Lockheed Blackbird

An extract from Chapter 1: Introduction

The name of an 11th century Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, King of Germany, occupies an indelible place in contemporary history. At dawn on 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, its invasion of the Soviet Union. As its Panzer Divisions rolled east, smashing everything in their path, Soviet industry sought protection deep within the motherland. When, after World War II, ‘An iron curtain … descended across the Continent’ and relations between the victorious eastern and western powers chilled into the Cold War, it was soon discovered that the accuracy of maps and target intelligence held by Britain and the United States pertaining to their new common adversary was woefully inadequate. With limited human intelligence (Humint) being provided by agents in the field, large gaps remained in the knowledge of Soviet industrial and military capability. Stand-off aerial reconnaissance of peripheral targets provided a partial solution to the problem, but the vastness of the Soviet Union left only one option given the level of technology available at that time – overflight. So began the so-called PAROP (Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance Operations) programme.

For several years, sorties were conducted using converted bombers manned by extremely courageous aircrews, as well as specialised variants of existing designs. For example, de Havilland Mosquito PR.Mk 34s flying with No. 540 Sqn, Royal Air Force (RAF), based at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, conducted reconnaissance flights from altitudes in excess of 43,000 ft (13106 m) over such places as Murmansk and Archangel. Operations from such altitudes proved to provide a haven from interception by Soviet fighters and No. 540 Sqn continued such sorties until at least 1949.In June 1948, the Soviet Union enforced a food blockade upon the Western zones of Berlin; the Allies responded by mounting a round-the-clock airlift; the United States highlighted the seriousness of the situation by redeploying bombers back to Britain. As Allied reconnaissance operations continued, it was only a question of time before such actions provoked the ultimate response. It occurred on 11 April 1950, when a US Navy Consolidated PB4Y Privateer, Bureau of Aeronautics Number 59645, nicknamed Turbulent Turtle and operated by VP-26, with a crew of ten, was shot down and crashed into the Baltic, off Soviet occupied Latvia – there were no survivors.World destabilisation continued when at dawn on 25 June 1950, communist North Korea invaded its southern neighbour, sparking off the Korean War. Back in Europe, surveillance operations against the USSR continued; the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Group (SRG), from Travis AFB, California, operated Boeing RB-29 Superfortresses from RAF Sculthorpe and Burtonwood in the UK. Like the RAF’s Mosquitos, their high-altitude performance and long range made them ideal photographic and electronic intelligence (Photint and Elint), gathering platforms. In February 1951, North American RB-45 Tornados from the 322nd, 323rd and 324th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadrons (SRSs), 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (SRW), United States Air Force (USAF), based at Lockbourne AFB, Ohio, began rotating through RAF Sculthorpe on three-month temporary duty (TDY) assignments. They flew along the periphery of the Soviet Union and occasionally over Soviet satellite countries. Later, four of these Tornados were ‘loaned’ to Great Britain and painted in RAF markings. On the night of 21 March 1952, one of these aircraft, flown by an RAF crew, ventured into East Germany to gauge how the Soviets would react to such an incursion. Suitably encouraged, the Allied planners put together an audacious mission that was implemented on the night of 17 April 1952. Three RB-45Cs, in RAF colours and similarly crewed departed Sculthorpe, each heading for a separate air refuelling track. One was located over the North Sea, another over Denmark and a third south of Frankfurt. Having completed tanking from US Air Force KB-29s, they climbed to 35,000 ft (10668 m) and proceeded in total radio silence on routes that took them deep into the Soviet Union. The route flown by each was designed to overfly the maximum number of targets possible. One aircraft covered targets in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and in the former German province of East Prussia; another flew across Belorussia as far as Orel and the third, piloted by Sqn Ldr John Crampton, flew the longest and most southerly route, crossing the Ukraine and penetrating ‘denied airspace’ as far as Rostov, on the Black Sea, before returning safely back to Sculthorpe after a flight lasting ten hours and 20 minutes. The operation was judged to be a success and another similar mission was flown, again by three ‘RAF’ RB-45s on 28 April 1954, after which the RAF exited its brief and highly classified relationship with the type (a similar three-ship mission was flown by the 19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron after Strategic Air Command (SAC) had retired the aircraft from its inventory sometime later). Perhaps not surprisingly, the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly sensitive to Western incursions into its airspace and retaliated by pressing home a series of attacks on any aircraft suspected of violating its sovereignty. In April 1952, an Air France Douglas DC-4 was attacked and damaged in the Berlin corridor and less than two months later a Swedish air force Douglas C-47 was downed into the Baltic Sea, east of Gotland. Even a search and rescue Consolidated PBY Catalina was attacked while looking for survivors. The Russians certainly meant business, as witnessed at 17:33 local time on 13 June 1952, when RB-29 serial 44-61810, assigned to the 91st SRS and operating out of Yokota Air Base (AB), Japan, was shot down by two Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 ‘Faggots’ of the 165th Air Division of the Naval air force, stationed at Unashi airfield. The entire 12-man crew aboard the reconnaissance aircraft was lost.

