F7F Tigercats over North Korea
Grumman’s Svelte Postwar Killer
Grumman’s Svelte Postwar Killer
The end of the war with Japan happened so fast that the U.S. effort to complete a twin-engine fighter was slowed. The Navy tried Grumman’s F7F Tigercat and found that it was too heavy and its high landing speed caused the aircraft to fail carrier-suitability trials. Therefore, the Marines decided to try it and said that it would work perfectly from its land bases. The only contenders for their types of missions were the F-82 Twin Mustang and the F7F Tigercat. They had both been designed to fly long-range escort on the B-29 Superfortresses on their bombing raids to Japan. Both aircraft were in production and ready for service shortly after the war ended, so they were available when the Korean War started in late June 1950. The F-82 was already in inventory in the Far East. Marine night fighter units, however, were alerted that they would be taking the Tigercat into battle.
A New War for Marine Aviators
The first Marine unit to arrive after the invasion at Inchon was VMF(N)-542, under the command of Lt. Col. Max Volcansek. They loaded their 24 F7Fs on the USS Cape Esperance and headed for Japan on August 26, 1950. Two months had passed since the North Koreans invaded the south, so their timing was perfect. The aircraft had twin engines and tricycle landing gear, and seen from certain angles, it was a beautiful airframe that exuded a tremendous “killer” presence. The armament it carried included four 20mm cannon mounted in the wing roots with 800 rounds of ammunition. The F7F had provisions for eight 5-inch (12.7cm) high-velocity aircraft rockets (HVAR) or three 11.75-inch Tiny Tim air-to-ground rockets. On top of this, it had a speed of 435mph, a rate of climb at 3,500 feet per minute, and a range of 1,200 miles. Col. Ray Stewart, a pilot in VMF(N)-513, states, “Powered by two 2100-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines, the F7F was probably the most powerful propeller-driven aircraft to come out of the war. When clean,
you couldn’t keep it on the deck...it was meant to fly.” Getting right into combat missions, the Tigercats seemed as if they were all over North Korea. Their low-level missions, however, increased their chances for encountering dangerous situations. The first loss for the squadron happened on September 24 during a mission northwest of Seoul. Aircraft #80466 flew through some withering ground fire while flying at a very low altitude. It was hit several times, causing the aircraft to fly straight into the ground, killing both crew members. The next day, Volcansek was hit by multiple rounds of ground fire while flying over Seoul in aircraft #80570. This was a bad start for the Tigercats.
The F7F Was a Triple Threat
In Korea, the mission for the F7F-3N was threefold: night combat air patrols (NCAPs), low-level night road-reconnaissance patrols, and AN/MPQ-14 radar missions. On NCAP missions, the pilot would circle some 30 miles west of North Korea’s shoreline at a 10,000- to 15,000-foot altitude under control of a radar team located on Chodo Island, just west of the North Korea coast. The radar team would search for enemy aircraft within its radar range, and if one were located, the team would direct the NCAP plane to a position to intercept and destroy the enemy plane. Low-level night road-reconnaissance patrols involved flying low, looking for trains or trucks. Sometimes these missions were in conjunction with a transport plane carrying flares that would be dropped, as directed by the night fighter pilot. On other missions, a night fighter plane equipped with 20mm machine guns would carry flares and either rockets or bombs. On such occasions, the pilot would drop a flare over a suspicion location and then circle and fly back under
the flare, searching the terrain for a target. AN/MPQ-14 radar missions involved carrying a 500-pound bomb on a center fuselage station and a 250-pound bomb under each wing. The pilot would climb to 20,000 feet and report to a ground radar operator in a MPQ radar trailer. In the trailer was a table with a map of the operating area and a very small three-wheeled device that could creep across the map, marking the route of the aircraft. The MPQ operators monitored the weather conditions, primarily high-altitude winds and temperature. The pilot would hold a steady altitude and airspeed of 200 knots, following the heading directions of the MPQ operators. When they had determined that the small tracking device had arrived at the exact position on the map where the bomb would fall on a preselected target, it was released by an MPQ operator. They did this through a radio signal to a device connected to the plane’s bomb-rack release mechanism. On rare occasions, some aircrews would be assigned to a fourth mission: escorting the
U.S. Air Force (USAF) B-26 light bombers on their night bombing raids.
