18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea

POLKA DOT SKIES - Sinmak Flak Batteries

May 1951

By May, 1951, the Reds were rapidly improving their anti-aircraft defenses, with particular attention to the railroad routes which paralleled the west coast ...running roughly northwest from Seoul to Kaesong and Haeju, then north to Sariwon and Kyomipo, and westerly over to the port at Chinnampo, and the short stretch from there to Pyongyang, the battered capitol of North Korea. The route north, to the Manchurian border ...to Anju, Sinnanju, Chongju, Sunchon and Sinuiju were so heavily defended that it seemed almost possible to "walk" on the layers of flak bursts.

The Chinese were reported to be forming 'hunter groups' ...troops specially trained for aircraft defenses. Each group reportedly had 1200 highly-trained men to set up flak traps, place decoy trucks, string cables across canyons, dig-in rapid-firing flak guns ...some of which were radar-controlled, string lights along a road to simulate convoys, and even place parachutes in strategic locations so we would think that one of our pilots had gone down, and we'd go in at slow speed to search for him. By the end of May, 1951, they were reported to have 275 of the anti-aircraft emplacements spaced along the railroad, and more than 600 automatically aimed, radar controlled, machine gun units.

...It was no wonder that I began to prefer the nice quiet missions over the central mountains, where I could bomb out a quiet road without disturbing too many of the unfriendly, well-armed natives!

Once in awhile we could zip in and out of a hot target area without stirring up too much hostile fire, as I had done on my other two missions flown out of Seoul's K-16 airport on May 19th, 1951.

On one of the missions I slipped in and out of Chungwha railroad yards twice ...making highly successful napalm and rocket runs against a string of boxcars. We got several good secondary fires and explosions without seeing a single burst of flak or machine gun fire. Then, later the same day, we hit the industrial area of the port city of Chinnampo, making pass after pass without seeing any heavy flak. There was lots of small arms fire, but none of the heavy white or black puffs which throw shrapnel out in all directions.

I was tired that Saturday night; it had been a long, hard day with almost six hours of constant heavy 'G' forces, cutting and rolling around over the targets. Most of us didn't use the 'Chaps-style G Suits' the only type available in those days; they were just another bit of inadequate pilot gear... more trouble than they were worth.

I hit the sack early at Seoul's K-16 airstrip... in a grubby community-use sleeping bag on a sagging GI cot in a bare, drafty pyramidal tent, but I slept soundly. I knew that I had a couple more long, hard days ahead of me before I could go down to Chinhae for a rest.

I knew it was not going to be easy, because the Reds had started their "Fifth Phase" offensive, during which the Far East Air Forces were to eventually lose fifty-nine fighter aircraft to ground fire in just ten days!

The pace of the missions were such that we could fly as many and as often as we felt able. Jerry Mau and Jack Crawford had just finished their 100 missions, as did Embery and Buttry ...a bunch of happy, relieved people heading back to Chinhae to await their transfer orders. Those old friends of mine had survived the war and I was happy for them ...and envious too, for at the time I still had about twenty missions to fly, and they didn't seem to be getting any easier.

Owen Brewer's airplane was one of those hit; 'took a few slugs in the engine from ground fire, unknown to him, until it finally quit while heading south toward Chinhae. He bellied-in to a small cleared area... in friendly territory, fortunately, but he re-injured his back, which hadn't completely healed from his earlier tour, when he had to bail out of another dead Mustang. He was flown to Tokyo for his latest recovery ... but even after more than two years in the Theater, they still would not let him go back to the 'States to recuperate.

Bob Seguin, one of the young, new Lieutenants in my flight, a West Point graduate, came back from a mission with his vertical stabilizer half torn away by a flak burst. He went out the following day and was hit going in on his bomb run; he flew his Mustang right into the ground in a fiery ball.

My first mission on 20 May, a Sunday, was to the heavily defended marshaling yards at Sinmak, North Korea. We knew that they had heavy concentrations of radar-controlled 20 and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns, so we planned to make just one very quick coordinated attack, loosing all bombs and rockets against the railroad rolling stock which had reportedly been moved in during the night.

'Mac', the flight leader for the mission, and his wingman were to go down together, making a very steep high-speed dive-bomb run from 10,000 or 12,000 feet, then, as they pulled out, my wingman and I would start our runs from another direction, hoping to keep the machine-gunner's heads down as we strafed on the way down.

As they rolled over into their dive, I could hardly believe my eyes ...the entire sky, for miles around, suddenly blossomed with a polka-dot pattern of puffy white and black flak bursts. It was unbelievable; it was eerie ...and it was very, very scary!

I had never seen anything like it... not even the newsreel depiction of our B-17s flying over the flak in Germany during World War II showed anything as concentrated as what the Chinese were throwing up over Sinmak!

"They must really have something down there that they want to protect", I thought, as I positioned my element for an aiming point that would carry me down the line of stationary rail cars.

Mac's element got good hits and started several fires and explosions. As he pulled up through the cloud of flak bursts, I couldn't believe that neither he nor his wingman were hit. It looked like dozens of bursts exploded right over, under or right behind both Mustangs.

It was with considerable apprehension that I hunched myself as low as I could behind my instrument panel and rolled over into a 'split 'S' ...the bottom half of a loop, from 12,000 feet, kicking rudder first from one side, then the other, while pumping the stick forward and back ...all intended to keep the little F-51 from flying in a straight line at any time, for fear that the flak gunners and their radar might get a bead on my line of flight... if they were going to hit me, it was going to be more luck than skill on their part, because I damned sure wasn't going to hold still long enough for them to take aim on me!

Finally, diving at almost 500 mph, just about maximum safe speed for the '51, I leveled my wings and held her steady just long enough at 2500 feet to see the string of cars slip under my nose, and I instantly triggered off my two 500 pound bombs. I then hugged the ground, jinxing from side to side until I came to a ridge of low hills, at which time I jammed the throttle full forward and pulled the nose almost straight up, kicking rudders as I climbed ...still watching the flak puffs bursting all around me. I finally ran out of 'zoom' speed at about 11,000 feet and leveled off. Checking the position of my wingman, I was somewhat surprised to find that he was still with me; I then called to check on Mac's position.

He was still circling, with his wingman, on the opposite side of the city, debating whether he should go into that hornets nest once again to salvo his rockets. Like the rest of us, he'd been too busy taking evasive action on the first run, and had not fired any of his rockets.

We concluded that we might just as well make another run with our rockets ...there were still plenty of undamaged boxcars, and the gunners hadn't been able to hit any of us, not yet...

We used similar tactics on the second attack ... commonly referred to as the "Yo Yo maneuver", where we send two aircraft in to attack, while another two remain high for top cover and to observe for ground fire. Then, as the first two attackers pull off the target, the second pair come in from a different direction, causing the gunners to divide their attention amongst the four airplanes.

Again we jinxed our way down at maximum speed, salvoed our rockets against the rail cars from about 3500 feet, then pulled up through the polka-dot sky to again level off at 12,000 feet, which kept us just above the apparent fused burst height of their flak. We had good fires and explosions going all over the marshaling yards, but there still were dozens of cars which appeared to be undamaged.

"How about it?" Mac called to me. "Shall we try it one more time and finish the job?"

My wingman responded with a weak: "Ohhh Shee-it", and I concurred that we should make just one more, last strafing pass then stay on the deck until we got behind the hills, and head for home ...for we had really been pushing our luck; 'two passes and none of us had been hit ...it seemed impossible!

This time, however, as Mac and his wingman dove once again through that flak-filled mess, I went into a gentle northerly dive, beyond the hills that I'd scooted over on my first run. Then, after getting away from the heaviest flak area, I pushed the throttle to the firewall again, and dropped down to the deck long before coming to the railroad yards, spraying machine gun fire from side to side as I jinxed onward toward the flaming boxcars. Finally, as I neared the undamaged group, I kicked up into a steeply-banked turn and dove, spraying an extrodinarily long burst of machine gun fire at the line of cars as I turned. At least two of the cars exploded as I passed over the yards, from where I then rolled onto my back to drop over the nearest hills, then rolled upright to stay at treetop level and get the hell out of the area.

Three consecutive attacks into the hottest flak concentration in North Korea, and not one of the four of us picked up a single hole ...I could not believe our stupid, fantastic luck!

But I vowed then and there, that I would steer clear of that town from then on ...Sinmak went to the top of my lengthening list of 'no-fun' targets!

My second mission that day was a relatively short, one and one-half hour road-cutter in the mountainous ‘Iron Triangle’ area of Kaesong. 'Got some good cuts in the roads with our bombs, but couldn't find much to launch our rockets against until, finally, we came across a railroad tunnel with steam rising out the end.

After carefully checking the hillsides above for enemy gunners ...we were beginning to get a bit leery of their flak traps, and this would have been a perfect spot for one ...I made a low, flat, 375 mph approach, just clearing the power poles alongside the road bed, then salvoed my rockets ...all six at once, into the tunnel entrance. We could see smoke and debris shoot out both ends of the short tunnel, but had no idea what might have been inside, other than the locomotive. We concluded that there must have been 'something' of value in there, though, otherwise the rockets would have shot much more of their force out the far side. Instead, the smoke and jetsum seemed to come out both ends about equally.

But, as was so often the case, we would never know for sure what all we had destroyed.

Two more missions on Monday, May 21st, brought my total to 85, and put me back down to Chinhae for a day of rest. Much as I would've liked to stay up in the war and rack up the last fifteen of my missions, I recognized that I was finding the stress of continuous low-level, high-speed attacks ...with their necessary intense mental concentration ...was putting a very heavy burden on my nervous system.

It was an odd mental turmoil that I was feeling ...a unique sensation: my mind was telling me that I had but fifteen more missions to fly ...I could finish them easily; just another five or six days on the line, at my usual high rate of scheduling.

But then, my better judgment told me: "Take it easy, Bud. Another day or two won't make that much difference, and you're getting awfully tired ...'prone to make mistakes ... possibly fatal mistakes."

I concluded that I'd better take advantage of the benefits of a relaxing day off to recharge my depleted batteries. Thirty missions in less than two weeks ... thirteen days, to be exact, was beginning to leave its mark on me. My conservative nature made 'discretion the better part of valor', and I headed south for another steak dinner and a good hot bath at our rear base on the South Coast at Chinhae.

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