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TV, and use the code Timeline, you get a special introductory offer. Go and check it out. In the meantime, enjoy this video. (bright orchestral music) (ominous music)
(guns firing) - [Narrator] May 1945. The war in Europe was over
and Germany was occupied. The victors only seemed to be pals. Behind the scenes, the world
split into East and West, preparing for a new war: the United States
against the Soviet Union. The Americans knew almost nothing of their opponents strength and pursued aerial reconnaissance
regardless of cost. Aerial combat over Soviet territory left at least 155 casualties. - It's an airborne chess
game, we called it. Just a constant chess game. (speaking foreign language) - [Narrator] A deadly game. There were electronic and
photo reconnaissance flights deep into the Soviet Union,
a secret war in the air. - I felt a little intrusive, not bad. (speaking foreign language) (rocket roaring) - The premise that the
other side would strike made you think perhaps
it would be much better if you struck first. (explosion booming) - [Narrator] A dangerous
battle for world supremacy, the superpowers' aerial espionage war was kept a secret of the Cold War. (explosion booming) - The only people who didn't
know what we were doing were the Russian people
and the American people. The two governments knew. (solemn orchestral music) - Only one missing person's
fate is fully known. October 1952. An American long-range
reconnaissance plane was spying north of Japan
over the Soviet border area. Soviet fighter planes took off. A sailor onboard a
battleship, Vasily Saiko, was listening to the radio communications. (speaking foreign language) (explosion booming) - Eight Americans onboard the RB-29 died. One of them have been
married for just two years and had recently become
a father, John Dunham. His wife, Mary, was
waiting for him in the USA. - I was ironing clothes one day and I noticed that the TV
was talking about this B-29 that was shot down over
near the Kuril islands and it was from Yokota Air Force Base. And I thought, "I wonder if my husband "knows any of the men on that plane." - [Narrator] The crew on the Soviet ships saw the plane shot down
and searched for survivors. Vasily Saiko found one of the pilots. (speaking foreign language) - [Narrator] The US Air Force
sent Mary Dunham a telegram informing her that her
husband was missing. - First, I was numb with shock, and then I went through
a period of denial. And then the feeling started to return. And then I felt as though
someone had taken a cleaver and just sliced me in half
right down the middle. It was like all my nerve endings were, my bloody nerve endings were hanging out and exposed to the elements, and it was terrible,
terrible, exquisite pain. - [Narrator] Vasily Saiko
brought his gruesome find, the dead John Dunham, ashore. (speaking foreign language) He kept his dead enemy's ring. (sorrowful music) (speaking foreign language) He kept the ring for over 40 years. When the Cold War came to an end, he took it to the American Embassy. - Those people who are so poor, to give up this valuable ring to make an American feel better, an American family feel better, that they were thinking about
us during all those years, it's just incredibly wonderful. And I can't say enough good about them. - [Narrator] Enemies became friends. Vasily Saiko visited
Mary Dunham in the USA. She gave the ring to the daughter who had never met her father. John Dunham's remains were
exhumed in the Kuril Islands and returned to the USA. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, the only one of 155 spy pilots who went missing during
the secret Cold War. Wiesbaden, April the 8th, 1950. At the headquarters of the
US Air Force in Europe, a briefing was given. 10 electronic specialists
were given a secret mission. That afternoon, a Privateer
reconnaissance plane took off, officially for Copenhagen. In fact, Captain John Fette
and co-pilot Howard Seeschaf had another target. They were interested in the testing of new Soviet submarine-launched missiles. They were to eavesdrop on
Soviet radio communications, measure radar emissions, and collect data. (speaking foreign language) The Soviets knew all about the flight. They had Wiesbaden, an American
secret service stronghold, under constant surveillance. They had agents at the
air base at Erbenheim or working nearby. A network of Soviet spies
operated all over Germany. - We were briefed that
there were several thousand Soviet and East German agents
of one nationality or another that were spying on military
and civilian sectors. - [Narrator] No one knew
