Over Cold War Seas: NATO and Soviet Naval Aviation, 1949–89

Michael Napier describes the naval air power deployed by NATO, Warsaw Pact and neutral countries throughout the Cold War. In 1949, an Iron Curtain was drawn across Europe, and the Cold War that ensued between the Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact lasted through to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. NATO and Warsaw Pact naval forces spread over the world’s oceans, and the powerful forces of the US Navy’s Second Fleet patrolled the North Atlantic, while the Sixth Fleet was positioned in the Mediterranean.

The age of the nuclear-powered supercarrier arrived in 1957 with the USS Forrestal, while the Soviet Union’s first aircraft carrier, the Kiev, was commissioned in 1975. In Over Cold War Seas, respected aviation author Michael Napier examines the naval air power of the major combatant forces as it developed from 1949 through to 1989. All the major naval aircraft types are covered, both fixed wing and helicopters, which entered service in the 1950s for light transport or rescue duties and evolved into multi-purpose machines capable of performing anti-submarine and airborne early warning missions.

This detailed text is supported by a wide range of first-hand accounts of operational flying during the Cold War, as well as over 240 high-quality, contemporary images.