Florida resident and U.S. Air Force Capt. Jerry McIlmoyle was a U-2 pilot who was almost shot down over Cuba in 1962.
Via the Fort Myers Florida Weekly:
Florida Spies Over Cuban Skies
U.S. AIR FORCE CAPT. JERRY MCILMOYLE HAD strange feeling. Something niggling away in the back of his mind was saying, “You need to get out of here.”
That premonition was right.
Capt. McIlmoyle was among the pilots who flew U-2 jets — highflying spy planes — over Cuba in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, a 13-day Cold War standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union that put both nations within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war.
That day, Capt. McIlmoyle piloted his aircraft over Cuba in search of the sites of surface-to-air missiles the Soviets were suspected to have installed. As he approached the third and final target along the northeast coast of the lush tropical island, all appeared peaceful — until he looked in his rear-view mirror. Capt. McIlmoyle spotted two condensation trails from what appeared to be missiles launched from somewhere the island.
One missile exploded only 5,000 feet away; the second, 10,000 feet.
“As soon as I saw the contrails, I didn’t know whether my tracking camera captured the shot,” recalled Capt. McIlmoyle, 88, who lives in Venice. “I knew the missile couldn’t turn with me. I could turn shorter and faster and smarter. I turned the camera back on, took pictures of the contrails and detonations, kept turning around and headed to Orlando.”
Continue reading HERE.
Yeah, sure, the USSR was going to commit suicide over Cuba. By the way, who else was going to jump on this alleged new World War over Cuba? Mexico and Yugoslavia? Give me a fu*%ing break…
Perhaps the United Fraudulent States of America shouldn’t have clandestinely intervened in cuban affairs to arm and train known communists, as they did. Which explains how an island just 90 miles off of USA and with a US Naval Base RIGH ON ITS SOIL became a Soviet satellite state “by surprise”.