John T. 'Jack' Downey was a 1951 Yale University graduate who joined the Central Intelligence Agency soon after graduation and became one of two CIA officers (the other was Richard G. Fecteau, a Boston University graduate) who survived the shoot-down of their mission over the People's Republic of China in November 1952, were captured, and spent approximately the next two decades in Chinese prisons before release. Today, the episode is less well k...
more
John T. 'Jack' Downey was a 1951 Yale University graduate who joined the Central Intelligence Agency soon after graduation and became one of two CIA officers (the other was Richard G. Fecteau, a Boston University graduate) who survived the shoot-down of their mission over the People's Republic of China in November 1952, were captured, and spent approximately the next two decades in Chinese prisons before release. Today, the episode is less well known than that of Gary Powers, the United States Air Force spy plane pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.
During the Korean War, China was an ally of North Korea against the U.S.-backed South Koreans. Fecteau, Downey and fellow aircraft crew were trying to pick up an anti-communist Chinese agent when they came under fire in the sky over Manchuria on November 29, 1952. Initially, all of those on the aircraft were presumed by the U.S. Government to be lost. Downey was 22 years old and Fecteau was 25 at the time of their capture...
less
