The Catalina affair ( sv, Catalinaaffären) was a military confrontation and

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

-era diplomatic crisis in June 1952, in which

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

fighter jets shot down two Swedish aircraft over international waters in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. The first aircraft to be shot down was an unarmed

Swedish Air Force The Swedish Air Force ( sv, Svenska flygvapnet or just ) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. History The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the es ...

Tp 79, a derivative of the

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

, carrying out radio and radar signals intelligence-gathering for the

National Defence Radio Establishment The National Defence Radio Establishment ( sv, Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) is a Swedish government agency organised under the Ministry of Defence. The two main tasks of FRA are signals intelligence (SIGINT), and support to government authorit ...

(''Försvarets radioanstalt'', FRA). None of the crew of eight survived. The second aircraft to be shot down was a Swedish Air Force Tp 47, a

Catalina Catalina may refer to: Arts and media * ''The Catalina'', a 2012 American reality television show * ''Catalina'' (novel), a 1948 novel by W. Somerset Maugham * Catalina (''My Name Is Earl''), character from the NBC sitcom ''My Name Is Earl'' ...

flying boat, involved in the search and rescue operation for the missing DC-3. The Catalina's crew of five were saved. The

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

publicly denied involvement until its dissolution in 1991. Both aircraft were located in 2003; the DC-3 was salvaged.

Aircraft and crew

DC-3

The first aircraft involved was a Swedish Air Force Douglas DC-3A-360 Skytrain, a military transport derivative of the

DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

known in Swedish service as Tp 79. It carried the serial number 79001. In the media coverage following the event, it became known simply as "the DC-3." The aircraft was manufactured in 1943 with original US serial number 42-5694, and was delivered to

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

15th Troop Carrier Squadron 15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 and preceding 16. Mathematics 15 is: * A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and . * A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky number, a pernicious nu ...

( 61st Troop Carrier Group). It saw action in northern Africa before being stationed at

RAF Barkston Heath Royal Air Force Barkston Heath or RAF Barkston Heath is a Royal Air Force station near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. RAF Barkston Heath has the Naval Element of No. 3 Flying Training School RAF (No. 3 FTS) which, for a period between appr ...

. It was flown on 5 February 1946, from

Orly Air Base Orly Air Base was a United States Air Force Facility during the early part of the Cold War, located at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, south of Paris, France. The American Air Base was located on the north side of the airport, in an area east of the c ...

via

Hanau Army Airfield Hanau Army Airfield is a former military airfield located in Langendiebach, part of the municipality of Erlensee, some north-northeast of Hanau in Hesse, Germany. History Even before the construction of the airfield 1937-39, Langendiebach was us ...

to Bromma and was registered as SE-APZ on 18 May 1946 as a civil aircraft to Skandinaviska Aero AB. On 13 June 1952, it disappeared east of the isle of

Gotska Sandön Gotska Sandön (literally translated as "The Gotlandic Sand Island") is an uninhabited Swedish island north of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. It has been a national park since 1909. Geography Gotska Sandön is situated north of Fårö in the B ...

while carrying out

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

-gathering operations for FRA.Magnusson 2007, p. 11 The aircraft was lost with its entire crew of eight in the incident. Three of the eight crew members were military personnel from the Swedish Air Force, and the other five were civilian signals intelligence (SIGINT) operators from the FRA.

Catalina

Three days after the initial incident, on 16 June 1952, two Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

s, known in Swedish service as Tp 47, searched for the DC-3 north of

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. One of the aircraft, carrying airframe serial No. 47002, was shot down by

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

aircraft, but the crew of five ditched near the West German freighter ''Münsterland'' and were rescued.

Aftermath

Sweden maintained for nearly 40 years that the plane was undertaking a navigation training flight.Grisell 2007, p. 3 Only after pressure from crewmembers' families did Swedish authorities confirm that the DC-3 was equipped with British equipment and had been conducting surveillance for NATO. In 1991, General , a colonel in the early 1950s, admitted he had ordered the DC-3 shot down in 1952 by scrambling a

MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of ...

bis to intercept it.Magnusson 2007, p. 12

Recovery

On 10 June 2003, airline captain and former Swedish Air Force pilot, Anders Jallai, and historian Carl Douglas with the Swedish company Marin Mätteknik AB found the remains of the downed DC-3 by using

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...

at depth. After 52 years, the remains of the DC-3 were lifted to the surface on 19 March 2004. Debris from the area was also recovered by freeze dredging. of surrounding sediment was frozen and lifted together with the object on and in it. The wreck was transferred to

Muskö naval base Muskö Naval Base is a Swedish underground naval facility on the island of Muskö just south of Stockholm in Haninge Municipality (Haninge Kommun). The construction of the base started in 1950 and was completed 19 years later in 1969. During ...

for investigation and preservation; it was finally put on display at the Swedish Air Force Museum, Linköping on 13 May 2009. A 1:12 scale model of 79001 was loaned to the Air Force Museum on 5 May 2009.

Conclusion

Bullet holes on 79001 showed that the DC-3 was shot down by a MiG-15bis fighter. The exact splashdown time was also determined, as one of the clocks in the cockpit had stopped at 11:28:40

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

. The remains of four of the eight-man crew have been found and positively identified.Holmlund 2008, pp. 5–9

Notes

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Catalina Affair Military history of Sweden Cold War military history of the Soviet Union Cold War intelligence operations 1952 in military history Gotland Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union 20th-century aircraft shootdown incidents Soviet Union–Sweden relations 1952 in the Soviet Union 1952 in international relations Aviation accidents and incidents in Sweden 1952 in Sweden Aviation accidents and incidents in 1952 Accidents and incidents involving the Consolidated PBY Catalina June 1952 events in Europe Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas C-47 Skytrain