Book of the Month

摘要

Many tales of Cold War military aviation remain to be told. Lingering official secrecy keeps some stories out of the limelight, but, gradually, this is changing. Such is the case with Allied intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance efforts over divided Berlin, and in the three air corridors that linked the city with the Federal Republic of Germany. This first tome dedicated to those subjects, the result of lengthy researches by Dr Kevin Wright and former Intelligence Corps member Peter Jefferies, is most impressive. The theme is set in context, so more general discussion of Cold War airborne intelligence-gathering (including the U-2 programme) and the specific situation in Berlin precedes the 'meat of the subject matter. US, British and French operations down the corridors are each afforded a chapter, as are their reconnaissance efforts with light aircraft and helicopters inside the Berlin Control Zone. Not forgotten either is the work done to exploit the results, which made - as detailed in the final chapter - a significant contribution to the 'war of intelligence'. Pretty much every reader is guaranteed to find something new here. This reviewer, for instance, was unaware that an RAF Pembroke corridor sortie in the early 1970s photographed an F-4 Phantom Ⅱ at the Soviet MiG-21 base at Zerbst. "The aircraft had a slightly different nose profile to a normal F-4", say the authors, "and carried no national markings..." Wright and jefferies recount that it was assessed as a former USAF aircraft that had been shot down in Vietnam and that the Soviets had made it sufficiently airworthy to take round to brief their own fighter pilots on its strengths and weaknesses", but might it be the apparent partial mock-up of an F-4, possibly incorporating sections from 'downed' examples, that was pictured at Zhukovsky in 1971?