaya Prison in Moscow. He was transferred to Tayshet Camp 26. Major Thompson was approximately 38 years old, six feet one inch tall, slim, fair hair, and had blue eyes. His home was in San Antonio, Texas. 164
[Major Wirt Elizabeth Thompson, U.S. Air Force, departed Myitkyina, Burma 4 December 1944 on a mission to Kunming, China. He was reported shot down and is listed as missing in action. Major Thompson, also known as Worth and William, was born in Italy, Texas and attended high school in San Antonio.]
Tayshet Special Camp Six-A Latvian witness reported he had knowledge of three U.S. POWs in Tayshet camps from the period 1949-1951. He met the first American in 1950, in Tayshet Special Camp Six, where he worked as a barber. This camp held primarily French, Indians, and people from the Baltic States. The American was a U.S. military officer taken in 1949 from Austria. During his capture, he had been hit on the head, resulting in a skull fracture. He was Caucasian, about five foot nine inches tall, had light brown hair, blue eyes, was 30 years old and from New Jersey. He was at the camp until 1951, when he was released to exile in Krasnoyarskiy Kray.
The witness saw a second Caucasian American in Special Camp Six during the summer of 1951, but does not know if he was civilian or military. This individual was either brought in blind, or simulated blindness, and was approximately 30 years old. The American escaped, and his fate is unknown.
The witness saw a third American in Special Camp Six, who was Caucasian, and around 40 years old. The American was transferred to another camp. The new camp and the fate of the American are unknown. The witness also cited rumors at the time of his captivity that at least some of the crew from the U.S. aircraft shot down on April 8, 1950, were taken alive and sent to camps. 165
Tayshet Labor Camp Four-In February 1954 a repatriated German commented during a U.S. Air Force debriefing that he met four U.S. servicemen in the summer of 1947 at a sub-camp of Tayshet Labor Camp Four. 166
{164 Political Adviser, Headquarters, U.S. Army, Europe, Heidelberg to State, Report of Americans Imprisoned in USSR, 18 February 1954, 611.61251/2-1854, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP.
165 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 250540Z Nov 96.
166 U.S. Nationals in Penal Labor Camp No. 04 in Tayshet 58-B-3004-B, 7050 AISW (USAFE), February 18, 1954, ("Wringer Reports"), (ODI), (Air Staff), (RG 341), (NACP). }
For two days in July 1947, the source was billeted in a sub-camp of Tayshet Labor Camp Four. The camp was located in the forest 34 miles east of Tayshet, and consisted of two 2.5 by 1.5 mile compounds, which housed thousands of penal laborers of various nationalities.
While there, the source met four Americans between the ages of 28 and 36. He described them as over five feet nine inches tall and broad-shouldered with close-cropped hair. They wore khaki denims with a pocket on the trouser. The Americans, the source, and some Latvian prisoners were all able to communicate with one another through their broken German. The Americans told the source that they were members of the U.S. Air Force who had been stationed in Vienna.
In 1946 Soviet soldiers arrested them at the Vienna Prater Park. They were transported to Moscow and tried for espionage. While in Moscow they where kept in underground cells, repeatedly beaten, and interrogated. The Soviets sentenced them to 25 years in a labor camp. At the end of 1946 they were transferred to Tayshet Labor Camp Four. The source was unable to give any names but made it a point to keep track of the Americans through fellow prisoners who worked on the Tayshet-Bratsk railroad line. He was certain that the Americans were still working on the railroad line when he left Tayshet in February 1950.
Unknown location-A resident of Irkutsk claimed that his mother had seen an American prisoner in March 1946, while working as a porter on a train carrying NKVD prisoners from the Far East. The porters were ordered to bury eight of the prisoners who were believed dead, but one of the eight was still breathing, so she took him in. He died a week later, but before he died he indicated he was an American. The source believed his name was something like, "Fred Kolin or Kollinz." The American drew a picture indicating an aircraft being shot down and three people possibly bailing out of the aircraft. 167
Vikhorevka (southwest of the city of Bratsk)-A former Gulag prisoner and ethnic Estonian source reported that, while detained in the village of Vikhorevka in the zone reserved for foreigners, he met an American serviceman named Thomas (last name unknown). Thomas said that he was a U.S. pilot from the Korean War. The source reported that Thomas was 35 years old when he met him in 1953. Thomas was five feet five inches to five feet seven inches tall and walked with a limp. Thomas was assigned to work on the camp water tower. 168
{167 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 181401Z May 95.
168 U.S. and British Citizens in Prison Camp in Eastern Siberia, Central Intelligence Agency, September 29, 1958. }
Sakha-Yakutia
Bulun-On 15 October 1957, a Polish witness visited the American Consulate in Strasbourg, France. He stated he was held in a prison camp in Bulun until July 1957 and reported seeing the following Americans:
Watson, an American professor of physics captured in Vienna, Dick Rozbicki, an American soldier captured during the Korean War, Stanley Warner, an American soldier captured during the Korean War, and Jan Sorrow, an American soldier captured during the Korean War. 169
Bulun Camp 217-On September 20, 1957, two Polish witnesses visited the American Consulate in Genoa, Italy. Both men claimed to have been WWII POWs held captive in Bulun Camp 217. They had escaped on May 6, 1957. They claimed to have made their way across the USSR, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, entering Italy on September 18, 1957. They reported that two men, who claimed to be American army officers captured during the Korean War, had been transferred to Bulun Camp 217 from another camp on July 24,1955.
