abstract
| - The Soviet Air Force played an important role in World War III. While the Soviet Air Force's role in the Korean War had been limited to Soviets piloting MiGs on behalf of North Korea, when the U.S. decided to use atomic weapons against Manchuria on 23 January 1951,, the Soviet Airforce launchded six atomic attacks against U.S. allies from Pechenga: Aberdeen and Norwich in the United Kingdom; Nancy and Rouen in France, and; Augsburg and Bremen in West Germany. Pechenga was destroyed on 4 February. In response, the Soviets destroyed Elmendorf Air Force Base on 7 February. On the night of 1-2 March, Soviet Tu-4s, painted to look like the American B-29s they'd been reverse engineered from, dropped several atomic bombs on the American west, including the cities of Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Denver. On the East Coast, Bangor, Maine and a location in Newfoundland, Canada were also attacked. Bombers meant for Spokane and Las Vegas were successfully downed by the U.S. Moreover, only one bomber crew actually made it back to the Soviet Union, with the rest having to land on nearby air fields and surrender, and others having to bail out near the cities they'd just bombed and being subjected to civilian vengeance (in violation of the Geneva Conventions.) The Soviet Air Force continued to attack various places in Europe throughout the war, including a series of attack against airfields in the U.K. in April, and an atomic attack on Bordeaux, France, later that month and another against Paris in June. This article is a stub because the work is part of a larger, as-of-yet incomplete series.
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