All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S02E10.Extreme.Extractions.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Tonight on
"Secrets Declassified,"

extreme extractions
carried out under pressure,

under fire,
and under the enemy's nose.

From hunting
lost nuclear weapons

in a frozen wasteland--

As the teams are searching,
it's minus 50 degrees outside

and it's dark 24 hours a day.

To a prison break
in Panama

in the midst of
a full army invasion.

A guard is outside
the American's cell

with instructions
to execute him

at the first sign
of a U.S. invasion.

And a bold plan to steal
a Russian helicopter

from a desert battle zone.

Extracting this helicopter
will be extremely difficult.

Libyan forces could attack
at any time.

These are the astonishing
top secret missions

undertaken by governments and
the people who work for them.

It's time to bring them
to light.

It's 1989,
and a former American soldier

is in prison in Panama with
an execution order on his head.

The U.S. has just
one hour to free him

before a full invasion begins.

The U.S. is preparing to
launch an invasion of Panama

to depose General Noriega,

the military dictator accused
of drug trafficking,

election fraud,
and human rights abuses.

Noriega knows
the U.S. is closing in.

But he's got one
last bargaining chip,

a U.S. Army veteran locked
away in one of his prisons.

Kurt Muse is imprisoned
in Cárcel Modelo,

a notorious Panamanian prison.

He's been imprisoned
for running a clandestine

radio station called
"The Voice of Liberty,"

which broadcast
anti-Noriega messages.

It's also suspected,

though never confirmed
by the agency,

that Kurt Muse is a CIA asset.

Noriega has given the order

that on the first sign
of a U.S. invasion,

Muse is supposed to be
killed on the spot.

In fact, there's a guard
stationed outside his cell 24/7

specifically for that purpose.

President George H.W. Bush

doesn't want to abandon Muse,

so in 1989,

he gives the green light
for an invasion of Panama.

He issues
an impossible command.

Muse must be extracted first.

Delta Force, which is
an elite U.S. Army unit

known for their expertise
in impossible missions,

is selected for the task.

To prepare
for this mission,

they build a full-scale,
three-story mock-up

of the Modelo prison
at a base in Florida.

Operatives conduct
intense assault rehearsals

with live fire
and close quarters combat

based on operational plans
derived from intelligence.

They wanna be prepared
for every eventuality.

By mid-December,
practice is over.

The invasion is set
for 1:00 a.m. on the 20th.

And the Delta Force operatives

have one chance
to get this right.

They fly into
a U.S. Air Force base

just 4 miles from the prison.

The hour's
before midnight.

In secret,
Delta Force operatives

assume positions
across the city.

The mission starts
at the stroke of midnight.

Delta operators will
have just one hour

to get in, grab Muse,
and get out

before the full
U.S. invasion begins.

Two teams of snipers move in.

They target
an anti-aircraft battery

and the prison's
main power supply.

That takes time,
but eventually

they manage to take it out
and the whole prison

is plunged into darkness.

Two U.S. helicopters
then approach the prison.

They land on the roof and
23 Delta operatives rush out.

By now,
45 minutes have passed.

The Delta Force operatives
have only 15 minutes left

to rescue Muse.

They load the rooftop door
with explosives.

They back up, light it up,
it blows up, and they're in.

Heavily-armed
Delta operators

make their way down the stairs

to the cell where Muse
is being held,

and they kill the guard before
he has a chance to kill Muse.

The operatives shoot
the lock off the cell door.

One of them shouts, "Muse!
We're gonna take you home."

They lead him out of his cell

and up through the prison
to the roof.

To break in,
to break out,

the whole thing takes
just six minutes.

But that's when this precision
plan starts to fall apart.

He's then loaded onto one
of the little bird aircraft,

one of the helicopters.

And just as the pilot begins
to pull pitch and climb out,

it's raked by gunfire.

The chopper falls
to the earth.

Muse and the pilots
are unharmed,

but the four Delta Force
operatives are injured.

Then time's up.

At 1:00 a.m.,
the wider invasion begins.

