Black Cats: Taiwan’s Cold War U-2 Spy Pilots Risked Life and Limb
U-2 pilots conducted a total of 102 overflights of the People’s Republic of China from 1962 to 1968.
The U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane—one of the many products of the legendary Lockheed “Skunk Works” division and its resident genius, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson—is, and always has been, an American air asset first and foremost, operating on behalf of the U.S. Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) alike.
America’s “Dragon Lady” drivers definitely made more than their fair share of sacrifices during the Cold War, from Francis Gary Powers— the CIA pilot who was shot down whilst overflying the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960, and ended up spending a harrowing twenty-one months as a prisoner of the Evil Empire—to USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, who was shot down over Cuba by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) on October 27, 1962.
However, it wasn’t just American aerial warriors who put their lives on the line inside the cockpits of their beloved Dragon Ladies. During the Cold War, there was also an intrepid group of pilots from the Republic of China (ROC), aka Taiwan, that also flew U-2s on daring, high-risk spy missions. The National Interest now examines this story of the 35th Reconnaissance Squadron (35RS), aka the “Black Cat Squadron (Hēimāo Zhōngduì).”
Basics of the U-2 Flying Black Cats
Speaking of Francis Gary Powers, his son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., is the founder and chairman emeritus of The Cold War Museum—which I had the honor and pleasure of touring last October—in Vint Hill, Virginia. On March 23, 2025, the museum, in partnership with the General Charles A. Gabriel Chapter #433 of the Air & Space Forces Association, sponsored an event titled “The Black Cats: U-2 Operations over China from Taiwan.” The guest speaker was Chris Pocock, author of the multiple books on the U-2.
As noted by the event’s official info blurb:
“The Black Cat Squadron was a joint venture between America’s CIA and Taiwan. It operated from 1962 to 1974. It flew the famous U-2 spy plane by day at very high altitude from Taiwan, taking pictures of mainland China’s growing military power, including its development of nuclear weapons … Taiwan’s Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo personally directed the squadron, which was a potent symbol of their hope of one day going ‘Back to the Mainland.’”
The CIA’s codename for the venture was Project TACKLE. Though the project officially kicked off in 1962, the training of the Taiwanese pilots actually began in 1959 with the selection of six top-notch ROC Air Force (ROCAF) pilots who’d already garnered prior experience flying reconnaissance missions over the mainland in what Pocock describes as “short-range fighters” (presumably the F-86 Sabre); some of them also had combat experience from the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis. However, the aforementioned shootdown of Powers in 1960 caused a delay in TACKLE’s commencement until Ray Steiner Cline (1918-1996), the CIA’s station chief in Taiwan at the time, finally got the proverbial ball rolling again.
Mission planning was conducted in Washington, DC, with official joint approval by both Washington and Taipei functioning essentially as a formality in the latter capital city, as Chiang Kai-shek was, in Pocock’s words, “gung-ho about the whole operation.” The 35RS had two squadron commanders, one of each nationality. The CIA provided comms and security, the USAF provided operations staff, and U.S. contractors to cover maintenance and sensors. Photo processing and interpretation were conducted in the U.S., though a photo-processing station was also eventually built in Taipei.
As to how the Black Cats moniker and emblem came about, Pocock states that there are varying stories behind this:
“One of them is that Maj. Chen, it was his idea and design. There’s another story that there was a Black Cat Bar in downtown Taipei that was frequented by the American side of the program. But no matter, it became the emblem for the squadron.”
Black Cat Accomplishments and Sacrifices
The very first Black Cat mission was flown on January 13, 1962, by ROCAF Major Chen Huai Shen, over the Shuang Cheng Tzu missile test site. Taiwanese U-2 pilots conducted a total of 102 overflights of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1962 to 1968, followed by 118 peripheral (coastal) PRC flights from 1968 to 1974.
As already indicated at the beginning of this article, the Black Cats put their lives on the line every bit as much as their American counterparts. Out of twenty-eight Taiwanese pilots qualified on the U-2, seven were killed in training accidents, and five more of them were shot down over the mainland, three of them fatally; the two survivors were captured and eventually released.
Sadly, the aforementioned Maj. Chen was the first ROCAF U-2 driver to be killed by a Chinese Communist SAM; this tragedy transpired on September 9, 1962. The particulars of the remaining shootdowns were as follows:
- Maj. Yeh Chang Di, November 1, 1963, captured
- Lt. Col. Lee Nang Ping, July 7, 1964, killed
- Maj. Chang Yi Li, January 10, 1965, captured
- Maj. Hwang Chen Wen, September 7, 1965, killed
Four of the downed Black Cat U-2 airframe carcasses were put on public display at Beijing’s People’s Revolution Museum.
Due to the ever-increasing dangers of shootdown by PRC SAMs, in 1965, the ROCAF brass made the decision to limit its U-2 pilot to a total of ten overflight missions before officially relieving them of Black Cat duties. Improvements to U.S. recon satellite technology also reduced the necessity of the ROCAF missions. Hence the peripheral-only missions for the remaining seven years of the project.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
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