Columnist Susan Snyder: A somber wartime anniversary

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2000 | 3:50 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

For 50 years Korean War veteran Robert Cochrane says he has been haunted by the truth about a war that remains a mystery to even his own children.

"The thing that has always bothered me about the Korean War is that none of the media ever mentioned the Soviets' involvement in it," he said. "Our government said the all the planes were being flown by North Koreans. I know that's not true."

Cochrane knows because 50 years ago today he and his shipmates plucked a Russian pilot from Korea Bay. Moments earlier the pilot was at the controls of a Soviet twin-engine bomber barreling toward a United Nations naval formation Cochrane's destroyer was helping protect. Its wings carried telltale red stars, and a U.S. corsair shot it down.

Gennady Vasilievich Mishin died about an hour after he was pulled aboard the Navy destroyer Herbert J. Thomas, according to a Time magazine account and a book about the U.S. Navy's Korea operations culled from agency records.

Little else seems to have been written about the incident. A search through more than two dozen of the Internet's vast number of Korean War sites revealed no information. Mishin died a virtually unknown death in a forgotten war.

Cochrane, a 79-year-old Las Vegas bankruptcy trustee, hasn't forgotten.

"I still think about it. I have a few days I remember in my life. This is one of them," he said. "I remember because it was the first time we had been able to identify Soviet armed forces involved in the war."

Cochrane was a gunnery officer and the Thomas' officer of the day on Sept. 3, 1950. His ship was one of two destroyers positioned 60 miles ahead of the United Nations naval formation to scan for enemy activity.

At about 1:30 p.m. Mishin's bomber passed over Cochrane's ship and headed toward the bigger formation. The Thomas' crew sent a warning and Mishin was attacked by two corsairs from the U.S. Navy's Valley Forge.

The U.N. entourage turned away from the area, and Cochrane's crew set to salvaging. Using a small boat they retrieved Mishin along with his flight orders, flight log and other documents.

"He was clutching his throat with his left hand," Cochrane recalled. "He was alive when we picked him up, and he was Russian. There was no doubt about that. I remember vividly trying to talk to the guy. But he passed away."

For years government officials on both sides of the war denied Soviet involvement, Cochrane said. Neither Russian nor North Korean officials claimed Mishin. He was buried in Pusan, South Korea.

Cochrane says he was relieved when his beliefs were corroborated by pilot interviews and military records declassified and released earlier this year.

"I felt good about it," Cochrane said. "We knew because we heard them talking."

Many communications interceptions came after the bomber incident. But 50 years later the Sept. 3 event is where all Cochrane's Korean War memories start.

He spent 23 years in the Navy, also serving in World War II and Vietnam. But it is one day in a forgotten war that has haunted him.

"Even my own kids," he said, "weren't aware of the Korean War."