18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea

SPLASH TWO YAKS - Aerial Combat: Mullins & Ausman

First Lieutenant Harold J. Ausman, of the 67th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing, survived a rare aerial encounter with a pair of North Korean YAK fighter-bombers early in the war, and escaped unscathed.

In early November, 1950, Ausman was flying wingman with Major Arnold 'Moon' Mullins, who had assumed command of the 67th Squadron following the untimely combat death of Major Lou Sebille. They were returning from an interdiction mission north of Seoul and had found it necessary to climb above a broken cloud layer to leave the rugged mountain valley which they had recently attacked.

Coming across a hole in the clouds a few miles northeast of Seoul, and looking for recognizable landmarks, Mullins let down through an opening in the clouds and unexpectedly found themselves overtaking a pair of single-engine airplanes directly ahead of them. With a quick 'double take', Mullins realized that they were not F-51 Mustangs ... they were not even friendly aircraft, they were a pair of Russian-built North Korean YAKs; propeller-driven attack planes.

With their considerable speed advantage, descending unseen from the rear, Mullins quickly assessed the situation, and told Ausman to take the enemy YAK on the right, while he attacked the one on the left.

Their dive from high and to the rear had caught the enemy completely by surprise. Mullins pressed his trigger and quickly the first enemy ship exploded in flame with his first burst of machine gun fire and saw it dive sharply to the ground. No parachutes were seen.

But Ausman was even more startled by their sudden, amazing stroke of luck; such a rare opportunity for an aerial 'kill'. He was so preoccupied with his extreme good fortune that he misjudged his high rate of closure on his target aircraft and, although firing his machine guns and getting a few hits, was not able to destroy the target on his first firing pass.

Instead, to his utter dismay, he found the momentum of his dive was carrying him helplessly past the enemy, overtaking the target and drifting right into the sights of his quarry.

Where moments before he had been the attacker, he was suddenly and very unhappily becoming a sitting-duck target for the enemy YAK, who was about to be offered a beautiful straight-on, close-astern firing blast against his attacker!

Chopping his throttle completely off, and fanning rudder to skid the airplane in an attempt to dissipate excess speed, Ausman continued to slowly pass on the YAK's right side.

"Dive under", he heard Mullins shout over his radio, and Ausman immediately did as he was told.

Ausman hit the throttle, dove sharply and turned left under the enemy airplane as Mullins, who, fortunately, was still behind the surviving YAK was able to swing quickly and easily into trail position and shot down the second North Korean aircraft with a quick burst of machine gun fire, giving Major Arnold "Moon" Mullins two aerial victories in as many minutes ... the first aerial encounters for the 67th Squadron and the first aerial victories for the 18th Fighter-Bomber Group in the Korean war.

Lieutenant Harold Ausman, thankful for Mullin's prompt and accurate marksmanship was facetiously, and in honest good humor, given the nickname "Ace", which he cherished through the rest of his successful Air Force career.

Arnold 'Moon' Mullins, a P-38 veteran of WWII, where he had been shot down over Europe and evaded capture was, at age 30, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel soon after completing his Combat Tour and leaving the 67th Squadron in Korea. He was reassigned to a Tactical Air Command base in South Carolina in early 1951, developing air-to-ground communications procedures for Close Support operations.

He was killed in the crash of a T-33 jet trainer aircraft in 1952 while demonstrating those tactical maneuvers.

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