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Q: May I ask a question? At Ashkhabad, did you get to see any of the airfields?
A: We saw two very closely and one about one mile northeast of town. We worked at that airfield for awhile.
Q: Is it large enough for four-motored planes?
A: Yes. It is big enough for four-engine planes to operate from.
Q: Would you say it is all-weather?
A: There is no rain for about eight months of the year and, of course, the field is perfectly all right all that time. We weren't there during the rainy season. Evidently they worked out of there even then. It rains in the winter time.
Q: Would you say in any direction it is 6,000 feet?
A: Yes.
Q: None more than that?
A: I wouldn't say more than 6,000 feet.
Lt. Emmons: I would say it was just about 6,000 feet. The winds are generally in one direction there, too.
Q: Are there any hangars?
A: Yes. There are hangars and shops. The shops aren't too much. They had some equipment there -- a couple of lathes and a blacksmith shop-forge.
Q: Did a railroad spur run up there?
A: It runs to within half a mile.
Q: At Ashkhabad, did you see two airfields?
Sgt. Laban: One is a military field and one is a civilian field.
Q: We will separate them this way. We will say one is northwest of the railroad station, and the other is about a mile southeast of town. Keeping on the first one discusses -- the one southwest of town -- anything more on that?
Sgt. Laban: I think I had a chance to see that better.
Q: What size was it?
Sgt. Laban: It is a grassy field about 8,000 feet long by about 4,000 I would say.
Q: Permanent surface? Would you describe it as all-weather or dry weather?
Sgt. Laban: I don't think it would be good wet weather field.
Maj. York: The land there is sandy. Even though it rains, it dries up very quickly.
Q: Is the surface of both these fields the same?
A: Yes. The surface is just the natural field. I think they are all weather.
Q: How much of the time is it unusable for heavy bombers?
A: Roughly I would say one quarter to one third of the time. Monthly reports on soil conditions in this area is that it is a gravel, sand and clay mixture. Usually that drains well.
Q: What sort of permanent installations did you notice? Fuel storage and so forth?
A: The one southeast of town I don't know too much about. I was never on it. I just went by there. The other one has administration buildings, barracks, and a place to eat and the shops that I mentioned. They refuel from gasoline trucks.
Sgt. Laban: They have warehouse storage tanks. Not too big -- but some of them.
Q: Did you get the impression from looking at them that they could store 50,000 gallons?
A: They were 5,000 gallon tanks and there weren't more than four there anyway. Definitely four at least.
Q: Would you say they could store about 25,000 gallons then?
Sgt. Laban: Yes. I would also say there were over a hundred 12 cylinder engines pickled and stored.
Q: Was there one permanent hangar -- or more than one -- or just one?
Sgt. Laban: I don't know.
Major York: They do very little work inside the hangar. They do most of the work out in the field.
Q: Do they get up to third and fourth echelon repair? Do you feel that they could do third echelon work?
A: They do complete overhaul on ships there. They bring in these bi-motored fabric covered jobs and tear them all apart and build them up. When it came to major overhaul on four-engine jobs they sent them away.
Q: Where did they send them?
A: Tashkent.
Q: This field southeast of town -- did that operate as any sort of a satellite field to the one northwest of town?
A: No. The one northwest of town was classed as a civilian airdrome. The other military.
Q: Was the civilian one more extensive?
A: I can't say. I never got too good a look at the one southwest of town.
Sgt. Laban: I was right by that field and they didn't have any installations there that were permanent except for a few buildings.
Lt. Emmons: There is a large airport about five miles west of town.
Q: Was it rather extensive?
A: We didn't see it. We drove by it. It is a short distance off the road about a quarter of a mile. But they were flying single engine trainers and, apparently, in the day time they practiced combat all day long.
Q: Was that due west of town?
A: Yes.
Q: Were those American trainers?
A: Russian.
Q: Did you see the fields at Chkalov?
Major York: Yes. How we happened to see all this was when we were on the railroad train there and we pulled out a short way from town, three or four miles, and stopped and stayed there for hours, and then we started up and started traveling slowly, south and east. For about twenty or thirty miles along the railroad there was no field we could see because of the snow. These airplanes were landing and taking off in the snow.
Q: Did you notice a field very large in that particular area?
A: As I say, we couldn't see a field. It was all flat land completely covered with snow and they were just landing and taking off right there.
