Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  Each man was a specialist in his field. As pilots, the seven of us had been assigned a specific job. We were aware of its importance. And were anxious to get on with it.

  This had to wait, however, for additional training.

  Although we had flown some of the same U-2s at Watertown, each had to be checked out again after they were reassembled. The U-2 was not a mass-produced, stamped-out-of-sheet-metal aircraft. Each was custom-made, with its own peculiarities. One might fly heavy on one wing, another might consume an inordinate amount of fuel, while still another might be a bastard to land. Since there was no assurance that a specific plane might be available for a particular flight, the pilots had to know the characteristics of each.

  Much time was spent studying maps of Russia. These were, for the most part, badly outdated. Part of our assignment would be to act as cartographers—in seeing a new city, a new military or industrial complex, an unmarked airdrome, to jot it down. We would be making our own maps as we went along.

  Because we could depend neither on available maps nor on radio contact with our unit, we also spent considerable time listening to Russian civil broadcast stations. Intelligence provided lists of stations, showing their locations and ranges. These were annotated on the maps. With the use of a radio compass, we could home in on them while in flight, establishing navigational fixes.

  As new equipment was developed and shipped over—and it was a continuous process—we would have to be thoroughly checked out. It was also necessary to check out personal equipment we would be carrying, such as survival gear.

  Most of this was contained in the seat pack. Its contents included a collapsible life raft, clothing, enough water and food to sustain life for a limited time, a compass, signal flares, matches, chemicals for starting fires with damp wood, plus a first-aid kit, with such standard items as morphine, bandages, dressings, APCs, water-purification tablets.

  The clothing was heavy-duty winter hunting gear. It occurred to me on first sight that it not only didn’t look Russian but was probably of better quality than even the best-dressed Russian hunter would wear. And it was definitely not the type of clothing you would put on if you wanted to blend inconspicuously into a crowd.

  Also included was a large silk American-flag poster, bearing the following message: “I am an American and do not speak your language. I need food, shelter, assistance. I will not harm you. I bear no malice toward your people. If you will help me, you will be rewarded.” This message appeared in fourteen languages.

  In addition, the pack contained 7,500 Soviet rubles; two dozen gold Napoleon francs (it being presumed that even though we couldn’t speak Russian, gold was a universal language); and, for baiter, an assortment of wristwatches and gold rings.

  Like the seat pack which was strapped onto the pilot and carried on all flights, no matter what their objective, two other items were also standard—hunting knife and pistol.

  The hunting knife was usual survival gear, for use, for example, in severing parachute lines if caught in a tree, ripping up the chute to make a sleeping bag, shaving wood for a fire.

  The pistol was especially made by High Standard. It was .22 caliber and had an extra long barrel with a silencer on the end. Although rated Expert in the service, I was out of practice and tested it periodically on the range. While the silencer obviously decreased the velocity, it was far more accurate than I had expected. Not completely silent, it was quiet enough that if you were to shoot a rabbit you could do so without alerting the whole neighborhood. Only .22 caliber, however, it wouldn’t be a very effective weapon of defense.

  In addition to what was in the clip, there were about two hundred rounds of extra ammunition in the seat pack.

  It was September before I flew my first electronic surveillance mission along the borders outside Russia, the specialized equipment monitoring and recording Soviet radar and radio frequencies. Routes on such flights varied. We usually flew from Turkey eastward along the southern border of the Soviet Union over Iran and Afghanistan as far as Pakistan, and back. We also flew along the Black Sea, and, on occasion, as far west as Albania, but never penetrating, staying off the coast, over international waters. While our territory was the southern portion of Russia’s perimeter, the U-2 group in Germany presumably covered the northern and western portions.

  Since these “eavesdropping” missions were eventually to become fairly frequent, there was a tendency to minimize their importance, but in many ways they were as valuable as the overflights, the data obtained enabling the United States to pinpoint such things as Russian antiaircraft defenses and gauge their effectiveness.

  Of special interest were Soviet rocket launches. For some reason, many of these occurred at night, and, from the altitude at which we flew, they were often spectacular, lighting up the sky for hundreds of miles. When they were successful.

  Many never made it off the pad, and some exploded immediately after doing so.

  But there were no “failures.”

  When the United States planned a major launching, they bally-hooed it in advance, even permitting television coverage. When it failed, the whole world knew it. But the Russians never publicized their launches until after they had occurred, and then only if they were successful and if it served their purposes to do so. As a result, it appeared that the United States had a lot of failures, Russia none.

  Because of our flights, we knew better.

  At this time our intelligence on the rocket launchings was exceptional. We knew several days in advance when one was scheduled to occur. Although intelligence did not discuss its sources with us, it was our guess that in the monitoring—both by the U-2s and ground-based units—we were picking up the actual countdowns, which at this time took several days.

  The equipment we carried on such occasions was highly sophisticated. One unit came on automatically the moment the launch frequency was used and collected all the data sent out to control the rocket. The value of such information to our own scientists was obvious.

