Data Sources - Air Force Manual No. 200-25A, Department of the Air Force, Washington, October 16, 1961  page 1. Sanitized copy. National Archives KOREAN Conflict Casualty File (KCCF) 1950-1954. 

MIAs in Incident; Foulks, James Arch, Jr.; Cogswell, Robert Whitney; Fuehrer, Alios A.; Botter, William Joseph; Black, Wayne Forest; Mooradian, Ara

03/92 -- Korea, and the men yet to be accounted for -- the "official list" --  is a list of U.S. servicemen known to have been held as prisoners of war by the red Chinese and North Koreans from the Korean War but not released or accounted for by the communists, as released on May 27, 1957 at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on the Far East and Pacific by the Department of Defense.

The lists, the printed minutes of the May 27, 1957 hearing and the "sense of congress" resolution were subsequently buried in the archives. The original list had 450 names compiled from American POWS who were repatriated by the Reds, as well as from photographs released by the Reds, Chinese radio propaganda broadcasts, and letters written home by captured men. The "revised" list was narrowed down in august of 1961 to 389 men, and all were arbitrarily declared dead by the military services, the USG still lists them as "unaccounted for".

Names and ranks only were released at the time, and printed in "The Spotlight" on August 27, 1979, along with the above information and background. Further information has been compiled by the P.O.W. Network from the Hawaii POW/MIA Korean Memorial records, National Archives documentation, and public United States Air Force documentation, and changes made to the original published information. (FEBRUARY 1992)
 

Ara Mooradian is listed on the "HONOR ROLL OF FORGOTTEN AMERICANS" yet is
noted as having died "while missing" by the National Archive.

 _____________________________________________________________                         
Full file avail  through the P.O.W. NETWORK info@pownetwork.org
 

                    The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs
                            To the Soviet Union

                      Joint Commission Support Branch
                       Research and Analysis Division
                                    DPMO

                               26 August 1993

                               WORKING PAPER

                         This study was prepared by
         

                         Mr. Peter G. Tsouras, DAC
                    Major Werner Saemler Hindrichs, USAF
                     Master Sergeant Danz Blasser, USAF
         

                           with the assistance of
         

                  Second Lieutenant Timothy R. Lewis, USAF
                          Mr. Paul H. Vivian, DAC
                   Staff Sergeant Linda R. H. Pierce, USA
                       Sergeant Gregory N. Vukin, USA

This Study is for internal use only.  It contains subjective evaluations,
opinions, and recommendations concerning on-going analysis that may impact
future U.S. foreign policy decisions.  This document has not yet been
finalized for public release.

                               WORKING PAPER

                         This study was prepared by

                         Mr. Peter G. Tsouras, DAC
                    Major Werner Saemler Hindrichs, USAF
                     Master Sergeant Danz Blasser, USAF

                           with the assistance of

                  Second Lieutenant Timothy R. Lewis, USAF
                          Mr. Paul H. Vivian, DAC
                   Staff Sergeant Linda R. H. Pierce, USA
                       Sergeant Gregory N. Vukin, USA

                             Executive Summary
                    

                    
U.S. Korean War POWs were transferred to the Soviet Union and never
repatriated.
        

This transfer was a highly-secret MGB program approved by the inner circle
of the Stalinist dictatorship.
        

The rationale for taking selected prisoners to the USSR was:
        

o  To exploit and counter U.S. aircraft technologies;
        

o  to use them for general intelligence purposes;
        

o  It is possible that Stalin, given his positive experience with Axis POWs,
viewed U.S. POWs as potentially lucrative hostages.
        

The range of eyewitness testimony as to the presence of U.S. Korean War POWs
in the GULAG is so broad and convincing that we cannot dismiss it.
        

The Soviet 64th Fighter Aviation Corps which supported the North Korean and
Chinese forces in the Korean War had an important intelligence collection
mission that included the collection, selection, and interrogation of POWs.
        

A General Staff-based analytical group was assigned to the Far East Military
District and conducted extensive interrogations of U.S. and other U.N. POWs
in Khabarovsk.  This was confirmed by a distinguished retired Soviet
officer, Colonel Gavriil Rorotkov, who participated in this operation.  No
prisoners were repatriated who related such an experience.
        

o  Prisoners were moved by various modes of transportation. Large shipments
moved through Manchouli and Pos'yet.
        

o  Khabarovsk was the hub of a major interrogation operation directed
against U.N. POWs from Korea.  Khabarovsk was also a temporary holding and
transshipment point for U.S. POWs.  The MGB controlled these prisoners, but
the GRU was allowed to interrogate them.
        

o  Irkutsk and Novosirbirsk were transshipment points, but the Komi ASSR and
Perm Oblast were the final destinations of many POWs.  Other camps where
Americans were held were in the Bashkir ASSR, the Kemerovo and Archangelsk
Oblasts, and the Komi-Permyatskiy and Taymyskiy Natinal Okrugs.
        

