Torrejón during The Cold War


Book Description

Torrejón Air Base opened officially on 1 June 1957 with SAC activating the 3970th Strategic Wing on 1 July 1957. The base hosting Sixteenth Air Force as well as SAC\"s 65th Air Division (Defense) where it cooperated with Spanish Air Force units in the Air Defense Direction Centers (ADDCs). The 65th Air Division directed base construction, and the establishment of off-base housing and radar sites. The division\"s fighter squadrons flew air defense interceptions over Spanish airspace.\r\nWith the phaseout of the B-47 from SAC in the mid-1960s, the need for SAC European bases diminished. The Sixteenth Air Force was turned over to United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) on 15 April 1966 and the strategic focus changed to tactical. Prior to 1966, Torrejón AB hosted TDY squadrons of tactical aircraft rotating from CONUS TAC bases which would perform 30-day rotations to Aviano Air Base Italy and Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. \r\nThis book tells the story of the Torrejon Air Base from.1957 to 1992\r\n







In Cold War Skies


Book Description

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, international relations across the globe were dominated by the Cold War. From 1949 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, US and Soviet strategic forces were deployed across the Arctic Ocean in North America and Northern Russia, while the best-equipped armed forces that the world had ever seen faced each other directly across the 'Iron Curtain' in Europe. In Cold War Skies examines the air power of the major powers both at a strategic and at a tactical level throughout the 40 years of the Cold War. In this fascinating book, acclaimed historian Michael Napier looks at each decade of the war in turn, examining the deployment of strategic offensive and defensive forces in North America and Northern Russia as well as the situation in Europe. He details the strategic forces and land-based tactical aircraft used by the air forces of the USA, USSR, NATO, Warsaw Pact countries and the European non-aligned nations. He also describes the aircraft types in the context of the units that operated them and the roles in which they were used. The text is supported by a wide range of first-hand accounts of operational flying during the Cold War, as well as numerous high-quality images.




German Air Traffic Control During The Cold War


Book Description

This is a historical facts report and commentary on the development of the German Air Traffic Control Centre RHEIN CONTROL as formerly operated by the United States Air Force in Europe (USAFE) and the former German Federal Administration for Air Navigation Services (BFS), assisted by the German Air Force (GAF) at Birkenfeld-Nahe and Frankfurt/Main in Germany. RHEIN CONTROL was and still is an upper airspace air traffic control (ATC) centre, formerly responsible for South Germany only, but now also covering all of former East Germany (Berlin UIR). This report is written by a former air traffic controller and air traffic control expert, who meanwhile actively spent 50 years in the ATC profession worldwide, and has had first served 25 years with the German Federal Administration for Air Navigation Services (Bundesanstalt für Flugsicherung) in upper airspace area control operations, ATC planning and experimentation.




The F-100 Units of USAFE


Book Description

The North American F-100 Super Sabre served with the United States Air Forces in Europe for a total of sixteen years at the height of the Cold War. The primary mission of the USAFE units that flew the 'hun' was the delivery of tactical nuclear weapons on targets in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The nuclear mission was practised on the gunnery ranges of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and North Africa. The pilots, called bomb commanders, sat alert all over Europe to take off at a moment's notice and fly alone into the heart of enemy territory carrying just one atomic bomb often more powerful than those dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. These dedicated pilots acknowledged that many of their targets were situated so far away that there would be no prospect of return to their home base and their families and friends. The secondary mission of the USAFE F-100 units was to prepare for conventional war.




