18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea

NAKTONG at NIGHT - Dive Bombing in the Dark

August 1950

During the desperate early days of the Korean War, 4 August, 1950 was to be the "day of decision" at 5th Air Force Headquarters. The holding actions of the 8th Army and Marines had failed to sufficiently slow Red troop advances and, despite the heavy pounding by our fighter planes on all three fronts circling Taegu, and even a futile mass saturation raid by B-29s near Waegwan, we could not keep the enemy from crossing the Naktong River. By mid-afternoon of the 4th, the Reds had pushed to within 12 short miles of our Taegu airstrip, and would be within artillery range of our parked Mustangs within just a very few hours.

General Walker's Army staff had made plans to "hold to the end" along the Naktong River but, unfortunately, had neglected to inform 5th Air Force General Partridge's air staff until August 3rd; so the Air Force units had already been forced to make their own plans to preserve our aerial fighting capability. We were to evacuate most of our people and equipment to Ashiya, Japan, leaving only Lieutenant Harry Dugan's newly-formed 6149th Air Base Unit to remain at Taegu to rearm and refuel the ships after their long missions out of Ashiya, Japan.

So, on August 5th I packed my meager personal belongings and arranged for Sergeant Thornton, our Intelligence clerk, to pack all of our Squadron Intelligence Office supplies, except those which would be needed for briefing the early morning missions on August 6th. Our tents were struck and packed, then moved to the flight line for loading aboard the scores of C-47s, C-54s and C-119s which started arriving at dusk.

Everyone worked on the loading ...flight crews, cooks, Colonels and Korean guards. By midnight the work detail was sufficiently organized that those of us who were slated to fly the early morning missions could spread out under the stars and try to get some sleep.

Sleep didn't come easily that night. We could hear the "thuh-runk, thuh-runk" of exploding artillery shells just a few miles to the north, and wondered if we dared sleep, for fear the base might be over-run during the night. Weariness finally overcame apprehension and I slept until wakened a short time later by the clear light of dawn.

Our plans for August 6th hinged around the night's movement by the Red troops: those on the west front had not been able to move far from their Naktong River beachead during the night, and those on the north had been slowed somewhat by our defending Army forces.

We planned to fly all of our F-51 fighters out early that morning, no matter what their condition. Those with mechanical problems would head directly for Ashiya, Japan ... across the wide neck between the Sea of Japan and the Korean Straits ...the pilots could decide along the way if they thought the airplane could make it across safely. If they had any doubts, they could land on the dirt strip at Pusan, rather than chance the thirty minute flight across the open water.

Those of us with operational ships would continue to fly as many missions as possible against the nearby attacking troops, but would keep enough fuel on board to reach Ashiya in case our strip at Taegu was attacked before we could get back. If Taegu was still holding when we completed our first missions, we would land to rearm and refuel to fly a second mission and, if it continued to hold, we would fly a third or a fourth mission, then fly over to Ashiya to spend the night in safety.

The Army troops held their ground on all three fronts on the 6th, and after my late afternoon mission we still owned the Taegu real estate ...but it was getting too close to dusk for me to try for another, so I buzzed the base, and set course southeast toward Japan. I just hoped we would still own the property on the following morning....!

The flight from Taegu to Ashiya took just one hour, of which the last twenty or so minutes were over water, in rapidly-increasing darkness. For the first time that I could recall, my engine displayed none of it's typical "over-water roughness"; maybe that occurred only when outbound across long stretches of ocean, but not when coming homeward-bound. In fact, the flight from Pusan to Ashiya was the most relaxing return from a combat mission that I'd had in weeks; for a welcome change, I was able to stretch out my legs and slump comfortably in the cockpit without having to worry about the possibility of ground fire or an attack by enemy aircraft. It was downright pleasant! I began to think that the idea of evacuating was not such a bad idea after all.

Upon landing and parking my dusty, oil streaked F-51 on Ashiya's clean, wide concrete parking ramp, close by our newly-established Operations and Intelligence offices, I found that Sergeant Thornton had made it across in good order; he flew over sitting atop our packing crates in the rear of a heavily-loaded C-47 and had our Intelligence section open and operating long before I arrived. He had already made arrangements with the clerks in the 67th Fighter Squadron to share the briefing and debriefing chores, and had our telephone communications all set up.

I borrowed a jeep long enough to move my personal gear and flight equipment to a BOQ room, where the sight of clean sheets and hot showers erased any feeling of weariness I'd felt after the long, tedious day in the air. At the moment it seemed incongruous that just two hours earlier I'd been violently attacking the North Koreans, who were pressing within twelve to fifteen miles of my 'home' at Taegu, and wondering if I'd have to finish the mission by walking out to Pusan.