then that the Soviets had made a decision. For the first time, they would use force to
bring down a spy flight. As the Privateer approached
the Lithuanian coast, radar stations reported the flight and Soviet fighter interceptors took off. One of the pilots was Anatoly Gerasimov. (speaking foreign language) The Americans were horrified. They were flying outside the 12-mile-zone and the Soviets had never attacked before. (explosion booming) (tense music) (speaking foreign language) (waves crashing) (somber music) British radar had observed the action. For the press, the Americans
stuck to their cover story that an unarmed training
flight had got lost. A frantic search began. Oil slicks and pieces of
wreckage were soon found, then the Privateer's nose
wheel with a bullet hole in it, then a life raft. The hatches for first
aid and survival rations had been opened. Were there any survivors? The Soviets claimed they
had shot down a US spy plane over their territory and it had exploded. The Americans abandoned their search with no sign of the crew. Five years later, the American John Noble, released from the Gulag, claimed he'd seen the crew
of the Privateer at Vorkuta, which the Soviets denied. The case remained a mystery. The story behind the story is the last great secret of the Cold War. Even Gerasimov thought he'd fired on a very different kind of spy. (speaking foreign language) George F. Kennan developed the
strategy of using partisans to destroy the Soviet Union from within. Assisting him was Reinhard
Gehlen, Hitler's master spy, now working for the Americans. As he had under Nazism, he
recruited Soviet defectors, this time among Europe's
displaced persons, forced laborers, exiles
from the east, refugees. They were trained as agents and partisans in secret camps in the USA and Germany. This is a real training
field with real volunteers, hence the masks. (explosion booming) The agents also learned
the importance of details like adopting local hairstyles, dressing in the appropriate price range, and having a perfect cover story. Hundreds were dropped
by speedboat or plane in the Baltic or the
other Soviet satellites. Once more, Wiesbaden
played a central role. Here, the pilots were briefed. They knew just enough to carry
out their missions, no more. For the first time, one of
these pilots is prepared to talk on camera about his still
top-secret operations. - We would meet the
people at the airplane. Who they were, what
they did, I don't know. - [Narrator] The pilot
knew only where the men were to be dropped. - It was flying at 500 feet
at nighttime, lights out, and go in and deliver somebody. - [Narrator] Hedgehopping under the radar, a job for specialists. - We flew through the
mountains in that area. Needless to say, we were
very busy with the maps. We had three maps in the cockpit. We had one in the navigator's hand and one in each pilot's hand. And what we were doing is
making sure where we're at. - [Narrator] Their targets lay in the Soviet satellite states, often Latvia, Romania,
Albania, and the Ukraine. The agents usually parachuted in, though sometimes the planes
landed to pick people up. This training film shows
a perfect operation. The agent is met by a resistance group. - [Man] Any broken bones? - [Man] No, I think I
made it all in one piece. - Our friend's farm is up the
hill there just about a mile. I'll show you the way. - [Narrator] The reality
was entirely different. The operations were completely
infiltrated by the Soviets. In Britain, the head of
the Soviet section of MI-6, Kim Philby, betrayed the missions to his real bosses in Moscow. Soviet guards were usually waiting when the agents were dropped. The idea of bringing down
communist countries from within was an illusion destined to fail, which is probably why these operations have remained secret until now. Certainly, Western secret services learned next to nothing
about the actual strength of the Soviet military apparatus. (dramatic music) (speaking foreign language) The Iron Curtain remained
impenetrable and tensions rose. 1948, the Blockade of Berlin. Stalin was extending his empire in Europe and China had become communist. The man in charge of dropping
atomic bombs on Japan, General Curtis LeMay,
organized the Berlin airlift. His ambitions went beyond
taking in supplies. - He practically stormed out, yelled out. He says, "Now, that's not true. "I didn't just start that thing," he says. "I was sitting there
arguing like the devil "for the people to take a tank
or so and a line of trucks "and just bulldoze right
through those blockades." He says, "We coulda done it. "What would they have done?" We did have the bomb and they didn't. - [Narrator] 1949, the first
