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 defences
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.