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Although a combined military-agency operation (USAF providing logistics, the agency planning and operations), Detachment 10- 10 was patterned after a regular squadron. There was a commanding officer (USAF) and an executive officer (agency), who together ran the outfit. In addition to the operations officer, who had under him the flight planners, navigators, and weather personnel, there was an administrative officer, intelligence officer, security men, flying-safety officer (one of my extra duties), pilots (seven of us at this time), ground crews, medics, and radio, radar, and photographic personnel. About all that was missing was an actual, legitimate representative of NACA. Briefings and debriefings were conducted similarly to those in the Air Force. Even the size of the unit, close to one hundred members, was of squadron strength.

But there was one great difference. Each person, from crew chief to pilot, had been especially picked for the operation. Too, since most of us had been together at Watertown, we were already functioning as a well coordinated team before arriving overseas. As a result, 10-10 was run with an efficiency rarely if ever, encountered in service.

Each man was a specialist in his field. As pilots, the seven of us had been assigned a specific job. We were aware of its importance. And were anxious to get on with it.

This had to wait, however, for additional training.

Although we had flown some of the same U-2s at Watertown, each had to be checked out again after they were reassembled. The U-2 was not a mass-produced, stamped-out-of-sheet-metal aircraft. Each was custom-made, with its own peculiarities. One might fly heavy on one wing, another might consume an inordinate amount of fuel, while still another might be a bastard to land. Since there was no assurance that a specific plane might be available for a particular flight, the pilots had to know the characteristics of each.

Much time was spent studying maps of Russia. These were, for the most part, badly outdated. Part of our assignment would be to act as cartographers—in seeing a new city, a new military or industrial complex, an unmarked airdrome, to jot it down. We would be making our own maps as we went along.

Because we could depend neither on available maps nor on radio contact with our unit, we also spent considerable time listening to Russian civil broadcast stations. Intelligence provided lists of stations, showing their locations and ranges. These were annotated on the maps. With the use of a radio compass, we could home in on them while in flight, establishing navigational fixes.

As new equipment was developed and shipped over—and it was a continuous process—we would have to be thoroughly checked out. It was also necessary to check out personal equipment we would be carrying, such as survival gear.

Most of this was contained in the seat pack. Its contents included a collapsible life raft, clothing, enough water and food to sustain life for a limited time, a compass, signal flares, matches, chemicals for starting fires with damp wood, plus a first-aid kit, with such standard items as morphine, bandages, dressings, APCs, water-purification tablets.

The clothing was heavy-duty winter hunting gear. It occurred to me on first sight that it not only didn’t look Russian but was probably of better quality than even the best-dressed Russian hunter would wear. And it was definitely not the type of clothing you would put on if you wanted to blend inconspicuously into a crowd.

Also included was a large silk American-flag poster, bearing the following message: “I am an American and do not speak your language. I need food, shelter, assistance. I will not harm you. I bear no malice toward your people. If you will help me, you will be rewarded.” This message appeared in fourteen languages.

In addition, the pack contained 7,500 Soviet rubles; two dozen gold Napoleon francs (it being presumed that even though we couldn’t speak Russian, gold was a universal language); and, for baiter, an assortment of wristwatches and gold rings.

Like the seat pack which was strapped onto the pilot and carried on all flights, no matter what their objective, two other items were also standard—hunting knife and pistol.

The hunting knife was usual survival gear, for use, for example, in severing parachute lines if caught in a tree, ripping up the chute to make a sleeping bag, shaving wood for a fire.

The pistol was especially made by High Standard. It was .22 caliber and had an extra long barrel with a silencer on the end. Although rated Expert in the service, I was out of practice and tested it periodically on the range. While the silencer obviously decreased the velocity, it was far more accurate than I had expected. Not completely silent, it was quiet enough that if you were to shoot a rabbit you could do so without alerting the whole neighborhood. Only .22 caliber, however, it wouldn’t be a very effective weapon of defense.

In addition to what was in the clip, there were about two hundred rounds of extra ammunition in the seat pack.

It was September before I flew my first electronic surveillance mission along the borders outside Russia, the specialized equipment monitoring and recording Soviet radar and radio frequencies. Routes on such flights varied. We usually flew from Turkey eastward along the southern border of the Soviet Union over Iran and Afghanistan as far as Pakistan, and back. We also flew along the Black Sea, and, on occasion, as far west as Albania, but never penetrating, staying off the coast, over international waters. While our territory was the southern portion of Russia’s perimeter, the U-2 group in Germany presumably covered the northern and western portions.

Since these “eavesdropping” missions were eventually to become fairly frequent, there was a tendency to minimize their importance, but in many ways they were as valuable as the overflights, the data obtained enabling the United States to pinpoint such things as Russian antiaircraft defenses and gauge their effectiveness.

Of special interest were Soviet rocket launches. For some reason, many of these occurred at night, and, from the altitude at which we flew, they were often spectacular, lighting up the sky for hundreds of miles. When they were successful.

Many never made it off the pad, and some exploded immediately after doing so.

But there were no “failures.”

When the United States planned a major launching, they bally-hooed it in advance, even permitting television coverage. When it failed, the whole world knew it. But the Russians never publicized their launches until after they had occurred, and then only if they were successful and if it served their purposes to do so. As a result, it appeared that the United States had a lot of failures, Russia none.

Because of our flights, we knew better.

At this time our intelligence on the rocket launchings was exceptional. We knew several days in advance when one was scheduled to occur. Although intelligence did not discuss its sources with us, it was our guess that in the monitoring—both by the U-2s and ground-based units—we were picking up the actual countdowns, which at this time took several days.

The equipment we carried on such occasions was highly sophisticated. One unit came on automatically the moment the launch frequency was used and collected all the data sent out to control the rocket. The value of such information to our own scientists was obvious.

There was a cardinal rule on all such flights—don’t penetrate, even accidentally. When the time came to cross the border and violate Russian air space, it was for a purpose.

There were numerous other flights, including weather research. Far more than just cover, these provided much heretofore unavailable information on atmospheric conditions. Also, on occasion, such as after a Russian nuclear test, we did atomic sampling. The information gathered from this, together with other intelligence, made it possible to determine the type of detonation, where it occurred, its force, fallout, and so forth.