Soviet atom bomb exploded years before the West had expected it. 1950, the Korean War began. 55% of Americans believed
it was the beginning of the third world war. Was this war also stage
managed by the Soviets? Did Stalin want world
supremacy at any price? Truman sanctioned the
use of the atomic bomb. The world was poised on
the brink of nuclear war. High-ranking US soldiers such as LeMay thought that war was inevitable and should begin sooner rather than later while the Soviets were still weak. At the Air War College, war games were run to test whether and how the Soviet Union could
be forced to her knees. It was concluded that the
effects of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not as massive as anticipated. It was the first use of
nuclear weapons on civilians and the consequences of the
radiation were horrendous, but industrial production
had resumed within a month. A nuclear war on the Soviet
Union would last a year and, if the US were the aggressors, would cost less than three
million American lives. But the enemy would not be annihilated, and how could the giant
empire be occupied? (explosion booming) The two superpowers therefore worked hard to improve their nuclear
weapons, with success. From 1955, a nuclear war
meant worldwide destruction To deliver their atomic
bombs, the Soviet Union built a copy of the Hiroshima bomber, the B-29. They also did some saber-rattling, despite their obvious
military inferiority. (speaking foreign language) By now, the Americans had a new bomber, the Convair Peacemaker, the B-36. In contrast to the B-29, it could reach its target
and fly back to base, a giant machine with 10 engines
capable of 30 hours' flight. - The B-36 makes a noise
that you would never forget if you ever heard it. I happened to live at Fairchild. I lived in a trailer park where the B-36s on final
approach went over, and our trailer would
jump, jump, jump, jump. This thing would go up, (babbling). - [Narrator] There was
also an ultralight version, a high-altitude reconnaissance
plane full of aerial cameras, one with a focal length of six meters. In 1953, Doug Morrell took part in special photographic missions
that are still classified and officially never happened. They took him over the satellite states, perhaps also over the Soviet Union. (dramatic music) Soviet MiGs tried to catch
the B-36, but they couldn't. It flew too high for them. - One of the navigators says, "Hey, there's some fighters
down there coming up." We weren't thinking anything about it. And they were heading our
way like this, he says, and they couldn't quite make it. They mushed around there for awhile. - [Narrator] These flights
produced aerial photographs for new maps of the Soviet Union, locating the major targets
for a possible nuclear war. Until then, the US Air Force had worked with outdated German maps based on Nazi reconnaissance photographs taken before their attack
on the Soviet Union in 1941. - So, for the Soviets, they
were particularly sensitive to any flights over their nation. Some of them, I'm sure, were thinking that it's possibly the prelude to war. On the other hand, the United
States suffered Pearl Harbor, and Pearl Harbor was caused
by a lack of knowledge. - [Narrator] Again, the
Americans knew next to nothing, but they believed the gross exaggerations of Soviet propaganda. 1954, Aviation Day fly-past at Tushino. The Soviets showed off their new bomber, the Myasishchev Bison. Was it combat ready? How many were there? That could only be found out by daylight photo reconnaissance. This dangerous job was
given to a US squadron based in England and recently
equipped with modern jets. - As we came outta the briefing room, Colonel Joe Preston grabbed me by the arm, said, "Bring your crew with me." So, we followed our wing commander to another place in the same building, where we had target study rooms. - [Narrator] Hal Austin was
told the operational details with typical military brevity. - He says, "I do not want you
to keep your separate log," as a navigator always did. He says, "You write that down on this map. "I don't want you to
write it anyplace else. "And if anything happens
to you on this mission, "you're to eat that map." - [Narrator] Austin was told to overfly and photograph nine Soviet bomber bases. What did he think when he
was given this mission? - World War III, that was
the uppermost mark training through that whole timeframe. So, when we get to 1954 and
we get our new airplanes, we're all anxious to get combat
ready in that new airplane. We're in England and then we're
given this mission to fly. And after the fact, we're kinda wondering, "Well, maybe the purpose of that mission "was to start World