First Blood
The first assignments for the F7F aircrews happened in mid-September 1950, when the First Marine Division was trying to retake Seoul and Marine crews were involved in close air support for them. Stewart recalls those missions: “There were a few night missions flown, but at that time, most of our activity was during the day. On some of the night missions, the troops below fired star shells from mortars to mark targets. I remember a pilot named Capt. Bob Dahlberg who was called in from his nightcap over Seoul by a forward air controller [FAC] to knock out a fortified bunker located on high ground in a strategic area that was holding up our ground troops. “Capt. Dahlberg got instructions on the attack and pulled off a dummy run. The next pass he would release his 20mm rounds and a napalm drop. The napalm was carried where the long-range (300-gallon) tank had been. Since this was so close to his home base, they didn’t carry the extra tank. He made the pass, and when he pulled up, he noticed that the napalm hadn’t ignited. He pulled and circled while the FAC determined that they were still receiving incoming from the bunker. He was out of napalm but still had eight 5-inch HVARs, which he used on the next pass. He kept steepening his dive, and his canopy blew off just as he released the rockets. He was temporarily blinded and thought his aircraft had been hit. He was disoriented and, in trying to recover from the blast, rolled his F7F on its back and all the papers in the cockpit hit him in the face. It must have been an eternity before he could focus on his instruments. Due to his airmanship and the grace of God, he was able to get his F7F back up to a safe altitude. The next morning, word came down from the First Marine Division that the HVARs had been direct hits on the bunker and that, combined with napalm, which the HVARs had ignited, destroyed it.” On November 14, 1950, the squadron suffered a major setback that involved no injuries. It seems a lone B-29 attacked targets deep into North Korea (at Sinuiju), and it drew the attention of a number of MiG-15s overhead. The B-29 suffered heavy battle damage but managed to escape while still airworthy. The pilot, unable to risk returning to his base on Okinawa, chose to make an emergency landing at Kimpo Air Base (K-14). Touching down, with its hydraulics shot out, the Superfortress veered off the runway and headed straight for VMF(N)-542’s parking area. The bomber’s wing clipped off the vertical stabilizers of at least four F7Fs. The bomber and the damaged fighters were repaired and put back in front-line service within a few weeks.
A New Home with Noisy Neighbors
Six days after the B-29 incident, the squadron was alerted for a massive move up to the captured North Korean base at Yonpo. The
“HE WAS OUT OF NAPALM BUT STILL HAD EIGHT 5-INCH HVARS, WHICH HE USED ON THE NEXT PASS. HE KEPT STEEPENING HIS DIVE, AND HIS CANOPY BLEW OFF JUST AS HE RELEASED THE ROCKETS.”
“I FIRED A SALVO OF ROCKETS AT A TRUCK COLUMN WITH THE TEMPERATURES AT A MINUS 65 DEGREES. THIS WASN’T RECOMMENDED BECAUSE, INSTEAD OF IGNITION, YOU CAN ALSO GET LOW-ORDER ROCKET-MOTOR DETONATION. MY ROCKETS IGNITED AND BARELY PUSHED OFF MY WINGS. THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I FIRED ROCKETS IN SUCH EXTREME COLD CONDITIONS.”
United Nations (UN) ground forces had pushed the North Koreans almost back to the Yalu River and there was talk that U.S. crews might be home by Christmas. By this date, there was already evidence that the Chinese were involved, and by early December, their overwhelming number would force the friendly forces into a southerly retreat. In the meantime, on November 29, 10 of VMF(N)-542 Tigercats arrived at Yonpo, and the advance squadron personnel had already set the wheels in motion to get the Tigercats in mission rotation immediately. Their immediate tasking was in support of the First Marine Division and the U.S. Army’s Seventh Division. In the spring of 1951, a new crop of enemy fighters began to show up south of the 38th parallel. It was the spindly looking Polikarpov Po-2 biplane that the Russians had given the North Korean Air Force (NKAF) in large numbers, and the NKAF were trying to use the planes to bomb the major bases in South Korea at night by dropping grenades out of the open cockpits. It was very difficult to defuse the threat because fabric-covered airframes don’t show up well on radar, and the planes lumbered along well below 100mph. By this time, most of the aircraft sitting alert were jet powered, and they would have had a lot of trouble slowing to the Po-2’s speed. Capt. Edward N. Long, however, notched a Po-2 confirmed kill in his Tigercat early in the morning of July 1, 1951. Lt. Col. J. R. Anderson, commanding officer of the squadron, says, “Long’s biggest problem was slowing his plane down enough to put his sights on the Po-2. Later on, at the debriefing, he said he had everything hanging out but his ‘Long Johns’ to slow him so he could get a bead on the intruders. His radar observer, Warrant Officer Robert Buckingham, gave Capt. Long the necessary instruction to bring him in by radar. At that point, a good healthy burst was fired into the North Korean and strikes were observed around the cockpit and engines. To the Marines’ surprise, the enemy rear seater fired back with a handheld weapon but to no avail. In the next instant, another long burst from the Tigercat’s four 20mm literally blasted the Po-2 out of the air. Capt. Ed Long returned to base to report the night air-to-air kill for the ‘Nightmares’ and the first aerial kill for a F7F in any war!”
