I Always Wanted to Fly Read online

  The Chinese offensive took communist forces back to Seoul by January 4, 1951, but then the offensive stalled. Ridgway quickly repositioned his forces to take advantage of the terrain as well as the increased length of Chinese communist lines of communication. By skillfully trading real estate for enemy attrition, he turned his forces into a killing machine: Chinese troops died by the tens of thousands. By March 15, 1951, Ridgway’s forces retook Seoul, and the morale of the Eighth Army was restored. On April 12, 1951, Ridgway succeeded MacArthur as commander of United Nations forces in Korea. Until the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, the opposing armies struggled in a narrow mountainous corridor north and south of the thirty-eighth parallel. The final cease-fire line ran from north of the thirty-eighth parallel on the east coast of the Korean peninsula to a point south of the thirty-eighth parallel on the west coast. The United States suffered 33,629 combat-related deaths and 105,785 wounded, and more than 10,000 Americans were missing or prisoners of war at the time of the cease-fire.

  Korea, of course, was an alliance war. In addition to the United States and South Korea, twenty other nations contributed troops, ships, planes, and medical units. U.S. allies, fighting under the flag of the United Nations, sustained their share of casualties, with the great majority of those battle deaths South Koreans. However, the South Korean civilian population suffered the greatest number of deaths, as nearly three million perished.

  What did Korea mean to the airmen who fought the war, mostly in aging World War II aircraft? Initially, the air war emphasized close air support of hard-pressed American and ROK ground forces and the maintenance of air superiority over the battlefield. The North Korean air force was quickly destroyed, and close air support was expanded to include interdiction of North Korean forces. With the Chinese communists entry into the war and the appearance of the MiG-15 as an offensive air element, “it appeared that air power would have to be employed much more broadly to reduce the numerical superiority of the Chinese,” wrote General William Momyer. “We had to shift from an air strategy oriented primarily toward close support of our ground forces to a new strategy featuring (1) offensive fighter patrols along the Yalu, (2) attacks against forward staging bases from which MIGs might strike 5th Air Force airfields and the 8th Army, and (3) intensive attacks against the main supply lines of the advancing Chinese army” (Momyer 5). In three years of war, the Far East Air Forces destroyed 950 enemy aircraft, including 792 MiG-15 fighters. The Far East Air Forces lost 1,986 aircraft, the majority of them American.

  What lessons did Korea provide for future conflicts? In stark contrast to the terms of unconditional surrender thrust upon Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan only eight years earlier, the Korean War ended in what many perceived as a stalemate, with no clear-cut winner. But, stated Secretary of State Acheson, “From the very start of hostilities in Korea, President Truman intended to fight a limited engagement there” (Present 416). What evolved was a national policy of containment of communism, a policy which by its nature precluded old-fashioned wars with old-fashioned outcomes. Furthermore, the Soviet explosion of an atomic device in 1949 had made the country a potential threat to U.S. survival. At the time, there was no other nation with a comparable hostile ideology and the added potential of sufficient military power to threaten U.S. national survival. As a historic first, this threat had to be dealt with intelligently and with restraint. Although the Korean experience could have provided many lessons useful to airmen twelve years later in Southeast Asia, the immediate focus was and for years remained on the Soviet Union and its offensive nuclear arsenal. In response to the Soviet threat, the Strategic Air Command evolved into an immensely powerful, nuclear-armed air force to checkmate the Soviet nuclear potential and political ambitions. Air defense of North America against potential Soviet intruders became the second well-funded issue. As a result, tactical air forces atrophied, switching to nuclear armaments to ensure a modicum of funding and participation in the role of defending the United States in a nuclear world. For the U.S. Army, readiness became its mantra, so that it would never again let itself get caught unprepared by an aggressor.

  Korea was destined to become known as the forgotten war, as the late Colonel Harry Summers referred to it, with few obvious lessons for the immediate future. To many the war appeared to be an anomaly, out of place in a time of jet planes and the atomic bomb.

  Chapter 4

  The F-51 Mustangs from Dogpatch

  Headquarters Twelfth Air Force, APO #650, General Orders Number 65, 13 October 1943.

