To Stem the Tide - A Korean War Perspective

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jim Katzaman
  • Air Force News Agency
SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) --  Warnings had sounded as early as March 10, 1950. The U. S. Korean Military Advisory Group had relayed a report through channels to Washington, D.C., that North Korea would likely cross the 38th Parallel and invade its neighbor to the south--possibly as early as June.

But there were plenty of doubters, including Republic of Korea soldiers and American advisers standing watch on June 25 along the tense border that divided South Korea from the communist north.

At 4 a.m, a predawn thrust of North Korean troops swept across the 38th Parallel, but not until a few hours later did the defenders realize they were facing invasion by the full force of the 135,000-man communist army that would eventually pour across the border.

This was the start of the Korean War, a conflict that would rage up and down the Asian Peninsula for three years and embroil the world's superpowers in a struggle to prevent the outbreak of World War III. Not until an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953 -- 30 years ago this month (Editor's Note: article published in July, 1983) -- did the combatants finally agree to the uneasy peace that still exists.

Airpower deserved much of the credit for stemming the communist tide, according to Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then Air Force chief of staff. While the war was still being fought, he said, "The Air Force is the single potential that has kept the balance of power in our favor. It is the one that that has, up to date, kept the Russians from deciding to go to war...."

In one respect, maintaining that balance of power would not be difficult.

According to The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (by Robert F. Futrell, copyright 1961 by Duell Sloan, and Pearce), the North Koreans possessed only 62 IL-10 and 70 YAK-03 and YAK-7B fighters, 22 YAK-10 transports, and eight PO-2 trainers when they invaded the south.

These aerial weapons were more than offset by the U.S. Far East Air Forces' 839 combat-ready aircraft, including F-51, F-80, and F-82 fighters, B-26 and B-29 bombers; and C-54 transports. When the Air Force was cleared to attack north of the 38th parallel, aircrews quickly obliterated the tiny enemy air force.

More urgent, however, was the need for Far East Air Forces--spearheaded by the Fifth Air Force--to help slow the communist ground advance until United Nations reinforcements could arrive in Korea to assist the South Korean army.

Operating mostly from Japanese airfield many miles away, the American aircraft bombed and strafed front-line enemy troops and cut off their supply lines from the north.

Eventually, with U.N. forces applying pressure on the ground, the fighters and bombers took a heavy toll on the invaders and the North Korean assault was stalled just short of the South Korean defenders being driven off the peninsula.

Fierce fighting continued as battle lines stabilized Heroic acts were common throughout the war, but never more than on Aug. 5, 1950, when Maj. Louis Sebille led a fight of F-51 Mustangs against enemy artillery and troops.

Unable to release his two 500-pound bombs, he returned over the target for a strafing attack when his plane was hit by groundfire. Ignoring advice to head south to safety at Taegu, he made another run on the target, was hit again, and flew to his death directly into the enemy concentration. For his selfless devotion to duty Maj. Sebille was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

On Sept. 15 United Nations forces retaliated in force as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur led an invasion at Inchon, on the coast just west of Seoul. Enemy positions near the beach were softened by fighter-bombers, and enemy supply lines in the north had been decimated by B-26 and B-29 interdiction missions against military and industrial targets.

With the North Koreans on the run and no opposition in the skies, the U.N. troops pushed northward, the Air Force leading the way. By mid-November the North Korean capital of Pyongyang had fallen, and the battle lines had moved to within a few miles of the Yalu River, North Korea's border with the Chinese province of Manchuria.

The war was scarcely five months old and the Air Force had pretty much had its own way. With no enemy parties around, bomber flights no longer requested fighter escorts. Interdiction runs on enemy targets were often little more than leisurely flights over the countryside.

One of the mainstays of the fighter-bomber force was the propeller-driven F-51 Mustang, not the fastest Air Force fighter available. But without opposition it was more than adequate for its task.

Capt. Frederick C. Blesse, now a retired Air Force major general and currently a director of operations for Grumman Corp., reflected on that time more than 30 years ago when the nation was at war. He was then on his first combat tour in Korea and flew F-51 bombing missions over the north almost every day as air controllers on the ground guided the fighters and bombers by radio. Some days, became Fifth Air Force bombers had done their jobs so effectively, ground controllers ran out of priority targets and the F-51 pilots were turned loose to find their own targets of opportunity.

