As usual, they were concerned primarily with navigation.
Taking off from Peshawar, Pakistan, I was to overfly Afghanistan and cross the Hindu Kush range, an extension of the Himalayas. Once in the Soviet Union, my route would take me over or near Dushambe, the Aral Sea, the Tyuratam Cosmodrome (Russia’s Cape Canaveral), Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Archangel, and, on the Kola Peninsula, Kandalaksha and Murmansk, from which I was to fly north to the Barents Sea and along the northern coast of Norway to Bodö. This way I would avoid overflying Finland and Sweden.
The flight would take nine hours, cover approximately 3,800 miles, 2,900 within the Soviet Union itself. With an early-morning takeoff, and considering the time changes, I would be in Bodö about nightfall.
I was thinking about this as, early on the morning of Wednesday, April 27, I packed a bag for the trip. Should I stay in Bodö a day or two, I’d need a shaving kit, civilian clothes, ID, and money. Checking my wallet, I found I had some German marks, Turkish lira, and about one hundred dollars in U.S. currency. Estimating that should be sufficient, I tossed the wallet into the traveling bag along with the other items.
With a refueling stop at Bahrein, the trip to Pakistan would take about seven hours. Barbara, fixing a lunch for the flight, asked if I’d be back in time for the party.
It took me a minute to remember which one. In the fall of 1959 the married couples had moved from town back onto the base, our trailers forming a small community at the end of the base housing area. Proximity had rendered the parties all the more frequent. Unfortunately, the drinking problem not only remained, but had grown worse. I’d miss one recent party because of being scheduled for an early flight the next morning. Barbara had gone anyway, fallen down while dancing, and broken her leg; it was still in a cast. Nevertheless, she continued to insist she had no problem with alcohol.
She did, however. But because I had never encountered it before in someone I knew, I didn’t know how to handle it. Although on flights I’d learned to leave personal concerns behind and to concentrate on the job at hand, I worried about her when I had to be gone for several days on trips of this sort. I worried not only about her excessive drinking but also about what she was apt to do when left alone.
Then I remembered. This was to be a special party. The communications chief was returning to the States; an appropriate sendoff had been planned.
I checked the calendar.
If the flight took place as scheduled, on Thursday the twenty-eighth, I should be back in plenty of time.
The party wasn’t until Sunday evening, May 1.
More than twenty of us made the Turkey-Pakistan trip, aboard a Lockheed C-130 turboprop transport. It took that many to handle each flight. In addition to the detachment commander, navigator, intelligence officer, doctor, crew chief, mechanics, and photographic and electronic specialists, radio personnel were required to pick up the O.K. for the flight, transmitted from Washington through Germany to Turkey and from there to Pakistan via radio code.
Accommodations at Peshawar were primitive. Our hangar was set off from the rest of the base; we slept there on folding cots and cooked our own food from rations.
There was one departure from routine. Rather than bringing the U-2 over and leaving it at Peshawar until the flight took place, we were trying something new. Chiefly for security, to reduce plane exposure, we were ferrying it to Peshawar the night prior to flight, then, should the flight not take place as scheduled, for weather or some other reason, we would ferry it back to Incirlik.
It was the best plane we had, which was comforting. Aside from the long layoff, and the fact that this flight would be going all the way across Russia, there was nothing else to distinguish this overflight from its predecessors. Nor did the thought of an overflight in itself make me nervous. Of the original group of pilots at Adana, I was the only one who hadn’t transferred elsewhere or returned to the States. As a result, simply by being there so long, I had accumulated more spy flights—overflights, eavesdropping missions, and “special” missions—than any other pilot. One other pilot and I tied on the total number of overflights. However, I could later claim the totally uncoveted distinction of having made the last.
Yet because this was to be the first flight all the way across Russia, I felt an additional touch of excitement and some apprehension. However, my complete trust in the aircraft helped.
