Taiwan's Secret Recon Voodoos

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis occurred in 1958 when artillery units of the People's Republic of China bombarded the Nationalist islands of Quemoy and Matsu in a bid to retake them from Taiwan. In a bombardment that began in August of that year, nearly 450,000 shells were fired at the two Taiwanese islands in a standoff that also saw the first use of the AIM-9 Sidewinder when Republic of China Air Force (RoCAF) F-86 Sabres engaged PLAAF MiGs over the Taiwan Strait. During the crisis, US naval units were in the area to protect sea lines of communication from Taiwan to the two island outposts. As the crisis ended after 44 days in a stalemate, the US government decided that it needed more information on the disposition of Chinese forces on the PRC side of the strait. Some information came from RB-69 flights by Taiwanese crews and later clandestine P-3 Orion overflights also took place. But the RoCAF's reconnaissance F-86 Sabres and the RB-69s were increasingly vulnerable to improving Chinese defenses on the mainland. In November 1959, the USAF started Operation Boom-Town, a secret effort to utilize the much faster McDonnell RF-101 Voodoo in high speed, low level overflights of the mainland. 

Chiang Kai-Shek authorized the formation of the 4th Composite Reconnaissance Squadron (CRS) at Taipei AB in Taiwan. Initially operating Republic RF-84F Thunderflash jets, the pilots selected for the 4th CRS were the veritable "cream of the crop" of the RoCAF. The USAF's 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron (TRS) based at Kadena AB in Okinawa was selected to provide material support and training for the 4th CRS to convert to the RF-101 Voodoo. The first group of RoCAF pilots trained at Okinawa under conditions of great secrecy. In 1964 the 4th CRS completed its transition to the RF-101 Voodoo and aircraft were flown directly from the 15th TRS' flightline to Taiwan, whereupon they were immediately hangared and repainted in RoCAF markings. Officially the 4th CRS was an all-Taiwanese operation, but the USAF maintained an advisory presence at the RoCAF base, being officially designated as "Detachment 1, 13th Air Force, Shaw AFB, South Carolina, Taipei" (Shaw AFB being the homebase of all USAF reconnaissance Voodoo operations). Pilots and maintenance crew from the 15th TRS at Kadena were rotated secretly back and forth to work with the 4th CRS to keep the Voodoos there flying on missions over mainland China.

Officially the Taiwanese government stated that the Voodoos were purchased to maintain surveillance capability around the waters of Taiwan, but the RoCAF Voodoo pilots frequently trained in air-refueling with USAF KB-50s deployed to the area. The RF-101 already had an impressive internal fuel capacity that gave it an impressive range for a Century-series jet. Air-refueling simply gave the RoCAF pilots the range to reach targets deep inside the mainland.

The RoCAF Voodoo overflight program ended in 1970 with the possible shootdown of one RF-101 over the mainland, quite an impressive record given the speed at which the Taiwanese pilots converted to the Voodoo and the number of reported overflights conducted. Most of the Voodoos were returned to the United States, but one remains on static display in Taiwan.

Source: Voodoo Warriors: The Story of the McDonnell Voodoo Fast Jets by Nigel Walpole. Pen and Sword, 2007, p105-106.

Tabasco/Purple Flash: Sensor Pods Delivered by U-2 Spyplanes

Last month I had posted about Steel Eagle, a modern-day counterpart to the Igloo White acoustic/seismic sensors dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. The use of such remote-sensing pods that embedded themselves in the ground after being dropped by an aircraft weren't just limited to tactical use- a similar program was under taken in the 1960s called Tabasco (the unclassfied project name was Purple Flash) to drop sensor pods from Lockheed U-2 spyplanes flying some of the longest range flights in the aircraft's history over the Chinese nuclear tests sites at Lop Nor, deep in the desert basins of northwest China.

Corona satellite imagery detailed the Lop Nor installation ever since the first Chinese nuclear detonation in 1964 caught Western scientists off guard. The Department of Energy's Sandia Labs in Albuquerque had been working on adapting US seismic equipment used to analyze nuclear tests in Nevada to fit into the air-dropped pods that weighed 285 lbs. The pods were carried under the U-2 wing and a parachute deployed after the drop to slow the pod just enough to not damage the sensors but allow the spike-shaped pod to embed itself in the ground. Once on the ground, a 10-foot telescopic antenna deployed to transmit data to listening posts on the periphery of the People's Republic of China.

