Авиация / Авиация после WW2 / Авиация после WW2: Страны НАТО / Shadow Flights: America's Secret Air War Against the Soviet Union

Издательство: Presidio Press
Автор: Curtis Peebles
Название: Shadow Flights: America's Secret Air War Against the Soviet Union
Язык: английский
Год издания: 2001
Количество страниц: 326
ISBN: 0-89141-700-1
Формат: pdf ocr
Размер: 51 мб

Peebles recounts in eye-opening detail the history of secret reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union in the 1950s--a breach of international law exposed by the U-2 incident of May 1960 and a potentially deadly chapter of the cold war. Such was the fear of a nuclear Pearl Harbor that Truman and Eisenhower both deemed those brazen violations of secrecy-shrouded Soviet territory a dire necessity. They began in earnest, Peebles states, in late 1952 with overflights of bomber bases in Siberia. The type of plane initially used was proven vulnerable to air defense after being shot up in a 1954 air battle, and so began development of the high-flying eye-in-the-sky that was code lettered "U" for "utility plane." The letter didn't fool the Soviets, however, and they tracked most of the U-2 missions. The advent of satellite photography obviated airplane-borne and balloon-borne cameras, but hardly the interest of military-aviation buffs, who will greatly appreciate the particulars Peebles reveals in this fully researched, dramatic, now-it-can-be-told tome.