Article from the New York Times dated 12 June 1946.
SOVIET FLYERS FIRE OVER U.S. AIRFIELD
Hold Target Drills in Austria---Chief Refuses to Reopen Road for American Use
By John MacCormac
Vienna, June 12
Russian fighter pilots switched today from buzzing United States passenger planes in the vicinity of Vienna, which has been their intermittent amusement during recent weeks, to carrying out target practice directly over the United States airfield at Tulln just outside the Capitol.
At 08:15 o’clock this morning four Russian fighters fired two or three bursts each at a sleeve target being towed by another plane directly over the field at 1,500 to 2,000 feet. For a change, one pilot dived over the airfield radio tower in full view of a group of American soldiers sheltering in a nearby building and fired at a red flag on top of the antenna.
Three hours later eight fighters fired for over a minute at a sleeve target being towed over the Tulln field. During neither incident was any United States plane in the air.
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As he did after the buzzing incident, Gen. Mark W. Clark, commander of the United States forces in Austria protested twice today to Gen L. V. Kurasov, Russian acting commander. Gen. Kurasov said he knew nothing about the occurrence’s but promised to investigate.
Two Russian generals who actually made inquiries into the harassing of American aircraft by Russian fighters brought no satisfaction but merely the allegation that the American planes were out of their zone, which their pilots expressly denied. One of the planes thus buzzed was General Clarks own B-17, which at the time was transporting United States Minister John G. Ehrhardt to Paris.
Not content with troubling the air over the United States airfield at Vienna, the Russians also have been making access to it by road as difficult as possible.
Three weeks ago they suddenly closed the river road to Tulln, by far the shortest route, and have obliged American traffic to the airport ever since to use a much longer route via the Linz road.
To a request from General Clark that the river road be reopened, General Kurasov replied today that the river road was excessively overloaded with Soviet and Austrian transport and that additional traffic would make it impossible to avoid accidents and casualties.
The buzzing of our airplanes was ascribed at first to Russian high spirits and the closing of the direct road to out airfield to a desire to shield the movement of Russian troops from Austria to Czechoslovakia and to Germany. But taken in conjunction with today’s target practice there is speculation here whether it is not a policy designed to frighten American civilian aircraft away from Vienna, just as the Air Transport Command is being elbowed out of Belgrade by the Yugoslav government
Pan American Airways are due next Sunday to establish service here, but, according to Russian logic, it might be discouraged by the difficulty of access to the airport by land and air created by the present policy of Russian Authorities.