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The next day, November 8, two flights of F-80Cs from the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing watched as six MiG-15s took off from Antung, crossed the Yalu at high altitude and began diving on them in pairs. Since the first reports of MiG attacks a week earlier, the Shooting Star pilots had been itching to match their mettle with the new Soviet fighters and eagerly turned into their attackers, causing them to break wildly. Five of the MiGs streaked for home, but a sixth dived away and 1st Lt. Russell J. Brown of the 16th Squadron discovered that his straight-winged F-80 could not only keep up, but that he was gaining on the MiG. Realizing his error, the MiG pilot pulled his plane out of the dive and into a climb, but Brown did not give him a chance to bring his superior climbing speed (10,100 feet-per-minute) into play. Lining the Mig up, Brown peppered it with a five-second burst and saw his riddled adversary dive out of control, smoking and flaming, into the ground. Brown had been victorious in the first jet-versus-jet combat in history.

The next day, Task Force 77's carrier air groups were ordered to bomb rail and highway bridges at Sinuiju and highway bridges near Hyesanjin, 200 miles upstream. The attack was carried out by a F4U Corsairs and AD Skyraiders. with a top cover of F9F Panther jets. The force detailed to hit Sinuiju was attacked by Chinese MiG-15s from Antung air base, which then were themselves jumped by the F9Fs. During the engagement, one of the Communist jets fell to an F9F flown by the commander of VF-111 from the carrier Philippine Sea, Lt. Cmdr. W.T. Amen--first blood for the Navy.

It was clear that the only effective counter to the MiG jet fighter threat would be another jet but despite their initial successes, the F-80 and F9F both lacked the speed and climb to do the job. The MiG-15 was 100 mph faster than the F-80 and a full 300 mph faster than the prop-driven F-51. Although six MiGs were credited to Shooting Stars in the course of the war, 14 F-80s would be lost to the swept-wing jets.

Corsairs attack Yalu Bridges

Fortunately, the MiG's match would not be long in coming. On the same day Brown scored his historic victory, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff made their decision to commit the best American jet fighter operational to the Korean front--the North American F-86A Sabre. Salt water damage in transit delayed the arrival of the Sabre-equipped 4th Fighter Interceptor Group at Kimpo until December 13, but the unit flew its first training flight--actually an operational patrol--on December 15 and, on December 17, Lt. Col. Bruce H. Hinton led four F-86As on a sweep of the Yalu, using F-80 radio call signs and flying F-80 patterns to ensure that any MiGs would not be shy about coming up to play. Four did intercept the formation near Sinuiju and were as surprised as Hinton had hoped they would be as the Sabres tore into them at a speed approximating the MiGs' own. A brief fight ensued before the MiGs retired in haste, short one of their number, and Hinton returned to Kimpo to do the first of hundreds of victory rolls that Sabre pilots would perform over the next two-and-a-half-years.

F-86

Meanwhile, new events had taken place to further alter the course of the war. After three days of continuous bombing and rocket attacks, all bridges across the Yalu were down except one--the tough railroad bridge at Sinuiji. A week later, the entire effort was nullified when the river itself froze over. By the first week of December, the ice was thick enough to lay railroad tracks on and support supply trains.

Mig-15 Kill

On November 20, fighting broke out between the 1st Marine Division and a large force of Chinese troops in the region of Hagaru-ri and Yudam-ni. On November 28, the Chinese launched an all-out attack against the U.S. Army X Corps, cutting the 5th and 7th Marines from the rest of their division near the Chosin reservoir and sending the rest of the U.N. forces reeling back in a disorderly rout. For the second time in less than half a year, the course of the war in Korea had entered a new phase.

The complexion of the air war had also undergone a radical change. From December 1950 on, the swept-wing jet became the key factor in the fight for air supremacy. Although the prop-driven planes and the older generation of jets would continue to play a vital role throughout the fighting, their efforts would be largely eclipsed in the public eye by the duel for the sky taking place at the threshold of the speed of sound over "MiG Alley." Also forgotten would be those first five crucial months of the war, when the straight-winged birds were all the air power that was available and the hoary old veterans of another war and another era had their last hurrah.

Additional Sources:

vvs.hobbyvista.com
www.centennialofflight.gov
1000aircraftphotos.com
airwar.hihome.com

SIDEBAR
TWO WARS AT ONCE

While the outbreak of the Korean Conflict left most Americans confused as to its importance and even its location, it had no such effect on the British. They were already in the process of withdrawing from their colonial holdings in the Far East as gracefully as possible and, in the interests of leaving behind independent governments that would remain friendly to them, they were already engaged in a low-intensity guerrilla war with Chinese-backed Communist insurgents in Malaya. For the British, the only novel touch to Korea in 1950 was that it was an open, conventional conflict.

The first British aircraft available to assist Korea were the Supermarine Seafires and Fairey Fireflies of the aircraft carrier HMS Triumph, which took station off the Korean coast within days of the outbreak of hostilities. From then until the end of the fighting, at least one British or Commonwealth carrier operated in Korean waters on a rotating basis.

Firefly

The more effective carrier plane of the two initially fielded by the Royal Navy was the Firefly two-seat fighter, whose Mark 4 and 5 models, endowed with an excess of power from their 2,100 hp Rolls-Royce Grifon 74 engines, could carry up to a ton of bombs and rockets per aircraft for ground attack missions. Moreover, the Firefly crews already had practice in such operations. In October 1949, Fireflies of No. 827 Squadron from HMS Triumph had been deployed at Sembawang to provide air support for Operation Leo, an offensive conducted against "bandits" in the Malayan jungle.

On July 3, Triumph's aircraft provided top cover for the carriers of Task Force 77 while American carrier planes flew airstrikes against Pyongyang. Other Commonwealth carriers that would serve in Korea included HMS Theseus (October 1950‚May 1951), HMS Glory (May 1951‚May 1952), HMS Ocean (May‚October 1952), and HMAS Sydney (October 1952‚July 1953).

Ocean's tour of duty typified the British carrier effort, with a few unique distinctions. As with most of the others, her aircraft flew strikes against Malayan insurgents prior to turning their rocket, bombing and strafing attacks against the North Korean forces in May 1952. On May 17, her aircraft flew 123 sorties--a record number for a single carrier during the conflict. Several planes were lost to the intense Communist ground fire, a common consequence of making more than one run against the same target. At the end of July, Mikoyan-Gurevich-15s attacked Fireflies of Ocean's No. 825 Squadron for the first time, one shot-up Firefly having to go down for a forced landing in the engagement. Given their technical differences, the British were grateful to have gotten off that lightly. On August 9, however, four Hawker Sea Fury FB-11s of Ocean's No. 802 Squadron were jumped by eight MiG-15s. Wisely staying to dogfight it out rather than attempt a futile flight, the skillful Brits again survived and Lieutenant Peter Carmichael scored the first confirmed aerial victory of a piston-engined aircraft over a jet.

By the time Ocean left in October 1952, her aircraft had totaled 1,907 sorties totaling 3,243 flying hours. In the 1,948 landings made on Ocean's deck, there were only four accidents.Ocean's aircraft fired 16,868 rockets and dropped 96,500 pounds of bombs, and 825 Squadron's overall performance won it the Boyd Trophy for 1952.

After the armistice at Panmunjon, the British kept at least one carrier on patrol in Korean waters as part of the United Nations peace-keeping force, while others continued to play their part in the ultimately successful campaigns against the Malayan insurgency, which had been going on when the Korean conflict began.