Washington D.C. Burned, August 24, 1814

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Today in 1814, British forces under the command of General Robert Ross marched unopposed into Washington, D.C. and, before the day was over, burned most of the city's public buildings and a few private residences. This day marked the low point of American fortunes during the War of 1812.

The war, referred to as the American War of 1812 to 1815 by the British, was fought entirely in North America and at sea. The causes of the conflict were clear to the War Hawks in the United States: Great Britain's refusal to surrender frontiers forts as agreed to in 1783, the boarding of American ships by Royal Navy crews in search of missing sailors (often resulting in the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy) and the on-going trade embargoes of both England and France, which resulted in the seizure and forfeit of American merchant ships.

Attempts had been made to deal with these issues peacefully with mixed results. However, enough members of the US Congress supported a fight that a declaration of war was introduced in June, 1812. As eager for war as some American leaders were, neither side was ready for a fight. England was fighting Napoleon's French army in Europe and had little desire for a second war thousands of miles from home. That summer, there were only 5,000 British troops in Canada. The Americans were not in better shape: the entire US Army amounted to 12,000 men on paper, but it's real strength may have been as little as half that number. But war had been given, and so war would be fought.

The British repelled an American invasion of Canada in 1812 and made their own invasion near Detroit soon thereafter. The favor of war visited both sides more or less equally until 1814, when British successes against Napoleon allowed them to send more troops to North America, eventually totaling more than 48,000 regulars. Part of this force landed in Maryland and overwhelmed American militiamen at Blandensburg early on August 24, 1814; this American defeat left the city of Washington unguarded. President James Madison was present at the battle, the last time a sitting American Commander-in-Chief would personally view the US military in combat.

The First Lady, Dolly Madison, was meanwhile busy with her servants trying to save some of the valuables in the White House. The most famous item they saved was Gilbert Stuart's full-length painting of George Washington, which was hidden in the bottom of a wagon.

The British force arrived at the nation's capital in the afternoon; the only resistance they encountered were a few angry civilians, which they quickly dispersed. A detachment was sent to the White House, where they found the dining hall ready to seat 40 people. They ate the food and then set about burning the place down. They also burned the Treasury Building and the unfinished Capitol Building. The facilities of the Washington Navy Yard and the incomplete USS Columbia were burned by American sailors to prevent their capture. The US Patent Office was saved by the Superintendent of Patents, who convinced the British soldiers of the importance of its preservation.

Miraculously, a severe storm ravaged the district that night, putting out many of the fires before they could engulf the entire city. The last British troops left the city after 26 hours of occupation, bound for their next objective: Baltimore. The President returned to the city the next day after hiding with his cabinet in the nearby Virginia countryside overnight, but most of the government buildings had been rendered unusable. Repairs to the various buildings and construction of replacements would continue well into the 1830's.

It is important to remember that the burning of Washington was not a unilateral action. In 1813, American forces had burned York, the capital of Upper Canada. In addition to burning Parliamentary buildings, they also looted many civilian homes. The US officers present were unable to control their men. While European armies had certainly looted their enemies, by the early 19th century most nations recognized an unofficial agreement by which cities and towns would not be looted or burned unless facilities in the city presented an immediate threat to the invaders.

The British Generals had hoped that the destruction of the US capital would have a devastating effect on American morale. Instead, the populace was outraged; thousands of men volunteered to help defend Baltimore against invasion. American forces successfully repelled every British attack for the remainder of the war.

What Price Victory, August, 1945

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August 6th and 9th, 2010 marked the 65th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. These two dates remain the only times nuclear weapons have been used for their original intended purpose: to destroy population centers along with an enemy’s ability and desire to wage war. For seven decades, the world has debated the wisdom and morality of the use of these weapons. To better understand the reasoning at work in the minds of Allied leaders and war planners, it is important to look at the events leading up to these August, 1945, dates and consider one of the greatest ‘what if’ scenarios of not just the Second World War, but of all modern military history.

