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To the few observers of the Korean political scene that there were, the attack on June 25, 1950 came with little surprise, It had been obvious to them for some time that the North Koreans were going to invade their brothers to the south. The only questions were when? How strong would the invading force be? And what would the ultimate goal be, to take the capitol city of Seoul and then bring about a political coup, or to attempt to conquer the entire Republic of South Korea?
The invasion started with an all-out attack on the lightly defended fortifications that the South Koreans had constructed along the 38th Parallel. The initial attack came at Onjin, a small city on a peninsula that was separated by water from the South Korean mainland along the western coast. It was indefensible. The attack then spread eastward, and two and one-half hours after the initial attack an amphibious force landed at Kang’nung, on the eastern coast. Three hours hence, United State’s Ambassador John J. Muccio finally received word of the invasion, but the story was that the South Korean Army was holding. One hour later the cities of Kaesong and Ch’unch’on were captured.
The air war started at 1315 hours Korean time when the rains dissipated and the skies cleared. Two North Korean Yak’s fighters made a low-level observation pass over Seoul’s Municipal airport and the Republic of Korea’s Kimpo Air Base, and then disappeared to the north. At 1700 two more Yak’s returned to strafe Kimpo, damaging a parked USAF C-54D and setting some fires, while four more Yaks struck at the Municipal airport and virtually wiped out the South Korean Air Force, ROKAF, (Technically, Republic of Korea Air Force.) destroying seven out of ten ex Canadian Mk. IV T-6 Harvards that had been parked there. Two hours later six more Yak’s appeared and set about strafing Kimpo again, insuring the destruction of the Skymaster. There was no aerial opposition, as the last of the United States Air Forces’ 5th Air Force fighters that had been stationed in Korea had been scrapped in September 1949 and their fighter group deactivated.
Republic of Korea’s President Rhee had confidence in his ground troops as far as their effectiveness was concerned against other ground troops, it was the communist T-34 tanks that he was afraid of. The surviving ROKAF T-6s had already claimed three tanks, but this claim appears highly unlikely in light of the difficulty involved in stopping an armored tank from the air with the minimal 2.5 inch rockets carried by a T-6D. (It took a average of eight 5″ HVAR’s to stop a T-34 according to USAF figures). Rhee had also watched the Yak’s work over his airfields and wipe out his air force, and this is one thing that really shook his confidence. If Rhee was anything, he was a believer in air power. He had been clamoring for an air force of his own ever since he had attained political office. Rhee attempted to get a hold of General Douglas MacArthur without success, so he then implored Ambassador Muccio to get him “ten F-51 aircraft with bombs and bazookas.” Rhee wanted these Mustangs delivered to Taegu where his pilots would be waiting for them. He got his wish, of sorts, for his few qualified pilots were picked up by a USAF C-47 the next day and were flown to Japan for training in these aircraft, and the era of the Mustangs over Korea began.
There were but ten Mustangs available for use at the time, as these ten were the only ones still operational within the 5th Air Force, and they were “tired tow-ships” at that. The training of the ROKAF pilots was delegated to Captain James P. Becket, who had been selected from the 36th Fighter Bomber Squadron at Itazuke Air Base to accomplish the task. Becket was given only enough time to give each ROKAF pilot one check-ride in the Mustang before they were sent back to Korea to join with the future “Bout 1″ project, which was to oversee further ROKAF pilot training in the Mustang and to provide operational support to the ROKAF.
When the war started, FEAF, or Far East Air Forces, was commanded by Lt. General George E. Stratemeyer, a veteran of the India-Burma Theater during World War II. Under Stratemeyer was Major General Earle E. Partridge, who commanded FEAF’s 5th Air Force, the largest of the three Pacific Air Forces, 5th, 13th, and 20th, which when combined then made up FEAF. Partridge was an ex bomber pilot from the Mediterranean and European Theaters during World War II, but he was now commanding a tactical air force, something he would accomplish with a flair. As Stratemeyer happened to be enroute from the United States at the onset of the Korean War, Partridge also was serving as tile temporary commander of FEAF, and he had to carry the weight of the first two critical days’ decisions.
