Download or read book B 52 Down written by Linda H Sittig and published by . This book was released on 2024-07-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: January 1964: America is embroiled in the Cold War. Tensions erupt following the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the United States and Soviet Union both possess massive nuclear arsenals. A B-52 Stratofortress, icon of American airpower, must return to the U.S. for repairs. A USAF retrieval crew arrives in Massachusetts to fly the plane back to Turner Air Force Base in Georgia. The crew expects a short flight but gets caught unaware and flies directly into an Arctic blizzard. The winds shear off the tail of the B-52, and the crew must eject at 30,000 feet into the blizzard. They land two miles apart from each other in the 52,000-acre rugged Savage River Forest of western Maryland. The bomber goes on to crash in the mountains with two nuclear bombs on board. In a massive attempt to retrieve survivors, 1000 people of the community and the U.S. military searched for five days.
Download or read book B 52 Down The Night the Bombs Fell From the Sky written by Linda Harris Sittig and published by Freedom Forge Press. This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: January 1964: America is embroiled in the Cold War. Tensions erupt following the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the United States and Soviet Union both possess massive nuclear arsenals, poised to engage in mutually assured destruction. For the United States, this means that massive aircraft armed with nuclear weapons are constantly circling allied airspace, ready to attack at a moment's notice. A B-52 Stratofortress, icon of American airpower, suffers engine failure while on patrol and must return for repairs. A retrieval crew expects a short flight from Massachusetts to bring the aircraft to its base in Georgia. But within an hour of departure, the flight collides with a colossal blizzard. Wind shear rips off the tail, sending the aircraft into a spiral. The crew must eject-at 30,000 feet, in a blinding blizzard, in the middle of the night. Crew members land miles away from each other in the mountains of western Maryland, facing near zero temperatures, up to four feet of snow, and difficult terrain. They have only their parachutes and simple survival kits. Phones ring in pre-dawn hours to alert military authorities and emergency responders, spurring a town-wide effort to find the downed crew in bleak conditions. But the situation is more dire with the aircraft's payload of live nuclear bombs on board-a payload with more than 1,000 times the destructive potential than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in WWII. Crews must race to prevent the loss of life of the crew and the unthinkable detonation of nuclear weapons or radiation leaks on American soil. This is the story of a community-wide effort to band together and overcome incredible odds to help crew and country in the wake of a B-52 down.
Download or read book The Day We Lost the H Bomb written by Barbara Moran and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Day We Lost the H-Bomb, science writer Barbara Moran marshals a wealth of new information and recently declassified material to give the definitive account of the Cold War’s biggest nuclear weapons disaster. On January 17, 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber exploded over the sleepy Spanish farming village of Palomares during a routine airborne refueling. The explosion killed seven airmen and scattered the bomber’s payload–four unarmed thermonuclear bombs–across miles of coastline. Three of the rogue H-bombs were recovered quickly. Tracking down the fourth required the largest search-and-salvage operation in U.S. military history. Moran traces the roots of the Palomares incident, giving a brief yet in-depth history of the Strategic Air Command and its eccentric, larger-than-life commander, General Curtis LeMay, whose massive deterrence strategy kept armed U.S. bombers aloft at all times. Back on the ground, Moran recounts the myriad social and environmental effects of an accident that spread radioactive debris over hundreds of acres of Spanish farmland, alarmed America’s strategic allies, and damaged Spanish-American diplomatic relations. As the American military floundered in its attempt to keep the story secret, the events in Spain sometimes took on farcical overtones. Constant global media hype was fueled by the hit James Bond movie Thunderball, with its plot about an atomic weapon lost at sea. In addition, there were the unwanted attentions of a rusty- hulled Soviet surveillance ship and even awkward public relations stunts, complete with American diplomats in swim trunks. The Day We Lost the H-Bomb is a singular work of military history that effortlessly and dramatically captures Cold War hysteria, high-stakes negotiations, and the race to clean up a disaster of unprecedented scope. At once epic and intimate, this book recounts in stunning detail the fragile peace Americans had made with nuclear weapons–and how the specter of imminent doom forced the United States to consider not only what had happened over Palomares but what could have happened. This forgotten chapter of Cold War history will grip readers with the tension of that time and reawaken the fears and hopes of that dangerous era.
