Customer Reviews

Shadow Flights: America's Secret Air War Against the Soviet Union

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Over the past ten years, much of the story of aerial spying against the Soviet Union by the U.S. and allies has been declassified. "Shadow Flights" is a concise, readable compendium of this material. Some of the book is a repeat of material in the author's "Dark Eagles" (also recommended), but the emphasis of "Shadow Flights" also includes operational factors and Cold War politics for a fuller picture. In particular, Dwight Eisenhower comes across as both more intelligent and more thoughtful of the consequences of overflights of the USSR than he is usually given credit for -- and much more so than most of his military and CIA subordinates.

As in "Dark Eagles," Peebles again demonstrates in "Shadow Flights" an amazing amount of research and insight into the world of classified and black-project aviation during the Cold War. Unlike "Dark Eagles," "Shadow Flights" is a much more integrated read, but is no less informative. Peebles accurately and conscisely recounts the history of Cold War reconnaissance flights and methods in a manner that is interesting to both the informed and casual reader. In so doing, Peebles covers everything from the development history of the U-2 to the shootdown of a USAF C-130A, s/n 60528, over Soviet Armenia in September 1958, including enhanced Soviet gun camera photos of the doomed ELINT aircraft.

Though the book lacks the detailed minutae of "The Price of Vigilance," it also covers a much larger subject and does so superbly. Reading this book immediately before Norman Polmar's slightly more recent U-2 history, "Spyplane," I found Peeble's style to be more accomodating to the average reader, and "Shadow Flights" in general to be more informative and accurate.

I am a great reader of war and cold war books and this is quite good.

The US needed intelligence on the Soviet Union. There was no way using traditional intelligence methods that she could do this. As such she developed air reconnaissance to a new degree.

The writer write very well about this development. He gives an great history of the development of these planes. I found it fascinating.

As too the political problems that emerged around these flights. The arguments for these missions that despite the large political cost that eventually occurred (as the result of Gary Powers capture showed) were worth paying.

You can feel what the pilots on the missions felt though their stories on the missions that they flew. I felt the excitement that the pilots must have felt on their trips.

I look forward to reading more from this writer.

Shadow Flights provides a treatise on America's secret air war against the Soviets during the Cold War, documenting top secret intelligence gathering missions largely unknown to the world. Previously top secret Soviet and U.S. documents are used to explore the history of the secret U-2 program's flights in this intriguing survey.

Shadow Flights examines an already well-covered subject with rich detail and plenty of new information. The reader gets the "feel" of the pilots' experience flying these dangerous missions and offers interesting details about flights over China that aren't covered nearly as much by other works on the subject.

Peebles has always been one of the best writers on intelligence matters, in my opinion, and Shadow Flights is no exception. It's definitely worth the read.

This book relates the story of American aerial reconnaissance during the Cold War. It makes it clear that the American government was violating Iron Curtain airspace repeatedly, motivated by an urgent need to get a peek that their military preparedness. The author relates in great details how the various missions were organized, and how the U-2 and other reconnaissance aircraft were developed and employed.
Overall, it's a good read.

this book needs a MAP!With such a geographical intensive subject as this, i feel that a map would have helped me get a feel for were the missions were flown and the vast distances that they covered.Other than that ,this is a great read, curtis peebles has really done his homework on this one.It basiclly covers the SECRET flights between the late 40's and early 60's. Just remamber,have an atlas by your side when you read this one.highly recomended.

I had to read this book for a research paper about the Cold War, and must admit, found a great deal of enjoyment in it. It explains, down to the smalles detail, what took place in terms of aerial reconnaissance in the 1950, and at the same it is neatly divided into small sections so that its easy to find information quickly

Curtis Peebles' Shadow Flights deserves ongoing mention as an exceptional, in-depth military history coverage of America's secret air war against the Soviets at the beginning of the Cold War. Pilots sought information on how the USSR might be preparing to attack the West: Shadow Flights follows the history of the secret, dangerous missions which were numerous and risky.