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Air
& Space Power Journal - Winter 2003
Dr. David R. Mets
*This article, as with all those in the Fodder series, is dedicated to a great military educator. This one honors the late Col Roger Nye, USA, who suggested the idea for the series. I also wish to thank Prof. Dennis Drew for his excellent assistance in the preparation of this article. Its remaining flaws are entirely my responsibility.
Some years ago, Clay Blair published a good book on US experiences in Korea titled The Forgotten War. It is forgotten no more—Blair helped revive that memory, as did the passing of the war’s 50th anniversary. In 1950, we were feeling our way in a new, bipolar, and nuclear world. Today, the aspirant air strategist is also facing a new world. It is no longer bipolar, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threaten to spread, and the means and motivation for their long-range delivery again upset our sense of security. The Korean War truce took effect in July 1953—just 50 years ago. Perhaps it is an altogether proper time to look over the literature on that war to add to your fodder for professional study.
As with the previous articles in this series, we shall review three recent books on our subject and establish a rough outline of the air war in Korea to serve as a basis for your lifelong professional reading program. Col Rod Paschall, an experienced soldier-scholar, is the author of the first and will provide an introduction to our study. The second is a memoir by Lt Col Cecil Foster, an air warrior and Sabre ace with nine kills in Korea. Our final book is authored by Allan Millett, a retired Marine Corps colonel. This article will conclude with the usual 12-book sampler, which you can use to get a general overview of the subject and then further your efforts towards depth and mastery.
An air warrior-scholar can find a splendid, short summary of the Cold War’s first armed conflict in Paschall’s Witness to War: Korea.1 Its author is a soldier-scholar of the first rank, well qualified to produce such a work from the perspectives of both experience and study. A West Point graduate of the class of 1959, Colonel Paschall has had much experience in Asia, including tours in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Korea. Perhaps Paschall’s most satisfying tour was as the commander of the Army’s famed Delta Force, a position which lends great credibility to his status as a leading authority on special operations. While on active duty, he was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He earned a master’s degree from Duke University and taught military history at West Point. Although his writing is well organized and readable, an air advocate may take exception to some of the things he has to say.
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A Time Line for the Korean War
The United States concluded a treaty of friendship, navigation, and commerce with Korea and later deployed a military assistance group to the peninsula to help train a Korean army. Chinese and Japanese interests in the area would often clash, and the Koreans, on occasion, tried to use the United States as a counterweight to one or the other. Although Russia had an interest in Korea, it lost the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, allowing Japan to dominate Korea until 1945.
The Chinese communists had fought a lengthy battle against the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek long before Pearl Harbor and did not lose sight of that battle during the war. Soon after Hiroshima was bombed and the Japanese departed the Asian mainland, the communists were able to again concentrate on their domestic struggle. The United States had long been involved in these struggles, and many Americans advocated armed intervention. Although President Truman avoided becoming involved with that conflict and narrowly won the election of 1948, the fall of the Chinese Nationalists and the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 was blamed on him. Meanwhile, in the opening rounds of the Cold War, things had gone from bad to worse in Europe—the administration’s first priority for defense. The prospects for the Democratic Party in the election of 1952 were indeed poor.
In a 12 January 1950 speech to the National Press Club, Secretary of State Dean Acheson defined US national interests in the Pacific and implied that Korea lay outside those interests by drawing the defensive perimeter through the offshore islands along the Asian coasts. Many argued that Acheson’s definition of US interests had given the communists a green light to invade South Korea.
The initial phase of the war was a triumph for the North Koreans, who came close to driving the United Nations (UN) forces into the sea. Defeat was near and some prominent Army officers credited the efforts of the fledgling US Air Force for preventing that outcome. At first, the occupation forces were the only ground and air units available to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Their mission had been restricted to the defense of Japan, which limited their training and equipment. Airmen only had short-range jet interceptors and trained for defensive counterair (DCA)—they had no air-to-ground training. Soldiers were likewise limited in their equipment and training.
However, as the UN forces were beleaguered within the Pusan Perimeter, MacArthur executed an end run around the communist right flank with an amphibious landing at Inchon. Although he took this action in the face of the doubting Joint Chiefs of Staff, it succeeded brilliantly. The North Koreans were cut off and in a vise between the Eighth Army coming out of Pusan and the X Corps cutting off their retreat in a thrust eastward from Inchon and through Seoul. Once on a roll, President Truman and the UN changed the objectives from the mere restoration of the status quo to the reunification of Korea by force. MacArthur’s soldiers charged northward and believed it would be over by Christmas.
The Chinese communists had sent some rather clear signals—particularly in retrospect—that a UN army approach to the Yalu River border between Korea and China would not be tolerated. Notwithstanding those signals, MacArthur seemed surprised when China entered the war by launching a massive offensive aimed between the Eighth Army in the west and the X Corps in the east. Soon, UN forces were in a helter-skelter retreat that did not end until they were south of the 38th parallel, the prewar line. Gen Walton H. Walker, Eighth Army commander, was killed in an accident around Christmas, and Gen Matthew B. Ridgway took over and launched a counteroffensive.
President Truman was concerned the Soviets might take advantage of the US preoccupation with Korea and invade Western Europe, an action that could then escalate into World War III and the use of nuclear weapons. General MacArthur, while still popular in the United States, was losing the confidence of the allies and acted beyond his authority often enough to cause President Truman to relieve him. The war stagnated in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula waist, and as the stalemate deepened, the UN returned to its initial objective—the reestablishment of the status quo.
On the basis of the Soviet Union’s proposed cease-fire, the two sides met at the negotiating table. Although fighting continued, each side mounted only relatively minor offensives. Progress toward a truce was slowed by many minor sticking points. However, in the end it was the repatriation of North Korean prisoners of war (POW)—forcing released soldiers to go back to their homes—that delayed a settlement for many months. President Syngman Rhee made that a moot issue when he released several thousand North Korean POWs, who then disappeared into the South Korean landscape.