Instead, safe at Ashiya, I had a nice clean room, with maid service, white sheets, hot showers, a plush Officer's Club ...with gourmet meals in the dim, candle-lit dining room. The stark contrast to our primitive existence of the past month was almost too much to comprehend.

"Now this", I thought, "is the proper way for gentlemen pilots to fight a war...!"

On August 7th I flew one two-hour mission, stood-down on the 8th to do paperwork, then, on the 9th flew two. The first was from Ashiya to Andong, in the north-central sector, where a line of tanks had been found. That mission lasted two-hours and fifty minutes, with a landing at Taegu for rearming and fuel. The second mission, after a bite of lunch in our grubby Mess tent (I was already spoiled with our high-living at Ashiya...) was a return to the same sector to help finish off the remains of the dozen tanks that had failed to camouflage themselves before dawn. When I finally ran out of ammunition and was low on fuel, I headed back to Ashiya, where I landed at the end of two and one-half hours.

Five hours and twenty-minutes of flying time for two missions ... compared with the same number of missions in a little over one hour when flying out of Taegu. We were paying the price for our 'high-living' with a serious drop in our combat sortie rate, the result of the extra distance we had to fly to reach the target area.

The Red army began to reap their first benefits from having driven us from Taegu.

I stood-down again on the 10th to catch up on paperwork, and experienced an almost normal routine of a "day at the office". I was able to stop at noon for a sandwich at the Flight Line Snack Bar, and around 5:00 PM I wandered back to the BOQ for a leisurely shower and change into a semi-crisp suntan uniform, then had a pleasant cocktail at the bar before dinner.

About eight-thirty, after we had finished a lovely meal and strolled back into bar to compare war stories and other lies over an after-dinner drink, Captain Jerry Mau came in from a trip to the flight line. He motioned me aside, and told me quietly, to hold back on the drinking ... we still had some work to do that night... (but I get ahead of myself...)

By the time the noose had tightened around Taegu, there were actually fewer Red supplies being intercepted, for a couple of reasons:

One, we were having to expend much more of our aerial resources at the front lines, supporting our fighting troops. We didn't have time to go searching behind the lines on interdiction missions. The increased enemy supplies at the front demonstrated this lack.

Secondly, the Reds were 'holing-up' during daylight hours, and making their long moves at night, when our fighter planes were on the ground. It took them longer, but the supplies were still reaching the front.

Something had to be done to stop the Red's night-time traffic movements ....but what?

Night ground attack missions in single-engine, single-place fighters like the F-51 Mustang were out of the question ...it was too dangerous, especially in the mountainous terrain of Korea, and there wouldn't be a 'snowball's chance in hell' of seeing and hitting a target on the ground in the dark.

"But what if..." said some high-ranking staff officer in 5th Air Force Headquarters, who obviously had never flown the F-51 at night, and certainly not at low altitude in the mountains.

"What if we just lobbed a few bombs and rockets around known highway routes ...it might just slow them down, because they'd have to drive with their headlights off to keep from being seen by the aircraft..."

That began to make a little more sense; not much, just a little.

Jerry Mau had a telephone call from 5th AF headquarters that night of August 10th, 1950, telling him to send two Mustangs over the Naktong River near Waegwan, to see if they couldn't slow the enemy's supplies moving toward the Taegu front.

The more we talked about it, there in the dim-lit lounge at the Ashiya Officer's Club, and considered the dangers and possibilities of such a mission, the more we began to think the idea might have a bit of merit ..."ridiculous, but possible".

Jerry said he would fly lead if I would go along as his wing man ...he had neither the time nor the ambition to try to justify the crazy mission all over again to someone else. I told him that I might just as well go with him ...who else would be stupid enough to volunteer?!

We called the armament and maintenance shops on the line, telling them to load two of our best-instrumented airplanes with a mix of Napalm and 500 pound GP bombs, six rockets and to load the machine guns with lots of tracer rounds... and to have them ready for a midnight take-off.

It was useless for either Jerry or for me to try to get any sleep before we had to take-off; we were both too keyed up, thinking about flying around over the battle lines in the dark, wondering how bright our exhaust stacks would glow, and give away our position to enemy gunners.

We changed to our flight suits, got a large thermos of coffee and went down to the flight line to study the terrain maps of the area until it was time to depart.

We both knew the areas around Waegwan, H'amchang and Taegu 'like the palm of our hands' ...in the daytime. We knew the outline of this hill and that one, 'just where the river bends by the mountain, the railroad and tunnel locations...all of it familiar in broad daylight. But at night, when we would not be able to see the hills or the rivers or the tunnels, we would have to relate their positions and altitudes to the distances and directions from some known location that we could identify in the dark.

