The Tupolev Tu-4 was the Soviet copy of the four-engined B-29. In 1952, ten of them were transferred to China as a personal gift from Stalin to Mao
After Mao’s Communist forces seized control of mainland China in 1949, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) formed a tense collaboration with the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan to conduct covert aerial missions over the mainland, which included inserting agents, dropping propaganda, and gathering signals, imagery, and nuclear intelligence.
However, Communist China’s air defense forces responded to the unwelcome incursions with notable resolve and resourcefulness.
As recounted by Chris Pocock with Clarence Fu in their book The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights Over China from Taiwan 1951–1969, the Soviet Union abruptly ended the defense pact it had signed with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) just two years earlier, in mid-1959. The ideological and geopolitical rift between these two leading communist powers would drag on for decades. From that point forward, China was forced either to reverse-engineer the Soviet military equipment it had already received or to design its own weapons systems.
By this time, the officers charged with protecting the PRC’s airspace were already working to devise their own distinctive tactics for intercepting the 34th Squadron’s (the “Black Bats”) aircraft flying in from Taiwan. In 1958, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) chose to modify three of its aging Tupolev Tu-2 light bombers into all-weather interceptors by equipping them with RP-5 radar taken from the MiG-17PF. The Tu-2, a World War II–era design, was a mid‑wing, twin‑piston‑engine aircraft that had been considered fast in its time, with a top speed of about 280 knots. The Soviet Union had supplied the PRC with at least 240 of these bombers.
With a range of over 1,200 miles, the PLAAF reasoned that the Tu-2 could loiter in the areas overflown by the P2Vs and B-17s for much longer than the MiG-17PF. In practice, MiG pilots were usually able to make only one or two attack passes before fuel shortages forced them to return to base. The Tu-2 also flew at a speed closer to that of the intruding aircraft. MiG pilots scrambled to intercept the slower B-17s and P-2s (designated P2V by the US Navy before September 1962) and often found they had barely 10 seconds to acquire and fire on their target, because the RP-5 radar’s air-to-air range was limited to just four kilometres. As a result, they frequently overshot. Attempts to reposition for a second rear attack would quickly eat into their fuel, and after about 20 minutes, they, too, had to break off. Ground-controlled intercept (GCI) operators would then order them home and hand the engagement over to anti-aircraft artillery until another pair of MiGs could be launched.
By fitting the Tu-2’s nose with the MiG’s RP-5 air-intercept radar and mounting two 23 mm cannons at the wing roots, the PLAAF hoped to achieve better results. The navigator’s station directly behind the pilot was reconfigured for a second pilot, who monitored the radar display and handled the flying during interception missions. The radio operator’s position was kept, while the navigator was reassigned to a new station at the very rear of the aircraft, replacing the original Tu-2’s second gunner. In mid-1959, nine crews from the 25th Bomber Division at Lintong Airbase in Shaanxi province finished their training on the modified Tu-2PFs.
Yet the attempt to use the three specially modified Tu-2 bombers ultimately failed. In early 1960, a PLAAF commander proposed a different approach: employing a larger bomber, the Tupolev Tu-4, the Soviet clone of the four‑engined B-29. In 1952, Stalin had presented ten Tu-4s to Mao as a personal gift, and they were assigned to the 4th Regiment at Shijiazhuang, southwest of Beijing, in Hebei province. The Tu-4’s speed was very close to that of the P2V, and with an endurance of more than six hours, it could shadow the intruding aircraft for an extended period.
PLAAF commander Liu Ya Lou approved an experimental modification program. The bomber’s primary search radar was converted into an air-intercept system by relocating the antenna from the underside of the fuselage to a new radome on the upper fuselage, in the spot previously occupied by the forward upper gun turret. The Tu-4 retained four other defensive gun stations, each armed with 23 mm cannons. These positions were upgraded with infrared sights with a range of up to two miles, allowing gunners to lock onto the P-2 and open fire visually. The Tu-4’s bomb bay was redesigned as an airborne command post, equipped with a radar display and workstations for an airborne intercept officer, two navigators, and two chart plotters. After about a month of test flights at Wukong Airbase in Shaanxi, which successfully demonstrated the concept, three additional Tu-4s were adapted for this new role as bomber-interceptors.
The Tu-4 carried out its first interception attempt on the night of Mar. 1, 1960. A P-2 entered Jiangsu and almost immediately came across a MiG-17. During the mission, the Black Bat crew detected 13 additional hostile sorties launched against them. For part of the flight, searchlights picked them up. A Tu-4 also joined the chase, trailing them for many miles over Henan and Anhui provinces but never managing to launch an attack. Along their route, the Black Bats dropped more than 2,000 pounds of leaflets and logged at least 216 separate enemy radar emissions.
Surprisingly, the post-mission report for this flight, which was shared at the regular weekly DPD staff meeting in Washington, offhandedly remarked that “normal Chinese reaction was encountered.”
The Black Bats CIA Spy Flights Over China from Taiwan 1951-1969 is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Air Force and Max Smith via Wikipedia