The agreement reached in the armistice was roughly that which had been desired by the UN at the outset—a status quo near the waist of the Korean Peninsula. The war had also improved the UN’s prestige, had made NATO stronger, and had shown the Soviets that there were limits to their expansion without war. Furthermore, the PRC had proven itself a great power by stopping the UN armies short of their maximum goals. |
Witness to War provides a good overview of both the land and air operations and is organized in a near-chronological fashion. Paschall provides his own descriptions and analyses and then adds the first-person accounts of combatants from all levels between private and general. These go beyond American experiences and include the accounts of South and North Korean soldiers. Paschall reveals the experiences of UN-affiliated guerrillas operating in North Korea as well as those of the North Korean POWs held in the south—their trials and the long repatriation struggle to determine their fate at the end of hostilities. He also lists the general sources he used for each chapter, which could serve as a recommended reading list. Although Paschall amply demonstrates the misery of the Korean War, he also stresses its secondary status when compared to home defense and the buildup in support of NATO.
Although Witness to War states that Korea was a “forgotten war,” it denies that it was either futile or the “wrong war.” In spite of its costs, Paschall insists that it was necessary to the development of the national-security strategies of containment and collective defense.2 In addition, the US refusal to coerce prisoners to go back to their communist world showed America at her best. That selfless act forced the United States to tolerate a considerable delay in concluding the truce. Insofar as Colonel Paschall deals with airpower, he does not denigrate it. Rather, he insists that airpower is most effective when used in conjunction with active ground operations, a stance which is compatible with Air Force doctrine. Airpower strategists have long recognized that interdiction works best when an active ground campaign imposes high rates of consumption upon the enemy, forcing him to depend on his lines of communication. This book is a good starter for building your personal picture of the Korean War.
With Paschall’s overview in mind, the next step is to build a more detailed understanding of the context in which the war was fought. It should be a top-down approach starting with the international political setting. In the wake of the 50th anniversary of the war, there are many new books on that subject. One of the best is William Stueck’s The Korean War: An International History.3 It discusses in great detail the goals and actions of all the principal states involved in the war and the degree to which they achieved their objectives. He concludes that the North and South Koreans were, in the end, the main losers.
The Soviets caused a major distraction to the West at a moderate cost to themselves. Although the Western coalition lost many lives and used up considerable treasure, its NATO Alliance was solidified and equipped with real military muscle. It had made clear to the Soviets that further geographic expansion would not be cost-free. The Chinese communists had consolidated their revolution and established themselves as a great power on the world stage. Japan’s economy received a large boost from war orders and the peace settlement, and its normalization with the United States probably was accelerated. The late 1940s was characterized by turmoil in all parts of the world, and the late 1950s were probably one of the most stable periods of the twentieth century. In general, world stability at the lowest possible cost has been the consistent goal of American foreign policy throughout this period.
Stueck is able to demonstrate better than most that foreign and military affairs are affected by much more than events on the battlefield. Each participating nation’s culture and domestic politics had an impact on the way things went on the Korean Peninsula. US election politics were part of the equation. The Democrats had been in power for nearly 20 years, and New York’s Thomas E. Dewey had run against Roosevelt in 1944 and lost. That result came notwithstanding that FDR was running for an unprecedented fourth term and was sick. He soon died, and Harry Truman succeeded him. He had been selected as the vice presidential candidate for reasons other than his expertise in foreign policy—far from it, as almost all his experience was in domestic politics, though he had served in France during the First World War. Thus, Truman was deemed politically vulnerable in the election of 1948.
Notwithstanding turmoil in Europe, economic affairs there and at home, and Democratic losses in the off-year elections of 1946, the president upset aspirant Republican Tom Dewey in 1948—which only further aggravated the members of the opposition. The apparent success in the Berlin airlift and Truman’s quick recognition of Israel had something to do with that outcome. Dewey’s loss only further aggravated the members of the opposition, but Truman’s euphoria did not last long. In 1949 the Chinese communists defeated Chiang Kai-shek, and the Soviets exploded a nuclear device, far ahead of predictions.4 Although the North Atlantic Treaty had been signed that same year with important support from the Senate’s Republican heavyweights, the wartime bipartisanship in the Congress was running thin.5 All this was happening when the anticommunist frenzy stimulated partly by Sen. Joseph McCarthy was in its genesis and provided much fodder for the Republican political cannons.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson, speaking to the National Press Club in early 1950, declared that the US defense perimeter ran from Alaska through the Aleutian Islands and along the offshore islands of Asia and down through Okinawa to the Philippines. That was nothing new; many have claimed that Kim Il Sung took it as a green light to invade South Korea and reunify the peninsula under communist rule. Still, in the same speech Acheson declared that aggression against states outside the perimeter would be a concern of the United Nations.6 That very spring, the National Security Council (NSC) produced a seminal strategy paper, NSC-68, in the wake of the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, and the Soviet detonation of a nuclear device. It portended a huge stiffening of American foreign policy and the associated strengthening of her armed forces. However, that was not yet understood beyond the Washington inner circles.7 Too, not enough time had passed for it to have had any practical effects in military terms.
On 25 June 1950, the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel with the consent and strong materiel support of the USSR. It was also facilitated by the Chinese communists. The United States had previously withdrawn almost all of its own troops from the peninsula and had deliberately confined its military aid for South Korea to defensive equipment. She feared that were President Syngman Rhee capable of offensive war, he would certainly undertake the conquest of the north.8 The invaders, led by Soviet-made tanks and supported by a tiny and obsolescent air force of their own, rolled rapidly southward. There was a real danger that it would all be over before the United States or the United Nations could react.9
President Truman quickly dispatched air and naval units to assist the South Koreans. However, it was soon clear that those forces would not be enough, so he authorized General MacArthur to send ground troops. However, none of these forces was well suited to halt the invasion.