They're now caught in the
middle and they're under fire.

The Special Forces operators,
as well as Muse,

take cover as fire erupts

between Panamanian forces
and the Delta team itself.

The perfect extraction
has suddenly fallen apart.

They decide to do
anything that they can.

They use strobe lights
to signal U.S. aircraft

that's flying overhead.

The strobe light, which is
invisible to the naked eye,

alerts U.S. troops
to their location.

Finally,
an armored personnel carrier

spots their signal and
it whisks them away to safety.

Hours later,
Kurt Muse is back

on U.S. soil and reunited
with his family.

As for Noriega,
his bargaining chip is gone.

Two weeks later,
he surrenders.

He's brought to the U.S.,

where he's sentenced to
40 years for drug trafficking

and money laundering.

In 2006, Kurt Muse publishes
his account of the mission...

And reveals
the minute-by-minute details

for the first time.

Pulling one man
out of a Panamanian prison

is tough enough.

But extracting six men
from a frozen country

where the sun never comes up?

That's a whole
different ballgame.

On the 21st of January, 1968,

a U.S. B-52 bomber armed
with thermonuclear weapons

is flying over Greenland
when a cabin fire breaks out.

Cabin is
filling with smoke,

so the captain, John Haug,
he orders the crew to evacuate.

They are in pitch-black
darkness

in the cold in the Arctic.

And one by one, the crew have
to jump out of the plane.

The unmanned bomber
and its deadly load

of four hydrogen bombs
careens toward the ground.

It smashes into the frozen
sea ice of North Star Bay,

just miles from the
U.S. operated Thule Air Base,

and then erupts in
a massive fireball.

Miraculously, the
nuclear bombs don't detonate.

But now, seven airmen

and thousands of highly
classified bomb components

are scattered across
this hostile environment

in the middle
of the Arctic winter.

An immediate and desperate
search and rescue mission

is launched by
the U.S. and Denmark,

which controls
the territory of Greenland.

The first objective
is to identify a crash site.

Secondly,
they then have to carry out

a search for survivors.

The problem is neither
the Danes nor the Americans

have intimate knowledge
of the treacherous terrain.

So the rescuers turn
to the people who do.

Greenlandic Inuit
dog sled teams are assembled

to lead a coordinated
ground search.

These dog sled teams,

they begin mushing out
in the black of night

under intense snowfall,
blindly searching

out across the landscape
of northwestern Greenland

in the search for survivors
from the B-52.

They soon find five of the
seven ejected crewmen alive,

suffering from frostbite
and exposure.

Another is found dead,
but the final crew member

remains missing,
navigator Curtis R. Criss.

It turns out he's landed
on a piece of ice

that has broken loose
and he's now floating at sea.

He is out there
unprotected, unsheltered.

He's buffeted by the wind,
and the temperature

keeps falling all the way down
to -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The only thing he has
with him is his parachute.

He wraps himself in the
thin nylon of the parachute,

hoping that it'll keep him
warm enough to stay alive.

20 hours later,
an Inuit-led dog sled team

spots a body on an ice floe
in the bay.

Sled team make
their way carefully

across the floating ice.

They can see a huddled figure
wrapped in a thin covering,

but they have no idea
if he's actually alive.

It's navigator
Curtis R. Criss.

He's hypothermic,
frostbitten,

barely conscious, but alive.

So they bring him in.

The extraction team
has found the missing crew.

But now the bigger question--
where are the nuclear weapons?

In 1968, a U.S. B-52
loaded with four nuclear bombs

goes down in
the frozen north of Greenland.

The crew is rescued, but
the bombs are still missing.

And as spring approaches

and the ice begins
to shift and melt,

the window to find them
is closing fast.

The plane crashes with
four hydrogen bombs on board.

These four hydrogen bombs
consist of a nuclear core

that's encased in
conventional high explosives.

And when the plane crashes,
the nuclear cores,

luckily, do not explode.

But those conventional
explosives, they do.

Force of the explosion
rips the bombs apart,

spreads their material,
casings,

classified components,
and radioactive nuclear fuel

across an 800 million
square foot area.