By the summer of 1945, the Empire of Japan had ceased being a threat in most areas of the Pacific theater of war. Okinawa, only 340 miles from mainland Japan, was secured by U.S. Army and Marine Corps divisions by the end of June. While significant Japanese ground forces remained active in China and Korea, the Allies had destroyed the Imperial Navy over the course of the previous three-and-a-half years, leaving her coastal cities open to shelling from the battleships and heavy cruisers of the U.S. and British Pacific fleets. The Japanese air force, while numerically still a presence, was all but grounded due to a lack of fuel. Every major city in the Japanese home islands had been at least partially leveled by daily U.S. Army Air Corps bombing raids. The Japanese merchant fleet, once one of the world’s largest, had ceased to exist. The island nation was cut off.

Yet, the remains of the once-vast empire fought on. There was a strong belief among the military leaders of Japan that a successful invasion of the four main Japanese home islands would mean the end of the nation as a distinct cultural entity. The hardliners believed that surrender was not an option and that an Allied invasion required the entire population to fight to the point of extinction. There were voices of moderation in Tokyo, one of them being the Emperor of Japan. However, tradition demanded that he remain officially silent. He had made his desire for a negotiated peace clear, however, in private discussions with his ministers. The Emperor wanted the Soviet Union (who was not yet at war with Japan) to act as a mediator between the warring powers in the Pacific. However, he also wanted some sort of concrete victory in order to gain leverage during the negotiations. By the end of June, 1945, it was clear there would be no great Japanese victory on Okinawa or anywhere else. Furthermore, the Soviets were not interested in brokering a deal of any sort: Josef Stalin had his own plans.

Meanwhile, the war in Europe ended in early May, 1945. While the occupation of Germany and Eastern Europe and post-war actions of the Allies had been discussed on multiple occasions since early in the conflict, there were still many details which needed to be sorted out. Beginning on July 17th, leaders of the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union met in Potsdam, Germany to discuss both the issues of occupation and the war in the Pacific. President Harry Truman, who had come to the office after the death of President Roosevelt in April, arrived at the conference with monumental but secret knowledge: an atomic bomb had been successfully tested in the New Mexico desert just one day before the beginning of the conference. Three years of super-secret work and billions of dollars had resulted in the construction of the most deadly weapon in human history. Yet only a handful of people not working directly on the device knew that it even existed. Truman himself was not made aware of the bomb’s pending completion until after Roosevelt’s death in April, 1945, despite the fact he had been the Vice-President.
Truman met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill on July 21st, at which time the two agreed on the use of the weapon. Soviet Premier Stalin was not told until July 25th, a delay which made him privately angry but only because his advice on the weapon’s use was not sought as Churchill’s had been. In truth, Stalin knew about the new weapon from information provided by Soviet spies working inside the Manhattan Project.

On July 26th, Truman, Churchill and President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-Shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, a statement which called for the surrender of Japan. It was an ultimatum; as the Declaration stated, the alternative for Japan was “prompt and utter destruction.” The Declaration was transmitted via radio, leaflets were dropped over the home islands, and it was conveyed diplomatically by Swiss intermediaries. Newspapers in Japan were the first to announce that the government rejected the Declaration, although it is doubtful they had any official word on which to rely. On July 28th, Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki announced that since the Declaration was just a rehash of earlier Allied demands, it would be met with mokusatsu, a Japanese word that roughly translates to the phrase “to treat with silent contempt.” Thus, the Declaration was not so much rejected as it was ignored.

Much has been made of the Premier's words by historians, with some suggesting that his failure to issue an outright rejection indicated a willingness to negotiate. However, there is no strong evidence to support this. The faction in Tokyo that was willing to negotiate an end to the war wanted to deal from a position of strength. Even the Emperor, portrayed for more than seven decades as a man who wanted nothing more than peace, believed that strong resistance to an Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands would open the door for more balanced negotiations.

Even the Emperor, subject to deification by the Japanese population, could not see the events unfolding across the Pacific. When news reached Washington that Tokyo was unwilling to surrender, President Truman took the decision to use one or more nuclear weapons against Japanese cities. On August 6th, 1945, the weapon known as Little Boy was detonated over the city of Hiroshima. On August 9th, the weapon called Fat Man was detonated over Nagasaki. The immediate effects of the blast and short-term intense radiation exposure killed more than a quarter-million people over the next four months. The plan called for the continued use of nuclear weapons against one city after another until the Japanese surrendered. However, on August 15th, the Japanese government announced its surrender. Three weeks later, on board the battleship USS Missouri, the instrument of surrender was signed by representatives of the Japanese government and the Allied powers. The most destructive war in the history of mankind was over.