The chief mission for American ground forces stationed in Asia had been the occupation of Japan, and there had been little anticipation that they would be required to fight on the Asian mainland. Consequently, they had generally grown soft in that duty—their units were below full strength and had accomplished very little training. The Far East Air Forces (FEAF), under Lt Gen George E. Stratemeyer, were not much better off. There were three air forces assigned to the FEAF (Fifth in Japan; Twentieth on Okinawa; and Thirteenth in the Philippines). Although it is true that these were the strongest air forces the United States had deployed overseas, they were generally only suited for a DCA mission near their home air base. Fifth Air Force, based in Japan, was almost wholly dedicated to the DCA mission and equipped with a substantial number of Lockheed F-80 Shooting Stars. These aircraft had a very short range and did not even have bomb racks installed; furthermore, the Fifth’s crews had not been trained for the air-to-ground attack mission. Because early jet fighters had engines with limited thrust, they required long runways on which to accelerate to takeoff speed. Almost all of the runways in South Korea were too short to support these fighters. The Shooting Stars had not yet been equipped with droppable fuel tanks and thus could spend only a very few minutes over the battlefield. The jets were much easier to maintain in the field than the F-51 Mustangs and could generate twice as many sorties in a given period. Their superior speed enabled them to pass through enemy fire zones in far shorter times, which reduced their vulnerability, as demonstrated by a loss rate that was half that of the F-51. Even in World War II, the Mustang’s liquid-cooling system had made it more vulnerable than other aircraft in low-level operations. Finally, the addition of pylons and drop tanks mitigated the F-80 and F-84 bomb load and range limitations.10
Fortunately, the United States had command of the sea in the maritime area surrounding the Korean peninsula and, for that matter, in the entire Pacific. That permitted the free flow of reinforcements and logistics, as well as the extensive use of naval airpower in support of air and surface operations. During the recent World War II, the Navy had found it unhealthy for its aircraft carriers to remain in one spot very long due to the Japanese air and submarine threats. During the Korean War, however, US naval dominance was so great that even escort carriers were able to remain on station for long periods without undue risk. The naval transition to jets had just begun, and the decks still contained many propeller-driven aircraft that were, fortuitously, well suited for the tactical-air-support role flown under the Korean War conditions. The F4U Corsairs and AD Skyraiders were launched close to the battlefield, could carry large munition loads, and were able to loiter over the battlefield much longer than jets. They were very important in support of ground forces—particularly in this early phase of the war.11
The minuscule North Korean air force did a bit of good work before American airpower arrived and quickly destroyed it. The United States then enjoyed air superiority in the battle zone for the rest of the war.12 The enemy onslaught continued south down the Korean peninsula as UN forces were assisted by airpower from four aircraft carriers plus that which could reach the battle from bases in Japan and Okinawa. Moving some of the F-80 pilots back to F-51s—aircraft they had flown from World War II to just months before—helped to mitigate the problems the F-80s had flying the close air support (CAS) mission. The Air Force and its reserve components still had many of the F-51s in reasonable condition in Japan and back in the United States. These aircraft were moved forward to support the war effort; the USS Boxer set a record when it hauled 145 Mustangs across the Pacific in only eight days.13
Even B-29 Superfortresses and B-26 Invaders were flown in from Okinawa and Japan to be used in the CAS mission. CAS was an important mission that required employing ordnance on an enemy that was close to our troops. However, these aircraft had not been optimized for CAS, and their aircrews had not been trained to accomplish this mission. Nevertheless, the contributions of all of the various forms of airpower combined with the gallant defense of the Eighth Army—after being reinforced by a substantial number of US ground units that had arrived through South Korea’s last remaining port—to stem the communist onslaught short of the sea at what became known as the Pusan Perimeter.14 Meanwhile, General MacArthur and his staff had been planning a counterstroke.
By early September, reinforcements through Pusan were stabilizing the front. New air units of all sorts were arriving on the scene. Though the North Korean forces contained many experienced combat soldiers, few of them had ever faced much in the way of air opposition. They had not been trained in ground-based defensive measures, neither passive nor active. Thus, as their line of communications stretched southbound, it became increasingly vulnerable to air interdiction. That, too, had a stabilizing effect. The Chinese themselves confessed that then and later the interdiction had largely prevented large-scale daylight offensives on the ground.15 All the same, the US Air Force was less than three years old, and there had been little or no opportunity for training in joint air operations.
General MacArthur’s headquarters was planning an end run to trap the North Korean forces and bring the war to an end. The notion was to use American naval and air superiority to land Marine and Army forces far in the North Korean rear. The lines of communications there were focused through Seoul, and the recapture of the city promised dramatic results.16
While Gen Walton Walker and his Eighth Army kept the enemy fixed around Pusan, a new X Corps was constituted under the command of Lt Gen Edward M. Almond to do the end run. On the surface of things, the amphibious operation—up a narrow channel plagued with huge tides, mines, and fortifications (presumably on both sides)—to land at Inchon appeared to be a reckless undertaking. There was much opposition to the plan not only in the Far East, but also in Washington.17 Three of the four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been cadets or company grade officers at West Point during the time MacArthur had served as its superintendent. Still, they had the temerity to express their skepticism and only reluctantly approved his plan. MacArthur prevailed over all his skeptics, both in the operation’s planning and its execution, and one of his biographers refers to it as the one day in his life when he truly was a military genius.18
Because of the huge tides, the invasion had to be made with two landings. The first was to be at daybreak on Wolmi Do Island to take out the defenses overlooking the channel. On the next tide, 12 hours later, the rest would land at Inchon to climb the 12-foot stone seawalls there. Then they were to charge on Kimpo Airfield and Seoul to win a forward air base plus the hub of the lines of communications for the entire peninsula to the south.19
The air plan called for a division of functions among the services. The Navy and Marine air units were to provide CAS in the immediate vicinity of the landings. As soon as feasible, the FEAF would use its engineering force to restore Kimpo Airfield, enabling the Marine air units to deploy from their escort carriers. The Marine deployment to Kimpo was to be temporary, and that unit was to be replaced by Air Force organizations. FEAF was tasked to isolate the battlefield, provide CAS to General Walker’s forces in the south, and provide airlift into Kimpo and Suwon once those fields were available. It was also to be prepared to drop an airborne regimental combat team into the battle area if so ordered. Air superiority, always the prime consideration, was practically a given at that juncture. However, centralized theater-level command of air assets under an airman—one of the central pillars of US Air Force doctrine—had not been implemented.20
In general, the FEAF assigned the task of supporting the Eighth Army to the Fifth Air Force and that of isolating the battlefield and continuing the bombing of industrial targets to the Twentieth. The planning of the latter was complicated by the worry that China or the USSR would intervene on the ground and come to the aid of the North Koreans. That made the interdiction campaign more difficult and more important. Preparations for a possible airdrop were complicated by the stateside location of both the troop-transport units and the paratroopers.21
Inchon worked like a charm. UN casualties at Wolmi Do Island and Inchon were blessedly light, and Kimpo was quickly taken.22 The Marines quickly established their air operations at Kimpo, which put them much closer to the battlefield, allowing them to loiter longer in the area of the ground battle and spend less time flying home to refuel, reload, and return to the fight. Air Force C-54s landed at Kimpo and Suwon on 19 and 24 September, respectively, and began the increasingly vital materiel airlift to support the offensive. Seoul changed hands for the second of four times. The North Korean army was trapped between X Corps in the north and Eighth Army, now on the offensive from the south.23
The air support by the Navy and Marine aviators within the amphibious zone was a smashing success. They did not experience the communications difficulties that had been a problem at Pusan and were amply provided with very competent forward air controllers who directed the CAS, which caused many enemy casualties and little fratricide. Largely as a result of this experience, General Almond fell in love with the Marine Corps approach to CAS, which portended the controversy between the Air Force and the other services that has not yet completely disappeared.24
The UN had practically annihilated the North Korean army and had returned to the vicinity of the 38th parallel in short order—accomplishing the original objective. However, even before the landings, leaders in Washington and the Far East were thinking that once the UN forces were on a roll, Korea might as well be reunified by force. From hindsight, it is clear the Chinese communists were signaling they would not tolerate that result. They strengthened their forces in Manchuria and even issued warnings through indirect diplomatic channels. MacArthur and the leaders in Washington discounted those—the troops were ordered to continue the northward march. The result was a disaster.
