After the Soviet air defense finally managed to shoot down the U-2, the airspace of the USSR ceased to be a "gateway for foreign reconnaissance aircraft"
U-2 training flight over California. This state housed the main base of American reconnaissance aircraft - Biel. In addition to her, there were four additional ones located in different parts of the world. Photo: SMSGT Rose Reynolds, U. S. Air Force
Half a century ago, on May 1, 1960, Soviet missilemen shot down an American U-2 spy plane over the Urals. The pilot - Francis Powers (Francis Gary Powers, 1929-1977) - was captured and was publicly tried. U-2 flights over the Soviet Union ceased - Moscow won an important victory in another battle of the Cold War, and Soviet anti-aircraft missiles proved their right to be called the best in the world. The shock that this caused our opponents at the time was akin to the test of the first Soviet nuclear charge in 1949 or the launch of an artificial Earth satellite in 1957.
Cold War in the air
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill (Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, 1874-1965) gave a famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, which is considered to be the starting point of the Cold War. In it, for the first time, the term "iron curtain" was used in relation to the Soviet Union. But for the timely "parrying of threats" emanating from behind the "Iron Curtain", it was necessary to know what was happening there. Air reconnaissance could handle this best.
At that time, American aviation had a serious advantage - it had strategic bombers and reconnaissance aircraft with a very high flight altitude at its disposal, inaccessible to Soviet aircraft and air defense systems. The airspace of the Soviet Union became, in fact, a "passage yard" where American pilots at first felt completely unpunished. Only on April 8, 1950, Soviet fighters managed to shoot down the first intruder - the PB4Y-2 Privatir reconnaissance aircraft, which violated the border in the Liepaja region and went 21 km deep into Soviet territory, was "overwhelmed" over the Baltic. However, most of the intruders remained safe and sound, the reconnaissance planes flew even to Baku!
However, the Americans understood that it would not be possible to use existing aircraft for reconnaissance flights over the territory of the USSR and its allies for a long time. In addition, a number of the interior regions of the USSR remained out of the flight zone altogether, and the scope of agent intelligence was seriously limited due to well-organized border guards and excellently working Soviet counterintelligence. In fact, aerial reconnaissance remained the only way to collect information about the Soviet army and defense, but this required a new, higher-altitude reconnaissance tool.
Unit 10-10
The reconnaissance of objects on the territory of the USSR was entrusted to the crews of the U-2 spy planes from the "Detachment 10-10". Officially, this unit was called the 2nd (temporary) meteorological squadron WRS (P) -2 and, according to legend, was subordinate to NASA. It was U-2 from this squadron that systematically performed reconnaissance flights along the borders of the USSR with Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, and also solved similar tasks in the Black Sea region, including over other countries of the socialist camp. The priority task was to collect information about radio stations located on Soviet territory, radar posts and positions of missile systems for various purposes - information that is extremely important for preparing a breakthrough for Soviet air defense in the future.
During interrogation, Powers stated:
CIA career
Francis Powers was an ordinary military pilot, served in the US Air Force and flew the F-84G Thunderjet fighters. However, in April 1956, to the surprise of colleagues and acquaintances, he resigned from the Air Force. But this was not a spontaneous decision, Powers was taken away by "merchants" from the CIA - as it was later said at the trial, he "sold out to American intelligence for $ 2,500 a month." In May of the same year, he signed a special contract with the CIA and went to special courses to prepare for flights on a new reconnaissance aircraft.
Francis Powers with the U-2 model. On his return to the United States, Powers was charged with not destroying the reconnaissance equipment on the plane. But then the charge was dropped, and Powers himself was awarded the POW Medal. Photo from the archives of the CIA
The CIA-hired pilots, future U-2 pilots, were trained at a secret base in Nevada. Moreover, the training process, and the base itself, were so classified that during the training the "cadets" were assigned conspiratorial names. Powers became Palmer during the training. In August 1956, after successfully passing the exams, he was admitted to independent flights on U-2, and soon he was enrolled in the "Detachment 10-10", where he received ID No. AFI 288 068, which stated that he was an employee of the Ministry of Defense USA (US Department of Defense). After his capture, Powers' license was also withdrawn from NASA.
