Rick Shreve was a USAF F111 pilot based at RAF Lakenheath in the UK. We hear about his early USAF career as a fighter pilot, then we move onto his transfer to the F111 and how he was trained to carry out nuclear as well as conventional missions against the Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. He describes his low-level training missions to attack targets in the Soviet Union and East Germany and recalls a near-fatal incident amongst the Scottish lochs.
Rick was also part of one of the crews that flew on Operation El Dorado Canyon, the operation to bomb Libya in April 1986 in retaliation for the West Berlin discotheque bombing ten days earlier.
Rick gives you a frank view of his role in the USAF and his approach to the huge responsibilities he carried.
In his later career, he flew civil airliners with Pan-Am and recalls how he was astonished to fly over the Warsaw Pact airfield he had been tasked to attack in the event of war…
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I am delighted to welcome Rick to our Cold War conversation…
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