Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea, 1950-1953

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Xiaoming Zhang

The Korean conflict was a pivotal event in
China's modern military history. The fighting
in Korea constituted an important experience
for the newly formed People's Liberation Army
Air Force (PLAAF), not only as a test case for
this fledgling service but also in the later
development of Chinese air power.

Xiaoming Zhang fills the gaps in the history of
this conflict by basing his research in
recently declassified Chinese and Russian
archival materials. He also relies on
interviews with Chinese participants in the air
war over Korea. Zhangs findings challenge
conventional wisdom as he compares kill ratios
and performance by all sides involved in the
war.

Zhang also addresses the broader issues of the
Korean War, such as how air power affected
Beijing's decision to intervene. He touches on
ground operations and truce negotiations during
the conflict. Chinese leaders placed great
emphasis on the supremacy of human will over
modern weaponry, but they were far from
oblivious to the advantages of the latter and
to China's technological limitations.

Developments in China's own air power were
critical during this era. Zhang offers
considerable materials on the training of
Chinese aviators and the Soviet role in that
training, on Soviet and Chinese air operations
in Korea, and on diplomatic exchanges over
Soviet military assistance to China. He probes
the impact of the war on China's conception of
the role of air power, arguing that it was not
until the Gulf War of the early 1990s that
Chinese leaders engaged in a broad reassessment
of the strategy they adopted during the Korean
War.

Military historians and scholars interested in
aviation and foreign affairs will find this
volume of special interest. As a unique work
that presents the Chinese point of view, it
stands as both a complement and a corrective to
previous accounts of the conflict.

The author is an Associate Professor of
History Texas A&M International University. The
book is presented by Williams-Ford Texas A&M
University Military History Series Paperback 
October 30, 2003

Available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook or in
paperback or hard cover
ISBN-10: 1585443409 ISBN-13: 978-1585443406



https://www.amazon.com/Red-Wings-over-Yalu-William