The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Korean War POW's

Good Morning E.G.C. Rain comes back tonight but we had a beautiful sunrise this morning.

Good Morning mayor. Drinking coffee and watching the sun come up over Mt hood. Siiigh.

Good morning Radu. It'd be a real kisk to fly over that field wouldn't it?

Morning GailA. Thanks for the link.

1887 Alvin York famed US soldier with 25 kills in WWI

The Foxhole will be doing Sgt Yorks biography on March 1st.

Good Morning Feather.

Thanks Valin. I hope he can get it through.

Morning Gatorbait. Thanks for the lead on the book.

Morning PE.

They switched to plastic pieces as well some time ago.

Every day, in every way, things are getting better and better.
< /sarcasm>

Air Power
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-15 "Fagot"

On November 30, 1950, at 0720 hours (local) during a raid on the North Korean Air Base at Namsi, an American B-29 Superfortress was hit by cannon fire from an aircraft that flashed by so fast, the gunners had no chance to return fire. Luckily the damage was confined to the outer port wing of the Superfortress and it immediately turned back toward its base. F-80C "Shooting Stars" which were escorting the B-29's tried to engage the interloper but were left in the dust as the stranger turned northeast toward the Yalu River. The Americans had not even had time to identify the nationality of the craft, and though a couple of F-80 pilots got a fleeting glance at the silhouette, intelligence officers at the debriefing were unable to identify the craft except to say it was jet powered. F-80 pilots estimated the craft was approximately 85 mph (136.8 kph) faster than the Shooting Star. Damage to the B-29 indicated the craft carried at least one 37mm cannon and probably another, smaller cannon. This was the debut of the "MiG-15" and USAF brass viewed the development with what was described as "organized panic", from Korea all the way to the Pentagon.

In 1939, Anushavan Ivanovich ("Artyom") Mikoyan and Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich teamed up to enter a design competition for a new Russian monoplane fighter. They won the competition and their outstanding MiG-1 design was put into production by the TsKB (Central Constructor Bureau) and the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau was formally recognized by the Soviet government in early 1941.

The close of WWII found Russia with an abundance of captured German aircraft technology. There were experiments in high speed and near sonic speed flight, which the German scientists were unable to put to practical use due to allied bombing and the subsequent deterioration of facilities. There were captured Messerschmitt Me-262 and Arado Ar.234 jet aircraft along with many brand new Jumo and BMW jet engines, still in crates. Everything including scientists, experimental data, engines, aircraft, tools and machinery was immediately confiscated, loaded into boxcars and shipped to Russia. This action put the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in possession of mounds of secret German documents and the scientists who had created them.

The introduction of the MiG-15 was a total (nasty) surprise to the NATO air groups, somewhat comparable to the surprise the Allies received when the Japanese A6M Zero-Sen made its appearance a few years before, during WWII. The Mig-15 was developed under the utmost security. The Soviet philosophy was; if another country could achieve military superiority, sooner or later it was bound attack Russia, just as the Nazis had on June 22, 1941. Under Stalin, military weapons research had high priority and the secrecy involved was deadly serious. Anyone even suspected of the slightest security violation was tortured and executed. The KGB was listening. Thus, the MiG-15 - arguably the worlds best fighter aircraft at the time - was produced in near total secrecy.

The first step toward producing the first MiG jet was known as the model I-250. It featured the odd installation of a 1,400 hp (1045 kW) piston engine in the front and a small, 650 pound static thrust (2.89 kN) jet located in the rear. The craft itself was vaguely reminiscent of the sleek MiG-1 with a rather sharp nose, and cockpit set into the back half of a bullet-shaped fuselage. It was said this oddball craft had a top speed of well over 500 miles per hour (805 kph) in level flight, placing it in the elite group of the fastest prop driven planes in the world.

Though the goal was to produce a pure jet aircraft, Russia simply did not have the engineering expertise to build a jet engine capable of enough power to better the speed of a prop driven plane. Like the US a few years before, the Soviets in 1944 were working with technology acquired from building turbochargers for piston engines. It is (very roughly) a similar problem designing a jet engine as designing a turbocharger; extremely hot exhaust gases under pressure are used to power a turbine. In front of this turbine (connected the same shaft) is a compressor which packs fresh air and fuel into a combustion chamber. Upon ignition, the hot gasses are produced which power the turbine, thus producing a self sustaining reaction and (in the case of the jet engine) the thrust needed to power the aircraft. The first practical Soviet jet powered aircraft was the Mig-9 which flew on April 9, 1946. It had a top speed of 560 mph (901.23 kph) which was much faster than the prop driven aircraft of the time, but not faster than the American P-80A Shooting Star (the designation "P" for "Pursuit" was changed in 1948 to "F" for "Fighter").

