Search results for ""Author Chris Pocock""
Schiffer Publishing Ltd 50 Years of the U-2: The Complete Illustrated History of Lockheed’s Legendary “Dragon Lady”
When the U-2 first took off in 1955, no one involved in its top-secret project dreamt that this unique reconnaissance aircraft would still be flying today. The long story of the Dragon Lady is amazing, and complex; this book tells it all, in unprecedented detail, from the early days overflying the Soviet Union under CIA sponsorship, to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and on to the Vietnam War. The epic missions over Communist China were flown by nationalist pilots from Taiwan. How the U-2 was improved, enlarged and put back into production – twice. It led the real-time recce revolution with data links and high-tech sensors. Then it played a key role in Desert Storm, over Bosnia and Kosovo, and most recently over Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the CIA’s own historian, Chris Pocock is the foremost authority on the U-2. To write this book, he flew in the aircraft, conducted 250 interviews, and analysed more than 1,000 declassified documents.
£57.59
Schiffer Publishing Ltd The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969
After Mao’s communists took control of mainland China in 1949, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency developed an uneasy partnership with the nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan for covert air operations over the mainland – dropping agents and propaganda, and collecting signals, imagery and nuclear intelligence. But Communist China’s air defences reacted with determination and ingenuity to the unwelcome intruders. Ten of the aircraft – B-17s, B-26s, and P-2s – were lost and over 100 aircrew killed in this epic yet hardly-known struggle, told in English for the first time. Each chapter is punctuated with vivid, first-hand accounts from the participants – Chinese nationalists, Chinese communists, and Americans. The book also describes how during the Vietnam War, America subcontracted many of its covert air operations to the same group of airmen from Taiwan.
£33.29
Schiffer Publishing Ltd The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown: A New History of the Early Years
The full story of the development and early use of the U-2 has never been properly told – until now. This book describes in vivid detail how the high-flying spyplane was conceived, designed, built, and deployed in record time. It explains why the CIA, and not the U.S. Air Force, controlled the project. It traces how the Iron Curtain was pried apart by the epic overflights of “denied territory” from 1956 to 1960. It discusses why these flights were needed, what they were looking for, and how the intelligence they returned was processed and analyzed. Readers are taken inside the Soviet Union’s military machine, as it developed new strategic weapons and (eventually) the means to shoot the U-2 down. The book also explores the political dimension, telling how President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev each faced the challenge of the U-2 flights – albeit from very different perspectives. Toward the Unknown will appeal to students of aviation and intelligence history, and to anyone wishing to learn more about a key episode in the Cold War.
£28.79
