Posted on 07/14/2010 3:21:01 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
1962 the Soviets swapped a U.S. airman to the Americans in return for their spies, but they kept the pilot's plane. Here's what happened to it. By Joe Pappalardo
It looks like Russia and the U.S. are negotiating the biggest spy swap since the Cold War ended, as accused and convicted spies in both nations are set to be bartered, and some being moved from prisons in America to Vienna in anticipation of a deal. The episode harkens to the 1960s, when spies were traded to maintain the brittle peace between nations. The most famous of these cases involved Francis Gary Powers, who was shot down in a U-2 spy plane while on a mission over the Soviet Union, near Svedlovsk.)
The Pentagon didn't know Russian missiles could aim high enough to hit the airplane, which could reach 70,000 feet, but one in a volley of SA-2 missiles downed the U-2. Powers endured a flashy trial, was convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years' imprisonment and seven years of hard labor. He served one year and nine months before being traded for a Soviet spy arrested by the FBI, Col. Rudolph Ivanovich Abel)
But the U-2 was never returned. Indeed, it became the centerpiece of the trial. The Russians let the Eisenhower administration lie about the loss of a weather-monitoring airplane before they revealed that the U-2 had a spy camera, and that the pilot had survived. The Soviets made a public display of the aircraft—a display that still continues at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Not much left. Looks like a weather plane to me.
I’ll trade them a box of smashed alumium cans for it.
Doesn’t N. Korea have one of our ships?
The USS Pueblo
LOL! Wonder what ever became of the F-117 that was shot down over Bosnia in the 1990's?
Evidently, they can only reverse-engineer our aircraft when they get one intact (B-29).
- JP
Three of them.”Ramp Tramp”,”The General H.H. Arnold Special” and “Ding How”.The “General H.H. Arnold Special” was disassembled at the Central Aerodrome in Moscow. “Ding How” was grounded as a reference aircraft and “Ramp Tramp” remained flyable.
Ping
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