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Korea 1953

After graduation from flying school most of us going to Korea in fighters went to either Luke AFB for F-84 training or Nellis AFB for F-86 training. This took about 10 weeks and introduced us to a fast single seated jet fighter. The early F-84's were being used for training at Luke. During my 10 weeks there we had 10 fatalities. Most were older B and C models but, fortunately for me, I was one of the few to be assigned to the one squadron that had F-84G which was what we had in Korea and it was a good airplane with a good engine. Some members of my flying school class went to Pinecastle AFB and flew the F-80 but went to combat in either the F-84 or F-86.

Then in early March 1953 it was good-by to wives, parents, and girl friends and off to Camp Stoneman outside San Francisco. I departed California on a Pan Am chartered DC-4 in March of 1953 with most of the passengers being a USO troupe from Los Angeles. In fact, one of the passengers on my plane was Kathy Grandstaff from Robstown, TX (screen name Kathy Grant) who became well known in later years as Mrs. Bing Crosby. It was 12 hours to Hawaii for a fuel stop, 12 more to Wake Island for more fuel and 12 more to Tokyo - a long, long ride.

After spending several days in a former Japanese prison called Fuchu which was used as a re-assignment base, I went to K-2 at Taegu, Korea, and to the 7th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 49th Fighter Bomber Group. For reasons known only to the brass in the Pentagon, several weeks later we were changed to the 428th FBS, 474th FBG. It was here I stayed from March until November 1953. I flew 55 combat missions before the shooting stopped on July 27, 1953 and thought I would come home soon but didn't make it until December 23, 1953.

Our mission was fighter bomber work and not chasing Migs. Our targets were almost any daylight target of any military significance between the 38th parallel and the Yalu River with many missions flown in close support of ground troops. The enemy found it hard to move men or materials during daytime without having us overhead. It was a great flying experience but it was the first of the wars that we have been fighting without a clear goal to win. The pictures that follow were made in Korea and Japan in 1953 and will change from time to time.

We lived in old stucco barracks outside Taegu near the Naktong River. This was one big open building with diesel fuel stoves for heat. We slept on cots and lived out of our B-4 bags until we traded some sailors a quantity of combat whiskey for plywood from a run-aground LST off the east coast. We built whatever we could for a place to hang clothes. Latrine facilities were in a separate building and pretty crude by present day standards. The Koreans were good at painting the typical GI cap I'm wearing with our squadron colors and insignia. This was not exactly Waikiki Beach!

K-2 Airbase at Taegu, S. Korea, was the largest F-84 base in south central S. Korea. We had two groups of three squadrons of 27 airplanes each. On max group effort days the sight and sound of 72 F-84's taking off at once was awesome. The runway was a new 9,000 foot concrete runway. The old runway became our taxiway and parking area were all perforated steel planking. Our major maintenance was done at Itazuke AFB, Fukuoka, Japan, which was just across the straits from Pusan. It was a welcome change to take a plane to the shop, sleep in a good bed and eat some good food at the Officers Club before returning to Korea.

Except for very bad weather our F-84's were in the air nearly every day. If we couldn't bomb or strafe visually we made radar bomb drops down through the clouds close behind the front lines in support of the ground troops. The Communist military were excellent with camouflage. They ran their supply trucks at night and hid them during the day. We would blow up a bridge during the day and they would have it fixed by night. The F-84's received credit in historical records of finally bringing the North Koreans to the truce table to do some serious talk about ending the war after we started bombing dams on irrigation lakes that provided water for their rice crops. My 7th combat mission on May 16, 1953 was to the Chasan Lake, one of the lakes mentioned above. The enemy had finally wised up and moved an anti-aircraft gun near the dam and hit me in the left wing but the F-84 stayed together and got me back to a forward air base. Pictures of the damage are shown on other pages of this web site.

Today the old K-2 airbase at Taegu is the largest Republic of Korea Air Force Base where old F-4 Phantoms are stationed as of 2001. There are now longer parallel runways. It also is a joint use civilian airport. Bob Voss, who started in flying school with me at Bainbridge and went all the way with me to K-2, and I made a nostalgic two man trip back to Korea on September 3, 2001. We rented a car in Seoul and drove through the countryside to Taegu where we were given a grand tour of the base by the small USAF detachment based there. We recognized nothing but the runway. They keep planes on alert all the time. All of the hangars are hardened concrete buildings and all operations are underground. The base is beautiful with trees everywhere, the air smells good, and the water from the faucet is OK to drink. The most amazing thing about the whole trip was the fact that we saw not one single building anywhere in Korea that was over 48 years old! In 1953 there were no trees anywhere and today the country is beautifully wooded. Then the Korean farmers fertilized their crops with human waste and the air had that odor everywhere you went. Today the farming is modern using commercial fertilizers. There were almost no paved roads in 1953 and today their freeways are excellent. This is probably the most dramatically changed country anywhere since the end of WWII. The Korean War Museum in Seoul is excellent. There are bronze plaques lining the halls listing the name of every military person both South Korean and NATO countries who was killed during the war. Every Korean that we talked to expressed their gratitude for what the United States did to save them from Communism during the three year war which ended on July 27, 1953.

In 2001 the only two USAF bases in Korea are at Osan (we knew it as K-55) and Kunsan (we knew it as K-8). One of the F-86 fighter interceptor bases was Kimpo (K-14) which is now the International Airport at Seoul. It is still open as a domestic flight airport. A new, huge new international airport at Incheon opened in the summer of 2001. Suwon (K-13) housed both a fighter interceptor and fighter bomber group of F-86's. I'm not sure if it still exists. Osan (K-55) was new in 1953 and housed a F-86 fighter bomber group. At Pusan were two bases used by B-26's as well as K-8 which had B-26's. Each base had smaller units of other aircraft such as photo reconnaissance and other support missions. The B-29's flew out of Kadena AFB in Okinawa or Yokota AFB near Tokyo. F-94's flew night missions from Itazuke AFB, Japan. Support from the U. S. Navy, U. S. Marines, and the Royal Navy came from carrier groups off the East and West coasts. There was one squadron of South African pilots and one from Australia there during the ward. Our Forward Air Controllers, known then as Mosquitoes, flew the North American T-6 carrying white phosphorus rockets to mark targets which were close to friendly lines. They flew off of old air strips and dirt roads.