USSR shot down a U2 spy plane during the cold war, and the world inched toward a nuclear war
It was high up the skies of the USSR a U2- US spy plane soared. It had an advanced camera that could pick up even the slightest detail on the ground. At this altitude, the U2 was untouchable by any Russian defense machinery, or was it?
World War II:
World War II once again dragged the USA to world politics from its seclusion. USSR, which was part of the tripartite pact with Germany, Japan, and Italy, was suddenly attacked by Germany under Operation Barbarossa. In 1942 the tide of the war shifted. USSR joined the allied forces with the USA and UK to fight against Germany. Britain’s prime minister Winston Churchill was cautious about the communist regime in Russia. He even warned the world to be careful about this potential. After the war was over USSR gobbled half of Europe under USSR. As Churchill pointed out in his speech,
An Iron curtain descended on Europe.
Cold War :
The Cold War officially started with the capitalist USA on one side and a communist USSR on the other side. USA and USSR meddled in the politics of many countries like Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, etc., and installed puppet regimes of their choices. USA and USSR had nuclear warheads, and the world inched towards a nuclear war every day. More than the nuclear warheads, the espionage activities on both sides caused problems. US and USSR agents were in a constant tug of war in the streets of Europe for intelligence while the CIA looked for intelligence from high above the sky.
U2:
CIA had U2 aircraft in its arsenal. Capable of flying at 70000 feet altitude, it was difficult for USSR’s defense to shoot it down. USSR jet fighters can’t maintain such an altitude for a long time. U2’s ultra-high resolution cameras can take great accuracy pictures of the ground target. On 1st May 1960, a U2 manned by Francis Grey Powers flew over USSR. It violated the USSR’s airspace and repeatedly ignored to identify itself. USSR generals were infuriated by the intrusion and wanted to take down the U2. A new MiG aircraft that flew from a factory to an airbase received an order to intercept the U2. Meanwhile, the surface-to-air missiles(SAM) on the path of the U2 were switched on and put on alert. The missile operators got instructions to fire at anything that flies.
Crash-Arrest-Release:
Meanwhile, the Russian airforce scrambled two more MIGs to intercept the U2. It was a tense moment with three soviet jets, and the entire Russian surface-to-air missile pointed at U2. The soviet friendly code, which identifies friendly aircraft, was switched off that day. Russia launched the surface-to-air missiles at the U2, and one of them hit the tail of U2. The U2 started its vertical descent. The radar station noted debris and more aircraft on its screen. Russian command center didn’t believe U2 was down and speculated that the debris was a decoy and asked to fire more missiles. Meanwhile, Powers knew the U2 would crash and ejected from his seat, and the Russians arrested him.
In the skies, the missile barrage continued and brought down one soviet jet and killed two men. Powers was interrogated and confessed the spying action. The US insisted that it was a weather plane that went off course. In 1962, Powers returned to the USA as a part of a prisoner exchange program. The U2 incident caused a rift in the US USSR relationship, which remained so until the fall of the USSR.
Originally published in : https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-us-spy-plane-which-the-ussr-shot-down-55da331826e5
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