Francis Gary Powers

Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down while flying a secret CIA spying mission over the Soviet Union. Powers survived, but was captured and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison for espionage. He served 21 months of his sentence before being released in a prisoner swap in 1962.

After returning to the US, he worked at Lockheed as a test pilot for the U-2, and later as a helicopter pilot for Los Angeles news station KNBC. He died in 1977, when the KNBC helicopter he was flying crashed.

Powers was born August 17, 1929, in Jenkins, Kentucky, the son of Oliver, a coal miner, and his wife Ida. Powers was the only boy among the family's six children. Oliver, who often struggled to make ends meet, wanted his son to be a physician. When Powers was fourteen, he rode in a Piper Cub airplane at a state fair in West Virginia, sparking his fascination with aviation.

During World War II, the Powers family briefly moved to Detroit, where Oliver had taken a job at a defense plant, before returning to Grundy, Virginia, where Powers finished high school. Powers then entered Milligan College as a pre-med student, but switched majors to biology and chemistry in his third year. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950.^{[non-primary source needed]} Powers married Barbara Gay Moore in Newnan, Georgia, on April 2, 1955.

Powers enlisted in the United States Air Force in October 1950, initially working as a photo lab technician. He was accepted for flight training in November 1951, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1952 after completing advanced training on T-33 and F-80 aircraft at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona. While assigned to gunnery school at Luke Air Force Base, a bout of appendicitis delayed his training, and the Korean War ended by the time he graduated.

Powers was then assigned to the 468th Strategic Fighter Squadron at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia, as a Republic F-84 Thunderjet pilot. In October 1953, Powers was trained at Sandia Base in loading and dropping nuclear weapons from fighter aircraft, and in July 1954 was promoted to first lieutenant. Powers hoped to become a commercial airline pilot when his enlistment ended in December 1955, but decided to stay in the Air Force when he discovered he was, at the age of 26-and-a-half, at the age limit for commercial training.

In January 1956, Powers was recruited by the CIA, and on May 13, 1956, he was discharged from the Air Force at the rank of captain, becoming a civilian employee of the CIA with the grade of GS-13.

In May 1956, Powers began U-2 training at Watertown Strip, Nevada. His training was complete by August 1956 and his unit, the Second Weather Observational Squadron (Provisional) or Detachment 10-10, was deployed to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey.