From its establishment in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) engaged in an aggressive campaign countering communist influence across the world. In East Asia, working with the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan, it dropped agents, supplies, propaganda material and equipment using modified B-17s, B-26s, P4Ys and C-46s But by the mid-1950s these aircraft needed urgent modernisation.
Project ‘Wild Cherry’ was to provide reconfigured Lockheed P2V Neptune maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare platforms for clandestine CIA operations. Five P2V-7U airframes bound for the US Navy (USN) were diverted from the production line and allocated United States Air Force (USAF) serials 54-4037 to 54-4041; two more were later loaned from the USN and assigned serials 54-4042 and 54-4043. Heavily modified by Lockheed at its famed ‘Skunk Works’ in Burbank, California, just across from the Neptune production line, they were designated the RB-69A. In the CIA they were casually referred to as the ‘P2V’. Mainly used in operations against communist China, the original five (and the crews flying them) would all be lost in action.
But the type was well suited to its new role. Intended for low-level operations,…