General Partridge finally received word of the invasion at 1130 hours, and he immediately implemented Operational Plan 4, a contingency program that had been developed the previous March. Plan 4 outlined the tactics to be used for the evacuation of American nationals from Korea. The major task for this being placed upon the 374th Troop Carrier Wing, which would stage from Itazuke Air Base to carry out the evacuation.
In a briefing General Douglas MacArthur advised General Partridge to prepare to attack only those forces that might interfere with the evacuation, but not to do so without his specific orders. Partridge in turn passed these instructions on to Colonel John M. Price, Commanding Officer of the 8th Fighter Bomber Wing, which included tactical control of the 374th TCW. Nine hours later Price informed FEAF that all of his units would be ready to commence any assigned task by the following morning.
For a period of time on June 26 it appeared that the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army was holding their own and possibly the invaders would be thrown back across the 38th Parallel. The proposed airlift of the American civilians out of Seoul was called off, and the scheduled transports were released from their staging assignments. All non-essential American’s were still to be evacuated, but since time did not seem to be critical any longer, they would leave by ship. Just to be on the safe side, however, F-82 Twin Mustangs of the 68th and 339th Fighter (All-Weather) Squadrons would be detailed to fly armed reconnaissance and surveillance missions over the Seoul-Inchon area while the evacuees were being boarded upon Norwegian merchant ships that happened to be the best available vessels. The F-82s were jumped by a Russian built La-7, but since they had not been released by FEAF to return fire, they were forced to take evasive action until the threat passed. That evening President Rhee called Ambassador Muccio and told him that he feared that his ROK Army was now close to collapsing and that he was going to have to move his government to Taegu, in central South Korea. It was now obvious that Seoul could not be held, and that the invasion was more than a simple boarder skirmish. Muccio had no choice but to again ask for emergency evacuation of all remaining American personnel.
Eleven C-47s and two C-54s, with a top fighter escort cover of F-80 Shooting Stars and a low cover provided by F-82s left Itazuke Air Base to commence the airlift on the morning of June 27. Due to communist pressure on Seoul, the airlift was carried out from both Kimpo and Suwon, a small town and airstrip twenty miles south of Seoul. The evacuation would take all day, but by the time it was over 851 individuals had been flown out of Korea without injury.
That same afternoon at FEAF Headquarters General’s Partridge and Edward J. Timberlake, Deputy Commander, 5th Air Force, arrived at the decision that it was necessary to send further military assistance to Korea, in the form of more F-51 Mustangs. It was already recognized that it was going to take too long to train the ROKAF pilots in Japan, so any further training they would receive would have to be “on the job,” A request for USAF volunteers to instruct the present ten, and any future ROKAF pilots, while simultaneously providing limited air support to UN ground forces was immediately dispatched to all 5th Air Force units. The request for these pilots was received by Colonel Virgil L. Zoller, commanding officer, 35th Fighter Interceptor Wing.
FEAF specified that they wanted ten qualified Mustang pilots, four ground officers, and one hundred enlisted men to start the program, to be titled as “Bout 1.” Colonel Zoller happened to be discussing the situation with Major Charles Bowers, 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron Operations Officer, as he had to select a commanding officer for the new unit, when Major Dean Hess got wind of what was going on. Through the luck of the draw Hess beat out Bowers to become the first Commanding Officer of Bout 1.
Since all of the available F-51s were already slated for the ROKAF, a rapid program was started to pull those awaiting salvage in the storage area at Johnson Air Base, Japan before they were scrapped, but this number amounted to only a couple dozen aircraft. FEAF immediately requested a mass shipment of additional Mustangs from the United States to alleviate the shortage. The USAF in turn contacted the National Guard Bureau, and orders were sent to selected Air National Guard Squadrons for them to send a specified number of F-51 Ds to the U.S. Naval Air Station at Alameda, California, for shipment to Korea on the U.S. aircraft carrier Boxer. Altogether the ANG furnished seventy-nine Mustangs during this first shipment, while sixty-six more were taken from a storage area at McClelland Air Force Base, It was also suggested at the time that the USAF should also ship F47 Thunderbolts to Korea, but this request was turned down, primarily because there was only one USAF training unit still operational with the type, and gathering in those from the Air National Guard would create logistical problems. Also, there were plenty of spare F-51 parts still in Japan, but none remaining for Thunderbolts.
