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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.
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.
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.
The book is an insight into the life of Polocrosse from its early
beginnings in 1948 at Fort Victoria and covers 60 years of
development through turbulent times to be one of the leading
nations in the sport. It recollects all the characters that played
their part through different clubs and brings out the humour,
frustrations and determination that made this small turbulent
country a nation to be reckoned with. It digs deep into the past in
search of where it all began before Australia gave the modern sport
its name and follows through with the sequence of nations joining
the global family of Polocrosse. An easy read and with a lot of
photo's, it takes the older generation down memory lane whilst
giving the younger, a sense of belonging and a proud contributor of
a growing sport.
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