The U-2 and the 1960 Shooting Down of Francis Gary Powers

In the wake of The Second World War, the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union quickly fell apart, leading to tension and mistrust. This tension and mistrust developed into outright hostility by the close of the 1940s, with the world’s two superpowers locked into a struggle for world dominance and influence known as the Cold War. Due to the concept of MAD (mutually assured destruction) the two powers undertook actions to gain an edge on one another in the event an actual “hot” war broke out but resisted direct confrontation. These actions included the heavy use of spies, supplying sympathetic governments and groups to curry favor, launching coups in neutral countries to topple governments siding with one power over the other, and the use of surveillance activities. While direct confrontation was avoided, this doesn’t mean it did not happen at all, with Soviets and Americans having direct interactions throughout the Cold War. One of these direct confrontations involved the United States losing a pilot deep into Soviet airspace. This article details that incident and the plane involved.

               The Soviets tested their first atomic weapon in 1949 and from then on, the Cold War began in earnest. In the 1950s, the United States was desperate to gain an edge on their new nuclear armed rival, especially hoping to determine where the Soviets were stashing their missiles. To try to locate these launch sites in an era before satellite imagery, the only option (other than running spies directly in Moscow) that was viable involved the use of surveillance flights directly over Soviet territory. But flying a plane into the airspace of another state could be seen as an act of aggression, so the United States had to find a way to undertake these flights but not get caught in the process. Surveillance flights had proven their worth during the Second World War, with camera equipped bombers flying thousands of flights over enemy territory to take pictures and establish locations for aerial, artillery, and ground targets, as well as determining capability and layout of defenses. However, these planes were often vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, suffering losses of personnel and valuable equipment. With the creation and adoption of anti-aircraft surface to air missiles and jet engine fighter planes, the risk for a bomber or other slow flying aircraft to fly surveillance missions was even higher. In fact, in 1958, the United States suffered the loss of a US Air Force (USAF) C-130 reconnaissance plane over Soviet controlled Armenia when the Soviets attacked and shot down the aircraft after it strayed into their airspace at 25,000 feet. The attack resulted in the loss of 17 USAF airmen, although the Soviets denied attacking the plane and claimed that it “fell” on their territory. In order to avoid a similar incident, the United States employed a new plane, the Lockheed U-2. The U-2, a single seater jet but with glider like wings, could fly at an altitude of 70,000 feet at nearly 500 mph, enabling it to avoid the most advanced Soviet fighter jets and put it out of theoretical range of surface to air missiles (SAMs).

               During the testing process, several USAF fighter pilots were selected as test pilots along with some foreign expat pilots from Greece and Poland. However, by the end of the testing period, only the American pilots were left due to language issues and flying experience. Once the adoption of the U-2 in 1956 was complete, the United States was still wary of flying military personnel over a peer adversary and President Eisenhower was adamant that civilian CIA pilots be the ones to crew the aircraft. This meant the pilots originally selected to fly the U-2 had to resign their military commissions and become civilian pilots under CIA’s purview. Eisenhower, after being shown that the U-2 was flight worthy and capable of recon flights, originally authorized 10 flights under the belief (as told to him by his intelligence community, or the IC) that the high altitude of the U-2 meant the plane would not be detectable by Soviet radar. Some live test flights occurred over East Germany and Poland, then controlled by the Soviets, and while the U-2 flights were visible to Soviet radar, the Soviets could not track the plane continuously. With the knowledge that the Soviets could track the U-2 and Eisenhower worrying that penetrating Soviet airspace could spark a war, he cancelled further flights. Finally, after successful flights in the Middle East, Eisenhower approved direct overflights of Soviet territory for reconnaissance. These flights would continue into 1960, even after CIA and other IC organizations, were aware that Soviet SAM technology had developed enough to potentially hit the U-2, even at 70,000 feet. In all, Eisenhower approved 24 “deep penetration” flights into Soviet territory to take pictures of missile sites, bomber and aircraft locations, military installations, and important industrial sites.

               Eisenhower approved one last Soviet overflight in the spring of 1960, and the most experienced U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers was selected. The flight was to start from Pakistan and fly over modern-day Kazakhstan and Russia, with a landing in Norway. This would be the first flight to fly over the Soviet Union, photographing cities and sensitive sites along the way, and exiting Soviet airspace over a “neutral” country. Previous flights that penetrated Soviet airspace exited from nearly the same point as entry. On May 1, 1960, Powers was shot down at 70,500 feet over Soviet airspace, after Soviet SAMs detonated directly behind his aircraft. CIA and USAF technicians believed that surviving a shoot down incident at 70,000 feet to be impossible, even with a safe ejection and the aid of the astronaut-looking flight suit that U-2 pilots wore, however Powers survived, and he and the U-2 were captured relatively intact. Some individuals and agencies within the United States IC did not fully believe Power’s version of events on how he was shot down, as detailed above. There are still classified reports that indicate the U-2 may have descended from 70,000 feet to as slow as 35,000 feet before being downed, but the official version of events follows Power’s account. This would go on to complicate the United States’ response to a later prisoner exchange for Powers, as some believed he may have attempted to defect or at the very least was not being truthful about his capture.

               The shootdown of a U-2 was a total disaster for American aerial spying efforts. At first, four days after Powers was downed, the US explained that the plane was a NASA high altitude weather plane that had been lost over Turkey. Further, the Americans were prepared with a plan to say the pilot drifted, unconscious, into Soviet territory. The Americans even went to the efforts of showcasing a U-2 painted in NASA colors to bolster the story. The US then repeated this story until Nikita Khrushchev revealed a spy plane had been captured but did not let on that Powers had been captured, had admitted to spying on the Soviets, and the true nature of the U-2, allowing the Americans to further tell their false story. Finally, on May 7th, Khrushchev revealed the information that Powers was alive and in Soviet custody, and released pictures of the crashed U-2, exposing Eisenhower’s NASA story as a cover up. This revelation severely embarrassed the Eisenhower administration and caused a crisis both domestically in the US and abroad, with Eisenhower even considering resigning from the American Presidency. Due to the involvement of Norway and Pakistan, they also received pressure and public relations issues from the Soviets. Khrushchev even threated to drop a nuclear bomb on Peshawar, Pakistan, due to its alliance and assistance to the Americans regarding the U-2.

               Francis Gary Powers did admit to his mission and the purpose of penetrating Soviet airspace, but this was per his instructions in the event of a shootdown incident, although he attempted to limit the information that he gave his Soviet captors. He pled guilty to espionage in a Soviet court and was sentenced to nine years of hard labor. The US media portrayed Powers as a hero until learning that he admitted to his mission, pivoting to accusing him of cowardice and undermining US foreign policy. He was further accused of dereliction of duty for not destroying the U-2’s camera equipment, the plane itself, its classified equipment, and even for not killing himself with his cyanide poison device supplied to him by his CIA bosses. Powers would go on to serve nearly two years in a Soviet prison before being exchanged for William Fisher, a captured Soviet spy being held by the Americans. However, after extensive debriefs and congressional hearings, the belief of the US government changed and Powers was cleared of wrong doing and held up as courageous pilot who did his duty to his country.

               The U-2 spy plane program continued to be used by the United States but without direct flights over Soviet territory, although another U-2 spy plane was shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 in use while photographing Soviet missiles on the island. The U-2 is actually actively flown by the United States and several allied nations such as the UK and Taiwan today, and saw extensive use throughout Cold War conflicts like Vietnam. Francis Gary Powers subsequently worked as a helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles news station, tragically dying in a helicopter crash in 1977 while on the job.