Brave men in exceptional aircraft risked overflights of
G€śdenied territoryG€ť to bring back rolls of aerial imagery, but that was only
half their task. The personnel of the 67th Recon Tech Squadron finished the
work, flawlessly processing the film to preserve its content, and expertly
analyzing every inch to extract intelligence on changes to known targets and to
discover new threats. Then we had to get that information to strike units and
decision-makers quickly and in a form they could use efficiently. It was their
work that gave meaning to those marvelous aviation exploits from Laos through
Vietnam to China, North Korea and the Soviet Union.
This book relies on newly declassified documents and accounts of more than
seventy people who were there to tell the history of those technicians and that
process during critical days in a critical theater of operations.
The book is 480 pages, including over 100 pages of photos, 8.5" x 11"
trade paperback.
My book can be purchased through Amazon for $32.99. It is better to go to http://www.authorhouse.com/
on the web, then to their Book Store. There it is $20.00 a copy.
Roy M. Stanley II
Col. USAF (ret.)
An old PI who worked many of those Blackbird missions.
Colonel Roy M. Stanley II served in the USAF Intelligence for 27
years, holding positions on the Air Staff, in Pacific Air Forces, the Strategic
Air Command, and with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He had assignments in
Vietnam, Thailand, and two in Japan, and worked in Air Defense Analysis at HQ
2nd Air Div/7th AF and says "We got pretty good at predicting where the
SA-2s would be and supporting the Wild Weasels.
He was Chief of the USSAG Indications Center, the controlling headquarters for
"Frequent Wind," "Eagle Pull," and the rescue of the
Mayaguez crew, so he was in on the SEA conflict from the first trouble in Laos
in late 1960 to the final act in May 1975.
Col. Stanley also worked on CIA missions, the first "Black Cat" U-2
missions deep into China, the final A-12 missions over SEA and North Korea, and
"live" SR-71 missions from the first overflight until early 1971.
He was an early innovator of computer assistance to photo intelligence. His
final assignment was on the Air Staff, managing the Intelligence Budget that,
among other things, paid for the U-2s and EC-135s.
His deepest interest has always been aerial photographic interpretation and this
is his fourth book on the subject. He remembers his two four-year tours with the
67th RTS as some of the best, most challenging, most exciting and most rewarding
duty of his career, and he is not alone in that. Most people assigned to the
67th agree that it was fantastic work in support of fantastic flights. One
reason those tours were so special was that for much of the time the 67th was
the only Reconnaissance Technical unit west of California. Another was that the
"brass" were all half the Pacific away and the 67th could concentrate
on "innovation and doing the lab and photo interpretation work the best we
knew how."
Colonel Stanley lives near Fredericksburg, Virginia.