Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
134
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The search for a new home for Detachment C led the Agency to ask the Air Force in the autumn of 1956 for permission to locate the detachment at Yokota AFB, Japan. Because Yokota was already the base for one covert project (the very secret Air Force Project BLACK KNIGHT using RB-57s), Air Force Chief of Staff Twining did not wish to locate another one there and denied the request. The Agency then turned to the Navy, which granted permission for Detachment C to use the Naval Air Station at Atsugi, Japan. The Japanese Government received no notification of the proposed deployment because at that time it had no control over activities involving US military bases in Japan. Deployment of Detachment C began in early 1957 but was complicated by a recent decision to permit the families of Project AQUATONE employees to accompany them on overseas tours. As a result, program managers had to find housing facilities on the base or in nearby communities, not an easy task in crowded Japan.⁸⁰
Detachment C began conducting missions in June 1957 after several aircraft and pilots flew to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska. Air Force radar order-of-battle reports and NSA studies had revealed that the radar network in the Soviet Far East, with antiquated radar sets and personnel of a lower caliber than those in the western Soviet Union, was relatively ineffective. To take advantage of these weaknesses, Detachment C staged three missions from Alaska into the Soviet Far East. The first, on 7/8 June (the aircraft crossed the international date line during the flight), was unable to photograph its target, the ICBM impact area near Klyuchi on the Kamchatka Peninsula, because of bad weather and, therefore, never entered Soviet airspace. A second attempt to photograph Klyuchi on 19/20 June was marred by a camera malfunction that ruined every third frame of photography. This flight was tracked by Soviet radars, but there was no attempt at interception. After a pause of almost three months during which Detachment C received a dirty-bird U-2, the detachment’s third mission over Klyuchi on 15/16 September 1957 achieved excellent results. The radar-deception devices proved ineffective, however, as the U-2 was tracked by Soviet radar and trailed by five fighters.⁸¹
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⁸⁰ *OSA History*, chap. 15, pp. 2, 16-19; chap. 16, p. 1 (TS Codeword).
⁸¹ Mission folders 6002 (8 June 1957), 6005 (20 June 1957), and 6008 (16 September 1957), OSA records, job 67-B-328, box 7 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25