Existing comment:
Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr.:
Maj. Rudolf Anderson Jr., a US Air Force pilot, was the only combat casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was shot down by a Soviet surface-to-air missile during a reconnaissance flight over Cuba on October 27, 1962, approximately 10:22am local time.
Major Anderson had piloted a U-2 mission on October 15 that produced some of the early photographic evidence of the Soviet deployment of missiles.
He was posthumously awarded the first Air Force Cross, which cited his "extraordinary heroism ... during this period of great national crisis." |