War III; I don't know." We're professionals. That's what a General
LeMay trained us to do. When somebody told us
what the mission was, we're gonna listen to that mission, and never any thought of doing anything except flying the mission as
we were briefed to fly it. - [Narrator] Three jets headed for Norway, like a normal training flight. When two planes turned back, their crews were horrified
to see Austin flying on in the direction of the Soviet Union. A short while later, he reached the coast. At first, all went well. They took the first photos. - About the time we
crossed the third target is when we saw the first fighters, and they were apparently MiG-15s. They were nowhere near our altitude. - [Narrator] The MiGs can even be seen in Austin's reconnaissance photographs, but his bomber could fly
higher than the MiG-15s. What neither Austin nor
the intelligence officers who planned his fight
knew was that the Soviets had stationed a new fighter
plane in the area, the MiG-17. It could fly just as high as the Boeing. These MiGs came within firing range. - I saw some funny looking things going both above and below the
airplane that were tracers. And of course, I knew what
tracers looked like from film, but that's the first time
that I'd actually seen one. And Polk was saying, "Well,
they're making passes at us." I made a couple of snide remarks about that intelligence officer that told us not to worry about MiG-17s. Hedlin is yelling at me at the nose to make my corrections to
headings to get that next target. Shrapnel then knocked out our intercom. It was riddled, if you will, with holes. - [Narrator] In a damaged
plane that was losing fuel, Austin continued his
mission, shook off the MiGs, photographed the remaining targets, and got as far as Finland. He was in urgent need of fuel and called for a tanker
over his shot-up radio. The tanker pilot at the British
base could barely hear him. - So, he heard our call
sign, recognized my voice. He called the tower at Milton Hall, said he was gonna make an
emergency launch to refuel a B-47. The tower said negative,
that he could not launch because we have an emergency in progress. - [Narrator] A fighter
plane with difficulties wanted to land. The tanker pilot objected. - "I'm declaring an emergency
to launch this airplane, "so how long?" And the fighter come back and
said, "About five minutes." He said, "Gives me time to get off." He told the tower, "I am taking off." - [Narrator] Despite the air
traffic controller's threats, the tanker pilot took off and found Austin over the
North Sea in the nick of time. - Polk swears to this day that all the fuel gauges had quit wiggling by the time we leveled
off behind the tanker. - [Narrator] The photos were safe. They would prove that the Bison bomber did not yet pose a threat. Frankfurt and Wiesbaden were home to the 7499th Support Group. Its harmless name belied its role as one of the most important
units of American spy planes. Crammed with recording devices, the aircraft monitored
radio communications, radar positions, and
Soviet infrastructure, a kind of electronic vacuum cleaner that picked up everything. One of the specialists on
board was Robert Keefe, age 20. - People in my outfit who were 22 we thought of as rather
old, and people at that age don't have the sense of imminent danger. I'd like to say that they
don't have brains enough, but it's not. Life is too new. Life is not gonna end when
you're 19, it's impossible. It was exciting to know
that we were flying in areas where we weren't particularly safe and in aircraft that were old,
and the aircraft themselves weren't particularly safe at that time. "Oh, look, the engine's
on fire. (laughing) "That's interesting." (laughing) I know it sounds a little
stupid, but it was fun. Until 20% of my outfit got
killed, I enjoyed myself. - [Narrator] The unit
was given new planes, the Hercules, for a special mission. - My best friend was part of that crew and, in a very real sense,
took over what had been my job. - [Narrator] Electronic reconnaissance along the Turkish-Soviet border. The Hercules had orders to fly between the Trabzon and Van radio beacons and to keep the Soviets
under surveillance. But the crew were not
familiar with the new plane and mistakenly headed for
the radio beacon at Yerevan, which transmitted on the same frequency. - Our people in Darmstadt
watched this plane miss Trabzon by maybe as much as 50 miles. And they watched it for
nearly half an hour, I think, head toward what they knew
was going to be destruction. - [Narrator] They had no radio contact and couldn't warn the Hercules that Soviet Air Defense was scrambling. Fighter planes took off and
