The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969
After Mao’s communists took control of mainland China in 1949, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency developed an uneasy partnership with the nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan for covert air operations over the mainland dropping agents and propaganda, and collecting signals, imagery and nuclear intelligence. But Communist China s air defenses reacted with determination and ingenuity to the unwelcome intruders. Ten of the aircraft B-17s, B-26s, and P-2s were lost and over 100 aircrew killed in this epic yet hardly-known struggle, told in English for the first time. Each chapter is punctuated with vivid, first-hand accounts from the participants Chinese nationalists, Chinese communists, and Americans. The book also describes how during the Vietnam War, America subcontracted many of its covert air operations to the same group of airmen from Taiwan.
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Secret Air War over China Revealed,
Author Chris Pocock, well-known for his mastery of the story of the U-2 spyplane, must be congratulated for getting this facinating and almost totally unknown story published in English (an initial version of this story was researched, written and published in Chinese by aviation historian Clarence Fu, aka Fu Jing Ping). As the subtitle says, this is the true story of daring clandestine flights by the flight crews of the Air Force of the Republic of China, based on Taiwan, deep into the territory of their arch enemy, the Peoples Republic of China. There was clearly nothing ‘cold’ about this chapter of the Cold War. Many of the aircraft – CIA-supplied B-17′s, P2V Neptunes, A-26′s and others – from Taiwan were shot down when the Communists put up increasing effective defenses to stop the intruders. The flights by the Chinese 34th Squadron – The “Black Bats” – were conducted to infiltrate intelligence agents and paramilitary teams, to drop psychological warfare leaflets, and to collect electronic intelligence (ELINT) on China’s radar systems. It’s not really possible to tell which information came from Mr. Fu and what Mr. Pocock added to the earlier Chinese version, but we are very fortunate that Mr. Pocock got this book published in English. It’s a great story, well told, full of important details, and facinating (and very rare) photos. Very highly recommended, if not essential reading, for those interested in the Cold War, clandestine operations, the CIA, exotically-modified aircraft (including gorgeous glossy black P-3′s), and the ‘war’ fought between the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan and the Chinese Communists in the 1950s and 1960s.
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|Required Reading for Cold War ELINT,
ELINT missions over the Peoples Republic of China had always been relegated to footnotes in other cold war histories. References to ELINT planes shot down or U-2′s lost over mainland China made it sound like this was some minor sideshow compared to the effort going on over the Soviet Union. What’s clear from this book that while smaller in scale, the Black Bat squadron was more than doing their share. This book is well written, provides the context of the missions, sheds new light on the purpose of the missions, talks about specific ELINT systems carried (rarely found in a book,) and offered some personal stories of the crew – all which made for a great read. Kudos to the author and his translator.
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|“THE BLACK BATS” is an excellent book,
For anyone who was involved or interested in the “Cold War” will find this book fascinating. It chronicles the brave Chinese Nationalist crews who flew B-17s and P-2 Neptunes for the CIA and our military in dangerous night flights over China on Elint and Sigint missions. For someone involved in that type of mission, technical data on the equipment they used is provided. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in aviation, Sigint or Elint
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