In late 1950, Chinese armies crossed the Yalu River into Korea and administered one of the most humiliating defeats to the mainly US arms in their entire military history.25 The communists did so with no air cover. Stalin had earlier seemed to promise that if the Chinese intervened, he would supply air cover for their invasion. However, at the last minute he reneged and limited his support to air defense of the Chinese border with Korea.26 In fact, the first air combat between the communist and UN forces did not occur for another 10 months.27 The air forces did what they could to support the retreating marines and soldiers with fire and resupply. The Eighth Army moved by land down the west coast, and X Corps was evacuated by sea from Hungnam on the east coast. UN air superiority was sustained throughout the retreat. By February 1951, Seoul fell for the third time, and the line separating UN and communist forces had stabilized well south of the 38th parallel but significantly above the old Pusan Perimeter. General Walker died in an accident that winter and was replaced by Gen Matthew Ridgway. The latter resumed the offensive and moved the front line so that it straddled the 38th parallel by springtime and hovered there for the next two years.28
Shortly after Ridgway resumed the offensive, a long-festering problem between President Truman and General MacArthur came to a head. Exercising his constitutional responsibilities as commander in chief of the armed forces, the president summarily relieved the general. MacArthur returned to the United States for the first time in years to widespread public acclaim. MacArthur was nothing if not a great orator, which is easily detected in his personal address to both houses of Congress. In the end, however, members of the JCS supported President Truman just as their duty required, and Truman’s policy choices prevailed.29
Air mobility had its finest hour during the retreat through North Korea. A couple of small airborne operations had been mounted as the UN forces had moved north, but the timing on both was poor and the results were disappointing. However, on the retreat both aerial delivery and air landing had vital roles in the X Corps withdrawal from the Choshin Reservoir. The C-119, C-46, and venerable C-47 were the principal aircraft involved. The 119 was vital because it could drop greater loads more quickly than the side-loading C-46 and C-47. This was crucial in emergency situations where rough landing fields could not be carved out for the others. However, that airplane was still new and not very reliable. The others had been well tested in World War II and were more capable of landing on rough, short fields. That was crucial where air evacuation was needed and feasible. The helicopter was just coming into service as a battlefield medical-evacuation bird, and, with the C-47s, it helped bring about the dawn of this very important function—saving lives and improving the morale of those in battle. The 47s picked up patients from the choppers and rushed them to full-fledged hospitals in Japan.30
The Chinese intervention also brought with it the MiG-15.31 Much ink has been spilled over that—possibly because of American cultural conceit. We have long prided ourselves as being an exceedingly pragmatic and practical people. An important belief in the American psyche since colonial times has been that men of goodwill using common sense and energy can solve all of life’s problems. From the earliest of times, in the American experience, the scarcity of labor with respect to the availability of cheap land has been conducive to a technological approach to solving problems. We have tended to believe that we are technologically superior to the Old World, and especially to Asia and Africa. Thus, it came as a big shock when the Japanese Zero outclassed our fighters, when the “backward” Russians came up with a nuclear device just four years after Hiroshima, and when the MiG-15 was so clearly superior to both the Air Force’s F-80 Shooting Star and the Navy’s F-9F Panther.32 These things were unsettling; the Russians had done it again!
One of the books under review in this article contributes to the explanation of how the MiG-15 problem was overcome.33 Part of the solution was to ship to the Far East two wings of the new F-86 Sabres—notwithstanding an urgent need for them in the air defense of the United States and in the buildup of NATO capabilities in Europe. However, even the F-86 was not superior to the MiG-15 in every respect. Neither its rate of climb nor its service ceiling was as good as that of the lighter MiG-15. It did have a sturdy airframe and greater maneuverability, particularly in the transonic region, due to its hydraulically assisted flight controls and a low-mounted, moveable stabilizer-elevator (slab or stabilator). The F-86 also had a G suit, heating and air-conditioning, a superior Sperry gunsight, and six Browning .50-caliber machine guns, which were smaller than the MiG-15’s 37 mm cannons but had a substantially higher rate of fire. But those technological things were far from enough to explain the 10:1 kill advantage.34 Cecil G. Foster, credited with nine kills, is ranked 12th among Korean War aces.35 In his MiG Alley to Mu Ghia Pass, he tells an engaging story, most of which, understandably, deals with his experience in Korea. A native of Michigan, he had enlisted during World War II and was sent to navigator training but did not finish in time to get into combat. He remained in the service following the end of the war and got into pilot training. He graduated in 1947 with the first class to be directly commissioned into the new United States Air Force. Foster was initially checked out in jets and then sent for a tour in Alaska. He was soon caught in a reduction in force (RIF), discharged, and moved his family back to Michigan. He was barely back into civilian life when the Korean War broke out, and he found his way back into the US Air Force—this time with an F-86 checkout and an assignment to Korea
Foster flew with the 16th Fighter Squadron of the 51st Wing stationed at Suwon. He got his first kills in the summer of 1952 and finished his combat assignment early in 1953. His memoirs are well written and can provide an evening of engaging reading for the aspiring air warrior-scholar. Although Foster seemed to have had great confidence in his airplane, its guns, and its gunsight, he nonetheless recognized the MiG-15’s technical advantages and the wide variation in his opponents’ abilities. As a primary source, he provides some colorful details, and nothing in his narrations contradicts the conventional view of the air-superiority fight in the northern part of Korea. He was witness to only part of the struggle for air superiority. Therefore, his is not the complete air war story. He continued to serve as a fighter pilot with assignments in the United States, Africa, Europe, and Vietnam; he commanded a squadron and was hit by ground fire during one of his combat missions in Vietnam. Foster retired as a lieutenant colonel, decorated with two Silver Stars, a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart, and many Air Medals—altogether fitting for a man who served his country well and lived to tell the tale.
