From Balloons to Drones

During World War II, men were not the only ones flying military airplanes. Many women flew all kinds of aircraft in a variety of roles, many of them members of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Their story doesn't end with the war either, as they fought for recognition as veterans throughout the 1960s and 70s. We're joined by Dr. Sarah Myers to talk all about the unique roles these women played in the war and beyond, and what their legacy is today.

We're so excited to be joined by veteran astronaut Tom Jones to talk about the history of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. Having flown in space on four shuttle missions, Jones shares not only his own perspective, but reflects on the entirety of the shuttle program based on the interviews and research that informed his new book: Space Shuttle Stories: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions, from Smithsonian Books.

Dr. Luke Truxal is author of the new book, Uniting Against the Reich: The American Air War in Europe, from University Press of Kentucky. In it, he traces how the structure of command over air forces in World War II created a mess of problems. Only late in 1943 and into 1944 did these command structures change, enabling air power to become more effective. Truxal takes us into the dramatic relationships between leaders like Dwight Eisenhower, Carl Spaatz, and more, showing why, in positions of leadership, personality matters.

This year (2023) is the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the first American women combat fighter pilots. How did the U.S. go from women not being allowed in military airplanes to having women combat pilots? Eileen Bjorkman (Col., USAF, ret.) joins us to talk about these momentous changes. She is a former flight test engineer who has flown in aircraft like the F-4 Phantom and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and she is author of: Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of the Women who Kicked Open the Door to Fly in Combat, from Knox Press.

The American spaceflight program is a popular, inspirational story that many of us are familiar with, but what about the Soviet Union's space program? To explore it, we're joined by Dr. Cathleen Lewis, curator of international space programs and spacesuits at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and author of Cosmonaut: A Cultural History, from University of Florida Press. She tells us not only about how the Soviet space program worked, but about it's cultural effect on the people of the Soviet Union, and how it has been remembered since then. We do apologize for an audio problem with one of our microphones that we were not aware of until editing, when it was too late to fix.

Former F-4 Phantom pilot Lee Ellis was a prisoner of war in the "Hanoi Hilton" in Vietnam for over five years. But in the time since, he noticed that he and many other POWs had gone on to experience dramatic love lives. Ellis joins us to talk about his new book: Captured By Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs.

For this episode, Mike and Brian have each come up with questions to ask each other about what it's like to be a historian, and pick on some of their favorite topics about aviation history.

Colonel Kim 'Killer Chick' Campbell was an A-10 Thunderbolt II 'Warthog' pilot with over 100 combat missions. On one of her early missions, her plane was heavily damaged by ground fire. She tells us the harrowing story, and how her flying experiences apply to other areas of life. For more detail, she has a new book: Flying in the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot's Lessons on Leading with Courage, from Wiley Press.

In 1972, the USS Kitty Hawk was in the middle of conducting bombing raids against North Vietnam, when violence broke out on the ship itself. Long-building racial tensions exploded into a series of assaults that were quickly labeled a race riot. Marv Truhe was one of the JAG lawyers assigned to defend the African American sailors charged in the incident. He tells the story of a series of racial injustices in his shocking new book, Against All Tides: The Untold Story of the USS Kitty Hawk Race Riot. He joins us on the podcast to discuss the incident and the legacy it leaves for changes in race relations in the Navy and the US military.

Amidst the news of classified intelligence leaks, it's a great time to look back at the US Air Force Security Service - the USAF's own intelligence agency that gathered critical intelligence throughout the Cold War. From using surveillance aircraft to spy on potential threats to helping fighter pilots shoot down MiGs over the skies of Vietnam, Philip Shackelford takes us through the story of this mysterious organization, as he details in his new book: 'Rise of the Mavericks,' from Naval Institute Press.

This episode is all about the F-14 and F-15 fighters, two very popular and historically significant airplanes. We're joined by Tal Tovy, senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and author of 'Tomcats and Eagles: The Development of the F-14 and F-15 in the Cold War' from Naval Institute Press. Tovy gives us an up close look at the motivation behind designing these aircraft, and speaks to how to Israeli Air Force experience had a special influence.

50 years ago this month (January) was the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which ended major U.S. combat operations in the Vietnam War. To look back on the air campaigns that were so crucial to that war, we talk with Michael Weaver, professor at the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College and author of 'The Air War in Vietnam' from Texas Tech University Press. Join as we look at the use of air power in Southeast Asia and talk about some of the legacies it leaves behind. Weaver's comments are his alone and do not reflect the policies of Air University, the Air Force, or the Department of Defense.

Join us for a retrospective on our favorite books of the year, with the 'From Balloons to Drones' editor-in-chief, Dr Ross Mahoney! Each of us discusses our top three reads of 2022, and we take a look forward at some topics we'd really like to hear more about in the future. The books: 'Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950-1966' by Mark Lax 'Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic' by John Shields 'Air Power Supremo: A Biography of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor' by William Pyke 'Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb' by James Scott 'A Long Voyage to the Moon: The Life of Naval Aviator and Apollo 17 Astronaut Ron Evans' by Geoffrey Bowman 'Dark Horse: General Larry O. Spencer and His Journey from the Horseshoe to the Pentagon' by Gen. Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Ret.) 'Wings of Gold: The Story of the First Women Naval Aviators' by Beverly Weintraub 'Tomcats and Eagles: The Development of the F-14 and F-15 in the Cold War' by Tal Tovy 'Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today' by Craig McNamara

How did the U.S. get from the first flight of an airplane in 1903, to full-fledged military-capable airplanes in only short few years? Dr. Larry Burke, the aviation curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, takes us through the people that made that journey happen. He explores the different approaches to the airplane made by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines Corps, and why each of them went about exploring military aviation in a unique way. Larry is also the author of At the Dawn of Airpower: The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps’ Approach to the Airplane, 1907–1917, from Naval Institute Press.

The threat of nuclear war seems to be rising once again as tension among global powers increases. With that in mind, we turn back to look at what the nuclear wars plans of the U.S. were during the early Cold War, and what a nuclear war might have looked like, and how it would have potentially been waged. We're joined by Sean Maloney, professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada, author of Emergency War Plan: The American Doomsday Machine, 1945–1960, from Potomac Press.