Blue Moon Over Cuba : Aerial Reconnaissance during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Most books on the Cuban Missile Crisis tell the story using the memoirs of those who advised President Kennedy as he struggled to avoid World War III. This book is the only known personal account of the lead photographic reconnaissance squadron's scouting dangerous low-level operations, flying the supersonic RF-8A Crusader, during the classified Operation Blue Moon. Captain Ecker was the commanding officer of US Navy Light Photographic Squadron 62 (VFP-62, otherwise known as "Fightin' Photo") during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a team created for reconnaissance and aerial photography, and consulted on the movie Thirteen Days, which included dramatic scenes of his first mission over Cuba on October 23, 1962. Blue Moon over Cuba is an authoritative and complete account of the low-level reconnaissance that might be said to have helped JFK avert nuclear Armageddon.

The late Captain William B Ecker USN was the commanding officer of US Navy Light Photographic Squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His memoir of the squadron's photographic missions over Cuba was written in 1986. However, it was never published. It is the only known personally written account of the squadron's reconnaissance missions.

Kenneth V. Jack was a photographer's mate second class during the Cuban Crisis. He led the first carrier testing of the camera and its night-photography capabilities aboard the supercarrier USS Forrestal a few months before the crisis began. In retirement, he developed a website dedicated to VFP-62 (www.vfp62.com). He wrote an article, Supersonic Hooligans Over Cuba, for the National Naval Aviation Museum's October 2011 issue of Foundation.

Michael Dobbs is a former Washington Post Foreign Correspondent and author of the critically acclaimed One Minute to Midnight, recognised as one of the best ever books on the Cuban Missile Crisis.