The 1957 WESTPAC cruise of VS-37 was one of many odd occurrences. One such occurrence was during one of our two week operational stays at the Navy side of NAF Atsugi. The other side was occupied by the Marines.

As was normal for our squadron during periods of flight operations, we were split into two work shifts. I had the luck (or misfortune, which ever the case may be,) of being assigned to the second shift.

Late one afternoon, just about dusk, I was working on the Search light of number 24 when I saw a strange looking airplane approaching the field. An R6D was sitting at the end of the runway, waiting for clearance to take off.

The closer this strange plane got, the weirder it looked. I had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. It touched down about a third of the way down the runway but when its wheels touched the ground, sparks flew from the front wheel. The U-2 only had two main wheels. It came to an abrupt stop and the right wing dropped to the ground. The fuselage was long and cigar shaped. The wings were about two and a half times as long as the fuselage. What was even stranger was that it was painted matt black.

Several of us had been watching this spectacle for about half an hour when a Jeep loaded with armed Marines drove up. They informed us that we could not watch what was going and would have to go inside until they were finished. We did as we were told but could still see what was going on from the window of the shop. I thought to myself, “How stupid! Here we had already seen everything that was oing on. And we could still see from the window. Now did that make sense?”

Of course it was later that we learned it was a U-2 Spy Plane, a “Top Secret” program at the time. Its normal routine was to pre-flight in the hangar, be towed to the end of the runway where the shroud would be removed, the engine fire up followed by an immediate take off. This all occurred just after day break on mission days. In the evenings he would come in about dusk as we had observed that day, roll out to the end of the runway, drop his wing tip on the grass and wait for the ground crew. The ground crew would replace the droppable wing wheels, place the shroud over the plane and tow it back to the hangar. This was an early version of the U-2. Later versions had retractable wing wheels.

What has remained a mystery over the years is, “What was an Air Force Pilot doing flying out of a Navy base, especially when Johnson AFB was not that far away?”

Oh by the way, the R6D was finally directed to taxi around the U-2 and take off from the middle of the runway. For the remainder of that stay and the next one, we never got a glimpse of the U-2 again.

Joe D. Dunegan AE2, VS-37