Little fanfare for Soviet Korean war vets

By Robert Eksuzyan

MOSCOW (Reuters): A handful of survivors among more than 40,000 Soviet servicemen who fought in the Korean War with communist North Korea have the private satisfaction that their efforts were appreciated, at least by their adversaries.

But post-Soviet Russia offers no official recognition of their war record any more than it has for hundreds of advisers in the Vietnam war. Many were pilots with an admirable record in downing U.S. planes who felt pity for opponents lacking in skills and experience at the outset of the three-year war.

The Kremlin, intent on improving relations with both Seoul and Pyongyang, offered no comment on this week's 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict, when North Korea sent troops over the border in a surprise attack.

In reports on commemorations in the United States and Korea, Russian television stations made only a brief reference to the veterans. It said Soviet troops had taken part in the conflict alongside China and that 135 pilots had died.

But Sergei Kramarenko, now 78, is delighted that the U.S. pilots he faced in the skies pay tribute to what he did.

"I was invited earlier this year to the United States by their veteran pilots who treated me very well," Kramarenko said by telephone.

"They were my adversaries then, but my friends now. We decided it was better to talk to each other around a table covered in vodka bottles than to take aim at each other."

Kramarenko said the Soviet forces were proud of their record in taking on the U.S. aviators.

"We were rather successful because our MiG-15s were better armed than the American planes," he said.

"We shot down 1,300 U.S. planes. I brought down 13, was shot down myself and bailed out over North Korea. We lost 335 planes and 135 pilots. Others were damaged by the Americans but managed to remain in service."

Soviet veterans say about 170 U.S. B-29 Flying Fortresses were among the enemy planes brought down. They put their own losses at 335 aircraft.

U.S. accounts of the war say Soviet losses were three times higher. But they concur in speaking of disbelief at being outgunned in the early stages by North Korea's Soviet-equipped army so soon after the Allied victory in World War II.

In all, about 42,000 Soviet servicemen took part in the conflict with the contingent generally constant at about 25,000 -- 1,500 pilots backed by maintenance staff.

Current explanations of how Moscow became involved say North Korean leader Kim-il Sung persuaded Josef Stalin at a meeting in the spring of 1950 to endorse an offensive. He assured Stalin a popular uprising against the "rotten" regime in the South would make any conflict a short one.

After initial hesitation and consultation with Beijing, Stalin backed "military unification".

But when the North's early gains gave way to setbacks, Kim asked for direct assistance and in November 1950 a Soviet air corps was dispatched to three Chinese air bases a few kilometres (miles) from the border with North Korea.

"The dispatch of Soviet troops was illegal. We had an agreement with the Chinese because this touched on Chinese interests in the area and partially on our own," said Valery Yaryomenko of the Institute of Military History.

Current assessments, he said, varied widely.

"The veterans saw it as a demonstration of the military power of the Soviet Union and many still say it was right to give a helping hand to our neighbors," he said.

"Others say the considerable expense in equipment and human resources failed to eliminate the tension between North and South Korea which still exists today."

Propaganda played a large role in galvanizing the war effort.

"We were told the Americans were mercilessly bombing North Korea, wiping whole cities and villages off the face of the earth," Kramarenko said.

At first, Soviet pilots enjoyed considerable air superiority and made little effort to conceal their approaches.

"Our main goal was not to shoot down the American planes but to drive them away and hamper their bombing raids. Our MiGs were not even camouflaged and shone brightly in the sun -- the Americans could see we were coming," Kramarenko said.

"Once, I came across three planes piloted by men who were clearly inexperienced. I decided merely to scare them off rather than shoot them down."

Soviet pilots tried initially to adopt the pretense that they were Koreans, but it did not last long.

"We wore Chinese uniforms and tried to speak Korean but slipped back into Russian. The Americans recorded our exchanges but did not make an issue out of taking on Soviet pilots."

The peak of Soviet superiority came on April 11, 1951, Kramarenko said, when 16 B-29s were shot down "and the entire sky was fully of parachuting pilots".

U.S. pilots learned gradually to take on their Soviet adversaries and proved able to pin down their aircraft as they were taking off or landing from their Chinese bases.

Soviet missions had to be carried out from increasingly high altitudes and targets became harder and harder to hit.

"It would be wrong to depict the actions of Soviet pilots in Korea as a chain of victories. They were up against serious opponents," veteran Vladimir Abakumov told the weekly Argumenty i Fakty.

"If we compare our MiG-15s with their F-86s, the Americans had better sights and high-altitude suits, though we had better guns. Our pilots withstood great pressure while gaining altitude and flying at high speeds. They acted with skill and valor."

Another veteran, a member of the Association of Veterans of Local Conflicts, said Soviet participation did nothing to resolve the Korean conflict.

Leaders of the two countries were meeting only now, 50 years later and Russian President Vladimir Putin embarks next month on the first trip to North Korea by a Kremlin leader.

"It cost thousands of lives and made the international situation much worse," said the veteran, who did not want to be named, by telephone. "It proved once again that such problems are not solved by force of arms. The tightly-wound Korean knot has yet to be unraveled."

But Kramarenko had no regrets.

"We did not hate our American counterparts at all," he said. "We saw the dogfights as sports duels and not a fight between our two peoples, but between machines."