18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea

SUCKER BAIT - Caught in a Flak Trap

May 1951

Returning to Pusan air base (K-9), in the first week of May, 1951, I joined the 39th Fighter Sqdn, which had recently become part of the 18th Fighter Wing, after an absence of almost five months while with the 44th Squadron at Clark Field, P.I., I found that the base facilities at our old "Dogpatch" had been greatly improved. The runway had been lengthened and 'paved' with steel planking; the tents had been replaced by permanent wood barracks, with hot and cold showers, a permanent Mess Hall, and even a small Officer's Club just a few feet from my BOQ room. Things were beginning to show some gradual improvement. Flying combat isn't half so bad when you can come back to semi-decent living conditions to rest a bit before going out again.

But, with our usual tickling by the fickle-fingered fates, the 39th which was transferred intact from the 35th Group to the 18th Group in a move to consolidate all remaining F-51 Mustang units into one Group, and to use all "improved" and lengthened airstrips for JET operations. The rugged Mustangs, of course, could work quite well from short, bumpy gravel strips, closer to the front lines ...those without the fancy, 'improved' living conditions.

The 39th was to then move immediately to a newly-opened former seaplane base at Chinhae, on the south coast. But I wouldn't see that new home for a few days; I would be spending the interim at a familiar little place called "Seoul"... The Jets had done it to us again! 'Forced us out of Pusan's newly-built barracks, and back into tents once again.

I flew a short familiarization flight on May 4th, to renew my acquaintanship with the Mustang's cockpit after having flown only the F-80 jets for six months, then took a half-hour maintenance test hop on the 5th. That was all it took; I was "at home" again in that comfortable 'old shoe' cockpit.

I could even feel a small surge of enthusiasm to get going on the combat missions; the sooner I started, the sooner I'd be able to complete the remaining forty-five of my mandated 100 combat missions... the 45 missions I'd been prevented from flying on my previous Tour due to the full-time Intelligence job I held at the time.

The bombline by May 1951, had see-sawed back down to a short distance ...maybe 25 or 30 miles, north of the city of Seoul, and ran pretty much east and west across the narrow waist of the peninsula ...very close to the original 38th Parallel line.

My re-entry into the rigors of combat flying began again on Sunday afternoon, May 6th, 1951, when I flew a mission near the little town of Sibyon-ni, a bit west of Chorwon, where we were to make "road cuts" to try to prevent resupply of the enemy's front line troops during the night.

Road cutting had become a standard delaying tactic; when we couldn't locate their vehicles during the day, we'd try to destroy their bridges or narrow mountain roads each evening, thereby slowing the truck traffic. The Red's highly-efficient repair crews would have to work throughout the night before the roads could again be used. Then, the following evening we'd come back and bomb the critical spots again, restarting the entire cycle. The road-cutting forays were a relatively 'safe' type of mission, because there was seldom much anti-aircraft defense encountered in the remote mountainous locations we preferred to hit. Road-Cutter missions turned out to be a somewhat relaxing respite from the more frantic ...and much more dangerous, close support missions along the front lines.

It was kinda' nice to be able to plan a 'soft' mission for late in the afternoon; it helped a person to 'wind down' before settling in for the night... usually; of course, every once in awhile they would surprise us with a flak battery sighting on a decoy truck or bridge ... just to keep us on our toes.

My Sibyon-ni road-cut on the 6th was only partially successful; I was not yet back to my old dive bombing prowess, and had a near-miss which did little damage to the road. My rocket attacks against a nearby supply dump were better, and I felt pretty good when we landed after two and one-half hours, at our new Forward Base, K-16, a rough 3200 foot steel-mat strip on a sandbar in the middle of the Han River... just three miles from the center of downtown Seoul.

K-16, as an operational fighter base, was 'interesting', to say the least. Formerly "Seoul City Airport", it had been a light plane strip before the war, but was severely damaged by the see-saw of the front lines. When we repossessed the real estate, the bomb craters were bulldozed, PSP steel planking was laid in the direction that would allow the longest straight line on the ground ...with little concern for the prevailing wind directions, and it was just coincidental that the line of flight took us over the Seoul suburb .. Yongdong-po industrial area, with dozens of tall, brick smokestacks extending well up into the flight pattern. The stacks in a direct line with the runway were leveled, but the dozens of brick towers which remained just a few yards to either side of our centerline, were a constant mental hazard during heavy, max-weight F-51 combat operations.

With heavy usage, the sand base under our PSP surface settled into a bumpy, uneven washboard, with an especially sharp rise just short of the 2000 foot mark. The rise was just enough to throw the heavily-loaded Mustangs into the air about 500 feet short of the point where they could safely achieve minimum flying speed.

