Skunk Works

In late 1963, we began launching U-2s from U.S. aircraft carriers, having developed a workable tailhook. In May 1964, the U-2 took off from the USS Ranger to monitor French nuclear tests in an atoll in French Polynesia, but only after one of our test pilots, Bob Schumacher, crashed while landing on deck. We had the airplane fixed and flying by the next morning. The target of the operation was Mururoa Atoll, a part of French Polynesia. We monitored all of their testing, and the French never knew we were observing them. The flights were secret, and the carrier crew had to go below deck when the bird took off and landed. The agency painted on its tail “Office of Naval Research,” just in case it was forced to crash-land in French territory. The photographic evidence acquired by the overflights revealed that DeGaulle’s government would be ready for full-scale nuclear weapons production in a year.

During the Vietnam War, we launched gliders from our U-2s as decoys—a Kelly Johnson idea. The gliders carried tiny transmitters that fooled the North Vietnamese missile batteries into thinking they were actually B-52 bombers or fighter-bombers. So for $500 a decoy we forced them to launch missiles costing thousands of dollars.