The men were: Stanley Rosbicki, approximately 24 years old, of Buffalo, New York and Jack Watson, 38 or 39, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both were infantry lieutenants. 170
Bulun Camp 217-In mid to late June 1957, a Polish refugee visited the British Consulate in Innsbruck. He stated that he had been imprisoned at Bulun Labor Camp 217 near Yakutsk until early 1957. While there, he met two British soldiers who claimed to have been captured in Korea in 1951: Sergeant Stanley Rayder, approximately 38 years old, and Corporal Bill Coolig, approximately 32 years old. Source had never seen the names written and gave what he thought were approximations. The soldiers had requested that source notify British authorities of their circumstances. Source had returned to Poland when released. From Poland he traveled through Hungary and Czechoslovakia to Yugoslavia. He then crossed over illegally to Austria. His only documentation was an Austrian Police certificate stating they had detained him from March 12 to June 12, 1957. 171 [Original source document mentions camp location one time and spells name of camp location as Lubun. This is a probable typographical error.]
{169 AmConsulate, Strasbourg, France to The Department of State, Washington (State), Information Regarding Americans Allegedly Detained in Soviet Union, October 21, 1957, 611.61341/10-2157, 1910 to 1963 Decimal File (Decimal), Records of the State Department Central Files (Central Files), Record Group 59 (RG 59), National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD (NACP).
170 AmConGen, Genoa to State, Peripheral: Alleged Escapees from Soviet Camp Give Names of Possible American Prisoners, September 24, 1957, 76100/9-2457, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP.
171 081, British Consulate, Innsbruck, June 26, 1957, Papers for Colonel-General D Volkogonov from the Army Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom, p. B-2. }
Bulun Camp 307-On September 5, 1960, a Polish witness visited the American Embassy, Brussels, Belgium. He stated he had been imprisoned in Bulun Camp 307 for seven and a half years and was released on May 1, 1960. He reported seeing two U.S. Army personnel captured in Korea: Ted Watson, an infantry lieutenant, and Fred Rosbiki, a commando or paratroop sergeant. 172
Bulun Camp 315-A Catholic priest visited the U.S. Embassy in Paris on July 11, 1958 to report an interview he had recently conducted with a former Polish Gulag prisoner. The prisoner told the priest that he had recently escaped from North Siberia where he had been held in Bulun Camp 315. He claimed to have been acquainted with two Americans in the same camp: a chaplain, John Westley, captured in Korea in 1952, and a lieutenant, Stanley Rosbicki, from New York. The witness further advised the priest that the two Americans, who appeared to be in good health, had requested that he convey this information to the American authorities for transmittal to their families. 173
Bulun-A Sakha-Yakutian government representative reported that her grandmother lived in Bulun at the end of World War II and worked as a seamstress in the Bulun Gulag. In the late 1940's, her grandmother routinely met American, Lithuanian, Estonian, Polish, and Finish prisoners of war. The source reported that her grandmother kept a diary, which documented her time in the Gulag and her acquaintance with Americans. The Bulun Gulag, located at the mouth of the Lena River (N 70¡ 44.280' E 127¡ 21.281') was a fishing camp-male prisoners worked in the fishing industry and female prisoners sewed clothes and prison uniforms. Today nothing is left of the camp except for an underground fish storage cell. The source's grandmother died in 1996. 174
Kyusyur-In 2002, a source in Poland who had grown up in Kyusyur, a village on the opposite bank of the Lena River from Bulun, stated that her father, a Polish prisoner in Bulun and Kyusyur, had known an American named Stanley Warner. Stanley Warner worked at the village power plant from 1951-1956. In January 1956 he was arrested and transported to Yakutsk. Her father knew a second American named Jack, who visited their family possibly in 1974. Jack wrote them letters often and had married a Yakutian woman. 175
{172 Amembassy, Brussels to State, Korean War Prisoners Reported In Soviet Union, September 8, 1960, 611.61241/9-860, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP.
173 State to Amembassy, Paris, Welfare-Whereabouts: Report of American Prisoners in Soviet Union, July 16, 1958, 611.61251/7-1658, Decimal, Central Files, RG 59, NACP.
174 Trip Report for TDY to Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, Russia, September 9-26, 2001, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, Gulag Research Team, November 9, 2001.
175 The Karta Center Project Concerning Further Research in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union on the Fate of Missing Americans During and After the Second World War, Narrative Report for the Period: September, 17, 2001-September 16, 2002, pp. 5-6. }
Yakutsk-The CIA report dated September 2, 1952, excerpted above, cites the location of Soviet transit camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. Excerpts from the 1952 report: 176
Those POWs who arrived by ship in the ports of Bukhta, Okhotsk and Magadan were then transported by train, or by trucks or by motor-driven barges, to Vaikaren on the Chukotsk Sea, to Ust Maisk on the river Aldan and to Yakutsk on the river Lena. POW camps of Koreans in the Yakutsk A.S.S.R. are situated between Ust Maisk and Yakutsk. Prisoners there are employed in building new shafts for coalmines, earthworks and dams. The camps are situated 30 to 125 miles from one another and contain 500 to 1,000 prisoners each. Soldiers of the MVD guard them. The camps and inmates are under the supervision of the Ministry of Coal Production or the Ministry of Forests. The chief over all camps in this region was, in April 1952, a civilian functionary (fnu) Andreev. The commandant of the MVD units assigned to guard the camps was Col. (fnu) Vassilevsky. The prisoners are doing very heavy physical work and are living under primitive conditions. In one of the camps in this region, called AMGA, about 300 POWs died in February and April 1952 as a result of serious illnesses and overwork. Over 400 of them were placed in very crude barracks for the sick.
