The award-winning #podcast preserving the stories of the #ColdWar before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
Laurie Hawn is a retired Canadian Member of Parliament and former career fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Laurie tells the story of low level delivery of nuclear weapons via the Starfighter as well as conventional missions. Also we get insight into the escape, evasion and interrogation training given to NATO pilots. … Read more
Colonel Terry Chester spent a good portion of his RCAF career hunting for Soviet Submarines in both the Pacific and Atlantic area’s of operation. He was instrumental in the design criteria for sub hunting capability’s when Canada procured the, then new Aurora, for anti-submarine hunting in the early 1980’s. Terry has great stories to tell … Read more
Today I speak to 98 year old Gail Halvorsen aka “The Candy Bomber” who flew in the Berlin Airlift in 1948. The Soviets had started a 11-month land blockade against West Berlin. The blockade was broken by a massive U.S.-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin. Gail tells an incredible story of an iconic … Read more
Nick Anderson is a former RAF Phantom jet fighter pilot. In this episode we welcome back Nick as his story continues with his accounts of how the Soviet aircrew tried to distract RAF plane and how he was almost downed by the Soviet tactics. The episode ends with Nick telling us about the final days … Read more
Nick Anderson is a former RAF Phantom jet fighter pilot. We discuss flying in the Cold War and in detail how the RAF would have responded to a nuclear attack. We also talk about how QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) worked and hear details of a number of missions Nick flew intercepting the Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 codenamed … Read more
Welcome to Episode 28 of Cold war conversations in partnership with the Cold War Museum . Today we are talking further with USAF pilot Buz Carpenter. We talk about about flying reconnaissance over Vietnam, the Skunkworks where secret USAF projects were developed, his time commanding Ramstein airbase at the end of the Cold War … Read more
Welcome to Episode 27 of Cold war conversations. Today we are talking about the SR71 Blackbird spy plane of which only 32 were ever made. The great defensive ability of the plane was its high speed and altitude. Standard evasive action was just to accelerate, which made it almost invulnerable to the attack technologies … Read more
Welcome to episode 23 of Cold War Conversations. Today’s episode is the first in a new partnership we have formed with the Cold War Museum. We speak with Gary Powers Junior. His father piloted the U2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers’ U-2 was shot down on May 1, 1960, … Read more
Welcome to episode 18 of Cold War Conversations RAF Greenham Common opened in 1942 and was used by both the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War and the United States Air Force during the Cold War. The airfield is probably best known, certainly in the UK, for … Read more