Hi All,

I was browsing in a second hand bookshop today and came across a book on the Hurricane and Me 109. A picture of a Hurricane sent to Russia was captioned to the effect that after the war the Hurricanes supplied by Britain were thrown down a mineshaft on Stalin's orders to hide evidence that Russia had accepted aid from the allies. I have never heard of this before. Has anyone any further info on this? It seems possible but just a little odd. If true I wonder if there is a treasure trove of Hurricane spares out there somewhere?

RedToo.

With Stalin's paranoia I suppose anything was possible

I believe a few were converted to two seater mail planes and used for several years in the far east after 1945.

Considering that the 81st Wing were considered heroes in the the Soviet Union (and a couple were actually Heroes of the Soviet Union) the story sounds like complete crap to me.

Stalin was very good at putting a bright shining line in the rhetoric that applied during the GPW and after. All manner of lend-lease stuff was continued to be used and even placed in museums.

The line was about treachery after WWII.

He sure wasn't trying to hide those TU-4's, that were, rivet to rivet, exact copies of the B-29.

The author may have made a mistake - the only comparable story I've heard was about the fate of the majority of US-made lend-lease aircraft which were returned to the US after the end of the war and then promptly destroyed because they were deemed useless for the US.

Quote (from this link: http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/geust/aircraft_deliveries.htm)

"According to the lend-lease agreements all weapon systems delivered were to be returned to USA after cessation of hostili­ties or destroyed under American supervision. A big number of aircraft (also including recent deliveries of P-39s, P-63s and P-47s) were in fact destroyed by bulldozers - much to the amaze of on-looking Soviet soldiers. Many naval vessels were returned to USA in the late 1940s, but a big number of lend-lease aircraft were still in use in Russia in the early 1950s. The unsettled lend-lease accounts are still - after almost 50 years - disturbing American-Russian relations."

I strongly doubt that Hurricanes were thrown into mine shafts, moreover I doubt that there would have been too many left, knowing the attrition rate of VVS in WWII...

Well, at least the Brits paid off their lend-lease debt . . . probably just gave it directly to the Chinese for convenience sake.

You mean thrown down the mineshaft because the Russians had no use for them. Esp with yaks and il-2's and 10's.

Yes, it is. Because, according to the Land-Lease conditions, all equipment, which was destroyed in action, was considered as given for free; all remaining after the war equipment had to be returned to the original owner within 4 years after the war; if an acceptor was willing to keep this equipment after the war, it had to be paid for in gold.

So, most of the surviving Land-Lease equipment were either returned back, or destroyed in place (if owner wasn't willing to keep it). The scrap metal was taken by the owner. Some of it, however, were kept by the USSR and paid by it (like P-63s, for instance).

Speaking of Hurricanes, they all by the war end were not only obsolete, but also weared physically and were not used at front lines by VVS since 1943. So, most of them just were written off and scrapped, listed as complete loss in the agreement and went into free of charge list. Much probably, most of them were scrapped for metal, which was usual practice in the USSR in regard to obsolete equipment.



The equipment, which remained in the USSR were mostly trucks and cars of all kinds, various auxiliary vehicles, radio-electronic equipment and several regiments of P-63. Most of the other aircraft types, tanks and artillery were returned to the respective owners and in most cases were destroyed in place by the said owners.
Some equipment was demilitarized, like some Sherman tanks, which were turned into utility rescue vehicles and used as part of firefighting and rescue railroad trains until mid-1980s.



It was not. And it couldn't be an exact copy, because USSR and US industry used different measurement systems. The direct conversion of units weren't possible for various mainly technological issues, so there was not a single part in B-29 and Tu-4 which could be interchangeable.

Not to mention completely different engines and guns on those types.

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies. Seems like the photo caption falls into the 'very unlikely' category. Which fits with everything else I know (not much) about WWII.

RedToo.

The fate of Hurris sent to Russia? I'm sure the vast majority were shot down by the Germans to start with!! The Russians hated the Hurricane for a reason. It was totally and supremely outclassed by even Emils, let alone F and G 109s and Fws!!

Um, from what I read they actually liked them at the time.

Quite the step up from the I-15bis and I-16's they had at the time in Murmansk. For all the concerns about closed cockpits and how thick the wings were, the radios were especially appreciated. The Hurricane proved to be pretty darned reliable and easy to maintain in the cold and rough conditions they had - attributes in aircraft the Russians really liked.

There just weren't that many delivered to make a huge impact; by the time sufficient numbers of used Hurricanes could have been exported to them the USA was sending over brand new P-40's and it was deemed unnecessary.

