AVIATION THE ANGEL FROM THE SKUNK WORKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400210006-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 22, 1999
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 20, 1963
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

' r ` M e CPYRGHT
too large for the military's needs. Some
1,700,000 young men were classified
1-A. On the average, no more than
100,000 of them were actually drafted
each year. Yet the pool, fed by new
19-year-olds in ever-increasing numbers,
will brim to overflowing in the next few
years as the babies of the big population
years become 1-A men. Even now, the
average draftee's age is a relatively eld-
erly 23. Hundreds of thousands of young
men have found themselves forced to
stall off permanent career decisions,
sometimes drifting aimlessly into the
ranks of the unemployed because they
didn't know when the Army would call.
Lieut. General Lewis B. Hershey,
granddaddy of the nation's selective
service system (he helped lay the
groundwork in 1936, became director
in 1941), was aware of-and worried
about-the" problem. Early this year he
put staff members to works and they
recommended, that married men would
be an easily identifiable group to excuse
from service Without seriously hurting
U.S. military manpower needs.
The President,-,who had recently won-
dered why marrMtl men had to go into
the Army, put a White House staffer on
the project to help "ut. From Hershey's
recommendations ciipie last week's Ex-
ecutive Order No. 11119-making the
draft solely for bachelors. Hopefully, it
would lower the average age of induc-
tees, give them a better idea of when
they would be called.
Despite eager young swains like Scott
Thompson, there was no obvious rush to
get married. This surprised no one at
Selective Service. One official pointed
out that married men have always been
"traditionally" called after unmarried
men anyway, and that many draftees-to-
be had long ago compared the Army to
nigtrimony and decided, "Better a two-
ear stretch than a lifetime sentence."
AVIATION
The Angel from the Skunk Works
On a sunny December afternoon in
1954, a small group of Air Force offi-
cers and agents of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency drove up to the Lockheed
Aircraft Corp. offices in Burbank, Calif.,
to confer with Company President Rob-
ert Gross and Engineer Clarence ("Kel-
ly") Johnson.
The Government people wanted to
discuss a secret airplane project, so se-
cret that not even General Curtis Le-
May, then boss of the Strategic Air
Command, knew about it. That night,
Kelly Johnson, head of the "Skunk
Works"-Lockheed's supersecret proj-
ect-development division-began clear-
ing out a hangar. "I got 23 fellows,"
says Johnson, "and we went to work.
We didn't even give it a project name;
that's a better kind of security. Later,
the fellows began calling it `the Angel.' "
"The Angel" turned out to be an
ugly, long-winged bird that precipitated
a cold war crisis. Its official designation
i
c
was "U And stne
c
~~ fg J}~~,,,. xxee~ e {~ p
time, Kell Kelly Joh a1 t r I ers n
weak, t1A 1"OV r s"1i tt~$4goers','-ih~`P- 7 r P I&F
LOCKHEED'S JOHNSON, U-2 (LEFT) & F-104
"We kill, Yank!" "Okay, try it!"
dramatic details of the U-2's birth and
some of its incredible achievements.
The Risk. The U-2 was born of ne-
cessity. In early 1952, U.S. intelligence
officers recognized that the continuing
revolution in weapon design, coupled
with the Soviets' fanatic penchant for
secrecy, had put the U.S. at a danger-
ous disadvantage. The U.S. was starved
for intelligence information. The most
obvious solution was high-altitude air
surveillance. President Truman and Sec-
retary of State Dean Acheson both
agreed that such air reconnaissance was
desirable-but they were unwilling to
pursue such a project for fear of the re-
sults if a spy plane were shot down.
President Eisenhower, however, was
willing to take the risk. In 1953 the CIA
ordered designs for special camera
equipment and sensing devices. By the
time Kelly Johnson and the Skunk
Works were brought into the project,
the U.S. had almost everything it need-
ed-except the airplane itself. Develop-
ment of that plane was left tip to John-
son. Recalls he: "Nobody ever tried to
tell us what to do. We knew the prob-
lem. I knew the kind of wings I wanted."
Eighty days after he began, Johnson
had built his first U-2; it was an efficient
machine that could cruise at 90,000 ft.
In August 1955, a test pilot flew the
ship successfully-in a rainstorm.
One Died. Still the plane was not per-
fect. At least one pilot was killed during
flight tests. "We had eliminated extra
weight, however we could," says John-
son. "We'd have sold our grandmothers
for ten pounds, and the whole family
for 25 pounds, but finally the ship was
ready." Lockheed asked Air Force Hero
Jimmy Doolittle, who was then a vice
president at the Shell Oil Co., to have
his company's experts concoct a fuel
that would not evaporate at high alti-
tude. Shell did. The results speak for
themselves. Says Johnson: "We have
an airplane getting four miles to the
gallon and traveling ten times the speed
performed impressively. From the
spring of 1956 until May 1960, when
U-2 Pilot Gary Powers was shot down,
the U-2 flew at will over the Soviet Un-
ion, brought back miles of film showing
target areas, defenses, terrain, moun-
tains, lakes, forests. In all that time, So-
viet MIG pilots swarmed helplessly be-
low. On at least one occasion, a Soviet
pilot, straining to climb to within U-2
range, radioed, "We kill, Yank!" And
the U-2 pilot replied: "Okay, try it!"