As a result, when loaded with full armament ...two bombs, six rockets, full ammo and fuel, rolling with maximum power, the bumpy runway would scoop us into the air before we were ready, and we would then have to fan rudders in a 'rudder-exercise stall recovery' back onto the mat until we could accelerate to normal take-off speed ...600 feet further down the runway. Then, with minimum climbing airspeed we'd try to establish an immediate drift correction in order to maneuver the heavy little ships out between the menacing brick smoke stacks, before we were able to ease off on our climb attitude and pick up enough speed to safely make a turn toward lower terrain.

The landing approaches from the east were not much better. The remains of the steel railroad bridge over the Han River, just a mile east of the landing strip, made a good checkpoint for our turn onto final approach; if we could chop our throttle just as our wheels brushed the dust from the top girder, we could glide nicely down to a touchdown right at the beginning edge of the steel-planked runway, provided our airspeed was held to the absolute minimum. It was not advisable to land at K-16 with unexpended armament, or heavy fuel load, both of which would make for higher approach speeds on final, and increase the possibility of skidding off the end of the slick steel 'pavement'.

Living conditions at Seoul City Airport were, as expected, "rudimentary" to say the least. But since it was a "Forward Base", and used primarily for a place to re-arm and refuel, eat and sleep between missions, and to find out by field telephone where the next mission was to go. It was not a place to expect airplane repairs, or to take showers or to do paper work, or even to relax for more than an hour or so at a time. But even at that, our tents were wood-floored, steel cots had mattresses and 'non-assigned' sleeping bags, tables and benches in the Mess tent, all tents had a single electric light and a pot-bellied oil heater. The K-16 facilities were, admittedly, somewhat more plush than we'd had for permanent, every-day quarters at either Taegu or Pusan in the 'early days' of the war.

A major shortcoming was discovered, however, on my first night at K-16, when I "heard" that our Army's heavy artillery pieces were positioned less than a mile south of our airstrip ...behind us, and they fired continually with their heavy cannon, over our heads during the entire night, toward the enemy on the other (north) side of Seoul. The sporadic blasts, followed immediately by the eerie whistle-whish of the shells overhead was very disconcerting, and made sleep almost impossible. But the very short missions resulting from our far-forward location at K-16 made even the disturbed sleep worthwhile and, like the people living next to the railroad tracks, we sort of became accustomed to the strange night-time sounds.

Our typical schedule called for a pilot to spend only one night out of three at Seoul, with the others enjoying the quiet comfort of our 'permanent' base at Dogpatch (K-9), or later, at K-10, Chinhae.

After refueling and a quick sandwich at K-16 I flew another short mission to the Chorwon-Kumwha-Changdo area that day, May 6th. We napalmed and rocketed suspected supply dumps along the railroad, getting some good fires going and, surprisingly, didn't see a single burst of heavy flak. I'd been told that the flak concentrations were much, much heavier than when we were there earlier, especially along the railroads and in the vicinity of their larger cities ... I was almost disappointed when we didn't see either flak or enemy troops on that mission.

With two 'uneventful' missions under my belt, I felt a bit reassured and more comfortable with my old Mustangs ...which, by the way, were no longer 'old'; they were newly-arrived from National Guard outfits in the 'States, and were in top-notch condition. Everything in the ships worked just the way it was supposed to ... a full complement of instruments, radio compass direction finder for navigation ... they even had gun and bombing cameras mounted to record the results of our attacks on film. We were really going first class on this trip, at least as far as the airplane equipment was concerned.

On Monday, 7 May, I was off early from K-16, taking off just at dawn to strike at an enemy railroad bridge a few miles east of Namchon-jon. The first three of our ships had near misses, but I was fortunate enough to put both of my 500-pounders right into the center span, dropping it into the river. I was so elated that I hardly noticed the sparse, inaccurate puffs of flak covering the area as we rocketed and strafed the railroad yards before heading back across the hills to Seoul. The mission was another 'good one', I thought.

After an hour's respite, while the airplanes were being re-armed and refueled, we enjoyed a good cup of coffee and doughnuts, we were off again at 1000 AM for more road cuts in the mountains near Sibyon-ni.

I was content to be flying number four position on these missions, for it gave me a chance to benefit from watching the results of those attacking ahead of me. On this mission, all three made good, accurate hits along the mountain road, putting the pressure on me to make it 'four out of four'.

