Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
176
code letters JGOHB, JGOHB as they tuned from one prearranged frequency to the other. Then one of the Peshawar operators decided to tune in the guard frequency where the Morse transmission was strongest. He was able to discern a break in the letters, making the message read “HBJGO HBJGO.” The Peshawar operators realized this stood for “HBJARGON Go.” The detachment chief, Col. William Shelton, who had been waiting anxiously inside the radio van for a “Go” or “No Go” message, leaped from the van and ran across the field to give the signal for takeoff to Powers, who was sitting in the U-2C at the end of the runway.²⁸
Powers started his takeoff roll at 0159Z on 1 May 1960. Once airborne, Powers guided his aircraft toward Afghanistan. Following standard operating procedure, Powers clicked his radio switch when he reached penetration altitude of 66,000 feet, which signaled the operations unit at Peshawar that everything aboard the aircraft was working and the mission would proceed as planned. Aside from this simple signal, Powers and all U-2 pilots maintained strict radio silence during penetration missions.
Powers’ first target was the Tyuratam Missile Test Range after which he headed for Chelyabinsk, just south of Sverdlovsk. The planned route would take him over Kyshtym, Sverdlovsk, northwest to Kirov, north over Yur’ya and Plesetsk, then to Severodvinsk, northwest to Kandalaksha, north to Murmansk, and, finally, west to Bodo, Norway.
May Day turned out to be a bad time to overfly the Soviet Union. On this major holiday, there was much less Soviet military air traffic than usual, so Soviet radars could easily identify and track Powers’ U-2. In addition, the Soviets responded to the intrusion by ordering a ban on civilian air traffic in a large portion of the Soviet Union. Soviet radar began tracking the U-2 when it was still 15 miles south of the Soviet-Afghan border and continued to do so as the aircraft flew across the Central Asian republics. When Powers reached the Tashkent area, as many as 13 Soviet interceptor aircraft scrambled in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept his plane.
Powers never made it past Sverdlovsk. Four and a half hours into the mission, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile detonated close to and just behind his aircraft and disabled it 70,500 feet above the Sverdlovsk
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²⁸ Richard K. Pero, “Message Received—Unfortunately,” *Studies in Intelligence* 27 (Winter 1983):29 (S).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25