But what if the two atomic bombs had not been used? What if technical difficulties had delayed the production of a working nuclear weapon for several more years? Or, what if President Truman had come to consider nuclear weapons morally reprehensible and forbade their use against any target? While the latter scenario is unlikely (Truman said repeatedly that he did not hesitate in his decision to use the bombs against Japanese targets nor did he regret it later), the former could very well have taken place.

For the millions of Americans and their allies in uniform in 1945, an invasion of Japan seemed the next logical step in a bid to bring the Second World War to an end. What few of them knew, and what many people still do not know today, is that planning for the invasion of Japan was well underway. In fact, the primary plan for the invasion had been circulated in early May, 1945. It took into account the fanatical resistance the Japanese military had put up in the face of invasion of even the smallest bit of land in the Pacific. It was this plan which President Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill had in their minds as they discussed the use of nuclear weapons. As you will see, there were no easy alternatives.
The planned invasion of Japan was known as Operation Downfall. It was broken down into two major operations: Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost of the main Japanese islands. The operation would begin on X-Day, Thursday, November 1st, 1945. Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kanto Plain south of Tokyo. Y-Day was set at March 1st, 1946. The southern third of Kyushu would be used as the staging area for this invasion.

The resources being set aside for these two operations were unlike anything seen up to that point in the war. The landing force for Olympic would consist of 331,000 American soldiers and 99,000 Marines. Coronet could consist of roughly the same number of Americans, many of them belonging to divisions that had fought in Europe. Three divisions of U.S. Marines would participate in each landing; that was the entire Marine Corps as it existed in 1945. These numbers do not include the tens of thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand troops which would have taken part in Operation Coronet.

In the air would have been the Fifth, Seventh and Thirteenth Air Forces of the U.S. Army Air Corps, along with the Eighth Air Force just transferred from Europe. With them would have been the Tiger Force of the RAF Bomber Command and the Australian First Tactical Air Force. The waters surrounding the invasion beaches would have contained the largest naval armada ever assembled. The U.S. Third, Fifth and Seventh fleets, comprised of 56 aircraft carriers, 20 battleships, over 50 cruisers and hundreds of smaller warships would have been joined by the entire British Pacific Fleet made up of 6 fleet carriers and their escorts. This represented 90% of the world's naval ships as of 1945, all concentrated in one area. And this tally only includes the warships. Thousands of cargo ships and troop transports would have been on the scene as well, making the Allied of invasion of Normandy in June, 1944 look small in comparison. The invasion beaches had already been given names such as Cadillac, Zephyr, Mercury, and Packard, all automobile manufacturers.
The Japanese Army had large numbers of troops in Korea and China in 1945, all of them essentially trapped in position with no hope of resupply or rescue. There were, however, hundreds of thousands of soldiers stationed in the Japanese home islands. Japanese defense planners, like the Allied war planners, understood the importance of using Kyushu as a base of operations. Thus, they had stationed 600,000 regular army troops there. There were also 5,000 aircraft assigned for use as kamikaze aircraft, the suicide planes that had caused so much trouble for the U.S. Navy during the last year of the war. And although post-war estimates vary, there were as many as 12,000 aircraft set aside in reserve status, although the airworthiness of these planes is questionable.

The Tokyo Plain, the landing area for Operation Coronet, was defended by 560,000 troops. This did not include the vast number of civilians that were being armed with everything from modern rifles to wooden spears. The Japanese Navy, such as it was, still had 350 midget submarines ready for use, 1000 manned torpedoes and over 800 suicide boats. Like the aircraft designated for kamikaze work, the seaworthiness of some of these naval vessels is in doubt. However, the intent was to use them while the Allied invasion fleet was still far out at sea. While the powers in Tokyo knew that they could not ultimately repel an invasion, it was hoped that the operation could be made so costly that Allied leaders would be willing to negotiate a ceasefire, giving the Japanese the ability to negotiate from a position of strength.

