NEW for sale in Garey, California

$3,600

This book examines the intriguing story of Camp Cooke, an Army training installation in California that sent thousands of soldiers overseas during World War II and the Korean War, and produced six Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. During the war years, Cooke hosted numerous USO camp shows featuring some of Hollywood's leading entertainers as well as many other luminaries from radio and stage.
In 1957, the Air Force acquired the installation and a year later renamed it Vandenberg Air Force Base. It has since become America's only space and missile base. America's first spy satellite program, known as Corona (code-named Discoverer), was conducted from Vandenberg. The intelligence data collected from these missions exploded the myth of a "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War America's first ICBM missile equipped with a nuclear warhead was based at Vandenberg.
Topping the list of important visitors to the base was President John F. Kennedy who witnessed the launch of an Atlas missile. And, as part of an unprecedented trip to the United States, Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev passed through the base on a train in 1959. Read about his surprising reaction as the train passed within view of Atlas missiles standing on alert. 
The book is filled with many other fascinating accounts including the exposure of 1,000 Camp Cooke soldiers to above-ground atomic bomb detonations in the Nevada desert, missile accidents at Vandenberg, and the tragic death of a young airman during a missile training exercise.
The appendices include biographies of Generals Cooke and Vandenberg, a list of nearly every Army unit that trained at Cooke, and a historical summary of every launch facility at Vandenberg and the missile types flown from these facilities up to the present. This book is the definitive history of Camp Cooke and Vandenberg AFB. Written by the former historian at Vandenberg, the detailed narrative is enriched by many rare and previously unpublished images.
284pp. Softcover (6 x 9), 2014
102 photos, 5 maps, 7 appendices, notes, bibliography, and index.
Publisher: McFarland & Company.
Publisher's Price: $39.95
AUTHOR'S PRICE: $36.00 - Postage free
To order a signed copy of the book directly from the author for $36.00 postage free, please contact Jeffrey Geiger at this ad.