The US Army Air Forces' 868th Bomb Squadron was born out of the Wright Project, so named after the liaison officer between the AAF and the 'Rad Lab,' the radiation laboratory at the Manhattan Institute of Technology, one Col 'Stud' Wright. He was among the principal advocates of a secret programme whereby B-24 Liberators, modified to incorporate the SCR-717 radar and other related role equipment, were assigned to low-level, night-time anti-shipping raids. Wright ended up being given command of the test effort when it progressed to an initial combat deployment in the Pacific during the summer of 1943. Nightstalkers is the first dedicated account of this project, which resulted in the 868th BS and its small fleet of 10 SB-24s - commonly known as 'Snoopers' - notching up more than 100 confirmed sinkings of enemy ships, all around the Pacific theatre. Lawless has a background in intelligence with the CIA and the Department of Defense, and he has put together a most detailed history that also reads very well, using a wide array of sources and accompanied by copious appendices. The definite sense is that the technology embodied never reached its ultimate application during the Second World War, despite its undoubted success. Illustrations are few and, even bearing in mind their age, not that well-reproduced, the publisher having chosen not to print them on glossy paper. Nonetheless, Nightstalkers is highly enlightening, and much-recommended.
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