Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, written in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and its two aircraft, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It follows their development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
“The Advance”26 pages
Chapter 5 219 005653421 UNCLASSIFIED attention of Japanese reporters. One reporter even flew over the area in a helicopter, taking pictures of the U-2. These photographs ap- peared in many Japanese newspapers and magazines."8 U-2 Crash iFlights by Detachment C U-2s over contin- ued during the first half of 1960 under Operation i °FMK. i he first mission on 30 March was very successful. The second mission on 5 April took good photographs but encountered mechanical problems. At the start of the mission, the landing-gear doors failed to close com- pletely, resulting in increased drag and higher fuel consumption. With no fuel gauge to warn the pilot of the critical fuel situation, the air- craft ran out of fuel far short forcing the pilot to make a crash landing in a rice paddy. i ne area was inaccessible to large vehi- cles, and the plane, article 349, had to be cut into pieces in order to remove it. With the help of local villagers, the retrieval team dissassembled the aircraft for transport to the base, where the pieces were loaded onto a C-124 under cover of darkness. The crash and subsequent recovery of the U-2 did not attract the attention of the press; there was only one report in al hewspaper, which simply referred to the crash of a jet plane. In appreciation for the as- sistance provided by the villagers, the gave the headman funds to build a new scnool. End of Detachment C Operations The loss of two aircraft in slightly more than six months left Detachment C with just two aircraft. Fortunately, the level of mission activity remained low because Detachment C was no longer conduct- ing overflights of the Soviet Union. One important remaining mission was high-altitude air sampling (HASP), in which specially equipped U-2s gathered upper-altitude air samples to look for evidence of Soviet nuclear testing. The direction of the prevailing winds made Detachment C ideally situated for this activity, which began in the fall of 1958 and continued in 1959. In late April 1960, Detachment C was preparing to stage o conduct additional air-sampling missions, when the oss o owers U-2 temporarily halted all U-2 activities. ED 129581.610111>101011101810<25Yrs 191 Ibid.. chap. 15, p. 30 (TS Codeword). Ibid.. chap. 15, pp. 32-33 (TS Codeword). UNCLASSIFIED
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.