General Hoyt Vandenberg, USAF Chief of Staff, again denied General Stratemeyer’s request for F-47s on May 4, 1951, as he did not want two obsolescent fighter aircraft types in Korea. He also informed Stratemeyer at this time that the F-51 was going to be replaced, and if the F-51s were beginning to become “war weary” they should be returned to Japan for defense of the Islands. Consequently, 40th Fighter Interceptor Squadron was relieved of combat duties, but it would take another eighteen months to replace to remaining F-51 squadrons.
On June 28 Seoul fell to the communist forces. The North Korean southward push was on in earnest, and before the day was over the east coast port of Mukhojinni had also fallen. President Truman directed the 5th Air Force to achieve air superiority, to isolate the battlefield through interdiction, and to provide close air support for the ground forces. That the 5th Air Force had air superiority was never in doubt, although the North Korean Air Force was capable of extended harassment, but the rest of the President’s directive was going to require some effort.
The first of the Mustangs to be ferried to the Republic of Korea departed Japan on the afternoon of June 29. As it happened, General MacArthur was already enroute to Suwon to look over the tactical situation in his C-54 “Bataan” at the time, under an escort of 8th Fighter Bomber Wing F-80s that were flying top cover, and two F-82s that were at his aircraft’s altitude, so the Mustangs being ferried just tagged along behind.
The C-54 landed and MacArthur was in conference when the airfield came under attack by North Korean aircraft, which just happened to coincide with the arrival of the Mustangs overhead. Ambassador Muccio, President Rhee and MacArthur went outside to watch the show. It was the field day for the F-51s in the Korean air war, 2nd Lt. Orrin Fox, 80th Fighter Bomber Squadron shot down two Yak-9s, 1st Lt. Richard Burns, 35th Fighter Bomber Squadron, got an 11-10, 1st Lt. Harry T. Sandlin, 80th Fighter Bomber Squadron, got himself a La-7, and 1st Lt. Eugene R. Hanson, 36th Fighter Bomber Squadron was credited with a “probable” Yak-9. (Indicative of the tragedies of war, of these four volunteer Mustang pilots in this fracas, Burns, Sandlin and Hanson would all be killed while flying F-80s before the year ended).
When MacArthur returned to Japan on the evening of June 29 he discovered that the Australian Prime Minister, R.G. Menzies, had announced that Australia had offered the support of their 77 Squadron. Both MacArthur and his Air Force Generals were elated, for these Mustangs of 77 Squadron had been readied for combat during the previous four days as a result of the Australian’s initiative. With thirty Mustangs they would be able to bolster the 5th Air Force’s tactical strength of F-80s and B26s until FEAF could obtain additional aircraft of their own.
Bout 1 became established at Taegu airstrip on June 30, 1950 and started flying combat missions soon thereafter with six South Korean and ten American pilots. The six ROKAF pilots were eager enough to get into action, and most of them were experienced fighter pilots, having flown with either the Chinese or the Japanese air forces during World War II. Unfortunately, the F-51 had a considerably higher wing loading than those aircraft they had previously flown, and because of the press of the events they did not have enough time to learn this fact for themselves until it was dramatically shown to them the hard way. Their first loss was that of their Troop Commander, Colonel Lee, who was an ex Japanese ace with over twenty American kills during World War II. He tried to splitess his Mustang during a bomb run against North Korean tank, but did not have sufficient altitude left to recover.
The morning of June 30 saw the fall of Suwon and its airstrip, designated K-13, The North Korean Army relentlessly pushed south along a coast-to-coast line. They soon forced the evacuation of the Taejon airstrip, K-5, and then captured the east coast port of Samch’ok before this day ended. Orders were transmitted to the U.S. 24th Infantry Division, pulling garrison duty in Japan under the 8th Army, to prepare to move to Korea. The next day, July 1, elements of the 24th Division were flown to Pusan, South Korea in C-54s of the 374th Troop Carrier Wing, becoming the first United States and United Nations ground forces to enter the Korean Campaign. The first battalion was then trucked to positions north of Osan, where they were committed to battle on July 2.