- said Powers during interrogation, -
Behind Soviet secrets
The first "combat" reconnaissance flight of U-2, codenamed "Task 2003" (pilot - Karl Overstreet), took place on June 20, 1956 - the route ran over the territory of East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The air defense systems of the countries over which Overstreet flew made unsuccessful attempts to intercept the intruder, but the U-2 was out of reach. The first pancake was lumpy, to the delight of the CIA, did not come out - it was the turn to check the new plane on the USSR.
On July 4, 1956, the US Air Force U-2A departed for Operation 2013 Mission. He proceeded over Poland and Belarus, after which he reached Leningrad, and then - crossed the Baltic republics and returned to Wiesbaden. The next day, the same plane, as part of the "Task 2014", went on a new flight, the main goal of which was Moscow: the pilot - Carmine Vito - managed to photograph factories in Fili, Ramenskoye, Kaliningrad and Khimki, as well as the positions of the newest stationary air defense systems S-25 "Berkut". However, the Americans no longer began to tempt fate, and Vito remained the only U-2 pilot to fly over the Soviet capital.
During the 10 "hot" July days of 1956, which the US President Eisenhower (Dwight David Eisenhower, 1890-1969) designated for "combat tests" U-2, based in Wiesbaden, a detachment of spy planes performed five flights - deep incursions into the airspace the European part of the Soviet Union: at an altitude of 20 km and a duration of 2–4 hours. Eisenhower praised the quality of the intelligence received - the photographs could even read the numbers on the tails of the aircraft. The Land of the Soviets lay in front of the U-2 cameras, at a glance. From that moment on, Eisenhower authorized the continuation of U-2 flights over the Soviet Union without any restrictions - even though, as it turned out, the plane was quite successfully "spotted" by Soviet radar stations.
Launch pad at the Tyuratam training ground. The picture was taken during one of the first U-2 flights over the territory of the USSR. Photo: U. S. Air Force
In January 1957, U-2 flights over the USSR were resumed - from now on they invaded the interior regions of the country, “cultivated” the territory of Kazakhstan and Siberia. American generals and the CIA were interested in the positions of missile systems and test sites: Kapustin Yar, as well as the discovered Sary-Shagan test sites, near Lake Balkhash, and Tyuratam (Baikonur). Prior to Powers' fateful flight in 1960, U-2 aircraft had invaded Soviet airspace at least 20 times.
Shoot him down
Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev, the son of the Soviet leader, later recalled that his father once said: “I know that Americans laugh when they read our protests; they understand that there is nothing more we can do. " And he was right. He set a fundamental task for the Soviet air defense - to destroy even the latest American reconnaissance aircraft. Its solution was possible only with the constant improvement of anti-aircraft missile weapons and the speedy rearmament of fighter aircraft with new types of aircraft. Khrushchev even promised: the pilot who knocks down a high-altitude intruder will immediately be nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and in material terms he will receive "whatever he wants."
Many wanted to receive the Golden Star and material benefits - attempts to shoot down a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft were made repeatedly, but always with the same result - negative. In 1957, over Primorye, two MiG-17Ps from the 17th Fighter Aviation Regiment tried to intercept the U-2, but to no avail. An attempt by a MiG-19 pilot from the Turkestan Air Defense Corps also ended in February 1959 - an experienced squadron commander managed to disperse the fighter and, due to a dynamic slide, reach an altitude of 17,500 m, where he saw an unknown aircraft 3-4 km higher above him. All hopes were now pinned on a new anti-aircraft missile system - the S-75.
On April 9, 1960, at an altitude of 19-21 km, 430 km south of the city of Andijan, an intruder plane was discovered. Having reached the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, U-2 turned towards Lake Balkhash, where the Sary-Shagan anti-aircraft missile forces were located, then to Tyuratam and then went to Iran. The Soviet pilots had a chance to shoot down a reconnaissance plane - not far from Semipalatinsk, at the airfield, there were two Su-9s armed with air-to-air missiles. Their pilots, Major Boris Staroverov and Captain Vladimir Nazarov, had sufficient experience to solve such a task, but "politics" intervened: in order to intercept, the Su-9 had to land at the Tu-95 airfield near the training ground - to its base they did not have enough fuel. And the pilots did not have a special permit, and while one command was negotiating with another command on this score, the American plane went out of range.
