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The Lockheed U-2 is probably the best known spy-aircraft ever,
famous for the exploits of its pilots over or near hostile
territories. Indeed, the bold and provocative operations flown by
the CIA-operated Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have epitomized the rivalry
between the United States of America and the Soviet Union during
the early to middle Cold War period. Much has been published about
some of the overflights in question - especially the one on 1 May
1960, that ended with the downing of the US pilot Garry Powers.
However, exactly how did the Soviets, and then the Chinese armed
forces, react to such operations, and what kind of experiences did
they go through while not only trying to detect and track, but also
intercept and shoot down one of the high-flying spy-aircraft, is
the part of this story that remains largely unknown. The Hunt for
the U-2 aims to answer the related question through a
cross-examination of documentation and participant accounts from
all of the involved parties. Richly illustrated with 100
photographs and full colour, authentic colour profiles of the
aircraft involved - whether those configured for the glamorous role
of strategic reconnaissance or those designed to intercept and
destroy them - and maps, and based on extensive cross-examination
of documentation and participant accounts from all the involved
parties, The Hunt for the U-2 is a succinct operational history of
how the confrontations between that reconnaissance aircraft and
those trying to catch it played out and, last but not least, what
kind of impact these operations had in not so distant history.
On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR/Soviet Union) conducted a live test of the most powerful
nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed 'Ivan', and known in the
West as the 'Tsar Bomba', the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was detonated
at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemla archipelago,
in the Barents Sea. The Tsar Bomba unleashed about 58 megatons of
TNT, creating a 8-kilometre/5-mile-wide fireball and then a
mushroom that peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometres (59 miles).
The shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55
kilometres (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to
nature to a radius of dozens of kilometres further away, and
created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometres (170 miles)
distant. And still, this was just one of 45 tests of nuclear
weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone. Between 1949
and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air.
Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialised
test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers - from the
Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 - the units in
question were staffed by men colloquially known as the
'deaf-and-dumb': people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving
in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at
the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while
test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential,
several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe. Richly
illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn colour
profiles, Dropping the Big Ones is the story of the aircrews
involved and their aircraft, all of which were carefully hidden not
only by the Iron Curtain, but by a thick veil of secrecy for more
than half a century.
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