Remembering the Dragon Lady: The U-2 Spy Plane: Memoirs of the Men Who Made the Legend

by Gerald McIlmoyle

  It was my understanding that both Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell were fired with Dulles replaced by industrial leader John McCone, whose overall role at the CIA was reduced. It was hard to believe that one government agency could have become so out of control. Part of the CIA arrogance stemmed from some “successes” they had in Central America in the 1950s, including claims of overthrowing and establishing governments in that area.

  The Soviet Union determined in February 1962 that Frank Powers was no longer a military, intelligence or propaganda asset. The Soviets were open to swap Powers for Soviet spy Rudolph Abel who was being held in New York on charges of spying in the US. The exchange was conducted on a bridge spanning East and West Germany with CIA Agent Joe Murphy on hand to positively identify Powers. Murphy had been a CIA Security Officer at Detachment B in Incirlik and he knew Powers personally. The CIA flew Powers directly back to Washington, DC where he was reunited with his wife, Barbara. They were put up in the Hunting Towers in Alexandria adjacent to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

  Because of the intense media attention, the CIA relocated Powers and his wife in the dark of night to Letterkenny Army Depot near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania where they were set up in a safe house.

  The CIA still “owned” Powers and they established the interrogation ground rules. The Defense Department was allocated two spaces for the interrogation. John Hughes, an experienced Intelligence Officer, was selected by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The other slot was allocated to the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command. General Powers selected me upon the recommendation of Major General Smith and Colonel Keegan.

  I flew a T-33 immediately to Washington, DC, and reported to the CIA Project Headquarters. The next morning John Hughes and I, the CIA team, State Department representatives, and White House staff members traveled by unmarked cars to Chambersburg. We spent two nights and three days interrogating Powers.

  Frank Powers’ reaction to seeing me as part of the team could only be described as joyful. He felt he had someone who would believe in him. We listened to Powers’ version of his shoot down, his escape from the U-2, his capture, imprisonment, trial, treatment and the surprise release. I discussed with Frank the discrepancies in his story raised by the NSA analysts and his version correlated with what would have occurred to a U-2 in a near miss with a surface-to-air missile. We returned to Washington on Friday and John and I met on Saturday with the DIA. We briefed the Director, DIA on Powers’ interrogation and then we went to the Pentagon E Ring. First, we briefed General Lyman Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs, then the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Dr. Harold Brown. When we briefed Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, he expressed anger that Powers continued his mission, despite the autopilot problems. I tried to explain to him the dedication of Air Force pilots to mission completion. McNamara made a scathing reference to “reckless young fighter pilots” and criticized Powers’ decision to continue the mission.

  I flew back to SAC Headquarters to brief my bosses and General Powers. I returned to Washington to work with John Hughes regarding Frank Powers’ request to return to the Air Force and to write a report for the Inspector General.

  The Inspector General of the Air Force was the same General Blanchard I had known in the 509th Bomb Wing and the same General I briefed in 1957 at Incirlik. It was his responsibility to decide what to do with Frank Powers. Major Joe Peartree of Air Force Intelligence was assigned to work with me to make a recommendation to General Blanchard. Joe and I examined all the intelligence, press reports and Soviet statements and compared them with Powers’ interrogation statements. We reported our findings to General Blanchard at his quarters on Bolling AFB.

  Meanwhile, John McCone, the new Director of the CIA, was not happy with the reports he received from the CIA U-2 Staff. He asked retired Federal Judge E. Barrett Prettyman to establish a Board of Inquiry to determine if Powers had acted in accordance with his CIA contract and would be entitled to his back pay. The hearings were informal. Participants were invited to comment and question witnesses. I sat in on the hearings in a dual capacity as a member of the interrogation team and as a representative of General Blanchard and the Air Force.

  Dr. Louis Tordello, Deputy Director of National Security Agency and several NSA analysts presented “evidence” that Powers’ shoot down story was fabrication. He asked retired Federal Judge E. Barrett Prettyman to establish a Board of Inquiry to determine if Powers had acted in accordance with his CIA contract and if he should be entitled to any back pay. Their recovered intelligence of Soviet tracking led to a scenario of Powers’ oxygen problems and descent below 30,000 feet when the Soviets shot him down. I had knowledge of the same information but I believed Frank Powers. When I interrogated him, Powers was the same naïve, country boy I had known so well at The Ranch and at Incirlik.

  I asked to speak at the hearing and pointed out several differences with the NSA analysts’ findings. The Soviet Air Defense System tended to project target tracks based on predicted tracks. I pointed out a prime example in the Soviet shoot down of an RB-47 in the Barents Sea where the recovered tracking showed the plane circled for 30 to 45 minutes before it hit the water. I also showed them similar incidents during other shoot downs. After my presentation, Judge Prettyman asked Dr. Tordello if he knew about this information. Tordello said he would research it and return the next day.

  The NSA team returned and Dr. Tordello acknowledged that NSA's scenario could be wrong and Powers’ version correct. Judge Prettyman noted in his report that there was conflicting evidence with Powers’ version of the events. Although that version was inconclusive, the preponderance of evidence favored Powers. Prettyman's conclusion was that Powers had fulfilled the terms of his contract and was entitled to his full back pay. This was not the first nor was it the last time I differed with the NSA.

