pp 34-42 Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs To the Soviet Union

National Alliance Of Families
For the Return of America's Missing Servicemen
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evidence had been uncovered which concerned the assignment of

Sabotage and Espionage missions to repatriated American prisoners of war during "Big and Little Switch," and that quite recently new cases of this type have been discovered. F65

The memorandum further stated that "Army intelligence could not rule out the possibility that POWs had accepted 'sleeper' missions. n The Army took this seriously enough to bar repatriated POWs from accepting overseas assignments for eighteen months after their return to the United States.F66

Lieutenant Colonel Delk Simpson. LTC Corso's determination and that of the Far East Command were corroborated in part by a more humble source in March 1954 when a former Soviet railway worker made an extensive statement to the U.S. Air Force Liaison Officer, LTC Delk Simpson, in Hong Kong. He also described his observation of the transfer of several trainloads of U.S. POWs from Chinese to Soviet custody at Manchuoli, his place of work, in 1951 and 1952. He first observed POWs in the railroad station the Spring of 1951. About three months later, he observed a second shipment and was impressed with the large number of blacks among the POWs. He was also able to identify OD outer clothing and the field jacket M1943, the very uniform item that the mass of U.S. POWs would be wearing. The railway worker further stated that he was told by a close Russian friend whose job was numbering railroad cars passing through Man-chu-li that numerous other POW trains passed through Man-chu-li. These shipments were reported often and when United Nations forces were on the offensive. F67

John Foster Dulles. Based on the Hong Kong report and other information that the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, sent a message to Ambassador Boylan in Moscow on 19 April 1954 stating, "This report corroborates previous indications UNC POWs might have been shipped to Siberia during Korean hostilities. n He then instructed Ambassador Boylan to approach the highest

65 Memorandum to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 Intelligence, Department of the Army (Secret) from Gilbert R. Levy, Chief, Counter Intelligence Division, Directorate of Special Investigations, The Inspector General, Department of the Air Force, June 14, 1954.

66 Paul M. Cole, World War II. Korean War. and Early Cold War MIA-POW Issues (draft) (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, April 1993) p. 578.

67 Foreign Service Dispatch, Amcongen, Hong Kong, Desp. No. 1716, March 23, 1954.

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available level Foreign Ministry official with an Aide-Memoire.68 On 5 May, the following message was delivered to the Soviet Foreign Ministry:

The United States Government has recently received reports which support earlier indications that American prisoners of war who had seen action in Korea have been transported to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and that they are now in Soviet custody. The United States desires to receive urgently all information available to the Soviet Government concerning these American personnel and to arrange for their repatriation at the earliest possible time.F69

The Soviet Foreign Ministry responded with a dismissive note on 13 May 1954:

The assertions in the note of the United States Government that American prisoners of war, participants in military action in Korea, have been transferred to the Soviet Union and are at the present time maintained under Soviet guard are without any kind of basis and are clearly invented, as there are not and have not been any such persons in the Soviet Union.F70

Captain Mel Giles. Echoing the claims of both LTC Corso and LTC Simpson, was the information provided by CAPT Mel Gile, Far East Command Liaison Group, during the Korean War. In interviews in 1990, CAPT Giles maintained that one of his agents had found that 63 U.S. POWs were being shipped by truck and rail from Pyongyang, North Korea to Chita, in the Soviet Union in January 1952. Gile insisted that the report was considered so credible that the U.S. command cancelled air strikes on the railway that would be carrying the POWs.F71

CCRAK. An example of the reporting sources described by LTC Corso was an Army Combined Command for Reconnaissance Activities

68 State Department Message from Secretary of State to U.S. Ambassador, Moscow, dated 19 April 1954.

69 Aide Memoire (No. 947) from U.S. Embassy Moscow to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, May 5, 1954.

70 Soviet Foreign Ministry Note, dated May 13, 1954.

71 "Chronology of Policy and Intelligence Matters Concerning Unaccounted for U.S. Military personnel at the end of the Korean Conflict and During the Cold War," Prepared by the Office of Senator Bob Smith, Vice-Chairman, Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, November 10, 1992, p. 6.