Topolinyy-On November 13-14, 1997 a JCSD team traveled to Taganrog to conduct an interview with a source who claimed to have personal knowledge of a U.S. Korean War POW living in Yakutiya (now officially called The Sakha Republic) as late as 1983. Source had contacted the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission through a journalist, who in November of 1997 wrote an article in the Russian newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno based on the source's story. 177
Source told the team that in 1975 he traveled to Yakutiya, in Northeast Siberia, as part of a scientific expedition. He and some other comrades returned the next year to the village of Topolinyy to earn some extra money as seasonal laborers, building a boarding school for local children. There he met an individual known only as "Kolya", also nicknamed "Kon" ("The Horse"). Local rumor had it that Kolya was a former prisoner who had been sent to Yakutiya, after being convicted as an American spy. At the time, Kolya was around 50 years old and in excellent physical condition, although he was unsociable and drank heavily.
Some foreign-language students from Yakutsk State University came to the area that summer and would sometimes practice English among themselves. One time Kolya, having drunk heavily, began to use a number of what source described as English words. (Note: source admitted that he does not know English himself, other than the phrase, "the best," which Kolya taught him. Kolya himself spoke excellent Russian, but with a slight accent.) One of the Yakut students learned from Kolya that his real name was "Oscar".
Kolya gradually opened up to source, and during the course of several talks, stated that he was born in a Midwestern state in the USA. Source could not remember which one in particular but stated it was neither a northern nor a southern state and definitely not Texas. His father was a well-off farmer, who had a wife and three children: Kolya, and two older sisters. Kolya was the first in his family to choose a military profession, having completed a military high school. He entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and then transferred to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. After graduating, Kolya attended courses at Quantico, Virginia, and was commissioned a 2d Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1949.
Kolya told source he had served in the Korean War in the 3d Company, 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Division, assigned to the U.S. Army X Corps. Source was unable to remember the designation for Kolya's regiment. Kolya said that he took part in the Inchon landing on 15 September 1950. (Note: the 1st Marine Division was assigned to the U.S. Army's X Corps during the Inchon landing on September 15, 1950. Marine companies are alphabetically designated, not numerically. The three Marine infantry regiments assigned to the 1st Marine Division were the 1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, and the division artillery regiment carried the designation of the 11th Marines.) Kolya stated that he was supposed to have been decorated and promoted prior to his capture in November 1950. Kolya blamed General Ridgeway for his capture. (Note: Ridgeway assumed command of the 8th Army on December 26, 1950.)
Kolya stated that on the night he was captured, his company was located next to the 1st British Battalion. He stated that two other Americans were captured along with him, one who was black. They were taken to Mukden, China. He never saw the other two again. In Mukden he was kept in solitary confinement and tortured for 20 months by his Chinese captors. Source later said that he saw numerous scars on Kolya's legs. Kolya was then transferred to Khabarovsk, USSR, where his captors again kept him in solitary confinement, and unsuccessfully tried to recruit him as a spy. After seven months he was transferred to Yakutiya and forced to sign a statement promising not to reveal any details of his captivity, upon pain of death. He was amnestied in 1956, but forced to remain in the area in permanent exile. Afterwards, Kolya made his living working odd jobs around the area. He even "married" twice to two local women-one who drowned in the Tompo River, and a second, who bore him a daughter.
Source said that Kolya became especially attached to him when he found out that source's father had served in Washington, D.C. As source was preparing to return to Kiev, Kolya asked him to pass a letter on to the U.S. Embassy, since he knew that source would be returning through Moscow. It was at this point Kolya admitted that he was an American citizen.
However, instead of handing over the letter at the American Embassy, source showed the letter to his father, who became quite angry. The source's father had a lifelong hatred of Americans and pointed out the danger in which the source was putting his family. Source said that his father tore the letter up and told him not to get involved in such matters anymore. He added that his father could read English but refused to tell source Kolya's real name from the letter.
Source saw Kolya several more times over the years during subsequent trips to Yakutia. The last time was in 1983, in the village of Teplyy Klyuch. When source traveled to Teplyy Klyuch in 1986, he was told that Kolya had returned to Topolinyy.
Kolya reportedly left a glass jar with several letters in English, explaining who he was. Source admitted to the team that he neither saw Kolya write these letters, nor did he see Kolya bury them. He explained they had agreed beforehand that Kolya would leave behind some sort of evidence, should anything happen to him, in a mutually agreed upon place.
Source had planned to return to Yakutiya on November 25, 1997 to attempt to determine Kolya's fate. 178
From August 14-22, 1998, a JCSD investigator, accompanied by source, traveled to Sakha-Yakutiya in Northeast Siberia, to investigate the reports of the U.S. Korean War POW. The team was unsuccessful in developing significant information on the case of the individual known as "Kolya the Horse".
On August 19, the team finally reached the confluence of the Tompo and Deline Rivers. This was the spot, according to source, where Kolya buried a jar, allegedly containing a written description of his identity. Source immediately spotted a wooden shack situated on the far bank and pronounced that this was the spot. However, he quickly determined that the hiding spot no longer existed, because the bank had obviously suffered considerable erosion during the spring thaw. He rechecked his bearing several times, but always with the same conclusion. At this point there was nothing left to do, and the team returned to Teplyy Klyuch.
