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Pictures from Korea 1953

There was an anti-aircraft gunner next to our target who hit me on the first shot he fired as shown in the pictures below.  I was #22 in a flight of 24 F-84's bombing the Chasan Dam up north close to the Yalu River.  The gunner wisely waited until the last flight to start shooting or else a previous flight would have diverted their bombs to his gun location.  The F-84G was a tough airplane able to take considerable battle damage like it's forerunner in WWII, the P-47.  Fortunately, none of the vital parts of the engine or cockpit were not hit so I flew out to the ocean and stayed over water where I had a better chance of getting picked up if I had to eject.  Luckily, there were no Migs in the area or I would have been an easy target. 

I landed at K-13 Suwon, an F-86 base just south of Seoul where I left it on May 16, 1953.

History books later stated that our bombing and destruction of the Chasan and Taksan Dams that provided much needed irrigation water to the North Korean rice fields was a major turning point of the war.  The book states that North Korea was supplying rice to China which was in a drought and without the rice, China then decided not to continue supplying men and material to continue the war so it came to a truce on July 27, 1953.

The above picture was what I could see of the left wing from the cockpit.

This is what the damage looked like from behind.  Most of the damage was to the left aileron.

Above are five fearless fighter pilots of the 428th Fighter Bomber Squadron at K-2 Air Base, Taegu, Korea in the spring/summer of 1953.  From left to right: Roy Henry, Bill Pogue, Whitey Driessnack, Pete Pierce and Randy Presley.  Bill Pogue became as astronaut spending 88 days in space on Skylab III.  Pete died December 1, 1998 of emphysema.

Pictured above are three of the five fearless fighter pilots 43 years later at the 1996 San Antonio Reunion of Pilot Class 52-G.  Left to Right: Randy Presley, Whitey Driessnack, Roy Henry, and Glenn Beard who was in the 430th FBS next door at K-2.  Until spring 2004 Randy was a corporate pilot.  Whitey is a retired Lt. General USAF.  Roy retired from selling real estate.  Glenn is partially retired from insurance and still active in aviation as an investor in multiple fixed base operations.