Spyflights of the Cold War

This volume aims to present the full story of the Cold War's secret but very real war in which hundreds of combatants lost their lives. Long before Gary Powers' U2 spyplane was shot down over the USSR in 1960, and undeclared war was being fought in the stratosphere. This was the aerial espionage war between the West and the Soviet Union. Investigative journalist Paul Lashmar has uncovered evidence of secret missions flown by US Air Force and Royal Air Force crews, deep into the Soviet Union. He has interviewed USAF and RAF participants, and the Red Air Force pilots that tried - sometimes successfully - to shoot them down. He has also discovered details of a 1950s USAF plan to use these spy flights to provoke a nuclear World War III that would have wiped the Soviet Union and China from the face of the earth. Evidence, both documentary and interview, from the former Soviet Union reveals the extent of political tension created by the spyplane war. From 1950, over 40 western aircraft were shot down and hundrends of air force officers died or remain missing. This book documents the hunt for these Cold War MIAs (missing in action).