Holding the Line: The Naval Air Campaign In Korea

Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword by Dr. Richard P. Hallion

Introduction

Chapter 1:   Climb Angels Two-Five – Buster!

Chapter 2:   The Revolt of the Admirals

Chapter 3:   Forging a New Sword

Chapter 4:   Naval Aviation Saves Itself

Chapter 5:   Defeat Looms

Chapter 6:   Inchon

Chapter 7:   A Whole New War

Chapter 8:   Disaster

Chapter 9:   Holding the Line

Chapter 10: The Battle of Carlson’s Canyon and the Hwachon Dam

Chapter 11: Weekend Warriors

Chapter 12: Operation Strangle

Chapter 13: Death Valley

Chapter 14: Who Owns the Night?

Chapter 15: The Cherokee

Chapter 16: The West Coast

Chapter 17: The Marine War

Chapter 18: The End in Sight

Chapter 19: The War Assessed

Bibliography

Plates

List of Illustrations

FJ-1 Fury aboard USS Boxer in 1948.

Convair B-36 intercontinental bomber.

Jesse L. Brown, Jr., the US Navy’s first African-American naval aviator.

Lockheed P2V-3 Neptune on takeoff from USS Midway.

FJ-1 Furies aboard USS Princeton in 1949.

Ryan FR-1 Fireball fighter.

McDonnell F2H-2P Banshee.

HMS Triumph and her air group in 1950.

Royal Navy Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 that operated from HMAS Sydney.

F9F-3 Panthers aboard USS Valley Forge, 1950.

VA-195 AD-3 Skyraider aboard USS Princeton, c.1950.

USS Juneau replenishing at Sasebo, summer 1950.

F9F-2 Panther aboard USS Philippine Sea, July 4, 1950.

F9F-2 prepares to launch from USS Valley Forge, July 19, 1950.

Il-10 abandoned at Kimpo airfield, September 1950.

F4U-4B overflying US ships at Inchon, Korea, September 15, 1950.

Ed Jackson landing aboard USS Philippine Sea on September 17, 1950.

USS Valley Forge and USS Leyte at Sasebo, October 1950.

F4U-4 Corsair crashes off Valley Forge, October 22, 1950.

AD-3 Skyraider armed with two 1,000lb bombs and eight 100lb fragmentation bombs.

Bombs explode around the Sinuiju bridge, November 1950.

North Korean train strafed and bombed by Navy fliers.

VMF(N)-513 plane, November 2, 1950.

VF-31 pilots aboard USS Leyte belting cannon shells, November 7, 1950.

USS Valley Forge prepares to depart San Diego, December 1950.

Douglas AD-4 Skyraider crashlands on USS Philippine Sea, December 12, 1950.

Sikorsky HO3S-1 Horse, December 13, 1950.

USS Missouri fires a broadside, December 26, 1950.

VMF-323 Corsairs of USS Sicily during the Pusan Perimeter fighting.

Modified AD-4Q Skyraider aboard USS Essex, 1951.

AD-2 Skyraiders bomb a rail target in North Korea, 1951.

Downed bridge in Carlson’s Canyon, March 1951.

VA-195 Skyraider with aerial torpedo, April 1951.

Lt(jg) Ed Phillips of VA-195, April 1951.

Hwachon Dam struck by VA-195, May 1, 1951.

AD-4 Skyraider landing aboard USS Bon Homme Richard, July 3, 1951.

F9F-2 Panthers from USS Boxer over North Korea, July 15, 1951.

F9F-2B and F9F-2P return to USS Boxer, August 6, 1951.

USS Essex on fire off Korea, September 1951.

F4U-4 Corsairs over USS Boxer, September 4, 1951.

Ordnancemen on USS Bon Homme Richard fuse bombs, November 10, 1951.

F4U-4 Corsair ready for catapult launch from USS Bataan.

Two F9F-2 jets from USS Essex over Korea in 1951–52.

USS Buck, USS Missouri and USS St. Paul off the coast of Korea, 1952.

Snowy weather aboard USS Essex, January 18, 1952.

Neil A. Armstrong in his USNR uniform, May 23, 1952.

USS Barton with USS Philippine Sea and USS Missouri, July 1, 1952.

F6F-5K drone and its AD-4 Skyraider control aircraft aboard USS Boxer, August 1952.

