Hi friends,
readers of “Air Enthousiast” n. 130 ( july-August 2007 issue) discovered, reading the article of Mr. Doug Gordon covering the European activities of the 38th Tactical Reconaissance Sq., that a huge air battle was held between “French and British a/C based in Cyprus” and a group of 21 MiG-15 (twentyone!!!) “piloted by Russians” . Period was around the “last months of 1956” , at the time of the Suez “affair”.
The Author goes deep into this fact, revealing that “Russian pilots were wearing flying suits without markings”, a/c were refuelled by “Royal Dutch Petroleum fuel trucks”, 19 MiGs were shot down over the sea, one while landing at Cairo Airport and the last was “strafed on the taxyway” after landing.
Where this story comes from? No mention is reported on such a huge fact on other historical sources ( magazines, books and so on…).
Can Mr. Gordon explain the source of such fact? What the forum people thinks of it?
By: merlin70 - 12th July 2007 at 13:20
There is a lot of info that can be found on the Internet giving accounts from the British, Israeli’s and Americans.
It was one of the last Imperialist wars when France and Britain colluded with Israel to try to prevent Egypt from asserting control over the Suez Canal.
The RAF were at that time training the Egyptians amongst others in air gunnery skills at a base in Iraq. RAF personnel were instructed to depart pronto, fearing a backlash from their host country.
The link below gives info on what was happening in Iraq just before the Suez Crisis.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=29443&highlight=malta+iraq
By: Firebird - 12th July 2007 at 12:59
Suez Crisis kept the RAF pretty busy at that time. Not sure of any other major scraps involving the same players in 1956.
I’ve read varying accounts of this incident elsewhere on the web.
IIRC it was around the same time as that US Naval Commander wanted to intervene and sought permission to attack the UK/French forces………:rolleyes:
By: merlin70 - 12th July 2007 at 12:51
Suez Crisis kept the RAF pretty busy at that time. Not sure of any other major scraps involving the same players in 1956.
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July 12, 2007 at 7:05 am