Here's another photo from Stev Pitchford. This one is of another MIG whose pilot defected to Taiwan.Stev writes:
Here is a crowd viewing a MIG-15 on display in downtown Taipei. It was flown to Taiwan by a Chinese Communist defector in late 1959 or early 1960. While the details are written on the poster by the plane, my Chinese never got past recognizing a few symbols on buses so I'd know which one to catch, so I can't translate it for you.
One of the photo lab's functions was processing aerial reconnaissance film. In the spring of 1960, Lt. Colonel Tinsley walked into the lab proudly pointing to a spot in the middle of a print he was carrying. The spot was flying at well above 40,000 feet and whatever took the picture was way above that. Because it was a long time ago, I may be mixing my MIGs, but I think he said it was a MIG-21. In any case, it was the first evidence they had that a MIG of that generation was flying in Communist China.
I did a little checking and discovered that this may be the first MIG-15 flown from the PROC to the ROC.
ReplyDeleteOn January 12, 1960, a PLA pilot named Yang Decai flew a MiG-15 with serial number 6501 from Luqiao Air Base to Yilan County, Taiwan. However, Yang was killed when his aircraft crashed on landing.
There appears to be a lot of damage to the MIG-15 in the photo, so it could very well be the pieced-together remains of the crashed aircraft.
I remember there were air fighters flying from mainland China to Taiwan every once in a while. It became part of my childhood memories.
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