For two generations, historians have debated the number of casualties (both dead and wounded) that would have resulted from an Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands. Even military leaders of the day could not agree on a casualty projection. The last study done during the war, created by Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff, estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The total number of American deaths, on the low end, would have been more than the total number of American war dead experienced to that point in the war, both in the Pacific and Europe. Keep in mind that while American and Allied forces fought on Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain, the Army Air Corps would have continued to fire bomb Japanese cities, thus increasing the total civilian death toll.

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of the Second World War—including the Korean and Vietnam war—have not exceeded that number. There are still so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.
There would also have been political consequences to consider. In early August, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded parts of Manchuria and the Kuril Islands, the northern part of the Japanese island chain. It is very likely that Josef Stalin would have ordered his forces to continue moving down the island chain as the rest of the Allied forces moved up the chain from the south. It is very possible that Japan would today be two nations, much like North and South Korea. The effect that would have had on the world, both economically and culturally, can not be measured.

The debate over the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in August, 1945, will continue as long as those events are remembered by human beings. One can only hope that future events will never be so horrendous as to cause Hiroshima and Nagasaki to fade from out collective memory.

The Gimli Glider, July 23, 1983

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Today in 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, on its way from Montreal to Edmonton via Ottawa, ran out of fuel and lost both engine thrust and electrical power at 41,000 feet. The crew's amazing actions in the following minutes saved the lives of the plane’s passengers. The causes of the incident ensured that the story of the Gimli Glider will serve as a cautionary tale in aviation circles for generations to come.

Air Canada Flight 143 was a Boeing 767, an aircraft model that had only been in service for two years at that time. The particular plane in question had not yet been in service for four months by July, 1983. It was the first large aircraft flown by Air Canada that only required a pilot and co-pilot and eliminated the position of flight engineer, the person who would normally have been responsible for calculating the fuel load necessary for a given flight. This omission would become important during the post-incident investigation.

Earlier on the day of the incident, the aircraft had been flown from Edmonton to Montreal. A pre-flight inspection by a maintenance engineer showed that the plane’s Fuel Quantity Indicator System (FQIS) was malfunctioning. The FQIS had a built-in redundancy in which the plane’s remaining fuel was measured by two separate sensors and the results were compared to ensure accuracy. The pilot and co-pilot were shown only one amount however, assuming the two measurements agreed. The engineer in Edmonton noticed that the FQIS quit working entirely unless he pulled the fuse for one of the measuring sensors. He informed the pilot of this and the flight was made with the FQIS working with only one measurement sensor.

Once in Montreal, another Air Canada engineer looked at the FQIS and reconnected the second measuring sensor, which caused the system to stop working again entirely. The engineer was then called away to check another system and left the FQIS in non-working order. The new flight’s captain, Robert Pearson, and First Officer Maurice Quintal were told about the FQIS problem by the pilot who had flown the plane from Edmonton to Montreal earlier in the day. However, they were under the mistaken belief that the FQIS was not working at all on the earlier flight, so were not alarmed when the gauge was blank as they entered the cockpit. Instead of grounding the flight, the crew decided to measure the fuel via dripstick and track fuel consumption via the Flight Management Computer.

It was during this time that a critical error was made. In 1983, Canada was in the middle of a nation-wide conversion from Imperial units to the metric system. The 767s being put into service with Air Canada were the first to use the metric system; every other aircraft model in the fleet still used Imperial measurements. In the process of converting liters to kilograms to pounds to gallons, a wrong conversion factor was used and the aircraft ended up with less than half the necessary fuel on board for the trip. After the plane finished the first leg of the trip by landing in Ottawa, Captain Pearson had the fuel measured again via dripstick. He again made a conversion error and the aircraft took off with the 69 passengers and crew onboard, heading towards Edmonton with no chance of reaching there.

Air Canada Flight 143 was over Red Lake, Ontario when an alarmed sounded, notifying the crew that there was a fuel pressure problem on the plane’s left side. The pilots turned off the port side fuel pump, assuming it had failed. This was not a serious problem as gravity could still feed fuel to the aircraft’s engines. The alarm sounded again a few seconds later, this time accompanied by the failure of the left engine. Captain Pearson decided to divert to Winnipeg and land using the 767’s one running engine. As they talked to air traffic controllers, yet another alarm told the pilots that both engines had now failed. Most of the cockpit instrumentation went dark, leaving only a few battery-powered basic instruments. The plane’s ram air turbine, a small generator powered by the forward motion of the aircraft, quickly deployed and maintained power to the hydraulic system, which meant that the pilots could at least somewhat control the plane. Air Canada Flight 143, over six miles above the earth, was now a giant glider.