  Section II—Awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross. Under the provisions of AR 600-45, . . . the Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded to . . . Charles E. Schreffler, 0-734000, First Lieutenant, Anderson, Indiana. For extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight in the North African, Sicilian and Italian Theatres of Operations as a Pilot of a P-38 type aircraft. On 30 August 1943, while escorting a B-26 type bombardment group over Lago di Patria, Italy, Lt. Schreffler’s flight of 4 P-38’s were attacked by thirty ME-109’s. Observing a lagging comrade in grave danger he unhesitatingly led his flight in an aggressive assault on the threatening enemy aircraft, destroying one ME-109 and probably destroying another. Lt. Schreffler so expertly maneuvered his small flight, despite one engine being disabled by hostile fire, that the flight safely rejoined his squadron. His outstanding ability as a flight leader and combat pilot has reflected great credit upon himself and the armed forces of the United States.

  By Command of Major General Doolittle

  Colonel Charles E. Schreffler

  Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal (10)

  In the sunshine of southern California, where Charlie Schreffler settled after an eventful air force career, he recalled one particular June afternoon in 1950. “While sitting on the porch of my quarters at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, I saw innocent-looking puffs of smoke seeping out of the jungle foliage. It was an artillery duel between the communist Huks and the local constabulary, just beyond the Clark Air Base perimeter. A flight of four Philippine F-51 Mustangs passed overhead in echelon formation to join the fray. My unit, the 18th Fighter Bomber Group, had converted to the F-80 jet only recently, giving our World War II–vintage Mustang fighters to the Philippine air force. Maybe one of those attacking planes was mine, Sally Flat Foot. I could see the Mustangs descending one at a time, strafing what they thought were guerrilla positions. In the jungle it was hard to tell where anything was—I knew that from experience. The Mustangs pulled up sharply at the end of their high-angle strafing passes. I saw them reforming for a second run at the Huks. A feeling of nostalgia overcame me as I watched them. I missed flying the ’Stang, as we affectionately called the Mustang. But then I couldn’t remember any plane I flew I didn’t like.

  “I remember one of my last flights in the F-51, a routine training flight just before I transitioned into the F-80 jet. My wingman and I were on our initial approach to Clark when without warning we were jumped by a couple of F-51s from our sister squadron, the 12th. I flew with the 67th squadron. We maintained our flying skills by engaging each other in mock air battles, but this wasn’t quite the way it was supposed to happen, and the resulting midair collision bent Sally Flat Foot’s props and put a few dents in her nose. The other Mustang had its tail chewed up. We landed safely. It’s trite to say that flying is hours of boredom and moments of stark terror, but it is true.

  “That June my wife was making arrangements for our move back to the States. I was reading the paper and having a beer on our porch. I hated everything associated with moving. The packers were coming on Friday June 24. Our household goods were to be picked up on Monday, the 27th. That day I intended to clear the base and stay out of the way. After they picked up our stuff, we would spend a night in the base hotel and then embark on a boat at the nearby Subic Bay Navy Base for a leisurely trip back to San Francisco. I was looking forward to going home. I tried to go back to reading the paper, but I was still too distracted by idle thoughts as
a result of the Philippine F-51s, who by then were on their second strafing run. I put down my paper and decided to watch them instead. My war was behind me, I thought smugly, and I was glad.

  Sally Flat Foot V, Charlie Schreffler’s F-51, as it looked after a midair collision with another F-51 over Clark Air Base, the Philippines, 1950. C. Schreffler.

  “I’ll never forget December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. My friends and I, in a patriotic fervor, went to the army recruiting office in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and signed up for the Army Air Corps. I was born in 1921 in Coshocton, Ohio. When I was still very young, my parents had moved to Indiana. I always wanted to fly, ever since the barnstormers came by when I was seven and gave me a five-minute ride. I passed my physical and became an aviation cadet. I went through preflight and primary training in the PT-13 and BT-13. The BT had flaps and a sophisticated set of instruments, none of which the PT had. In advanced training I got to fly the fighterlike AT-6 Texan at Luke Field, Arizona. I graduated in December 1942 and that same day was put on a train to transition into P-38 fighters at Glendale, California. In March 1943 I crossed the country by train. I processed through Fort Dix in New Jersey and embarked on a ship which joined a large convoy across the Atlantic, bound for Oran, Algeria. From there I shipped to a dusty base outside Casablanca for P-38 refresher training. Finally I got to fly my first combat mission. It was against a small harbor in Sardinia. I had never dropped a bomb before. I felt a little foolish not knowing how to aim my bomb or even when I was to drop it. I watched my flight leader closely and did exactly what he did. When he released his bomb, I let go of mine. I don’t know where the bomb went or if it hit anything other than water.

