Personnel and Aircraft in Detachment A

1 January 1956 to 15 November 1957

Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum

Aircrew

Nearly all the pilots utilized by the CIA came from SAC bases at Turner AFB, in Georgia and Bergstrom AFB, in Texas. They were the "cream of the crop" - the best the country had to offer. CIA pilot training began in the spring of 1956. The first course consisted of seven pilots - all of which were employed with the CIA. This small group consisted of the following personnel:

Glen Dunaway, Marty Knutson, Jake Kratt, Carl Overstreet, Hervey Stockman, Carmine Vito (deceased), and Charles Kapuskak.

Aircraft

The first six aircraft were produced in Burbank, CA but, in 1956, the line was relocated to just outside of Bakersfield, CA, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, where they were assembled, functionally checked, disassembled and trucked to Bakersfield airport. From there, they were loaded into a C-124 and flown to a remote test site.

Article 346, serial number 56-6679, was the sixth U-2 built. It was involved in an accident in West Germany on 17 September 1956, killing the pilot Howard Carey.

Article 347, serial number 56-6680, was the seventh U-2 built. It was delivered on 9 February, 1956, and was first employed operationally on 4 July 1956. It originally flew as a U-2A model and was subsequently upgraded as a U-2C when refitted with the J75-P-13B engine, which required a significant enlargement of the airframe engine inlets. When flown by the CIA, the aircraft remained unpainted except for a NACA 187 (the National Advisory Committe for Aeronautics; which evolved into NASA) identification on the tail of the aircraft and was operated from bases at Lakenheath, England; Wiesbaden and Giebelstadt, Germany

Courtesy Skunkworks Notes

Aircrew

Pilots for the U-2 were CIA hires (from out of the USAF), but put on the books as Lockheed employees; money to pay them came from a special account Lockheed maintained funed with laundered CIA money. Their cover was that they were employees of Lockheed under a government high-altitude weather and aircraft-performance study. The money arrived as *personal checks* to Kelly Johnson, mailed to his "house" in Encino. Johnson set up a fake company ("C&J Engineering" C=Clarence (Kelly's first name) and J=Johnson) to further mask the funds.

Pilots for the U-2 program came out of SAC's pool of fighter pilots (SAC had fighter wings for bomber escort back then) -- the first SAC pilots showed up in the fall of 1955. They had to resign their commissions with the USAF, and come to work for Lockheed under assumed names. The CIA called this procedure "sheep dipping" -- it was used to break the link from the USAF to the U-2 (and so enhance 'plausible denial' if things went awry.) Rather than use military ground crews, the CIA insisted on Lockheed ground crews (which were scattered all over the world.) Pilot salaries were $40,000 per year (in 1956!) plus an extra $1,000 per month for overseas operation time.

Courtesy Chris Pocock

Using the first four articles, four Lockheed test pilots explored the virtually unknown high-altitude regime. They were supported by fewer than thirty engineers on the ground. They tested the pressure suits and oxygen system. They established cruise-climb schedules even though the autopilots were not yet installed. They proved that the structure, which was designed for 2.5 g's, could actually withstand 4 g's despite all the weight-shaving. They broke the official world altitude record (66,000 feet) on a daily basis - with no fanfare, of course.

The CIA wanted to use mercenary pilots for the Soviet overflights. Eight foreign flyers already on the CIA payroll were sent for jet training. Only four of them made it to the test site where a small group of Air Force officers responsible for training washed them out. Instead, the program recruited flyers from the pool of young but experienced Strategic Air Command pilots who were becoming available as SAC disbanded its four strategic fighter wings. Many of these SAC pilots had flown the demanding, single-engine F-84 on long deployments over water, which seemed a good qualification. After a rigorous selection and security-screening procedure, these pilots were offered two-year CIA contracts to leave the military and join the project, ostensibly as employees of Lockheed.

The first group of seven ex-Air Force pilots began training at the test site in early January 1956. They were part of Detachment A, the first of three self-sufficient detachments that the CIA planned to deploy to Europe and Asia to conduct the overflights. Each detachment consisted of about 120 people commanded by an Air Force officer with a CIA officer as his executive. Blue-suiters staffed operations. The CIA ran communications, security, and administration. All of the maintenance - planes, sensors, life support system - would be done under contract by civilian technical representatives. However, selection of targets and mission planning would be done at project headquarters in Washington, under CIA control.

The basic flight test program was completed by the end of February; the first group of pilots passed its operational deployment test in mid-April. In early May, the four U-2s assigned to Detachment A were loaded into C-124 transports and flown to Europe.

Detachment "A" used the "Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (Provisional) - 1 (WRSP-1) as its cover designation. It was established at the Watertown Strip (Groom Lake in Southern Nevada) in January 1956, moved to Lakenheath England in April 1956, then on to Wiesbaden West Germany in June 1956 and finally to Giebelstadt West Germany in October 1956. The Detachment was closed in November 1957.

Detachment A was an unorthodox mix of USAF and CIA people, and civilian contract employees. General LeMay had ensured that his own men from SAC took most of the USAF slots, including the Unit Commander, Operations Officer, and their deputies. About a dozen more USAF officers and a similar number of enlisted men worked in operations, mission planning, provided support aircraft, and so on. There were about 40 CIA staffers looking after administration, security, and communications. Since all of the maintenance - planes, sensors, life support systems - was done under contract, there were upwards of 60 more civilians assigned. Then there were the six "sheep-dipped" operational pilots. They weren't really sure who their boss was - the USAF Colonel who was officially the Unit Commander, or the GS-12 grade staffer from CIA who was the Unit Execurive Officer!.

The security officer for Detachment A was Edmund P Wilson, who would later achieve notoriety as an illicit arms dealer, and be convicted and sent to jail for conspiracy to murder.

Key Personnel in Detachment "A"

Pilots in Detachment "A"

Aircraft in Detachment "A"