To prevent
a radioactive disaster,

U.S. Armed Forces race
to clear up the crash site.

They're working under

the most impossible
conditions imaginable,

because first of all,
the deep, bitter cold,

visibility is reduced
to almost nothing,

and there's blinding snow
being driven into your face

at all times.

The conditions are brutal.

Under floodlights,
the teams dig with

everything from bulldozers
to hand shovels.

Many workers work without
any adequate protective gear.

The U.S. workers
and the locals collect

around 600,000 gallons

of radioactive snow and slurry

that they place
in the steel drums

for transport back
to the United States.

Retrieving all the
bombs' classified components,

however, is a different story.

It's not like you're
finding intact bombs.

You're finding
fragments of bombs

that have been ripped apart
by conventional explosives.

And so that makes it
vastly more difficult

to account for every last piece

of all four of the
thermonuclear bombs.

In 1968,
after nearly 2,000 personnel

have spent seven months
on the ice,

the U.S. government announces
the cleanup is over.

According to the government,
all the hazardous material

and all four bombs have been
recovered safely.

The mission is over.

At least,
that's the official story.

And it stands for decades,
until British journalists

dig into declassified
records of 2008

and uncover
what really happened.

The American cleanup
was not quite as thorough

as they made it out to be.

A key component of one
of the bombs was never found.

The thermonuclear secondary,
which triggers

the fusion reaction,
is missing.

This is the part
of the bomb that contains

the most radioactive fuel,
and it's still missing.

So it still remains out there
somewhere just sitting

like a ticking time bomb.

An extraction in the Arctic
requires precision

and help from the locals.

But in World War II,
when British forces

rushed to liberate
a concentration camp

in the heart of Axis Italy,
precision goes out the window.

They load a squadron
of commandos

on a hijacked passenger train
and pray for the best.

In September 1943,

Allied forces come ashore
in southern Italy.

The objective is to liberate
Italy from Axis control.

Across southern Italy,

the plan is working.

The Italians and Germans
are in retreat.

The Germans, however,

are destroying everything
as they leave.

40 miles from allied lines,

this spells danger
for prisoners

held inside a brutal
concentration camp.

Pisticci is fascist Italy's

first concentration camp.

Nearly 1,000 prisoners are
being held behind barbed wire.

These include Jews,

partisans from Yugoslavia,
Poland, and France,

as well as artists,
writers, and priests

who oppose fascist rule.

At Pisticci,
the Germans' plans are hatched

to deport prisoners
to Nazi-controlled camps

in Germany
and then stage mass executions.

The British know
they need to act fast,

but they've just
landed in Italy

and don't have enough troops
for a full-scale attack.

They turn to
SAS Major Cary-Elwes,

a specialist in daring raids.

He's tasked, really,
with mission impossible.

He has to get behind
enemy lines

and liberate
concentration camp victims,

and then find a way
to repatriate them

back to friendly lines.

The camp is 40 miles
behind enemy lines,

and all they have is
themselves and their Jeeps.

They know that if they all
cross behind the frontline

in those,
they'll be spotted right away.

The camp sits close
to a railway line,

and that gives
the British an idea.

On September 13, 1943,

50 SAS commandos
led by Major Cary-Elwes

gather outside the station
in the small town of Chiatona.

Their plan is to seize
a passenger train,

hide the commandos on board,
ride it to the nearest station,

then storm the camp.

It needs to be
a passenger train

instead of a military train.

To the Germans at the camp,
it won't attract

so much attention
to see a passenger train.

Major Cary-Elwes
orders his men

to commandeer the train.

But now he spots
another issue.

The tracks ahead run
straight along the coast.

To reach the camp, the train
has to be diverted inland.

While his men
steal the train,

Major Cary-Elwes will take
a small party of men in Jeeps

deep into enemy territory

to change the points
ahead of the train.

It's an incredibly
risky operation.

They know that if they
encounter German forces,

they'll find themselves
outnumbered and outgunned.

