About this episode
It was one of Taiwan’s most secretive Cold War outposts: Shulinkou Air Station (????????), a joint-service U.S. intelligence base perched on a misty plateau west of Taipei. Built in 1955, it was a hub for the interception, decryption, and analysis of enemy radio and electronic communications.In Part 1 of this three-part series, we focus on the early 1960s and the everyday world of the young servicemen and officers stationed there. Join them as they resist the character-destroying temptations of Taipei’s back alleys, face vengeful thieves, ride the rails in a stolen locomotive (probably a tall tale but you be the judge), and encounter ghostly road vehicles. This is Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 will take us deeper -- into the looming Vietnam War.For this episode, we relied heavily on the excellent Shulinkou Air Station Taiwan website, which is run by men who served there between 1955 and 1977.