While the Soviets were having their developmental problems, the British on the other hand seemed to be years ahead of everyone. The Jumo and BMW engines the Russians had captured in Germany were rather primitive when compared to England's Rolls-Royce jet engines in the late part of 1945. And just as it appeared the rest of the world was about to leave the Soviets far behind in the race for a more practical jet engine, fortune truly smiled on the Reds.

In Britain, Clement R. Attlee of the socialist Labor Party was elected Prime Minister in 1945. Attlee, being somewhat naive about the Russian brand of socialism, immediately set about improving relations between Britain and Russia. At the invitation of Attlee, Joseph Stalin sent a team of scientists and engineers to the Rolls-Royce factory to study the design of the superb "Nene" jet engine. Arrangements were made for the Soviets to manufacture the engine in Russia under license from Rolls-Royce. They also took several Nenes with them when they returned to Russia. The Russians wasted little time in copying every detail of the engine and appropriating the design as their own, calling it the "Klimov RD-45" with no regard at all being given to the licensing agreement with Rolls-Royce. However, due to the quality of the Russian materials used in construction of the RD-45, performance of the engine left much to be desired. Turbine blade failures were common, and average time between overhauls was on the order of a very few hours. Fuel consumption bordered on the intolerable. The dogmatic approach of the Soviet aircraft industry solved these problems one-by-one and eventually produced an engine of nearly equal quality to the original Nene. It was called the Klimov VK-1 - still almost an exact copy of the Nene.

While the Soviets were having their developmental problems, the British on the other hand seemed to be years ahead of everyone. The Jumo and BMW engines the Russians had captured in Germany were rather primitive when compared to England's Rolls-Royce jet engines in the late part of 1945. And just as it appeared the rest of the world was about to leave the Soviets far behind in the race for a more practical jet engine, fortune truly smiled on the Reds.

In Britain, Clement R. Attlee of the socialist Labor Party was elected Prime Minister in 1945. Attlee, being somewhat naive about the Russian brand of socialism, immediately set about improving relations between Britain and Russia. At the invitation of Attlee, Joseph Stalin sent a team of scientists and engineers to the Rolls-Royce factory to study the design of the superb "Nene" jet engine. Arrangements were made for the Soviets to manufacture the engine in Russia under license from Rolls-Royce. They also took several Nenes with them when they returned to Russia. The Russians wasted little time in copying every detail of the engine and appropriating the design as their own, calling it the "Klimov RD-45" with no regard at all being given to the licensing agreement with Rolls-Royce. However, due to the quality of the Russian materials used in construction of the RD-45, performance of the engine left much to be desired. Turbine blade failures were common, and average time between overhauls was on the order of a very few hours. Fuel consumption bordered on the intolerable. The dogmatic approach of the Soviet aircraft industry solved these problems one-by-one and eventually produced an engine of nearly equal quality to the original Nene. It was called the Klimov VK-1 - still almost an exact copy of the Nene.

Now in possession of a powerful and reliable jet engine, work was resumed on the design of a suitable airframe. The "I-310", as the super secret Mikoyan-Gurevich craft became known, was first flown in late 1947 and it was immediately obvious to the Russians that they had a "world beater" on their hands. There were still some flaws to be eliminated, but it possessed dazzling performance.

Throughout the late forties, development proceeded on the I-310. Different combinations of cannon were tried, The final arrangement being two 23mm NK23 cannon slung under the left side of the nose and a 37mm NS37 under the right, with 80 rounds for each of the 23mm and 40 rounds for the 37mm. This assemblage provided a devastating punch for the little fighter, although not without compromise. The rate of fire was very slow when compared to the US .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine gun. The target was harder to hit, but it took only 1 round from the 37mm or between 2 and 3 rounds from the 23mm to destroy an enemy fighter.

It was found the aircraft had an alarming yaw at speeds above Mach 0.9 and it also had a tendency to flip itself out of a high speed turn. This latter problem was common to most early, high speed jet fighters. The yaw problem was never satisfactorily resolved. The craft was simply fitted with speed brakes on each side of the rear fuselage which automatically opened at Mach 0.9. The Soviets were fond of simple, crude fixes such as the speed brakes. When it was found that production standards were being ignored and a resulting problem of unequal lift from the wings occurred, the Russians simply improvised a trim tab to one of the wings to increase or decrease the lift of that wing. However, the trim tab could only be adjusted while the craft was on the ground..