One rumor had placed Kolya in the Ust-Nera area as of 1983, from where he had supposedly gone to work in the mines at Sarylakh. This was well to the northeast of the team's present location, and even further into the Taiga. A later rumor placed an apparently intoxicated Kolya loitering at the Yakutsk airport in 1985.
Another rumor placed Kolya in Yakutsk two years after the reported Ust-Nera sighting. The team decided the best course of action was to return to the city of Yakutsk, which they did. They talked to several people in the area, but could find no further information about Kolya. 179
In March of 2002, The JCSD Gulag researchers traveled to Yakutsk, Tiksi, and Bykovskiy in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia. They interviewed numerous villagers, longterm residents, government officials, human rights workers, and members of the media. During a meeting with high-level members of the government, media, and several representatives of the human-rights organization Memorial in Yakutsk, the story of Kolya was broached by a senior member of the government who had come to the meeting with a copy of the Sovershenno Sekretno article. The Russian Memorial Society representatives present noted that Kolya had a daughter. They were familiar with the area where Kolya had lived and volunteered to attempt to find Kolya's daughter.
While conducting interviews in Tiksi, a local native and long-time resident of Kyusyur (a town located across the Lena River from the remains of Bulun) provided a map and detailed information of a system of secret camps that existed along the left (west) bank of the Lena in the 1950s. These camps held Caucasian prisoners, were off limits to the local indigenous tribal people, and had fences. The camps on the right bank of the Lena were Special Resettlement Camps and did not have fences. The most secret of the left-bank camps was nicknamed "Kazarma" and designated 315. It was located a few miles south of Bulun. A local anthropologist independently confirmed that a secret camp known as "Kazarma" had previously existed south of Bulun.
{176 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952.
177 Kolymskiy Plennik, Taisiya Belousova, Sovershenno Sekretno No. 11, November 1997.
178 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 251422Z Nov 97.
179 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, August 8, 1998. }
Chita
Chita-Refer to the sections on Molotov, Khabarovsk, and Sakha-Yakutiya for excerpts from the CIA report dated September 2, 1952 that cite the location of Soviet transit camps for prisoners of war from Korea located in the region of Chita. 180
{180 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952.}
Magadan
Arkagala-A Polish source stated that in 1955 he saw an alleged Ukrainian American soldier who was captured in North Korea and transferred to the Soviet Union by the intelligence services. The man wore civilian clothes and was the only American in the camp. Source was released in 1956. 181
Atka-In June 1950, a German POW reported that a 'spy' had been captured by two Soviet officers and brought into the Atka penal labor camp (6050N/151,80E). The prisoner's hands were shackled to his back. He was about five feet, nine inches tall, of slight build, dark complexion, very emaciated features; he was dirty and had a few days growth of beard. He was clad in a waist-long, brown leather jacket with front-zipper, which he wore open, showing a white fur lining, and a yellow shirt. The prisoner had long leather trouser of grayish color, tucked into a half-length black boots, of which upper parts were made of felt or some other soft material. The prisoner wore a flying helmet of solid gray or green material, which covered the ears; the helmet fitted closely around the face with a rimmed pad. The attire of the man, which had no rank or other insignia, was strange, unsuited for the cold nights and never worn in this style by civilians or military personnel in the Atka region. The prisoner remained silent, and seemed to be sick and very depressed. The prisoner was kept in the hospital about 30 minutes, then was marched back to the guardhouse and driven away in the direction of Magadan. The German POW heard that the prisoner was a U.S. airman, who had lost his bearings and bailed out when he ran out of gas, as he could not land in the rough and mountainous terrain. He had been picked up by chance by two camp officers who were out by car on a hunting trip about 30 miles west of Atka. 182
Chukotskaya Kult'baza -A returned German POW stated that when he arrived at a forced labor camp near Chukotskaya Kult'baza in April 1948, he met a man who claimed to be a U.S. national. Source said the man spoke German with an accent and was fluent in Russian. He claimed to have been born in the United States, and was a pilot sentenced to 20 years' hard labor for espionage. The alleged American was 30 years old, approximately five feet nine inches tall, broad-shouldered, and oval-faced, with brown hair. The man wore prison clothes with a brown uniform jacket. He often spoke of escaping to Alaska across the Bering Straits. Source lost track of the man when source was transferred in May 1949. Source heard in February 1950 from fellow prisoners that the alleged American was working in a tungsten mine near Chukotskaya Kult'baza. 183
{181 Joint Commission Support Directorate Phone Interview, October 4, 2001.
182 US-Airman Prisoner in Atka, E-51-B-12938E, 7050 AISW (USAFE), Jun 50, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
183 U.S. National in Soviet Custody, E-58-B-3395 C, 7050 AISW (USAFE), April 30, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP. }
Magadan-The CIA report dated September 2, 1952 cites the location of Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. The following indented paragraphs are excerpts from the report: 184
In December it was known that transit camps for prisoners of war captured by the Communists in Korea had been established in Komsomolsk on the Amur, Magadan on Bogaeva Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk, Chita and Irkutsk. Through those transit camps were passing not only Korean POWs but also American POWs.