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (1894-1971), having learned that the six-hour flight of the intruder plane passed for him with impunity, was, as eyewitnesses said, very angry. The commander of the Turkestan Air Defense Corps, Major General Yuri Votintsev, was warned of incomplete service compliance, and the commander of the Turkestan Military District, General of the Army Ivan Fedyuninsky, was severely reprimanded. Moreover, it is interesting that at a special meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the chairman of the State Committee for Aviation Engineering - Minister of the USSR Pyotr Dementyev - and General Aircraft Designer Artem Mikoyan (1905-1970) said:
There are no planes in the world that could fly 6 hours 48 minutes at an altitude of 20,000 meters. It is not excluded that this plane periodically gained such an altitude, but then it certainly went down. This means that with the means of air defense that were available in the south of the country, it should have been destroyed
"Game" and "hunter"
The U-2 aircraft and the S-75 anti-aircraft missile system began their journey towards each other almost at the same time, both were created with wide cooperation of enterprises, in a short time, outstanding engineers and scientists took part in the creation of both.
During operation, the U-2 was constantly modernized by American military engineers. But soon there was no need for this: reconnaissance aircraft replaced satellites. Photo: U. S. Air Force / Senior Airman Levi Riendeau
Game
The catalyst for the development of a specialized high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was the successes of the Soviet Union in the field of creating nuclear weapons, especially the test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb in 1953, as well as reports by military attachés on the creation of the M-4 strategic bomber. In addition, an attempt by the British in the first half of 1953 to photograph the Soviet missile range at Kapustin Yar with the help of the modernized high-altitude Canberra failed - the pilots barely got away with it. Work on the U-2 was started by Lockheed in 1954 at the request of the CIA and went under great secrecy. The aircraft was led by the prominent aircraft designer Clarence Leonard Johnson (1910-1990).
The U-2 project received the personal approval of President Eisenhower and became one of the priorities. In August 1956, the pilot, Tony Vier, flew the first prototype, the next year the car went into production. The Lockheed Company built 25 head-series vehicles and were assigned to the US Air Force, CIA and NASA.
The U-2 was a subsonic (maximum flight speed at an altitude of 18,300 m - 855 km / h, cruising - 740 km / h), an unarmed strategic reconnaissance aircraft capable of flying at an altitude "unattainable" for fighters of that time - more than 20 km. The aircraft was powered by a J-57-P-7 turbojet engine with powerful superchargers and a thrust of 4,763 kg. The mid-wing of a large span (24, 38 meters with an aircraft length of 15, 11 m) and aspect ratio not only gave the aircraft a resemblance to a sports glider, but made it possible to glide with the engine off. This also contributed to the exceptional flight range. For the same purpose, the design was maximally lightened, and the fuel supply was brought to the maximum possible - in addition to the internal tanks with a capacity of 2970 liters, the aircraft carried two underwing tanks of 395 liters each, which it dropped during the first stage of the flight.
The landing gear looked curious - there were two retractable struts under the fuselage in tandem. Two more struts were placed under the wing planes and dropped at the beginning of the takeoff run - at first, for this, technicians ran next to the plane, pulling out the fastening of the struts with cables, later the process was nevertheless automated. When landing, when the wing sagged with a loss of speed, it rested on the ground with the tips bent downward. The practical flight ceiling of the U-2 reached 21,350 m, the range was 3540 kilometers without outboard tanks and 4185 km with outboard tanks, the maximum flight range was 6435 km.
To reduce visibility, the U-2 had a smoothed polished surface. For its black, low-glare coating, it was nicknamed the "Black Lady of Spying" (derived from the original nickname of U-2 - "Dragon Lady"). The spy plane, of course, bore no identification marks. The work of a U-2 pilot - even without taking into account his dubious status - was not easy: up to 8-9 o'clock in a high-altitude suit and a pressure helmet, without the right to radio communications, alone with a very demanding machine, especially during a gliding flight. When landing, the pilot did not see the runway well, so a high-speed car was launched in parallel, from which another pilot gave instructions on the radio.
Clarence L. Johnson led the research department at Lockheed for more than forty years, earning a reputation as an "organizational genius." Photo: U. S. Air Force
U-2C, shot down over Sverdlovsk, carried equipment for recording radio and radar radiation in the nose of the fuselage. The vehicle was equipped with an A-10 autopilot, an MR-1 compass, ARN-6 and ARN-34UHF radios, and a retractable camera.