Some seemingly unlikely targets were haystacks in North Korean fields. Pilots grew increasingly suspicious as they began to detect vehicle tracks around stacks that had supposedly been piled by farmers using oxen. In such cases, Capt Blesse and other pilots would "go down, make one pass, then squeeze off a couple of .50-caliber rounds into the haystacks.

A lot of times we'd see the rounds ricochet from the middle of the stacks. Well, you knew there was something funny going on. We'd go back in, fire away during additional passes, and, pretty soon, see something burning in there with black smoke--and burning hay doesn't give off black smoke!"

Such missions were increasingly common for Fifth Air Force aircrews in the fall of 1950, thanks to the superiority they enjoyed over the nonexistent North Korean air force. On Sept. 11 alone, Far East Air Forces flew 683 close-air support and strategic sorties against the enemy--437 of them by Fifth Air Force pilots. On that one day aircrews claimed the destruction of 1,500 enemy soldiers and their equipment.

The U.N. air superiority permitted B-26s flying from Yokota AB, Japan, to cruise at will while dropping 500,-1,000-, and sometimes 2,000-pound bombs on North Korean targets. At the same time, the Combat Cargo Command flew continuous airlift missions with C-46s, C-47s, C-54s, and C-119s to haul ground troops and their equipment to beef up the escalating U.N. commitment.

But the days of comparative freedom in the skies were numbered. The turning point came when aerial reconnaissance crews sighted 75 enemy fighters parked in neat rows at Antung Airfield just across the Yalu River. They were untouchable because it was felt that violations of Chinese airspace could be the final straw and lead to a superpower confrontation.

Then, on Nov. 1, 1950, six swept-wing silver jets crossed the Yalu and fired on a flight of U.S. forward-air controller planes. The U.N. aircraft escaped, but the introduction of MiG-15s into the war rendered every American aircraft in Korea suddenly obsolete. With speeds approaching Mach I, faster climb rates, and flight ceilings of 55,000 feet or more, enemy pilots could, and did, strike at their discretion. The initiative was theirs.

At the same time, what had appeared to be a total U.N. victory over North Korea turned into a near disaster as Chinese army forces numbering perhaps 200,000 suddenly appeared and attacked the U.S. Eighth Army. Outnumbered on the ground, the U.N forces were forced to fall back a bloody retreat that took a heavy toll on both sides.

The balance of power shifted quickly with the introduction of Russian-built jet fighters and an overwhelming force of well-equipped Chinese troops. The fighting escalated sharply.

One of the great humanitarian feats of the war occurred in mid-December 1950 when the Combat Cargo Command used all its planes to airlift 250 tons of supplies each day to retreating X Corps Marines at the Choshin Reservoir. On return flights the cargo planes evacuated 4,689 sick or wounded soldiers. During the final U.N. evacuation of Yonpo the CCC flew 393 sorties to safely airlift 228 patients, 3,891 passengers, and 2,088.6 tons of cargo from the advancing communist onslaught.

Before the U.N. retreat ended, the battle lines had once again moved below the 38th Parallel, and Seoul had again fallen into enemy hands. But like the North Koreans before them, the Chinese had come too far too fast. They had overtaxed their long supply lines from across the Yalu and were continuously pounded by Fifth Air Force bombers as supply lines to the north were constantly pummeled by fighters and bombers. The Chinese push was stalled, and U.N. forces regrouped for another push back up the peninsula. By July 1, 1951, Seoul had changed hands for the fourth and final time, and the front lines settled on militarily defendable positions near the 38th Parallel. That was essentially where they would remain until the armistice was signed two years later.

Some described the last years of the war as a stalemate, but Gen. Otto P. Weyland, the Far East Air Forces commander, strongly disagreed. In a letter to the Air Force chief of staff, he wrote, "To accept the theory ...(of) stalemate is to completely ignore the innumerable advantages of airpower as a predominant weapon for destroying the enemy fighting machine and to acquiesce to the dangerous 'rule of thumb' whereby military success, regardless of cost, is measured solely in terms of geographical gain," he said.