Since July 1951, according to new information, several transports of Korean POWs have passed through the ports of Bukhta (near Vladivostok), Okhotsk and Magadan. Each ship has contained 1,000 or more prisoners. Between the end of November 1951 and April 1952, transports of POWs were sent by rail from the Poset railway junction on the Chinese-Soviet frontier. Some were directed to Chita in Eastern Siberia and some to Molotov, European Soviet Russia, west of Ural Mountains.
Those POWs who arrived by ship in the ports of Bukhta, Okhotsk and Magadan were then transported by train, or by trucks or by motor driven barges, to Vaikaren on the Chukotsk Sea, to Ust Maisk on the river Aldan and to Yakutsk on the river Lena. POWs shipped to Vaikaren were sent to a network of camps in the Nizhni Kolymsk region on the East Siberian Sea, to be employed building roads, electric power plants and airfields. Their number varies considerably due to high mortality and to transfer to other camps on the Chukotski Peninsula. All these camps are under supervision of MVD and are entirely isolated. There were about 12,000 Korean POWs in April 1952 in the Nizhno Kolymsk camp network. The camps were under the charge of (fnu) Sorotchuk, a Major of MVD and (fnu) Chimbo, a civilian Party functionary, probably an employee of MGB. Chimbo was in charge of education and political indoctrination.
{184 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952. }
Magadan Berlag-A Ukrainian witness from Gribenko was transferred from Vanino Bay to Magadan Berlag in 1950, where he remained until his release in 1960. The witness stated that in the summer of 1954 a large group of foreign prisoners, perhaps as many as 2000, were brought to Magadan Prison. This group included three Americans. When asked how he knew they were Americans, he replied that it was common knowledge, and everyone knew it. The Americans were in regular prison garb, but upon arrival at the Berlag were ordered to remove their prison numbers from their shirts and hats. While working as a medic in the camp, he was asked to examine one of the Americans for tropical skin ulcers. Due to the color of the man's skin and the thickness of his lips, the witness thinks this American was a Mulatto. When asked if he had talked with the individual, the witness stated that he had not because it was strictly forbidden. He went on to say that the three prisoners were young, all had brown hair, and all appeared to be in good health. 185
Mokhoplit Village-On March 29, 1996, an interview was conducted with a Russian living in Yekaterinburg, who spent from 1952-1970 in various gulags, to include Kolomna, Indigirka, and Chukhotka. He claimed to have seen an American citizen in 1956/57 in the Magadan Oblast, at Mokhoplit Village, in the Tentiskiy gold mining region. This U.S. citizen, Azat Tigranovich Petrosian, was born in Armenia in the 1920s, and somehow wound up in a Nazi POW camp that was liberated by the Soviets. The Soviets refused to repatriate him and sent him to the gulag. The source did not know Petrosian's eventual fate. 186
Myaundzha (near Susuman)-On August 12, 1996, a witness living in Moscow delivered a written response to the Radio Liberty program, "Americans in the Gulag," being played on Radio Liberty/Voice of America. She had worked at the Directorate of the PTU (Professional Technical Academy) Energostroy for the electrical power station in Myaundzha, Magadan Oblast, from 1955-63, then in Magadan until 1965, when she moved to Moscow. In the letter, the witness told of a Rudolf Martinovich Benush (19171995), who allegedly served as a U.S. Army captain during the Nuremberg Trials. The witness worked with Benush, who was referred to as the American spy, "either in derision, or in reference to the article under which he was convicted" (Article 58), when he was a "trustee" prisoner in the Myaundzha camp in Magadan Oblast near Susuman in 1955, until his release in 1956. The camp had 3,000 prisoners, mostly Baltic and Ukrainian nationalists. Benush spent the majority of his remaining years in Magadan. 187
Narioberug Central Hospital-Around March 1952, a Japanese witness saw and spoke for about 20 minutes with an American in room number two, first medical section, at a hospital in Magadan. A hospital attendant named Nikolai told him that the American was a captain who had crashed in the vicinity of Kamchatka. During the conversation, the American stated, "I cannot accept the sentence of being a spy. The sentence of 15 years based on Item six of Article 58 is unjust." He appeared to be about 28 years old, with blond hair and blue eyes. In June 1953 the witness was transferred to an internment camp in Khabarovsk. 188
{185 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 251431Z Nov 94 186 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 090806Z Apr 96.
187 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 260757Z Aug 96.
188 Information on Probable U.S. Air Force Officer Detained in Soviet Russia, IR-960-54, 6004th Air Intelligence Service Squadron, July 27, 1954, AIR, DDCD, RG 341, NACP.}
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk-A CIA report dated 2 September 2, 1952 cites the location of Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. The following paragraph has been excerpted from the report: 189
In March this year transports of POWs passed through from Khabarovsk to Chita and from Chita to Molotov roughly every fortnight. They were in small groups of up to 50 persons. According to latest information, dated June 30, 1952, the prisoners, after arriving in Chita, were first sent to the local MVD prisons, and then, after a sufficient number of them had been assembled, were sent further, to Molotov. It is most probable that POWs are undergoing some sort of investigation and selection process while in the MVD prison in Chita. Some of them are retained in prison in Chita for a long time, while others are sent directly by rail to Molotov and other industrial regions in the Ural Mountains.