Virtually a repeat performance followed at 14:30 local, on 7 October 1952, when RB-29 44-61815, named Sunbonnet King and also from the 91st SRS, was destroyed by two Soviet Lavochkin La-11 ‘Fang’ fighters from the 368th Air Defence Fighter Aviation Regiment, during the process of conducting a reconnaissance mission northeast of the Island of Hokkaido, Japan. Yet again all eight crewmembers were killed.

The lumbering World War II vintage converted bombers, crewed by highly skilled and courageous flyers, were proving to be no match for Soviet fighters, which were exacting a terrible price on the Photint and Elint gatherers. But technology and the jet age at last caught up with the strategic reconnaissance business in the form of Boeing’s sleek, new RB-47B Stratojets. Powered by six General Electric J47-GE-25 turbojets, each developing 6,000 lb (26.68 kN) of static thrust, the aircraft cruised at a useful 495 mph (797 km/h) and at altitudes of up to 40,000 ft (12192 m). But the RB-47Bs were only around for a couple of years and were replaced between March 1953 and August 1955, by no less than 240 RB-47Es. These were completed by Boeing-Wichita and also replaced the ageing piston-engined RB-29s and Boeing RB-50. Later models of the jet also included specialist Elint gathering versions, designated RB-47H and ERB-47H. But the shoot-downs continued throughout 1953, the first on 10 March, when a USAF Republic F-84 Thunderjet was shot down over Bavaria by Czech MiG-15s. Two days later, an RAF Avro Lincoln (serial RF531) of the Central Gunnery School was shot down in the Berlin Corridor, again by MiG-15s; seven crew lost their lives. Yet another incident followed on 15 March, when an RB-50 of the 38th SRS, 55th SRW, flown by Lt-Col Robert Rich was intercepted by Soviet MiG-15s. The gunner, T/Sgt Jesse Prim, returned fire and the MiGs withdrew. However, on 29 July another RB-50 from the same wing was not so lucky. Attacked by MiG-15s southeast of Vladivostok during an electronic ’ferret’ flight, aircraft serial 47-145 crashed into the Sea of Japan near Askol’d Island. The co-pilot, Capt John E. Roche was the only survivor from a crew of 17.

As the cost in aircrew lives continued to mount, it became apparent that a new approach to gathering such vital intelligence was needed. With high altitude having already been established as the ‘safest’ operational environment for such missions, it was a US Air Force Major who articulated the way forward. Having spent some time as an aeronautical engineer with Chance Vought, John Seaburg had been recalled to active duty following the outbreak of the Korean War. It was while serving as Assistant Chief in the New Developments Office, Bombardment Branch, at Wright Field, near Dayton, Ohio, that he articulated high-altitude strategic reconnaissance philosophy, by proposing to mate an aircraft with an extremely efficient high-aspect-ratio wing to the new generation of turbojet engines. Such a union, he believed, should enable a platform to cruise at altitudes far in excess of any other aircraft then in service.

Spurred on by his new boss, William Lamar, Seaburg had, by March 1953, created a formal specification, requiring the aircraft to cruise at an altitude of 70,000 ft (21336 m) and possess a range of 1,500 nm (1,727 miles; 2780 km), while carrying a camera payload weight of up to 700 lb (318 kg). In addition, it was stipulated that this new aircraft should be in service by 1956. These initial proposals were subsequently released to just three of the smaller aircraft manufacturing companies; the rationale being that since large-scale production was not envisioned, the project would receive a higher priority than if placed with the big players.

