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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

33. An International Firestorm

President Truman was not happy with the accidental bombing of the USSR. KSHB

Back in Washington, President Truman held Douglas MacArthur responsible. He suspected his troublesome commander in Korea of deliberately attempting to provoke a war with the Soviets. The story became front-page news, but both the Soviet and US governments, each for its own reasons, preferred to deescalate and put the incident behind them.

On October 19^th, America’s ambassador to the United Nations admitted the attack, and informed the UN Secretary: “The commander of the Air Force group has been relieved and appropriate steps have been taken with a view toward disciplinary actions against the two pilots concerned“. The pilots were tried before a court-martial, but in a proceeding that was closed to the public, both were found not guilty. The findings were not released by the Air Force, which wanted both the Soviets and Truman to assume that the airmen had been properly punished. However, neither Alton Quanbeck nor Al Diefendorf was permitted to fly any more combat missions.

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.