‘I fired the 23-mm cannon in a rear-quarter attack from below as the target passed ahead. I finally ceased fire about ten kilometers from the border. The enemy aircraft exploded, and in the haze of the setting sun, three red-and-white parachutes blossomed,’ Kapitán F.M. Zinoviev, former MiG-19 pilot.
The Cold War reached its closest point to becoming World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Political tension had eased in the following months, though it continued to remain relatively high. Military forces on both sides stayed on alert, prepared to respond to any threat they perceived. This situation was especially true on either side of the Inner German Border (IGB, between BDR and DDR). Michael Napier’s book In Cold War Skies describes how dawn on Mar. 10, 1964, brought a foggy morning to Zerbst air base. The fog lifted somewhat in the early afternoon, but visibility stayed poor due to thick industrial haze. Poor weather conditions notwithstanding, Kapitán V.G. Ivannikov, the squadron’s senior pilot, and Kapitán B. Sizov, of 35 IAP, maintained QRA alert with responsibility for the DDR’s southern sector. Around 16:45hrs, a Douglas RB-66 Destroyer from the 10th TRW based at Toul-Rosière wandered into East German airspace, possibly due to a faulty compass. By unfortunate coincidence, however, the aircraft overflew a major Soviet army exercise taking place on the ground near Magdeburg. A MiG-19S flown by Kapitán F.M. Zinoviev from the Wittstock-based 33 IAP was conducting a defensive patrol in the northern sector, and controllers immediately vectored it towards the intruder. Simultaneously, the Zerbst QRA flight was scrambled. While Ivannikov and Sizov climbed through the haze in full afterburner, Zinoviev had already intercepted the RB-66 and ordered the US aircraft to follow him. The RB-66, however, turned away from him onto a westerly heading, and Zinoviev was instructed to engage it. He had just fired a burst from his cannons when the Zerbst-based aircraft arrived. Sizov engaged first but did not receive firing authorization until he was too close, so he broke off, and Ivannikov closed on the target.
Zinoviev recalls;
‘I was on the runway in a matter of seconds. Visibility was half the runway length, so I could take off… and immediately the controller called: “717th, take off in afterburner!” The afterburner of the MiG-19 was rarely used on takeoff. We usually took off in maximum dry power because if the afterburners did not light simultaneously, with the thrust of 3,250 kg on each engine and a take-off weight of 7,500 kg, the aircraft could easily swing out of control. I remember that the speed increased so quickly that the aircraft left the ground on its own… I had not even retracted the gear when I heard, “Steer course 330, the target is hostile; arm your weapons.” I will not lie—I was quite apprehensive. Although Sizov took off after me, he was vectored onto the target first, when it reversed onto a westerly heading… After the attack by Kapitán Ivannikov, the bandit slowed to about 200 kts, descending to 4,000m altitude; it seems likely that this was due to damage, but the aircraft remained intact and continued to fly to the west. We were a couple of dozen kilometers from the border when I heard the command to open fire and shoot down the intruder. The “RS” switch stood for “single salvo”. Only four S-5s came out, and all of them hit the target, damaging the fuselage and the left engine. My instinct of self-preservation prevailed: a further rocket salvo would have been unsafe, as the consequences would be unpredictable if all thirty-two RSs hit. Instead, I fired the 23-mm cannon in a rear-quarter attack from below as the target passed ahead. I finally ceased fire about ten kilometers from the border. The enemy aircraft exploded, and in the haze of the setting sun, three red-and-white parachutes blossomed. The Earth was already quite dark. Visibility in the Zerbst region had now deteriorated below the minimum, so I was ordered to divert to the alternate airfield… on the landing run, the Command Post warned me: “Beware, slow down, the right wheel is smoking.” In fact, it turned out to be a fuel vapor escaping through a hole in the right-hand drop tank, which looked like smoke. After I taxied into the disarming bay, the engineer came up to me, called me to the right wing, and pointed to a 15-centimeter fragment crushed into the pylon of the drop tank. With this trophy and the gun camera film cassette, I arrived at the Command Post and reported to the regiment about the results of the sortie. From launching to the end of the engagement, the whole flight had lasted no more than 5 to 7 minutes.’
In Cold War Skies is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Air Force
