One Minute to Midnight

by Michael Dobbs

For the most part, it was boring work, punctuated by moments of intense activity. Many of the men on Willson’s plane had flown peripheral missions around the Soviet Union, probing for weaknesses in the air defense system in advance of a possible bomber attack. They would aim directly for the Soviet frontier, as if they were on a bombing raid, and then veer away at the last moment. The idea was to provoke the Russians to switch on their radars. The intercept data could be used later to map the Soviet air defense system. There was always a risk that they would stray over Soviet territory and be shot down. Several members of Willson’s outfit—the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing—had ended up in Soviet prisons, while others had been killed by the very weapons systems they had been sent to detect.