Re: NNG: Travelling to Novaya Zemlya

Seeing the video of the Bear and Badgers reminded me of photo assignments I had at Yokota Air Base in Japan in 1962 and 63. Soviet ELINT aircraft were violating Japanese airspace in Northern Japan. The Japanese were in the process of converting from F86s to F104s. They were not able to intercept the Bears and Badgers, so the F102s at Yokota were assigned to the mission. After a couple of mid air collisions were barely avoided because the F102 pilots were trying to shoot photos while flying in formation; a number of photographers including me were trained in ejection seats and survival. Yokota only had two FT102s (2 seaters). We pulled alert duty with the pilots I few 8 missions. 3 were no shows as the Russians left before we got there. 3 intercepts were Bears and 2 were Badgers. The Bear was so loud we could hear it over the sound of the F102.
We saw a crewman at a blister window of one of the Bears and the pilot moved in close and held up a lap pad where he had written SMILE in Russian. The crewman held up a Pepsi bottle. The photo I shot was framed and hung on the wall at the Pentagon for a while. Was not able to keep any of the photos I shot as they were all classified SECRET or TOP SECRET (due to the electronics hanging off the Bears and Badgers).