  Because I had been on the Powers’ interrogation team and had participated in the hearings, the CIA asked me to accompany CIA Director John McCone and senior CIA officials to brief the appropriate congressional committees. Lockheed provided me with a model of the U-2 so I could break it down to show the series of events described by Powers. In closed sessions, we briefed the House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees as well as the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Senator Fulbright and his Foreign Affairs Committee were especially critical of the CIA for taking as their own the role of foreign policy. With a non-intelligence background, McCone had to take all the heat generated by Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell.

  While I was in Washington, I had one more task to perform. I reported my recommendations on the disposition of Powers to General Blanchard. I reluctantly recommended Powers not be reinstated as a Captain in the Air Force because of the extensive publicity and zealous media interest. I felt his fame and notoriety would seriously detract from his career with any unit he joined. I also recommended that CIA still “owned” him and should use him at their Edwards AFB Test and Training Unit. Lastly, I recommended that Powers receive any future medals and decorations awarded to U-2 pilots and that he be recognized as a prisoner of war.

  When I returned to SAC Headquarters, I thought my U-2 days were over. However, when Castro allowed the Soviets to install their missiles in Cuba, I again became involved with the U-2 program. I made several T-39 flights to Laughlin AFB and McCoy AFB to brief the SAC U-2 pilots on what to look for – most especially the SA-2 missile launch site. I personally briefed Rudolph Anderson and Steve Heyser who found the Soviet missile sites on their missions over Cuba. I helped plan the missions to minimize exposure to the SA-2 SAMs. Sadly, Rudolph Anderson was a casualty of the United States’ involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  While I enjoyed flying the B-47 bomber, the T-33 and T-39, my most challenging assignment was flying the U-2 in the handmade partial pressure suit.

  Richard Giordano

  Montgomery, Alabama

  Wife: Anita

  I had been selected for the U-2 program early in 1956 and
had gone through the physical, received my pressure suit and had been though the high altitude chamber tests when I had a T-33 accident on July 19, 1956. That put me in the hospital for seven months. Thanks to Colonel Jerry Johnson, I was assigned to Laughlin AFB in February 1957. I was given a job they made up for me as Executive Officer to Buzz Curry in the U-2 squadron. In between visits to the hospital for continuing plastic surgery I was primarily performing administrative duties in the unit.

  Obviously I wanted to return to flying status. The Flight Surgeon said it would be physically possible to return to flying but not in a pressure suit because of the limitation created by the scarring. So I asked to meet a Flight Evaluation Board. It was held on January 27, 1958, almost 18 months to the day after my accident. Given the fact that at that time I looked like death warmed over, I really did not think I had a chance, especially since I had suffered a cardiac arrest during one of my surgeries.

  Horace Reeves was the Board President. Members were Floyd Herbert, Leon Steffy, Joe King, Floyd Kifer and Harvey Hertz. Witnesses were Jack Nole, Lloyd Leavitt and Curley Graves. The whole proceeding took about an hour and a half. The Board recommended return to flying status. A.J. Russell agreed and it went to SAC Headquarters. SAC approved it with the recommendation that I not be returned to a combat crew.

  I then re-certified in the T-bird. I remember flying guys around for instrument proficiency and even a trip where we took a couple of T-birds to the OL at Ramey for the guys deployed there to practice instrument flying. I thought the trip was unique in that it was the first of its kind and required a stop at Guantanamo, Cuba, where the unit would play a significant role a few years later.

  Since my accident was in the T-33, I wasn't particularly crazy about continuing to fly the plane. I asked to get dual qualified also in the U-3A so I would feel more a part of the unit, if only chasing the U-2 around the pattern with a U-2 instructor pilot in the right seat. Nothing exciting there, but I do recall as an instructor pilot, I was almost grounded when I flew too low over Brackettville while John Wayne was filming The Alamo. Wing received a nasty phone call about my screwing up their shooting since there weren't any airplanes scheduled to appear in the movie about Texas in the 1830’s.

  I very reluctantly left in September 1959 for two years in Morocco. I knew I would never have gotten by an FEB as easily as I did had it not been held on my home grounds with fellow pilots and friends. It is something for which I am eternally grateful as it allowed me to finish a 32-year career as an O-6 and Wing Commander. Some of my best friends from that assignment have remained best friends to this day.

  Gerald E. (Jerry) McIlmoyle

  Venice, Florida

  Wife: Patricia

  Recruitment into the Dragon Lady Program

  It all began 55 years ago, in the spring of 1956. I had just returned to my unit from leave at McCook, Nebraska, my hometown. I was flying the F-84F in the 515th Strategic Fighter Bomber Squadron at Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana. I didn't think I had been gone that long, but the squadron was abuzz with recent changes. A flight commander myself, I found that two of the other flight commanders, Lt. Barry Baker, Lt. Jim Barnes and the Assistant Operations Officer, Captain Frank Grace had departed Malmstrom to enter a super secret program.