The loss of the U-2 near Sverdlovsk stimulated work in the United States on the SR-71 supersonic strategic reconnaissance aircraft of the same Lockheed. But neither this loss, nor the Taiwanese U-2, shot down by the Chinese air force in the Nanchang area on September 9, 1962 (later the Chinese shot down three more U-2), nor the American, shot down by the Soviet C-75 air defense system over Cuba on October 27 of the same year (pilot died) did not put an end to the career of U-2. They underwent several upgrades (modifications U-2R, TR-1A and others) and continued to serve in the 1990s.
Hunter
On November 20, 1953, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution on the creation of a transported air defense system, which received the designation S-75 ("System-75"). The tactical and technical assignment was approved by the 4th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense in early 1954. The very task of creating a medium-range mobile complex with a large height reach was quite daring at that time. Taking into account the tight deadlines and the unresolved number of issues, it was necessary to abandon such tempting qualities of the complex as multichannel (the possibility of simultaneous firing of several targets) and homing the missile at the target.
The complex was created as a single-channel, but with the defeat of the target from any direction and from any angle, with radio command guidance of the missile. It included a radar guidance station with linear space scanning and six rotating launchers, one rocket each. We applied a new mathematical model of missile guidance to a target - the "half-straightening method": based on the target flight data received from the radar, the missile was directed to an intermediate design point located between the current target position and the design meeting point. This made it possible, on the one hand, to minimize errors caused by inaccurate determination of the meeting point, and on the other hand, to avoid overloading the missile near the target, which occurs when aiming at its actual position.
The S-75 anti-aircraft missile system could hit targets at a range of up to 43 km at a speed of up to 2300 km / h. It was the most widely used air defense system in the entire history of the Soviet air defense forces. Photo courtesy of the U. S. Dod
The development of the guidance station, autopilot, transponder, radio control equipment was carried out by KB-1 ("Almaz") of the Ministry of Radio Industry under the leadership of Alexander Andreevich Raspletin (1908-1967) and Grigory Vasilyevich Kisunko (1918-1998), Boris Vasilyevich Bunkin (1922- 2007). We began the development of a 6-centimeter range radar with a selection of moving targets (SDTs), but in order to speed up, they first decided to adopt a simplified version with a 10-centimeter range locator on already mastered devices and without SDTs.
The development of the rocket was led by OKB-2 ("Fakel"), headed by Pyotr Dmitrievich Grushin (1906-1993) of the State Committee for Aviation Technology, the main engine for it was developed by A. F. Isaev at OKB-2 NII-88, the radio fuse was created by NII- 504, high-explosive fragmentation warhead - NII-6 of the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering. The launchers were developed by B. S. Korobov at TsKB-34, ground equipment - by the State Special Design Bureau.
A simplified version of the 1D (V-750) missile complex was adopted by the Decree of the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the CPSU of December 11, 1957 under the designation SA-75 "Dvina". And already in May 1959, the S-75 Desna anti-aircraft missile system with a V-750VN (13D) missile and a 6-centimeter range radar was adopted.
The anti-aircraft guided missile is a two-stage, with a solid-propellant starting booster and a liquid propulsion engine, which ensured a combination of high readiness and thrust-to-weight ratio at the start with engine efficiency in the main section, and together with the chosen guidance method, it reduced the flight time to the target. Target tracking was carried out in automatic or manual mode, or automatically according to angular coordinates and manually - according to range.
The guidance station aimed simultaneously at one target with three missiles. The rotation of the antenna post of the guidance station and launchers was coordinated so that the missile, after launch, fell into the sector of space scanned by the radar. SA-75 "Dvina" hit targets flying at speeds up to 1100 km / h, at ranges from 7 to 22-29 kilometers and heights from 3 to 22 kilometers. The first S-75 regiment was put on alert in 1958, and by 1960 there were already 80 such regiments. But they covered only the most important objects of the USSR. For such a large country, this was not enough, and Powers' U-2C managed to penetrate deep into the Soviet Union before it was within the reach of the new complex.
