Grostenquin, France
Red Star in Decimommanau

Detail by Alan F Sideen - I was posted to 2 Wing Grostenquin and assigned to 430 Squadron as an AE Tech between 1960 and 1963. To the best of my knowledge, the "Red Star in Decimommanau" incident would have occurred when 430 Squadron was deployed to Decimommanau in January, 1962.

Anyone who was ever deployed to Decimommanau would remember that the entire airfield would shut down completely for four hours every day. Nothing moved, no tower, no police, and of course no fuel. So there we were - laying around, doing nothing but waiting - just as we did every other day. Sabres all lined up, primed and ready to go and waiting for fuel.

It was on one of those lazy mundane afternoons that we watched a lone swept wing aircraft circling overhead thinking "it's not a Sabre" so it must be some American aircraft. Wonder what he's doing here?

The aircraft landed and we watched it taxi up and stop about 50 feet in front of us.

It was a Russian MiG-15 - sporting it's big red unmistakeable stars.

A clean cut young pilot climbed out of the cockpit, approached our group, and speaking in pretty good English, he informed us that he would like to seek political asylum.

Our OC (W/C Mullen) explained that we didn't handle that sort of situation at Decimommanau, and that he would have to go to an American airfield to do that. The poor pilot was rather stunned as he wasn't expecting that kind of an answer. I remember our OC pointing off in the direction for him to fly, to get to the nearest US Air Base. The pilot, obviously a little shaken, then turned around and walked back to his aircraft with a real puzzled look on his face. I wonder what he was thinking? He climbed back in to his MiG, fired up, taxied away and took off. We last saw him heading off in the direction of the US Air Base.

The next issue of the Stars and Stripes had him on the front page, propped up and being carried around on the shoulders of some US Air Force big wigs, having a heck of a good time. A grand prize indeed, a defector from the mighty, and not to mention, nasty, Russian Air Force. Wow!

And we couldn't even give him the time of day. Isn't that ironic?

The entire story is somewhat obscure as I have no photos or diary entries and I don't ever recall anyone talking about it. And that's rather odd, isn't it? No one seemed to think it was a big deal. Like a non issue. The whole show lasted only a few minutes. So it was over with pretty quick, and I even had some trouble later, wondering if it had actually happened. No one got up to even take a curious closer look at this "enemy' aircraft. It seemed as though we had become as nonchalant as the Italian Air Force guys that we used to laugh at. Only half of our flight line crew would have been there, as we were working a 12 on and 12 off shift.

We did not get any information such as where he was from, but it is very likely that this airfraft originated from a nearby satellite bloc country. And with the whole Italian Air Force shut down for four hours every day, it's not surprising that he was not tracked or intercepted on the way over. He must have sailed right over Italy. Nor would there be any logged records.

Alan F Sideen

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