The "vast majority" of them weren't shot down. They just suffered attrition due to wear and strain on engines and airframes. IIRC, they actually got less than 50.

Chaps - at the risk of adding nothing of value to the debate!!!! the Osprey Aviation book "Aircraft of the Aces - Soviet Aces of WW2" states under Lend Lease Aircraft:

'Aside from the multifarious fighter types of Soviet origin employed by the VVS during the GP War, aircraft from the United States and Great Britain were also supplied in in large quantities to the USSR chiefly under lend-lease arrangements. Some 9438 fighters were supplied from the USA mainly via the Alaskan Siberian ferry rout. The most prolific of these was the Bell P39 Airocobra flown with great flair and success by Pokryshkin and Rechkalov.
Indeed fighters accounted for around 72 percent of all military types supplied. The principal British types were the Spitfire (mostly Mk VBs) and the Hurricane the latter being the first lend lease aircraft of them all to arrive in the Soviet Union - some 2952 Hawker fighters were eventually despatched to the USSR'.

They stated Hawker so I don't know if any Typhoons or Tempests were ever sent, having never seen or read about any I can only assume Hawker reference was for Hurricanes. Osprey may have lost a decimal point somewhere though - perhaps it should have been 295.2 the decimal bit being a tail unit Har Har!!! Anyway that's what it said for what it's worth.
Please don't shoot me as I don't really know and I suspect true records may be lost now,
or maybe there's a few squadrons sunk by U boats from the convoys.

It seems a lot I know, but that's what it says for what its worth! If true must have cost my poor old granny a few aluminium cooking pots eh!!

All the Best - Mort

The US supplied a great many aircraft to the USSR, but of just as great importance (if not more) were the many thousands of Trucks, some of which were built by Ford in the USSR, and millions of pairs of boots.
Neither the Russians not the Germans ever came up with a decent truck during the course of the war, and the German hobnail boots infamously caused many a case of frostbite.

I know of one lend-lease Hurricane that survives today.

I was lucky enough to see it debut at the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow in 1998, and I saw it again on static display earlier this year at the New Zealand Fighter Pilots' Museum in Wanaka.

Apparently it was pulled out of the permafrost near Murmansk and restored to flying condition. I'll post some photos and videos of it one of these days...

Well, I believe, this one was accounted as permanent loss back then and thus wasn't paid by USSR. Which means, when it was recovered, it was still a British government property.

I think, there were recovered more, then one Hurricane in those area, all in different condition and probably, some parts of them were used in restoration of this plane as well.

One of the planes, recovered was partially restored and served some time as a monument in Murmansk, if I am not mistaken.

Also, some aircraft, that were written off served as non-flying learning aid in various Soviet aviation institutes long after the war. For example, I know, that at least in mid-1990 they had a Spitfire wing and some other structural parts from various vintage aircraft in KhAI (Kharkov Aviation Institute) museum, as a learning aid for students.

"It was not. And it couldn't be an exact copy, because USSR and US industry used different measurement systems. The direct conversion of units weren't possible for various mainly technological issues, so there was not a single part in B-29 and Tu-4 which could be interchangeable.

Not to mention completely different engines and guns on those types."


And don't forget, it was a whole whopping 1% heavier than the B-29.

SaQSon, I think the point that Pooch is trying to make is that the TU-4 was not an original design, but rather was a stolen design. Three B-29s made emergency landings at Vladivostok in late 1944 - the 'Ding Hao', the 'Ramp Tramp, and the 'Gen. H.H. Arnold Special'. The Hap Arnold Special was completely disassembled and used for tooling and design measurements (and yes, the measurements were converted to metric). The Ding Hao was kept intact and used as a reference model. The Ramp Tramp was used pilot conversion training. The intent of the project was to copy the B-29 'bolt for bolt', but one has to make allowances for necessary changes to facilitate Soviet manufacture requirements.

Tuplov was responsible for copying the airframe (hence the TU designation) and Shvetsov was responsible for copying the R-3350 engines. They never did quite get the engines right, but Tuplov did a good job of copying the airframe. Other problems were with reproducing the wing tanks, landing gear, tires, and the glazing in the nose.

All in all a credible clone of the B-29; but a stolen design nontheless... and I believe that was Pooch's original point.

There's a quote in one of the Black Cross / Red Star books where a Soviet Hurricane pilot remembered the Hurricane as (paraphrased) "a good aircraft for touring the countryside, but we had to use it in conditions far different from that."