With Mustangs and some pilots in the United States already being prepared for duty in Korea, an additional plan to get more pilots had to be arrived at. The ideal number being three pilots per each aircraft, so as to reduce fatigue from having to fly more than once a day. On July 3 General Stratemeyer directed the 13th Air Force, which was headquartered at Clark Air Base, Philippine Islands, to screen the three squadrons of the 18th Fighter Bomber Group for pilots with recent proficiency in the F51. The 18th Fighter Bomber Group was then directed to form a provisional squadron, to be known as the “Dallas Project,” and to fly these people to Japan where they would be assigned thirty Mustangs that were now being refurbished from storage at Johnson Air Base. From Johnson, their next move would be to Taegu, where they would absorb the Bout 1 unit, and thus become the 51st Fighter Bomber Squadron (Provisional).
The orders forming the Dallas Project were received at Clark on July 5, and by July 10 the men were enroute to Japan. As the pilots arrived and were recertifying in the F-51, (Or checking out in them in the first place, as many had never flown the type at all, but did have some lengthy period remaining on their overseas tour, which made them eligible under military logic.) the ground echelon drew their required supplies and were on their way to Taegu.
It was now found that enough Mustangs were available in the storage depots at Johnson and Tachikawa Air Bases’ to equip one additional squadron after the Dallas Project was established, so the 40th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the 35th Fighter Interceptor Group was instructed to prepare for conversion from F-80s to F-5Is. The “Fighting Fortieth” had already moved from Johnson to Ashiya Air Base, Japan to conduct combat operations, but at the same time it had become obvious that the shortranged Shooting Stars were not going to be able to fill the desired tactical role the unit was committed to. The problem wasn’t with the aircraft as much as it was in the location of the air bases that could handle it when it was heavily loaded with ordnance. The F-80 needed more runway than was available at the time on any airfield in South Korea, and the Japanese airfields were just too far away from the targeted areas to be feasible for support missions. This forced a trade-off between the long range fuel tanks which permitted the F-80 to get to the targeted area to begin with, or the bombs that it needed to carry there in the first place, thus at this time ordnance was restricted to rockets and machine guns.
The 40th FIS was slated to move to Po’hang, South Korea, numbered K-3, as soon as transition training into the F-51 could be accomplished. For most pilots this was literally done “on the fly,” as they received their first Mustangs on July 10, and the 40th FIS moved to Po’hang on July 14, 1950 without a break in combat operations. The next day, July 15, the newly formed 51 st Fighter Bomber Squadron (Provisional) started flying their first combat missions. General Timberlake was quite pleased with these Mustang operations, stating, “one F-51 adequately supported and fought from Taegu airfield is equivalent to four F-80s based on Kyushu.”
There were many factors effecting the air war over Korea during these first few weeks. Support of the ground troops was not nearly as effective as it should have been, due to a lack of adequate air-to-ground control. There was an element of Staff Officers within FEAF that thought they could run the war from their cushy offices in Japan, and it took some effort to persuade them otherwise. Communications and coordination had to be established with the U.S. 8th Army Headquarters and the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 77 that would bypass inter-service rivalries before attention could even be given to working out the technical bugs and tactical problems associated with running a war.
Plans were formulated to move a section of FEAF Headquarters to Korea in conjunction with EUSAK, (Eighth U.S. Army in Korea), under General Walton Walker, to help solve the coordination difficulties. But there remained numerous problems with trying to support the ground forces. The pilots were unfamiliar with the terrain, and they virtually had no maps. The ground Forward Air Controllers (FAC’s) were all army troops and did not know how to call targets in over the limited radio frequencies in a method the pilots could use to locate them. An air strike would be called in to take out a tank, and an entire squadron might show up, or no aircraft at all! FAC’s fought among themselves on the radios to get control of an air strike, which confused the pilots to no end. To solve some of these problems the 6147th Tactical Control Squadron was formed and sent to Taegu with L-5s, L17s, and soon afterwards with T-6s for observation and target marking. In addition, Air Force pilots were “selected” to serve with ground units to also serve as FAC’s. A Joint Operations Center, JOC, was established at Taejon, South Korea, and in spite of a myriad of communications problems that were brought on by a lack of radios, telephones and Teletype equipment they managed to get defensive operations underway.
Unfortunately, the envisioned “Call Strike” tactic turned out not to be workable. The primary tactical aircraft, F-80s and B-26s, were usually just too far away at their bases in Japan to be effective at a target when they were needed. It took just too long to get them scrambled off the ground and to the target area. As an alternative, flights were launched at timed intervals, and as they approached the combat arena the flight leader would check in with the JOC, who would then assign him to either a FAC who would give him the position of a target, or send the aircraft somewhere beyond the bomb line to pick out a target of opportunity if he did not have a worthwhile target for him.
