Evening star., 1953-03-18
Order 10 Return Fire
OF MICS Described
By B-5O Commander
BY the Associoted Press

By the Associatsd Press
FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Mar. 18.
The quick-acting commander
Of a United States Air Force
plane said last night he ordered
the chief gunner to fire back"
when his B-50 bomber was at
tackled by a RuSsian-type MIG
Is high of the coast of Siberia
Sunday.
1t. Col. Robert 8. Rich, IS,
told a press correspondent at
EielSon Air Force Base near here
he tried to escape the attacker
with q 390-mile-per-h hour dive
into a cloud bank and fired only
after the MIG had opened up.
The attack occurred as the
American plane, on a routine
weather flight, cruised north Is
miles out to sea from the ST.
berian coast. The Air Force said
apparently neither craft was
damaged in the third such sky
encounter between planes of the
East and West in a week.
The B-50, on temporary duty
with the 18th Weather Recon-
naiSsance Squadron at EielSon
from Forbes Field, Topeka, Kans.,
was approximately 100 miles
east and slightly north of the
huge Russian military base at
Petropavlovsk on the Kamchat-
ka peninsula when it was at
tackled.
Commanders Account.
Col. Rich gave this account of
the skirmish:
The B-50 had flown from
Eielson over the Aleutian Is
lands and had been flying north
about IS miles of the Siberian
coast for 80 to 40 minutes when
the vapor trails of two planes
were sighted 10 miles coastward
from the American plane.
He said the two planes van-
1shed and appeared a few min
uteS later behind the B-50 and
some 5000 to 5000 feet higher
than the American craft, which
was at an altitude of 25, 900 feet.
Col. Rich said the planes, which
were then identified as MIG-15s,
"kept coming on our tail" and
suddenly one heeled over into a
pursuit dive" and made directly
for the B-50.
Dive Into Clouds.
Col. Rich said he Immediately
ordered the pilot, 1st 1t. Harry F.
WEIGH. of Fort Huron, Mich, to
dive into a layer Of clouds at the
10,000-foot level.
AS the B-50 screamed toward
cover, Col. Rich said, he heard
three or four of the crew mem
bers shout over the itercom sys-
tenn:
They're firing at U.S."
II issued the order fire back"
Col. Rich said.
The colonel said members of
the crew could plainly see smoke
trailing from the MICS guns as
1t fired three or four" bursts
from 1000 yards away.
Within 400 Yards.
T/Sergt. Jesse L. Prim of
Ozark, Ark, central flight con-
troll gunner, waited until the
MIG was within 400 yards and
then fired, by remote control,
burst of 20 shots from each
of six .50-caliber machine guns.
All the shots passed behind
the MIG, which dived under
meath the bomber. came up on
the other side in a high climb
and vanished.
The second MIG, which stayed
high behind the B-50 during the
brief engagement, also vanished.
The whole episode lasted about
IA minutes, Col. Rich said.
The crew Of the B-50, dubbed
the ''Laboring Lady," was named
the Strategic Air Force Com
mand Crew of the Year" last
year on the basis of outstanding
ability. It's crew includes as
radar officer, Maj. Anthony
Barry. of Capitol Heights, Md.
Its squadron has been making
routine weather flights west over
the Aleutian Island chain and
the Bering Strait and to the
North Pole On alternate days
for several years.
The first air encounter be-
tween planes of the West and
East occurred a week Ago yes
terday when a MIG-15 downed
an American Thunderjet on pa
troll over Western Germany.
The pilot escaped alive.
On March IL, a Soviet-type
MIG-15 shot down a British
bomber over the Elbe River VAL
ley in Western Germany, with
the bomber's seven crewmen
killed.