Fixed Wing Fighters In The Korean War

Fixed Wing Fighters in the Korean War

Introduction

Korea is often called “The Land of the Morning Calm” because of its beautiful green mountains and picturesque scenery. During the Korean War where north and south were pitted against each other, any type of morning clam was unlikely to be found. The Korean Peninsula was engulfed in war under the guise of north versus south with the real combatants being the United States against Russia and China particularly in the air. The air war was a proxy war where superpowers fielded and tested new emerging technologies, tactics, and airplanes. The Korean War was the beginning of the Jet Age, and everything had changed.

Air War during the invasion

When North Korea invaded South Korea on Sunday 25 June

The new conflict in Korea meant the planes were pulled out of storage and shipped to Asia on an aircraft carrier. USAF Pilots that had flown their last flight in the Mustang less than a year earlier were back in the cockpit. Other Mustangs went from storage into the hands of the ROKAF, and found themselves being flown in battle about a week after arriving. Originally a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft, the P-51 Mustang became the F-51 Mustang when the USAF changed the naming convention from pursuit (P) to fighter (F) on June 11th, 1948 (Robertson, Brown, & Heyn, 1961). The F-51 was a more robust aircraft than the new jets, and was able to be based in the austere conditions of Korea. The Air Force’s first jet, the F-80 Shooting Star was initially brought into the Korean Theater, but it didn’t take long to have some of its duties replaced by the trustworthy Mustang. The F-51 could not only takeoff from airfields unsuitable for the Shooting Star, but had a longer range that provided more station time at the fight. Long range escort missions are where the Mustang shined in the previous war. American pilots felt right at home in the Mustang, and were able to defeat all of the initial NKAF piston engine prop fighters. Once the Chinese and Soviet Union started supplying North Korea with The MiG-15, the venerable Mustang

The pilots had to learn to fly and fight with a whole new type of engine technology. The jet fighter was tested, refined, and proven. Propeller driven airplanes could no longer compete in a battlespace where the airspeeds are nearing or exceeding the speed of sound. New tactics had to be developed to stay alive in a new style of dogfighting, against an ever-changing enemy. The USAF was newly formed, and not equipped or ready to participate in a war, that few nations believed would draw in world powers. The people of The United States were recovering from WWII, and reluctantly found themselves at it again. The United States Military answered the call and went to war again to stop the communist forces from taking over South Korea; a similar situation would be seen again ten years later in Vietnam. Even though the North Korean Army wasn’t defeated, the armistice brought the fighting to an end and we have had a fragile peace on the Korean Peninsula ever