The object was to pressure, saturate, and strangle the communist forces with American airpower. Not coincidently, those were the code names--Pressure, Saturate, and Strangle--given the interdiction missions that helped make the war too costly for enemy forces to continue.

Day and night visual and radar bombing by B-26s and B-29s systematically destroyed military arsenals at Pyongyang, the oil refinery at Wonsan, and the marshaling yards at Rashin. They also cut enemy rail lines and destroyed tunnels and bridges throughout North Korea.

Although the North Koreans and Chinese would not acknowledge it publicly, airpower had been key to the failure of their aims of conquest. Gen. Lin Biao, commander of China's Fourth Field Army, had stated in captured documents that his troops could not compete against U.N. forces "because of the air superiority against them." The Chinese General Staff echoed his evaluation, saying, "If we had had a strong air support, we could have driven the enemy into the sea."

Their air support might have been better had not American reacted to the influx of modern MiG jets by rushing the F-86 Sabre into the war. Like the MiG, the F-86 used a powerful engine, but the Sabre was a heavier aircraft. The lighter MiG could outmaneuver the F-86 in flight, and American pilots envied the communist forces' sleek jet fighters.

Capt. Robinson Risner, who would eventually notch eight enemy kills in Korea, noted that MiGs "could engage and disengage at will; we could not. When they didn't want to fight, we couldn't fight them. If they wouldn't come down, we couldn't touch them. Some of us young sprouts used to make our wing commanders pretty testy when we'd kid around and say, 'Give us a squadron of MiGs and we'll clean the air of everything.' "

Still, the MiGs had their disadvantages, most of them coming to light only after a North Korean pilot flew his MiG to Seoul after the war. Experts who analyzed the plane found the MiG's 23mm and 37mm cannons lethal against slow-moving targets but ineffective against the faster F-86s. The MiG also suffered from inadequate defrosting, and when the fighters dived from high altitudes, the pilots often had to scratch holes in the ice inside their canopies to see where they were going.

These and other instabilities at high speeds hindered enemy pilots, but what really hurt them was the American edge in savvy, combat skills, and training. Toward the end of the war many Air Force pilots report MiG pilots--apparently the greenest of the green--were ejecting from their planes at the first hint of trouble, often before any shots could be fired.

Not that the communist nations didn't try to educate their flying corps. Russian and Chinese instructors often let their students pilots in mass gaggles that took advantage of the MiG's high flight ceiling and gave students some bizarre on-the-job training.

One afternoon Capt. Risner's flight of four F-86s was cruising near the Yalu when the America spotted a massive MiG formation heading south. Capt. Risner looked up and said he "counted 120 of them with my bare eye; and they flew directly overhead--about 2,000 feet above us, out of our reach. Not one of them made a move to engage us. The instructors were obviously giving the students a tour of the battle area and an opportunity to observe our formation from a safe altitude.

"They'd do that for a few weeks until finally the honchos would come down to make passes at us. They were the ones we really wanted. We knew it would be demoralizing for them if we shot down one of their instructors, and we occasionally did get one of them."

But the enemy pilots didn't seem interested in racking up any aerial kills. They considered any action that kept the troublesome Americans from dropping bombs a victory. So they devised tactics that frustrated the American pilots. But at the same time the reluctance of the enemy to fight in the skies did little to help his cause in the war.

Capt. Risner recalled that many times his fighter group would be "flying up and down the Yalu watching the MiGs climb out from Manchuria. As they disappeared from sight we would watch their contrails. They would fly over us at 50,000 feet, head south, then turn around and flying six or more abreast they'd shoot at us as if they were firing at a bomber formation.

"That was a very poor tactic, but it did allow them to fire and at the same time safely recover across the Yalu in China. They didn't seem to care whether they hit us or not, as long as they got a little gunnery practice and ended up in their sanctuary."

In spite of their poor tactics, the enemy air forces held an advantage in numbers of aircraft largely because Russian factories produced about 200 MiGs each month and many of them went to Chinese and North Korean airfields.