The schedule called for a six-A.M. takeoff. Wednesday afternoon I went to bed about four o’clock. It was hot and noisy in the hangar; as usual, I tossed and turned, sleeping only sporadically. At two A.M. I was awakened by someone from message center. I had washed and was dressing when I received another message: due to bad weather, the flight had been postponed twenty-four hours.
This left me with a full day of nothing to do.
Thursday afternoon I again went to bed early, to be awakened at two A.M. This time I had finished breakfast and was “on the hose” when the second order came through: another twenty-four-hour postponement.
Friday afternoon, shortly before I was to go to bed, word came that there would be no flight on Saturday. A night of poker and a day of reading and loafing relieved some of the tension built up by the two false starts. But not all. For I also discovered that I wouldn’t be flying the plane I’d hoped.
The departure from routine had turned out to be less than a good idea. Periodically, after a certain number of hours’ flight time, an aircraft has to be grounded for maintenance check. Flying back and forth from Turkey to Pakistan, time on the plane I’d counted on flying had run out.
As substitute, on Saturday night U-2 number 360 was flown over.
Following its emergency landing on the glider-club strip in Japan, number 360 had been returned to Lockheed’s Burbank, California, factory for repairs. Inasmuch as we were at that time short a U-2 at Incirlik, one of our planes also having been returned to Lockheed for maintenance, number 360 was sent to us.
It was a “dog,” never having flown exactly right. Something was always going wrong. No sooner was one malfunction corrected than another appeared. Its current idiosyncrasy was one of the fuel tanks, which wouldn’t feed all its fuel. But not all the time, just occasionally. So the pilot was kept guessing.
Saturday afternoon I again went to bed early, again to be awakened at two A.M. With my backup pilot, I had a good substantial breakfast—two or three eggs, bacon, toast. It was to be the last food I’d have until reaching Norway, some thirteen hours from now. The doctor checked me over, finding me in good shape. During prebreathing my backup and I were joined by the pilot who had ferried number 360 over the night before, a good friend whom we’ll call Bob.
Bob had flown the April 9 overflight on which I was backup, and had been present when I finally asked the intelligence officer the long-avoided question. On this particular mission he would act as mobile control officer. Among his other duties, he would acknowledge when I used the radio code: single click indicating proceed as planned; three clicks meaning return to base.
There was no need for additional briefing. I had studied the maps, knew the route. There had been a slight wind change, meaning navigation had to be corrected; otherwise the weather looked good. Because of 360’s fuel-tank problem, however, Colonel Shelton suggested that if, just before reaching Kandalaksha, I discovered I was running low on fuel, I could take a short cut across Finland and Sweden, thereby saving a few minutes’ time. As for alternate landing fields, he told me I could land in Norway, Sweden, or Finland—the first being preferable, the second less so, the third to be used only in dire emergency, but added, “Anyplace is preferable to going down in the Soviet Union.”
As I was suiting up, I remembered that traveling bag, with wallet and clothing, and asked that it be put in the cockpit.
“Do you want the silver dollar?” Shelton asked.
Before this I hadn’t. But this flight was different. And I had less than complete confidence in the plane.
“If something happened,” I had previo
usly asked the intelligence officer, “could I use the needle as a weapon?”
He couldn’t see why not. One jab, and death would be almost instantaneous. As a weapon, it should be quite effective.
“O.K.,” I replied. Shelton tossed it to me, and I slipped it into the pocket of my outer flight suit.
Though with more than sufficient time to think about it since, I’m still not sure why this time I chose to take it.
Could it have been premonition?
About 5:20 A.M., with Bob’s assistance, I climbed into the plane, the personal-equipment sergeant strapping me in.
It was scorching hot. The sun had been up nearly an hour.
Bob took off his shirt and held it over the cockpit to try to shield me from its rays.
Takeoff was scheduled for six A.M. I completed my preflight check and waited. And waited. Six o’clock came and passed with no sign of a signal.
The long underwear I was wearing was already completely soaked. Beneath the helmet, perspiration was running down my face in rivers. There was no way to wipe it off.
