BEDARD-WILLIAM

SHOT  DOWN  BY  SOVIET  AIRCRAFT – 9/4/1954

A remark sometimes heard from a Cold War veteran is, “You were not shot at” but this is not an accurate statement because a number of Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard casualties occurred due to hostile activity.  Just how many died is not clear as classified operations were not reported for a long time after they occurred, but it is evident that at least several hundred casualties occurred during the Cold War because of actions by hostile forces.  The Navy has acknowledged that from 1950 until 1969, approximately a dozen electronic reconnaissance aircraft were lost with at least 79 lives.

One such action occurred on September 4, 1954.  A Navy P2V-5 Neptune assigned to Patrol Squadron Nineteen (VP-19) departed NAS Atsugi, Japan, to conduct a reconnaissance mission over the Sea of Japan.  Aboard was a crew of ten men, including Aviation Machinist Mate First Class William Albert Bedard.  At the time the area was a favorite reconnaissance flight area and known to be where Soviet planes sometimes made attacks, although on other occasions the Soviet planes merely escorted the reconnaissance flights without any hostile action.  In short, this was a dangerous place to fly in those days.

While over international waters of the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok, Russia, southeast of Cape Ostrovnoi, a reported 33-miles from Soviet territory, the P2V-5 was at 8,000 feet, speed 180 knots, heading 067 to the northeast.  Without warning two Soviet MIG fighters approached from the rear and opened with cannon fire.  The P2V-5 pilot went into an immediate sharp right turn away from the Soviet landmass and entered a steep dive of 2,000-3,000 feet per minute as an evasion attempt.  As the plane approached a cloud bank the MIGs conducted three more firing passes.  On the third pass the P2V-5 was hit on its port wing which caught fire.  The fire quickly spread through the wing to the fuselage and the pilot made the decision to crash land in the water as the fire could not be extinguished.  The plane crashed an estimated 40-miles off the coast of Siberia.  The Soviets later acknowledged shooting down the P2V-5 but claimed it had entered Soviet airspace and had fired on Soviet aircraft, charges that were rejected by the United States.

Fortunately, all ten crewmembers survived the crash landing and immediately commenced evacuating the sinking plane.  As the men left the plane they managed to push a small life raft into the water.  An officer, the plane’s navigator, was the last man aboard the plane which sank in about 30-40 seconds after the crash.  The navigator was attempting to push a larger life raft into the water as it would give a better chance of survival to the men in the water.  The survivors reported that the navigator could have left the doomed plane and swam to safety of the little raft, but chose to stay and try to release the second raft.  He was the only fatality, his body was never recovered, and survivors praised his conduct as that of a hero.

The following day a U.S. Air Force SA-16 amphibian successfully located and rescued the remaining nine crewmembers, including AD1 Bedard.  Historical records are scarce concerning William Albert Bedard but reflect that he joined the Navy in 1941 and remained on active duty for 32 years until retiring in 1973.  He died on January 16, 1998, survived by four sons, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild.  He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)