Operation Sandblast was the code name for the first submarine circumnavigation of the world. It was executed by the United States Navy nuclear-powered radar picket submarine USS Triton in 1960 under t
USS Triton (SSRN-586) during sea trials (September 27, 1959)
Captain Edward L. Beach, U.S. Navy, 1960
Departure (February 16, 1960)
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane, having taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan, was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces in Sverdlovsk, Russia. It was conducting photographic aerial re
Operation Sandblast
…Elcano from 1519 to 1522. The initial impetus for Operation Sandblast was to increase American technological and scientific prestige before the May 1960 Paris Summit between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. It also provided a high-profile public demonstration of the capability of…
The wreckage of the American Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady on display at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow
Francis Gary Powers, pilot of the plane
U-2 "GRAND SLAM" flight plan on 1 May 1960, from CIA publication The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 And Oxcart Programs, 1954–1974, declassified 25 June 2013
The combat crew, distinguished for the destruction of the U-2 on May 1, 1960