KOREAN AIR WAR
THE STORY FROM THE OTHER SIDE
PART I
Sašo Knez, Slovenia
Diego Fernando Zampini, Argentina
In the sky above Northern Korea U.N. pilots encountered a vast array of piloting skills with the enemy
pilots. They believed that the good pilots were Soviet. They named them Honchos.
This article mostly focuses on the deeds of the Soviet pilots and their commanding officers. It is not an
attempt to recount all the victories and losses of U.N. or United Air Army, while in turn it only gives a
much more accurate overview of the aerial warfare. But to fully understand Korea in first place we must
pick up things in the immediate post war Soviet Union.
THE PAINS OF THE POST WAR VVS AND THE BIRTH OF THE SOVIET JET FLIGHT
24th April 1946 was a great day for Soviet Aviation. The MiG-9, the first domestic jet fighter powered
with two British jet engines took-off and successfully completed its maiden flight. A. N. Grinchik piloted
the MiG. Only few hours later M. I. Ivanov lifted the second jet fighter-the Yak-15 of the Zhukovsky
tarmac. With this day the Soviet jet aviation was born.
The basic test flight programme was successfully completed but not without accidents. One MiG-9 was
lost killing test pilot "Lyosha" Grinchik. The aircraft and the pilot were quickly replaced and a new
informal world record was set with the MiG-9 achieving M 0.79.
The first trio of Soviet jet fighters compromising of the MiG-9, Yak-15 and the La-150 were ready. The
concept of jet flight was then accepted into the VVS1. But there was a certain clandestine around the
testing of these examples and later on the pre-production series of the type. This was broken only with an
article in the VVS bulletin titled "The particularities of jet pilotage". In this article Mark Gallay soothed
the fighter community with the assurance that there is really no great effort needed to master the first
generation of Soviet jets.
But these very first generation jets were
rather experiments then true fighting
machines. Test pilot Stepan A. Mikoyan
explains:
"To start the engine of those early jets,
the mechanic would first pull the cord
(like in an ordinary motorboat) of the
small auxiliary engine, which acted as a
starter for the main power plant. The
service life of those engines did not
exceed twenty-five hours before
overhaul. Their fuel consumption was
much larger then that of the piston
engines, while the fuel tank capacity of
these jet, particularly the Yaks, was not
so large. To prolong the engine’s service life and to save on fuel we would glide down the final with
engine shut out (something hard to believe today) – we would cut it off on the final when sure that the
aircraft would touch down at, or close to the landing ‘T’. After that there was no way back; another circle
was out of the question. In the MiG, which had two engines, one of them was shut down even earlier, on
the base leg. At the end of the landing run we would turn off the runway to where a towing truck was
waiting to take the aircraft back to the departure end of the strip, where the engine would be restarted for
MiG-9 developed as a stop gap, but the MiG-15 lines are already evident.
(Stepan Mikoyan)
another flight. Another peculiarity of the MiG-9 was its tendency to ‘rear’ if you abruptly released the
brakes at maximum power at take-off (because the jetwash that ran under the fuselage rarefied the air
under the tail). To avoid its sinking on its tail, the brakes had to be released gradually."
Soon after the student of Frunze Academy, but otherwise triple Hero of the Soviet Union and the second
ranking allied ace Aleksandr I. Pokryshkin visited the jet flight test unit.
The chief test pilot for the MiG-9 Mark Gallay was his guide around the new aircraft:
"He carefully examined the exterior of the MiG-9, then he climbed into the cockpit and sat there for a
long time. Then he started asking me questions very slowly. I wasn’t able to answer many of them from
the top of my head. The purely technical aspects of jet flight had occupied me in such an extent that I
didn’t even start contemplating the tactical and tactical-exploitative aspects.
Time will come when we will have to deal with them too"
And this time indeed came, but unfortunately the resulting problems were not optimally resolved. But
there was another more important leap that the West enjoyed over the Soviet Union. While the Soviet
scientist and engineers could base their aircraft on captured Jumo or Nene turbines, the license for which
was won over a snooker game, they couldn’t exploit the greatest asset of the now dead Luftwaffe, namely
tactical expertise. Among the group of pilots and leaders that survived probably the greatest war in the air
there was a distinct aptitude towards the West. When confronted by an intelligence officer the statement
Generalleutnant Galland is the epitome of this very reasonable inclination:
"I am of the opinion that Germany has lost the war but the future of all Europe lies in the hands of the
Allies. I have no place to go and no desire to go anywhere. I will be at your wishes at all times."
