U-2 pilot Powers to receive Silver Star

The pilot whose spy plane was shot down in 1960 over the Soviet Union is set to receive a Silver Star posthumously.

A ceremony to award the third-highest combat military decoration for valor to Francis Gary Powers is scheduled for June 15 at the Pentagon.

An Air Force report last year said that the U-2 pilot distinguished himself with his gallantry during harsh interrogation in Soviet prisons.

Powers was swapped for a Soviet spy in February 1962 in Berlin. He died in a 1977 helicopter crash.

Powers posthumously was awarded the Prisoner of War Medal and a CIA medal in 2000, after incident records were unsealed.

His son, Francis Gary Powers Jr. told the Bristol Herald Courier that the award is a wonderful honor and that the family is humbled.