Finally Colonel Shelton came out to explain the delay. They were awaiting approval from the White House.
This was the first time this had happened. When Presidential approval was necessary, it usually came through well in advance of the flight.
Because I would be without radio contact, I had to depend heavily on the sextant for navigation. But since all precomputations had been made on the basis of a six-A.M. takeoff, the sextant would be useless. At this point I was sure the flight would be canceled, and was looking forward to getting out of the sweat-drenched suit, when, at 6:20 A.M., the signal came: cleared for takeoff.
Bob had been holding his shirt over the cockpit for a full hour. As he closed the canopy, I yelled my thanks and locked the canopy from the inside. Once the ladder was pulled away, there was no delay in getting started and taking off.
At top altitudes, the temperature outside the aircraft dropped to sixty degrees below zero. Some of the chill began to penetrate. Although the suit would remain damp and uncomfortable throughout the flight, at least I was no longer sweltering.
Switching on the autopilot, I completed my flight log. I had already filled in the Aircraft Number, 360, and the Sortie Number, 4154. Now I added takeoff time, 0126 Greenwich Mean Time, 6:26 A.M. local time, with the notation “delayed one-half hour.” I also filled in the date: “1 May I960.”
Five
After the single-click acknowledgment from Bob, only silence. A lonely feeling, knowing you’d broken radio contact.
Approaching the border, I could feel the tension build. It happened on every overflight. Once across the border, you relaxed a bit. For some reason you felt that anything that was going to happen would happen there.
The weather below was worse than expected. On the Russian side, the clouds came right up to the mountains, a solid undercast. As far as intelligence was concerned, this wasn’t important, there being little of interest in this area. But it didn’t make the navigation easier. Without visual observations, I needed the sextant, but couldn’t use it, my celestial computations having been made on the basis of a six-A.M. takeoff. Instead I had to rely on time and headings. The sextant was usable, however, as a check to see if the compass was working correctly. It was.
After about one and one-half hours I spotted the first break in the clouds. I was southeast of the Aral Sea. Slightly right of course, I was correcting back when some of the uncertainty came to an end.
Far below I could see the condensation trail of a single-engine jet aircraft. It was moving fast, at supersonic speed, paralleling my course, though in the opposite direction.
I watched until it disappeared.
Five to ten minutes later I saw another contrail, again paralleling my course, only this time moving in my direction. Presumably it was the same aircraft.
I felt relieved. I was sure now they were tracking me on radar, vectoring in and relaying my headings to the aircraft. But it was so far below as to pose no threat. Because of my altitude, it would have been almost impossible for the pilot to see me. If this was the best they could do, I had nothing to worry about.
Odd, but even before reaching the border I had the feeling they knew I was coming.
I wondered how the Russians felt, knowing I was up here, unable to do anything about it. I could make a pretty good guess.
For four years the U-2s had been overflying the USSR. Much of this time, if not all of it, the Russian government had been aware of our activities. Yet, because to do so would be to admit that they could do nothing to stop us, they couldn’t even complain. I could imagine their frustration and rage. Imagining it made me much less complacent.
Ahead, about thirty miles east of the Aral Sea, was the Tyuratam Cosmodrome, launching site for most of its important ICBM and space shots.
This wasn’t our first visit to the area, nor was it a major objective of this particular flight. But since I was to be in the vicinity, it had been included. Due to the presence of some large thunderclouds, I couldn’t see the launch site itself but could see much of the surrounding area. I switched on the cameras. Some intelligence was achieved, though not one hundred percent.
The clouds closed over again and remained solid until, about three hours into the flight, they began to thin; I could see a little terrain, including a town. With my radio compass I picked up the local station. In regard to this particular station, intelligence had indicated that their information might not be accurate; the call sign, the frequency, or both, could be incorrect. The call sign was wrong, the frequency right. Again slightly off course, I corrected back.
