F	For those of you who are interested in the F-84, I have found remnants of the history of that airplane from several sources and put together some of the history and highlights of the F-84 in Korea.  If you would like a copy by Email, please send me your Email address.

The picture above was the work horse fighter bomber of the Korean War.  This was MY airplane.  It was quite a thrill to have achieved enough seniority to have an F-84 with your name printed under the cockpit. This is a Republic F-84G-26-RE Serial number 51-10447.  It is shown on the perforated steel planking finger (parking ramp) at K-2 Airbase, Taegu, Korea, in June of 1953.  It is loaded for combat with two 1,000# general purpose  bombs with box fins.  Box fins were primarily for bombs carried in the bomb bay inside a large bomber but conical fins streamlined for fighters were in very short supply at the time.  Most of these bombs had been in storage in Okinawa since the close of WWII.  The three yellow bands on the nose denote the type of explosive material inside.  There were three types, TNT, Comp B, and Tretinol.  I don't remember which type the three bands denoted.  I recall that Comp B bombs were the most unstable and were never used for skip bombing.  There are four .50 machine guns in the nose and one in each wing root.  Total fuel capacity was 903 gallons.  Four Hundred Sixty more gallons could be carried by adding two tanks to the bomb racks.

There are very few F-84G aircraft on display anywhere today.  The G model can be distinguished from the earlier B, C, D and E models by the "suck-in" plenum chamber doors on the side of the fuselage (below the two 4's) and the reinforcement  straps on the canopy and the perforated dive brake shown extended between the two bombs.  The F model had swept back wings and was not available for Korean combat.  The G model was the first production model fighter capable of in-flight refueling from the boom-type tankers used by the Strategic Air Command.  The G was probably originally designed as a long range bomber escort fighter for SAC but diverted to the Korean War.  SAC maintained F-84G's at Bergstrom AFB, Austin, TX; Turner AFB, Albany, GA; and Dow AFB, Bangor, ME during the Korean Conflict and afterward at Great Falls, MT.  Although the G, which was the first fighter that could be re-fueled from tankers with the flying boom, there were none available to us in Korea.  General LeMay kept them for SAC.  In Japan F-84's at Misawa, Chitose and Komaki had tip tanks that had been modified with the probe that could be refueled from the drogue system used by the B-29 and B-50.  This was a poor system tried earlier in the Korean War but not used for combat in 1953.  You can imagine the problem of trying to fly a heavy fighter with 1,500 pound of fuel in one tip tank at the slow speed of 200 mph for the fighter which was about the top speed for the B-29/B-50 tanker.  Trying to stab the probe into the drogue funnel was not an easy task and very time and fuel consuming.

The G model had an Allison axial flow turbojet engine of 5,600 pounds of thrust.  The designation was the J-35-A-29 which was one of the most dependable of the J-35 series.  Earlier models in the B, C, D and E aircraft were often referred to as Allison "Time Bombs" due to internal bearing failures.  Our Dash 29 engines performed well under the worst of circumstances.  The PSP ramps and taxiways at K-2 were always either dusty or muddy and the airplanes were nearly always loaded to maximum gross weight on take-off.  Combat flying required use of maximum power quite often.

The Blue and White Chevron tail markings mean this airplane was assigned to the 428th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 474th Fighter Bomber Group at K-2 in 1953.  Several months after the war ended, most of these airplanes were returned by aircraft carrier to Mobile, AL, flown to Warner-Robbins AFB, GA for modification for NATO countries and then ferried to Europe.  I thought my airplane (51-10447) probably went to one of the NATO countries as I ferried 51-10448 (my squadron CO's airplane) to Eskesheir, Turkey in July, 1955.  However, after many years of looking for records on 447 I found that it was shipped to McClellan AFB, CA and from there to the Dallas NAS, TX for static display.  Although not confirmed, a member of the Texas Air National Guard stationed at the Dallas NAS said he thought 447 was hooked to a tug very late one Sunday night and tugged down the streets all the way to the SMU campus in Dallas where it was displayed and later salvaged during the Vietnam War. There is one on static display at Hill AFB, Utah and at the joint use civilian and Air National Guard airport at Springfield, OH.  There are numerous F-84G's in museums in Europe..  For it's day and it's mission as a fighter bomber, it was an excellent airplane that received far less credit for the work performed than the F-86 which was a faster and more maneuverable fighter but with shorter range. To the best of my knowledge, the F-84 flew more USAF combat sorties in Korea than any other aircraft.

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