Francis Gary Powers
American pilot (1929–1977)
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Key Takeaways
- Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee.
- Powers survived, but was captured and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison for espionage.
- After returning to the US, he worked at Lockheed as a test pilot for the U-2, and later as a helicopter pilot for Los Angeles news station KNBC.
- Early life and education Powers was born August 17, 1929, in Jenkins, Kentucky, the son of Oliver, a coal miner, and his wife Ida.
- Oliver, who often struggled to make ends meet, wanted his son to be a physician.
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down while flying a secret CIA spying mission over the Soviet Union. Powers survived, but was captured and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison for espionage. He served 21 months of his sentence before being released in a prisoner swap in 1962.
After returning to the US, he worked at Lockheed as a test pilot for the U-2, and later as a helicopter pilot for Los Angeles news station KNBC. He died in 1977, when the KNBC helicopter he was flying crashed.
Early life and education
Powers was born August 17, 1929, in Jenkins, Kentucky, the son of Oliver, a coal miner, and his wife Ida. Powers was the only boy among the family's six children. Oliver, who often struggled to make ends meet, wanted his son to be a physician. When Powers was fourteen, he rode in a Piper Cub airplane at a state fair in West Virginia, sparking his fascination with aviation.
During World War II, the Powers family briefly moved to Detroit, where Oliver had taken a job at a defense plant, before returning to Grundy, Virginia, where Powers finished high school. Powers then entered Milligan College as a pre-med student, but switched majors to biology and chemistry in his third year. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950. Powers married Barbara Gay Moore in Newnan, Georgia, on April 2, 1955.
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