  “On my next mission over Sicily, we ran into some German Me-109s. In the ensuing melee one of our own aircraft shot up my leader, and we both returned to base. Up until then everything seemed sort of unreal, even comical at times. After all, I was a fighter pilot, not a bomber pilot, and I didn’t expect our own planes to fire on us. But then everything in battle is confusing. My perceptions of war changed drastically on my next mission, a long-range sweep by over two hundred P-38s against German and Italian air bases around Foggia on the Italian mainland. I finally got to use my guns. We came in from the Adriatic side, flying at fifty feet to avoid detection. We totally surprised the enemy and destroyed over one hundred of their aircraft on the ground. Soon after that mission, I learned about fear and how to fly through it. We were escorting a group of B-26 Marauders up the Italian boot when we were jumped by seventy-five to eighty Me-109s and FW-190s. We got all the B-26s into the target and out without losing one, but we lost eleven of our own. In the confusion of the air battle, a German Me-109 suddenly came into my sights, and I fired instinctively. The 109 burst into flames and exploded. I added one more probable enemy fighter destroyed that day before returning to my base.

  “By September 1943 I had racked up fifty combat missions over Italy and was returned home to Bradley Field, Connecticut. There I stayed until April 1945 as a P-47 instructor pilot. I liked flying and wanted to stay, but I was discharged that October along with thousands of other pilots. I returned to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to my old job as a draftsman. I stayed in the Air Force Reserve, and to my great surprise, in 1947 I was offered a regular air force commission. I accepted immediately and was assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, D.C., as a maintenance officer. In July 1948 I transferred to the 18th Fighter Group at Clark in the Philippines. World War II should have been my only war. I was wrong. In a few days I was involved in another equally brutal war. The 18th Fighter Bomber Group was quickly thrown into battle to stem the surging tide of the North Korean People’s Army.

  “Our household goods were picked up as scheduled. That evening my wife mentioned a curious thing to me. The household goods people had contacted her and asked if she wanted to change the destination of our shipment. When she asked them why she would want to do that, they told her that her husband wouldn’t be accompanying her. ‘Is that true?’ she asked me. That’s how I learned about the invasion of South Korea. My wife took the ship home to San Francisco, while I left for Johnson Air Base, near Tokyo, Japan, to pick up an F-51. By the time her ship docked in San Francisco harbor, some of the returning wives learned that their husbands had died in South Korea, in a war of which they knew nothing.”

  The situation in South Korea was desperate. The U.S. military in Japan was largely an occupational constabulatory force, poorly trained and not much better equipped. What remained of American military power was built around the jet fighter plane, just coming into the inventory, and the new super weapon, the atomic bomb. But the atomic bomb couldn’t save Americans trapped in Seoul or, later on, in the tight Pusan perimeter. The available air bases in South Korea were so crude that the 18th Fighter Bomber Group’s F-80 jets could not operate from them. The two hundred–mile distance from Japan to targets in South Korea gave the F-80 almost no loiter time over the target. Air force commanders had to look for quick alternatives. The F-51 was rugged enough to operate from crude airfields, carried a lethal weapons load, and was still available in large numbers. The decision was made to reequip the 18th Group with F-51 Mustangs.

  “All 18th Group pilots were F-51 qualified. Many of us had extensive World War II experience. Our group had three squadrons—the 12th, the 44th, and the 67th.” The pilots of the 12th Squadron were the first to convert. They were flown to Johnson Air Base, where they picked up thirty reconditioned F-51s that had been in storage. The Dallas Squadron, as they were to be called, flew their Mustangs to Ashiya in southern Japan, then moved on to K-2 near Taegu, South Korea. In the meantime, 145 F-51s assigned to the Air National Guard were rounded up and loaded on the aircraft carrier USS Boxer, which left the port of Alameda on July 15 with its load of Mustangs and seventy pilots. After a maximum-speed voyage, the Boxer arrived in Japan on July 22. Pilots of the 67th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Clark picked up a batch of the newly arrived Mustangs and became part of the 51st Fighter Group (Provisional), joining their advanced party of the Dallas Squadron at K-2 to carry the war to the enemy. By August 4 the name game ended when the two squadrons regained their original designations as the 12th and 67th Fighter Bomber Squadrons of the 18th Fighter Bomber Group. They fought under this designation for the rest of the war and accumulated an outstanding combat record. The 12th Squadron Blue Noses, the former Dallas Squadron, became known as the Flying Tigers of Korea, and their aircraft soon sported shark’s teeth. The Red Noses belonged to the 67th Squadron, and Charlie Schreffler flew a red nose out of K-2 in July 1950.