Less than half an hour later,

the Jeeps pull up
at the points.

Quickly, they secure all
the roads and railway tracks

leading to the crossroads

and park their Jeeps
to form makeshift barricades.

Then they switch the points.

Now all they can do is wait.

At any moment,
they can be spotted.

But then one of the units

spots the hijacked train
from a distance.

This is the critical moment.

The train steams past.
It made it through.

The officers watch it disappear
down the track

on its way to Pisticci, uninterrupted.

A few hours later,

the train loaded
with SAS commandos

pulls up just short
of a deserted station.

And the SAS makes the
final leg to the camp on foot.

The only thing that
the SAS have on their side

is the element of surprise.

In a lightning attack,
they break through

the wire perimeter of the camp,
and the guards at first

are so shocked
that they're paralyzed.

They're unable to understand,
much less react.

Within minutes,

the SAS have the camp
under control.

They disarm the guards, take
the camp commandant prisoner,

and free the detainees.

SAS officers escort as many
as they can onto the train,

putting 180 prisoners
into carriages

that are bound for safety.

They can't rescue everyone.

The remaining prisoners
are reportedly advised

to flee into
the nearby mountains

and to lay low until Allied
soldiers can reach them.

The passenger train carrying
the rest of the prisoners

speeds back to Chiatona.

Shortly thereafter,
the train, the SAS men,

the prisoners all arrive
safely behind Allied lines.

For nearly 80 years,
the story stays secret.

Then author Damien Lewis
reveals it to the world.

A revelation that
no one saw coming.

Before this discovery,

even Major Cary-Elwes's
daughter

didn't know about
the astounding mission.

Most extraction missions
retrieve people.

But one of the most extreme
ever targeted a machine--

a 9-ton Soviet-built helicopter

sitting in
a desert battle zone.

Nine years into
the conflict between

Chad and Libya,
the Libyan Army suffers

a crushing defeat and suddenly
pulls back at speed.

Out in the desert,
they leave behind

around $1.5 billion worth
of military equipment.

The Libyan Army
has been armed by Moscow

and is fighting with the
very latest Soviet hardware.

In the north of Chad,
the U.S. spots one item

in particular it would
like to get its hands on.

The crown jewel
in this bounty of treasure

is an armored helicopter,
the Soviet MI-25 Hind,

one of the most
advanced aircraft

in the world at the time.

The Hind helicopter
is tantalizingly close.

It's abandoned at
the Ouadi Doum Air Base

in northern Chad.

The U.S. knows
that if it can recover

this enemy chopper, it will be
an intelligence gold mine.

But that means
a daring recovery mission

near the Libyan frontline.

Extracting this helicopter
will be extremely difficult.

Libyan forces could attack
at any time.

Soviets would rather
blow up this helicopter

than allow
the Americans to capture

and examine its technology.

The CIA gets approval
from Chad's government

to attempt
an extraction of the Hind.

The mission is handed
to the Night Stalkers,

the U.S. Army's
elite aviation unit.

The advance team
flies in on May 30, 1988,

and the mission sounds
relatively simple.

Get to the helicopter,
hotwire it,

start it up,
fly it back to the capital.

But they discover a problem.

They examine the engine.

They find that there is
a bullet lodged in it.

Critical components
could be damaged,

so it's just too risky.

They don't wanna be airborne

and the engine go out
and they all die.

They decide the only way
to extract this thing

is to airlift it out
using a technique

called "sling loading."

Sling loading
is something that

can be done by
helicopters, whereby

a cargo load of some kind
can be strapped up

to a hovering helicopter.

Flying a slung load
of this size

is extremely difficult.

It's 21 meters long
and it weighs 9 tons.

But they have no choice.

The weight
of the Soviet Hind

is almost exactly the limit of
what the Chinooks can carry.

The Night Stalkers spent days
planning this risky lift.

They even calculate how the
temperature of the desert air

will affect the maximum power
of the Chinooks.

Then, at midnight on June 11,
the Night Stalkers' main team,

led by Major Gary Hasselbach

load into two Chinooks
and fly to the airstrip.