Both Bell and Fairchild were requested to submit proposals for the design and construction of a totally new aircraft; Martin was asked to apply improvements to the Martin B-57 Canberra (a design built under licence by the company, but actually designed and developed by the British English Electric Company). In July 1953, six-month study contracts had been agreed with each company and the project, now identified as MX-2147, was given the classified code name of Bald Eagle.

Developments in camera and film technology, required to gather surveillance data from high altitude, had been proceeding in parallel with advances made by the aerospace industry. Having established the Photographic Laboratory at Wright Field before World War II, Brig-Gen George Goddard recruited two individuals, Col Richard Philbrick and Amrom Katz, who continued working after the war. With the organisation renamed as the Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory, Goddard also helped establish a group of optical research specialists that formed the Boston University Optical Research Center; these included its director, Dr Duncan MacDonald. In addition, there were notable industrialists and academics serving on various presidential panels that also played a key role in the development of procuring high altitude reconnaissance imagery; people such as Harvard astronomer Dr James Baker, Edwin Land – inventor of the Polaroid camera – Allen Donovan and Col Richard Leghorn, an airborne reconnaissance expert from Eastman Kodak. But it was Jim Baker who had, by the end of World War II, produced the first 100-in (2540-mm) focal length precision lens for an aerial camera, and his work was continued at Boston by Dunc MacDonald and his team in the early post-war years, work that culminated in the production of a massive 240-in (6100-mm) focal length lens, which at 14 ft (4.27 m) long, could only fit into a giant Convair RB-36 Peacemaker!

Concerns in the US concerning a possible surprise Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) attack had caused the Air Force to set up a Boston-based study group to look into the aerial reconnaissance problem. Code-named Beacon Hill, it was chaired by Carl Overhage and first assembled in May 1951, for the first time bringing together Baker, Land and Donovan. In mid-1952, the group submitted its report to the Air Force, basically confirming that aircraft involved in such work should be built to fly higher and faster. Later, part of this team became members of the so-called Killian Committee (set up by President Eisenhower in 1954, it served under the chair of Dr James R. Killian).

By January 1954, Bell, Fairchild and Martin had completed their studies and submitted them to Wright Field for evaluation. Apart from all three companies nominating the new Pratt & Whitney J57 axial flow turbojet engine (with high altitude modifications, the full designation would become J57-P-37), the design submissions varied considerably. As requested, Martin’s proposed Model 294 was a ‘big wing’ version of the B-57; Bell’s Model 67 was a frail-looking, twin-engined craft, while the single-engined Fairchild M-195 featured an over-the-fuselage intake and a stub-boom mounting for its vertical and horizontal tail surfaces.

On 1 February 1954, Richard Bissell Jr, (a brilliant economist who lectured at both Yale and MIT) was named Director for Planning and Coordination by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Allen Dulles. Later that year, in response to Congressional criticism of the CIA, the Hoover Commission established a Special Study Group, chaired by Gen James Doolittle, to investigate the Agency’s covert activities. When it reported back on 30 September, it expressed the belief that every known technique should be used, and new ones developed, to increase US intelligence by high altitude photographic reconnaissance and other means.By March, engineers at Wright Field had nominated Martin’s B-57D as the interim design, while the Bell proposal was felt to be the more suitable, longer-term design option. In April, Seaburg briefed all three designs to the Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) and SAC. This was followed a month later by yet another briefing, this time to Air Force Headquarters in Washington DC. Shortly afterwards Seaburg received approval to proceed with the B-57D; consequently a list of B-57 modifications was sent to ARDC headquarters, to enable urgent Air Force intelligence requirements in Europe to be met. Tentative approval was also obtained for the Bell Model 67 design; however, on 18 May an unsolicited proposal originating from Lockheed hit Seaburg’s desk.

It was perhaps inevitable that someone in the Pentagon would leak details of the classified high-altitude reconnaissance proposal to Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects (ADPs) boss, aircraft design genius, Clarence L. ‘Kelly’ Johnson. However, after a short but detailed review, Seaburg and his staff rejected the Lockheed design, designated CL-282, and in June 1954 Kelly received a letter officially rejecting his proposal.