Much more has been written about the Korean War, from many different perspectives, that could assist current airpower students in their search for the whole story. Robert Futrell’s The United States Air Force in Korea is the most comprehensive and authoritative source on the whole air war.36 He contends that the dominance enjoyed by UN air forces in MiG Alley was only partly dependent on the technical characteristics of the F-86 and more a function of the superior training and combat experience of the US flyers—many of whom had World War II combat experience. With the exception of some participating Russian pilots, most communist pilots did not have combat experience. The PRC had to create an air force from the ground up, a task made possible by massive Soviet assistance in both equipment and training.37 Even with that help, it appears that communist sortie rates were far lower than those of the UN.38 The human-resource pool, from which the PRC had to draw its pilots and maintainers, did not have much education or technical training—the majority having lived in rural areas without exposure to much mechanical equipment.39 Although some Russian pilots were quite good, they strictly limited their combat operations to DCA in China and the extreme northern parts of Korea. Their policy to rotate units through combat every six weeks further mitigated their contributions.40
The American air history strongly indicates that two kinds of experience are vital to survival in air combat: total flying experience and experience in the theater. Naturally, there is a continuing desire to share the risk among all the members of the force; too, it is also beneficial to spread the combat experience to as many people as possible. Nowadays, the underlying theory of Red Flag is that the first 10 missions in-theater are the most dangerous; the training at Nellis is therefore built to be as close to the actual combat experience as possible to accumulate in effect those missions before engaging the enemy. Inadvertently, because of the recency of the combat experience in World War II in the USAF and the absence of it in the Chinese air force, that was a telling advantage.
In MiG Alley, the communists had the important advantage of operating in their own radar environment and very near their own sanctuary and airfields—similar to the British advantage during the Battle of Britain. US crews had to fly 200 miles—beyond their radar coverage—to engage the enemy for a very limited amount of time and then fly another 200 miles to find a safe landing site. Nevertheless, there were considerations other than combat in MiG Alley that affected the air war over Korea and the attainment of air superiority. Wishing to avoid a nuclear confrontation, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was careful to avoid direct confrontation with US forces on the ground. Although he deployed major air units to the region, he gave them strict orders to operate on the defensive at the Chinese border with Korea and nothing more. Russian airmen, therefore, made no attempt to go farther south to the area of the battle and went to great lengths (even suicide) to avoid capture by the UN forces and expose their participation. Only after the new Chinese air force began to participate was there any threat of communist airpower moving southward—but without Soviet participation.41
Foster’s experience had little to do with offensive counterair (OCA) operations against enemy airfields in Korea but is well covered in Conrad Crane’s recent American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953.42 In the first desperate days of the war, the UN air forces quickly destroyed the North Korean air force and provided CAS for the retreating troops to help prevent a much worse outcome. After the Chinese offensive and UN counteroffensive were spent—Seoul having changed hands two more times—the war of movement was replaced with a war of position. CAS then became less profitable while at the same time becoming more difficult and dangerous. The Chinese, trained in the school of hard knocks, learned to protect themselves from enemy airpower more effectively and no longer left their troops in the open. From the summer of 1951 onward, OCA and AI became relatively more important.
Interdiction also became more difficult in the war of position. When the enemy troops were not actively engaged with our forces, their materiel consumption was much reduced. That diminishes their resupply requirements, which results in fewer targets traveling along the lines of communication. That was also true in World War II and Vietnam. The communists also learned from their experiences that CAS could be a big help to troops on the ground. The MiG-15’s short range then became a big disadvantage because it forced the communists to construct airfields near the front if they wanted these aircraft to provide CAS. Crane notes that the communists were soon making substantial efforts to build airfields farther south in North Korea. Although the communists had made daytime B-29 operations along the Yalu River prohibitive, the short range of their jets could not extend that prohibition very far to the south. Thus, as communist airfields close to the front neared completion, B-29s buried them in bombs. In that way, the Superfortresses made a very substantial contribution to air superiority over the battlefield—something the Army has come to expect, and perhaps take for granted, since the middle of World War II.43
The OCA campaign to destroy airfields was a clear success; however, other air-to-ground missions achieved mixed results and continued to generate interservice arguments. Various interdiction efforts were undertaken during the next two years, but the communists were always able to get enough materiel through to keep their troops alive. Air advocates argue that those AI efforts prevented the communists from mounting a major offensive; Army soldiers and marines have declared that the Air Force had not strangled the enemy, as Operation Strangle had seemed to promise. Air Force partisans state that while CAS had been a success, it would have been even better had theater-level centralized control been used. Other services argued that the Air Force disliked the CAS mission and, as a result, had never bought an airplane optimized for that mission—an argument that continues today. Although the A/OA-10 aircraft, built in the 1970s, was specifically developed as a CAS aircraft, the current issue is how long it will remain in the inventory. The original service life could be reached in FY 2005 and has caused some to again question the Air Force’s commitment to CAS. The service life was revised, and some current long-range plans show the A/OA-10 in the fleet through FY 2028, a fact which supports airmen who deny any intention of doing away with the A/OA-10 aircraft.44 My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that the United States hung on for three long years—right on the borders of two communist giants and 8,000 miles away from our home. That could not have happened without air superiority, which was achieved and maintained in good style; about that there can be no argument. If the interdiction case cannot be as well sustained for the sister services, the fact remains that many senior Army officers, including General Walker himself, have testified that without the CAS in the summer of 1950, the soldiers would have been driven into the sea.45
This is being written at the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. As always, milestone 50 is characterized by a host of new works looking back from the perspective of time. The agonies of the period have diminished in their impact; there are still enough survivors to provide their memories. I have already alluded to one such book in the Paschall tome above; here we turn to a review of another done by one of the national experts on the subject of the war—one who has written much about it and who has also traveled extensively in Korea.