The few pilots who weren't able to reach the western front to surrender were submitted to bogus trails that
included charges for killing non-combatants with stray bullets from their fighter aircraft and were all
found guilty. With the prospect of a decade in labor camps ran by NKVD2 forces the VVS to say the least
didn’t profit much from their knowledge and experience.
In the post war years training wasn’t a priority for the VVS. There was a distinctive lack of training
sorties in the soviet operational regiments since they were mostly "ironing air" with constant patrols along
the vast SSSR borders. Many of the veterans and other younger instinctive fighter pilots opted for the task
of a flying instructor where there was enough flying time there to keep oneself in flying trim. The
transition from piston to jet engine aircraft took its toll in operational readiness of the VVS. The Soviet
Aircraft industry was then struggling to replace the aircraft of the Great Patriotic War3 with their
redesigned counterparts. The aircraft built in wartime had very low lifetime expectancy and many of their
parts were built of cheap and readily available materials like wood. The all-metal Il-10 replaced the
wooden Il-2, the same thing happened with the La-7 being replaced by the La-9. Soviet Strategic aviation
made a huge leap forward with the fleet of carbon copied B-29s named the Tu-4.
But even the prides of the Soviet aircraft industry, the MiG-9 and the Yak-15 were both only stopgaps
anticipating a new and true jet propelled fighter that could climb higher then 10.000m and could stay in
the air for at least an hour. This fighter resulted from the competition by Yakovljev, Lavockin and MiG
OKB when the prototype of the MiG-15 flew for the first time on December 30, 1947.
In the west a myth was born that the MiG-
15 was built from the plans of the Ta-183.
While it is true that some preliminary
sketches were inspired by that design the
credit for the success of the aircraft goes
only to the MiG OKB. Namely the Ta-183
was indeed further developed by Kurt
Tank into Polqui II, but that aircraft
turned out to be nothing special and far
from the MiG-15.
Polqui II, Argentinean MiG-15 (FAA)
In those years the Air Force Academies across the Soviet Union had a unique group of students sitting in
their classrooms, since the vast majority of most successful Soviet pilot attended the academies at this
time. The three most successful aces; I. N. Kozedub finished the Air Force Academy in 1948, Pokryshkin
finished the Frunze Academy in 1948 and Rechkalov the Air Force academy in 1951 respectively. While
these academies were of the chalk and blackboard variety experience was not lacking since the students
had themselves survived as many as one hundred and fifty aerial combats were not considered as "yes"
men.
Moreover during the bitter battles of the Eastern Front the higher-ranking VVS officers didn’t put too
much effort in subscribing the tactics that were to be used. Each fighter pilot that had his own ideas about
aerial warfare was welcome to try them out. Whatever eventually worked was allowed as Aleksandr I.
Pokryshkin notes:
"Innovations, for instance new forms of attack, almost invariably encountered obstacles one way or the
other. The air division commanders much too often demanded strict observance of service regulations,
which were also prescribing, forms of attack. Veteran pilots thus were unable to convey their combat
experience to the beginners. This, however, did not prevent them from utilizing their personal formula in
air combat!!!"
Therefore at the end of the war the VVS had almost diametrically different fighter pilots within its rank.
When these pilots meet in the academies their views were analysed and a unified tactics manual was
issued.
Such a surprising evolution persuaded even the old hand Grigorij A. Rechkalov. The third best Allied Ace
was exceptionally talented; he is often compared with Hans Joachim Marseille of the "Star of Africa"
fame. He scored most of his victories on his trusty and fiercely agile lend-lease P-39 Aircobra during the
bitter fighting above Kuban river. He was a solitary fighter with almost no regard to mutual support. But
his mastery of his aircraft and the incredible deflection angles at which he could clinically bring down his
opponent made him a deadly man - unfortunately many times for the formation he was leading. The pilots
that flew with him were not as good as him and were not able to follow Rechkalov and often they paid the
ultimate price. For this at one time he came into a conflict with the founder of modern day fighter tactics,
incidentally the second scoring ace of the war- "Sasha" Pokryshkin
But a few years later even Rechkalov recognised the lone wolf days are over in air combat. When he was
asked what did he think new types of aircraft should posses in terms of agility, climbing performance,
speed or ceiling he simply replied: "Above all they should have a good, reliable radio". In air combat the
"para" or the pair was accepted as the basic formation while two "paras" made up a "zveno".