Finding Their Night Groove
The F7Fs continued to work up in “MiG Alley,” mostly in the role of armed reconnaissance. Capt. William G. Johnson recalls that period: “Our F7F pilots were some of the few that were to fly night reconnaissance all the way up to the river because of our radarmapping capabilities. Our pilots were visually seeing many, many trucks heading south with their lights on. This was a big effort by the enemy to reinforce their retreating ground forces in hopes of halting the UN advances. We reported this activity every night to Gen. MacArthur’s G-2, and they totally disregarded the info, just as they did during the early days. “As the temperatures continued to drop, we flew many night missions when it was well below zero down at our low altitudes. This made our 5-inch rockets perform well below what they should have. I remember one time I fired a salvo of rockets at a truck column with the temperatures at a minus 65 degrees. This wasn’t recommended because, instead of ignition, you can also get low-order rocket-motor detonation. My rockets ignited and barely pushed off my wings. That was the last time I fired rockets in such extreme cold conditions. However, not all was lost on this mission because we had discovered a major reinforcing attempt by the Chinese that were attacking the First Marine Division. Once the Chinese had pushed our force south of the 38th parallel, we had to go to Itami Air Base in Japan to continue operations. This led us to fly reconnaissance missions around the clock and even in bad weather, and we also pulled some night alert duty, especially with the USAF having trouble keeping the required number of F-82s on alert duty.” The perfect night mission was flown in
“ON A HOP WHERE I SHOT UP NINE TRUCKS IN SEVERAL PASSES, WE ENDED UP WITH 18 BULLET HOLES IN OUR AIRCRAFT. YOU COULD HEAR THE SHELLS HITTING THE AIRCRAFT WHEN WE FLEW TOO LOW.”
weather that was clear and no moon was out. But the erratic Korean weather was not always in a mood to cooperate. Sgt. Kermit Moffitt, a radar observer in VMF(N)-542, recalls, however, a mission that was as close to perfect as possible: “The weather on this night was as good as it gets, and our mission put us close to the Suan area. My pilot on that mission was Capt. Manning Jannell. The weather that night was flawless for striking targets of opportunity. On this night, we were working with a flare ship, which could give us sufficient light to get down low and deal out a lot of damage to anything that moved. Our Tigercat was loaded with eight 5-inch HVARs and 800 rounds of 20mm along with one canister of napalm. When we arrived in our sector, the flare ship dropped two flares over a deep valley that was suspected to have a lot of enemy activity. “As we descended under the flares, we noticed several vehicles near a small village. We had caught a convoy right before they had begun to camouflage their trucks from being attacked at first light. This was a common tactic used by the Chinese because they figured we would not level an innocent village in order to destroy their supplies and vehicles. Once the flares had ignited, they immediately stopped in their tracks figuring that a stationary target was harder to spot than one moving. In the middle of all this were three tanks lined up bumper to bumper. What a target! Capt. Jannell made one pass to assess the target, and on his second pass, he released the napalm. It hit right in the middle, and the ball of fire engulfed all three tanks. All three of the enemy tanks were destroyed, and this was confirmed by our FAC. We continued over the area, taking out two more trucks with our rockets. After a few more targets, we had depleted all of our ordnance. It had been a very productive mission for us, thanks to our flare ship! “There was some skepticism among the day fighter pilots about some of the sightings and claims we were making against moving targets at night. Naturally, the night fighter pilots were proud and wanted to make sure they were credited. So they asked several of the doubting types to ride along in the back seat. There were a few who wanted to see what we were up to.” Long recalled a mission he flew with one of them in the back seat. “On a hop where I shot up nine trucks in several passes, we ended up with 18 bullet holes in our aircraft. You could hear the shells hitting the aircraft when we flew too low. Most of the bullets that hit us were from small weapons, but at the road junctions where they had heavy antiaircraft guns to fire at us, it told a different story. After a few missions like this one, the amount of trash talk dropped down to nothing. During my 80 intruder missions into North Korea, I was hit by ground fire on 19 different flights. Most of the holes were from small-arms fire. I made as many passes as the ordnance load allowed to be insured of dropping the target. “For a brief period in July 1952, the Tigercats were drawn into one of their toughest assignments, which included protecting B-29 Superfortresses on their nightly raids up in MiG Alley. Daytime operations had long been stopped due to the overwhelming number of MiG-15s operating from at least three bases north of the river. Normally, this tasking began when the new F-94B Starfires were brought into the war. These new all-weather jets were equipped with the latest-model fire-control systems and due to their classified nature, it was determined that they should not be allowed to cross north of the MLR [main line of resistance] in case one of them went down in enemy territory. To compensate for this void in bomber coverage, the Fifth Air Force, which had ultimate control over VMF(N)-513, ordered that at least four of the F7F-3Ns be available to escort the B-29s each night!”
Tigercats Showed Up for Work—And Then Some
The role of the Tigercat in Korea can never be overstated as it didn’t take a back seat to any other aircraft for comparable missions. The statistics during September through December 1950 are impressive and contributed mightily to the defeat of North Korea and the slowing down of the Chinese offensive in November of that year. VMF(N)-542 records for that fourmonth period state that their aircrews logged 2,753 hours of combat time. That’s a record to be envied by any Marine squadron.