AJ-1 Savage attack plane aboard USS Oriskany, August 29, 1952.

1st Marine Air Wing planes assault hill positions, October 1, 1952.

Four Banshees fly over USS Kearsarge, October 29, 1952.

Grumman F9F-2 Panther bombs a bridge, November 1952.

Ordnancemen load bombs on an AD-4 Skyraider, November 25, 1952.

Two F2H-2 Banshees over North Korea, January 5, 1953.

Snowy flight deck of USS Oriskany, January 10, 1953.

USS Philippine Sea, May 1953.

Skyraiders of VF-194 aboard USS Boxer, June 1, 1953.

Guy P. Bordelon.

USS Valley Forge underway in 1950.

Foreword

It is now almost seven decades since North Korean troops attacked South Korea in the summer of 1950. Since that time, numerous changes have taken place both in Asia and in the global strategic environment. The Cold War, the defining construct for American foreign policy from 1948 through 1989, is over: today’s young Americans have no personal memory of it, no recollection of the constant threat of global superpower nuclear exchanges; no recollection of duck and cover drills; no recollection of weekly siren and emergency radio tests; no recollection of a Europe divided into free and captive camps, and a Berlin split by a grim gray wall with watchtowers and border guards all too ready to shoot those trying to flee the faux workers’ paradise that was East Germany; and no recollection of proxy wars around the globe driven by the clash of Communist and non-Communist ideologies. Communism itself has largely died, with even those countries still paying homage to it led more by centralized self-serving dictatorial bureaucrats seeking their market share of the world’s wealth than Marxist true believers concerned over the fuzzily defined and ever-shifting proletariat. Indeed, arguably there are more sincerely committed ideologues extolling Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. wandering about on American and European university campuses than in the real world realpolitik of Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, the People’s Republic of China, etc.

It is well that Thomas Cleaver, a noted military and aviation historian, has turned his formidable skills to examining one of the most important of these wars, that fought in Korea from the mid-summer of 1950 to the mid-summer of 1953. Known for decades as The Forgotten War, sand­wiched between the Second World War that preceded it and the Vietnam War—more properly the Southeast Asian War—that followed, Korea has now achieved a degree of historical appreciation that it lacked for decades, thanks to a variety of historians, and the Federally sponsored Korean War commemoration of 2000–03 that focused much-needed attention upon it.

Still, the war itself is not as well appreciated as it should be, particularly regarding how air power functioned. Altogether, over the length of the Korean War, UN coalition airmen flew approximately 1.17 million sorties, of which 1 million were flown by American airmen. Of these, nearly 668,000 were combat sorties, over 392,000 flown by the US Air Force, and nearly 276,000 flown by the Navy and Marine Corps. Navy and Marine aviators flew 41 percent of all combat sorties, including nearly 127,000 of all interdiction sorties, almost 66,000 of all close air support sorties, nearly 45,000 of all counter-air sorties, nearly 27,000 of all reconnaissance sorties, and nearly 12,000 of all maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare missions. It is a record that, given the state of naval aviation technology and the capabilities of aircraft carriers of the time, still impresses those who study it.

But mere numbers do not convey the heroism, dedication, resolve, and tenacity of those who flew and fought over Korea’s blue-grey hills and rocky coasts. After the war, former UN commander General Matthew Ridgway stated, Not only did air power save us from disaster, but without it the mission of the United Nations forces could not have been accomplished. Indeed: but it came at the price of hundreds of airmen killed, wounded, captured, and brutalized. But because of them, and all those who fought on land, sea, and in the air, South Korea was saved, and afforded the chance to become what it is today: an immensely successful nation with a highly educated and influential populace. Today, from orbit, one looks down at night on a dark world, with the world’s successful nations clearly illuminated and outlined by lights, a measure of their prosperity and development. In contrast to these, North Korea is black, undeveloped, desolate, so much so that, looking from space, it seems that South Korea is a large island off by itself, separated from the Asian mainland. The naval and Marine airmen who flew and fought and too frequently died to preserve South Korea made that picture possible: a golden legacy for those who wore golden wings.