waited just over the border. The unarmed plane was easy prey. (guns firing) (explosion booming) Original footage taken
by Soviet MiG cameras. The Hercules went down
within sight of the border. - About two o'clock in the morning, I was woken up in my barracks and told that that plane had gone down. There was no indication given to us that the plane had been shot down. That it had gone down,
probably in the Atlas Mountains in Eastern Turkey, and that a crew of us were going to be sent down to look for it. We were in shock. - [Narrator] Bob Keefe
was with the search party sent to look for survivors. - One of my strongest
memories is of the flight down and of us just sitting,
about five of us, saying, "Okay, we'll find them, we'll get them. "We're gonna see something
shining in one of these valleys "and we're gonna go down
and we're gonna get them "and they're gonna be very grateful." - [Narrator] But the search
party was purposely sent to the wrong area. High-ranking officers
prepared a cover story while the men desperately searched for their missing comrades far from where they'd been shot down. - I remember walking off- I remember walking off and crying. You don't at that age
let anybody see you cry. You can't be a man and cry. - [Narrator] When the crew
got back to Frankfurt, their rooms have been cleared out, papers had been destroyed, and
all traces of them removed, as if the unit had never existed. - My feeling is they used me as a puppet and used people like me as a puppet to buy time for themselves to make up some damned
lie about what happened. - [Narrator] The IG Farben
Building in Frankfurt, CIA European headquarters. Here, the cover story was cooked up. The spy mission became a
navigational training flight that strayed off course. - My second best friend among the group who was on that plane was married, had a two-year-old child maybe, and his wife was five months pregnant. And I raised my hand and I
asked how we could see them, because I wanted to express my sympathy. I mean, I didn't know anything. I couldn't tell her anything. I could just say, "I'm horrified "and my feelings are with
you," and we were forbidden. - [Narrator] Military
intelligence threatened the men with 10 years in jail and a
$10,000 fine if they spoke out. - After about two or three
weeks, I wrote a petition saying that the refusal to
let us talk to the wives and the refusing to tell
anybody, including us, anything like the truth
about what happened was absolutely the wrong way to go. I said, I think I said, that, "You're destroying people's lives "by doing what you're doing." - [Narrator] Keefe's commanding offices threatened to court martial him and forced him to tear up his
petition in their presence. - I didn't know that my
government would do that. My government at that point was a captain and a few people above him. I didn't know that Americans
did that sort of thing. I thought that only Russians
did that sort of thing. (airplane engines roaring) - [Narrator] Shortly afterwards, Keefe volunteered for
further missions in Turkey. - I don't have a heroic bone in my body, but I can't explain why I had to. I had to. Yeah, I can explain. I felt I shoulda been on the
plane that got shot down, and so I figured, "Okay, we'll give them
another shot at us." - [Narrator] Keefe was not shot down, but he was marked forever by the events. (somber music) 1956. In Wiesbaden, the game of
aerial chest continued. An Air Force general inspects
reconnaissance planes of the 4799th Support Group
for Operation Heartthrob. A high-altitude plane loaded with cameras violated the airspace of Soviet satellite states several times. An original photograph from
a mission over Yugoslavia. From Bitburg, the same
unit flew similar missions, now flying the Americans'
first supersonic jets. (jet engines roaring) The Soviet Air Force had no
equivalent fighter interceptor. - And the aircraft would
launch outta Bitburg and climb to altitude, quite high, and then penetrate as fast as he could and then get the hang back
out as fast as he could. - [Narrator] In Wiesbaden,
the CIA had its own planes. Their operations are secret to this day. They were flown by pilots
from the Eastern Bloc country. A photo taken in Wiesbaden
is the only proof that the mysterious RB-69
ever flew out of Germany. Just seven planes were built,
especially for the CIA. (speaking foreign language) In Germany, the Americans, meanwhile, embarked on a new operation, Moby Dick. Automatic cameras the size of
refrigerators were launched suspended from hundreds of balloons. They drifted slowly
across the Soviet Union at a height of 16 kilometers. When they reached the Pacific
