Gulag Report

Camps in the area of Krasnoyarsk

Kirovskiy

In his memoirs (provided to the Russian Side in November 1999), this former Soviet citizen quoted seven people who claim to have seen Americans in Kirovskiy Excerpts from his memoirs:

1. (in the) Fall, 1951, a group of American POWs from Korea arrived in a camp by the town Kirovsk, in the Krasnoyarsk area. However, in the beginning of 1952, they disappeared. In any case, during the liquidation of the prison camp during the winter of 1951 and into 1952, they were not part of the prisoners who were transferred to Motygino (to the south)....

2. A worker from Kirovskiy, witnessed how late at night, during Russian Christmas, a group of 20, maybe slightly more were led from the camp along the Veniaminovky Road.

3. Another witness and her friend claimed that during the last days of December 1951 more than 20 prisoners, wearing bare threads and halt frozen, were moved along road to Veniamonovky.

4. A witness in Veniaminovky, stated that on Christmas 'we had a present which the NKVD delivered 'To the town (half frozen prisoners). They did not speak Russian. They only said 'American, American and 'eat, eat.'... Then in the morning, around 6 am, they were taken and marched further.'

5. A hunter and driver, from the town of Chinuel, saw from his car, a number of prisoners who did not speak Russian, being marched along the road... this was early in the morning, around Christmas... The next day, around 7 am, he was going back to Kirovsk and saw the prisoner column moving toward the town of Kamenka (and the lake.)

6. One more witness worked in the town of Kirovsk. In February 1952, while hunting, in the area where the Kamenka and Porenda rivers meet, he came across an area where he suspected people were buried. The ground was overturned and his dogs were picking up strange scents.

7. A list of 22 names of citizens of the USA who were in the camp by Kirovsk. during the winter of 1951 to 1952 was put together by a cleaning lady in the camp. She was able to take a pencil to the Americans and have them record their names and addresses on pieces of newspaper. She smuggled these pieces out of the camp, put them in a can and buried them. [Many names on the list match those of missing servicemembers from the Korean War. These include

Foster (ILT Robert Foster SGT Elmer Foster, and PFC Robert Foster are missing)

Hatch (SFC Robert Hatch is missing)

Leon (PFC Chan Jay Park Kim assumed the name "George Leon" upon his capture in order to disguise his Korean heritage ... he remains missing)

Miller (There are 42 missing Millers)

Davis (There are 39 missing Davises)

Johnson, Hubert (CPL Herbert Johnson is missing)

Morin (CAPT Arthur Morin and CPL Fernand Morin is missing)

Larson (PFC Gerald Larson is missing)

Boyar (CPL Andrew Boyer and CPL William Boyer are missing)

Fisher (There are 8 missing Fishers)

Heffand (PFC Osvaldo Gaivan is missing)

Kaiser (MSGT George Kyzer is missing)

Norilsk

A Polish witness heard from fellow prisoners that two Americans, probably pilots, were in the camp, and were about 30-35 years old.

Norilsk Camp #4

A Polish witness claimed to have worked with 36-38 American POWs from the Korean War (pilots shot down near Vladivosktok) in the early 50s. He recalled the name of one of the prisoners, Scott, but was unsure if this was the first or last name. [There are 96 servicemembers missing from WWII with the last name Scott Many others have a first name Scott.]

Norilsk Camp #4 or #5

A Polish witness stayed in the same camp for about one year with an American who didn't speak Russian. The American was pudgy and fair-haired.

Norilsk Camp #5

A Polish witness met an American or English pilot, probably a captain, in Norilsk in the first half of 1953. This pilot carried out reconnaissance flight during the Korean War, and due to bad weather and instrument failure he had to land in Dainy, USSR. At once he was arrested and sentenced under the espionage charge to imprisonment in the camp. According to the witness the pilot was a man about 30 years old. tall, dark haired, and looked healthy. Under the prison clothes he wore ar, "English" military blouse- The source didn't know the pilot's eventual late. In May-June 1953 the camp inmates staged an uprising, and in July, the witness, asone of the revolt's leaders, was transported to Kolyma where he stayed until 1956.

Norilsk Camp #9 Cement Plant #5

A witness in Lithuania said that he was working with the third camp division near Cement Plant #5 at Norilsk Camp #9 in 1953. Camp gossip alleged that a heavily guarded corner facility in the camp was for American POWs from Korea. The witness observed these prisoners from a distance of about 100 meters. They were young white males dressed in prison garb. He felt it was significant that during the prison uprisings in May-June 1954 these special prisoners were quickly removed. He had no idea what happened to them.

Norilsk Dudinka Transit Camp

A Lithuanian witness reported seeing American WWII officers at the Norilsk Dudinka transit camp Transit Camp in. August of 1946.

Rybak

In his memoirs (provided to the Russian Side in November 1999), a source wrote that in the very beginning of 1953, he was sent to handle an emergency situation, at the Northern mining enterprise called Rybak. One of the technical experts that he worked with was a demolition-qualified inmate: tall, exhausted by hunger and the Arctic, with a very characteristic, slightly elongated artistic face on which the unnatural protrusion of gray eyes in sockets sunken from emaciation revealed someone ill with exophthaimic goitre, In an accent clearly that of an English speaker, he also openly identified himself as a citizen of the United States of American, Allied Officer Dale.

In Norlisk, many years later, a geologist, who had worked with the witness in Udereya at the time in question, related that many of the Americans "who had fallen into our hands in 1945 from, the liberated Fascist camps' were held in Rybak and probably perished there....' [LT Harvey Dale and LT William Dale are both missing from WWII].

unk

While serving his sentence in the Krasnoyarsk Kray in 1949-1950, a Russian witness met with Japanese aid Korean prisoners of war and conversed with them. They told him that along with them, several Americans arrived at the labor camp (Lagpunkt) who had been prisoners of war of either the Japanese or the Koreans. and then they (Americans, Japanese, Koreans) all became prisoners of the Russians.