  There was a cardinal rule on all such flights—don’t penetrate, even accidentally. When the time came to cross the border and violate Russian air space, it was for a purpose.

  There were numerous other flights, including weather research. Far more than just cover, these provided much heretofore unavailable information on atmospheric conditions. Also, on occasion, such as after a Russian nuclear test, we did atomic sampling. The information gathered from this, together with other intelligence, made it possible to determine the type of detonation, where it occurred, its force, fallout, and so forth.

  Because of our location in relation to wind patterns, however, we did less of this than the U-2s flying above Alaska and, later, Japan and Australia.

  And there were other “special” missions.

  It was important work; we knew it. But it was not the work we had come over to do.

  Living arrangements at Incirlik were similar to those at Watertown, with one important exception: the food was much worse.

  Again trailers provided housing, two pilots to a unit. Each had a tiny living room, kitchen, bathroom, and one small and one medium-size bed (I won the toss). There was a small PX on the base, but it stocked few items. As a change of pace, occasionally we would go into Adana at night for drinks and dinner. There was only one place you could eat safely, a restaurant located above a hotel. Tales of throat cutting and robbery being common, we did little wandering around the streets at night, and then only in groups.

  Even so, there were a few close calls. About one hundred miles from Adana was what must be one of the greatest trout streams in the world. On one trip—which I’m happy to say I missed—the men awoke to find that during the night they had been visited by Kurds, the nomadic tribesmen who wander the crescent from the Persian Gulf up into Turkey. Great thieves, they had taken not only fishing gear, cameras, food, and clothing, but also the blankets off my friends’ backs. Fortunately no one woke during the raid, the Kurds having a rather cavalier attitude towar
d human life.

  Late one afternoon I saw, not more than a mile or two away from the base, one of their caravans, a string of some hundred camels traveling along a ridge silhouetted against the sunset. Ancient Persia come to life, it provided a vivid contrast to our twentieth-century electronic gadgetry.

  As transportation, most of us bought small motorcycles, which we used for excursions through the countryside. Not far from Adana, there were crusader castles, mostly in ruins—shepherds used them as pens; Roman aqueducts; the remains of a sunken Roman bath; and a huge area of old tombs, which we spent much time exploring. The beaches along the Mediterranean were beautifully virgin, much like those in Southern California once were, before the days of population explosion and oil slicks. During the long warm season, which stretched from spring well into fall, we swam, skin-dived, snorkled. As for hunting, there were ducks on the lakes and on occasion an expedition in search of wild boar, the latter less than successful, at least from our point of view. The Turks, who acted as guides, were highly excitable; as soon as they saw a boar they began firing. Most of us never got a shot.

  But, except for these occasional activities, the social life was decidedly limited. The poker games frequently lasted three days. Leave was set up on a military basis, thirty days per year. With little to do in Turkey itself, R&R (rest-and-recuperation leave) was established. For each weekend spent in Turkey, compensatory time was accrued that could be spent in Greece or Germany. Since planes frequently landed at Incirlik for refueling, there was little trouble catching a hop. We saved up the time, to make the trips worthwhile.

  In the interim, we had to create our own diversions.

  In an attempt to provide a touch of much needed domesticity, one of the pilots bought a box of cake mix at the PX and invited us all over for coffee and cake.

  Not wanting to be remiss socially, I decided to bake some cakes too.

  I baked one, but extended no invitations. As a cook, I decided, I made an excellent pilot.

  We were restless, for several reasons. One was that none of us was flying as much as he wanted to.

  Among pilots it is proverbial that the more you fly, the more you enjoy it. But when you lay off awhile and then go up again, you approach it with hesitation; everything a little strange, you’re not as sure of yourself as you should be.

  We were flying the bare minimum to preserve the plane. The U-2 was too fragile to last, the engineering experts reiterated; its life span was limited; it wouldn’t stand up under prolonged stress and strain.

  Although we saw little evidence of this ourselves, a tragedy occurred not long after our arrival overseas which seemed to bear this out most graphically.

  In September, 1956, Howard Carey, a contract pilot I had known at Watertown, was killed in a U-2 crash in Germany. There was some confusion as to what actually happened, initial speculation ranging all the way to sabotage. It was later determined, however, that while in flight Carey had been buzzed by two curious Canadian Air Force interceptors. Caught in their wake turbulence as they passed him, his U-2 had apparently simply disintegrated.

  With sad irony, Carey had not started with the first class at Watertown but had come in late, to replace the pilot killed in the first crash.

  Not considering that this might be a freak accident, the experts cited it as further proof of the U-2’s fragility. As a result, we were flying the bare minimum; so far as most of us were concerned, it wasn’t nearly enough.

  Nor was it the flying we had been told we would do.

  By November we still hadn’t made our first overflight.