Khabarovsk Prison-A Japanese repatriate who was in Khabarovsk Camp No. 21 from 1950-1953, heard from Soviet guards, prisoners, and laborers that, in April or May of 1953, twelve or thirteen Americans from a military plane shot down by the Soviets were in Khabarovsk Prison. Source heard from a Soviet guard in October 1952 that two Americans had been brought to Khabarovsk Prison and were being investigated as spies. In June 1952, source heard from a prison train guard at Khabarovsk Station Number 2 that there was a prison camp in the USSR solely for American prisoners. 190
Khabarovsk Sub-camp 5M-A Russian living in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, reported that in November1952, he saw three American prisoners at the "5M Lagpunkt" 191 detention facility in Khabarovsk, Russia, where he was incarcerated. He went on a woodcutting detail with one of them. In December 1952 the Americans were transferred out of the camp to an unknown destination. A Russian female prisoner serving a sentence for "betraying the motherland" accompanied the Americans. The camp commander was Lieutenant Kuzenkov. 192
{189 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952.
190 American-Prisoners-of-War Held in the USSR, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, December 29, 1953.
191 Camp Sub-section No. Five for men.
192 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 241319Z Jul 92. }
Svobodnyy-In his memoirs (made available to the Russian Side in November 1999) a source quotes four people who claim to have knowledge of the June 1952 RB-29 crew and their incarceration in Svobodnyy. Excerpts from his memoirs: 193
A former fishing vessel radio operator related that the Captain of his fishing vessel told him 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 Svobodnyy, near Blagoveshchensk."
A former Dalstroy official "was not in the least surprised by [his] 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 Svobodnyy...They were supposed 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..."
A second former Dalstroy official repeated almost word-for-word the testimony of [the first Dalstroy official] but went on to clarify: "The guys from within 'worked over' the Americans so badly that only eight were taken to Svobodnyy." A construction official who worked extensively in the Far East and was also an advisor to a minister stated "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"
Tomarigishi Sakhalin Island-A Japanese repatriate reported meeting an American lieutenant while interned on Sakhalin Island. The lieutenant traveled from Eastern Europe through the Soviet Union conducting espionage. In 1947 he was arrested on Sakhalin while preparing to use his radio transmitter. 194
Verkhniy-According to a Ukrainian citizen who lives in Kiev, seven American servicemen - three of them pilots whose plane had strayed into Soviet territory because of mechanical difficulties - were incarcerated in 1952, in a prison camp called "Verkhniy" in the town of Lultin in Khabarovsky Kray. The prisoners' primary contact was with a Japanese doctor named Matsuoko. During their detention, three of them were killed in a mining accident, and the four others were transferred to another camp. 195
{193 The Memoirs, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, pp. 4-5.
194 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-23.
195 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 261301Z Feb 94. }
Primorskiy Kray
Air Force Hospital 404-While training for parachute duties in 1951, a witness broke his leg and was sent to Air Force Hospital Number 404, in the small town of Staraya Sysoyovka, Primorskiy Kray, between Arsenyev and Novosysoyevka. Due to lack of space, he was given a bed on the second floor in the corridor next to a room with four American patients. One was able to walk, the second was in traction, and the third and fourth were burned. He clearly remembered the face of one of the Americans. He was blond, no younger than 25 years of age. He thought the blond person was the pilot. The witness was able to talk to and see the patients, as well as listen to their dialogue during questioning. He stated that the first patient was between 22 and 27 years of age, had light colored hair, was thin, had blue eyes, and bent over with a visible limp. His height was about six feet tall. Patient one said he was from Cleveland and had two children. The witness said the second and third patients appeared older. The second patient had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark complexion. He was approximately five foot six inches tall. The source had no other description, other than to say that they were from San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He could not say which patient was from which city.
There was a fifth American who the source never saw. He had already died. One day, when the source was able to get around, a hospital worker took him out to the graveyard near the hospital and showed him a grave where, the hospital orderly said, the American was buried. Not long after meeting the Americans and while still a patient in the hospital, source was led by a hospital worker to a cemetery where the fifth American was buried. He remembered the hospital cemetery was only 1 to 1.25 miles away from the hospital. Moreover, as he entered the cemetery, the ground rose in front of him. He remembered this because he was still on crutches and had some difficulty walking up an incline that ran almost the entire length of the cemetery. There was, he recalled, a wooden fence, apparently constructed to keep out farm animals. The fence formed a corner with the left side running a ways down the length of the cemetery and the end side extending to the right. The grave was freshly dug in the far left corner with about 10 to 20 yards of clear ground before reaching the fence. Further identifying the location of the grave was a steep decline to the left of the grave. The grave was fourth, from left to right, in a row of four graves side by side. 196 JCSD representatives made three separate trips to the region to investigate the reported sightings at hospital 404; the first was in late July 1995, the second was late October 1995, and the last was in March and April 1996. American and Russian forensics experts accompanied JCSD analysts on the second and third expedients. These teams exhumed three graves which closely matched the source's recollections. The forensic experts determined that two sets of remains where not those of missing American servicemen based on dental charts and ethnicity. A sample of bone from the third set was taken for DNA testing which resulted in inconclusive results.
