BRISTOL, Virginia – The American pilot whose spy plane was shot down in 1960 over the Soviet Union is set to receive a Silver Star posthumously.
A ceremony to award the third-highest combat military decoration for valor to Francis Gary Powers is scheduled June 15 at the Pentagon.
An Air Force report last year said that the U-2 pilot distinguished himself with his gallantry during harsh interrogation in Soviet prisons.
Powers was swapped for a Soviet spy in February 1962 in Berlin. He died in a 1977 helicopter crash.
Powers posthumously was awarded a military POW medal and a CIA medal in 2000, after incident records were unsealed.
His son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., told the Bristol Herald Courier that the award is a wonderful honor and that the family is humbled.
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