At Ouadi Doum, the team
works through the night

prepping the chopper
for the lift.

Under cover of darkness,

they're safe
from Libyan attack.

But they must be ready to take
off as soon as the day breaks.

They pull the heavy
equipment off of the aircraft,

put it on one Chinook,
then sling load

the entire airframe
beneath the other Chinook.

The two aircraft
then take off

and begin flying back
toward N'Djamena,

which is the capital of Chad.

For the first few hours
of the flight back,

everything goes smoothly.

But 45 minutes out
from their destination,

they're hit,
not by enemy fire,

but a 3,000-foot high
sandstorm.

Big sandstorms like this

can be deadly to an aircraft.

The particles of dust and sand
get into the engine,

causing them to lose power and
sometimes cut off completely.

Now, normally,
Major Hasselbach

would fly higher
to avoid the sandstorm,

but because of
the 9-ton Soviet chopper

he's carrying beneath him,
that isn't an option.

They have to power
through the sandstorm,

and the result
is that the aircraft,

they can't see a single thing.

Visibility drops
to absolute zero.

There's no visual contact.

The Chinooks are
a danger to each other.

So now the pilots
of the Chinooks

are concerned that they may
collide with each other.

Soon they lose
not just visuals,

but also radio contact.

30 tons of military equipment

is flying completely
deaf and blind.

Suddenly, the wall of sand
dissolves away

and Major Hasselbach
in his Chinook

can see his destination
12 miles away,

and he makes a dash for it.

Just as he's about to land,
he sees the second Chinook

emerge from the sandstorm
right behind.

And in that second Chinook,
the pilot barely

has enough time
to land his helicopter

before the sandstorm
engulfs them again.

The Night Stalkers'
courage and quick thinking

has secured the U.S.
one of the great prizes

of the Cold War, an intact
Soviet Hind helicopter.

The Hind helicopter is flown
back to the United States

in the belly of a
military transport plane,

where it's taken to
Fort Rucker for examination.

It's a huge coup.

Access to the Hind gives
the U.S. military

firsthand knowledge
of one of the USSR's

most integral pieces
of air technology.

The U.S. government keeps

its daring snatch-and-grab
under wraps.

But in 1991,
the USSR collapses,

and a year later,
the details

are fully declassified
with one of the most

audacious extraction
operations of all time.

In 1944,

deep in the hills
of Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia,

hundreds of downed
American airmen are stranded.

Facing impossible terrain
and enemy threats,

the U.S. Air Force launches
a bold extraction operation,

which involves digging
a top secret aircraft runway

by hand.

By July of 1944,
150 American airmen

have been shot down during
recent bombing runs

over Axis oil fields,

now lie scattered across
the hills of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia is controlled
by the Nazis,

but there are intense pockets
of anti-Nazi resistance

inside the country.

The downed aviators
are located near a village

called Pranjani,

which is under the protection
of a local resistance leader.

Unfortunately,

they can't stay there
for much longer.

German patrols are
combing the countryside.

If the aviators are caught,
they face imprisonment

or even execution.

The OSS gets word
of the stranded airmen.

It's determined
to get the men home.

But a rescue won't be easy.

You can't get these
men out by land because

they're deep in
Axis-controlled Yugoslavia.

You can't get them out by sea

because they're far away
from the sea shore.

Really, the only way
to get them out

is to get them out by air.

It's risky.

It's possibly even suicidal,
but it's the only way

to try and save the 150 men.

The mission is
codenamed Operation Halyard.

First, the OSS inserts
a small team into Serbia

to locate the airmen.

Serbian-American OSS Officer
George Musulin

is selected to lead
the operation.

In August 2, 1944,
his team flies in.

Men parachute into the
countryside near Pranjani.

Resistance fighters in
the area have been informed

that they're coming
and are waiting.

George Musulin
and his team link up

with local partisan
fighters who lead them

to the downed aircraft pilots.

Musulin's team meets
the stranded airmen,

but there's a surprise.