About fifty miles south of Chelyabinsk, the clouds disappeared. To my left I got a good view of the Urals. Once the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia, as mountains they were not very high. Still snow-topped, on either side the land was green. It was spring in Russia. It was also a beautiful day, and now that I was back on course, the clouds behind me, I began to relax a little.
Predictably, number 360 chose this moment to be unpredictable. The autopilot began malfunctioning, causing the aircraft to pitch nose-up. To correct the condition, I had to disengage the autopilot, retrim, and fly the plane manually for a few minutes. When I reengaged the autopilot, the plane flew fine for ten to fifteen minutes, after which the pitch controls again went to the full nose-up position. The aircraft couldn’t take much of this. Again I went through the same procedure. With the same result. This time I left the autopilot disengaged.
Should I go on, I’d have to fly the plane manually the rest of the way.
It was an abort situation, and I had to make a decision: to turn around and go back, or to continue the flight. An hour earlier the decision would have been automatic; I would have gone back. But I was more than thirteen hundred miles inside Russia, and the worst of the weather appeared to be behind me, while ahead visibility looked excellent.
I decided to go on and accomplish what I had set out to do.
Normally, without this complication—having to navigate, compute ATAs and ETA, turn on the switches at the designated points, pay constant attention to the instruments to keep from exceeding the mach limitation on the high side and stalling the aircraft on the low side, the variance in speed also affecting fuel consumption—my work was cut out. Having to fly the plane manually called for an extra pair of hands.
Spotting a huge tank farm, I noted it on my map. Observing a large complex of buildings, which could have been either military or industrial, I marked them down also, with the notation “big outfit” as a reminder for debriefing.
Sverdlovsk was ahead. Formerly known as Ekaterinburg, it was here, in 1918, that Czar Nicholas II and his family were assassinated by the Bolsheviks. Once a small village, isolated from the mainstream of Russian life, in recent years it and the surrounding area had grown as astronomically as Southern California. Now an important industrial metropolis, Sverdlovsk was of special interest; I flipped the appropriate switches
.
This was the first time a U-2 had flown over the area.
Once past Sverdlovsk, my route would take me northwest to Kirov, whence I would fly north to Archangel, Kandalaksha, Murmansk, and, finally, Bodö, Norway.
About thirty to forty miles southeast of Sverdlovsk, I made a ninety-degree left turn, rolled out on course, and lined up on my next flight line, which would go over the southwestern edge of the city.
I was almost exactly four hours into the flight.
Spotting an airfield that did not appear on the map, I marked it down. My route would take me directly over it.
Following the turn, I had to record the time, altitude, speed, exhaust-gas temperature, and engine-instrument readings. I was marking these down when, suddenly, there was a dull “thump,” the aircraft jerked forward, and a tremendous orange flash lit the cockpit and sky.
Time had caught up with us.
Knocked back in the seat, I said, “My God, I’ve had it now!”
The orange glow seemed to last for minutes, although it was probably gone in seconds. Yet I had time enough to think the explosion was external to the aircraft and, from the push, probably somewhere behind it.
Instinctively I grasped the throttle with my left hand, and keeping my right hand on the wheel, checked instruments. All readings normal. Engine functioning O.K. The right wing started to droop. I turned the wheel, and it came back up. Fine. Now the nose, very slowly, started to go down. Proper correction for that is to pull back on the wheel to bring it up. I pulled, but it kept going down. Either the control cable had severed or the tail was gone. I knew then I had no control of the aircraft.
As it kept nosing down, a violent movement shook the plane, flinging me all over the cockpit. I assumed both wings had come off. What was left of the plane began spinning, only upside down, the nose pointing upward toward the sky, the tail down toward the ground. All I could see was blue sky, spinning, spinning. I turned on the emergency oxygen supply. Sometime earlier—I hadn’t felt it at the time—my suit had inflated, meaning I’d lost pressurization in the cockpit. The suit was now squeezing me, while the gg forces were throwing me forward, out of the seat, up toward the nose.
Operation Overflight Page 8