Dr. Richard P. Hallion

Shalimar, FL

September 2018

Introduction

The Korean War is largely forgotten today. Indeed, it has been known for at least the past 60 years as The Forgotten War. Critics have called it the first war America didn’t win, and conservatives have pointed to it as having been lost due to political interference that prevented the military from taking the necessary steps to assure victory. Douglas MacArthur, who lost his command over this argument with the civilian authorities, lamented that there is no substitute for victory, and the refrain has been heard ever since as the General Douglas MacArthur Foundation has dedicated itself to proving that the great man was right about everything.

At the time of the war itself, the civilian and military leadership of the United States were surprised that the war had broken out in such a surprising place at such a surprising time. The Truman administration, seeking political efficiency in a moment of conflict with the other party in Congress, failed to take up the Republican offer in the days immediately after the war’s outbreak to pass a formal declaration of war, opting instead to claim they were merely carrying out the directives of the United Nations Security Council. When pressed by reporters to define exactly what was happening on the Korean peninsula, President Truman agreed that it could be described as a police action, and there it remained for the next three years. Politically, this would change the way the United States has fought its wars ever since.

The United States was caught unawares by the war, at a time when the country’s military forces had been cut to the bone in the mistaken belief that any future war could be avoided by waving the big stick of the atomic bomb at any possible enemy. The United States Navy, which had won the greatest naval war in history a mere five years before, was a shadow of that victorious force, under assault by the newly independent Air Force as being irrelevant to future warfare, while that service attempted to subsume all aviation activities under its own control. At the same time, the Army made the argument that the Marine Corps, the navy’s army, should more properly be under its control. As the political fight was being made in the halls of Washington, the United States lost its atomic monopoly when the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb in September 1949. This fact would overshadow all others in the coming war.

Within two weeks of the outbreak of war, naval aviation had demonstrated its ability to affect the outcome of battle in a way no land-based air force was capable of, when the Pyongyang strikes on the Fourth of July weekend convinced Stalin to step back from providing formal Soviet military support to the North Korean invaders, assistance that would have virtually guaranteed a North Korean victory by the end of the summer. Eight years to the day after their invasion of Guadalcanal that signaled the rollback of Japanese conquest in the Pacific, the Marines entered the battle in South Korea and provided the military margin that prevented a North Korean victory during the desperate battles of the Pusan Perimeter. Since August 1950, no one has argued against the usefulness of either aircraft carriers or the Marines.

Naval aviation, in the form of Navy squadrons aboard the fleet carriers of Task Force 77 and Marine squadrons aboard escort carriers and also shore-based, provided the decisive edge that prevented complete American disaster in the aftermath of the entry of Chinese volunteers into the war in November 1950. It put a protective umbrella over the 1st Marine Division during the epic withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950, while the US Army experienced what was called at the time the greatest defeat of American arms since the Second Battle of Bull Run, in the words of Secretary of State Dean Acheson. The carriers were crucial to maintaining UN air superiority in the face of Chinese manpower superiority. USS Leyte (CV-32) operated off Korea in the Sea of Japan for a record 93 continuous days from October 15, 1950 to January 23, 1951, providing support to the Marines in their epic retreat out of North Korea, and in attacking the advancing Chinese forces that pushed the UN forces nearly back to the Pusan Perimeter before the advance was contained in mid-January 1951.

In the desperate fighting during the first half of 1951, as United Nations forces struggled to contain the enemy and establish a defensive line on the 38th Parallel that divided North and South Korea, naval aviation again played a crucial role, with such epic events as the dam-busting mission against the Hwachon Reservoir by Skyraiders of VA-176 that saw the last operational use of aerial torpedoes by the Navy. Marine aviators provided the closest of close air support to their brothers on the ground, breaking up Chinese massed attacks that would have otherwise been overwhelming.

By the end of June 1951, the communists realized they would not be successful in their campaign to force a military solution on the peninsula, and the war turned into two years of peace talks that commenced that summer. The negotiations would test the patience of Americans for the next two years, as the war turned into a stalemate along the 38th Parallel.

