First Kills!
F-82 OPERATIONS IN THE KOREAN WAR
F-82 operations in the Korean war
The North American Aviation F-82 was the last piston-engine fighter to be built, because after World War II all the leading nations started to build up their air forces with jets. It took the Korean War to bring the Twin Mustang into national attention. This war started on June 25, 1950 when the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel. An alert went out to three All Weather Squadrons (AWS) stationed in Japan. The 68th, at Itazuke Air Base, was the first to reply. The 339th AWS at Yokota Air Base and the 4th AWS at Naha Okinawa Air Base each kept just enough Twins to fly their local missions, while the remainder of their squadrons contributed to the war effort. The 4th donated eight F-82s and the 339th sent seven of their aircraft to Itazuke, where they formed the 347th Provisional Fighter Group with Colonel John Sharp as commanding officer.
On the morning of June 26, four of the
68th AWS flew from Itazuke AB to Korea to provide protective aerial cover for the Norwegian freighter Rhineholdt, which was evacuating Allied, civil, and military personnel that had been working in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. That morning, one of the F-82s was fired on by a North Korean aircraft but was unable to pursue it as the F-82 was providing protection for the evacuation. During the evac, F-82s circled the runway at Kimpo while the C-54 transports continued to land to load civilians destined for Japan. On the evening of June 25, Lt. Marvin Olsen (radar observer) and Lt. George Deans (pilot) flew the first accredited combat mission of the Korean War. Their flight was directed against an unknown coming from the north. They identified it as a B-17 flying to its base in Ashiya. After the flight, Lt. Deans commented on the F-82s they were flying: “It was the only twin engine aircraft that had everything. The loss of one engine had nothing to do with power. It climbed well at full load. We could cruise with only one engine. As I can recall, normal long range cruise was 240 knots. One-engine operation would reduce that to 200 knots without any power change: the F-82 lost 40 knots while fuel consumption dropped to 50 percent.”
First Victories
The first kills were made on June 27 as four Twin Mustangs from the 68th AWS orbited above the airport at Kimpo. As 1150 hours approached, the situation rapidly deteriorated. Suddenly five North Korean aircraft (Yaks and La-7s) dropped down out of low cloud cover and attacked the F-82s
THE ENEMY PILOT TRIED EVERYTHING TO SHAKE US, AND WHEN HE REALIZED THAT HE COULD NOT, HE PULLED HIS NOSE STRAIGHT UP INTO THE CLOUD LAYER. BY THIS TIME, IT WAS TOO LATE FOR HIM BECAUSE WE WERE SO CLOSE.
in the formation. Before they could respond, one of the Yaks scored a hit on the vertical stabilizer of Lt. Charles Moran’s aircraft. At the time, Lt. William G. “Skeeter” Hudson made a high-G turn in the direction of the attacking fighters. According to his radar observer, 1st Lt. Carl Fraser, “We turned quickly and before the Yak pilot realized it, we were locked on his six-o’clock position. The enemy pilot tried everything to shake us, and when he realized that he could not, he pulled his nose straight up into the cloud layer. By this time, it was too late for him because we were so close. As we pursued him through the clouds, we were close enough to keep a constant visual. As he broke out of the cloud layer, Lt. Hudson fired a short burst and the impact of all six guns hitting the fragile fighter [caused] pieces of the Yak’s tail and fuselage [to come] flying back at us. At that time, the enemy pilot racked his fighter over in a steep turn to the right with our F-82 following closely. A second burst showered all over his right wing, setting one of his fuel tanks on fire. At the same time, his right flap and aileron flew off, and we were so close that we almost collided. I could clearly see the pilot turn
around in his seat and say something to his rear seat observer. The pilot then pushed the canopy back, stepped out on the wing and again said something to his backseater. It was at this time that I figured he was either unconscious or dead, because he never showed any movement to exit the stricken aircraft. The pilot then pulled his ripcord, and his chute dragged him off the wing as it opened. The shooting had been at a very close range and the altitude would have been below 1,000 feet.