Allan R. Millett is certainly well qualified to produce Their War for Korea.46 He is a prominent military historian with long service as a professor at Ohio State University—the institution that awarded him the PhD in 1966. Although his interests are broad, he has specialized in the Korean War to some extent. He served on active duty in the US Marine Corps for three years, continued in its Reserves, and rose to battalion command and the rank of colonel before he retired. Millett’s publications are too numerous to list here, but they include an important history of the US Marine Corps and his highly regarded For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War is another recent and well-received work that he coauthored with Williamson Murray. Scholars wishing to study the Korean War in exhaustive depth might be especially interested in Millett’s “Reader’s Guide to the Korean War: A Review-Essay,” which appeared in the spring 1995 issue of Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ). Another notable article on this subject is his “Korea, 1950–1953,” chapter 8 in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, edited by Benjamin Franklin Cooling.
Their War for Korea has a general focus and is composed of many well-written vignettes based on Millett’s interviews with people in Korea and the United States. It is interesting and done with sympathy for both the Korean people and those Americans who fought in the war. Although not focused on airpower, some of the vignettes about airmen may be especially interesting to the readers of Air and Space Power Journal, but that may not be enough to cause those with limited reading time to tarry with this work.
One of Millett’s most interesting tales has to do with North Korean MiG pilot No Kum-Sok. Lieutenant No was from a Christian family in North Korea, and his father had worked in the electrical industry for the Japanese during the interwar period. By lying about his heritage, he bypassed those personal relationships that the communist government would view as a severe handicap and was admitted to the naval academy. But the UN had pretty well destroyed both the North Korean navy and air force, when a number of midshipmen were tested and dragged out of the academy for training as MiG pilots. In spite of a good deal of attrition, Lieutenant No made it through training and flew more than 100 combat missions in the MiG-15 against increasingly bad odds. According to him, for all the MiG’s advantage in ceiling and climb rate, it was a pretty shabby piece of equipment. The airplane had a poor gunsight and did not have a radar or G suit capability. Its T-tail blocked the pilot’s view to the rear and above. Many of his colleagues did not make it through training—some were executed because of a lack of political correctness or other perceived defects in their attitude.47
In July 1953, after the armistice, No claims that he learned that he was being investigated for political unreliability and chose to fly his aircraft to South Korea. He landed—against traffic—at Kimpo Airfield and received an award of $100,000 from the United States for the delivery of an intact MiG-15. No claimed he knew nothing of the reward before he landed. The airplane lives on in the Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, and No lived happily ever after in the United States under the name of Kenneth Rowe.
Another of Millett’s flying vignettes had special meaning for me. In the early 1950s, Col Dean Hess was the Air Force representative at the US Naval Academy. I can confirm Millett’s description of the man’s intensity and persuasiveness. I well remember Hess’s penetrating light blue eyes and his eloquence in describing the life in the air, and I quite understood his power in his original vocation as a clergyman. He must have been good at that. Two hundred and thirty midshipmen of the Class of 1953 chose to enter the Air Force, and many did not need much persuasion. Hess took his job seriously; his door was always open to the naval midshipmen, and he told one heck of a good war story.
A few years later, as Millett reminds us, Hollywood released Battle Hymn, a motion picture starring Rock Hudson as Dean Hess. Hess explains in Their War that he would have been more comfortable with the late Gregory Peck playing his character, but the film was a hit for those of us who had met the real Hess at Annapolis. Hess now declares that the idealism expressed in the film was somewhat exaggerated, and although he may have hit an orphanage as depicted in the film, he did not know it. He had flown CAS missions in World War II as a P-47 pilot and knew that collateral damage was a practical certainty but admitted that it still weighed heavily on him when, after the fact, he discovered that he had hit a civilian. During the Korean War, he also remembers being directed by a forward air controller to attack a target thought to be military but which turned out to be noncombatant.
Hess left the service after World War II but, like Foster, was recalled in 1948 in time for the Korean War. He was tasked to train experienced Korean pilots in the F-51, and, although the job was challenging, he was an effective instructor. After the Chinese entered the war and were driving south, a horde of Korean orphans—who had been created by the war—were being driven along in advance of the communist armies with nowhere to hide and no one to take care of them. As depicted in the film, Hess started an orphanage on an island off the Korean coast and was able to get sustained support for it, due in part to his visibility with senior Air Force leaders through his training and combat activities. Now in his eighties, he continues to visit Korea periodically and otherwise leads a quiet life in Ohio. He still maintains contact with many of his orphans, some of whom have indeed prospered.
Capt Donald D. Bolt was much less famous than either Foster or Hess. Like Foster, he had graduated from flying school at the end of World War II, but unlike Foster, Bolt was not a confident or natural pilot. He was released from active duty and went back to the University of Maryland to finish his degree in architectural engineering. Back in the service for Korea, he volunteered for jet training in the F-80. But when he arrived in the Far East, he was assigned to fly the CAS mission in the F-51 Mustang. His piloting skills were unspectacular, and he still had only limited confidence. Nevertheless, he soldiered on in one of the most dangerous missions. His first shootdown was close to friendly troops, and after a traumatic rescue, he got back in the saddle and was assigned a ground-attack mission near Pyongyang. By then the Inchon landing was in the past, and the UN armies were marching northward. While attacking targets near Pyongyang, he took a hit in his F-51 engine’s notoriously vulnerable liquid-cooling system. He landed in a rice paddy and was immediately threatened by some North Koreans at the edge of the paddy who were beginning to advance toward his wreckage. His wingman circled above, making firing passes between the wreckage and the North Koreans to keep them at bay but carefully avoiding hitting the North Koreans for fear that they would execute Bolt it they captured him. His wingman was relieved as he ran low on fuel by another F-51, and those relays of F-51s continued as long as the daylight lasted. As the light faded, the last one departed with Bolt sitting dejectedly on his wing. Sadly, Bolt was never heard from again.48
Millett’s book is full of vignettes of others, like Foster and Hess, more decorated and famous than Bolt but perhaps none more heroic. These are mostly about people who participated on the ground, but all are interesting and engagingly written. In the JFQ article cited above, Millett points out that the power of organized Christianity in Korea was left out of one of the books—I suspect that has been the general tendency. He does show some of its impact in many of his vignettes, but it is hard for the reader to judge just how much that power influenced the course of events. Millett includes appendices that may not be necessary to the work, and there are many other reference tomes that would be a better choice for facts and figures than his book. Although several of the other works on our sampler would take a higher place on a reading list designed to further one’s professional development as an air strategist, Their War might be useful to an air warrior-scholar if that person is pursuing short, colorful pictures of the Korean War or is just interested in recreational reading.