The two years between July 1951 and July 1953 were described as a long hard slog for naval aviators, as Task Force 77’s carriers and their escorting warships faced Siberian blizzards and winter seas that coated decks with ice, typhoons, and summer monsoons as they fought to hold the line in the Sea of Japan off northeastern North Korea or the Yellow Sea to the west of the Korean peninsula in a hard-fought attempt to slow, if not cut off, communist forces from their Manchurian supply bases. North Korea was not an advanced nation. There were no decisive targets, the destruction of which would bring the enemy to the negotiating table to surrender. Bridges, roads and supply dumps were attacked again and again, as the enemy mounted ever more dangerous defenses. Night operations from the carriers became crucially important in destroying an enemy that only operated in darkness. And each attempt to escalate the damage in the hopes that such would bring the enemy around at the Panmunjom negotiations carried with it the possibility that it would instead bring about the wider war between the United States and the Soviet Union that all were committed to preventing. Frustration ruled all sides during those 24 months. Commander Marshall U. Beebe of Air Group 5, wrote of the war that one of my toughest jobs was the constant battle to keep pilots’ morale up … the war in Korea demanded more competence, courage, and skill from the naval aviator than did World War II. The flying hours were longer, the days on the firing line more, the antiaircraft hazards greater, the weather worse.

All of this was accomplished with a force that was in the midst of technological change. Naval aviation had undergone revolutionary change in the years since World War II, as jet-powered aircraft found their way aboard the carriers. Not until after the war ended would this change find a completely successful fit, since the carriers themselves were not equipped to adequately operate these aircraft safely. Lessons learned during the Korean War would lead to the carrier force that forms the heart of American sea power today.

In the end, Korea finished as a stalemate that has endured for the last 65 years, with the threat of renewed war ebbing and flowing over the decades. Korea seared the consciousness of a generation of American mid-level officers who would rise to command positions when the next Asian war broke out a decade later in Vietnam. The frustrations faced and lessons learned in Korea would be faced again in a limited war that the nation’s political leadership feared would spread to a larger conflict. The same frustrations regarding the use of naval air power can be seen today when a president orders a carrier strike force again to the waters off North Korea.

To my mind, both as an aviation historian and enthusiast, and as a screenwriter, The Bridges At Toko-Ri stands out as the best flying movie ever made about naval aviation and one of the very best war movies. It is based on the excellent novel by James Michener, who wrote it after spending several months at sea with Task Force 77 in 1951–52. Several years ago, I had the opportunity in my role as aviation historian to interview Thomas J. Hudner, Jr., the only carrier-based naval aviator awarded the Medal of Honor in the Korean War. When I asked what it was like flying off the carriers then, he replied, "Did you ever see The Bridges At Toko-Ri? It was exactly like that. When I first saw it as a child, I was shocked because it was the first movie I’d seen in which the heroes died in the end. Later, after I had had my own experience of war, I came to appreciate that it was one of the few war movies that accurately portrays the true nature of heroism in combat: the hero" is a man who doesn’t want to be there and is afraid of the job he has been called on to do, yet does it anyway even in the most difficult circumstances. If the air war in Korea interests you and you have not seen this movie, I urge you to do so.

While virtually no American today knows of the way in which the United States fought the Korean War, during which nearly every building and all the infrastructure in the country was bombed into oblivion and then the rubble was bombed again, these facts are known to every North Korean citizen through the stories of their own surviving relatives, and has thus shaped the troubled political relationship, or lack thereof, between Washington and Pyongyang since the 1953 armistice, with the scars of the past resonating powerfully throughout North Korean society.

This American failure to understand the past has had a major negative effect on American attempts to negotiate with North Korea over that country’s nuclear program. President Trump’s complete failure to bring any understanding of this history to his dealings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatens to ignite a new war in the region with terrible costs.

Americans are unaware that during the three years of the Korean War, the US dropped 635,000 tons of explosives on North Korea, including 32,557 tons of napalm, an incendiary liquid that can clear forested areas and cause devastating burns to human skin. In comparison, the US dropped 503,000 tons of bombs on all targets in the entire Pacific Theater during the three-and-a-half years of World War II. The former commander of the Strategic Air Command, General Curtis LeMay, stated in a 1984 interview that US bombs killed off 20 percent of the population and targeted everything that moved in North Korea. While few Americans are aware of this truth, it has never been forgotten in North Korea.

In the first three months of the war, the US Air Force dropped more bombs on North Korea than were dropped on Japan during the ten months of the B-29 campaign in 1944 and 1945. Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who supported a wider war in Korea, said the United States bombed everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another. During the war, the only part of the Korean air war that became generally known to the American public was the highly publicized aerial jousts between American fighter pilots and their communist opponents in MiG Alley, reported as an ace race. Little mention was made about the carrier strikes or the B-29 carpet-bombing raids that flattened the cities of North Korea and destroyed what industry existed.