Pokryshkin’s "vysota-skorost-manevr-ogon"4 rule was made sacred.
With the end of the war the doors of the academies were wide opened. Despite many failures of the
Stalinistic regime, Soviet war heroes were treated far better then their counterparts in Europe and
America. As the 41 kill ace Vitalij I. Popkov remembers:
"In many respects our postwar fates were probably similar. Most combat pilots remained in the ranks.
They became familiar with new technologies and studied at military academies. For us, simple youths
from families of modest means, a broad road into the future opened itself."
THE SHANGHAI GRADUATION
Transforming the VVS from piston to jet force, unifying the training and maintaining combat readiness
along the borders that stretched literary from Port Arthur to Berlin was no small task. And in that time in
history the Soviet-Sino negotiations took place in late 1949.
In these negotiations a decision was
reached to send a group of Soviet
advisors to provide air defence of
Shanghai protecting it from the
Kuomintang raids. The other part of
these negotiations was to send a group
of Soviet naval officers to raise a
modern Chinese Navy and to make all
the necessary strategic and operational
planning for the invasion of this island
Formosa, nowadays known as Taiwan.
Starshij Lejtenant Karelin in the cockpit of his La-11 in China summer 1950.
Karelin will later see service with the jet MiG-15. (Perov-Jakubovich)
These Soviets advisors were actually
complete combat formations from the
ranks of the newly formed PVO5
forces. The cores of the two divisions sent were three aviation regiments. One was equipped with MiG-15
and assigned for bomber interception, the second equipped with La-11 fighters for night fighting and the
last one was the mixed ground attack regiment with Tu-2s and Il-10s.
Since the loss and kill claims for the Kuomintang forces for that period are unavailable we can only
submit the Soviet advisors kill tally which finals at no losses in combat, admitting one Tu-2 was lost to
friendly fire5 while a MiG-15 and a La-11 were lost in accidents. The La-11 scored over two B-25s and
shot down a pair of Mustangs. The first victory for the MiG-15 came when Kapitan Kalinikov shot down
a P-38 Lightning on the 28th April 1950. Another Liberator fell to the MiG’s cannon in the night of 11/12
May, this time the victorious pilot was Kapitan Schinkarenko who was awarded the Order of Lenin for
his feat.
Apart from seriously hampering the Kuomintang operations the Soviet personnel logged close to 2600
hours spent in training the members of the Chinese Air Defence members.
At the beginning of August 1950 the Soviet advisors started to decrease their role in Shanghai’s defence.
Everything that the Soviets brought with them including the first model MiG-15 with red and white-
stripped rudder was transferred into the Chinese PLA ranks on 19th October 1950. This ended the active
participation of the Soviet airmen in the Chinese civil war. For detailed information regarding the
beginning of the conflict we now know as China versus Taiwan see the appropriate section here. But we
are back in the summer of 1950.
A STRICTLY NORTH KOREAN AIR FORCE
On June 25 1950, as a lone American C-54 cargo plane was set on fire at Seoul international airport by
several strafing Yak-9s, the Army of the People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) crossed the 38th
Parallel and entered the territory of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in an attempt to unify the
Korean peninsula under one rule. With the initial stamped over the weak South Korean resistance the
Korean War had begun.
Initially it seemed that the North Korean forces would obtain a rapid victory due to its evident superiority
in men, armored vehicles and the sheer quantity of firepower. Such superiority also extended to the aerial
element of warfare.
According to US intelligence, at that time the North had 132 combat aircraft, 70 of them were the
Yakovlev Yak-9P, which enjoyed immense popularity with the pilots in the Great patriotic war. Quite
interestingly they were noted as heavy fighters most probably in the comparison to the earlier wooden
Yaks. Of course the term heavy fighter would fade when pitted against the P-47 Thunderbolt or Hawker
Tempest.
The remaining 62 airframes were the
Ilyushin Il-10 and Lavockin La-9.
Again metalizing and somewhat
improving their wooden ancestors, the
Il-2M3 and the La-7, derived these two
aircraft.
School under the wings of their mount. North Korean pilots and a NKAF La-9
(Perov-Jakubovich)
While the fact is that the late fifties
were already deep jet age and on paper
these types were obsolete, but still they
had no trouble gaining air superiority
over the South Koreans. The South
Korean arsenal consisted of 3 unarmed
T-6 Texan trainers and 13 liaison
aircraft. That is a total of sixteen
aircraft none of which were combat
ready.