  “I remember leading a flight of two Mustangs on a road reconnaissance mission in the area of Hamhung, North Korea. As we turned south to return to base, the visibility began to deteriorate, and our position was not completely clear to me. As we crossed over a coastline, all hell broke loose. We had flown over Wonsan Harbor, which was loaded with North Korean ships. They let us know we were not welcome. From Taegu the 18th moved first to K-9, Pusan East; then to K-23, Pyongyang East; then to K-13, Suwon near Seoul; and finally to Chinhae, K-10, which became our main operating base for the remainder of the war. Conditions at Chinhae were basic—dirt, rocks, and tents defined the base. But we didn’t lose our sense of humor, and we called Chin-hae “Dogpatch” and “Lower Slobovia.” Al Capp, the guy who drew the Li’l Abner comic strip, somehow got wind of us and took us under his wing. He designed a patch for us. I still have mine. The patch shows Li’l Abner riding an F-51 Mustang firing its guns, with the inscription “Dogpatchers.” That’s how we got our name, the Dogpatchers.

  Captain Schreffler in front of his rocket- and bomb-laden F-51 at K-9, Pusan, 1950. C. Schreffler.

  “Major Louis J. “Lou” Sebille was my squadron commander. On a routine close-air-support mission on 5 August, one of Lou’s five hundred–pound bombs didn’t release. He tried to shake the bomb loose on his second firing pass, but by then the enemy had his range, and he took several hits. Again, the bo
mb didn’t release. Lou should have returned to Chinhae, had the bomb removed, and the holes patched. Instead, he chose to continue his attack. On his next firing pass, getting hit all the way in, he never pulled out and flew directly into the enemy vehicles and exploded. For that action Lou received the Medal of Honor. I can’t vouch for the exact number of firing passes Lou made, but the squadron’s reaction on hearing of his loss was one of great sorrow. Lou was a fine pilot!

  Loaded and ready, an F-51 tank killer of the 12th Tiger Squadron at Pusan, 1950. C. Schreffler.

  “My bunch, the 67th Squadron, launched its first missions in June 1950 from Ashiya, Japan. By the first week in August we were operating from K-2, at Taegu, within the Pusan defensive perimeter. It was a dusty, rock-strewn field with quick access to the bomb line, constantly moving south. One problem we soon discovered was differentiating between friend and foe. We were moving so fast and close to the ground it was difficult to determine who was who. The GIs were supposed to display colors of the day; they didn’t always do so. Mistakes were made, and sometimes there were the unavoidable friendly-fire losses.”

  But there wasn’t a GI whose heart didn’t jump for joy when he heard the high-pitched whine of an F-51 engine bearing down on the enemy at thirty feet above the ground. The F-51s’ killing power became legendary. Their napalm was the weapon most feared by North Korean infantry, and their rockets were the most dreaded by the North Korean tanks. The two 18th Group squadrons quickly established a tank-killing unit of ready-to-go, rocket-armed aircraft. Whenever a call came in that enemy tanks had been sighted, this unit went after them. When the Pusan perimeter really got tight, pilots flew as many as five or six missions a day. Almost immediately after takeoff, they found themselves over enemy lines. For a pilot to fly a hundred missions in two months wasn’t difficult—if he lived that long. Losses were high, operating so close to the ground, where every enemy weapon could reach them. There was an aggregate loss of 351 F-51s in more than sixty thousand combat missions. Nearly fifty thousand of those missions were flown by the pilots of the 18th Group. The 18th’s F-51s, along with the twin-engine B-26 Invaders of the 3d and 452d Bomb Wings, helped break the back of the initial North Korean invasion force and gave the U.S. Army the time it needed to reconstitute itself.