After landing, Capt. Jarrell ordered the crew to stay aboard the B-29 while he left and tried to communicate with the Russian pilots, but none spoke English. A few hours later, the crew left the plane and joined Capt. Jarrell. Capt. Jarrell asked to be allowed to contact the American Consul in the city, but permission was denied. The Russian "Allies" interrogated the American crew for three days trying to obtain operational details about the plane and its capabilities. The crew refused to divulge secret information and after three days of questioning without contact from the American Consul, the crew refused to even speak for a week. On the 11th day after landing, the crew was finally able to speak with the Consulate. Unfortunately, the crew was not released to the consulate and remained prisoners of the Russians for seven months before being released along with about 100 other U.S. Army and Navy fliers forced to land in Russian territory during WWII.
The Russians kept the "Ramp Tramp" in spite of American protests, along with three other B-29s that landed on Soviet territory (two made similar emergency landings in Vladivostok and the other crash landed in Siberia). The Tupolov aircraft manufacturer examined the B-29s in minute detail and copied them almost exactly (a fairly remarkable engineering feat). The resulting plane was designated TU-4 (NATO code name BULL). The TU-4 remained the Soviet Union's primary long-range bomber until about 1955 when it was phased out in favor of newer types. Several TU-4s were transferred to the Communist Chinese Air Force in the mid-1950s and continued to serve for many more years.
>(by copying, rivet-for-rivet, some interned B-29s)
Not quite. The Tu-4 was a very close copy of the B-29, but the sheet metal the Soviets had available was slightly thicker (and thus heavier)than American sheet metal, which required some engineering to work around.
It was the difference between 'metric' and numbered gages that had this effect. They took the next standard size up but still ended up with a plane that weighed almost the same as the B-29. Makes you wonder how much weight the B-29 could have still saved.
