Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon

by Robert Kurson

Anders flew more missions in Iceland, many of them risky, both for the dangerous flying conditions and for the potential conflict with Soviet bombers. Three or four months after Anders flipped off the Russian crew, another pilot in his squadron intercepted a Soviet bomber. This time, the Russians had a response to their American pursuers, and they held it up to their window—a sign printed in English—for the Air Force pilots to see. American intel had a good laugh when they heard the story. To them, it represented the layers of bureaucracy that constituted the Soviet socialist system. It had taken more than one hundred days for the first bomber crew to report Anders’s middle finger, for word to travel through channels to the Kremlin, for analysts to decipher it, for committees to formulate a response, for other committees to approve it, for translators to put the Soviet answer into English, for orders to be given to a new bomber crew, and for the Soviet pilots to deliver it. Their message to the Americans flying alongside: WE FUCKED YOUR SISTER.