Given the possibility of a mistake founded in ignorance reigniting an old war with even more destructive weapons and destruction of place and people, a reexamination of the events of the Korean War is necessary. It is my hope this work contributes to that.

I also want to recognize my friends, former VC-3 pilot Rear Admiral Don Shelton, one of the founders of night and all-weather naval aviation, and MiG-killer Captain E. Royce Williams, Jr., the only pilot to shoot down four MiG-15s in one fight, for their support of this work and for sharing their experiences of the war. Also Colonel Ross Mickey for his memories, only months before his death at 100 years of age, of how the F9F Panther was created and of combat at night over North Korea in the F3D Skyknight he also had a hand in developing. My friend, Ed Jennings, who served in VA-176 during their epic deployment aboard USS Princeton in 1950–51 and was the last Naval Aviator to drop an aerial torpedo in combat, took the time to describe in detail the attack on the Hwachon Dam. Corky Meyer’s stories of his flying adventures I heard over the years I was fortunate to be his friend, also provided perspective to how naval aviation changed at this important time. These are voices that have not been heard before in other histories of this war.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Los Angeles, 2018

Chapter 1

Climb Angels Two-Five – Buster!

The cloud cover was 500 feet above the freezing Sea of Japan on November 18, 1952. Visibility was estimated at two miles in blowing snow as a Siberian blizzard howled over the pitching, rolling ships of Task Force 77. The weather in the Sea of Japan had been marginal throughout the month of November, with flight operations canceled on six of the previous 18 days. The fleet was far north of its usual operating position in the Sea of Japan off the east coast of Korea above the Main Line of Resistance, where the carrier air groups had responsibility for the interdiction of enemy movements and resupply over northeastern North Korean supply lines and storage areas, destruction of enemy troops, and air support of naval gunfire.

Seventh Fleet commander Vice Admiral J. J. Jocko Clark, one of the most aggressive senior admirals in the Navy, had pushed for the opportunity to attack the North Korean port of Hoeryong at the mouth of the Tumen River since taking command of the naval forces the previous May. With the exception of a limited strike in September, the admiral had run into opposition from his superiors with every request for further action, due to the fact that Vladivostok, the main Soviet naval base in the Pacific, was only some 15 miles distant. Ever since the summer of 1951, the main goal of United Nations and American strategy in the war was to keep it confined to Korea and end the war on the conditions that had existed prior to the outbreak of war on June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces invaded South Korea.

The possible chance of an international incident between US and Soviet military units was high. Protracted failure in the peace negotiations at Panmunjom had finally led to approval by top commander General Mark Clark of a strike against Hoeryong, in hopes that this operation might be the one to provide the tipping point that would bring Chinese and North Korean representatives back to the negotiating table and bring an end to the war.

Task Force 77’s three aircraft carriers, USS Oriskany (CVA-34), Kearsarge (CVA-33) and Bonhomme Richard (CVA-31), commanded by Carrier Division One’s Rear Admiral H. E. Regan as Commander Task Force 77, and their escorting ships were some 83 miles south of Vladivostok, 45 miles east of the North Korean port of Chongjin, where they had taken position the day before. Seventh Fleet commander Clark was present aboard the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63). Maximum-effort strikes had been flown on November 17 against Chongjin and the supply center at Kilchu, with strikes flown against Hoeryong the morning of November 18. The Hoeryong mission was difficult, since the aircraft could only approach their targets in the port by circling around the city to the south and then to the west, to attack on an easterly heading, staying just south of the river, so they would exit their bomb runs heading away from Vladivostok in an effort to ensure they stayed out of neutral Soviet airspace. As they made their attacks, the pilots could see the silver MiG-15 fighters on the runway of the Vladivostok air base, and several reported seeing Soviet jets airborne over Soviet territory.

The pilots of the task force were unaware that the heavy cruiser USS Helena (CA-75) was host to a special team of Russian linguists of the new and then-unknown National Security Agency. Their task was to monitor Soviet radio broadcasts, to provide warning of any Soviet response to the American air strikes. At 1340 hours, the linguists in Helena’s radio room intercepted conversations between Soviet ground controllers and a group of Soviet Navy MiG-15s that had just taken off. A minute later, Helena’s radar picked up seven bogies climbing through 12,000 feet on a southerly heading. Word was passed to the carriers. Radio warnings went out to the pilots of the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) in their F9F Panthers patrolling above the clouds over the fleet.