There aren't 150 men in hiding.

There are now over 250
with more arriving.

Their next task is to find

a workable landing area
for the rescue planes.

They scout the area
looking for an obvious place

for planes to land,
but the problem is

the area is heavily forested
and highly mountainous.

There's no clear area for
the planes to safely fly into.

There's only one option.

They'll need to build
a runway from scratch.

The villagers
have no machinery,

no electricity,
only ropes, axes,

pitchforks, and livestock.

They dig and drag and
clear the earth by hand.

When German planes fly over,

they scatter into the trees,
hoping not to be seen.

In a few days,
they're able to clear

a 700-yard strip
through the forest.

Just long enough for
a C-47 plane

to land if the pilot
is skilled enough

and if the wind cooperates.

The OSS team radios
Allied command in Italy

to tell them
the airfield is ready.

The first C-47 transport
plane takes off from Italy,

and it's a dangerous journey
because the pilot

is navigating at night,

flying low over
unmapped enemy mountains.

And he has no radio beacons,
no radar guidance,

and no air traffic control
to aid him.

What the troops
on the ground can do

is they can light
hay bales and fire,

which they do, and that helps.

But it's still not ideal.

The C-47 comes in
for the landing,

but the pilot pulls up
at the last second.

Mountain landings are
notoriously difficult,

and the runway
looks too short.

It's an incredibly
risky operation,

taking on a makeshift runway
in enemy territory

at night without
proper equipment.

If he can't
make this landing,

hundreds of American airmen
will be left stranded.

Pilot lines up again,
and this time,

he gets the plane down.

On the ground,
desperate airmen

scramble onto the aircraft.

Somehow the pilot gets out.

And three more planes
touch down that night,

and dozens of men
are evacuated.

The following night,
more flights arrive.

Plane after plane
lands and departs,

each carrying up to
12 American airmen to safety.

By the final extraction flight,

Operation Halyard has
rescued every last man.

By the time
the mission finishes,

over 500 airmen have been
extracted from the region,

making Operation Halyard
the largest rescue ever

of downed airmen
behind enemy lines.

Despite this,
the story is kept secret.

Throughout
the Second World War,

OSS operations
remain classified.

But by the late 1960s,
it was decided that

the story of the
Operation Halyard extraction

should be made public.

In 1967,
the U.S. government

finally acknowledges the work
of OSS and Serbian forces

in rescuing
the American airmen.

Extreme extractions usually
mean extreme technology,

helicopters, night vision,
satellite communication.

But in Poland in 1981, the
CIA doesn't have any of that.

So they have to make do
with something much simpler--

cardboard boxes
and a plan that sounds insane.

In 1981, Poland,
like most of Eastern Europe,

is controlled
by the Soviet Union.

So to obtain top secret
information about its enemy,

the U.S. relies on
a network of spies there,

and Ryszard Kuklinski
is one of the best.

By November 1981,

Kuklinski has passed
tens of thousands of pages

of Soviet intelligence to CIA.

Kuklinski discovers,
however,

that his Soviet superiors
have caught wind of a leak.

And sooner or later, it's
going to lead back to him.

If he's discovered,
he'll be executed for treason.

Kuklinski signals
to his CIA handlers

he's in danger and needs
to escape Poland fast.

Kuklinski is being
handled by a CIA officer,

who has been promising
Kuklinski throughout

his entire career that
if he ever came into danger

or fell under scrutiny,

the United States
would keep him safe.

Kuklinski's CIA handler

quickly devises
an exfiltration plan.

The CIA will pick
Kuklinski and his family

up in a car at
a designated meeting point.

Then they'll be taken
to the U.S. embassy,

disguised, and smuggled out
of Poland to West Germany

and on to the U.S.

That night, Kuklinski
comes clean to his wife

and two adult sons,
confessing that

he's been spying for
the Communist enemies

and they now need to escape.

Kuklinski and his family

go to the meeting point
in the city and await.

But no one shows up.

The CIA van that's
en route to pick them up

can't actually pick them up

because it falls
under surveillance.