Lt. Gen George E. Stratemeyer, Far East Air Forces commander during the first year of the Korean War, and the first air battle to control the skies "was short and sweet. Air supremacy over Korea was quickly established."

But that was not the case after the MiGs arrived. From then on the interdiction campaign was hampered by the enemy jets and much-improved ground defenses against air attacks. U.N. air forces still carried out their missions, but at a higher cost than before

As many as 90 MiG-15s at a time would jump flights of B-26 and B-29 bombers flying interdiction missions against North Korean targets. On one such mission alone four B-29s were lost to MiG attacks. The F-86s were flying high cover, but military analysts estimated that 150 Sabres would have been needed on each mission for adequate protection against the mass assaults.

As daylight attacks became more difficult, the B-26s and B-29s were restricted to night radar-bombing missions when MiG attacks were less likely. However, the communists installed radar-controlled searchlights around their industrial complexes to illuminate the bombers for ground defenders and MiGs that prowled in the darkness.

Meanwhile, the Americans were making rapid improvements to the Sabres. Newer F-model versions of the F-86 had wings with sealed leading edges, which helped the jet zip through the skies at Mach 1.05 and fly above 50,000 feet.

As the improved jets were introduced, the U.N. command dreamed up another scheme that produced a headache for the enemy by offering a $50,000 reward to any enemy pilot who would defect and fly his jet to South Korea. There were no takers until after the armistice, but the Chinese and Russians quickly took precautions against losing any of their top airmen. After the offer was made American pilots usually encountered only the most inexperienced adversaries in the air. Combined with the improved capabilities of the F-86F, turned the final months of the war into a race for acedom.

In May 1953, Capt .Michael J. Fernandez Jr shot down one MiG and helped destroy another. His 14.5 kills seemed secure as a record for the war. But Capt. Joseph McConnell Jr. responded by shooting down three MiGs in early May and three more on May 18 to post 16 kills in 106 missions. Then Maj. James Jahara recorded five MiG kills in June and another on July 15, giving him 15 kills to surpass Capt. Fernandez' mark.

Between May 8 and 31, 1953, Sabre pilots logged 56 MiG kills while losing just one of their own. The June scorecard was even more impressive: 77 to 0. By the end of the war the Air Force claimed 38 aces in Korea.

More importantly, these overwhelming victories prodded the enemy delegation to move more rapidly to talks at the peace table, and finally, on July 27, 1953, the shooting and killing came to a halt.

After three years of fighting, the Far East Air Forces had grown from 33,625 to 112,188 people and expanded from 839 to 1,536 combat-ready aircraft. Its aircrews had flown 720,980 sorties of the U.N. total of 1,040,708. Their crews dropped 476,000 tons of ordinance on enemy positions. FEAF, USAF and allied forces lost 1,041aircraft on the ground and in the air.

About 1,200 FEAF personnel were killed by the enemy during the war, but our crews (FEAF, USAF, and allies) claimed the destruction of 184,808 enemy soldiers while shooting down 976 aircraft and destroying 1,327 tanks, 82,920 vehicles, 10,407 railroad cars, 1,153 bridges, 65 tunnels, and 593 barges and boats.

Altogether, 33,629 Americans died in Korea and another 103,284 were wounded. About 300,000 South Korean soldiers were either killed, wounded, or missing. Other U.N. casualties totaled 17,260. In addition, there were some one million South Korean civilian casualties as the battles raged back and forth across their homeland. The United Nations command estimated communist military casualties at between 1.5 and 2 million and estimated that a million North Korean civilians lost their lives.

Just three years after the invasions by North Korea, the peninsula was restored to relative calm. The war ended almost where it began, with both sides facing each other on either side--give or take a few miles--of the 38th Parallel.

To this day the potential for renewed fighting exists. Sabres and MiGs armed with guns have since been replaced by supersonic aircraft bearing missiles. The North Koreans still threaten; the South Koreans and U.N. Command maintain their defenses. The armistice was not a peace treaty, thus, technically, the war has not ended. 

Note:  Reprint from Airman magazine, July, 1983