Crowded Skies: Cold War Reconnaissance Over the Baltic

Description

Throughout the Cold War, the close proximity of the Soviet Union and its allies to NATO countries and neutral Sweden dominated intelligence demands in the Baltic region, leading to extensive aerial reconnaissance operations. This book covers early ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions by Swedish WWII vintage Junkers Ju 86s as well as American and British RB-17s, PB4Y-2 Privateers, Lancasters, and Mosquitos.

Additional chapters chronicle jet-age ELINT missions undertaken by SAC RB-47s and RB-57s along with RAF Canberras and Comets from England, as well as USAFE RB-50 and C-130 COMINT flights from West Germany. Concluding chapters describe SAC RC-135, U-2, and SR-71 sorties--plus those by RAF Nimrods--as well as regular reconnaissance flights by Sweden, Finland, West Germany, France, the Soviet Union, Poland, and East Germany.

This meticulously researched book by distinguished Swedish author Lennart Andersson and former RC-135 pilot and Cold War historian Robert Hopkins uses newly declassified documents plus first-hand accounts to tell the story of these diverse and often dangerous missions. Profusely illustrated with many rare and previously unpublished photographs, the book is filled with detailed mission maps, tables and appendices, and will be of great interest to Cold War aviation historians.