Monument of Discord: a monument to Soviet pilots quarreled a city in North Carolina

During World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in the fight against the Nazis, hundreds of Soviet pilots were trained in North Carolina as part of a secret project.

Фото: Depositphotos

But the attempt to perpetuate their feat caused strong controversy in the small town of Elizabeth Town, writes Military Times.

The Russian Ministry of Defense expressed a desire to place in this town an 25-ton bronze monument, symbolizing the recently declassified mission “Project Zebra”. Russia would pay for the 4-meter monument, and the city should have funded the creation of a park in which the installation of this monument was agreed.

But in the context of an international conflict between Russia and the United States, due to the interference in the elections, the city’s parliamentarians rejected the previously agreed draft of the monument by five votes to three.

One of the council members expressed fears that the monument could be a “Trojan horse” - Johnny Walton fears that the Russians could put a remotely controlled device in it that could cause disruptions to the Internet or electrical networks.

“Russia is now known for its hacking. These are hacking experts, and we have the largest Coast Guard base, which can't help anyone if our network is under Russian control,” Walton said.

A Soviet-American top-secret operation during World War II called Project Zebra helped train about 300 Soviet pilots whose mission was to locate and destroy German submarines.

In 1945, three Russians, a Ukrainian and a Canadian, died in a Russian seaplane crash near Elizabeth City. Their sacrifice was never universally recognized, and the disaster was forgotten and classified for decades.

After the “Zebra Project” was declassified in 2013, efforts began to be made to honor the memory of its participants with a monument on which three figures symbolizing Soviet, American and British pilots would be located.

The project of the monument.
Screenshot from Military Times

Elizabeth City's previous municipal council unanimously approved the installation of the statue in May 2017, but their successors rejected the project. Most of those who spoke out against the monument are African Americans, insisting that there are no monuments in the city, symbolizing the struggle of ethnic groups or other minorities for their rights, and a monument to Russian pilots at a time when tension is growing between Washington and Moscow. .

At the same time, supporters of the project began collecting signatures from residents of Elizabeth City in support of it. 569 citizens signed a petition on the streets of the city, another 200 people signed a corresponding online appeal.

“The monument gives two now rival countries a chance to show that we have worked together in the past and that we can work together in the future,” said city resident Rick Boyd, who supports the project.

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