coast several days later, the cameras detached
themselves from the balloons on a radio command. Specially-equipped planes
then recovered the cameras as they descended by parachute The photos were mainly
of uninhabited terrain, forests, and snowy wastes. The balloons had drifted without guidance. The Soviets also shot many of them down when they lost altitude at night. (guns firing) They demonstrated their booty at an international press conference. This media interest was probably
part of Washington's plans. Several things don't add up. For example, the balloons
could easily have flown at an altitude of 25 kilometers, far higher than any
aircraft, so why didn't they? - Eisenhower ordered that
the balloons be ballasted not to fly above 50,000-55,000 feet, which was the altitude
of the military aircraft. He did not want the Soviets preparing or initiating research projects to shoot things down at high altitude. - [Narrator] Because the
U-2 was nearly ready, a high-altitude reconnaissance plane developed and operated by the CIA. Air Force General LeMay opposed the U-2 in favor of continuing
to send converted bombers over the Soviet Union,
but the CIA got their way. - It was their contention
that this enterprise of flying over the denied
territory, as it was called, really wasn't a business
that you could entrust to converted bombers and nor indeed entirely to the military. - [Narrator] General LeMay, shortly before the U-2 began flying, ordered the Cold War's most
provocative operation, HOMERUN. From Thule in Greenland, 156 missions were flown
over the Soviet Union in planes that might've
carried atomic bombs. Sometimes they even flew in formation. Some historians believe LeMay
wanted to start World War III. Not long afterwards, President Eisenhower forbade
all American Air Force flights over the Soviet Union. - The meetings in the
White House to discuss, "How do we answer the Soviet
protests for HOMERUN," was to say that because of
the far north magnetic pole and the navigational problems, that if it were true that some planes had strayed into Soviet territory
during training exercises, it was most regretted and it occurred because of
navigational errors and so forth. - [Narrator] The Soviet
Air Force was powerless, compelled to recognize it could
not defend its own country, a humiliating realization. (speaking foreign language) In July 1956, the CIA
put the U-2 into service. It was stationed at Wiesbaden. Only the CIA was now allowed
to fly over the Soviet Union, and then only on the personal
order of the president. Detachment A of the CIA
was relocated to Germany under top secrecy. - One of the biggest
concerns that the CIA had was having to base the U-2 at Wiesbaden, which was a base where they had other covert operations going on. They didn't like that one bit because the U-2 was being
run as a very tightly held and tightly compartmented operation, even within the CIA. - [Narrator] The U-2 could fly higher than any other plane of its time. It carried the best camera in the world and specially designed film. Fourth of July, 1956. On orders from President Eisenhower, CIA pilot Hervey Stockmann was to find out whether the Soviets had
more bombers than the USA. Both the Soviets and
the American military, in rare consensus, claimed this was true. Stockmann knew only which
route he was to take. - We were essentially drivers. We were good pilots, we were trustworthy, and that's the way they wanted us to be. "Don't get in our way. "Don't ask too many questions,"
and I accepted that. - [Narrator] The Soviets detected the U-2, but they were powerless and
had to watch it photograph their secret bases from
high above Soviet fighters. - One of the questions I asked myself, but not in any sort of
a penetrating fashion, was, "Where is this threat?" - [Narrator] The U-2's
photos were sensational. (speaking foreign language) The photos showed how weak
the Soviet Air Force was. All the menacing talk about the bomber gap and Soviet superiority
was just propaganda. When Gary Powers took off in 1960, the U-2s had already been flying two years longer than originally planned. According to the CIA, the Soviets had been able to
shoot them down since 1958. On May the 1st, 1960, it happened. (speaking foreign language) (rocket roaring) Khrushchev tried to
exploit the shooting down for propaganda purposes
and arranged a show trial. Powers had not used his poisoned
needle to commit suicide. The American military
still take this badly. An irony of fate. On the day Powers was sentenced, the USA launched its first spy satellite. The era of overflights was over. But electronic reconnaissance continued. This special R version