Undaunted, Kelly decided to pursue funding for his high-altitude reconnaissance solution from alternative sources. Shortly afterwards he therefore presented a refined design submission to a CIA study committee.

On 9 October 1954, a Technological Capabilities Panel (TCP) of the Office of Defense Mobilisation’s Surprise Attack Committee was established under Dr James Killian, with Dr Edwin Land as its Chairman. In a letter from the panel to the DCI dated 5 November, it recommended that the CIA establish a programme of photo-reconnaissance flights over the USSR, with the assistance of the Air Force. In a subsequent meeting, held on 19 November in the office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Harold Talbott, the CIA and USAF agreed to pursue the TCP’s proposal on a joint basis. This was followed up four days later by a memorandum signed by members of the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC), in support of the photo-reconnaissance programme.

With the Killian Committee having been briefed earlier on all four Bald Eagle contenders, Kelly met with the Government Advisory Board on 19 November 1954. During the course of that meeting he was told that he: ‘was essentially being drafted for the project’.The Killian Committee’s decision to back the refined CL-282 proposal was communicated to Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson and DCI Allen Dulles. On 24 November, a meeting was held at the White House with President Eisenhower to present and seek authorisation for the CL-282 proposal, and funds to produce twenty aircraft, at a total cost of $35 million. This was duly sanctioned.

That same day, Kelly received a phone call giving him the go-ahead for the project that was accorded the classified cryptonym Aquatone (during the Agency’s association with the U-2, which was developed from the CL-282 and which finally ended on 30 July 1967, the cryptonym changed on two occasions in order to preserve security when this was believed to have been compromised; it therefore became Chalice on 1 April 1958, and Idealist after Francis Gary Powers was shot down on 15 May 1960). Within days Lockheed’s ADP office, better known as the ‘Skunk Works’, had by default become a full-scale, advanced design, engineering and production facility. The requirement for absolute secrecy meant that in the years ahead, the Skunk Works team was assured a high degree of autonomy from the rest of the Lockheed Corporation; additionally, the high level of specialised support required to run the programme, coupled with the lack of CIA expertise in this field, ensured Lockheed’s participation in the programme for the life of the aircraft; in one step, a series of precedents had been set for future aircraft programmes.

A winning formula

The Skunk Works had come into being back in 1943, following Lockheed’s successful bid to build the United States’ first jet fighter. Kelly recruited the finest engineers from the company’s Burbank facility and put them to work in an area isolated and secure from the rest of the plant – building the XP-80 in just 143 days! The high level of secrecy surrounding the facility’s activities, together with its location adjacent to the unit’s awful smelling plastics manufacturing plant, caused Ervin Culver, a talented engineer on Kelly’s team (who later invented the rigid rotor system for helicopters), to constantly answer the telephone using the name ‘Skunk Works’, after a location in a popular wartime comic strip, written by Al Capp – the name stuck.

The team Kelly recruited to design and build the new reconnaissance aircraft included Dick Boehme (project engineer), Art Viereck (head of manufacturing), Ed Baldwin and some 50 other key engineers. Kelly nominated Tony LeVier (chief test pilot on the XF-104), to be the project’s chief test pilot, but his first task was to find a secret site from which to conduct flight tests. Edwards and Palmdale were initially considered as possible sites, but both were soon discounted by the US government, which deemed them to be too visually accessible to the public.

In response, LeVier and Dorsey Kammerer – a Skunk Works logistics specialist – borrowed the company Beech Bonanza and conducted a two-week aerial survey of remote desert areas in southern California and Nevada. They then submitted a short list of possible options. However, none appealed to Bissell or Col Ozzie Ritland – the USAF’s liaison officer to the CL-282’s Development Project Staff (DPS). To settle the issue, in mid-April 1955, LeVier flew Johnson, Bissell and Ritland up to some likely sites near the Nevada nuclear test range. Ritland, a pilot who was once assigned to the B-29 test squadron which had dropped nuclear weapons at the range, directed LeVier towards an old World War II airfield which he remembered just to the north of the test range and adjacent to Groom Dry Lake. They landed on the lake-bed and according to Ritland: ‘within 30 seconds we knew it was the place’.

In early May 1955, contracts were issued by the DPS, worth $800,000 for construction work at the secret site. It was to consist of a 5,000-ft (1524-m) long runway, a control tower, a mess hall and three hangers. Johnson, with generous amounts of irony, referred to this parched desert location as Paradise Ranch and this was inevitably soon shortened to ‘The Ranch’.

On 7 May 1956, an elaborate cover story, devised to mask the true purpose of the U-2 programme, was issued to the press in the name of Dr Hugh Dryden, director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) – the predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – wherein it announced that the first U-2 aircraft were participating in an upper atmosphere research programme and ‘flying from Watertown Strip in Southern Nevada’. Watertown was in fact now the ‘official’ name for the Ranch, the CIA naming the site after a town in upstate New York that was the birthplace of its DCI, Allen Dulles. The Nevada test site was vast and divided into many areas. Part of it had been a World War II gunnery range and a walk across the lakebed would reveal countless spent 50-calibre rounds, shell cases and links. The site fell within the boundaries of the main Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) nuclear test site. Therefore the area had to be cleared and fenced off and a restricted airspace zone established. Within three months, under the auspices of Richard Bissell, a large team of AEC construction crews worked round the clock to transform the site into a basic test facility.

To ensure that ‘Kelly’s Angel’ (as the high-altitude design was being referred to by some in the Skunk Works) maintained a competitive edge over its rival, the Bell 67 (now officially designated X-16 by the Air Force as a cover), Kelly promised that his design would be airborne in no less than eight months after the first metal was cut. The initial batch of 20 aircraft was built at the Burbank plant; thereafter further production was moved to Oildale, near Bakersfield, California. By 15 March 1955, wind tunnel testing of the design had been successfully completed and on 21 May the fuselage of ‘Article 341’, the prototype, was removed from its jig. On 20 July, the completed aircraft was handed over to inspection for final checks. The next day it was disassembled and loaded into loading carts. At day break on 24 July, Article 341 was loaded into an Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II and flown to Groom Lake. There it was reassembled in the semi-completed hangers and three days later static engine runs were initiated. With taxi tests completed – the third of which culminated in the aircraft inadvertently getting airborne, to an altitude of 35 ft – the schedule first flight took place at 15:55 on 4 August 1955. Witnessed by several key Skunk Works and ‘Agency’ people, Tony LeVier, (using the call sign ANGEL 1), was chased by a Lockheed operated C-47, flown by company test pilot Bob Matye accompanied by Kelly Johnson (Matye would be the second pilot to fly Article 341).

It was during phase one of the flight test programme that the aircraft was officially designated U-2, the ‘U’ for Utility, again designed to hide the machine’s true mission. Bell’s X-16 had also been progressing well, with construction getting underway in September 1954 and its first flight scheduled for early 1956. However, with the Agency, not the Air Force, now responsible for high-altitude reconnaissance, the X-16’s raison d’etre had disappeared. Consequently, two months after the U-2 took to the air, a decision was made to terminate the X-16 contract – it was a bitter blow for Bell and one that was to have serious financial implications for the company for several years.

The first of six RB-57s was delivered to SAC, under Project Black Knight, in March 1956. Operated by the 4025th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS), 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (SRW), located at Turner AFB, Georgia, the aircraft were operationally deployed for the first time, under Operation Sea Lion, just four months after their activation. Most of these early operations were Elint/Sigint missions, flown from Operating Locations (OLs), at Yokota AB, Japan, and briefly Eielson Air Force Base (AFB), Alaska.

Highly classified, these so-called ferret sorties utilised specialist equipment designated Model 320 or SAFE (Semi-Automatic Ferret Equipment), which had been tested during 1956 and 1957, under the Blue Tail Fly project. Thereafter, it was declared operational and deployed onboard the RB-57s. In addition, the unit conducted high-altitude sampling, during which particles were collected from the upper atmosphere, following nuclear tests undertaken by China and the Soviet Union. This enabled scientists to ascertain the weapon’s characteristics, yield, efficiency, etc.