The war had reached a near stalemate by the spring of 1951 and was getting more expensive for both sides. It was clear that President Truman had no intention of advancing north again or allowing things to escalate to general war. The Chinese had suffered enormous losses—men and resources—and needed to consolidate their gains in their own country after achieving a great victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists. The conclusion of the NATO Treaty doubtless persuaded the Soviets that their Berlin blockade had backfired and that the costs of the Korean stalemate were heavy burdens. In addition, the Korean conflict also caused NATO to put some real military muscle behind that treaty. It established greater in-theater force levels that would be complemented, when necessary, by the deployment to Europe of considerable American air and ground forces. The Air Force also created a joint operations center in Korea, and while it never exercised control, it did serve to coordinate the airpower efforts and to improve the effectiveness of the various services. The stalemate reduced CAS requirements and made a substantial amount of UN airpower available to roam at will over North Korea—imposing greater costs and casualties on the enemy, notwithstanding the latter’s improved techniques for protecting his moving units and supply convoys. Jon Halliday has argued that the North Koreans lost about one-third of their adult male population, and the Chinese communists were using about half their national budget on the war and lost around a million people during the fighting.49
The original vote for UN intervention had been made possible by the Soviets temporally vacating their seat on the Security Council to protest the decision to seat the Nationalist Chinese, rather than the communist, representative. However, the Soviet member had returned and proposed a cease-fire in the summer of 1951. Both sides quickly agreed to begin negotiations in Korea, but those dragged on for two long years with little progress.
As Paschall argued, the United States paid a great price for principle when it would not agree to force North Korean POWs to return home. On 25 March 1953, LCpl Abner S. Black—my cousin and schoolmate—paid part of that cost when he died on Porkchop Hill while diplomats parried with each other over the repatriation issue. He was but one of our 55,000 human treasures lost in the war.
President Eisenhower took office, and Joseph Stalin died that spring. The former implied that he would use nuclear weapons if a settlement were not made. A power struggle within the USSR was in its genesis. Rhee opened the gates to some of his POW camps, and that issue was overtaken by events. The Korean Truce was concluded on 27 July 1953, and it has been sustained for a half century. The USSR followed a conservative foreign policy ever afterwards, avoiding direct confrontation with the armed forces of the United States. America, for her part, did not respond with force to the 1950s’ uprisings in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, or Hungary, notwithstanding the election campaign hype about “Rolling Back the Iron Curtain.” A nuclear weapon has not been detonated in anger for 58 years. It behooves the air warrior-scholar to pursue his or her professional reading program on this and other wars. The costs of a faulty strategy can be enormous; the rewards of a good one can be great—survival can depend upon them.
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A 12-Book Sampler on the Air War in Korea** Two for the Overview The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953 by Robert F. Futrell. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996. The Naval Air War in Korea by Richard P. Hallion. Baltimore, Md.: Nautical and Aviation, 1986. Ten for Depth The Korean War: An International History by William Stueck. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea by John R. Bruning Jr. Dulles, Va: Brassey’s, 2000. Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea by Xiaoming Zhang. College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. The History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Vol. 2,
The Test of War, 1950–1953 by Doris M. Condit. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1988. Hoyt S. Vandenberg: The Life of a General by Phillip S. Meilinger. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1989. The Korean War by Matthew B. Ridgway. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967.
The Sea War in Korea by Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson. Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1957. American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953 by Conrad C. Crane. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2000. The Three Wars of Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer: His Korean War Diary edited by William T. Y’Blood. Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1999. Down in the Weeds: Close Air Support in Korea by William T. Y’Blood. Washington, D.C.: Air Force History Support Office, 2002. One for Good Measure Dog Company Six by Edwin Howard Simmons. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000.
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Notes
1. Rod Paschall, Witness to War: Korea (New York: Perigee Books, 1995).
2. This is a view shared by David Halberstam, “This Is Korea, Fifty Years Later,” AARP: The Magazine, July–August 2003, 86.
3. William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).
4. Robert D. Schulzinger, U.S. Diplomacy since 1900, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 222–24.
5. Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1966 (New York: Wiley, 1967), 75–80; and Dean Acheson, The Korean War (New York: Norton, 1971), 13–14.
6. LaFeber, 88–89; and Lester H. B. Rune, “Recent Scholarship and Findings about the Korean War,” American Studies International 36 (October 1998): 8, on-line, Internet, 23 July 2003, available from http://www.gwu.edu/-asi/articles/36-3-1.pdf .
7. Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 50–51; and Schulzinger, 214.
8. Stetson Conn, ed., United States Army in the Korean War, vol. 2, Truce Tent and Fighting Front by Walter G. Hermes (1966; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1992), 8, on-line, Internet, 8 October 2003, available from http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/korea/truce/fm.htm.
9. Hastings, 52–54.
10. George E. Stratemeyer, The Three Wars of Lt Gen George E. Stratemeyer: His Korean War Diary, ed. William T. Y’Blood (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1999), 34–35; Thomas C. Hone, “Korea,” in Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority, ed. Benjamin F. Cooling (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1999), 454–55; and Allan Millett, “Korea, 1950–1953,” in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, ed. Benjamin F. Cooling (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1990), 362–63.
11. Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1957), 47–74.
12. Steven J. Zaloga, “The Russians in MiG Alley,” Air Force Magazine 74, no. 2 (February 1991): 74.
13. Cagle and Manson, 50; and Cmdr Peter B. Mersky, USNR, retired, “Marine Aviation in Korea, 1950–1953,” Naval Aviation News, September–October 2002, 32. The USS Badoeng Strait and the USS Sicily were the two escort carriers. John S. Thach, the famous Navy World War II ace, was the skipper of the latter. Neither carrier was capable of operating jets and carried only propeller-driven aircraft.
14. Maurice Matloff, ed., American Military History (1969; reprint, partially revised, Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1973), 553.
15. Hermes, 10; and Xiaoming Zhang, Red Wings over the Yalu (College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press, 2002), 284.
16. Geoffrey Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die (New York: Random House, 1996), 547.
17. Matloff, 554.
18. H. Pat Tomlinson, “Inchon: The General’s Decision,” in MacArthur and the American Century: A Reader, ed. William M. Leary (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 344–49; D. Clayton James, Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea, 1950–1953 (New York: Free Press, 1993), 165–72; and Perret, 548.