“We made a fast turn to come back around to see where the pilot had landed. There were a large number of [South Korean] troops standing around the pilot. I thought he had surrendered, but later one of the officers said that the downed pilot had started shooting, at which time they returned fire and killed him. Just about the time we were watching our ‘kill’ plunge into the ground, Lt. Charlie Moran was shooting down a North Korean La-7 right over the Kimpo airport. He had been following it for several minutes and either the enemy pilot was not aware that his F-82 was so close or he panicked. Lt. Moran closed the gap and was close enough to get a long burst. The bullets hit around the cockpit area, and the plane dropped [its] nose and hit the ground. Needless to say our altitude was extremely low. The pilot wasn’t able to get out before it hit the ground. About a month later, Lt. Moran disappeared on a strafing mission. They didn’t find his body until the Inchon offensive, when we kicked the North Koreans out of South Korea.”
The third kill of the war was made by
Maj. James W. “Poke” Little, commanding officer of the 339th AWS that had come in with their Twin Mustangs from Johnson AFB in Japan. His kill came at a time when the enemy aircraft were scattered, and most were determined to go back to their bases up north. He came in behind the La-7 with plenty of airspeed and fired a long burst into the fuselage. The enemy aircraft spun out of control and then hit the ground. Also included in this “fur ball” was another element from the 339th AWS: Captain David Trexler and his wingman Lt. Walt Hayhurst. They mixed it up with several Yaks farther away from Kimpo Airfield. Captain Trexler recalls what took place in that very brief
encounter. “My wingman and I attacked one of the Yaks, which immediately broke hard to the left directly into my line of flight. As I closed to about 3,000 feet, I fired a short burst and the enemy fighter then started a hard turn to the right and down. I tracked him perfectly and fired a second burst, causing him to reverse his turn again! I fired a third burst from less than 1,000 feet, and he went into a slow roll left to an inverted position and dropped down into the overcast, nose low at about 425 mph indicated. I immediately pulled up because there were mountains jutting through the clouds. We saw him hit the ground, so we were credited with a probable.” The F-82 likely ended up with more than three kills that day, but proving them was very difficult due to the overcast. Several of the pilots indicated that they know they had scored hits on several of the enemy aircraft, but only three were confirmed!
Defending Japan
Not long after this, the 4th and 339th AWS ended their Korean War obligation and were pulled back to their home base. The 339th was needed there because the Russians were constantly testing the defensive posture of the U.S. Far East Air Force as they would make runs toward Japan out of airbases in and around Vladivostok and Nakhodka. According to 339th AWS C.O. Maj. “Poke” Little, “The Russians were making frequent probes across the strait from Sakhalin into Hokkaido. More than likely, this was the reason the squadron was pulled from combat duties during the war and [brought] back to Johnson AB. The normal requirements for our squadron in this area were two aircrews and aircraft on 10-minute strip alert and another two on 45 minute standby! We could normally catch them far from making landfall and they would trail it out of there if their radar let them know how close we were to intercepting them.”
When topnotch interceptors such as
F-80 Shooting Stars, F-84 Thunderjets, and F-86 Sabres got into the action, the allweather business quieted down to a certain extent. The Twin Mustangs of the 68th
AWS expanded their operations to report weather up along the Yalu River and strafe any ground troop movements in North Korea. By November 1950, the Chinese had committed a large amount of troops in the conflict and at the time there was a massive number of them in North Korea. The first
HE CAME IN BEHIND THE LA-7 WITH PLENTY OF AIRSPEED AND FIRED A LONG BURST INTO THE FUSELAGE. THE ENEMY AIRCRAFT SPUN OUT OF CONTROL ...
major F-82 close air support happened at the end of August. On the night of August 1950, two F-82s were over the North encountering extremely adverse weather. The base of the clouds was at 1,000 feet, which made the approach to the target area hazardous.
The flight of the ’82s was led by Capt. Hudson and Lt. Fraser.. Riding as their wingman was Lt. George B. Boughton and his observer, Master Sgt. M.T. Griffin. Darkness was settling in as they snaked their way up the Naktong River. Suddenly they received an urgent request for immediate fighter support from a hardpressed ground unit. Lt. Hudson says these pockets of friendly troops were under attack and pinned down by heavy concentration of enemy mortar fire that overlooked their position. The F-82s target was going to be Hill 409.
On reaching Hill 409, the weather was still bad, and the crew stated that it was hard to see the ground even at a very low altitude. They had to go lower since their mission required them to strafe targets on the ground. Several passes were made to enable the ground controller to accurately direct fire from the F-82s. As soon as the target was pinpointed, the two aircraft began their relentless attack. Both aircraft pounded the deeply entrenched positions with four 500-pound general purpose bombs, 20 five-inch rockets, and multiple rounds of .50-caliber machine gun ammunition. The machine guns wreaked the most havoc as the enemy ground forces had very few places to hide. After the 45-minute attack, the heavy mortar barrage was neutralized. As the ground troops moved up their position, they found 300 dead bodies of the resisting enemy forces on Hill 409. Once again the Twin Mustangs had done the job with a wide array of ordnance.
