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The Inconvenient Survivor

WHEN US PILOT GARY POWERS’ U-2 SPY PLANE WAS SHOT DOWN OVER THE SOVIET UNION, POWERS DID THE WORST POSSIBLE THING – SURVIVE. HIS MISSION WAS PART OF A PROGRAMME THAT PRESIDENT EISENHOWER DENIED EVEN EXISTED. IF POWERS WAS TO RETURN HOME, THE US GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE TO ADMIT TO FOUR YEARS OF ILLEGAL ESPIONAGE.

DATE: 1960–2 SITUATION: SPY MISSION CONDITION OF CONFINEMENT: US PILOT SHOT DOWN OVER THE USSR DURATION OF CONFINEMENT: 1 YEAR, 9 MONTHS MEANS OF ESCAPE: BAILING FROM PLANE, PRISONER EXCHANGE NO. OF ESCAPEES: 1 DANGERS: EXPLOSION, FALLING TO DEATH, IMPRISONMENT EQUIPMENT: PARACHUTE, SUICIDE PILL

Above retribution

Captain Gary Powers ought to have been very worried. He was piloting a US spy plane over the Soviet Union and taking photographs of missile silos and nuclear plants. If they spotted him, the Russians would stop at nothing to blow him out of the skies.

Worse, there was an East-West summit due to start in two weeks. If he were to be intercepted, his superiors would deny all knowledge of his existence. Powers would be expected to self-destruct his plane and take his suicide pill.

But the aircraft he was in was a U-2 spy plane. Launched in 1956, it was far ahead of any plane the Russians had.

The U-2 spy plane could cruise at altitudes above 21,000 m (70,000 ft), making it invulnerable to Soviet anti-aircraft weapons of the time.

Its state-of-the-art camera could take high-resolution photos from the edge of the stratosphere. For four years the U-2 pilots had been able to fly their espionage missions above enemy countries, including the Soviet Union, unmolested. They systematically photographed military installations, nuclear plants and other strategically vital sites. So perhaps Gary Powers didn’t have to worry after all.

Until the Russians did see him. And a missile did fly that high.

Operation GRAND SLAM

It was 1 May 1960 and Captain Powers had his mission: take off from the US base in Peshawar, Pakistan, overfly the Soviet Union and photograph ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) sites at Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk, then land at Bodø in Norway. The mission was code-named GRAND SLAM.

By now the Soviets knew that the overflights were happening, but the Americans believed they still couldn’t do anything about it. They didn’t know that the Soviets had been playing catch up. Although their aircraft could not yet catch the U-2, the new S-75 Dvina missile might be able to.

When Powers crossed into Soviet airspace local air force commanders were ordered ‘to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane’s course, and to ram if necessary’.

Planes were scrambled to intercept and surface-to-air missiles were readied for launch. MIG-19s tried to climb to the U-2’s altitude but failed. A newer Su-9 aircraft made it that high but was unarmed. The pilot tried to ram the US plane, but shot right by.

Powers might have fancied his chances, until three S-75 Dvina missiles were launched as he passed Degtyarsk, in the Ural Mountains. The first missile exploded in the air close behind the plane, rocking it with turbulence and causing its wings to shear off. The spinning fuselage began to fall from the sky.

Bailing out over enemy territory

His aircraft crippled, Powers started bailing out. He ejected the canopy, quickly reached back to pat his parachute and reached for the plane’s self-destruct switch. His flight suited jerked him backwards. His oxygen hose was still connected. Powers reached round and frantically tried to free it, the wind whipping him at several hundred miles an hour, thousands of feet above the Soviet Union.

Gary Powers, the US fighter pilot who was caught spying over the USSR in 1960.

One of our aircraft is missing

The US government knew that Powers was dead. There had been no contact at all since he left on his mission. Even if his aircraft had only been damaged, Powers had been trained to activate the plane’s self-destruct mechanism and had been issued with the means of his own self destruction.

Powers carried a modified silver dollar that contained a poison-tipped needle. If he were captured, he could plunge this into his flesh and kill himself.

Four days after Powers disappeared, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced to the world that they had shot down a ‘spyplane’. He didn’t mention the pilot.

It was bad news for Powers, but terrible news for President Eisenhower. He would be forced to admit to four years of illegal and invasive military espionage.

The US government weighed these facts and decided to launch a brazen cover up. Eisenhower made NASA issue a statement claiming a ‘weather plane’ had gone missing north of Turkey. The press release made so bold as to surmise that the pilot had fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still engaged and even claimed that ‘the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties’. To back this up another U-2 plane was quickly painted in NASA colours and paraded before the media.

A bluff called

It was a bold ploy and it might have worked but for the ace up Krushchev’s sleeve: Captain Gary Powers had survived. Somehow he had freed his oxygen hose, bailed from his plane and successfully deployed his parachute. The delay in escaping had made him unable to destroy the plane. The Soviets had recovered it almost intact, even managing to develop its photographs. Powers had not killed himself.

Two days later, on 7 May, Khrushchev played his trump card. He announced:

‘I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] have said.’

International embarrassment

The incident directly led to the collapse of the Four Power Paris Summit due to start on 16 May. Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle were supposed to be round a table talking peace. But Eisenhower refused to apologize for the Powers incident and Khrushchev left the talks.

The incident was also a drastic setback for relations between the Soviet Union and Pakistan.

Powers pleaded guilty to espionage on 19 August 1960 and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and seven years of hard labour. After serving just one year and nine months of his sentence he was exchanged for KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel on 10 February 1962. He received a hostile reception on his return to the US, where many people considered him a Russian spy. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing or cowardice in not killing himself. He became a test pilot for Lockheed.

Gary Powers died in a helicopter crash in 1977, aged 47.