Fortunately for everyone present on the Air Canada flight that day, Captain Pearson was an experienced glider pilot. Up to that point in its short flight history, no one had made an unpowered landing in a Boeing 767. In fact, the aircraft’s emergency checklist had no section for such a contingency. Captain Pearson guessed that the best glide ratio speed for a 767 was 220 knots, or 250 miles per hour. Using the plane’s altimeter and information from air traffic controllers, the pilots determined that they were maintaining a glide ratio of 12:1; that is, 12 miles of forward travel for every one mile of descent. They were not going to make it to Winnipeg.

First Officer Maurice Quintal, who had once served as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot, remembered the Air Force Station at Gimli, Manitoba. It had been closed since 1971, but it still boasted two parallel runways nearly 7,000 feet long. If they could make it there, their chances of making a safe landing would improve dramatically. They would have to glide for 17 harrowing minutes over dense forest, maintaining a constant rate of descent the entire way.

As the airliner approached the old air force base, the pilots were faced with three problems: first, they were too high and going too fast to make a head-on approach landing as they had planned. They considered trying to fly a 360 degree turn in order to lose speed and altitude, but Captain Pearson was afraid they would not have enough momentum left for a safe landing. He decided to execute a forward slip, a maneuver in which an aircraft stays on track while slipping sideways. This causes an immediate loss of speed and increases the rate of descent.

This introduced the second problem. As the plane slowed, the ram air turbine began slow down, which meant the hydraulic system began to lose pressure. This made the aircraft more difficult to control and made use of the wing flaps impossible. This meant the plane would still land at a higher than normal speed.

The third and most harrowing problem presented itself as the plane lined up with one of the runways. What neither Pearson or Quintal knew was that while one of the runways of the old Air Force base could still be used, the other one had been converted into a drag strip complete with a guardrail running down the centerline. A Winnipeg auto club was, coincidentally, hosting a family day at the converted airfield that day, so the apron of the non-converted runway was being used as a parking space and was full of cars, trucks and trailers. The drag strip would have to do.

The pilots tried to lower the 767s landing gear using gravity, but the nose wheel failed to lock into position. As the plane made contact with the runway, Captain Pearson pushed the brakes as hard as he could, which caused two of the plane's landing gear tires to blow. The nose wheel collapsed and folded back up into its well, leaving nothing to hold the front of the aircraft up. The underside of the nose scraped along the runway until it came into contact with the guard rail, which raised the front of the plane a little and helped to slow it down more rapily.

As the Air Canada craft came to a halt, a small fire began in the nose area. People working at the drag strip, already standing by with fire extinguishers in case one of the cars caught on fire, quickly put out the blaze. None of the passengers and crew were hurt by the landing itself. Several passengers were injured while sliding down the rear emergency chutes, which were at too steep an angle due to the higher than normal height of the rear tail section. These injuries were treated by a doctor who happened to be on-scene at the time of the landing.

Investigators eventually found both the mechanics and pilots at fault in the Gimli glider incident. However, the pilots and crew were praised for handling the situation with professionalism and skill. Captain Pearson was demoted for six months and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Quintal was promoted to Captain six years later and Pearson returned to his captaincy until his retirement in 1993. The Boeing 767, thereafter known as the Gimli Glider, remained in service with Air Canada for the next 25 years. In January, 2008, it was flown to the Mojave Airport and is slowly being dismantled for parts. On board for that final flight was the entire flight crew from that day in July, 1983.

Memorial Day, May 31, 2010

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“July 14, 1861
Camp Clark, Washington

My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure - and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.”

So begins a letter from Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers to his wife, written a week before the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major engagement of the US Civil War. The Major wrote prodigiously to Sarah and she received more upbeat letters written in the days before and following his July 14th update from Washington D.C. But this letter became his most famous, mainly because of its inclusion in Ken Burns' Civil War documentary series, first aired in 1990. As with many other mementos of wars past, it has come to represent not just a man and the war in which he fought, but a nation's desire to seek something honorable and just from the loss of so many in battle over the past 235 years.

