UPDATE:
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz presents the Silver Star awarded posthumously to Air Force Capt. Francis Gary Powers to the captain’s grandchildren, Francis Gary “Trey” Powers III and Lindsey Barry, during a ceremony in the Pentagon, June 15, 2012.
PREVIOUS UPDATES:
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz will posthumously award the Silver Star to Capt. Francis Gary Powers during a ceremony at the Pentagon, Friday, June 15, 2012, at 9:30 a.m. EDT in the Hall of Heroes
Powers, whose U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, May 1, 1960, will receive the medal for demonstrating “exceptional loyalty” while enduring harsh interrogation in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow for almost two years.
Gary Powers Jr. and Dee Powers, Powers’s children, and Dick Anderegg, director of Air Force History, will be available to the media for on-camera interviews in the Office of the Secretary of Defense small television studio (2E963) on June 14 from noon to 4 p.m.
UPDATE:
Our own Shaun Mullen published a powerful and moving story for the Philadelphia Daily News about Phan Thi Kim Phuc. Please read it here.
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ORIGINAL POST:
On this Saturday, just a couple of stories about a young pilot and a very young girl that take us back 52 and 40 years ago, respectively.
Those of us old enough remember the day when Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and plunged the temperatures of the Cold War even lower.
The date was May 1, 1960. Powers was on a “reconnaissance” mission deep inside the Soviet Union when a Soviet surface-to-air missile struck his U-2. Powers bailed out, was captured by the Soviets, convicted of espionage and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
After serving nearly two years in Soviet prisons Powell was exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in classic spy movies style on Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge.
Today, the Stars and Stripes reports that Francis Gary Powers will be posthumously awarded the Silver Star:
The medal will be presented by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz to Powers’ grandson and granddaughter at a Pentagon ceremony attended by other family members on June 15.
Powers, who died in 1977 at age 47 in a helicopter crash in Los Angeles, will be recognized for his “indomitable spirit, exceptional loyalty” and “sustained courage in an exceptionally hostile environment,” according to the citation.
From the citation:
For almost 107 days, Captain Powers was interrogated, harassed, and endured unmentionable hardships on a continuous basis by numerous top Soviet Secret Police interrogating teams …Although greatly weakened physically by the lack of food, denial of sleep and the mental rigors of constant interrogation, Capt. Powers steadfastly refused all attempts to give sensitive defense information or be exploited for propaganda purposes, resisting all Soviet efforts through cajolery, trickery and threats of death to obtain the confessions they sought as part of the pretrial investigation…As a result of his indomitable spirit, exceptional loyalty and continuous heroic actions, Russian intelligence gained no vital information from him.
Powell has been honored before:
In 2000, Powers was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Department of Defense Prisoner of War Medal and a National Defense Service Medal two years after government records were declassified showing that Powers was part of a joint Air Force-CIA program
“Powers, when asked how high he was flying on May 1, 1960, would often respond, ‘Not high enough,’ according to his son,” says the Stars and Stripes.
Read more here
Photo from Shaun Mullen’s Post
Many more of us remember the horrifying photo of a little Vietnamese girl running down a country road, naked, crying, “her clothes and layers of skin melted away by napalm” and in obvious agony escaping her burning village along with other children.
The little girl — she was just 9 years old at the time — is Kim Phuc and the date was June 8, 1972, the date her village was attacked with napalm by South Vietnamese planes.
That single heart wrenching photograph “came to symbolize the horrors of the Vietnam War and, ultimately, helped end it,” according to the Stars and Stripes.
Today, exactly 40 years later, that “little girl” — she is now 49 — is honoring those who helped her and saved her on that dreadful day.
You see, the Vietnamese photographer who took the iconic photo, Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut, “drove the badly burned child to a small hospital, where he was told she was too far gone to help. He flashed his American press badge, demanded that doctors treat the girl and left assured that she would not be forgotten.”
Phuc, who lives near Toronto with her family, at a dinner Friday honored Ut, as well as other journalists, doctors and nurses who helped her get help and who treated her injuries. “I’m so grateful [Ut] was there. He helped me and rushed me to the nearest hospital. He saved my life. He’s my hero. This opportunity tonight I want to honor all of my personal heroes,” Phuc said, according to the AP story in the Stars and Stripes.
Read more about Phuc and how she was saved when “nobody thought she’d make it,” here.
U-2 Image: Courtesy Lockheed Martin
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.