Oriskany’s Air Group 102, which a year before had been the second reserve air group to see action in Korea and was now a regular fleet air group, drew the assignment of launching a supplemental CAP, since their jet fighter squadron, VF-781 Pacemakers, was the first Navy fighter squadron in Korea equipped with the new F9F-5 Panther. Combat by pilots of F9F-2 Panthers against MiG-15s flown by Russian volunteers on this same date two years before had revealed that the Navy jet was outperformed in all ways by the Soviet fighter; only the superior training of the Navy pilots had given them any chance against their opponents. While the F9F-5 utilized the Pratt & Whitney J-48, an engine based on the British Tay, which was a more powerful version of the Nene that powered the F9F-2 in its Americanized version as the J-42, this increase in power did not bring the first generation Panther into a competitive position vis-a-vis the second generation MiG-15. Still, every little bit might help in investigating what the Soviets were up to.

Lieutenant Claire Elwood was assigned as division leader with Lt (jg) John Middleton as wingman. Lieutenant E. Royce Williams, Jr., was assigned as section leader with Lt (jg) Dave Rowlands as his wingman. Williams remembered that:

None of us had ever flown together before. When the captain of the Oriskany decided to launch an extra Combat Air Patrol, our squadron commander gave it to the four of us because for various reasons we hadn’t been able to fly a lot recently. I hadn’t flown a mission in ten days after catching a cold until I went on the first strike against Hoeryong that morning.

At 1350 hours, the flight deck crews began maneuvering the four Panthers across the icy deck into position for launch. Elwood and Middleton were positioned first, with their airplanes attached to the hydraulic catapults that would fling them into the air with just enough speed to stay airborne. In response to directions from the launch officer, the two pilots advanced their throttles to full power and stood on their brakes. The launch officer watched the pitching deck and gave the launch signal as the bow reached maximum down angle and began to rise. The two dark blue jets were catapulted in quick succession, going into the air at the maximum up angle and still dipping low over the gray seas as they tucked in their gear and started to climb. Back on deck, Williams and Rowlands moved into position and soon followed Elwood and Middleton into the dark, stormy sky.

The four jets were quickly swallowed in the clouds as the pilots contended with snow flurries and did their best to maintain close enough formation to keep visual separation on each other without colliding. The Fighter Direction Officer’s (FDO) voice crackled in their headphones: Climb Angels Two-Five. Buster! Noses high, the Panthers climbed under maximum power at 5,000 feet per minute. The FDO passed the information that the bogies were now 83 miles north, inbound.

After several minutes in the clouds, the sky brightened above. Suddenly, the Panthers popped out of the clouds into a clear deep blue sky at 12,000 feet. They continued their climb. As they passed through 16,000 feet, Williams spotted seven contrails far above, at 40,000 feet or more, and called the bogies. A moment later, his sharp eyes caught the sun flash on the shiny swept-wing MiG-15s flying abreast each other, each wearing the red star of the Soviet Union on their flank as contrails spread behind them. I flipped on my gunsight and fired a burst to test my guns, he recalled. At that moment, division leader Elwood reported his fuel pump warning light had come on. The FDO directed him to break off and report overhead Oriskany. Elwood passed lead to Williams as he and his wingman Middleton turned away and dived toward the clouds.

We were just going through 26,000 feet when the Russians split up and dove out of the contrail layer, Williams remembered. The first ones came at us from the right side in a four-plane formation and opened fire. I pulled into a hard climbing left turn and came around on the Number Four MiG. I fired a burst and hit him solidly in the rear fuselage. He went down smoking, and my wingman then followed him, leaving me alone. Williams, now alone, faced six Soviet fighters.

The three remaining MiGs of the first group easily accelerated away from the Panther and climbed to position themselves for another firing run. Williams saw their left wings come up as they reversed course. They had me cold on maneuverability and acceleration – the MiG was vastly superior on those counts to the F9F. The only thing I could do was out-turn them. He managed to cut loose a burst of fire as the MiGs flashed past, but failed to score any hits.