{196 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 011207Z Jun 95. }
Artem-A Russian stated that an acquaintance of his who lived in Artem, a northern suburb of Vladivostok, said that as a little boy in the early 1950's, he saw a column of about 100 American POWs marching near the town. When asked how he knew they were Americans, he stated that it was "well-known" (in the village.) 197
Vanino Bay-In 1947, a Ukrainian witness from Gribenko was moved from Lvov to the Vanino Bay Transit Prison in the Soviet Far East where he remained for about two years, 1948-49. He claimed there were numerous American prisoners awaiting movement to other prisons. He believed the Americans were from WWII. The witness described the layout of the Vanino Bay Transit Prison as consisting of 15 separate zones, each holding 5,000-7,000 prisoners, and that the Americans were housed in zone number two. All prisoners were moved to Kolyma by the ships: "Felix Dzerzhinskiy," "Nagin," "Dyurma," and "Dalstroy." Whenever these ships passed by Hokkaido, the crew put on civilian attire so the Japanese would not know they were prison ships. 198
Vladivostok-A CIA report dated 2 September 1952 cites the location of Soviet transit camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. The following two paragraphs have been excerpted from the report: 199
Since July 1951, according to new information, several transports of Korean POWs have passed through the ports of Bukhta (near Vladivostok), Okhotsk and Magadan. Each ship has contained 1,000 or more prisoners. Between the end of November 1951 and April 1952, transports of POWs were sent by rail from the Poset railway junction on the Chinese-Soviet frontier. Some were directed to Chita in Eastern Siberia and some to Molotov, European Soviet Russia, west of Ural Mountains.
Those POWs who arrived by ship in the ports of Bukhta, Okhotsk and Magadan were then transported by train, or by trucks or by motor driven barges, to Vaikaren on the Chukotsk Sea, to Ust Maisk on the river Aldan and to Yakutsk on the river Lena.
{197 Trip Report for TDY to Moscow and Perm, Russia, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, Joint Commission Support Directorate, Gulag Research Team, June 2001.
198 JCSD-AMEMBASSY Moscow, 251431Z Nov 94.
199 Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, September 2, 1952. }
Kamchatka Peninsula
Petropavlovsk-A German internee, who was interned in a penal camp about 40 miles northwest of Petropavlovsk from March 1946 until March 1947, reported meeting one American citizen who was from Fredericksburg, Virginia. The American, who went by the name of Johnny, was born in 1903 or 1909. After completing a law degree, Johnny was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force. He wife was American, and he had two children. In the course of his Air Force career, he received training in an intelligence school, from which he graduated as an 'agent' fluent in the Russian language. In 1941, before the German invasion of Russia, Johnny reportedly parachuted into Russian territory near Moscow. The German did not know the mission of his American friend, who was finally captured by Soviet police and sentenced to 25 years at hard labor for espionage and desertion in accordance with Article 58 of the Soviet legal code. Before he arrived in Petropavlovsk, he had passed through the penal camps in Karaganda, Tayshet, and Irkutsk. The German reported that Johnny was wearing a U.S. pilot's uniform of dark color with brown leather trimmings and fur lining. The American also wore a gold ring of dark yellow color with a polygonal diamond, one-half inch in diameter, protruding an inch above the setting, with smaller diamonds on the sides. Johnny wore the ring on the left hand ring finger. Later, for fear that the Russians would take the ring away; he sewed the ring into his pants. In his upper left jaw he wore two gold teeth instead of the eyetooth and the one following to the rear. Somewhere in the right and left jaws he wore a set of golden teeth, which were forcibly removed by the Russian camp dentists. The German described the American as about five feet, ten inches tall, slim, sportsman-like figure; he had full black hair, thick-black eyebrows, brown eyes, dimple in the middle of his slightly jutting chin, long straight pointed nose, and wrinkled hollow cheeks. Above is a drawing by the German of the American named Johnny. 200
{200 American National in Penal Camp near Petropavlovsk, E-53-12631-B, 7050 AISW (USAFE), December 16, 1953, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP. }
Kazakhstan
Churba Nura-A CIA source reported in 1956 the presence of two American citizens in the "Camp of the Sands" [Note: this is Peshchanlag, one of the Special Camp Systems] between November 1954 and September 1955. One of the Americans named Derry was sent to Hungary. 201
Karabas-A German returnee stated that she met an American named Joe Miller in June or July 1948. Miller claimed to have been a US Army Air Force bombardier shot down in 1945 over Berlin. He was detained in a German POW camp near Berlin, which was liberated by the Soviets. The Soviets transported him to the Soviet Union and convicted him of espionage. Prior to Karabas he had worked for six months mining coal in Karaganda. He was described as being from Chicago, 25-28 years old, five feet seven inches, 130 pounds with black hair and dark eyes. 202
Karabas-In 1948 source met an American major in a camp in Karabas. The major was described as approximately 45 years old. Around six feet tall, broad-shouldered, square jawed, with blue eyes and slightly graying dark blond hair. He spoke German well. Soviet forces had captured the major in 1947 while driving along the East and West German border near Friendland. 203
Karaganda Camp No. 4718/19-A German returnee who was interned in a prisoner of war camp from February 1947 to May 1950 reported meeting two U.S. citizens. Both Americans were reportedly members of the occupation forces, spoke accented but fluent German and claimed their parents were born in Germany. In late 1945, they crossed into the Eastern Zone of Germany to visit relatives, were arrested, and transported to the Buchenwald Camp. Following a conviction for espionage, they were transferred to Karaganda, USSR. The source described them as follows:
One American had the first name "Pit". He was born in the United States. His parents were from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. He wore a U.S. Army khaki uniform without insignia. He was approximately 18-20 years old. He was five feet seven inches tall, brunette hair, sharp pale slim face, and had a strong slender build. The next American had the first name "Tom". He was born in United States. His parents were from the Rhine region of Germany. He wore a U.S. Army khaki uniform without insignia. He was five feet three inches tall, fair hair, blue eyes, round pale face, and had a strong build. Tom worked in the camp hospital and was known as a good surgeon.