Today, May 31st, is Memorial Day in the United States, the day on which we honor those who have given their lives while serving during wartime in our nation’s military. Over the more than 140 years of its existence, the Memorial Day weekend has also come to represent the beginning of the summer season.

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day in Waterloo, New York in 1866. A decoration day of sorts occurred in Charleston, South Carolina in May 1865 at the site of a former Confederate prison camp, but Waterloo is given most of the credit for creating the day as we now know it. The village was home to General John Murray, who was a friend of General John Logan, the head of a veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan pushed for a national observance on May 30th, a date in which no battles took place during the then-recent Civil War. The day was originally intended to honor those who died during that conflict, but was soon extended to include those who have paid the ultimate price in all the nation’s wars. The term Decoration Day was used because cemeteries were generally adorned with flags and flowers to honor the fallen. Although the term Memorial Day first appeared in print in 1882, it did not come into common use until the time of the Second World War in the 1940’s.

In 1968, the US Congress moved Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May. This created a three-day weekend, something that critics of the change point to as one of the reasons the holiday seems to have lost its meaning to so many Americans.

History is full of stories of men and women who showed unbelievable courage under fire even though they invited their own deaths in the process. While we rightly recognize these heroes, it is also important to remember those whose names have been lost to history but whose sacrifices were no less honorable. By the end of the Civil War in 1865, nearly every American had lost a family member, friend or co-worker. During two world wars, Americans again felt that ultimate sacrifice close at hand; as my father said of the neighborhood in which he grew up during the 1940's, “There were a lot of gold stars hanging in peoples’ windows by the end.”

The past 60 years have seen the general public in the United States become increasingly distant from the military. Even with combat taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan as I write this, many Americans personally know no one serving in the military. Our armed forces are smaller as a percentage of the population now than they have been since the end of the Revolutionary War and a draft has not existed for 37 years. Yet men and women from every walk of American life have their lives taken almost daily by war; some of their names will only be remembered by those who loved them. While we can debate the merits of any war, those who give their lives during it do so for us and for generations not yet born.

Lower Manhattan was still engulfed by smoke and dust in September, 2001 when National Public Radio's news program 'All Things Considered' aired a segment in which American college students were asked if they would consider joining the military to fight in what was not yet being called the War on Terror. One young man, apparently stunned by the question, responded that he would not because “I have plans for my life.” I thought of the hundreds of thousands of American men and women, many of them close to the respondent's age, who had their plans put on hold for all of eternity. Their journeys ended at places like Bunker Hill, New Orleans, Veracruz, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Normandy, Inchon and Khe Sahn. The first decade of the 21st century would add over 5,000 names to the list of those who have paid the ultimate price in the service of their nation. The true cost of these losses can never be measured. The best we can do is honor their sacrifice and keep it alive in our collective memory as a people.

In addition to the Americans who have died in service to our nation over the last 235 years, I ask that you also remember today those from around the world who have given all while fighting in common cause with our country. Most of the nations of Europe and many other countries around the globe have sacrificed not just to protect their own interests, but to ensure the continuance of our way of life. To them and their fallen go the thanks of a grateful nation.

Sullivan Ballou, the author of the letter which I quoted at the beginning of this episode, died two weeks after writing it from wounds received during the First Battle of Bull Run. It was never mailed, but was instead turned over to his family when his remains and a few belongings were returned to Rhode Island. Sarah Ballou, 24 years old and the mother of two sons in 1861, never remarried; she died in 1917 and is buried with her husband in Providence.

Khrushchev Demands an Apology, May 16, 1960

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Today in 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded an apology from US President Dwight Eisenhower for an incident in which a CIA U-2 aircraft was shot down over the Urals region of the Soviet Union. It was the latest shot in a battle of wills between two nations who had been at direct odds for most of the previous 15 years and would continue to fight the Cold War for another 30.

In early 1945, American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe River in Germany, each force having fought their was across Europe, but from opposite directions. These two nations had been, along with the other Allied powers, united in their goal of destroying the Nazi war machine. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged that day, but the euphoria of an Allied victory in Europe soon turned to distrust. Two years later, East and West would face off over the fate of West Berlin, an island of democracy in the middle of the Soviet-controlled eastern half of Germany. A shooting war was avoided, but a new type of conflict, soon to be called the Cold War, had begun. It would shape the world for the rest of the 20th century and beyond.

