Lost Black Cats
by H. Mike Hua
Category: Biography & Autobiography

On May 1, 1960, a U-2 was shot down over Russia and its pilot, Gary Powers, was captured, followed by Premier Khrushchev using the long-waited summit meeting in Paris as a public platform to denounce U.S. intrusion on Russian air space and to demand an apology from President Eisenhower. All these events made U-2 a world-renowned spyplane. This extraordinary high altitude reconnaissance aircraft had also been used over China and her vicinity. A US-ROC joint entity (Black Cat Squadron) was organized to conduct the operation from Taiwan for fifteen years. Five U-2s were shot down by Communist surface-to-air missiles. Two of the Nationalist Chinese pilots survived the missile explosion, yet were severely wounded, and then captured by the People's Republic of (PRC). They were incarcerated and harassed for almost nineteen years. They lived through the notorious Cultural Revolution. Their loving families in Taiwan were ruined. By the time these two miserable pilots were permitted to leave the PRC, their loyalty was questioned strongly by their own government in >Taiwan. Then they were entangled in the psychological warfare between the rivalries across the Taiwan Strait. Finally they were allowed to return to Taiwan than a quarter century later.