divergent footprints had been Jillott’s. He had strayed over a precipice and fallen several thousand feet down the south side.
Emery had nearly died himself: he had tumbled into a crevasse and only managed to crawl out that morning, reaching camp a few hours before Streather.
The two who were left
Streather and Emery then talked about going back up for Culbert. But in the cold light of day they knew that was out of the question.
Streather could only get to his feet by levering himself up with ski sticks. Emery was even weaker. Physically they wouldn’t be able to accomplish it and the sad truth was that Culbert was almost certainly already dead after another night in the open.
It was time to face facts: Jillott and Culbert were dead. And unless they got a grip, they would soon be too. Streather got the stove going. Emery, the medic, gave them both penicillin jabs to protect their frostbitten hands and feet from infection.
It took them four more days to get down to base camp. Then they had the heartbreaking job of sending telegrams home to the families of Jillott and Culbert.
Home
The two survivors returned to England where Emery had emergency surgery. All his fingers and toes were amputated. The surgeons managed to leave enough of a stump of his thumb and first finger for him to hold a pen. He got a first in his medical finals. Incredibly he returned to climbing, but died in a fall in the Alps in 1963.
Streather escaped without any amputations. But he still had to face the families of the young men who had died. Doubts, regret and sadness would haunt him ever after.
But beside the tragedy there is another truth. Tony Streather pushed himself to the edge for his friends and Rae Culbert, tragically, gave even more. It was only thanks to their bravery that any men came off that mountain alive. Haramosh was finally climbed on 4 August 1958.
The Inconvenient Survivor
| WHEN US PILOT GARY POWERS’ U-2 SPY PLANE WAS SHOT DOWN OVER THE SOVIET UNION, POWERS DID THE WORST POSSIBLE THING – SURVIVE. HIS MISSION WAS PART OF A PROGRAMME THAT PRESIDENT EISENHOWER DENIED EVEN EXISTED. IF POWERS WAS TO RETURN HOME, THE US GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE TO ADMIT TO FOUR YEARS OF ILLEGAL ESPIONAGE. |
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| DATE: 1960–2 SITUATION: SPY MISSION CONDITION OF CONFINEMENT: US PILOT SHOT DOWN OVER THE USSR DURATION OF CONFINEMENT: 1 YEAR, 9 MONTHS MEANS OF ESCAPE: BAILING FROM PLANE, PRISONER EXCHANGE NO. OF ESCAPEES: 1 DANGERS: EXPLOSION, FALLING TO DEATH, IMPRISONMENT EQUIPMENT: PARACHUTE, SUICIDE PILL |
Above retribution
Captain Gary Powers ought to have been very worried. He was piloting a US spy plane over the Soviet Union and taking photographs of missile silos and nuclear plants. If they spotted him, the Russians would stop at nothing to blow him out of the skies.
Worse, there was an East-West summit due to start in two weeks. If he were to be intercepted, his superiors would deny all knowledge of his existence. Powers would be expected to self-destruct his plane and take his suicide pill.
But the aircraft he was in was a U-2 spy plane. Launched in 1956, it was far ahead of any plane the Russians had.
The U-2 spy plane could cruise at altitudes above 21,000 m (70,000 ft), making it invulnerable to Soviet anti-aircraft weapons of the time.
Its state-of-the-art camera could take high-resolution photos from the edge of the stratosphere. For four years the U-2 pilots had been able to fly their espionage missions above enemy countries, including the Soviet Union, unmolested. They systematically photographed military installations, nuclear plants and other strategically vital sites. So perhaps Gary Powers didn’t have to worry after all.
Until the Russians did see him. And a missile did fly that high.
Operation GRAND SLAM
It was 1 May 1960 and Captain Powers had his mission: take off from the US base in Peshawar, Pakistan, overfly the Soviet Union and photograph ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) sites at Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk, then land at Bodø in Norway. The mission was code-named GRAND SLAM.
By now the Soviets knew that the overflights were happening, but the Americans believed they still couldn’t do anything about it. They didn’t know that the Soviets had been playing catch up. Although their aircraft could not yet catch the U-2, the new S-75 Dvina missile might be able to.
When Powers crossed into Soviet airspace local air force commanders were ordered ‘to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane’s course, and to ram if necessary’.
Planes were scrambled to intercept and surface-to-air missiles were readied for launch. MIG-19s tried to climb to the U-2’s altitude but failed. A newer Su-9 aircraft made it that high but was unarmed. The pilot tried to ram the US plane, but shot right by.
Powers might have fancied his chances, until three S-75 Dvina missiles were launched as he passed Degtyarsk, in the Ural Mountains. The first missile exploded in the air close behind the plane, rocking it with turbulence and causing its wings to shear off. The spinning fuselage began to fall from the sky.
Bailing out over enemy territory
His aircraft crippled, Powers started bailing out. He ejected the canopy, quickly reached back to pat his parachute and reached for the plane’s self-destruct switch. His flight suited jerked him backwards. His oxygen hose was still connected. Powers reached round and frantically tried to free it, the wind whipping him at several hundred miles an hour, thousands of feet above the Soviet Union.
Gary Powers, the US fighter pilot who was caught spying over the USSR in 1960.
One of our aircraft is missing
The US government knew that Powers was dead. There had been no contact at all since he left on his mission. Even if his aircraft had only been damaged, Powers had been trained to activate the plane’s self-destruct mechanism and had been issued with the means of his own self destruction.
Powers carried a modified silver dollar that contained a poison-tipped needle. If he were captured, he could plunge this into his flesh and kill himself.
Four days after Powers disappeared, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced to the world that they had