Operation Overflight (11 page)

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

A
fter 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
g
g forces were throwing me forward, out of the seat, up toward the nose.

I reached for the destruct switches, opening the safety covers, had my hand over them, then changed my mind, deciding I had better see if I could get into position to use the ejection seat first. Under normal circumstances, there is only a small amount of clearance in ejecting. Thrown forward as I was, if I used the ejection seat the metal canopy rails overhead would cut off both my legs. I tried to pull my legs back, couldn't. Yanking at one leg with both my hands, I succeeded in getting my heel into the stirrup on the seat. Then I did the same with the other heel. But I was still thrown forward, out of the seat, and couldn't get my torso back. Looking up at the canopy rails, I estimated that using the seat in this position would sever both legs about three inches above the knee.

I didn't want to cut them off, but if it was the only way to get out …

Thus far I had felt no fear. Now I realized I was on the edge of panic. “Stop and think.” The words came back to me. A friend who had also encountered complications trying to bail out had told me of forcing himself to stop struggling and just think his way out of his predicament. I tried it, suddenly realizing the obvious. The ejection seat wasn't the only way to leave the plane. I could climb out! So intent had I been on one solution, I had forgotten the other.

Reaching up—not far, because I had been thrown upward as well as forward, with only the seat belt holding me down—I unlocked and released the canopy. It sailed off into space.

The plane was still spinning. I glanced at the altimeter. It had passed thirty-four thousand feet and was unwinding very fast. Again I thought of the destruct switches but decided to release my seat belt first, before activating the unit. Seventy seconds is not a very long time.

Immediately the centrifugal force threw me halfway out of the aircraft, with movement so quick my body hit the rear-view mirror and snapped it off. I saw it fly away. That was the last thing I saw, because almost immediately my face plate frosted over. Something was holding me connected to the aircraft; I couldn't see what. Then I remembered the oxygen hoses; I'd forgotten to unfasten them.

The aircraft was still spinning. I tried to climb back in to actuate the destruct switches, but couldn't; the
g
forces were too great. Reaching down, I tried to feel my way to the switches. I knew they
were close, six inches away from my left hand at most, but I couldn't slip my hand under the windscreen to get at them. Unable to see, I had no idea how fast I was falling, how close to the ground …

And then I thought: I've just got to try to save myself now. Kicking and squirming, I must have broken the oxygen hoses, because suddenly I was free, my body just falling, floating perfectly free. It was a pleasant, exhilarating feeling. Even better than floating in a swimming pool, I remember thinking.

I must have been in shock.

One

I was thinking, I should pull the ripcord, when a quick jerk yanked me upward. The chute had opened automatically.

Suddenly my thoughts were sharp and clear. The chute had been set to open at fifteen thousand feet, which meant I was somewhere below that. And under fifteen thousand feet I didn't need the emergency oxygen in my seat pack and could take off my face plate.

I was immediately struck by the silence. Everything was cold, quiet, serene.

The first thing to do when the parachute opens, I had been taught in Air Force survival school, is to look up and make sure the chute has billowed correctly. This I was reluctant to do, since, having only one chute, I was not anxious to discover whether it had failed. But I looked up. The orange and white panels blossomed out beautifully. But against the vast expanse of sky, the chute looked very small.

There was no sensation of falling. It was as if I were hanging in the sky, no movement at all.

Part of the aircraft passed me, twisting and fluttering like a leaf. I thought it was one of the wings. Yet I had no way to estimate size or distance. It could have been a small piece up close or a large piece some distance away.

Looking down, I saw I was still quite high, probably ten thousand feet.

Below were rolling hills, a forest, a lake, roads, buildings, what looked like a village.

It was pretty country. A typical American scene. Like parts of Virginia.

As if by wishing it I could make it so.