Message posted by Peter Merlin on January 08, 2010 at 9:38:05 PST:
Another second-hand story from an elderly person relying on faded memories. The article's author, Anthony Bragalia, is not known for high-quality research. He jumps to conclusions and ties pieces together without any substantial evidence. At least this thread has a bona fide Area 51 connection in that Harry Cordes was checked out in the U-2 at Watertown Strip in 1956. He subsequently served as operations officer and mission planner for Detachment B at Incirlik, Turkey, and Lahore, Pakistan from 1956 through 1958. During World War Two he served as a navigation instructor at San Marcos Army Air Field, Texas. Following graduation from Radar Observation School in May 1945 he was assigned to a B-24 aircraft ferret crew. From 1946 to 1949 he was assigned to the 509th Bombardment Group, Roswell Air Force Base, New Mexico, as a radar observer on a B-29 crew. He participated in Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. His crew won the first annual SAC bombing competition in 1948. He entered pilot training in August 1949 and when he graduated in 1950 returned to the 509th Group as a pilot and was later aircraft commander of a B-50. In 1954 he attended transition training in the all-jet B-47 and then served as an aircraft commander, flight commander and operations officer with the 321st Bombardment Wing at McCoy Air Force Base, Florida. From March 1956 to January 1958 he served as U-2 operations staff officer during Project AQUATONE. He then attended the Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. After graduation in June 1959, he was assigned as an intelligence staff officer and later chief of penetration analysis, Air Estimate Division, Directorate of Intelligence, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. From July 1962 until August 1965 he served as chief of the Penetration Analysis Section, National Strategic Target List Division of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff. In August 1966 Cordes graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. He then was assigned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force in the Directorate of Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, where he served in the Force Planning Division as assistant deputy director for force development and later as deputy director. Cordes assumed duties as deputy chief of staff, intelligence, Headquarters Strategic Air Command in April 1970. He retired in 1973.
In Reply to: The General's Widow: A Roswell Tell-All posted by whiskey3 on January 07, 2010 at 19:31:43 PST:
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