19. Richard Whelan, Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950–1953 (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1990), 189–90; and Robert Frank Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953 (1961; new imprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 148.
20. Futrell, 147–51.
21. Ibid., 152–56.
22. Fact Sheet: “Operation Chromite—The Inchon Landing,” official, public-access Web site for the Department of Defense commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, on-line, Internet, 8 October 2003, available from http:// www.korea50.mil/history/factsheets/chromite.shtml. This Web site states that the whole invasion force had a total of 20 killed, one missing in action, and 174 wounded.
23. James, 173–74; and Futrell, 157–61.
24. Cagle and Manson, 104–5; and Michael Lewis, “Lieutenant General Ned Almond, USA: A Ground Commander’s Conflicting View with Airmen over CAS Doctrine and Employment” (master’s thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 1996).
25. Zaloga, 74. Two weeks after the Inchon landing, Mao received and quickly agreed to a request from Kim Il Sung for Chinese intervention.
26. Jon Halliday, “Air Operations in Korea: The Soviet Side of the Story,” in A Revolutionary War: Korea and the Transformation of the Post War World, ed. William J. Williams (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1993), 151.
27. Zhang, 7.
28. Whelan, 307–13.
29. Although the relief of MacArthur is a favored subject for many academics, it is only indirectly related to the air war in Korea. The general seemed to be working on a strategic air strike across the Yalu, and the president was concerned that escalation could lead to World War III. Those wishing to explore the issue further could start with John Spanier’s readable book The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1959), or Geoffrey Perret’s Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur (New York: Random House, 1996), chaps. 31–32.
30. Air mobility during the Korean War is the subject of several books. William M. Leary, Anything, Anywhere, Any time: Combat Cargo in the Korean War (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), provides a reliable short summary, while Charles Miller, Airlift Doctrine (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1988), is less reliable. Although Futrell covers air mobility, it is not his focus. Lt Gen William Tunner, Over the Hump (1964; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1985), 225–64, is devoted to the Korean airlift, albeit with some chest thumping.
31. Zhang, 284. MiG-15s arrived in Korea at the same time as the Chinese intervention—but initially, all were piloted by Russians. After training, the Chinese communists committed their first MiG-15s to combat against UN forces in September 1951.
32. Prior to these events, it had not been known that technology transfers, in the form of nuclear espionage and commercial sales, had benefited the Soviets. The espionage had advanced the development and testing of their first atomic weapon, while the purchase of a British jet engine and its subsequent reverse engineering and production provided reliable engines for the MiG-15.
33. Cecil G. Foster, MiG Alley to Mu Ghia Pass: Memoirs of a Korean War Ace (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2001).
34. Ibid, 46. Even at this late date, the kill ratio has varied widely, from a high of 13:1 down to 2:1 in our records and just the opposite in the communist literature. My guess, given the poor training and lack of experience of the Korean, Chinese, and some Russian pilots, is that the ratio might have been around 7:1 in the UN favor. The effects cannot be denied, whatever the true figure, because the UN clearly enjoyed air superiority through most of Korea for the entire war.
35. William T. Y’Blood, Mig Alley (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 46–47; and Mersky, 36. Several Marine and Navy pilots served in exchange tours with the Air Force in Korea and got kills while flying the F-86. Lt Col John F. Bolt, USMC, earned ace status with 6.5 kills to his credit. John Glenn, another famous marine, flew the F-86 and was credited with three MiG kills before going into the space program, where he became the first American astronaut to orbit Earth. He later served in the US Senate.
36. Futrell.
37. Zaloga, 75. Col Ivan Kochedub, the top-ranking Soviet ace from World War II (68 kills), was dispatched to the scene but, because of his prominence, was prohibited from actually engaging in air combat.
38. Ibid., 284.
39. Bob Bergin, “Chinese MiG Ace over Korea,” Military History 18, no. 5 (December, 2001). Lt Gen Han Decai, a PRC Korean War ace, reported that at age 15 he was a farm laborer with only one year of schooling. His fifth kill—the one that made him an ace—was Hal Fischer. See Foster, 59.
40. Zaloga, 77.
41. Rune, 11, 13.
42. Conrad C. Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953 (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2000).
43. Crane, 169; and Zaloga, 76.
44. Eduard Mark, Aerial Interdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle in Three American Wars (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1994), 317–19; Millett, 396–99; James A. Winnefeld, Joint Air Operations: Pursuit of Unity in Command and Control, 1942–1991 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute, 1993), 62; and Federation of American Scientists, “A-10/OA-10 Thunderbolt II,” on-line, Internet, 6 October 2003, available from http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/a-10.htm .
45. Hastings, 255; and William T. Y’Blood, Down in the Weeds: Close Air Support in Korea (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002), 16, 18.
46. Allan R. Millett, Their War for Korea: American, Asian, and European Combatants and Civilians, 1945–1953 (Dulles, Va.: Brassey’s, 2002).
47. Bergin. Chinese lieutenant general Han Decai seems to agree with Lt No when he cites the F-86 as the best fighter in the world and claims that its .50-caliber armament was better than the cannons on the MiG.
48. Forrest L. Marion, “Sabre Pilot Pickup: Unconventional Contributions to Air Superiority in Korea,” Air Power History 49, no. 1 (spring 2002): 24. Bolt was 84 miles into enemy territory and beyond the reach of rescue at that time. Later in the war, helicopter rescue became increasingly effective and important. By example, Capt Joseph C. McConnell, USAF, was downed after his eighth kill, rescued by an H-19, and returned to operations. He then went on to shoot down eight more enemy aircraft, which brought his total to 16 and earned him the distinction of being the war’s leading ace.
49. Halliday, 158, 168 n. 64, 65.
Contributor
Dr. David R. Mets (BS, USNA; MA, Columbia University; PhD, University of Denver) is a professor at Air University’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He studied naval history at the US Naval Academy and taught the history of airpower at both the US Air Force Academy and West Point. During his 30-year career in the Navy and Air Force, he served as an instructor pilot in Air Training Command, a tanker pilot in Strategic Air Command, an instructor navigator in strategic airlift, and as an aircraft commander during two tours in Southeast Asia. He flew more than 900 tactical airlift sorties over the course of his first tour and commanded an AC-130 “Spectre” gunship squadron during his second. A former editor of Air University Review, Dr. Mets is the author of Master of Airpower: General Carl A. Spaatz (Presidio, 1988) and four other books and monographs.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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