By 1960, 15 years after the end of the Second World War, most of the world was divided into two camps: one dominated by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union. Both nations had extensive stockpiles of nuclear weapons ready for use. It was a deadly stalemate, with neither side willing to force the ultimate issue for fear of bringing an end to civilization. Both sides spent billions of dollars on different war-fighting technologies, but in the United States the general assumption was that at least technologically, superiority lay on the side of democracy.

That assumption was shaken to its core on October 4th, 1957 when the Soviets launched Sputnik-1, the world's first artificial satellite. It was crude compared to what would come just a few years later, but to the Western imagination it was a giant leap forward in technology. The 185 pound sphere transmitted a regular pattern of signals at frequencies easily picked up by amateur radio enthusiasts all over the world. For 22 days, until Sputnik's batteries failed, the world could plainly hear the sound of Soviet achievement.

Today, we remember the launch of Sputnik-1 as the beginning of the Space Race. It also lent credibility to those in the US government who believed that a “missile gap” existed between the United States and the Soviet Union, with Moscow having a larger missile arsenal than Washington. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, never one to let a good panic go to waste, played on Americans' fears by claiming that Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (or ICBMs) were numerous and advanced. This was not the case, but the launch of Sputnik on top of an ICBM argued otherwise. The order from the Eisenhower White House was clear: more had to be known about the USSR's missile program and other advanced military weaponry.

Enter the Lockheed U-2, nicknamed the Dragon Lady. This incredible spy plane was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson, who headed Lockheed's secret Skunk Works facility in Burbank, California. It was an ungainly creature with the adapted fuselage of a fighter married to the giant wings of a glider. Johnson guided the creation of the U-2 from paper to flying prototype in less than a year; it first flew from Groom Lake (now called Area 51) in August 1955. By summer, 1956, U-2s flown by CIA pilots were taking pictures of the Soviet Union from 70,000 feet, an altitude too high for the Red Air Force's fighters or, it was thought, their surface-to-air missiles.

Soviet officials were made aware of the U-2 flights conducted in 1956 from the surprised reports of their nation's radar operators. Official complaints were made to Washington and Eisenhower put a stop to flights over the nation, although flights over other Eastern Bloc countries were still allowed. The President's rationale was two-fold: first, he did not want Khrushchev to believe the flights were being used to create target lists for a preemptive nuclear strike, although the Air Force certainly gleaned much targeting date from them. Second, he feared the loss of a U-2 to a missile or mechanical problem while on a mission. Such a loss would be highly embarrassing to the United States and could increase already-high Cold War tensions.

Concerns over the missile gap caused Eisenhower to reconsider his ban. In early April, 1960, the first deep penetration flight over the Soviet Union in almost four years began in Pakistan and ended in Iran, both nations having consented to allow the U-2 flights to begin and/or end at air bases within their borders. The second flight, originally scheduled for April 29th but delayed due to bad weather over the flight path, took off from Pakistan on May 1st, 1960. The pilot was CIA employee and former Air Force Captain Francis Gary Powers. His flight was supposed to be a lengthy one that flew over several sites of interest before landing in Norway.

What no one in the United States or Pakistan knew was that the Soviet Air Defense Forces were on high alert and waiting. The April flight had been tracked and intercepts attempted with fighter aircraft to no avail. The word had been passed from Moscow to the commanders of the various air defense commands in the Soviet Union: the next flight would not be allowed to leave the USSR's airspace once it entered. Every fighter within range of the plane's course was to attempt an intercept and ram the U-2 if necessary.

What made the difference on that May 1st were not the fighters that zoomed underneath the U-2 as it flew on its mission, but a surface-to-air missile known to Western observers as the SA-2 Guideline. The SA-2 was first deployed in 1957 in the Soviet Union but it was not believed it could reach the 70,000 foot altitude at which Powers' plane flew. At least three of the missiles were fired at the U-2, although this number varies to as high as 14 depending on the source. What is known for certain is that Francis Gary Powers' aircraft was shot down, along with a MiG-19 trailing him, by an SA-2 over Degtyarsk, a small town east of the Ural Mountains in Russia.

Within hours, President Eisenhower knew he had a problem on his hands. Over the next four days, a cover story was conceived. NASA released a press memo stating that one of the organization's aircraft was missing somewhere north of Turkey and that the pilot had reported problems with his oxygen equipment before losing contact with ground controllers. The American press was then shown a U-2 sporting the NASA agency logo and colors.

The next day, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that a spyplane had been shot down over his country, but gave no further details. The White House took this to mean that the pilot of the craft was dead and the plane heavily damaged. With these assumptions in mind, the Eisenhower Administration released a reiteration of its cover story stating that the spyplane in question was actually a weather research aircraft that must have strayed into Soviet airspace after the pilot lost consciousness due to the problem with his oxygen system. The story claimed there was never any intention to violate the airspace of the USSR.

On May 7th, 1960, Khrushchev played his trump card when he said: “When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] have said.” Gary Powers, along with a CIA-issued suicide pin to be used in case of imminent capture, was in Soviet custody. His plane was recovered almost intact, its self-destruct charge never having been armed. The United States government had been caught in a gigantic lie.

According to several of his biographers, Khrushchev believed he had developed a strong personal relationship with President Eisenhower. When word of the U-2 shoot-down reached him, the Soviet Premier assumed the overflights must have been resumed by the CIA without Eisenhower's knowledge. However, the President was quick to admit he had ordered the flights, lest the American public and US allies fear that rogue elements in the intelligence establishment were acting on their own. The flights were, he said, “a distasteful necessity.”

The shoot-down of Gary Powers and the ensuing exchange of words between Washington and Moscow all occurred during the first two weeks of May, 1960. As it happened, there was a scheduled meeting, called the Four Powers Paris Summit, scheduled to begin on May 16th. In attendance would be President Eisenhower, Premier Khrushchev, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and French President Charles DeGaulle. It was an important summit and one that Khrushchev was not quick to abandon. He did, however, believe that he needed to confront the American President. The two men had not spoken directly since the May 1st incident, so neither knew what to expect from the other in Paris. Upon his arrival on May 16th, Khrushchev gave a statement in which he demanded an apology for the overflights and a promise they would be halted. President Eisenhower released his own statement which contained no apology but offered to begin negotiations for what would become the Open Skies initiative, by which both nations would have monitored and scheduled use of each others' airspace for basic monitoring purposes.

Khrushchev had already decided to leave the summit, which he did on the same day. His statement was released to the public shortly thereafter and before Eisenhower's statement had been read, an act seized upon by the three other nations present as a sign that the Soviet Premier intended to wreck the summit regardless of Eisenhower's actions. Whether this was poor timing or a deliberate act of subterfuge remains unknown.

Eisenhower, who had scheduled a visit to the Soviet Union for later in 1960 but had his plans cancelled by the Kremlin, never met with Khrushchev again. His two terms in office ended in January, 1961 with the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, who would have his own showdowns with Khrushchev over the Bay of Pigs invasion, the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviet Premier remained in power until 1964, when he was removed by a group of younger leaders who accused Khrushchev of numerous policy failures and erratic leadership. He was allowed to retire and received a pension, something that had never happened to a former Soviet leader. He had led his nation after years of terror imposed by Josef Stalin; even though he was in Stalin's inner circle for years, he was considered a reformer by his contemporaries.

Francis Gary Powers languished in a Soviet prison for almost two years until he was exchanged for spy Rudolf Abel in February, 1962. He did not receive a hero's welcome and his dismissal from CIA service was almost a given. He flew as a test pilot for Lockheed from 1963 to 1970, but was terminated from the position when he wrote a book about the U-2 Incident which received a great deal of negative publicity. He died in 1977 while flying a news helicopter for Los Angeles TV station KNBC. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The remains of the U-2 aircraft Powers flew can be viewed today at the Central Museum of Armed Forces in Moscow. The display also includes his survival pack and other related items. A small piece of the plane was returned to the United States and is on display at the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade, Maryland.

The US Air Force continues to fly the U-2, although the equipment it carries has changed dramatically. It has been used extensively in Afghanistan for consistent real-time monitoring of enemy forces, a service that satellites can only provide for brief periods of time.

The Changes, May 15, 2010

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Thoughts on Direction, April 26, 2010

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