The question of how well the Soviets could track U-2 flights had not yet been settled when the first overflights of the Soviet Union took place. On Wednesday, 4 July 1956, CIA pilot Carl Vito, flying the U-2 known as Article 347 began the first flight over the Soviet Union. Final authorization for mission 2013 had come shortly before takeoff. Late on the evening of 3 July, Richard Bissell went to project headquarters in the Matomic Building to give the "Go" or No go" decision. Although the President had approved the overflight, the final decision to start a mission depended on a number of factors, especially the weather over the target area and the takeoff and landing sites. Bissell made the decision just before midnight Washington time, which was six o’clock in the morning in Wiesbaden. This pattern of last minute approvals continued for the duration of the U-2 overflight program.
When Wiesbaden received the "Go" signal, a U-2 equipped with an A-2 camera and flown by pilot Carl Vito took off on a course that took it over Poznan, Poland. After Poznan, the pilot headed for Belorussia, where he turned north to Leningrad. The last leg of the mission took the U-2 over the Soviet Baltic states before returning to Wiesbaden. The main target of this mission was the naval shipyards at Leningrad, center of the Soviet Union’s submarine construction program. Mission 2013’s route also overflew a number of major military airfields to make an inventory of the new Bison jet-engine heavy bomber.
Whereas Overstreet's flight of 20 June had gone largely unnoiticed, Vito's flight was carefully followed by Soviet radar. Also, various Soviet fighters were sent to intercept the U-2 and were clearly visible to Vito through the ventral driftsight. Vito returned to Wiesbaden eight hours and forty-five minutes after he had left. Interestingly, the exact routes flown on these missions remained classified until 1996 when Lockheed received CIA permission to release the date to celebrate the U-2's 40th anniversary.
Showing how quickly the U-2 could be turned around, the same U-2 was used again the following day by Harvey Stockman to overfly Moscow. This second overflight continued the search for Bison bombers. The route of this flight was similar but somewhat south and also flew further east, more than 200 kilometers past Moscow, Although the Soviet capital was almost completely hidden by clouds, the A-2 camera with haze filters took some usable photographs of the city. These turned out to be the only U-2 photographs of Moscow because no other mission was sent over the Soviet capital. Among the key targets photographed during mission 2014 were the Fili airframe plant, where the Bison was being built, the bomber arsenal at Ramenskoye, where the Bisons were tested, the Kaliningrad missile plant, and the Khimki rocket-engine plant. This flight also attracted considerable interest from the Soviet Air Force, with numerous fighters attempting to intercept the U-2. Even more threatening were the three SA-1 surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites discovered around Moscow. Although the sites were not yet completed, and the photography provided valuable data on the possible characteristics of the first operational Soviet SAMs, the fact that they existed spelled the beginning of the end for the U-2 overflights.
When Allen Dulles returned to work on Thursday, 5 July 1956, he asked Bissell if any overflights had taken place during the Independence Day holiday. One had been made on the fourth and another just that morning. Bissell replied (Because of the six-hour time difference, the 5 July flight was safely back in Wiesbaden by the time Dulles spoke with Bissell). When Dulles asked the routes of these missions, Bissell told him that they had overflown both Moscow and Leningrad. "Oh my Lord", Dulles exclaimed, "do you think that was wise the first time?" "Allen", Bissell replied, "the first is the safest".
President Eisenhower also wanted to know the results of the 4 and 5 July flights, but his principal concern was whether there had been any indication that either flight had been discovered or tracked by radar. Eisenhower told Colonel Goodpaster "to advise Mr. Allen Dulles that if we obtain any information or warning that any of the flights had been discovered or tracked, the operation should be suspended. Goodpastor called both Dulles and Bissell and was told that reports on tracking or attempted interception of the U-2s would not be available for another 36 hours. Later that day the two CIA officials met with Goodpastor to ask if flights could continue in the meantime. Goospaster replied that his understanding of the President’s directive was that the operation should continue "at a maximum rate until the first evidence of tracking was received".
Although President Eisenhower had originally spoken of suspending the overflights if they were "discovered or tracked", his main concern was to learn if the Soviets could track U-2 missions, meaning that they could follow the flight on their radar screens for most or all of the missions and thus have numerous opportunities to attempt interception. Certainly, the President hoped that U-2 flights could not even be detected, but reports received on the 20 June overflight of Eastern Europe had already indicated that this goal was unrealistic. The President’s emphasis therefore shifted to tracking. If the Soviets could successfully track U-2 missions, he wanted the overflights halted. Reports on Soviet radar coverage of the first two overflights of the Soviet Union became available on 6 July. These reports showed that, although the Soviets did detect the aircraft and made several very unsuccessful attempts at interception, they could not track U-2s consistently. Interestingly, the Soviet radar coverage was weakest around the most important targets, Moscow and Leningrad, and the Soviets did not realize that the U-2 had overflown these two cities.
Detachment A carried out three more overflights of the Soviet Union during the 10-day period authorized by the President. Two of the missions (2020 and 2021) took place on a single day, 9 July 1956. They covered much of Eastern Europe, and the Ukraine and Belorussia in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, a broken camera shutter ruined much of the photography of one of the flights. The third mission (2023), on the following day (10 July 1956), included the Crimean Peninsula.
The film from the first overflight (4 July) was flown to the United States immediately after the U-2 landed at Wiesbaden. Several members of the Photo Intelligence Division were on hand when the film was developed to check on the results. Also present was James Baker, who had accepted an offer by project officials to get a first-hand look at how the new A-2 lenses were working.
The photos from July overflights were generally good, despite occasional problems caused by cloud cover. The huge amount of film taken by these missions provided more information about the Soviet Union’s ability to track and intercept U-2s. Photo interpreters examining the films eventually discovered the tiny images of MiG-15s and MiG-17s beneath the U-2s in various pursuit and attack attitudes climbing, flipping over, and falling toward Earth. It was even possible to determine their approximate altitudes. These photographs showed that the Soviet air defense system was able to track U-2s well enough to attempt interception, but they also provided proof that the fighter aircraft available to the Soviet Union in 1956 could not bring down a U-2 at operational altitude.
After each U-2 flight the film would be removed, developed, and duplicated at the landing site. The copy would be retained locally as a contingency, while the original negatives were taken by courier aircraft to Washington, DC for evaluation. This "photo interpretation" took place in a converted garage (code named AUTOMAT) in a not-too-good neighborhood in Washington by a group that eventually numbered over 1,000 people. After it was all processed, enlarged, and printed, each mission produced sufficient material to cover the entire Baltimore-Washington turnpike.
One problem with early U-2 photography became apparent only after the first films were developed. If there was surface water on the runway at Wiesbaden when the U-2 took off, the camera windows became begrimed. Although the water dried during the flight, the oily scum it left behind degraded the photographic image. To combat this problem, AQUATONE ground crews took brooms and spent several hours before takeoff sweeping puddles of water from the runway to be used by the U-2. Kelly Johnson eventually designed a jettisonable cover for the camera windows, which was released at the same time as the pogos so that it could be recovered and reused.