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Korea (CCRAK) memorandum of 24 February 1953 which reported:

The following information was received from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea Government. Report originated from the Nationalist Chinese Embassy --

According to reliable information, the Communist ChineseForce have transferred UN POWs to Russia in violation of the Geneva Conference. These POWs will be specially trained at Moscow for espionage work. POWs transferred to Moscow are grouped as follows: British 5, Americans 10, Canadians 3, and 50 more from various countries.

Russia has established a Higher Informant Training Team at Uran, Hodasong (phonetic) in Siberia in October 1952. 500 persons are receiving training, one third of them women. Japanese constitute the largest group and the others are Korean, Filipinos, Burmese, and American.

The date of this information is October - 22 December 1952. The U.S. Army Combined Command for Reconnaissance Activities, Korea, comments in this memorandum:

This office has received sporadic reports of POWs being moved to the USSR since the very inception of the hostilities in Korea. These reports came in great volume through the earlier months of the war, and then tapered off to a standstill in early 1951, being revived by a report from January of this year (1953). It is definitely possible that such action is being taken as evidenced by past experience with Soviet authorities. All previous reports state POWs who are moved to the USSR are technical specialists who are employed in mines, factories, etc. This is the first report that are being used as espionage agents that is carried by this office.F72

Zygmunt Nagorskl. In addition to the Man-chu-li transit point, other routes for POW transfer to the Soviet Union have been identified. The journalist, Zygmunt Nagorski, obtained this information from two members of the MVD and an employee of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. This other POW transit point was through the North Korean-Soviet border at Pos'yet between November 1951 and April 1952 when ice closed the Pacific coast and the Tatar Straits. These POWs were taken from Pos'yet through Chita by rail to Molotov (now Perm). The dates of this

72 Memorandum, Headquarters, Combined Command for Reconnaissance Activities Korea, 8242 Army Unit, CCRAK # M-101, 24 February 1953, Subject: CCF Military Conference concerning the Far East Situation.

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operation coincide exactly with the dates for the transfer of POWs in the Hong Kong report, November 1951 to April 1952.F73

Another route was by sea when the ice receded. POWs, apparently mostly South Koreans from the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) and other South Korean political prisoners, were transported by sea to Soviet Far Eastern ports such as Magadan and Okhotsk from which they were moved to the infamous Kolyma complexes around Yakutsk and to Vankarem on the Chukotsk Sea and to Ust Maisk on the Aldan River. These prisoners apparently were selected because of their anti-communist attitudes. The POWs sent to the Yakutsk ASSR were forced to build and staff coal mines, earth works, and dams and were under the supervision of the Ministry of Coal Production and the Ministry of Forests. The camps were under the command of an MVD officer named Sorotchuk. The POWs sent to the Chukotsk Peninsula, apparently to the number of at least 12,000, were used to build roads, electric power plants, and airfields. A civilian party functionary, probably a member of the MGB, was in charge of political education and indoctrination. He appeared to have been an ethnic Korean Soviet named Chinbo. There was a high mortality rate among all these prisoners.F74

From Pos'yet and possibly Man-chu-li about 300 U.S. and/or European POWs reportedly were transported by rail to Chita and from there to Molotov (now Perm) in February 1952 under heavy MVD guard. In the previous August and November of 1951, there had also been the movement of POWs from Chita. These latter POWs had been sent to Arkhangelsk Oblast to camps at Kotlas on the Northern Dvina and to Lalsk. In March of 1952, POWs passed through Khabarovsk and Chita to Molotov about every two weeks in small groups of up to 50 men. Chita appears to have been a concentration point for the POWs where they were incarcerated in the local MVD prisons, and when a sufficient number had been collected, then sent on to Molotov. The POWs may have been undergoing a selection process at this time. From December 1951 through the end of April 1952, trains of U.S. and European (probably British) POWs passed at intervals into the Komi-Permysk National District to Molotov, Gubakha, Kudymkar, and Chermoz. In April 1952, a number of U.S. officer POWs, referred to informally as the 'American General Staff', were kept under strict isolation in Molotov. In the town of Gubakha and in the industrial regions of Kudymkar and Chermoz, there were three isolated camps and one

73 Central Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 15 July 1952, Subject: Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. Zygmunt Nagorski, Jr., "Unreported G.I.'s in Siberia," Esquire, May 1953. 74 Ibid.