Pit escaped in the winter of 1947. He was captured and returned to camp two days later, badly beaten. Both men were continuously interrogated. In the winter of 1948 (probably February) they were transferred to an unknown location. Source later heard they were taken to a forced labor camp in Siberia. 204
Karaganda-An Austrian returnee reported he met four U.S. airmen in 1948 at a labor camp in Karaganda. One airman was named William, another was named John. All four were in good physical condition in 1948. 205
{201 American Prisoners in Churba Nura, Information Report, Central Intelligence Agency, November 2, 1956.
202 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, p. 4-7.
203 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, p. 4-50.
204 U.S. Nationals in PW Camp in Karaganda, 58-B-3331 A, 7050 AISW (USAFE), April 8, 1954, Wringer Reports, ODI, RG 341, NACP.
205 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-29. }
Ukraine
Lvov MVD Transit Prison-Some time prior to December 14, 1953 source met an American identified as Colonel Gordon. He was described as being approximately 48 years old, five feet five inches tall with dark hair. In 1948 or 1949, while serving in the Counter Intelligence Corps in Vienna, Soviet soldiers arrested him in the Soviet Sector. He was transferred to another prison prior to the source's departure. 206
Lvov Transit Camp-In June 1949 source met an American sergeant. Source described him as being approximately 27 years old, tall with fair hair. The alleged American had been arrested when he had attempted to enter the Soviet Grand Hotel while intoxicated. 207
{206 American Citizens Detained in the USSR, ZF000004W, pp. 4-43.
207 Alleged US Citizens Imprisoned in the USSR; HQ USFA, AC of S, G2 (SSB/CIB) APO 168, NY NY; July 15, 1955. }
Byelorussia and Germany
Orsha-In 1958 Mr. John Noble stated that inscribed on a cell wall in the transit prison in Orsha, Byelorussia, (where he was imprisoned prior to his confinement at Krasnaya Presnya) was the name Roberts, Robertson, or Robins followed by a date in mid-August 1950 and "Maj., U.S.A." 208
A German returnee stated he met an American, 2nd Lt. Richard Robertson, in the dispensary in Orsha. Robertson was dying of tuberculosis. Source described Robertson as being 26-28 years old, six feet two inches, emaciated, with brown hair and blue eyes. Robertson's father was supposedly a Colonel Robertson stationed with the U.S. Army in Frankfurt Am Mein. Source learned that Robertson supposedly died in Orsha in late February or early March 1950. 209
A second returnee stated that in 1950 source met an American named Harry Robertson on a prisoner transport train from Berlin-Lichtenfelde to Orsha. Source heard from other prisoners that Robertson was a U.S. Army Air Force pilot who had flown in the Berlin airlift and was arrested in Potsdam in 1949. Robertson was approximately 25 years old, emaciated and too weak to walk unaided. Robertson was removed from the train in Orsha and was supposedly going to the hospital. 210
A third German returnee stated that in late August 1950 he met a Lt. Robinson, U.S. Army, in a prison in Potsdam, Germany. Robinson claimed to work for an American intelligence agency and was stationed in West Germany. His father was a colonel in the U.S. Army stationed at Frankfurt Am Mein and was connected with the Allied Control Commission. The East German Police arrested Robinson in East Berlin in 1949. Robinson spoke fluent German and Russian. His mother was of Czechoslovakian descent. He was described as 30 years old, five feet ten inches to six feet tall, emaciated, one hundred and five to a hundred and ten pounds, with dark blond or light brown hair and blue eyes. Source later saw Robinson in Orsha in 1950. Robinson was very ill when source last saw him. He told source he had weighed one hundred and ninety-five pounds prior to imprisonment. 211
A fourth German returnee reported that in July 1950 an American, Henry Robinson, arrived at the Bautzen labor camp. Robinson claimed to have worked for the Allied Control Commission in Frankfurt Am Mein, where he lived with his wife at Eschenheimer Strasse 583. Robinson claimed to have been kidnapped by two men who picked him up in 1949 at Berlin-Tempelhof Airport and transported him to the Soviet Sector. Robinson was in Bautzen for one month. It was rumored the Soviets sent him to a prison in the USSR. 212
A fifth returnee stated that while imprisoned in Sachsenhausen, Germany between mid1947 and October 1949 he knew a U.S. national named Robinson who claimed to be a Counter Intelligence Corps operative. He claimed the Soviets arrested him in Roz, Germany while on a mission. Source described Robinson as being 27Ð29 years old, tall, and well built. He spoke German with a strong American accent. Robinson was transferred from Sachsenhausen to the USSR in October 1949. 213
{208 John Noble, I Was a Slave in Russia, (Broadview, Illinois: Cicero Bible Press, 1964), p. 73.
209 Robinson, Lt. RE: US Citizens Being Held in the GDR, VIII-23189, 66th CIC Group, November 1, 1955.
210 Overt Intelligence Report, No. 970018, February 13, 1957.
211 Soviet Apprehension of U.S. Personnel, D-30477, AEUC-GI, HQ 66th CICG USAE, November 1,1955.
212 Robinson, Lt. RE: US Citizens Being Held in the GDR, VIII-23189, 66th CIC Group, November 1, 1955.
213 ibid. }
Back cover: a panel from the Memorial to Victims of the Gulag, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic.