the remembered war - air force magazine · 2019. 10. 23. · 70 air force magazine / july 2003...

HORTLY after noon on July 27,1953, Capt. Ralph S. Parr Jr.spotted an unfamiliar aircraft.The Air Force pilot was flying

an escort mission near Chunggang-jin, on the Yalu River, only hoursbefore the newly signed armisticewas to bring an end to the KoreanWar.

The Remembered WarFifty years ago in Korea, the shooting war stopped but the ColdWar had been fundamentally changed.

By Peter Grier

AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2003 1AIR FORCE Magazine / July 20031

However, 5th Air Force instructedairmen to keep up the pressure untilthe appointed time, so Parr turnedhis F-86 Sabre and made severalpasses by the stranger. Parr identi-fied it as a North Korean IlyushinIl-12. With one long burst of gun-fire, he sent it spiraling earthwardin flames.

That was the war’s last air-to-airencounter. Fifty years ago this month,at precisely 10:01 p.m. on July 27,the fighting between US-led UnitedNations forces and North KoreanCommunist aggressors came to anend.

When it did, the Korean peninsulawas divided in two nations, with

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F-86 Sabres, such as these A models, had a dramatic impact on the course of theKorean War. Still, most sorties were devoted to attacks on ground forces, airlift,and the like.

AIR FORCE Magazine / July 200370

heavily armed forces facing eachother across the 38th parallel. So thesituation has remained, to this day.

Korea may have been America’s“forgotten war,” overshadowed byWorld War II, but in retrospect itwas clearly a pivotal event for theUS military in general and US AirForce in particular.

At the war’s beginning in June1950, the United States was woe-fully unprepared to counter NorthKorea’s armed aggression. Force sizeand the military budget had shrunkto a tiny fraction of their World WarII levels. Yet, by the end of the fight-ing 37 months later, the United Stateshad laid the foundation for the largestanding force throughout the ColdWar.

The Jet AgeThe Air Force expanded. When it

began fighting in Korea, USAF wasstill heavily dependent on propeller-driven fighters and bombers. By thetime of the armistice, it boasted analmost all-jet combat force. New air-craft, such as the supersonic F-100fighter and B-57 tactical bomber,were on the verge of entering theinventory in quantity.

The Air Force’s combat experi-ence in Korea was marked by impro-visation—at one point, for example,C-47s seeded the roads of Pyongyangwith roofing nails in an effort to haltNorth Korean trucks. However, AirForce operators also learned lessonsabout close air support, interdiction,

and airlift, lessons that proved to beof great value in years to come.

In the words of the Air Force’sofficial history of the Korean con-flict: “The fledgling United StatesAir Force emerged as a power betterable to maintain peace through pre-paredness.”

The Korean War began on June25, 1950, when North Korean forcesstormed southward across the 38thparallel in a carefully planned at-tack. In the south, Republic of Koreadefenders were rocked back on theirheels and then routed. PresidentSyngman Rhee fled south with his

government, and President Harry S.Truman ordered the evacuation ofUS nationals, under protective coverfrom US airpower.

Fifth Air Force—largest of Gen.Douglas MacArthur’s Far East AirForces (FEAF)—rose to the task.F-82 Twin Mustangs flew overheadwhile evacuees were loaded onto shipsat the port of Inchon during the firsthours of fighting. By the night ofJune 26, the situation had become sodire that embassy officials asked foran airlift to take remaining depen-dents out. A flight of F-82 fighters,ordered to defend Seoul’s Kimpo

Capt. Ralph Parr describes the last shootdown of the war to Col. ThomasDeJarnette, a 4th Wing group commander. Parr’s achievement was the last air-to-air victory of the conflict.

Pilots flying F-82 Twin Mustangs, such as this one, scored aerial victories inthe war’s early days. When Soviet-built MiGs entered the conflict, though, theF-82s were overmatched.

Airfield during this operation, scoredthe first air-to-air kills of the war.

The big Twin Mustangs were or-biting the field when five NorthKorean fighters, either Yaks orLavochkins, swung by. First Lt.William G. Hudson, in pursuit, blewoff chunks of one and set its wingafire. He saw its pilot climb out andsay something to his observer, whodid not respond. Then the pilot pulledhis ripcord and parachuted free, whilethe aircraft rolled over and crashed,the observer still inside.

At least one additional North Ko-rean airplane—possibly three—wasshot down in this encounter, but it isHudson’s victory that the Air Forcetoday officially lists as its first of theKorean War.

The airlift of civilians concludedwithout further interference, but back

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in Washington, and at the UnitedNations in New York, officials anddiplomats were viewing the situa-tion with growing alarm. With theSoviet delegate absent in protestagainst the UN’s refusal to admit thePeople’s Republic of China, the UNSecurity Council passed a resolutioncalling on UN members to resistNorth Korea’s invasion.

On June 27, President Truman—without consulting Congress—or-dered US forces to support the UN inits “police action.” In Tokyo, Mac-Arthur, commander of US Far EastCommand, began plotting strategy.One of his first moves was to orderFEAF to strike at North Korean groundtroops with all aircraft at its disposal.

A Cut Too DeepUnfortunately, not many aircraft

were available to the commander ofFEAF, Lt. Gen. George E. Strat-emeyer. His squadrons were short ofeverything from F-80 fighters toC-47 transports. In the aftermath ofWorld War II, US flying forces hadshrunk by four-fifths, to about 411,277personnel. Not all of USAF’s 48groups were at full strength or com-bat ready. In 1948, such downsizinghad seemed prudent economy. In theface of North Korea’s strike, the cutsappeared to have gone too far, toofast.

Still, FEAF struck back hard withwhat it had. The US deployed some921 combat aircraft in the theater byJuly, flying from bases in Korea and

Early jets, such as this pair of F-84s, were straight-wing aircraft. The F-84sand F-80s went from a fighter role to that of close air support. By war’s end,most USAF aircraft were jet-powered.

An Air Force F-80 strafes North Korean vehicles along a road north of the 38thparallel. Allied airpower accounted for 75 percent of kills of North Koreantanks.

Japan. More than half were F-80fighters, the service’s first widelydeployed jet fighter. The inventoryalso included 190 F-51 Mustangs ofWorld War II vintage, valued fortheir long range and ability to oper-ate from rough strips. Thirty-sevenF-82s were available for night andall-weather duty. All of the Air Forcebombers were prop-driven models—79 B-26s and 87 B-29s.

Job one was to gain air superior-ity. USAF achieved this fairly eas-ily; the Soviet-supplied aircraft ofNorth Korean units were old andinferior and North Korean pilots were

poorly trained. The US estimatedthat, by August, North Korea stillhad only a handful of its original 110combat airplanes.

Job two, attacking North Koreanground troops, was far tougher. NorthKorea’s armies outnumbered US andUN forces, and, aided by the shockeffect of their sudden invasion, theymade rapid advances to the south. Inlate summer, UN forces had beendriven into a small area covering theapproaches to Pusan in the far south-east of the peninsula. In the criticaldays of July and August, virtuallyall UN ground forces were dug in onfront lines, with only a handful inreserve. It seemed possible SouthKorea could be lost.

However, the Communists’ south-ward thrust had used up tremendousamounts of North Korean resources,material and human, and Pyongyangwas running out of gas. Around thePusan perimeter, North Koreansproved vulnerable to an extensiveclose air support campaign. Morethan 60 percent of Air Force sortieswere devoted to attack of forces onthe battlefield. In August, FEAF air-men were flying an average of 239air support sorties per day.

Thus, while the North Koreansmustered some 150,000 troops nearPusan, their armor had been poundedto a shambles. Moreover, airpowerkept enemy forces pinned down, somuch so that they tended to moveand fight mostly at night.

In one memorable mission, Aug.

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16, a total of 98 Air Force B-29bombers blasted a seven-mile-longstrip along the Naktong River, de-livering bombs whose blast effectwas equivalent to that of 30,000rounds of standard artillery. Afterthe strike, the bombing commander,Maj. Gen. Emmett O’Donnell Jr.,spent more than two hours person-ally examining the area. He reportedthat nothing—soldier, truck, or tank—was moving.

Human WavesOn Aug. 31, the North Koreans

unleashed a last-ditch offensive. Theywere cut off from their supply linesand were now desperate for replace-ment weapons. By early September,Communist generals were sendinggreat human attack waves forwardwithout rifles, instructed to pick upwhat they could from dead andwounded on the battlefield. On Sept.15, MacArthur’s daring amphibiouslanding at Inchon took the NorthKorean units from the rear and ef-fectively ended the first phase of thewar. The ROK government returnedto Seoul on Sept. 29 even as theNorth Koreans surrendered or fleden masse.

By fall, UN forces were rollingup the Korean peninsula toward theYalu, the mighty river that consti-tuted the border between North Ko-rea and China. Though China hadindirectly warned Washington thatit might intervene if UN forces cametoo close to its territory, MacArthur

was confident Beijing was bluff-ing.

“They have no air force,” he toldTruman. “Now that we have basesfor our Air Force in Korea, if theChinese tried to get down to Pyong-yang there would be the greatestslaughter.”

Even so, at 1:45 p.m. on Nov. 1,six swept-wing aircraft painted aburned green-silver raced across theYalu and jumped a USAF T-6 Mos-quito forward air controller and aflight of Mustangs. The US aircraftmanaged to escape, and, back at base,the Mosquito pilot reported the star-

tling news: He believed they hadbeen attacked by Soviet-built MiG-15 fighters.

China thus had served notice of itsintentions. On Nov. 25, 180,000 Chi-nese “volunteer” ground troops en-tered the war, and the second phaseof the conflict began.

In initial wrangles in the area ofKorea that would later become fa-mous as “MiG Alley,” American pi-lots in fact weren’t facing Chinese.It was only much later that US intel-ligence determined it was Sovietsthemselves who were flying the firstMiG sorties. Chinese were not al-lowed to handle the jets in combatoperations until some time later.

The Soviets wore North Koreanuniforms and attempted to speakKorean while airborne, reading phrasesoff tablets carried in the cockpit.Snatches of Russian heard on theradio and the sight of “Chinese” withCaucasian features soon raised Ameri-can suspicion. It was not until theUSSR’s 1991 collapse and the open-ing of its archives that such suspi-cions were confirmed.

The entry of MiG-15s into Ko-rean combat changed the air war.While the hardy F-51s could turnwith the jets, particularly at loweraltitudes, US F-80 Shooting Starswere slower than the MiGs and gen-erally outclassed. Even more vul-nerable were the lumbering B-29s,old now and reclassified as mediumbombers but a mainstay of the inter-diction effort against transport lines

World War II-era B-29s were a mainstay of the interdiction effort on thepeninsula. The coming of the MiG-15s, however, posed a lethal threat, andUSAF soon retired the Superfortress. Here, a B-29 gets an engine change.

Taechon Air Field was devastated by a ferocious bombing campaign. In thecourse of the war, the Air Force flew 720,980 sorties, dropped 476,000 tons ofordance, and destroyed or damaged 2,100 enemy aircraft.

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AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2003 73

and depots. Eventually FEAF wasforced to end most daylight B-29operations and use the Superfortsprimarily at night.

Enter the SabresThe US would have to fight to

regain air superiority, and, with thearrival of large numbers of F-86 Sa-bres, they did just that.

The first Sabre unit to move tothe theater was the 4th Fighter–In-terceptor Wing, headquartered atLangley AFB, Va. It got there inrecord time, though inadequate wa-terproofing caused most aircraft tosuffer from salt spray corrosionduring the sea journey from Cali-fornia to Japan. On Dec. 17, 1950,4th Fighter–Interceptor Wing pilotsmade their first patrol into MiG Al-ley. Four enemy aircraft rose to greet

them, probably believing they wereslow F-80s. By the time the con-fused enemy saw their mistake itwas too late.

Lt. Col. Bruce H. Hinton brokedownward at more than Mach .95,turned inside one MiG, and gave it ashort burst that caused it to begintrailing fuel. When another came intohis sights, he fired at a range of about800 feet, and it rolled and burst intoflames. It was the first of what wouldbe 792 F-86 victories over MiG-15s,at a return cost of 76 Sabres.

The F-86 had begun life as a

In December 1950, F-86s began arriving in large numbers. The rugged, swept-wing aircraft proved more than a match for the MiGs. Superior flight controlsand pilot skill restored US air superiority over the peninsula.

and reach higher altitudes. Theyturned tighter in some situations, aswell. But MiGs were prone to slipinto uncontrolled spins; FEAF esti-mated that North Korea lost about35 in this way. Sabres were able todive faster and were more stable inhigh-speed turns. F-86 flight con-trols were superior and its airframemore rugged.

All USAF aces of the Korean Warflew Sabres. By war’s end, 439 F-86s were on hand in the Korean the-ater, out of a total combat aircraftstrength of 1,459.

China’s entry into the war made itclear that any United States attemptto forcibly unify the Korean penin-sula risked the detonation of world-wide war. As UN ground forces reeledbackward from Chinese attacks inthat bleak winter of 1950-51, the USgoal changed from military victoryto political cease-fire.

This phase of the fighting was adesperate struggle. At no point wasUS airpower more important to thesurvival of American troops. To thewest, Eighth Army had disengagedfrom the enemy and begun retreat-ing toward South Korea. To the east,X Corps did the same thing. Behindthem, Air Force B-29s, B-26s, andfighter-attack squadrons pounded theenemy’s bridges, supply dumps, andforces.

In December, FEAF aircraft flew7,654 armed reconnaissance and in-terdiction sorties, killing some 6,700Communist soldiers. In the first quar-

Thirty-eight USAF pilots became aces during the Korean War. Here, Col.Harrison Thyng, Maj. Frederick Blesse, and Capt. Clifford Jolley count off theircurrent victory credits after Blesse’s return from a mission.

straight-wing fighter, but experimen-tal versions weren’t as fast as the AirForce wanted. At Air Force request,builder North American Aviationstudied a captured MesserschmittMe-262 swept-wing assembly andeventually incorporated the Germanjet’s unique leading-edge slat de-sign into F-86 production models.