  Although the 10-10 detachment had its own section of the base, closed to all except authorized personnel, within those boundaries some sections were even more tightly restricted. The photo lab was one. By far the most secret, however, was the communication section, which housed not only the radio apparatus but also the cryptographic unit. It was through here that the orders would come, when they came. After a while we began, almost unconsciously, to study the faces of the personnel who worked there, as if expecting clues.

  When the order came, it was a surprise. Stopping me as I was walking through the area one day, the detachment commander, Colonel Ed Perry, said simply, “You’re it, Powers.”

  “When?”

  “If the weather holds, a couple of days.”

  I’d been picked for the first overflight out of Turkey.

  This was to be the pattern.

  Target priorities were established in Washington. It was our understanding that the White House then approved “packages,” or series, of flights. Once approval was given, the orders were relayed to Incirlik in code via radio. With one later, and quite important, exception, which will be mentioned.

  Weather usually determined when the flight occurred. Almost always we would be briefed several days in advance of the actual flight in order to have time to study maps of the various routes and work out the navigation. Alternate targets were provided on each flight so that if we went up and found clouds covering one area, we could switch to another without sacrificing the mission. Approval, it was reiterated over and over, was difficult to obtain. When it came, we were to make the best of it.

  At times intelligence would tell us what they were looking for: an airfield here that isn’t on the map; a complex of new buildings there to watch out for. Usually, however, we weren’t told anything, our only instructions being when and where to switch on what equipment. The equipment itself, however, was sometimes a clue. A camera with a telescopic lens pinpointing a tiny area, for example, meant an entirely different type objective than one which photographed a strip 100 to 150 miles wide.

  We were aware that when we returned, the photographs would undergo intensive scrutiny by experts, the pictures providing information on things we knew nothing about. While we might be instructed to photograph a missile-launching site and the area around it, thinking intelligence was most interested in the missile on the pad, their real interest might lie in the railroad tracks leading away from the site, which, if followed, might lead to factories where the missiles were assembled.

  We didn’t try to second-guess. We followed instructions.

  Briefings were concerned primarily with navigation, and little else. I had anticipated that once overseas the question we had been avoiding would be asked and answered. It wasn’t. Nor did the pilots discuss it among themselves. Perhaps, almost unconsciously, we thought that to do so would bring bad luck.

  The intelligence officer did mention in one briefing session that cyanide capsules would be available if we wanted them. Whether we did or did not choose to carry them was up to us, but, in the event of capture we might find this alternative preferable to torture.

  The lessons of Korea were still fresh in mind.

  The last item put on the plane before each overflight and the first taken off on its return was the destruct unit.

  Easily the most enduring myth about the U-2 flights concerns this mechanism, which has engendered an apocrypha so vast it seems a shame to blow it up.

  First advanced by the Russians, and later picked up and made much of by certain American writers, was the claim that U-2 pilots were worried that if the device had to be used the CIA had rigged it in such a way that it would explode prematurely, thus eliminating, in one great blast, all incriminating evidence, plane and pilot.

  One simple fact quite thoroughly dispels this imaginative fiction. Prior to each and every overflight, maintenance personnel tested the timer. It was a standard part of the preflight check.

  Pilots could supervise the testing if they wished to; usually we didn’t bother. We knew and trusted our ground crews. More often than not, these men were close friends (some remain so today). Had such a thing as rigging of the device even been suggested, they were not the type of people to remain quiet about it.

  That the device was tested was not because of any suspicion that our employers intended to do us in, but because, as previously noted, there was a slight variance in the all
otted time on some units. We were never sure which unit would be used. In a situation where a few seconds could mean life or death, it was imperative not only that we be sure that the timer was working properly but also that we know the exact seconds’ leeway between flipping the switches and the actual explosion.

  As for the pilots being nervous about the device, this was quite true. We had also been nervous in the Air Force when flying with payloads. In each case there were a number of safeguards to forestall accidental detonation. But in both we were still flying with a bomb, and there was always the possibility—whether real or imagined, the fear existed—that a small electrical spark might accidentally bypass the most carefully planned circuitry. Neither was especially conducive to peace of mind.

  The evening before the flight, I went to bed early. Although it was November, Turkey, being situated on the Mediterranean, had a warm climate almost year round. Made uncomfortable by both the temperature and the unusual hour, I tossed and turned.

  The only difference between this and other flights I had already flown, I told myself, was that this would take a little longer and I’d be seeing a different country.

  I wasn’t fooling myself. Sleep came hard, even with a couple of sleeping pills.

  At five A.M. I was awakened and went to breakfast, after which I reported to Prebreathing to “get on the hose” and suit up. Because of the bulkiness and tightness of the suit, the latter required assistance. During the next two hours I restudied my maps. The routes were color-coded, in blue, red, and brown. Blue indicated the general route, along which some deviation from course was permitted. Red lines marked target areas and were to be flown exactly on course if possible. Alongside were marks indicating where specific photographic and electronic equipment was to be switched on and off. Brown lines denoted routes to alternate bases, if for some reason I couldn’t return to Incirlik.