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interrogation prison for U.S. POWs. At a camp called Gaysk about 200 POWs were kept and forced to work in workshops assembling rails and doing various technical jobs. These camps were completely isolated. Political education and indoctrination was carried out by the local Party organization headed by a functionary named Edovin, a delegate from the Obkom of the Komi- Perm National District. All these camps were under the command of an officer named Kalypin. Every few days several of the POWs were removed from the camps and not returned.F75

In 1990 Nagorski was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as stating that in the 1950s his foreign reporters had an extensive 'source network' of truck drivers and other working-class Soviets employed at or near prisons in Molotov, Khabarovsk, Chita, Omsk, Chermoz and elsewhere. Nagorski claimed his sources informed him that there were still up to 1,000 Americans POWs in Siberia from the Korean War when he last had contact with them in the late 1950s.F76

Other Foreign Sources. Over the years reports of American POWs in Soviet custody were provided by a number of foreign sources which are described below:

Turkish Traveler. On 5 February 1954 a reliable, friendly foreign intelligence service reported to an agency of the U.S. information they had received from a Turkish source traveling in Central Asia. The source, who had been interrogated in Turkey, states that while at Mukden, Manchuria, he "saw several coaches full of Europeans who were also taken to the USSR. They were not Russians. Source passed the coaches several times and head them talk in a language unknown to him." The source stated that one of the coaches was full of wounded Caucasians who were not speaking at all.F77

Conclusions

75 Ibid.

76 Senator Bob Smith citing the Los Anqeles Times, 8 July 1990

77 Charity Interrogation Report No. 619 referenced in declassified cables dtd 23 march 1954 and cited in "Chronology of Policy and Intelligence Matters Concerning Unaccounted for U.S. Military Personnel at the End of the Korean Conflict and During the Cold War," Prepared by he Office of Senator Bob Smith, Vice-Chairman, Select Committed on POW/MIA Affairs, November 10, 1992.

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The Soviets transferred several hundred U.S. Korean War POWs to the USSR and did not repatriate them. This transfer was mainly politically motivated with the intent of holding them as political hostages, subjects for intelligence exploitation, and skilled labor within the camp system.

o There were at least two rail transshipment points for POWs:

o Through the Manchurian rail transshipment point of Man-chu-li into the Soviet Union.

o Through North Korea to the rail center at Pos'yet across the border in the Primorksiy Krai.

o Large numbers of UNC POWs were transported by sea to a number of Soviet ports on the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk for rail transportation into the interior of the Soviet Union. o Large numbers of South Korean POWs were also taken as part of this program and made up the bulk of the transfer population.

o A intense period of activity for the rail transportation of POWs was November 1951 through April 1952. Transportation by ship took place, for at least some of the prisoners, during the ice free months.

o From Khabarovsk POWs were sent by rail to another collection point in Chita and then to a number of camps in the Komi-Perm National District.

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Part III
Evidence from Within the Soviet Union

Once the transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs to the Soviet Union was completed, the prisoners would have faced a long period of imprisonment. In that time, the opportunity increased for their whereabouts to become known to citizens of the USSR. Most of that knowledge appears logically to have come from other prisoners in the vast Soviet concentration camp system. Before 1992, occasional reports of contact with U.S. POWs in the Soviet camp system filtered out of the Soviet Union and were recorded by United States intelligence agencies. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of former Soviet citizens have come forward to report such contacts.

One of the difficulties in matching the names provided by these former Soviet citizens was the practice by Soviet prison authorities to often change the names of foreign prisoners and to forbid them to use their real names. This practice was confirmed by Lieutenant General (retired) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Yuriy Filippovich Yezerskiy.

Yezerskiy stated that tracking down specific foreigner prisoners in the former Soviet prison system would be very difficult because the names of foreigners were routinely changed, usually to other foreign rather than to Russian names. He suggested that the best source for the real names of prisoners would likely be other prisoners who knew them. He suspected that records of name changes may exist, most likely somewhere in Moscow.F78

In possible confirmation of Lieutenant General Yezerskiy's testimony, none of the persons named in the following sighting reports can be identified through U.S. casualty records of the Korean War.

Sightings in the Komi ASSR

Sighting No. 1. Lieutenant General Yezerskiy further stated that he had seen four to five Americans in Vorkuta, in the Komi ASSR, in 1954-1956 . These individuals were at the time all in their early to mid-twenties. He said he thought they were all from the

78 Amembassy Moscow Message, 2711132Z May 93, Subject: POW/MIA Team - Moscow: Weekly Activity Report 19/93, May 9 to 15, 1993.