Under ideal conditions support could be supplied to the requester in less than twenty minutes. If there were more aircraft than the air or ground FAC could handle, or needed, the pilots were again released to find targets on their own. Due to the lack of compatible radio frequencies, the later was all too often the case. Actually, there was usually no shortage of aircraft during daylight hours, but the communications problems often resulted in flights flying around trying to find worthwhile targets to dump their ordnance on after the first month of the war. It was all a learning experience, for he lessons learned during World War II had never been refreshed.
Armament Loads for all of the tactical aircraft were essentially the same, .50 caliber machine guns, rockets of both the 2.5 and 5″ varieties, light case 500 pound thermite or fragmentation bombs, occasionally para-frag bombs, and the invincible napalm. Targets were tanks, artillery positions, troop concentrations, and supply dumps. Initially the F-80s were used almost exclusively, as the B-26s were being employed on longer range railbusting interdiction or night missions. After the later Pusan breakout the B-26s were also employed along the battle line, and they were considered particularly effective, due to their heavy armament, but they also proved to be more vulnerable to ground fire because of their slower speed and larger size. They were soon returned to almost exclusive night flying.
After the Mustang entered combat in July 1950 the brunt of the low-level tactical work along the front lines fell to them, and the F-80s were released for interdiction missions, where they could stay at higher altitudes longer in consideration of their fuel consumption. It was during these critical days of July and August that the Mustang started to receive its greatest accolades of the Korean War, as observed in retrospect by the USAF historian Robert Futrell, “The Mustangs based at Taegu and Po’hang displayed great utility during the critical days of mid-July.” Perhaps the noted Australian author George Odgers said it even stronger, “Mustangs and napalm won the war for the UN in the early days, if it hadn’t been for them we all would have been doing the backstroke across the sea.”
Mark J. Conversino
Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea by Xiaoming Zhang. Texas A&M University Press (http://www.tamu. edu/upress), John H. Lindsey Building, Lewis Street, 4354 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843-4354, 2002, 320 pages, $39.95 (hardcover).
English-language works dealing specifically with Soviet and Chinese participation in the Korean War remain relatively few in number. Dr. Xiaoming Zhang, a member of the faculty at Texas A&M International University, has filled a portion of that gap with a first-rate history of the important role played by the air forces of the two communist giants in that still-unresolved conflict. Zhang draws on a vast array of Chinese, Soviet, and American sources. Readers will find his description of Korean War air operations from the Soviet and Chinese perspective quite illuminating.
Yet, this book is not simply a history of air combat over Korea. It provides a welcome examination of the troubled birth and rapid growth of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and its doctrine. It also sheds light on early cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, as well as on the roots of the Sino-Soviet split. Indeed, many people might dispute Zhang’s claim that the “most productive Soviet contribution to the air war in Korea” was the creation of the Chinese air force (p. 142). He demonstrates, however, that Soviet assistance was critical to the PLAAF in securing its own airspace against persistent Nationalist attacks, as well as building and maintaining its strength in the face of American airpower over Korea.
For the PLAAF, the Korean War was a watershed event. Zhang notes that Chinese military writers and historians chronicled the Korean War in heroic terms “so none of the accounts emerged in coherent, coordinated, well-documented form.” The resultant “mythology” held that young, inexperienced, and technologically outclassed Chinese pilots “bravely challenged their much more experienced American counterparts and defeated them” (p. 212). Although he spends a fair amount of time trying to bring balance to what he sees as inflated US “kill ratios,” Zhang agrees with most Western historians that the communist air forces failed to achieve the air superiority they repeatedly sought over the USAF or even to provide desperately needed protection and close air support to communist ground forces suffering under a furious US and UN air assault. Only now, in the face of America’s post-Gulf War, high-tech air dominance, is China turning its back on its Korean War experience, which, in Zhang’s view, shackled it to an outdated and ineffective defensive mind-set.
Readers interested in Cold War politics, the air war over Korea, and the roots of China’s airpower will find great value in this well-written and richly researched book.