After multiple efforts
to try to break free

of that surveillance,

it's just too tight
to be worth risking.

The Kuklinskis
tried twice more

on successive nights,
and each time,

the CIA pickup van
is trailed too closely.

Kuklinski can feel
the noose tightening

on him and his family.

Kuklinski's handler
can see the original plan

isn't gonna work.

For the extraction to succeed,

he needs to catch
the secret police off guard.

He looks to Tom Ryan,

a CIA Bureau Chief
who's in Berlin,

and asks him to drive
all the way out to Warsaw.

The plan is on.

Ryan drives
a circuitous 12-hour route,

and this is
a monumental challenge.

In order to evade
all surveillance,

Ryan has to drive
over 300 miles

without anyone trailing him.

It's a lengthy drive,

and so if he does pick up
a tail at some point,

he's got lots of time
to hopefully lose that tail

or convince the tail that

he's not actually interesting
after all.

When he reaches Warsaw,
the Kuklinskis are waiting.

Immediately, he throws
jackets and blankets

over the Kuklinski family
and drives them

straight away to
the U.S. embassy in Warsaw.

Once in the embassy,

they're put into a van
with diplomatic plates.

In the van,
the family are told

to get into
huge cardboard boxes,

and they're sealed inside.

They now set off on
the 340-mile trip to Berlin,

encased in darkness
and unable to see a thing.

This must have
been excruciating.

They can't see anything.

They don't really know
what's going on outside.

And God help them if one
of them is claustrophobic.

In fact,
one of Kuklinski's children

is actually sedated

so that they can
make it through

this long and arduous trip.

After several hours
on the road,

the van suddenly slows.

The Kuklinski family
knows that they are

clearly approaching a border.

It's gotta be the border

between Poland
and East Germany.

They're just hoping

that the doors
don't come swinging open.

Outside, though,
there's a problem.

The Kuklinskis hear
raised voices.

The van's diplomatic plates

haven't been
properly registered,

and the guards
are now suspicious.

They have every right
to search the vehicle.

They're in darkness.
They can do nothing.

All they know is that
they can hear people

outside screaming, yelling,

talking about how they
wanna search this vehicle.

Their lives are over.

Kuklinski is sure

his family's cover
is about to be blown.

If the family is discovered
here right now,

the whole operation
is a failure,

and there's no way to explain
the evacuation of people

through a cardboard box across
an international border.

The doors remain shut.

The Kuklinski family
continues to sit

in darkness until finally

they hear the engine
roar back to life.

The CIA's driver
has managed

to calm the border guards down.

Hours later, the Kuklinskis
arrive in West Berlin.

They can't quite believe it.

They've arrived in the West,
safe and unharmed.

On November 11,

they fly out of Europe
and land in Maryland.

Just a day after his arrival,
Kuklinski is awarded

the Distinguished Intelligence
medal from the CIA.

Back in Poland, Kuklinski is
sentenced to death in absentia

by the Communist government
for treason of the fatherland.

Details of the extraction,

however, remain top secret
for the next two decades.

In 2004, Benjamin Weiser
writes a book,

"A Secret Life."

Granted access to CIA
documents for the first time,

his book reveals
the full story

of Kuklinski's extraction,

revealing he smuggled out
crucial intelligence,

including the locations
of secret

Soviet nuclear weapons stores
in Eastern Europe.

You're a U.S. pilot
downed in enemy territory.

The good news is
you're carrying

an emergency beacon
that tells the U.S.

exactly where to find you.

The bad news?
It tells the enemy too.

In 1995, Americans are
patrolling the skies

over the former Yugoslavia
and attempting

to keep the peace
between warring factions

that are fighting
for control of the country.

On June 2,

U.S. Air Force Captain
Scott O'Grady is on

a standard patrol of
NATO no-fly zones in Bosnia.

Enemy fighters fire
a surface-to-air missile.

He's just able to evacuate
before the F-16 falls apart,

but O'Grady finally lands

on the opposite side
of a highway

inside the hostile-controlled
Serbian ground.