POW transfers also included thousands of South Koreans, a fact confirmed by
the Soviet general officer, Kan San Kho, who served as the Deputy Chief of
the North Korean MVD.
        

The most highly-sought-after POWs for exploitation were F-86 pilots and
others knowledgeable of new technologies.
        

Living U.S. witnesses have testified that captured U.S. pilots were, upon
occasion, taken directly to Soviet-staffed interrogation centers.  A former
Chinese officer stated he turned U.S. pilot POWs directly over to the
Soviets as a matter of policy.
        

Missing F-86 pilots, whose captivity was never acknowledged by the
Communists in Korea, were identified in recent interviews with former Soviet
intelligence officers who served in Korea. Captured F-86 aircraft were taken
to at least three Moscow aircraft design bureaus for exploitaiton.  Pilots
accompanied the aircraft to enrich and accelerate the exploitation process.
        

The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs to the Soviet Union
          

Table of Contents
          

Introduction                                    1
        

        
Part I:  Technological Exploitation             3
        

The First Modern Air War  . . . .               3
The Technology Gap  . . . . . .                 3
The 64th Fighter Aviation Corps . . .           3
The Soviet Interrogation Effort . . .           4
The Soviet Hunt for F-86 Pilots . . .           5
The 15 F-86 Pilots That Came Home . . . .       8
A Chinese Link in the Chain of Evidence .       11
A Special Air Force Unit  . . . . . . .         11
Avraham Shifrin . . . . . . . . . . . .         12
The Soviet Hunt for the F-86 Sabre Jet          12
Sand in the Fuselage  . . . . . . . .           13
MGB and GRU:  Who Did What? . . . . .           15
Three Case Studies  . . . . . . . . .           19
The Case of Cpt Albert Tenney, USAF . . . .     19
The Case of lLt Roland Parks, USAF  . .         20
The Case of Cpl Nick A. Flores, USMC            22
Conclusions . . . . . . .                       24
        

Part II:  The Hostage Connection  . .           26
        

POW Exploitation  . . . . . . . . . .           26
The Stalin - Chou en-lai Meeting                26
Lieutenant General Kan San Kho  . . .           27
Colonel Gavril I. Korotkov  . . . . .           27
Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso  . . . .     31
Lieutenant Colonel Delk Simpson . . . . . .     34
John Foster Dulles  . . .                       34
Captain Mel Gile  . . . .                       35
CCRAX                                           35
Zygmunt Nagorski  . . . .                       36
Turkish Traveler  . . . . .                     38
Conclusions . . . . . . .                       39
        

Part III      Evidence From Within the Soviet Union  . . . 40
        

Sightings in the Komi ASSR . .                              40
Sightings in Khabarovsk  . . .                              44
Sighting in Irkutsk  . . . . .                              45
Sighting in Taishet  . . . .                                46
Sighting in Mordova  . . . . .                              46
Sighting in Novosibirsk  . . . . .                          47
Sighting in the Bashkir ASSR . . .                          47
Sighting in Norilsk  . . . . . . .                          47
Sighting in Kemerovo . . . . . . .                          48
Sightings in the Kazakh SSR  . .                            49
Sighting in Archangelsk  . . . . . . .                      49
Patterns Among the Sightings . . . .                        50
Summary                                                     51
Postscript                                                  51
        

        
Appendices                                                  53
        

        
Appendix A:  How Many Men Are Truly Unaccounted For? . .    57
        

Appendix B:  31 Missing USAF F-86 Pilots Whose Loss
             Indicates Possible Capture                     68
        

Appendix C:  Korean War USAF F-86 Pilots Who Were           69
             Captured and Repatriated

        
Appendix D:  Outstanding Questions                          69
        

Appendix E:  Individual Sources of Information
             Cited in this Study                            74

        
Appendix F:  Soviet Officers Whose Names Appear On
             Interrogations of U.S. Korean War POWs         75
        

        
         Table 1.  USAF Korean War POWs On Whom the Russian
                   Archives Should Have Information . . . . . 7

         Table 2.  BNR Cases Where Death Was Witnessed by
                   Repatriates or Otherwise Documented  . . . 55
        

 ------------------------
                         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.
__________

 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.79
        

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.
__________

         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.....

03/13/2021