Pilot of Downed U-2 to Get Posthumous Silver Star The American 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 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 a military POW medal and a CIA medal in 2000, after incident records were unsealed. His son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., told the Bristol Herald Courier (http://bit.ly/KRPrsw) that the award is a wonderful honor and that the family is humbled.