I Always Wanted to Fly: America's Cold War Airmen

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I Always Wanted to Fly I Always Wanted to Fly America’s Cold War Airmen Colonel Wolfgang W. E. Samuel With a foreword by Ken Hechler University Press of Mississippi Jackson www.upress.state.ms.us Copyright 䉷 2001 by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Painting on pages ii and iii by George Back. A 1965 MiG-17 attack on an RB-47H reconnaissance aircraft off the east coast of North Korea. 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 4 3 2 1 䡬 ⬁ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Samuel, Wolfgang W. E. I always wanted to fly : America’s Cold War airmen / Wolfgang W. E. Samuel. p. cm. ISBN 1-57806-399-X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Air pilots, Military—United States—Biography. 2. Cold War. 3. United States Air Force—Officers—Biography. I. Title. UG626.S26 2001 358.4⬘0092—dc21 [B] 2001026039 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available To the flyers who gave their lives during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991 in the service of their country. In memory of the friends I served with who did not return from their last flights. This page intentionally left blank ...