The mountains in the area were not exceptionally high, ranging from 3500 feet in the area south of Taegu, less than 3000 feet to the north, and going up to 4500 and 5300 feet about twenty-five miles west of Taegu. The elevations were just high enough to be a nuisance; their danger came not from their height, but from their ruggedness, and from the deep canyons thru which the roads and railroads wound their way.

At 2300 hours we checked our airplanes carefully to make sure that we had operable cockpit and navigation lights; bombs and rockets were armed, and machine guns were charged and ready. We made it a special point to check the brightness control on the gunsight light reticules and, when they were turned all the way down to their dimmest level, thought that they would be dim enough so as to not blind us in the dark.

At midnight we were rolling down the runway into the night, toward the Sea of Japan in close formation; Jerry had his wing navigation lights on 'dim', and I tucked in very close under his wing to make sure that I didn't lose my position and have to switch abruptly to flying 'on instruments' if I were to slide out of formation.

All went well as we flew out over the sea into the clear, moonless night. As we climbed above the haze and smoke layers, more and more stars became visible and, after passing through 5000 feet, I relaxed a bit and moved out to a more comfortable formation spacing to the side ... all the while keeping my eyes firmly riveted on Jerry's navigation lights... a dim white light atop his rudder, and a small green light on the tip of his right wing. From my position on the right, I could not see the small red light on his left wing, but I knew it was there and working. His exhaust stacks on the nose glowed deep red from the bright blue flame of the exhaust gasses. There would be no need for using lights to rejoin formation ...the exhaust stacks would provide all the visibility we would need ... maybe too much.

We leveled off at nine thousand feet and, as we did, reduced our power to cruise settings; I allowed my eyes to wander down to the black sea below. As I did, I got a bad case of vertigo ...dizziness, and I couldn't tell whether I was flying rightside up or upside down. The situation was compounded by the fact that the sea was covered with fishing boats, each having a single mast light. The pattern of lights below was identical to the pattern of stars above ...what an eerie sensation! I quickly glanced at my artificial horizon, altimeter and airspeed instruments, to reassure myself that we were right-side up, then focused again on Mau's lights and exhaust flame. I fought the visual sensations until we crossed landfall near Pusan, and the light patterns below changed abruptly back to black darkness, interspersed with necklaces of lights winding northwestward.

Vertigo is a common occurrence when flying close formation at night, so I wasn't concerned that it would go away; I knew that I could always revert to the truth shown by my flight instruments ...as long as I would believe them.

Fifty miles southwest of Taegu we lost any concerns we might have had about the accuracy of our navigation for finding the front lines. As we looked out ahead into the darkness, we could see an almost solid horseshoe ring of fire ...blazing villages, which extended for miles in either direction, centered along the banks of the Naktong River. The battle front was much more clearly defined for a night attack than it was during the smoke and confusion of daytime battles.

By following the river, keeping just a few miles to the east ...over friendly territory, we could see the periodic strings of lights which marked the North Korean's supply convoys rushing to the battlefronts just beyond the ridge of hills immediately north of Taegu's beleagured airstrip.

We knew, of course, that the strings of lights would disappear just as soon as they heard us in the vicinity, so we had to try to relate the location of the lights to the burning villages on the ground ...and to try to remember approximately how far they were from the known mountains peaks in the area.

The perimeter of burning villages seemed to form a giant, tilted letter "C", with the open portion facing toward Pusan. From our ten-thousand foot altitude over Taegu we could trace the battle lines all the way from the Sea of Japan, just north of Pohang and Kigye, south of Uisong, west to Sonsan, then, following the Naktong River, southwest to Kumchon, Waegwan, Songju, Songjong-dong,Tokson-dong, Ghogje, Sinban-ni, then toward the southeast to Shinum-ni and almost to the southern port of Masan. The entire perimeter of the war was lit up like a Broadway theater marquee ...an eerily beautiful sight!

Awe-inspiring as it was from our vantage point, we had work to do. We could clearly see the heavy concentration of smoke and haze below us, rising to seven or eight thousand feet, where it leveled under an inversion layer of warmer air above. Although we were flying in clear air above the smoke layer at the time, admiring the strange, dramatic beauty of the burning countryside, we knew that our visibility would be drastically reduced as soon as we dropped down into the smoke and haze below the inversion level ...so much so, that we would have to rely on our flight instruments to control the descent path of flight to the point of bomb release, then up again until we could break out into the clear air above.