On 29 April 1966 the first prototype pod was dropped over the White Sands Missile Range from a U-2 and landed only 800 feet from the target but the sensors were damaged. While the design was being reworked by Sandia, Lockheed and the CIA embarked on a series of long-range flights to see just how much range they could get out of the U-2 to demonstrate the Lop Nor site could be reached from Takhili AB in Thailand.

By 1967 Taiwanese pilots with the RoCAF were training in the United States for the Tabasco flights. On 7 May 1967 the first operational Tabasco mission successfully dropped two sensor pods at Lop Nor, but for whatever reason, no signal was received from them. Another Chinese nuclear test took place that June while the CIA was still trying to interrogate the sensor pods in the desert. Needless to say, it was frustrating for intelligence officials. It was concluded the only way to know for sure was to send another U-2 flight to Lop Nor carrying interrogation equipment to try and activate the pods. On 31 August 1967 another RoCAF pilot took a U-2 to Lop Nor and was nearly ambushed by a salvo of SAMs but no signal was received from the pods.

After two high-risk flights, a second set of Tabasco pods were dropped at Lop Nor, this time by a Lockheed C-130 flown by Taiwanese pilots flying at low level. The outcome of that mission remains classified. After the second Lop Nor mission, the six year program of overflights of the People's Republic of China by the Taiwanese pilots of the "Black Cat" squadron came to an end as improved defenses made further flights too risky.

Source: 50 Years of the U-2: The Complete Illustrated History of the "Dragon Lady" by Chris Pocock. Schiffer Publishing, 2005, p246-252.

In an earlier entry I had featured the RB-69 spyplane conversion of the Lockheed P2V Neptune that was the Skunk Work's first CIA contract. That CIA program to operate low-altitude overflights of the People's Republic of China starting in 1957 was codenamed ST/POLLY by the CIA. The program had generated much useful intelligence on the military activities of the the PRC that the CIA contracted with E-Systems of Greenville, Texas, to convert three Lockheed P-3A Orions to a similar configuration but with more intelligence-gathering systems under the codename ST/SPIN, starting with the arrival of the first P-3A to the naval aviation depot in Alameda, California where E-Systems began the conversion work.

The most obvious modification (apart from its all black color and abbreviated tail sting as the MAD sensor wasn't needed on the clandestine overflights) was a widening of the crew entry door on the aft fuselage with a duplicate door right next to the existing door- this gave a just over six foot wide entry with two inward-opening doors- like the earlier RB-69 Neptunes, this was to allow the infiltration of field agents, special equipment, arms and ammunition and on occasion, propaganda leaflets by the boxload.

The ELINT receivers from the RB-69 Neptunes were taken out, upgraded, and installed on the ST/SPIN Orions. Additional sensors were added thanks to the increased performance of the Orion over the Neptune- a SLAR was added for peripheral reconnaissance missions along the Chinese border, communications intercept equipment, an infrared detector and allegedly even a sensitive acoustic detector. Slant-range and oblique photography cameras were also installed and to also perform intelligence on the Chinese nuclear program, air-sampling equipment was also installed connected to ram air scoops near the cockpit.

The first ST/SPIN operational mission took place in 1964. All the personnel aboard the aircraft were Taiwanese trained and led by the CIA. Missions ranged from gathering radar ELINT data for the Strategic Air Command to even flights into Tibet to gather information on the PRC's suppression of Tibetan nationalists.

However, the Taiwanese general running the program would staff each plane with as many as 27 crew when only 13 to 14 were needed. Taiwanese personnel got a bonus for flying on ST/SPIN missions and he was taking a kickback to assign extra crew to each mission. Operatives of the PRC were able to penetrate the ST/SPIN program to the point that during an ST/SPIN mission, PRC radio operators would call out the aircraft and ask to speak to specific crewman by name.

By 1965 the Taiwanese general was arrested and sent to prison for his staffing scheme and the CIA and NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) withdrew funding from the ST/SPIN program before the third P-3A Orion could be completed. The aircraft were returned to the United States.

Source: Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology by Jeffrey Richelson. Westview Press, 2002, p96-98.