A few days after this mission, two other F-82s had a strike mission planned against several unidentified and camouflaged objects in the immediate vicinity of Sinban-ni. The element was led by 1st Lt. Ranald T. Adams. Upon arriving in the target area both aircraft were assigned to work under the direction of an airborne controller, who pinpointed the targets hidden beneath some trees. Both pilots located the hidden targets and streaked in for the kill. The first two objects, believed to be trucks, were strafed and then rocketed. Both pilots concentrated on the third target, and after it was hit by a burst of machinegun fire, the target exploded in a mass of orange flames and dense smoke. Lt. Adams stated, “Flying debris literally engulfed us, and we pulled up off the target, the smoke swirled up a couple hundred feet. I really liked that mission because it is always a feeling of satisfaction to know you’ve really clobbered something, and there could be no doubt about it that time. We made several more passes and hit all targets, leaving the last two in flames, but I didn’t get the same ‘bang’ out of these two.”
In late 1951, the 68th AWS was still putting a lot of its aircraft in action over the North. While most were weather recon, they were
WE LOOKED UP AND HERE WAS THIS FLAK EVERYWHERE. IT WAS LIKE YOU WERE FLYING IN MOLASSES. EVERYTHING WE DID, IT STAYED RIGHT WITH US AND MATTER WHAT YOU DID YOU COULD NOT ESCAPE.
still used for a lot of close air support. 1st
Lt. Fraser recalls a train attack they made during that period. “We went up real early one morning after the Chinese New Year offensive. The hordes of Chinese were winning at that time and they drove us out of Kimpo again. We arrived much earlier than usual, as our fighters usually didn’t hit that area until about 9 a.m. and usually everybody was hiding by then. They would take trains and hide them in the various tunnels so you couldn’t find them. They would blow the boilers to get the steam and just sit in there during the daylight hours, and then bring them back out after it turned dark. So this time, we went there before sunrise and caught one guy backing his locomotive into the freight yards at Seoul. We shot him up and then flew along the rail tracks toward Pyongyang. We found an ammunition train racing along the tracks trying to get to a tunnel in time.
“We came right down the tracks headlong and hit it with two 5-inch rockets—right in the engine, which stopped the entire train— and then strafed back and forth until all the cars were engulfed in flames. In movie film you’ll see the freight cars burning and the fire on the left hand side of the film, which is right over a big canyon area. There was a railway bridge going across that, and the train burned right through the bridge and knocked out the railroad line for about four months. And while we were shooting that train up, we went around the corner and found a troop train hiding in the tunnel. We set up a traffic pattern, firing at the train, [then] going around the corner and firing at the other. There was a soldier firing at us so we strafed him also. We would fire rockets into the tunnel and ended up blowing up that engine!
“We found a fourth train farther up the line and it turned out to be a setup. The North Koreans had a radio controlled battery there. While we were strafing the train, they were strafing us! We looked up and here was this flak everywhere. It was the first time I had witnessed this type of flak here. It was like you were flying in molasses. Everything we did, it stayed right with us and matter what you did you could not escape. The only way you could avoid it was to fly far enough away to be out of range. Suddenly, I heard a loud thump and thought for a moment we had been hit. I also heard a loud popping sound, but I think it was just the shock wave for the bullets passing by us! When we landed back at our base, we found only one hole in the tail and that was when we figured out how lucky we had been.”
Mission Accomplished
The F-82 was still a useful weapon, despite the fact that the three major jet fighters had done most the work of close air support over North Korea and weather recon up on the Yalu. The jets had also started doing alert time on the strips at Suwon and Taegu, which meant they would be the first to intercept any aircraft coming down from the north in bad weather. Eventually the Lockheed F-94 Starfire would have enough clout, and this finished the F-82’s combat time in Korea. The Suwon commitment was officially discontinued on March 23, 1951. Squadron records show that the remaining F-82s were ferried over to Kisarazu, Japan during that month, with the last one flying out on March 28. Quite a few of these aircraft ended up being shipped to Alaska for all-weather duty. From there they disappeared into oblivion, only remembered by the crews that had flown and serviced them.