We had previously agreed that the road southeast out of Songju would be a good target because it was five or six miles west of the river ...so there would be no possibility of our mistakenly hitting friendly troops, and it was about the same distance east of the 4700 foot mountains, on the gently sloping valley west of the Naktong River. By making our attacks from the northwest to the southeast, we could safely dive as low as two or three thousand feet without fear of running into the darkened mountains and, if something went wrong and we had to go down, we could make a wide, sweeping turn to the left across the river to try to land at Taegu's unlighted airstrip.

"Songju it would be, then". We would each make two attacks ...drop our bombs on the first, then a second pass to salvo our six rockets and, if anything looked especially worthwhile, we could make a third attack to spray the area with machine gun fire. Jerry would go down first, and I would follow after about forty-five seconds ...just long enough for him to start pulling out before I started firing.

From a northwesterly heading over Waegwan, Mau started his wide, diving turn to the left from ten thousand feet. I flew on, straight ahead, for another forty seconds, then dropped my nose and started a diving turn, keeping my eyes glued to the flames of the village we had identified as Songju, and the string of lights on the road leading southeast out of the town. I lost sight of Mau as soon as he peeled off and started his turn, and had no idea where he was until he called "Bombs Away", advising that he was pulling up to the east. By that time, I was letting down straight ahead, passing through six thousand feet and was just barely able to see the village through the dense smoke, when Jerry's bombs went off, just beyond the fire which marked the town. The timing was good; there would be no chance for me to run into any of his bomb blast and, since he was well clear, I started firing my machine guns from 5000 feet.

The pattern of bright lights made by my tracers, which were loaded every fifth round, was a fascinating spectacle in the dark, as each dot shot out ahead in a wide, lazy, downward-sweeping arc, which crossed about 300 yards out ahead of my nose. The curving lights appeared so smooth and graceful, and close together ...it was hard for me to realize that there were four additional unlighted bullets between each one of those pretty dots of light.

At thirty-five hundred feet, indicating 450 miles per hour, I started my pull-up in line with the road out of Songju, punching the bomb release button atop the control stick just as I started my climb. This caused my two bombs to 'lob' upward in a slight arc, and gave me more time to start my steep climbing turn to the right before they hit the ground.

I couldn't tell where they hit ...or if they struck anything of value. I knew they would come down someplace close to the road ...and by so doing, would probably keep the North Korean trucks stopped for at least a little while.

Since Mau had climbed out to the east, I pulled up in the opposite direction, climbing northwestward to be sure that our patterns did not conflict in the smoky darkness. I climbed at full power because I knew that there were hills above 5400 feet in the area, and I wanted to stay well-clear of them in the dark. By the time I topped the haze and smoke, Jerry called to say he was starting down on his rocket attack, so I immediately lowered my nose and continued around in the turn to follow him down. He was well ahead of me when I saw the brilliant trail of sparks from the exhaust of his six rockets, and watched, fascinated, as they set off a series of rapid explosions in approximately the same area that his bombs had gone off. I was amazed at the vivid brilliance of the rocket's spark trails, and how they traced a long, glowing brush-stroke of orange flame to the ground.

As Jerry pulled up, he exclaimed: "WOW, that's bright ... watch your eyes!"

Diving through fifty-five hundred feet, on track, I again sprayed the area with necklaces of bright tracers from my machine guns, then, thinking I might avoid some of the vision-shattering brilliance of all six rockets firing at once, I reached down by my left knee to move the rocket selector switch from "Salvo" to "Ripple". That way, instead of firing all six rockets at one time when I pressed the trigger, they'd ripple off one at a time in quick order ... firing first from one wing, then the other, with but a fraction of a second's delay between, until all six were gone. That was a big mistake!!

I triggered off the first one at about 4500 feet, then had to follow that damned, intensely bright trail of sparks for what seemed like an eternity, until the sixth and last rocket finally roared off into the dark.

Blinded by the sparks, while diving toward the ground at more than 400 miles per hour, I closed my eyes momentarily to protect them from the vision-shattering flash, until I felt the last rocket leave with a deep "whoooooosh". After keeping my eyes tightly closed for as long as my nerves would allow, I had to open them because I knew that I must be diving into the hillside. I wasn't, but I was still deep in the trail of sparks and, trying to focus my eyes on my dimly-lit flight instruments as I banked steeply to the left and hauled back on the control stick to get out of their intense brilliance as quickly as possible. The steep pull up ...about 5 Gs, caused me to 'grey out' as the blood left my head from the force of gravity, compounding my problem of trying to right the airplane and get the hell out of there without spinning in. Although I could not yet make out my instruments, because my eyes were still stunned by the bright after-image of the rocket sparks, I sensed that I was still climbing by the feel of the controls and the sound of the engine ...my speed was dropping off rapidly, and the response to the control pressure was changing from the stiff sensations of 400 mph, to what I thought must be a near-stall condition. I couldn't know if I was in a banked attitude and ready to spin-out with a stall, or if my wings were near level.