Radar installation of the S-75 air defense system in the Egyptian desert. The USSR sold the S-75 not only to the states of the socialist camp, but also to the third world countries. In particular, Egypt, Libya and India. Photo: Sgt. Stan Tarver / U. S. Dod
By the way, the U-2 was not at all the first "trophy" of the CA-75. Back on October 7, 1959, the Dvina complex, handed over to the "Chinese comrades", under the leadership of Soviet specialists, was shot down by a Taiwanese reconnaissance aircraft RB-57D. And in 1965, the S-75 opened their glorious account in Vietnam. In subsequent years, a whole family of S-75 anti-aircraft missile systems was formed (SA-75M, S-75D, S-75M Volkhov, S-75 Volga and others), which served in the USSR and abroad.
From heaven to earth
On April 27, 1960, in accordance with the order of the commander of the "Squad 10-10" Colonel Shelton Powers, another pilot and a fairly large group of technical personnel flew to the Pakistani airbase Peshawar. The reconnaissance plane was delivered there a little later. A number of CIA experts already then advocated the termination of U-2 flights over the USSR, pointing to the appearance of the latest air defense systems and high-altitude interceptor fighters, but Washington urgently demanded information about the Plesetsk test site and the uranium enrichment plant near Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), and The CIA had no choice but to send a spy plane back on a mission.
In the early morning of May 1, Powers was alerted, after which he received an assignment. The U-2 ° C reconnaissance flight route ran from the Peshawar base through the territory of Afghanistan, a significant part of the USSR - the Aral Sea, Sverdlovsk, Kirov and Plesetsk - and ended at the Bodø airbase in Norway. This was Powers' 28th flight in U-2, and therefore the new assignment did not cause much excitement in him.
Powers crossed the Soviet border at 05:36 Moscow time southeast of the city of Kirovabad (Pyandzha) of the Tajik SSR and, according to domestic sources, from that moment until he was shot down near Sverdlovsk, was constantly accompanied by radar stations of the air defense forces. By 6.00 a.m. on May 1, when the most conscientious Soviet citizens were already in full swing preparing for the festive demonstrations, the USSR air defense forces were put on alert, and a group of high-ranking military commanders arrived at the command post of the air defense forces, led by the commander-in-chief of the USSR air defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Semenovich Biryuzov (1904-1964). Khrushchev, who was immediately informed about the flight, rigidly set the task - in any way to shoot down the spy plane, if necessary, even a ram was allowed!
But time after time, attempts to intercept the U-2 ended in failure. Powers had already passed Tyuratam, walked along the Aral Sea, left Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk behind, almost approached Sverdlovsk, and the air defense could not do anything with it - the Americans' calculations were justified: the planes did not have enough height, and ground-based anti-aircraft missiles were almost nowhere to be found anywhere. Eyewitnesses, who were then at the air defense command post, recalled that calls from Khrushchev and the Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (1894-1964) followed one after another. "A shame! The country has provided air defense with everything necessary, but you cannot shoot down a subsonic plane! " The answer of Marshal Biryuzov is also known: "If I could become a rocket, I would fly myself and shoot down this damned intruder!" It was clear to everyone that if U-2 was not shot down on this holiday too, more than one general would lose his epaulettes.
MiG-19. Aircraft of this model in the 1960s repeatedly shot down reconnaissance aircraft over the territory of the USSR. But they especially had to work hard in East Germany, where the activity of Western intelligence services was much higher. Photo from the archive of Sergei Tsvetkov
When Powers approached Sverdlovsk, a Su-9 high-altitude fighter-interceptor accidentally appeared there from the nearby Koltsovo airfield. However, he was without missiles - the plane was ferried from the factory to the place of service, and this fighter had no guns, while the pilot, Captain Igor Mentyukov, was without an altitude-compensating suit. Nevertheless, the plane was lifted into the air, and the commander of the air defense aviation, Lieutenant General Yevgeny Yakovlevich Savitsky (1910-1990) gave the task: "Destroy the target, ram."The plane was taken out into the intruder's area, but the interception failed. But Mentyukov later came under fire from his anti-aircraft missile battalion, miraculously survived.
Skirting around Sverdlovsk and starting photographing the Mayak chemical plant, where uranium was enriched and weapons-grade plutonium was produced, Powers entered the operation area of the 2nd division of the 57th anti-aircraft missile brigade of the S-75 air defense missile system, which was then commanded by Chief of Staff, Major Mikhail Voronov … It is interesting that here, too, the calculation of the Americans was almost justified: on the holiday the spy was "not expected" and Voronov's division entered the battle with an incomplete composition. But this did not prevent the execution of the combat mission, even with excessive efficiency.
