Search

On 1 April 2001, a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II surveillance aircraft collided with a People's Liberation Army Air Force J-8 fighter plane that resulted in the loss of the Chinese pilot and an emergency landing on Hainan Island by the Navy plane. The Chinese government's 11-day internment of the Navy flight crew shocked and amazed the American public. The ensuing diplomatic crisis and war of words reminded many of similar incidents from the supposedly defunct Cold War. It also focused world attention upon a still little known but highly significant aspect of the Cold War -- strategic aerial reconnaissance. The term refers to the use of aircraft to collect strategic intelligence using photographic or electronic means. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), strategic intelligence refers to intelligence that is required for the formation of policy and military plans at national and international levels. Strategic intelligence includes information provided by sources other than aircraft, including naval vessels, ground communications intercept sites, satellites, published literature, defectors, and spies. But because Air Force aircraft provided the bulk of information used by American war plans from 1945 to 1953, this book focuses on the origins of the USAF strategic aerial reconnaissance. Although official JCS publications did not specifically list strategic aerial reconnaissance, the term may be defined as the use of aircraft to gather information necessary to conduct strategic air war, also called strategic air bombardment. At the core of the topic, recently declassified JCS emergency war plans indicate that a strategic air bombardment campaign formed the heart of American military strategy from the end of World War II to the Korean conflict. A question still remains: Did reconnaissance aircraft merely serve as a tool of war planners, or did strategic reconnaissance actually shape military strategy?, The original document contains color images. ISBN 1-58566-124-4.

Contents: Chapter: (1) The Origins of Strategic Aerial Reconnaissance; (2) Groping in the Dark: Reconnaissance Before Containment, 1945-1946; (3) From Containment to Berlin: Organizational Steps to Fill Intelligence Gaps, 1947-1948; (4) Strategic Bombing Questioned: Intelligence Shortfalls and War Plans, 1949-1950; and (5) The Test: Strategic Reconnaissance in Korea, 1950-1953.