of the B-47 was so secret that there is no film of it in flight. Crammed with electronic spying devices, it flew parallel to Soviet
territory and sometimes over it. - With electronic intel,
what you're trying to do is to come up with a method
of getting you to that target and hopefully getting you back out of it. You have to build an effective defense to overcome their defenses. - [Narrator] The RB-47
was a high-tech machine and an improvisation. - You're sitting up front
in the aisle, three of you in the space normally occupied by one man. And you're wearing a
five-inch-thick back parachute and water wings and a
helmet and then clothing, which makes it even harder. You have to go down a very small chute on this ladder that had
a faulty latch on it and find your way into the crawlway. Now, getting up from your
position was a real chore, but getting in the crawlway was an art. You really had to work at
it and make your way down that crawlway without snagging anything and popping your parachute or
initiating your water wings. When you got the end of the crawlway you laid flat on your belly and went through the small
hatch into the compartment. And that was relished
because it was the only time and place in that airplane
that you could stretch out, 'cause once you got in the compartment, it was four feet high and you couldn't stand or
even squat good anymore, so you were pretty crowded
and confined from then on. - [Narrator] The Soviets intercepted the reconnaissance
planes and escorted them, at times dangerously close. Sometimes they attacked. - If they thought we were
getting in the wrong area or getting information
they didn't want to lose, then they would have the
fighters lead the chase and try to destroy us. - [Narrator] Then there
was only one thing for it. - We used the tactical of
getting right on the deck at maximum speed and running from 'em. - [Narrator] Close to sea level, the missiles' guidance system didn't work and the fighters didn't have enough fuel for a flat-out chase
over the sound barrier. - The airplane went beyond buffet, where you got no ailerons
and then aileron reversal. And we were doing everything
we could to stay alive. When we landed the airplane, it was crusted with salt
on all the leading edges and the wings had warped so badly that they couldn't remove
the outboard engines. - [Narrator] It was one of
many highly dangerous missions which have remained secret until now. The American pilots did not
always manage to escape. July 1960. An electronic reconnaissance plane flew from England to Murmansk. - As we came up to the turning point, the co-pilot suddenly said, "Check, check, check, right wing." (speaking foreign language) - [Narrator] Polyakov instructed
the bomber to follow him. (speaking foreign language) (guns firing) - Without any warning, started firing his cannon at our aircraft, and the cannon shells hit the
number two and three engines. (speaking foreign language) - And then I saw these
holes this big around open up where I sat in the nose, looked like more cannon
shells coming through. And then I heard the
aircraft commander say, "Bail out, bail out, bail out." And then I saw red alarm
lights flash for the bail out and alarm bells rang. And then I saw fire coming
down from the aisle behind me. And then I heard an explosion behind me, which sounded like the canopy
of the airplane leaving. And then I heard another explosion, and I figured, "Time to
get outta this mother." (dramatic music) At 14,000 feet, where my
chute opened automatically, and then I saw this beautiful blue sea. And I was born and raised in Kansas. I was never around the ocean and I had no idea what an ocean was like. But it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit or so, so it was fairly warm. But we were also told by
our intelligence officer that the water was 33 degrees up there. - [Narrator] Besides McKone, only Olmsted, the copilot, survived. The pilot and three
electronic specialists died. - They said 18 minutes is as long as you'd last in calm water. And I was out there not for
18 minutes, but six hours. - [Narrator] McKone fought for
his life and started to pray. - All of a sudden, right
off the end of my dinghy, I could almost reach out and
touch it it was so close, was this terribly bright light. And it was so bright that I
had to shield my eyes from it and I put my hands up like this. And I knew that that was the Holy Spirit. I know that God was with me. And all of a sudden, nobody spoke to me, but I knew at that particular time that John McKone would be
saved, that I'd be rescued, and that everything
