The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974

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Chapter 3
94
THE DEPLOYMENT OF DETACHMENT A
TO LAKENHEATH
The first Agency U-2 detachment, consisting of four aircraft and
pilots, was known publicly as the 1st Weather Reconnaissance
Squadron, Provisional (WRSP-1). The "provisional" designation
gave the U-2 detachments greater security because provisional Air
Force units did not have to report to higher headquarters. WRSP-1,
known within the Agency as Detachment A, began deploying to the
United Kingdom on 29 April 1956. By 4 May, all of the detachment's
personnel and equipment, including four aircraft, had arrived at
Lakenheath. !
Shortly after deployment, on 7 May, the National Advisory
Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) released an unclassified U-2
cover story stating that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown
by the USAF Air Weather Service to study such high-altitude phenom­
ena as the jet stream, convective clouds, temperature and wind struc­
tures at jet-stream levels, and cosmic-ray effects up to 55,000 feet. 3
Before overflights could begin from Lakenheath, however, sev­
eral incidents occurred that dampened Prime Minister Eden ·s interest
in having the U-2s on British territory. In mid-April 1956, a Soviet
naval squadron brought Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai
Bulganin on an official visit to the United Kingdom. Although the
ships were docked in Portsmouth Harbor, a British counterintelli­
gence operative and underwater expert, retired Royal Navy
Commander Lionel Crabb, apparently undertook a mission to exam­
ine the hulls of these vessels but vanished in the process. His headless
body was later found washed up on a beach. This so-called Frogman
Incident caused an uproar in Parliament and a protest from Moscow
that soured relations between the United Kingdom and the Soviet
Union. To avoid further deterioration of Anglo-Soviet relations, the
Prime Minister wrote to President Eisenhower on 16 May asking that
overflights be postponed. Only two days later, a U-2 on a training
flight from Lakenheath inadvertently penetrated the British radar net­
work, causing RAF fighters to scramble. Afterward the Air Ministry
made a public announcement that a special NACA aircraft was con­
ducting high-altitude research in the United Kingdom. At about the
' Ibid.. pp. 17-18 (TS Codeword).
' Press Release of 7 May 1956 (U) in OSA History. chap. 7. annex 60 (TS Codeword).
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