He rose to international attention as the subject of a diplomatic dispute between the United States and Indonesia after the B-26 Invader[a] aircraft he was piloting in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation was shot down over Ambon on May 18, 1958, during the "Indonesian Crisis".

Pope's aviation career began with the United States Air Force, serving with distinction flying bombing missions in the Korean War.

[3] On March 13, Việt Minh artillery disabled Điện Biên Phủ's airstrip, forcing the French garrison there to be supplied by air drop.

[4] On May 6, 1954, the day before the French force surrendered, Pope was co-pilot of the lead aircraft in a group of six C-119s that made the last air drop to the besieged garrison.

[4] Pope remained with CAT at the end of the First Indochina War that August, initially making civilian charter flights from Taiwan, later from Saigon.

[3] In April 1958, CAT recalled Pope from Saigon to Taiwan and sent him to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where he was assigned a B-26 Invader that had been painted black and had its markings obscured.

[5] On April 27, 1958, Pope landed his bomber at Mapanget, a rebel-held Indonesian Air Force base on the Minahassa Peninsula of northern Sulawesi.

[8] Pope continued the sortie by attacking Palu, the provincial capital city, destroying 22 vehicles in a truck park.

He struck the Indonesian Air Force base at Kendari,[12] the provincial capital, with 500 lb (230 kg) bombs and machine-gun fire.

[16] On Ambon, he bombed and machine-gunned the government-held Liang airbase in the northeast of the island, damaging the runway and destroying a Consolidated PBY Catalina.

[17] She was a merchant ship that the Indonesian Government had pressed into military service, and was bringing a company of Ambonese troops home from East Java.

[18] Pope's bomb hit the Naiko's engine room, killing one crew member and 16 infantrymen[18] and setting the ship on fire.

[20] The Indonesian government alleged that Pope's bombing of a marketplace in Ambon city had killed a large number of civilians.

[22] By mid-May, Indonesian government forces were planning amphibious counter-attacks on the islands of Morotai and Halmahera[23] that Permesta had captured toward the end of April.

[24] A short distance west of Ambon Bay, he found the invasion fleet,[24] which included two 7,000-ton merchant ships being used as troop transports.

[23] One of the transports, the Sawega, was trying to take evasive maneuvers as Pope attacked it;[25] his bomb fell in the sea 40 metres (130 ft) short of its target.

[33] Pope "spent the early hours of Sunday, May 18, over Ambon City in eastern Indonesia, sinking a navy ship, bombing a market, and destroying a church.

[36] After fracturing his right thigh when bailing out,[28] Pope was held not in prison but under house arrest at the small mountain resort of Kaliurang, where his injury was given "excellent medical attention".

[39] In February 1962, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy paid President Sukarno a goodwill visit and pleaded for Pope's release.

On February 24, 2005, France's ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, made the then 76-year-old Pope and six other CAT pilots Chevaliers de la Légion d'Honneur for their service in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.

[41]Of his Indonesian experience in 1958 he had elsewhere observed: I enjoyed killing Communists… They said Indonesia was a failure [Al Pope reflected bitterly], but we knocked the shit out of them.