Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

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UN archives reveal plan to arm Jewish militia with weapons, tankettes
It was Nov. 29, 1947. The UN General Assembly had passed Resolution 181 - the Partition Plan (the British Mandate was to be split into a Jewish state and an Arab state). Then civil war erupted between the Jewish and the Palestinian residents. The UN Secretariat formed a Special Committee to deal with the situation. Last year Historian Elad Ben-Dror sat in the UN archives and read declassified files relating to the work of the Special Committee. He made a discovery: The UN had planned to carry out the Partition Plan by means of a Jewish militia, trained by the UN and armed by the UN - with weapons, combat aircraft and tankettes.
by haaretz :: 2007-12-06 :: Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

Retired Russian frogman confesses to cold war 'killing'
Over 50 years after Lionel Crabb squeezed into his wetsuit for the last time and submerged himself in Portsmouth harbour, another solution to the mystery of the diver's death has surfaced. Buster was an explosives disposal expert during World War II, and MI6 employed him to investigate the hulls of visiting Soviet ships for mine hatches. Crabb disappeared in 1956, the day he was sent to check for underwater equipment on a Soviet cruiser that had brought the Nikita Khrushev and Marshal Nikolai Bulganin to the UK. Now former Russian frogman Eduard Koltsov has described how he cut the British diver's throat after catching him placing a mine on the hull of the cruiser.
by guardian :: 2007-11-17 ::

MoD admits Royal Navy divers spied on Soviet ships
The Ministry of Defence has revealed that Royal Navy divers undertook an unauthorised espionage operation against a Soviet warship docked in Portsmouth in 1955. The covert mission to examine the sonar equipment fitted to the Soviet cruiser Sverdlov and other warships was 6 months before the notorious "Commander Crabb affair" in which a navy frogman vanished after being commissioned by MI6 to check the cruiser that brought Nikita Khrushchev on a visit to Britain. A headless body, presumed to be that of Commander Lionel "Buster" Crabb, was washed ashore 14 months later. It was one of the biggest spy dramas of the Cold War.
by timesonline :: 2007-09-29 :: Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

Taiwanese spy plane pilots honored for secret Cold War missions
They gathered on a rainy night at a rare ceremony in their honor, 6 survivors of a secret cadre of Taiwanese pilots who risked their lives against the communist enemy during the darkest days of the Cold War. Known as "The Black Bats," they were working for the American CIA, a claim backed up by photos of them posing with the CIA station chief. 1953-1967 they flew more than 800 sorties over China, dropping agents, testing radar responses and collecting air samples from suspected nuclear test sites. After decades in the shadows, they are now getting public recognition.
by iht :: 2007-07-09 :: Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

History will judge RP revolution, says assassin of US war hero
For nearly two decades Juanito Itaas has been held in the maximum security compound of the National Penitentiary near Manila where he is serving life for the assassination of Colonel James "Nick" Rowe, a Vietnam War hero and one of America's most highly decorated soldiers. Rowe was the highest ranking US officer killed in the Philippines since the communist insurgency began. On April 21, 1989 Rowe was sitting in the limousine when his murderers opened fire. Itaas, a guerrilla who rose through the ranks to become an important commander in the Communist Party of the Philippine's New People's Army (NPA), and Donato Continente were convicted of Rowe's murder.
by abs-cbnnews :: 2007-02-08 :: Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

Col. Charles Marshall Fergusson led Cold War cavalry units
Army Col. Charles Marshall Fergusson Jr. headed the U.S. military police in Tokyo during the post-WWII occupation of Japan and later commanded armored cavalry units in Korea and Germany during the Cold War. One of the youngest members of West Point's 1942 class, he was diverted from WWII. He served in a horse cavalry unit touring the western US and Canada, but later participated in the invasion of the Philippines in 1944-1945 and became provost marshal of the Tokyo area for the occupation. His most memorable assignment was commanding 5,000 troops in the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fulda, Germany, in 1966-67.
by mysanantonio :: 2006-10-11 :: Cold War Soldiers & Veterans

New military organization planned in Japan around 1950
Former senior Imperial Japanese Army officers planned to establish a new military organization in Japan after the country lost WWII, U.S. documents showed. They came up with the idea on their own around 1950 with the consent of the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces, but U.S. leaders and then Japanese PM rejected it. Former Lt. Gen. Torashiro Kawabe and others thought up the plan to form a new Japanese army and having former Gen. Kazushige Ugaki as commander in chief. In 1951, Japan's underground government decided to make Ugaki the commander in chief and Kawabe the chief of staff of the force Kawabe had proposed, says the memo.
by kyodo :: 2006-08-21 :: Uncategorized Cold War News

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