As the first three pulled away again, the other three joined in. Williams sweated as he reversed, jinked and rolled to get away from each firing run. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a MiG locked on his six o’clock. Pulling the stick back into his gut, he threw it against his right leg as he stomped right rudder and executed a very hard wings-vertical right turn with contrails spinning off his wingtip fuel tanks. The MiG flashed past his tail.

In the rush of adrenaline, the fight seemed like it had been going on for an hour. The enemy formations became ragged and Williams got several opportunities to track an individual MiG as the pilot bored in to attack. Some rounds seemed to hit, but he couldn’t follow up as he stomped rudder and slammed ailerons to keep his six o’clock clear. I was firing at every MiG that passed within gun range as they came by.

Turn. Turn again. Not a second spent straight and level. Fire a quick burst to throw off their aim. Turn some more. Then again.

Finally, the leader and his wingman went off to the right and I went after the section leader of the plane I’d shot down. He pulled up into the sun and I lost him, then I saw the leader and his wingman come around for a diving attack. I turned into them and fired at the leader. He turned away and the wingman rolled down on me and we went past belly-to-belly as I raked him with a long burst. He caught fire and went down. The section leader then came around and I turned into him and fired at him practically point-blank and he went down. The leader then came around again and I fired and parts came off him as he dove away.

The fight wasn’t over.

As I maneuvered to avoid the wreckage, I porpoised to try and clear my tail. I was tracking another wounded MIG when I suddenly spotted one of the other two as he slid in on my six. He fired a burst with his 37mm cannon and hit me in the wing. The shell went into the engine area and messed up the hydraulic unit in the accessory section. I suddenly lost rudder and flaps and only had partial aileron control. The only thing that really worked were the elevators. I dove toward the cloud deck below at 13,000 feet, and he was 500 feet behind me and still shooting all the way down. It seemed like it was taking forever to drop that 10,000 feet! My wingman finally got back in the fight and came in on the MiG and he pulled away as I went into the clouds.

Williams fought to control the Panther, hoping he could pull out of the dive. I came out of the clouds at around 400 feet. I was way too low to eject – you had to be above 1,200 feet and in a climb to successfully eject from a Panther – so I was stuck with staying in the airplane, like it or not. I soon discovered it was uncontrollable below 170 knots, so I had to maintain high speed regardless.

As he passed over the fleet a few hundred feet above the freezing ocean, several escorting destroyers opened fire as he flashed past. Fortunately, I was low enough and fast enough they didn’t have a chance to really aim, so nobody hit me.

Aboard Oriskany, the deck was ordered cleared for what was obviously going to be a crash landing. I told them I couldn’t fly slower than 170 knots and I could see the ship visibly speed up as she turned into the wind. Williams set himself up on final approach; the carrier was taking spray over the bow as the stern rose and fell through a 20-foot arc. I didn’t want to ditch, because I wasn’t sure I could make a successful ditching, and that water was cold enough I knew I wouldn’t last ten minutes even in my poopy suit.

The F9F’s normal landing speed was 105 knots. Williams kept the bucking Panther under control and made a straight-in approach at 170 knots. "The Oriskany’s captain headed the ship just away from the wind, which gave me the opportunity to come aboard. Williams slid his canopy open and flew a Roger pass with the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) holding his paddles straight out to either side. The flight deck bottomed out and started back up just as the LSO gave the cut. I caught the three wire and shut her down."

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Williams climbed out of the riddled jet and was surprised he’d made it back when he saw the damage.

They counted 263 holes in the airplane, mostly from 23mm hits and some 37mm hits, including the one in the wing that went into the engine accessory section. If it had been six inches forward, it would have hit the spar and blown my wing off. Eight inches to the rear and it would have blown up the engine. I had fired off all 760 rounds of 20mm I had aboard. I wouldn’t have had a chance if I hadn’t been armed with those cannons.

After the airedales pulled everything of value from F9F-5 BuNo 125459, the broken carcass was heaved overboard, where it disappeared into the dark sea.

In the fight of his life, Royce Williams had accomplished what no other American fighter pilot would ever accomplish: shoot down four MiG-15s in one fight. Given that the F9F-5 Panther was outclassed and outperformed on all points – speed, maneuverability and firepower – by the MiG-15, which was nearly 100mph faster and had a superior thrust-to-weight ratio, it was truly