  I was disappointed that I had not been included in the selection for the program, but my Squadron Operations Officer, Captain Homer Hayes, told me my name had been on the list of candidates for consideration. The candidates were interviewed at a local hotel in Great Falls. They returned and told our Squadron Commander, Major Robert Keene, that they were resigning their reserve commissions; they were discharged immediately. The three of them were directed not to say anything about where they were going or what they were going to be doing; we just never heard from them again.

  It was mysterious and disappointing to me on two levels. I thought Frank, Barry and Jim had been good and close friends. We had all been in Korea together; we partied together, played bridge and poker and camped out together. Christmas rolled around and we received no cards, no phone calls, absolutely nothing from any of them. I really didn't understand why. Subsequently, we have run into each other a couple of times in the past 50 years, but there was no camaraderie, just a handshake and smile, no small talk. I was reminded of the old Pentagon euphemism: those three friends “evanesced”.

  Scuttlebutt had it that those selected for the new secret program would be flying a new jet aircraft and would be earning about five times our Air Force pay plus bonuses. The rumors seemed to be verified a couple of months later when our squadron commander asked me to lead a flight of four F-84F fighter aircraft to Houston, Texas, to attend the funeral of Frank Grace, my old friend. We learned during that trip that Frank had been killed during a night takeoff from an unlighted airfield, had hit a telephone pole and crashed. We were directed not to ask any questions about the crash, where, what, how, when, and most especially not about what aircraft he had been flying when he was killed. Frank's wife and children were devastated by their loss, as were we all. Frank had been a good friend to all of us in the squadron, both personally and professionally.

  Gerald E. (Jerry) McIlmoyle.

  After I returned to the squadron, I learned that Captain Louis Setter of the sister 517th Strategic Fighter Bomber Squadron, was reassigned and no one knew where. It happened rather quickly. Setter was a regular officer and had not resigned his commission, another mystery to the mix. An engineer by education, Setter had designed a small handheld computer for use with F-84 flight planning. The Strategic Air Command (SAC) had jumped to put his invention into use.

  All the elusive stories surrounding the Dragon Lady stimulated my appetite to be part of it. After a few months of rumors, the squadron was told that all the fighter bomber wings in SAC were to be disbanded by the summer of 1957 due to the limited range of their fighter aircraft. I was well aware that my four-year obligation to the Air Force would be fulfilled near the end of l956. I did not want to return to the computer programming job I held before I entered the Air Force and my wife, Patty, wholeheartedly agreed.

  I applied for and was offered a job flying for United Airlines out of Denver, Colorado. Flying for a living; I definitely found my niche in life. However, another option surfaced when our Wing Commander, Colonel Murray Bywater, called Lts. Buddy Brown, Hank Macklin and me into his office. He announced that we had proven ourselves to be the class of officer the Air Force needed. He guaranteed us that if we would apply for a regular commission we would be approved. A regular commission was attractive to me if I were to make the Air Force my career because I would not be subject to a Reduction in Force (RIF) which was a possibility as a reserve officer. Patty and I debated about the change and what it would mean to the family. We agreed that I should apply.

  Out of the blue, a third choice surfaced. Colonel Jack Nole, the future U-2 Squadron Commander from Turner AFB, came to Malmstrom AFB and I found myself in a room with about ten other pilots. Colonel Nole gave us a sketchy description of a new aircraft President Eisenhower wanted and had funded. SAC needed pilots to volunteer to fly it. The decommissioned SAC fighter wings made available a large cadre of well-qualified pilots from which the still TOP SECRET Dragon Lady program had its choice. We were asked to sign up then and there or depart the briefing room; those remaining would be given a more detailed briefing. Most of us were eager to be part of the new program and raised our hands. The new volunteers pledged an oath of secrecy and signed it. We were now in the program. Patty and I had talked about this program and the possibility I might be selected. We agreed that staying in the Strategic Air Command where we were known was preferable to reassignment to a new command where I would be the “new guy” on the block.

  Not even pitiful base housing deterred us from our new post of duty at Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, Texas, just a few miles from the border of Mexico. Still no details on the new aircraft or its mission had been imparted to us. Despite the lack of information, there was a feeling of excitemen
t among the volunteers that our mission was important and the aircraft would be a challenge to fly.

  In the spring of 1957 I traveled to the David Clark Company in Worcester, Massachusetts to be fitted for two partial pressure flight suits. Pilots of this new aircraft required extra protection in an emergency loss of cabin pressure. The Clark Company had been a manufacturer of women's undergarments and the founder of the company had been experimenting on pressure suit design with a degree of success. Ordinarily, funding for anything in the Air Force was a major ordeal; however, the CIA was the source of funding for everything related to the U-2 and money was no issue. The fact that we were visiting where the pressure suits were made put us on the edge of the “spook world.” We made the trip to Worcester dressed in civilian clothes, no military uniforms were allowed. The trip itself was by a circuitous route and we had no military documents with us. When we arrived in Worcester, we were met at the terminal by a guy with a sign on which our names were written. We introduced ourselves, received a handshake but no name from him in response. On the drive to our hotel there was no conversation from our driver. All he said when we arrived at our hotel was, “I will pick you up here at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.”