Reviews of Spying from the Sky

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When author Robert Richardson was working on a book about the 49th Fighter Squadron, of the US Army Air Corps during World War II, he interviewed its two surviving members. He found one, William Gregory, so interesting that he decided to write his biography. Spying From The Sky is the result. 

After deciding that he wanted more out of life than being a sharecropper in Tennessee, Gregory attended college and became a civilian pilot before being accepted for Army flight school. His final flight assignment was as commander of the CIA’s U-2 unit at Edwards Air Force Base. In between, he flew P-38s in Africa during World War II, was a Strategic Air Command pilot, and  an original member the Black Knights, the Air Force’s first high-altitude surveillance program that commenced operations in the mid 1950s. This was a mission crossover time for Air Force reconnaissance: balloons with cameras were still being sent over China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union; U-2 flights began over the Soviet Union;

and the Black Knights began flying RB-57D-2 ELINT missions along the borders of denied area countries.

Richardson provides photos of the aircraft and detailed descriptions of the missions they performed until the program was shut down in the late 1950s.

It was in this period that Gregory joined the U-2 program at Edwards, where he commanded Detachment G, which performed operational and testing missions

Richardson describes. In that position he became a U-2 pilot, and at one point flew a mission after taking off from an aircraft carrier. He deployed with the unit on all

its missions, which included support of the Bay of Pigs operation and later the Cuban missile crisis. In the mid 1960s, Gregory was offered the position of operations officer in the CIA’s A-12 Archangel program at Groom Lake, Nevada. But families were not allowed at Groom, and he had had enough hardship deployments, so he declined the offer. After attending the National War College, he spent five years at the Pentagon before accepting his final assignment at the Air Force Institute of Technology. 

Spying From The Sky presents a pilot’s firsthand view

of manned high altitude surveillance. Truly a unique and

valuable source.

Rarely does one encounter any American military service member who has served in World War II as a fighter pilot (P-38s), flown bombers (B-47s) and strategic reconnaissance aircraft (RB-57s) in the Cold War, and finally served with the Central Intelligence Agency over the course of many of the most important missions of the aerial surveillance era (U-2s) across the globe, up to the advent of the SR-71 "Blackbird"

Gregory was even involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, leading the detachment which overflew the island and provided the intelligence by which President John F. Kennedy justified his blockade and forced the Soviets to back down and remove their missiles.

Interspersed throughout the text are italicized, clarifying, and contextual quotes from Gregory himself and many photographs from the National Archives, Army and Navy, Lockheed Martin, the Gregory family, and other sources. . . The endnotes . . . demonstrate considerable research by the author in declassified government documents, newspapers, magazine articles, reports, and other sources. 

This is certainly a publication meant for those who have an interest in aviation, the Cold War, and aerial surveillance.

                                        -  Journal of America's Military Past, Spring/Summer 2020

Rarely does one encounter any American military service member who has served in World War II as a fighter pilot (P-38s), flown bombers (B-47s) and strategic reconnaissance aircraft (RB-57s) in the Cold War, and finally served with the Central Intelligence Agency over the course of many of the most important missions of the aerial surveillance era (U-2s) across the globe, up to the advent of the SR-71 "Blackbird"

Gregory was even involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, leading the detachment which overflew the island and provided the intelligence by which President John F. Kennedy justified his blockade and forced the Soviets to back down and remove their missiles.

Interspersed throughout the text are italicized, clarifying, and contextual quotes from Gregory himself and many photographs from the National Archives, Army and Navy, Lockheed Martin, the Gregory family, and other sources. . . The endnotes . . . demonstrate considerable research by the author in declassified government documents, newspapers, magazine articles, reports, and other sources. 

This is certainly a publication meant for those who have an interest in aviation, the Cold War, and aerial surveillance.

                                        -  Journal of America's Military Past, Spring/Summer 2020

William J. Gregory's . . . professional exploits are described in vivid detail . . . (his) narration in italics throughout most of the book gets the reader directly into the action.

Spying from the Sky is a solid and informative addition to several books on the subject.

                 - William E. Burrows, Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine, August 2020

 Wow. What this man experienced is so inspiring. Starting with almost no money or food, and funding his way through the ranks of the Army Air Corps (pre-dating the USAF), fighting through 4 wars, then working for the CIA? This man’s life is like a movie. The book was full of incredible stories and images. I’m so glad this story is being shared with the world. A truly incredible life.