Q: With medium, heavies, or light aircraft?
A: Most of them were two-engine stuff. Obviously they were training because they were just taking off and taking off.
Q: There were no markings -- such as would mark off an airfield? It just looked like an airport 24 miles long starting at the edge of town and continuing along the railroad?
A: That is right. We just wondered how long it was going to last. Finally they gave out. We couldn't see any installations like hangars. You could see instructors standing around in the snow.
Q: Was this on both sides of the railroad, or one side?
A: One side. On the south side of the railroad.
The heavy planes seemed to be tied down along the way at different places -- but they were working with light planes.
Q: No fences or construction of any kind?
A: You could taxi fifty miles if you wanted to.
Q: Where was this, captain? I don't get the location.
A: Chkalov.
Q: Where is that?
A: It is on the Ural River where it turns to the left and flows about 250 miles to the Caspian. Where it flows East-West.
Lt. Emmons: It must be 250 miles east and south of Kuibyshev.
Q: That would put it about parallel with the northern end of the Caspian Sea, wouldn't it?
A: A little above.
Q: Did you go in any other direction from Chkalov or were you just traveling through?
A: We just went on the railroad.
Q: At Khabarovsk, in what relation to the city was the field you landed at?
A: I really don't know. We were flying on instruments at 5000 feet.
Lt. Emmons: We flew down the railroads, so we came in from the east side -- that would be northeast of town.
Q: One has been reported two and a half miles north of the city and another one one mile north of the city. Could you give me any description of the latter?
A: That seems to be the main field for the transit ships coming in. There were military ships parked around -- all sorts of ships. It is a large field, also.
Q: Would you say 6,000 feet? Or 7,000 feet?
A: To be truthful I never saw an airfield in Russia less than 6,000 feet.
Q: Any you saw would take heavy bombers?
A: Yes.
Q: This one that you landed at -- did you get the impression that that is one of the key fields in that particular area?
A: Yes.
Q: Your impression is based on just what?
A: The administration buildings -- and the various types of airplanes ... cargo, passenger, and so forth.
Q: Did it have repair facilities:
A: We didn't get much chance to look around. They had a lot of buildings around.
Q: You came right in and landed at the edge of the city? Northeast?
A: Yes.
Q: You then drove into town?
A: Yes. And then we got on a train and started heading west out of town.
Q: You saw no other fields except this one along the railroad track? (Atchkalov?)
A: Yes. That is right.
Q: Did you see any others later on?
A: Oh, yes. From the train we saw airfields at various places along the road.
Sgt. Laban: About three or four hundred miles out there was a town which seemed entirely devoted to the aircraft industry. The barracks there seemed to be for working people. That would be Aktyubinak. It would be north of Lake Aral.
Q: Who was the bombardier? I wonder if you can give a first hand account of what you actually saw of the damage done?
A: (Lt. Hernden) Well, as the major said, we couldn't see too dog-gone much. We came up on our target. He designated it as the target. We went up to 1, 500 feet and dropped the bombs. As soon as the bombs were away we went back to low altitude. I followed them back as best as I could. I saw the blast and the steam and the smoke rising. That is about all I could see.
Q: You did see the bomb hit square?
A: Yes.
Q: You felt quite definite about that?
A: Yes.
Q: I am not sure what you considered this objective to be.
A: Well, it was on a railroad and there were several spurs into it. We could tell exactly what it was.
Major York: It was the largest in that whole area.
Q: You have never been able to spot that on an industrial map or any chart of that area?
A: Well, not knowing where we were exactly. No.
Q: You couldn't tell, for example, whether it looked like old buildings?
A: It wasn't new -- or modern as we know it.
Q: Was it made of brick?
Lt. Herndon: I don't know. No... it didn't seem to be. If it was, it was camouflaged to a gunmetal or dull wood color.
Q: was there much evidence of camouflage in Japan?
Major York: No. Not too much. For example, as we got over the western edge of the island we saw a tremendous lay-out there that was all new construction and it wasn't camouflaged.
Q: How long was the bombing run?
Lt. Herndon: It wasn't over 25 seconds -- 20 to 25 seconds.
Q: You had the same fusing on your bombs as the others did?
A: Yes. They were all the same.
CONTINUE to PART FOUR of the Official Debriefing
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