Revealed: the RAF undertook secret missions over the Soviet Union long before the CIA's Gary Powers , a U2 spy-plane pilot, was shot down and put on trial in 1960. Revealed: a British pilot flew a U2 on sorties while on detachment to a unit working with the CIA in Turkey.
Revealed: more than 40 Allied aircraft were shot down in 20 years of an undeclared espionage war and the fate of 138 aircrew is still unknown.
Even though the files on many of these incidents remain classified, this programme uncovers many untold stories, listens to the British, American and Soviet points of view, and also hears from the relatives of missing airmen. It was a provocative and dangerous era - as one RAF navigator recalls: "We'd still got about 700 miles to go over the Ukraine when we suddenly came under rather intensive anti-aircraft fire."
Producer Paul Lashmar ; Editor Laurence Rees