A sense of frantic desperation welled up inside me ... blinded, sitting in the cockpit of a nearly out-of-control fighter plane in the smoky blackness over enemy territory in mountainous Korea ...my life seemed to suddenly hang on the slender thread of my slowly-returning night vision.

I still could not make out the life-saving messages my flight instruments were trying to signal me, even though I had turned the cockpit light rheostats up to their full brightness. I searched outside the cockpit for some clue, looking first out ahead, then quickly sweeping back over my left shoulder.

Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I could barely make out the hazy pattern of flame on the ground ...and recognized that I was in a very steep climb with the wings almost level. I would surely stall out if I didn't get my nose down in a hurry. I jerked the stick quickly to the left, and kicked hard left rudder, rolling into a steep bank. The nose fell off, just as the airplane stalled and, as it dropped, I eased the stick to the right to level the wings once more. By that time I was able to make out the line of fires on the ground once again, and gently pulled the nose up as the airplane picked up flying speed. I continued along the line of fires until I could make out my instruments, then turned toward Taegu to rejoin Mau and head for home.

After one circle of Taegu, Mau blinked his navigation lights a couple of times and I was able to slowly ease up onto his wing as we headed southeast toward Pusan, and across the sea to Ashiya. My eyes gradually adapted to the darkness once again, and the trip home was uneventful at ten thousand feet. We could see the glow of Ashiya's city lights through the clouds from over the Island of Tsushima, seventy miles out ...a very welcome sight.

Letting down at a leisurely rate, we timed our descent to where we thought we could intercept the Ground Control Approach (GCA) radar final approach path at about 2000 feet, then make a smooth transition to a straight-in final approach track through the low clouds to the runway.

Although we could see the glow of the lights thru the fog-like haze, we weren't yet able to pinpoint the location of the airstrip.

With our typical luck, when we radioed for landing information, the control tower informed us that the GCA unit was shut down for maintenance between the hours of 0100 and 0400 each morning; we'd have to find our way home by ourselves, or divert the forty miles south to Itazuke, where there was an operational GCA unit. We chose to chance it through the thin overcast scud at Ashiya.

I tucked close onto Mau's right wing once again, as he flew to the Ashiya low frequency radio beacon at 2000 feet, then turned outbound to set up a teardrop return pattern, descending over the sea to turn back inbound ...to what we hoped would be a precise final approach to the runway, which was situated very close to the beach.

However, our signals became crossed when Jerry lowered his landing gear while in the scud ...where I didn't see it, and I shot past him with my extra speed. I promptly lost sight of him in the clouds, and had to immediately go on my own instruments to keep my ship right side up as I recovered my bearings.

Jerry continued his turn from base leg to final approach and went on in for an uneventful landing. Meanwhile, I leveled off momentarily, then swung around in a wide 360 degree turn to the right, rolling out when my radio compass needle (ADF) showed I was heading in toward the strip on the proper runway heading. Dropping landing gear and flaps, I established a steady 300 ft per minute rate of descent, and planned to hold it until I either broke out of the clouds, or reached a minimum altitude of 200 feet. I was much relieved to break out of the scud at about 250 feet, giving me enough room to make a slight visual correction to line up with the runway and set the Mustang down for a smooth, three-point landing finally, at 2:50 AM ...after a very, very long, very tiring day of war.

At the mission debriefing we discussed the results of our night combat mission in great detail, trying to evaluate whether night bombing strikes by old, single place fighters could be effective, or even feasible.

Our honest opinion was: "Not only 'NO', but 'HELL NO!"

Aside from the initial surprise to the enemy, we were sure they must have realized we could not aim at specific targets in the dark, and they would soon proceed along their usual way. The danger to the fighter pilots, flying at low altitude in the mountainous terrain was too great for the potential gains; it was not worth the risk involved.

It was interesting to note, many years later, when reading Futrell’s official, published "History of the United States Air Force in Korea", that an account of our August 10, 1950 night attack on Songju, and our negative opinions of its value, were described in extended detail."

Footnote:
In mid-1952, after both had returned to the United States, then-Major Mau and Captain Biteman were each awarded Distinguished Flying Cross medals for their 10 August 1950, P-51 Mustang night attack against North Korean Communist ground forces in the Songju area of South Korea.

Duane E. 'Bud' Biteman,
Lt. Col, USAF, Ret
‘...One of those Old, Bold Fighter Pilots’
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