Major Voronov gives the command: "Destroy the goal!" The first rocket leaves the sky - and already in pursuit - while the second and third do not leave the guides. At 0853 hours, the first missile approaches the U-2 from behind, but the radio fuse is triggered prematurely. The explosion rips off the tail of the plane, and the car, pecking its nose, rushes to the ground.
Powers, without even trying to activate the elimination system of the aircraft and without using the ejection seat (he later claimed that it contained an explosive device that should have detonated during the ejection), barely got out of the car falling apart and already in free fall opened parachute. At this time, the second salvo at the target was fired by the neighboring division of Captain Nikolai Sheludko - numerous marks appeared on the radar screens at the target site, which were perceived as interference from the spy plane, and therefore it was decided to continue working on U-2. One of the missiles of the second salvo almost hit the Su-9 captain Mentyukov. And the second one also took out Senior Lieutenant Sergei Safronov, who was pursuing Powers' plane.
It was one of two MiGs sent on a hopeless pursuit of a spy plane. The more experienced captain Boris Ayvazyan was the first, Sergei Safronov's plane was the second. Later Ayvazyan explained the reasons for the tragedy:
And so it happened. The commander of the 4th anti-aircraft missile division of the 57th anti-aircraft missile brigade, Major Alexei Shugaev, reported to the command post of the head of the anti-aircraft missile forces that he sees the target at an altitude of 11 km. Despite the statement of the control officer on duty that it was impossible to open fire, since his planes were in the air, Major General Ivan Solodovnikov, who was at the control command, took the microphone and personally gave the order: "Destroy the target!" After the volley, the more experienced Ayvazyan managed to maneuver, and Safronov's plane fell ten kilometers from the airfield. Not far from him, the pilot himself landed by parachute - already dead, with a large wound on his side.
Battery C-75 in Cuba, 1962. The symmetrical arrangement of missile systems will show its vulnerability during the Vietnam War. In this case, it is easier for pilots attacking a battery to direct missiles to a target. Photo: U. S. Air Force
“On May 1, 1960, during the parade on Red Square, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was nervous. Every now and then a military man approached him. After another report, Khrushchev suddenly pulled his hat off his head and smiled broadly,”recalled Aleksey Adzhubey (1924–1993), Khrushchev's son-in-law. The holiday was not spoiled, but the price was quite high. And soon Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1906-1982), who by that time had already become the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed a decree on awarding servicemen who distinguished themselves in the operation to destroy a spy plane. Orders and medals were received by twenty-one people, the Order of the Red Banner was awarded to Senior Lieutenant Sergei Safronov and the commanders of anti-aircraft missile battalions Captain Nikolai Sheludko and Major Mikhail Voronov. Marshal Biryuzov later recalled that he twice wrote to Voronov for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but both times tore up the already signed document - after all, the story ended tragically, the pilot Safronov died, the price for success was too high.
Captivity
Powers landed near a village in the Urals, where he was captured by Soviet collective farmers. The first on the pilot's landing site were Vladimir Surin, Leonid Chuzhakin, Peter Asabin and Anatoly Cheremisinu. They helped extinguish the parachute and put the limping Powers in the car, taking a silenced pistol and a knife from him in the process. Already in the board, where they took Powers, wads of money, gold coins were seized from him, and a little later a bag was delivered there, which fell in another place and contained a hacksaw, pliers, fishing tackle, a mosquito net, trousers, a hat, socks and various packages - emergency the stock was combined with a completely spy kit. The collective farmers who found Powers, who then appeared at the trial as witnesses, were also awarded government awards.
Later, during a body search, Powers showed that a silver dollar was sewn into the collar of his overalls, and a needle with a strong poison was inserted into it. The coin was seized, and at three o'clock in the afternoon Powers was taken by helicopter to the airfield in Koltsovo and then sent to Lubyanka.
The wreckage of the U-2 was scattered over a huge area, but almost everything was collected - including the relatively well-preserved front fuselage with center section and cockpit with equipment, a turbojet engine and a tail of the fuselage with a keel. Later, an exhibition of trophies was organized at the Moscow Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure, which was allegedly attended by 320 thousand Soviet and more than 20 thousand foreign citizens. Almost all the components and assemblies were marked by American firms, and the reconnaissance equipment, the aircraft detonation unit and the pilot's personal weapons irrefutably testified to the military purpose of the aircraft.