However it had soon become clear that the North Korean Air Force (NKAF) would face a very different
enemy. During an U.N. council it was decided that the U.N. forces would intervene in the Korean
peninsula.
The United States FEAF (Far East Air Force) was composed of the 5th, 13th and 20th Air Forces, which
were based in Japan, Philippines and Okinawa respectively. The World War Two veteran of the China-
India-Burma theatre Lt. Gen. George A. Stratemeyer commanded the whole FEAF. The 5th AF
commanded by Maj. Gen. Earle E. Partridge received the responsibility of taking on the NKAF in an
effort to help the South Korean war effort.
The FEAF as a whole had more then enough assets to accomplish the mission at hand. 1172 aircraft,
almost half of which were the jet F-80 Shooting Stars, while the other aircraft were 47 F-51s, 42 F-82s,
73 B-26s, 27 B-29s, 179 transports, 48 reconnaissance aircraft, and 252 miscellaneous types (T-6, SB-17,
T-33, etc.). However, of these 1,172 aircraft only 657 of the 5th AF were spoken for the use in Korea and
moreover not all of these were combat types and the FEAF at large was geared for air defense of Japan,
Okinawa and Philippines and far from optimally prepared both in technology and in doctrine to provide
valuable ground support.
HIGH NOON AT KIMPO AND THE NKAF AIRFIELD ATTACKS
The opening round of the NKAF against the USAF battle was fought over the airfields of Suwon and
Kimpo where the USAF Mustangs, Twin Mustangs and Shooting Stars were flying defensive patrols
against the North Korean strafers. Initially the NKAF piston driven fighters showed very aggressive
flying and on 25th of June 1950 two Yaks engaged the Twin Mustang patrol over Kimpo. This combat
ended with a draw, but the tone had been set.
The first decisive clash of the 5th AF fighters and the NKAF planes took place just two days later when
eleven Twin Mustangs of the 4th, 68th and 339th FIS and a high cover of 8th FBW Shooting Stars were
covering the evacuation of Kimpo airbase. Suddenly the F-82G piloted by 1st Lt. Charles Moran was
bounced by a group of Yak-9s. The Yaks didn’t profit much from the bounce only damaging Moran’s
Twin Mustang they were immediately engaged by a Twin Mustang crewed by 1st Lt. William Hudson
with 1st Lt. Carl Fraser as the radar operator. Despite the use of the clouds by the NKAF fighter the first
USAF victory in Korea had been recorded. The Twin Mustangs piloted by Charles Moran and Major
James W. Little also claimed one Yak each.
Despite losing three fighters for a shot up tail the NKAF later that same day sent eight Ilyushin Il-10s,
which attacked Kimpo airfield and destroyed seven South Korean aircraft on the ground. When heading
back north they were intercepted by a four-ship formation of F-80C of 35th FBS, 8th FBW. The Shooting
Star pilots claimed four destroyed Il-10s two of which by 1st Lt. Robert E. Wayne. Despite these losses to
the American fighters the North Koreans were not about to stop their offensive against the airfields in the
south.
The strikes against Suwon on June 28th were most successful. During the first effort two pairs of Yak-9s
destroyed a Twin Mustang and a B-26 in a strafing run. Three pairs of Yak-9s revisited Suwon the same
day destroying another two C-54s. Yet a third strafing trip to Suwon the next day proved largely
unsuccessful since a mixed formation of Yaks, Lavockins and Iljushins were intercepted by several F-
51D Mustangs of the 35th, 36th and Shooting Stars of the 80th FBS whish gave them a 'hot' welcome: three
Il-10s, one La-9 and two Yak-9s were claimed as shot down by the USAF pilots. A few days later on 3rd
July US Navy opened its score in Korea when two F9F Panther pilots of VF-51 claimed a Yak kill each.
During the same day strafing attacks were directed against the HMS Black Swan and two ROK vessels
while four Yaks dropped anti-personnel bombs on ROK troops south of Kimpo, killing 68 ROK soldiers.
On 4 July aircraft knocked out a communications repeater station near Osan. Four planes also strafed and
bombed Chonju on 11 July. Despite the losses inflicted on the NKAF and hampering their airfield
offensive to some extent the South Koreans were losing the ground war. Seoul fell and the North Korean
offensive seemed unstoppable. Since July USAF and USN fighters and fighter-bombers began a series of
ground attacks on North Korean troops and materiel to stem the tide from the north. And still on July 20
Taejon fell but by early August the first signs of the losses inflicted by the US ground support efforts of
the US