Torrejón Air Base, Spain


Book Description

Torrejón Air Base opened officially on 1 June 1957 with SAC activating the 3970th Strategic Wing on 1 July 1957. The base hosting Sixteenth Air Force as well as SAC\"s 65th Air Division (Defense) where it cooperated with Spanish Air Force units in the Air Defense Direction Centers (ADDCs). The 65th Air Division directed base construction, and the establishment of off-base housing and radar sites. The division\"s fighter squadrons flew air defense interceptions over Spanish airspace.\r\nWith the phaseout of the B-47 from SAC in the mid-1960s, the need for SAC European bases diminished. The Sixteenth Air Force was turned over to United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) on 15 April 1966 and the strategic focus changed to tactical. Prior to 1966, Torrejón AB hosted TDY squadrons of tactical aircraft rotating from CONUS TAC bases which would perform 30-day rotations to Aviano Air Base Italy and Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. \r\nWith the USAFE takeover of the base, Tactical Air Command transferred the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing from England Air Force Base Louisiana to USAFE on a permanent basis to Torrejón on 27 April 1966, to perform host functions at the base and to support the rotational TDY duty to Italy and Turkey for NATO alerts. \r\nThe 401st transitioned to the new General Dynamics Block 15 F-16A/B Fighting Falcon beginning with the first aircraft deliveries on 5 February 1983. The wing reached full F-16 operational capability on 1 January 1985. The F-16A/B models were upgraded to the Block 30 F-16C/D beginning in late 1987, with all aircraft replaced by September 1988. \r\nThe 401ST Tactical Fighter Wing deploy to the Middle East for Desert Storm.\r\nIn August 1990 the 612th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Screaming Eagles) was deployed to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, at the same time, the 614th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Lucky Devils) was deployed to Qatar.\r\nIn 1991 after the war, squadrons return to Torrejon, where the 612th TFS and 613th TFS are deactivated in 1991, the 614th TFS is deactivated in 1992, Torrejon ceases their activities after almost 40 years.\r\nThis book tells the story of the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing and its three squadrons, the 612th , the 613th and the 614th and the history of them all in Torrejon, Spain with amazing photographs of their three squadrons flying the F-4 Phantom and the F-16 Fighting Falcons\r\n\r\n




Secrets of Signals Intelligence During the Cold War


Book Description

In recent years the importance of Signals Intelligence (Sigint) has become more prominent, especially the capabilities of reading and deciphering diplomatic, military and commercial communications of other nations. This work reveals the role of intercepting messages during the Cold War.







Fighter Pilot's Daughter


Book Description

Fighter Pilot's Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War details author and Professor Mary Lawlor’s unconventional upbringing in Cold War America. Memories of her early life—as the daughter of a Marine Corps and then Army father—reveal the personal costs of tensions that once gripped the entire world, and illustrate the ways in which bold foreign policy decisions shaped an entire generation of Americans, defining not just the ways they were raised, but who they would ultimately become. As a kid on the move she was constantly in search of something to hold on to, a longing that led her toward rebellion, to college in Paris, and to the kind of self-discovery only possible in the late 1960s. A personal narrative braided with scholarly, retrospective reflections as to what that narrative means, My Cold War zooms in on a little girl with a childhood full of instability, frustration and unanswered questions such that her struggles in growth, her struggles, her yearnings and eventual successes exemplify those of her entire generation. From California to Georgia to Germany, Lawlor’s family was stationed in parts of the world that few are able to experience at so young an age, but being a child of military parents has never been easy. She neatly outlines the unique challenges an upbringing without roots presents someone struggling to come to terms with a world at war, and a home in constant turnover and turmoil. This book is for anyone seeking a finer awareness of the tolls that war takes not just on a nation, but on that nation’s sons and daughters, in whose hearts and minds deeper battles continue to rage long after the soldiers have come home.




Encyclopedia of the Cold War


Book Description

Between 1945 and 1991, tension between the USA, its allies, and a group of nations led by the USSR, dominated world politics. This period was called the Cold War – a conflict that stopped short to a full-blown war. Benefiting from the recent research of newly open archives, the Encyclopedia of the Cold War discusses how this state of perpetual tensions arose, developed, and was resolved. This work examines the military, economic, diplomatic, and political evolution of the conflict as well as its impact on the different regions and cultures of the world. Using a unique geopolitical approach that will present Russian perspectives and others, the work covers all aspects of the Cold War, from communism to nuclear escalation and from UFOs to red diaper babies, highlighting its vast-ranging and lasting impact on international relations as well as on daily life. Although the work will focus on the 1945–1991 period, it will explore the roots of the conflict, starting with the formation of the Soviet state, and its legacy to the present day.