was gonna be all right. - [Narrator] Then, a Soviet trawler zigzagged through the crash area. McKone yelled and waved and was spotted. The co-pilot was rescued too. (speaking foreign language) - I was put in the Lubyanak
and put in a solitary cell. The door was a solid wooden door with a little Judas hole,
as we call it, on it. So, when they shut that door, you're almost in a soundproof
cell, and that's kinda eerie. They had women in solitary there, they had children in solitary. And then sometimes they'd
go in and beat these people and they'd scream and holler. And I remember that there
was a fellow next to me in the adjoining cell, and
he started losing his mind. And he'd run up against the cell door and you could hear him
pa-pa-pa-pa-pow, hit the door. And then pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! - [Narrator] A 300-watt light
bulb prevented deep sleep, a subtle method of torture. - I figured that it might be a long stay and that I'd be prepared for that. So, I would do all kinds of
physical exercises in my cell. I'd do maybe up to 50 pushups. You'd count all the hairs from your elbow and up to your wrist, just to have something to do. You'd daydream too, of course,
about your childhood days and when you went fishing
and all this business. But you had to watch that because after a while
you kinda feel yourself going over the edge of reality. (laughing) - [Narrator] Sleep deprivation,
solitary confinement, starvation: the KGB's gentler methods of getting prisoners to talk. The USA publicly demanded
the prisoners' release, but McKone didn't know. His world was endless interrogation. - And I was interrogated
four and five hours a stretch with an hour break, 24 hours
a day, seven days a week. This went on for a number
of weeks before I said, "Name, rank, service
number, and date of birth "isn't gonna do it." (laughing) - [Narrator] Endless interrogations. After months of solitary confinement, he met his co-pilot
again for the first time. - He lost about 70 pounds. I lost about 70 pounds. He looked at me and I looked at him and we didn't even recognize each other. And finally, I saw something
familiar about his eyes and I said, "Are you Bruce Olmstead?" And he looked at me, burst
out in tears, ran over and gave me a big bear hug and kiss. And he said, "Yes, thank
God, it's John McKone." - [Narrator] Finally, after seven months, McKone was released as an inaugural gift for the new president, John F. Kennedy. McKone was lucky. Many remained missing. Were there other survivors? We looked at another case, the downing of the Privateer in 1950. One document has been overlooked
for more than 50 years, a German prisoner of
war's report to the CIA. In the Vorkuta Gulag,
the German met a pilot who called himself WATERWOLF. Was this a play on sea
sheep, Seeschaf in German, the missing American Howard Seeschaf? The report's description of
WATERWOLF matches Seeschaf and there were other similarities. WATERWOLF said he had flown
from Berlin to Moscow, both true and false. Seeschaf flew from Germany
to the Soviet Union. WATERWOLF said he had been born in Japan. True and false. Seeschaf fought in the Second World War against the Japanese. Was Japan where Seeschaf
stopped being a civilian to become WATERWOLF the soldier? Could Seeschaf have
survived being shot down? The Soviet pilot's report
at the time was unambiguous. He said the Privateer
had exploded in the air. Now, he tells the truth on
camera for the first time. (speaking foreign language) An officer dictated the official report: no survivors, a deliberate lie. (speaking foreign language) Everything was ready for the Americans, even the rescue ships. But why did Gerasimov give false testimony to a Russian-American commission in 1993? (speaking foreign language) A mistake. It's still unclear whether
there were American spy pilots in the Vorkuta camp. We took our findings to the
Russian-American Commission investigating the fate
of missing servicemen, but they refused to give us an interview. Why? Have the men in the Gulag
been secretly abandoned? One former soldier tells how
his own bitter experiences. - I believe that bureaucracies can be incredibly destructive. And I believe that
national military systems are the ultimate bureaucracy. And a bureaucracy which has guns and another bureaucracy which
has the absolute ability to remain secret and not tell anything it doesn't wanna tell, those are two very
dangerous bureaucracies. (waves crashing) - [Narrator] The struggle for
air supremacy was top secret. We know it claimed men's lives. But among the missing, were some sacrificed to
a more important cause? The military would like that
to stay a secret forever. (solemn orchestral music)