Download or read book Linebacker II written by James R. McCarthy and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Heavy Bombers written by Michael Green and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2008 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the history, weapons, equipment, and use by the U.S. Air Force of the military aircraft known as the B-52 bomber.
Download or read book Stratofortress written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen & Sword Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boeing's mighty B-52 Stratofortress has seen continuous operational service with the United States Air Force since the type was introduced in 1957. The aircraft has been upgraded several times and has assumed many different new roles since it was originally conceived and then provided the key airborne platform for America's strategic nuclear force. It is predicted that it will serve as a front-line aircraft until 2040. Apart from the formidable threat it provided during the long years of the 'Cold War', the aircraft has played a significant part in all US overseas operations since Vietnam. The more recent include Desert Storm in 1991, the Balkan conflict, Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq. Over 700 were built and around 80 remain in service. This book includes chapters on Concept Requirement, Design and Development, Production, Evolution and Variant Models, Operational Tasking, Operational History (with first-hand accounts from crews), Weapons and Equipment Carried, Flying the Aircraft and Current Service Operations. t will be highly illustrated with many original shots taken aboard B-52s, together with archive material and also color profiles.
Download or read book The Eleven Days of Christmas written by Marshall L. Michel (III) and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1972, with an increasingly dovish Congress preparing to cut off all funding for the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi by the Strategic Air Command's "big stick," its fleet of B-52 bombers. Never before had a B-52 been lost in combat, but the North Vietnamese SAM missile crews knocked them out of the sky in the first days of the engagement. Despite the losses, the surviving bombers kept coming, inflicting huge losses on the North Vietnamese. For eleven days the momentum swung back and forth, moving from what appeared to be a certain U.S. triumph, to a possible North Vietnamese victory, to the ultimate ambiguous denouement in which both sides won and lost.
Download or read book The Nightingale s Song written by Robert Timberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1996-09-11 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the story of five top graduates of Annapolis who served heroically in Vietnam and rose to national prominence during the Reagan years.
Download or read book A Concise History of the U S Air Force written by Stephen Lee McFarland and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1997 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.
Download or read book B 52 Stratofortress written by John Hamilton and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents information about the B-52 stratofortress, covering how it is used, its history, and its specifications.
Download or read book Development of the B 52 written by Lori S. Hawthorne-Tagg and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.
Download or read book Command and Control written by Eric Schlosser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal. “A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine “Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety.” —San Francisco Chronicle A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.
Download or read book Air Force Combat Units of World War II written by Maurer Maurer and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fifty Shades of Friction written by Mark Clodfelter and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sierra Hotel flying Air Force fighters in the decade after Vietnam written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In February 1999, only a few weeks before the U.S. Air Force spearheaded NATO's Allied Force air campaign against Serbia, Col. C.R. Anderegg, USAF (Ret.), visited the commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Colonel Anderegg had known Gen. John Jumper since they had served together as jet forward air controllers in Southeast Asia nearly thirty years earlier. From the vantage point of 1999, they looked back to the day in February 1970, when they first controlled a laser-guided bomb strike. In this book Anderegg takes us from "glimmers of hope" like that one through other major improvements in the Air Force that came between the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. Always central in Anderegg's account of those changes are the people who made them. This is a very personal book by an officer who participated in the transformation he describes so vividly. Much of his story revolves around the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada, where he served two tours as an instructor pilot specializing in guided munitions.
Download or read book Operation Linebacker II 1972 written by Marshall Michel III and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the failed April 1972 invasion of South Vietnam and the heavy US tactical bombing raids in the Hanoi area, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the Paris peace talks, yet very quickly these negotiations stalled. In an attempt to end the war quickly and 'persuade' the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiating table, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to send the US' ultimate conventional weapon, the B-52 bomber, against their capital, Hanoi. Bristling with the latest Soviet air defence missiles, it was the most heavily defended target in Vietnam. Taking place in late December, this campaign was soon dubbed the 'Christmas Bombings'. Using specially commissioned artwork and maps, ex-USAF fighter colonel Marshall Michel describes Linebacker II, the climax of the air war over Vietnam, and history's only example of how America's best Cold War bombers performed against contemporary Soviet air defences.
