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America Accidentally Attacked the Soviet Union and Other Lesser Known History Moments

Khalid Elhassan February 27, 2020 34 min

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star - Aircraft — American F-80s in action during the Korean War. Squdron

36. South of the Border vs North of the Border

Sino-Soviet-North Korean border. Wikimedia

As Alton Quanbeck and is wingman Al Diefendorf reported in their debriefing a few hours later, they had destroyed one airplane, and damaged two others. Several months later, an intelligence officer assigned to Far East Air Force HQ told Quanbeck that “the airfield burned for a week“.

Apparently, the planes they left burning must have triggered secondary explosions, which reached other planes. The attack was a great tactical success. Unfortunately, it threatened to turn into a huge disaster.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.