Though engine problems, airframe problems and even weapons problems continued, the craft was rushed into production . The first production MiG-15 flew on the last day of December 1948. Continuous improvements were made and in early 1950, the MiG-15bis debuted. By this time, most of the problems with the engine and flight characteristics were alleviated (though "flicking" out of tight turns would dog the fighter throughout its life). With the Klimov VK-1 engine, fuel consumption was still somewhat of a problem but external fuel tanks gave the "bis" an acceptable combat range. Later, the production MiG-15bis would be fitted with an improved Klimov which somewhat alleviated the fuel consumption problem.

The MiG-15bis would go on to equip almost every communist nation in the world, and was manufactured in many. It was also sold to quite a few non-communists. Most of the countries of Africa bought them as well as most middle eastern countries and countries which were not members of NATO.

Included amongst the communist states equipped with the MiG-15bis was North Korea and China. By the time the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, Chinese pilots (some of which were veterans of WWII) had been quickly trained in the bis and on November 26, 1950, when Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung ) sent ground troops to assist the beleaguered North Korean army he also sent the MiG-15bis and its trained pilots.

The later production MiG-15bis was powered by a Klimov VK-1A engine with a static thrust of 5,900 pounds (26.24 kN) and the speed was 668 mph (1075.04 kph). It had the same armament of a 37mm cannon and dual 23mm cannon but contained in a unique removable pod. This gun-pack was drawn up into the fuselage by means of a cable winch located just behind the nose wheel compartment. The 37mm NS-37 Nudelman-Suranov cannon was on the right side of the nose wheel and the NK-23s (the later production dash 15bis had NS-23s with a faster rate of fire) were on the left. The use of spare gun-packs meant the turn-around time between sorties was very short.

As experience revealed, having the best military tools and winning the battle do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. In the case of the MiG-15 a superb fighter aircraft was flown by pilots who had received inferior training. Unlike their US counterparts, Chinese pilots of WWII were not taken out of combat and used to train new pilots. Thus, the skill level of the Chinese pilots on average was far below that of the UN pilots. This was very apparent in the US vs. Chinese kill ratio of better than 8:1 during the Korean War. And this was done with the slightly inferior F-86 which had neither the speed, maneuverability nor the altitude of the MiG. The difference was the higher quality training received by the American pilots and NATO pilots in general.

So many variants and sub-variants of the MiG-15 were produced that it would take a very heavy book to list them all. The Soviets were very fond of modifying this aircraft to fit every task from target towing to night fighter interception and ground support . However, the most important variant was the MiG-15UTI which was a two seat (tandem) model used for training new pilots. The MiG-15UTI was produced in greater numbers than the bis and was still in use in the late 1980s by communist and non-communist countries around the world.

The Mikoyan Design Bureau continues to produce aircraft of outstanding performance including the MiG-29 "Fulcrum". In the right hands, the Fulcrum is more than a match for any aircraft in the world.

Specifications:
Manufacturer: Mikoyan-Gurevich
Primary Role: Fighter/Interceptor
Powerplant: Single Klimov VK-1A turbojet, rated @ 5,900 lb st (26.24 kN)
Crew: 1
Number Built: 8,000+ built in USSR alone, many thousands built in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Number Still Airworthy: 15+

Dimensions:
Wing span: Wing Span: 33 ft 0.75 in (10.06 m)
Length: Length: 36 ft 3 in (11.05 m)
Weights: Empty: 8,115 lbs (3,680 kg) / Operational: 11,200 lbs (5,080 kg) / Max T/O: 13,500 lbs (6,123 kg)

Performance :
Maximum Speed: 668 mph (1,075 kph) @ sea level
Cruising Speed: 589 mph (947 kph)
Stall Speed: 156 mph (251 kph)
Service Ceiling: 50,900 ft (15,514 m)
Combat Range: 1,008 mi (1,622.22 km)
Ferry Range: 1,565 mi (2,518 km)

Armaments:
One 37mm NM-37 cannon and, two 23mm NK-23 cannons.

All information and photos Copyright of their respective websites.

Thanks Johnny.

At least mine had a picture. :-)

I should have known you'd have it covered. :-)

I should have known you'd have it covered.

I don't always. I'm not dependable in that way, but it doesn't hurt to READ THE THREAD FIRST. LOL.

Don't ya just hate it when I nag? (((Hugs)))

“U.S. Knew in 1953 North Koreans Held American POW’s”

Newly declassified documents show that the United States knew immediately after the Korean War that North Korea had failed to turn over hundreds of American prisoners known to be alive at the end of the war, adding to growing speculation that American prisoners might still be alive and in custody there.