The Sabres were far from perfect.They were not supersonic, and their.50-caliber armament did not packthe punch of the MiG’s 23 mm and37 mm cannons. The lighter MiGscould climb and accelerate faster


ter of 1951, USAF aircraft destroyedmore than 4,200 vehicles, accordingto a 5th Air Force estimate.

Backhanded ComplimentThe effectiveness of the inter-

diction campaign can be deducedfrom the fact that all major Chi-nese offensives in the first half of1951 were timed for periods of badweather, when airpower would besomewhat constrained. In July1951,as cease-fire discussions got underway, North Korean chief delegateLt. Gen. Nam Il said it was airpowerthat had prevented defeat for theUN side. “Without the support ofthe indiscriminate bombing andbombardment of your air and navalforces, your ground forces wouldhave long ago been driven out ofthe Korean peninsula by our pow-erful and battle-skilled ground forces,”he said.

Negotiations dragged on for months.Fearful that China was using thelull to replenish front-line forces,FEAF bombers launched an inten-sive railway interdiction effort—Operation Strangle—that for a timelimited the enemy to night truckconvoys.

By 1952, this campaign was pro-ducing diminishing results, but USAFhad turned back a concerted Chineseeffort to establish air superiority inthe northwest of the country. Throughthe remaining months of the war, USaircraft applied pressure everywherenorth of the 38th parallel.

The prop-driven B-26 pounded the enemy’s bridges, supply dumps, andfielded forces. An Invader from the 3rd Bombardment Wing dropped the lastbombs of the war, just 24 minutes before hostilities officially ceased.

Peter Grier, a Washington, D.C., editor for the Christian Science Monitor, is alongtime defense correspondent and a contributing editor to Air ForceMagazine. His most recent article, “A Memorial on the High Ground,” ap-peared in the April issue.

In a final jab to speed truce nego-tiations, US commanders authorizedattacks against North Korea’s irri-gation dams. On May 13, 1953, fourwaves of 59 F-84 Thunderjets at-tacked the Toksan Dam, about 20miles north of Pyongyang. At duskthe 2,400-foot-wide earth-and-stonestructure was still standing, but itbroke in the night, releasing a swirl-ing flood that washed out five bridgeson an important rail line, destroyedtwo miles of the country’s main north-south highway, inundated SunanAirfield, and ripped up five squaremiles of rice paddies.

Later, Gen. Otto P. Weyland, FEAFcommander, would rate the Toksanraid, along with a similar one againstthe Chasan Dam, as one of the twomost spectacular fighter-bomberstrikes of the war.

As the armistice point neared, AirForce aircraft continued to carry outoperations—almost until the lastpossible moment. A B-26 from the3rd Bombardment Wing dropped thefinal bombs of the war a scant 24minutes before hostilities officiallyceased.

The record shows that, in threeyears of war, the new Air Force pro-duced a mammoth effort. Of morethan one million total sorties by UN

aircraft, 720,980 were flown by USAFcrews. The Air Force dropped 476,000tons of ordnance and destroyed ordamaged more than 2,100 enemy air-craft. Its interdiction efforts were amajor part of the UN coalition’s of-fensive power. Air forces accountedfor 72 percent of all adversary artil-lery destroyed, as well as 75 percentof all tanks and 47 percent of alltroops, according to USAF statis-tics.

Great CostThese results came at great cost.

USAF suffered 1,841 battle casual-ties, of which 1,180 were killed inaction. It lost 1,466 aircraft to hos-tile action or other causes.

For the Air Force, the Korean con-flict was also the hinge of the jet age.All F-82 Twin Mustangs had beenremoved from the theater by war’send. F-51 strength had been cut from190 to 65. Meanwhile, the number ofmodern F-86 Sabres in the Far Easthad gone from zero to 184.

As the fighter force turned over,so did the bombers. The Air Forcehad retired nearly all of its B-29s bythe end of 1954, and they were re-placed by new B-47 Stratojet air-craft. By 1955 the B-52 Stratofortresswould be entering the inventory insubstantial numbers, as prop B-36swere phased out of heavy bombard-ment units.

The war left USAF with a pro-found appreciation for combat readi-ness. Washington in general sawwhat had happened when US mili-tary cutbacks tempted Communistaggression, and it was disinclinedto let such a thing happen again. Atthe time, Korea seemed proof posi-tive that the Soviet Union and itssatellites were intent on global ex-pansion. Where might they strikenext?

The Air Force had 48 active wingswhen the Korean War began, butshortly thereafter the Pentagon au-thorized USAF to expand to 143wings. After the war, PresidentEisenhower reduced that numberonly slightly—the new goal was 137wings. The Cold War was on and inearnest. ■

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the remembered war - air force magazine · 2019. 10. 23. · 70 air force magazine / july 2003...

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