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World War II period but that they could have been from the Korean War.

Sighting No. 2. The Case of Captain Mooradian. One of the most precise reports was made by Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kazersky to Task Force Russia-Moscow team members on 27 October 1992. Mr. Kazersky had been decorated twice in the Great Patriotic War but thereafter had been sentenced to twenty years in the camps. He served at a camp called Zimka in the Komi ASSR and was released in the general amnesty after Stalin's death. He stated that while in the camp, he met U.S. Korean War POW from California. According to the TFR-M report:

Kazersky was aware that there were Americans at Zimka from camp rumor, and, in the Fall of 1952 or the Spring of 1953, he had a single encounter with an American pilot who had been shot down in North Korea and forced to land in Soviet territory near Vladivostok. The pilot said his plane had a crew of three and his radioman had been in Zimka as well, but had possibly been moved to another camp called "Yaser" after a brief period. The pilot did not know what had happened to the third crew member.

The pilot remained at Zimka for three to six months, and was then transferred to an unknown location. He was about thirty years old, five feet seven inches tall, slender, dark-haired and dark-complected, and in good health. He did not smoke and had a small oval scar on one of his cheeks. Kazersky believes he was of southern European origin, perhaps Italian or Greek. The pilot, whose nickname was "The American" (Amerikanets) lived in barracks number six, and worked in the consumer goods (Shirpotreb) section making frames for greenhouses. Kazersky had direct contact with the American only once and communication was difficult. the pilot had been in isolation for a year or more, and had learned very little Russian. Kazersky knew very little English. He could not recall the pilot's name (prisoners were almost always addressed by nickname, but is still firmly convinced that he was an American pilot.F79

At our request provided this information to Air Force Casualty Affairs which did a computer search of its MIAs using the military and biographical information stated by Mr. Kazersky. Air Force Casualty found a surprisingly close match in Capt Ara Mooradian, USAF, who was reported missing in action on 23 October 1951. Although not all information matched perfectly, there was agreement on the following points:

79 Amembassy Moscow Message, 301715Z Oct 92, Subject: POW/MIA: Interview with Nikolay Dmitriyevich Kazersky.

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1. Mooradian's date of loss could-have placed him in a camp at the time stated by Kazersky.

2. He was from Fresno, California, the state Kazersky remembered.

3. Mooradian fit the physical description and was dark- haired and complected. He was of Armenian origin and could have been confused in Kazersky's memory for a southern European.

4. Six members of Mooradian's B-29 were listed as missing in action, two bodies were recovered, and five were repatriated. The man Kazersky met could have been referring to the survivors of his crew that were in the camp, one of whom was the radar -- not radio -- operator.

5. Although there was nothing in Capt Mooradian's file that indicated he had a facial scar, an examination of his photo in Air Force Manual 200-25 showed a faint round scar on his right cheek. This photo was enhanced by the National Photographic Interpretation Center whose analysts concluded that the mark was not a photographic anomaly but probably was indeed a scar.

The areas of disagreement with Kazersky's statement are:

1. Mooradian's aircraft was shot down over the Bay of Korea which was on the opposite side of the Korean Peninsula from Vladivostok.

2. He was the bombardier rather than the pilot of his B-29.

3. His aircraft had a crew of thirteen and not three.

4. Capt Mooradian was 6'1/2" tall instead of 5'8".

At a subsequent interview, Mr. Kazersky was shown a photo line-up of missing pilots and asked to identify the American he had met. He chose four photos as possibly being the one, one of which was that of Capt Mooradian.

Sighting No. 3. On 18 March 1993, TFR-M team members interviewed former prison guard Grigoriy Nikolayevich Minayev in St. Petersburg. Minayev claimed a guard from another battalion who worked at the maximum security prison in Mozindur (Mezhador), just south of Syktyvkar, Komi ASSR, told him in September 1983 of an American Korean War POW who was being kept there under maximum security (Osobiy Rezhim). In addition, Minayev said that his

80 Air Force Manual 200-25, Missinq in Action -- Korea, 16 January 1961, p. 95.

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Continued