The documents, obtained from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and other Government depositories by a Congressional committee, show that the Pentagon knew in December 1953 that more than 900 American troops were alive at the end of the war but were never released by the North Koreans.

The documents may only deepen the mystery over the fate of Americans still considered missing from the Korean War. In June a Defense Department intelligence analyst testified that on the basis of ''a recent flurry'' of ''very compelling reports,'' he believed that as many as 15 Americans were still being held prisoner in North Korea.

While not dismissing the analyst's report entirely, the Defense Department has said it has no clear evidence that any Americans are being held against their will in North Korea, although it has pledged to continue to investigate accounts of defectors and others who say they have seen American prisoners there.

The North Korean Government has said it is not holding any Americans. A handful of American defectors are known to live in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and some are believed to have appeared in North Korean propaganda films.

The documents were obtained by the House National Security subcommittee on military personnel. Congressional investigators said much of the information was confirmed by a former military aide to President Eisenhower, Col. Phillip Corso.

In a statement prepared for delivery before the House panel on Tuesday, Colonel Corso, who is retired, said, ''In the past I have tried to tell Congress the fact that in 1953, 500 sick and wounded American prisoners were within 10 miles of the prisoner exchange point at Panmunjom but were never exchanged.'' Panmunjom was the site of peace negotiations between the United States and North Korea that ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953.

One of the documents obtained by the House subcommittee, a December 1953 memo that had been on file at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., shows that the Army believed at that time that 610 ''Army people'' and 300 Air Force personnel were still being held prisoners by the North Koreans, five months after a prisoner exchange between the United States and North Korea.

The memo said that President Eisenhower was ''intensely interested'' in the fate of ''the missing P.O.W.'s,'' and that he had wanted to make sure ''everybody was doing all they could about it.''

Al Santoli, a Congressional investigator who helped gather the documents, said the House subcommittee would explore the possibility that some of the American prisoners reported missing in 1953 were the same Americans reportedly sighted in recent years in North Korea.

He said that the intelligence information released by the Eisenhower Library had been declassified at the request of the subcommittee, and that it showed that the Eisenhower Administration ''was trying to do what it could to get the prisoners back'' short of war.

Historians of the Korean War have suggested that the Eisenhower Administration chose not to make public much of its intelligence on the issue of missing Americans for fearing of whipping up a war hysteria among Americans who would have demanded that the prisoners be returned home.

''In a nuclear age, Eisenhower could not risk telling the Russians or the Chinese that we're willing to go to all-out war to get our prisoners back,'' Mr. Santoli said.

The hearing Tuesday of the subcommittee will include potentially explosive testimony from a Czech defector, Jan Sejna, who now works for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Sejna, a former Czech defense official, had access to information about medical experiments carried out on American prisoners of war by Russian and Czech personnel in a hospital in North Korea during the war. Mr. Sejna had described experiments in which American prisoners were drugged in a program to ''develop comprehensive interrogation techniques, involving medical, psychological and drug-induced behavior modification.''

At the end of the testing, the Americans were reportedly executed.

PHILIP SHENON

The New York Times
September 17, 1996, Tuesday

Now those are some nags! LOL.

Thanks for posting this extra information.

Historians of the Korean War have suggested that the Eisenhower Administration chose not to make public much of its intelligence on the issue of missing Americans for fearing of whipping up a war hysteria among Americans who would have demanded that the prisoners be returned home.

And what would have been wrong with that?

Korean War - Prisoners of War (POWs)

At the beginning of the Korean War (1950-1953) the belligerents promised to honor the principles of the 1949 convention. In spite of this, the Communist forces were responsible for numerous violations; prisoners received inadequate food, clothing, and shelter and poor medical treatment, often resulting in loss of lives.

In the course of truce negotiations during the war, a new problem arose regarding repatriation of prisoners. Because of the apparent unwillingness of Communist soldiers made prisoners of war to return to their homelands, the United Nations Command posited the principle of “voluntary repatriation,” stating that prisoners of war should not be returned against their will. Although the Geneva Convention does not specifically authorize voluntary repatriation, the United Nations Command held that the humanitarian spirit of the convention would be violated if the prisoners were forcibly repatriated. The new principle was finally incorporated in the armistice agreement on July 26, 1953, following a yearlong deadlock; the agreement granted the belligerents the right to speak with prisoners opposed to repatriation. The Korean War was distinctive among wars throughout history for the extensive and effective use of psychological warfare, or “brainwashing” of prisoners, by North Korea.