-Caveat Lector-
http://www.sunday-
times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/01/14/stifgnrus02001.html
January 14 2001
RUSSIA
Pilots flew into A-bomb blasts
Mark Franchetti, Moscow
A FORMER pilot from an elite Soviet squadron that tested nuclear
bombs at the height of the cold war has revealed that he and fellow
pilots were ordered to fly towards mushroom clouds without
protection so that the effects on aircraft and crew could be
studied.
Konstantin Lyasnikov, 78, who dropped 14 test bombs, said last
week that his unit was routinely used as guinea pigs to see how
they withstood the heat and aftershocks from explosions 900ft
above the ground.
"It was terrifying," said Lyasnikov of one occasion, when he had to
fly his TU-16 bomber back to the site of a nuclear blast. "The plane
shook so hard the controls kept slipping out of my hands. The heat
was so intense I could hardly breathe.
"I couldn't see the horizon, flying at 560mph towards the head of
the mushroom, which was getting bigger. It looked like sheer hell -
red, then yellow. Then several smaller mushrooms were released.
"I was overcome by heat. I took off my jacket and sweater, opened
my shirt and saw my chest was covered in a rash. It was an
experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy." Lyasnikov, who
was awarded the Order of Lenin for bravery, is one of the last
survivors of the Soviet air force's most secret squadron.
Known as the Bagerovksy unit, after a village near its Crimean
base, it had fewer than 40 carefully selected and trained members
and was formed in 1947 solely to test atom and hydrogen bombs.
It dropped 178 bombs between 1949 and 1962, before atmospheric
nuclear tests ended. It then flew unarmed reconnaissance
missions until it was disbanded in 1972. The Soviet Union
continued underground tests until 1990.
Bombs were mostly tested at two nuclear ranges - in
Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, and on Novaya Zemlya, a peninsula in
the Arctic Circle. In 1961, at Novaya Zemlya, Lyasnikov dropped a
bomb 250 times more powerful than that used by the Americans to
destroy Hiroshima in 1945.
Such was the secrecy of the squadron that it was not until 1992,
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that Lyasnikov could tell his
wife about his job. A Communist party member, he was a fighter
pilot instructor during the second world war. In the years afterwards
he flew over Red Square in Moscow during military parades
attended by Stalin and the Politburo. In 1954 he was picked for the
squadron.
"I wasn't told where I was being transferred to," he recalled. "I was
just given a train ticket for the Crimea. I only realised I would be
dropping an atom bomb the day I turned up for training and saw the
size of the mock bomb being loaded onto my bomber."
In late 1955 he dropped his first atomic bomb in Semipalatinsk
from around 30,000ft. "The tension was so great I didn't have time
to be scared. It was only once I dropped it that I began to
appreciate the terrifying destructive force."
Several pilots at the base, codenamed Polygon 71, are believed to
have died of cancer and leukaemia, perhaps as a result of
exposure to radiation.Lyasnikov says he suffered no medical ill
effects, although he once visited a site close to the epicentre of a
blast the day after it had been detonated.
"It was apocalyptic," he said. "The earth was scorched. I saw
sheep and horses without skin and eyes, shredded trees and tons
of twisted military hardware. The destruction was terrifying. I still
have a sense of guilt. But we were pawns in the Kremlin's hands. In
those times the lives of people had little value. With every bomb,
the Kremlin could scare the West and hope to gain more
concessions. It was a terrifying and dangerous game played at our
expense."
--
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
-Joseph Heller: Catch-22
A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html"Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/"ctrl/A
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE
