18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea

Seoul's HAN RIVER BRIDGE

Seoul, South Korea, Mid-Summer 1950,
Busting Bridges, Jinxing, and ‘Yo-Yo’ Defensive Tactics,

The average experience level of our Dallas (12th) squadron pilots, with a median age of 27, and 600 flying hours, paid dividends during those first couple of weeks of the Korean war and, even though we lost a couple of airplanes, we didn't lose any pilots until the 25th of July. On that day, Billie Crabtree, a sharp young 2nd Lieutenant was our first casualty. He was working over a railroad on the west coast near Kwangju, trying to skip-bomb a locomotive in a tunnel. He apparently started his pull-out a fraction of a second too late for the heavy load he was carrying, for he mushed into the top of the hill at the same time that his bombs went off inside the tunnel. He wrapped his Mustang into a great ball of fire. Two days later the North Koreans had the tunnel open and usable again.

The aircraft carrier USS Boxer had arrived in Tokyo harbor on July 23rd, after a record-breaking eight-day crossing, carrying more than 140 "new" F-51 Mustangs which had been collected from various Air National Guard units in the United States, and they brought fifty-some fresh, highly experienced pilots along with them. Things were beginning to look up, finally, after long weeks of gloom.

The impact of our repeated daylight fighter attacks became apparent rather suddenly during the last week in July. Where the Reds had previously charged blindly ahead in full daylight, seemingly oblivious to the toll we were taking of their tanks, trucks and troops ..they all of a sudden began seeking concealment during the day, and making their advances only at night.

As their forces neared the Naktong River, we really had to search hard for them, looking under each tree and inside the buildings of each village. They would drive their tanks right through the walls of several buildings in the village, then drive their trucks and tanks inside and camouflage the openings with net or straw so they would not be detected from the air. Or, if there were no villages nearby, they would park under a clump of trees and spread netting and branches over the equipment. They made it necessary for us to drastically change our tactics, because we had to search out the targets at minimum altitude ...literally lifting the branches of the trees to look underneath for their arms, or to find their tank tracks, where they'd failed to cover them.

There were just as many targets as there had been before, once we found them; but we started picking up more holes in our ships from small arms fire while we were down on the deck searching for clues.

We therefore modified our tactics accordingly, by what came to be known as "yo-yo" maneuvers. Instead of two or more ships going in to search or attack a target simultaneously, we'd keep one ship high ...above 2000 feet, just high enough to stay out of much small arms (rifle and machine gun) range, while the other went down onto the deck. Then, if the enemy fired on the attacking plane, the top-cover could usually spot the muzzle blasts and be able to dive in to attack, while the first attacker would pull up to fly "shotgun", continuing the one up, one down coverage for as long as there were targets in the area.

When we'd come across an especially lucrative or heavily-defended target, one that we had to hit repeatedly, we'd try to vary the patterns to be sure that we never made our attacks twice from the same direction. To do so was to invite disaster, because the gunners were able to take a sighting on one ship, then be all set to blast the next one down the 'chute’. Instead, we'd make sure that our attack headings were at least 60 to 90 degrees offset from the preceding ship and I, personally, would always let loose a short burst of machine gun fire just as I started in on the target, even at long, out of range distances ...just to suggest the gunners put their heads down. They really didn't know whether I was shooting at them or not, so they'd often hold their fire for fear I'd see their muzzle blast and aim directly at them.

But, as soon as we'd passed their position, and they knew we couldn't turn on them ... WOW! All hell would break loose and everyone on the ground would swing their guns around and try to get us on the way out ...unless my wingman was coming down the slot at the same time that I was pulling off.

At any rate, I soon got into the habit of "jinxing" the ship around as I approached the target, and especially as I pulled off. I'd push rudders, stick and ailerons all over the cockpit, to keep the ship flying as UNCOORDINATED as I could make it, and if there was a hill nearby, I'd roll over on my back and scoot over the hill close to the ground, rolling right-side-up only after I was on the opposite side, where the targets’ gunners couldn't take aim on me. Then, after a few miles or so on the other side, I'd pull up steeply to trade my excess full-throttle airspeed for a couple thousand feet of quick altitude, and start another attack from a far-different angle. My defensive techniques worked very effectively for me, and although most attacks were at low altitude, in heavily defended areas, few gunners were able to successfully take a bead on me. My Mustangs picked up very few holes.

Those tactics worked especially well on one rough mission, early in the game, when we were assigned the task of trying to knock out a pontoon bridge the Reds had set up across the Han River at Seoul. B-29s had knocked out the road and railroad bridges across the river, but the Communists quickly brought in sections for a pontoon bridge, which they used only at night, and would then dismantle and hide during the day. The bombers were unable to knock it out, because they seemed to always be just a few minutes too late, and couldn't catch the bridge in place. Since it was on their primary supply route and a choice target, the Reds had set up heavy anti-aircraft batteries on both ends of the bridge and in the towns on either side ...one of the few such heavily defended sites in Korea at the time. Several of our fighter flights had been diverted by the heavy ground fire before they could take good aim on the bridge sections.

In late July, 1950, 1st Lieut. Bill Slater and I were elected to try again to knock it out. 'Knowing the target was heavily defended, we planned the mission in more detail than most of our recent "armed recce" flights. We knew we'd have to arrive over the river before dawn's first light to catch it in place or in use, but we'd need to have enough light to see and to aim at the bridge. We planned for two other ships to approach the area at higher altitude ...above 10,000 feet and out of range of their flak, heading in a southwest to northeasterly direction.

At the exact time that they would be over the bridge, collecting the attention of all flak batteries, Bill and I would sweep wide around the low hills in the east, coming down the river flat on the water, to skip bomb the pontoons ...we hoped. We would then continue down river, staying on the water, and on out to sea near Inchon before climbing to return toward the south.

Taking off at 4:00 AM from the dark, unlighted, rough field at Taegu, blinded by dust from the two lead ships ...was a memorable thrill in itself. But once airborne we could navigate through the dark by following the line of burning villages. In less than an hour we had reached our IP (identification point) south of Seoul, where the other pair of fighters continued their climb while Bill and I cautiously eased down into the dark hills, with just enough light growing in the east to tell when we were low enough for safety.

Upon reaching the Han River, about ten miles upstream from the bridge, we signaled the others, who turned toward Seoul, while we put on full throttle and dropped down into the river bed.

As expected, all hell broke loose when the high flight approached the bridge, with four separate flak batteries lighting up the sky below them. We knew from their evasive action that they'd never be able to get a half-way decent bombing run on the bridge, even if they were foolish enough to try it, but their decoy was working well, because all of the guns were shooting skyward ...not one was aimed at us, yet.

Bill sighted on the south shore, when we got close enough to see the pontoons, with a tank and a truck crossing it and, as I was on his right wing, I picked the north supports.

We toggled our bombs off simultaneously, broadside against the bridge, and immediately rolled hard to the sides to miss our bomb blasts. Bill rolled up over the hill on the south, right over the flak batteries, and I turned north over the town, momentarily, then rolled onto my back and angled back to the river just before coming abreast of Kimpo airfield. Rolling right-side-up again, I dropped as low into the river bed as I could without hitting the water, and started making violent skidding turns from side to side, because when I looked behind me I could see a trail of large white puffs following each and every turn I made. The flak batteries at Kimpo had my altitude and range boxed in, but so far they hadn't tuned in to my airspeed ...and I damned sure was not going to hang around and let them test their abilities. As I huddled lower and lower into the cockpit, to get as much protection as I could from the sheet of armor plate behind the seat, I almost did not see the set of high-tension power lines strung across the river west of Kimpo airfield. With a quick pop of the stick, I ducked under the lines, then pulled hard back, to climb for maximum altitude, as I "towed" my trail of white flak puffs behind ...looking for all the world like a strange, surrealistic, giant popcorn string decorating a Christmas tree!

I called Slater, who had stayed on the deck until he'd passed the town of Suwon, before climbing to join our other pair of fighters, and told them I'd meet them north of Taejon. As far as we knew, none of us had been hit by ground fire, and we'd knocked out their prized pontoon bridge ...with a tank and a truck for good measure.

We felt good as we looked for targets for our rockets and machine guns on the way back to Taegu. We caught a couple more trucks and were back on the ground before breakfast ...a very successful mission all the way around.

The Reds replaced the pontoon bridge less than a week later, but we delayed their supplies for awhile, causing them to jam up on the roads and railroads north of the Han River, where a flight of B-29s caught a mass concentration a couple of days later.

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