In February 1957, the 4025th relocated from Turner to Laughlin AFB, Texas, and one month later it received the last of 20 RB-57Ds ordered by the Air Force. For six months further air sampling flights were conducted, this time from Eniwetok Proving Grounds, on the Marshall Islands. Then, in early 1959, under Operation Bordertown, the unit deployed to Europe, where it continued to conduct air sampling and Elint/Sigint missions, before returning to Laughlin and deactivating in mid-1959.

By 1 September 1955, Tony LeVier had completed a total of 20 flights in the U-2 and he left Project Aquatone, having been promoted to Director of Flying back at Burbank. Future test flight planning now became the responsibility of Ernie Joiner and test flying was undertaken by Bob Matye and Ray Goadey.

Cameras and crews

Early model U-2s had their mission payload located in a cavernous, pressurised area behind the cockpit, known as the Q-bay. The acquisition of Photint was to be the aircraft’s primary mission and Dr Jim Baker proved to be pivotal in the conceptualisation of the camera system deployed on the U-2. Three camera systems were worked up: the Type A was primarily refurbished Air Force stock and a stop-gap; the Type C, with its 180-in (4572-mm) focal length lens, would be overtaken by events; and the Hycon Type B camera would prove to be Project Aquatone’s workhorse. Optimised with a 36-in (914-mm) focal length lens with an f/10 aperture, the camera’s large-format film was loaded onto two contra-winding 91/2-in by 18-in (24 ¥ 46 cm) rolls either 4,000 or 6,500 ft (1219 or 1981 m) long. The system was programmed to produce parallel images with an overlap of 50 or 70 per cent. When the two 4,000-ft reels were loaded, the combined film and camera weight was 484 lb (220 kg) which increased to a hefty 577 lb (262 kg) when the two 6,500-ft reels were carried. Also located in the Q-bay was a 35-mm tracker camera. This scanned from horizon to horizon throughout the flight, thereby providing the photographic interpreters with an accurate ground track of the aircrafts flight path.

Pilots recruited by the Agency into Project Aquatone came straight from the Air Force, on a ‘suspended contract’, their ‘grey suit’ time during the period of ‘secondment’ counting as time served in the military. Having passed various interviews, conducted by mysterious civilians at insalubrious hotels, they then spent a week undergoing one of the most rigorous medicals ever devised, at the Lovelace Clinic, Albuquerque, New Mexico. In all, about 25 pilots, in three intakes, were recruited into the Agency programme.

During the Geneva Summit, on 21 July 1955, President Eisenhower had proposed that an ‘Open Skies’ plan should be considered between the United States, the Soviet Union and other participating countries, wherein a limited number of annual reconnaissance overflights would be made in order to verify claims of declared force strengths. Surprised by the proposal, the Soviet delegation reacted favourably and agreed to confer with their Party Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. However, his deep mistrust of the West, and his paranoia, conspired to ensure that he neither signed up to nor rejected the proposal. Such prevarication ensured that ‘Open Skies’ failed one month later, when a vote was taken in the United Nations.

By June 1956, the initial flight test and training objectives of the U-2 programme had been completed, and six pilots, together with ten U-2s, were readied for operational deployment. History was about to prove that the death of Eisenhower’s ‘Open Skies’ proposal would have a profound impact, both within the intelligence fraternity and on the stage of international power politics, when in response the US President sanctioned an initial ten day period for the execution of Operation Overflight.

In anticipation, two U-2s had been air freighted to RAF Lakenheath, England, on 30 April 1956, where the first of three Agency detachments was formed, under the entirely fictious designation of 1st Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Provisional (WRSP-1). Within the ‘inner circle’, however, this was known as ‘Detachment A’ and consisted of Agency and Air Force personnel, and contracted civilians. However, on 16 May, Prime Minister Anthony Eden wrote to President Eisenhower requesting a postponement of Det A’s operations from the UK, following an embarrassing incident with the Soviet Union over an attempt by Royal Navy frogman to covertly survey the cruiser Ordzhonikdze while it was in Portsmouth harbour and carrying Nikita Khrushchev. Consequently no operational sorties were flown from the UK and the unit redeployed to Wiesbaden, West Germany on 15 June. This new location was situated close to Camp King, the Agency’s main West German intelligence gathering facility, from within which intelligence reports from defectors were collected and then used, in part as a basis for generating U-2 overflight requests.