NEWSWEEK, April 1964

Cold War:  Problems in Navigation

Shortly before 3 o'clock one afternoon last week Capt David I. Holland, pilot of an RB-66B reconnaissance plane (tail # 54451) making a navigational training flight out of Toul-Rosieres, France, radioed in his position to the nearest USAF ground station.  He was, he said, over Nordhol, West Germany.  A few minutes later, rocket fire from a Soviet jet fighter sent Hollan's plane cart-wheeling down in flames.  Hitting their ejection buttons, Holland and his two crewmen parachuted to earth - and landed in a pine wood near the town of Gardelege, East Germany, some 135 miles from where they thought they were.

The error was more than a little embarrassing for this was the second time in two months that a U.S. plane had been trapped over East Germany.  In January, all three crewmen of a T-39 jet trainer lost their lives when their plane was shot down 125 miles on the wrong side of the border.  On that occasion, the Soviets claimed the plane was spying and had been shot down only after it ignored signals to land.  The U.S., in turn, angrily accused the Russians of a "shocking and senseless act.

Last week, however, the U.S talked more softly.  Though Washington mildly protested the "precipitous" downing of the RB-66, it also apologized for the errant flight and employed former ambassador to Russia Llewellyn E. Thompson Jr., a man whose word is respected in the Kremlin, to deny "categorically" as "contrary to fact" the Soviet charge that the plane had been engaged on a spying mission

The denial, however, left several questions unanswered.  Captain Holland's two crewmen, Capt. Melvin J. Kessler and First Lt. Harold W. Welch, were both navigators, which should have greatly reduced the chance of navigational error.  Moreover, the RB-66 is, in fact, often assigned to electronic search missions.  And it just so happened that this particular RB-66 crashed in an area seething with Russian troops on maneuver.  All of this clearly made the Russians even more skeptical than usual, and at the end of the week Moscow was still ignoring U.S. requests for return of the three captured airmen.

NOTE From Gene Cartee:.

He is looking for the USAFE Newspaper that has the article on the B-66 shoot down. Ther
is quite a contrast between the two articles. But the photo is the same.

The RB-66B crew, Dutch Holland and Hal Welch, were on their Tac Eval Mission. Kessler was the Eval Officer, and a Nav. My pilot, Tom Boyle, and I were on Echo Alert. Hal and I had made plans to go out to dinner and celebrate, he for passing his exam and me for getting off alert duty.
Well, you know what happened. We never got to celebrate. I have been in touch with both of them in the last few years and they are on the roster. Maybe one day we will have that dinner.

One item you may or may not know, The Squadron Navigator, Maj.
Verne Gardina, worked tirelessly to solve the mystery of the incident.
He and the maintenance Officer finally discovered that the only thing
that could have caused that track of the flight was a shorted "y coil" in
the main gyro. This caused the precession to the right of every instrument connected to it. The out come of the investigation was that all crews had to read and record the Whiskey Compass reading during the rest of the tour in France.

A question from Germany dated April 5, 2006

Dear Mr. Duplessis, I'm a journalist from Leipzig in Germany and I'm supporting my friend and colleague Claudia Schön who is preparing a TV film about the incident in march 1964 near Gardelegen (East Germany). A Soviet Pilot shot down one of your crews. The three crew members parachuted, survived and were released after some days by the Russians. Claudia collected a lot of oral history - one guy told her how he put one of your colleagues in his car and brought him to the hospital, she even managed to locate the Soviet pilot in Moscow. Claudia talked to him. May be you can help us to come in contact with Mr. David "Dutch" Holland, Mr. Melvin J. Kessler and Harold "Hal" Welch. What we read at your very informative B66-Site at least Mr. Holland and Mr. Welch a still alive and well. We would be very excited if could support our research.

Thank you very much.

Best regards from Leipzig.

Thomas Datt
c/o Pro Video
Altenburger Str. 9
D-04277 Leipzig
Fon: ++49 - 341- 3500 3227

Email: tommdat@aol.com

Copyright © 2002-2006
All rights reserved.

directNIC Search
Hosted by directNIC.com