U-2 Pilot’s Belated Honors

The Air Force used the 40th anniversary of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers’ downing over the Soviet Union to honor the Cold War pilot with medals he had long been denied. Powers’ family accepted a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Department of Defense Prisoner of War Medal and a National Defense Service Medal on his behalf during a ceremony Monday at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California. Powers died in a helicopter crash in Los Angeles in 1977. Powers’ spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 and he was imprisoned for two years. But because Powers was considered a CIA employee, not a member of the military, he was not recognized as a prisoner of war. That changed in 1998, when declassified Cold War documents revealed that the mission was a joint operation by the CIA and the Air Force. --Associated Press