O'Grady knows
the Bosnian-Serb enemy

will have tracked his descent.

He needs to contact
U.S. forces

and secure extraction fast.

Whenever possible,
the United States tries

to establish an
underground railroad

in the areas that we operate,

where downed pilots
can be recovered.

But sometimes
these networks don't exist.

In this case, Scott O'Grady was
behind enemy lines and alone.

He has a pistol
and some survival gear,

but notably he has
a survival radio.

O'Grady's survival radio
has two different functions.

One is that it can transmit
voice, like all radios do.

And the other is that it can
transmit an SOS frequency

to allow the American military

to try and hone-in
on its position.

The signal will
be bounced by satellites

to analysts
half the world away

at the U.S. Signals
Intelligence Center

in Pine Gap, Australia.

There, signals analysts
are on alert for any sign

that O'Grady is trying
to communicate.

The benefit
of the emergency beacon

is that as soon as
he triggers that beacon,

those forces in Pine Gap
will inform local forces

to come rescue him.

But triggering
the emergency beacon

has one big downside.

If he uses
the emergency beacon,

he's gonna send out
such a strong signal

that anyone in the area
that's collecting signals

will also be able
to identify him

and direct the patrols
into his direction.

All the Serbian forces
in the area

would know to look
for an emergency beacon signal

coming from
this downed American pilot.

It's the first day
on the ground.

O'Grady decides
it's too big a risk.

He opts for
the voice radio instead.

But almost as soon as
O'Grady takes his radio out,

he notices enemy Serbs combing
through the forest nearby.

So he stays absolutely still.

It's only when he sees them
leaving again

at 6:00 p.m. that he thinks
about trying the radio.

He waits until he's convinced
they're not coming back,

and then he tries
the radio again.

U.S. planes
are searching for him,

but no one hears him.

In a busy war zone, there's
a huge amount of radio traffic,

and it's really
a matter of luck

whether a pilot tunes in
at the right frequency

and within range to hear
O'Grady's communications.

Over the next few days,
O'Grady constantly

tries to send
radio transmissions.

But he's greeted with
silence every time.

He doesn't wanna use
the emergency beacon.

It's just too much of a risk.

On the ground, however,

O'Grady can feel the net
tightening around him.

In one instance,
a Serbian helicopter

flies so close
by his position

that he can actually
make out the pilot's face.

By the fifth day,
he's starving,

he's freezing,
and he's almost out of water.

He's having to resort
to eating ants.

He knows that if
he doesn't do something,

he will either be killed by
the enemy or die in the wild.

Finally,
O'Grady realizes

he has no other option.

O'Grady decides to use the
emergency beacon on his radio.

He turns it on and off
for short periods of time,

hoping that the Serbs aren't
gonna be able to find him.

8,500 miles away,

in the middle of
the Australian desert,

the U.S. signal team
at the Pine Gap base

picks something up.

It's what they've been
waiting days for.

It's O'Grady.
He's made contact.

Pine Gap analysts
pass the information on

to U.S. Forces
off the coast of Italy.

24th Marine
Expeditionary Unit launches

two CH-53
Sea Stallion helicopters.

At dawn,
rescue helicopters

head toward O'Grady's signal.

O'Grady can hear
the beat of rotor blades.

And when he spots
an American helicopter,

he knows that this must
be the rescue force.

O'Grady runs out
of the woodline

to get on that helicopter
as fast as he can.

Less than
two hours later,

O'Grady is back at his base
with American forces.

He survived six days
hiding in enemy territory

and returns a hero.

O'Grady's rescue makes
the headlines at the time,

but the full story
of Pine Gap's involvement

is only told in 2021,

when U.S. Signals Intelligence
analyst David Rosenberg,

who was at Pine Gap
at the time,

gives a blow-by-blow account
of the rescue mission.

From prison breaks
to desert heists,

nations have always gone
to extreme lengths

to extract people and tech
from hostile territory.

Some of these secrets are
locked away for decades,

but the truth always
finds a way out.