flying to Udine (A) from Vienna (B). It was felled
after having passed over Klangenfurt, Austria
SECOND U.S. PLANDE SHOT DOWN BY YUGOSLAVS
(Extracted from the New York Times by Jack Edmonds
U. S. Plane Wreckage Inside Yugoslav 2 Miles From Austria's Border - Americans Get Permission to Seek Bodies - Tito Assails `Reactionaries'
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Aug. 21, 1946 – The wreckage of the United States military transport plane that was shot down in flames by Yugoslav fighters north of Bled, Monday, lies two miles from the Austrian Border, it was learned tonight.
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Yugoslavia was flying to Udine (A) from Vienna (B). It was felled after having passed over Klangenfurt, Austria |
The wreckage was just inside Yugoslav territory. Yugoslavia has based her reason for the attack on the contention that United States aircraft have repeatedly flown over Yugoslav territory despite the protests of Premier Marshal Tito’s government.
It has also been learned that representatives of the United States Graves Registration Commission have received permission to leave Belgrade and search for wreckage for the bodies of three United States personnel believed to have been killed when the transport crashed and exploded.
United States authorities in Belgrade received notification from the Yugoslav Government that two members of the five-man crew had parachuted to safety, thus indicating that both survivors now were in the custody of the Yugoslav authorities.
United States Ambassador Richard C. Patterson, Jr. personally will confer tomorrow in Bled with Marshal Tito on the shooting down of unarmed United States planes, an action that the Yugoslav Premier strongly defended.
Marshal Tito alleging repeated violations by planes of Yugoslav territory accused “certain countries” yesterday of striving for “an imperialistic peace.” He declared that Yugoslavia did not want a “peace” at any price such as “is wanted by those who wish to achieve their imperialistic aims at the expense of peoples who have sacrificed for the common cause all they possible could.”
Marshal Tito said he had witnessed the downing of one of the United States planes, but denied previous American protestations that it had been lost in the clouds.
American accounts of the August 9th incident had said the Yugoslav fighters had given no signal to land and had fired upon the plane when it already had landed. Marshal Tito characterized these statements and “slanders” against his Army, adding that “all this is not true, as I have been myself a witness to this event.”
Marshal Tito, declaring he wished “to prove who is making provocations and who wishes to deny us our rights,” said he had raised this “matter” of the systematic violation of our frontiers and our territory over which daily fly, not single planes, but tens of planes.” Nothing has been done about his protests, he said adding: “And when it happens as it did happen that a plane is forced to land, then hundreds of exceptions are made and statements put out that the plane could have lost its way in the clouds, though the sky was perfectly clear.”
Ambassador Patterson had said the plane forced down August 9 had been thrown off course by a storm.
Marshal Tito said he did not direct his remarks at the Allied countries in question as a whole but against “reactionaries of such countries who want to misrepresent the true state of affairs in the world.”
Clearance was granted for a plane bearing Ambassador Patterson and his party to Bled to see Marshal Tito. Mr. Patterson will be accompanied by United States Military Attaché Col. Richard Partridge and Assistant Military Attaché Lieut. Col. Chester M. Stratton. United States Air Attaché Lieut. Col. Winton Close will pilot the plane.
There has been no comment on the two plane incidents thus far in the Yugoslav press except for the publication of Marshal Tito’s original protest note on August 11 and his speech yesterday.
Yugoslav Charges Disputed
Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, commander of the United States Forces in the European Theatre said today that he had not yet been advised from Washington that Army commanders might provide escorts for planes if they thought necessary. Nor did he indicate whether he would provide such escorts if authorized.
Brig. Gen. Lucas V. Beau, commanding Air Transport Headquarters in Dotzheim, said today that United States pilots had been instructed long ago to avoid Yugoslavia. They would touch Marshal Tito’s territory only if forced to do so by bad weather and he called the shooting down of an Army plane Monday “a wicked thing.”
General Beau gave the lie to Yugoslav allegations that United States fliers often crossed Yugoslav territory. Pilots kept in constant radio contact with bases, he said, and none had flown over Yugoslavia except in a storm.
U.S. Cancels Further Flights
As a result of the shooting down of a plane in Yugoslavia yesterday, European Air Transport Service, which operated the airline between Naples and Vienna, has cancelled all flights on that route until further notice. When the service is resumed it will terminate in Udine and, the last leg from Udine to Vienna will be eliminated, since that part of the route lies dangerously close to the Yugoslav frontier.
When the service is resumed as far as Udine passengers for Vienna will be routed via Munich or some other part of Germany.
Pan American Revises Route
VIENNA, Aug. 21 – Pan American Airline flights from Vienna will no longer stop at Budapest and Bucharest because landing facilities in Hungarian and Rumanian cities have been refused United States commercial airlines, United States Army Headquarters announced today.
It was expected that flights would be rerouted from Vienna to Naples thence to Istanbul on the line that runs from New York to New Delhi via London, Brussels and Prague. The detour would be several hundred miles.