Realizing that something had happened to the U-2, the US military-political leadership made an attempt to "get out". A document appeared under the heading "top secret", which outlined the legend of the flight, which was published on May 3 by a NASA representative:
A U-2 aircraft was on a meteorological mission after taking off from Adana airbase, Turkey. The main task is to study the processes of turbulence. While over the southeastern part of Turkey, the pilot reported a problem with the oxygen system. The last message was received at 7.00 on the emergency frequency. U-2 did not land at the appointed time in Adana and is considered to have suffered an accident. A search and rescue operation is currently underway in the area of Lake Van
The only U-2 aircraft was handed over to NASA as part of a cover operation. Most of these aircraft were used by the CIA for reconnaissance flights. Photo: NASA / DFRC
However, on May 7, Khrushchev officially announced that the pilot of the downed spy plane was alive, captured and was giving evidence to the competent authorities. This shocked the Americans so much that at a press conference on May 11, 1960, Eisenhower could not avoid openly admitting that spy flights were carried out in Soviet airspace. And then he said that the flights of American reconnaissance aircraft over the territory of the USSR are one of the elements of the system for collecting information about the Soviet Union and are being carried out systematically for a number of years, and also to publicly announce that he, as President of the United States,
gave orders to collect by any means possible the information necessary to protect the United States and the free world from surprise attack and to enable them to make effective defense preparations
All rise, the court is in session
I must say that Powers lived relatively well in captivity. In the inner prison on Lubyanka, he was given a separate room, with upholstered furniture, and he was fed food from the general's dining room. Investigators did not even have to raise their voice to Powers - he willingly answered all questions, and in sufficient detail.
The trial of the U-2 pilot took place during August 17-19, 1960, in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, and the prosecutor general of the USSR, acting state counselor of justice Roman Rudenko (1907-1981), who spoke in 1946 the chief prosecutor from the USSR at the Nuremberg trials against Nazi criminals, and in 1953 led the investigation of the case of Lavrenty Beria (1899-1953).
No one had any questions about what and how the accused would be tried, even the most "rabid anti-Soviet" and without legal education, it was clear: the evidence presented and the "material evidence" collected at the scene - photographs of Soviet secret facilities, intelligence equipment, found in the wreckage of the aircraft, the pilot's personal weapons and elements of his equipment, including ampoules with poison in case of a failure of the operation, and, finally, the remains of the reconnaissance aircraft itself, which fell from the sky deep in the territory of the Soviet Union - all this pulls Powers into a very specific article of the Soviet Criminal Code, providing for execution for espionage.
Prosecutor Rudenko asked for 15 years in prison for the defendant, the court gave Powers 10 years - three years in prison, the rest - in the camp. Moreover, in the latter case, the wife was allowed to settle near the camp. The Soviet court really turned out to be "the most humane court in the world."
However, Powers spent only 21 months in prison, and on February 10, 1962, on the Glinik Bridge connecting Berlin and Potsdam and what was then a kind of "watershed" between the Warsaw bloc and NATO, he was exchanged for the famous Soviet intelligence officer Rudolf Abel (real name - William Fischer, 1903-1971), arrested and convicted in the United States in September 1957.
Wreckage of U-2, exhibited at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Moscow. Soviet propaganda claimed that the plane was shot down by the first missile. In fact, it took eight, and according to some sources, twelve. Photo: Oleg Sendyurev / "Around the World"
Epilogue
On May 9, 1960, just two days after Khrushchev made public the information that the pilot Powers was alive and testifying, Washington officially announced the termination of reconnaissance flights of spy planes in Soviet airspace. However, in reality this did not happen, and already on July 1, 1960, an RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down, the crew of which did not want to obey and land on our airfield. One crew member was killed, two others - Lieutenants D. McCone and F. Olmsted - were captured and subsequently transferred to the United States. Only after that, the wave of spy flights subsided, and on January 25, 1961, the new US President John F. Kennedy (John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917-1963) announced at a press conference that he had ordered not to resume spy flights over the USSR. And soon the need for this disappeared altogether - the role of the main means of optical reconnaissance was taken over by satellites.
Telegraph "Around the World": Mission Not Completed U2
