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128 FIGHTING THE ELECTRONIC WAR
corridors that connected the three sectors of Germany occupied
by the West to Berlin. While the Soviets insisted that
the British crew had fired first, it was soon proved beyond
doubt that the Lincoln had been unarmed, since much of the
firing mechanism from its turret guns was routinely removed
on training sorties. However, the Foreign Office resisted the
idea of pressing hard for compensation because inspection of
the wreckage showed that the Lincoln was actually carrying
some ammunition, even though it was unlikely that it had
fired. 'We might have to admit that the aircraft accidentally
penetrated the Soviet Zone of Germany,' it noted.
Nevertheless, it was confident that, from where the cases
from the Soviet cannon shells fell, the MiGs had downed the
Lincoln over the British Zone. 7
British Members of Parliament were outraged. They pressed
for compensation from the Soviets for the crew's families, and
were told by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Selwyn
Lloyd, that the British High Commissioner in Germany had been
ordered to 'demand' adequate payment. Churchill was dearly
animated about the matter, but behind the scenes officials were
soft-pedalling.8 High-level instructions were given to British
representatives to 'avoid post-mortems', and instead to focus
on talks that would avoid a repetition of the incident. 9 Three
months after the event, Foreign Office officials urged, 'We should
be in no hurry to do anything: and were anxious to prevent
the public from learning that the Soviets had refused compensation
from the outset. 10 The bodies of the seven crew members
who had fallen in the Soviet Zone were returned to RAF CelIe,
and eventually to their families. II
While the Lincoln had not been on an intelligence flight, its
progress was being carefully tracked by a British sigint unit on
the ground at RAF Scharfoldendorf in the British Zone of
Germany. The unit carefully transcribed the conversation between
the MiG pilots and the Soviet ground controllers, which were 'in
dear' voice communications. This sigint report was soon on the
desk of the Prime Minister, and the unit received praise for