The pilot was safe in his dare.
But then came Gary Powers' last
flight. "Powers didn't really know what
hit him," says Johnson. "I knew, though,
and I told him what had happened,
based mostly on my analysis from the
Carl Mydans photographs of the wreck-
age that LIFE sent us. The Soviets got
to Powers with a near-burst from a
SAM [surface-to-air missile]. He had
control of the plane for a while, but
the engine was hit. Gary coasted on
down to where the MIGs had a few
cracks at him; then the wing came off
and he bailed out. He did everything
that he was supposed to do. Those guys
have ways of making anybody talk;
they're clever, but Gary talked only
about the things he was supposed to,
nothing more. He's a good man; he's
working for me now, on U-2s."
Brave Men. The U-2 presumably no
longer flies over the Soviet Union. But
the Nationalist Chinese fly it over Red
China, and the U.S. sends missions over
Cuba. "That run," says Johnson, "is the
toughest in the business. It's a small
area and loaded with the very latest
Soviet SAM systems. In the Soviet Un-
ion we could come in from various
angles over open country. Cuba is full
of Castro and the Russians' SAMs. It's
tough, and it takes brave men."
It also takes men like Kelly Johnson.
Last week the Air Force Association
presented the boss of the Skunk Works
with a trophy for designing and devel-
oping the U-2-and "thus providing the
49# ee?d6mle
 CPYRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000400210 06-2
THE WORLD CPYRGHT
SOUTH VIET NAM
Report on the War
Overshadowed by the political and
diplomatic turmoil in Saigon, the all
but forgotten war against the Viet Cong
continues on its ugly, b'oody and weari-
some course. The drive against the
Communists has not diminished in re-
cent weeks; in fact, it has intensified.
Fears that the Buddhist controversy
might damage morale among Vietnam-
ese troops have so far been ground-
less. If last week's battles were any
criterion, the government soldiers are
fighting better than ever against a Com-
munist foe that is exacting a hideous
price in blood in the flooded paddies
of the South.
The biggest government victory in
months came last week near the town
of Gocong, 45 miles south of Saigon.
In the dead of night, 500 Viet Cong
regulars swooped down on a strategic
hamlet under a screen of supporting
fire from heavy machine guns and
recoilless rifles. Desperately calling for
help over their radio, the defenders
fought back doggedly, but were barely
holding out when a government infantry
relief column arrived at dawn with 15
armored personnel carriers. Ambushed
by the Reds, the government reinforce-
ments did not panic, nosed their per-
sonnel carriers off the road and into the
paddies, heading directly for the dug-
in Reds.
From a graveyard at the fringe of
the battlefield, a Viet Cong heavy ma-
chine gun knocked out an APC. But
supported by government air force
planes, which swept over the Red posi-
tions in screaming, shallow dives firing
rockets and dropping napalm, the re-
inforcements rolled straight onto the
DEAD AT GOCONG
A hideous price in blood.
Sanitized - Appro
Reds, mashing scores of the Communist
t the 64i"hing Paddy Ma,x41,
their huge steel treads. last e Reas
broke and ran, leaving behind 83 dead.
Mutilated Bodies. The episode made
no sizable dent in the Viet Cong army.
But it was heartening to U.S. military
observers, who on many past occa-
sions had watched the government's
troops refuse to press their attack.
This time the relief column had stood
its ground under the Viet Cong pound-
ing and then moved in on the Reds in
brutal combat.
Two days later, the Reds evened the
score. This time they hit the rice-rich
Camau Peninsula, traditionally Commu-
nist-controlled territory where govern-
ment enclaves are only islands in a sea
of Viet Cong. The plan was a clever
two-pronged attack against the two gov-
ernment-held cities of Cai Nuoc and
Damdoi, which lie 15 miles apart on
the southernmost tip of Viet Nam. To
confuse government reinforcements and
to hamper their speedy arrival, the Viet
Cong first feinted at three neighboring
outposts, sowed mines on a major road
over which government troops had to
travel, and poured harassing mortar fire
on a U.S. helicopter airstrip in the area.
Shortly after midnight, the Reds hit
Cai Nuoc directly. Pouring mortar shells
and recoilless rifle fire in the perimeter
system of defensive bunkers, the Viet
Cong breached the front gate of the
city's major outpost, ran from bunker
to bunker lobbing in grenades and
shooting the defenders in the back. The
fight lasted for only 35 minutes, but the
Reds occupied the town for the next 17
hours. It was a bloodbath. When rein-
forcements finally appeared, they found
a heap of 50 mutilated bodies, including
women and children, which the Reds
Communists
made the mistake of stay
Seven hours after the Vie
counterattacked. Half the
Armed helicopters unloa
and fighter planes zoomed
finally disappeared into th
also badly battered; 48
On the basis of bodies,
argue that such defensiv
Communist enemy-are
strength of the Vietnam
It is an incredibly
Though the Viet Cong ar
officials in Saigon now
up from 23,000 to 31,00
at least more and more fr
first week of September
offensive ground actions
helicopters,
route and
d positions.
ed some 80
ist defenses,
in at treetop
paddies aft-
arines were
his might be
responses-
lives to the
wasting the
day the U.S.
ular "search
losing more
a week) all
igth has gone
nt strikes are
quent. In the
55 separate
of battalion