I lined up on a narrow hairpin curve cut into the side of a steep cliff, thinking that if I overshot or undershot one side of the hairpin, I might luck-out and hit the other side. With phenomenal good fortune, my bombs hit the road on both sides of the curve, making not one, but two damaging road cuts. The four of us had made five good, solid cuts, and once again had run into no enemy fire in the process.

We strafed and rocketed a few likely-looking buildings along the roads on the way back to Seoul, where, after another refuel and rearm, we were off again at 1430 for our third mission of the day. 'Back again to the Chorwon area, where we managed three good road cuts out of four airplanes (the element leader had a near-miss), but much as we looked around the area, we couldn't find much more to attack, so, after a short time, we turned south toward Pusan, where the four of us were to spend the night and ...an unheard of luxury in the old days, a scheduled day off. The combining of the F-51 Mustang pilots of the 39th Squadron, with those of the 18th, gave us enough pilots and aircraft to establish a somewhat-efficient schedule which wouldn't wear out either of the vital assets ...the pilots or the airplanes.

May 8,'51 was a day of complete relaxation for me at K-9; I slept late, had a leisurely breakfast at the 'Club', picked up a few necessities at the little PX... cigarettes, stationery, soap, etc., then read for awhile and packed my few belongings so they could be moved to Chinhae if I was up at Seoul's K-16 when the move took place. In the evening I had a few drinks, some pleasant conversation with the guys at the Club, wrote a letter home, and was into the sack at an early hour, ready to start another series of missions on the following morning.

However, because of heavy rains around Pusan on 9 May, our missions were held to a minimum and I spent a second 'fat-cat' day on the ground with nothing to do. I read another book and wrote another letter, and did not feel a bit guilty for not having accomplished anything 'destructive'.

On the 10th, when the weather finally cleared enough for take-off, we departed Pusan for Seoul City, with a side trip to the Chorwon area for road cutting and any 'targets of opportunity'. Then, after stopping at K-16 to reload, we returned again to the same area, still looking for ground traffic. Nothing of interest was found, so we cut more roads and rocketed a few buildings, then returned to K-16.

The rainy weather which limited our aerial activities for a few days, had made the Red troops a bit more brave than they had previously been, giving us some good truck targets along their muddy, cratered roads near Kumwha. On Sunday the 13th I flew two short missions out of Seoul City, then, intending to go on down to Chinhae after the third mission of the day ...which was to be spent truck-busting around the Hwachon Reservoir, about 150 miles north of the front lines; we had planned to keep it short ...get in, launch our loads all at once, then head south for a nice steak dinner at our new home by the southern sea. And, since we hadn't landed at our new Chinhae base before, we wanted to get in before dark, to see what we were faced with. That was the plan, anyhow....

Flying a wide, line-abreast formation, just skimming the mountain tops as we looked for targets, I was surprised when I glanced out to the distant hills on my right, to find three large trucks lined up alongside a steep, narrow mountain road, with a group of troops milling about ...as if they had stopped for a brief 'latrine call'. I should have been suspicious at finding them right out in the open the way I did, with no camouflage or any attempt to hide in a tunnel or under trees, but I was so glad to find such lucrative targets that I didn't consider for a moment that it might be a decoy or a flak-trap setup.

I called the flight leader to report my sighting, and at the same time, without waiting for or hearing a reply, pulled up to swing around into a wide right turn for a long, straight-in dive into the narrow mountain canyon.

Unknown to me, when we had crossed the bombline, the rest of my flight had switched to a secondary radio frequency ...a new procedure since my previous tour. So no one in the flight heard my report of the truck sighting. Fortunately for me, my element leader had seen me pull up to head for the valley, and had reported to the Flight Leader that I was apparently onto something.

They had then turned around to give me back-up support, as was customary, and to look for other potential targets in the vicinity.

Appraising the situation as I dove toward the narrow entrance to the valley, I could see steep hills rising to 2500 or 3000 feet on three sides of the canyon, with a dirt road climbing the left ridge. I would have, at best, just a very short space to line up my skip-bomb run, and would have to hold a gentle right turn as I grazed the cliffs on the left, to get into position to skip-bomb the trucks. I would then have to make an immediate, sharp left pull-up to avoid hitting the crest of the hills at the point beyond the trucks, where the narrow dirt road crossed over the summit.

Pressing my turn tightly against the hills on the left, so that I would be able to shallow my bank at the aiming point, I leveled momentarily, just an instant before the first of the trucks passed under my nose; I pressed the bomb-release button and began an immediate high-G pull-up climb while rolling to the left, looking over my left shoulder to see the napalm flames splashing gracefully along the line of trucks, engulfing all three.

Instantly, as I crossed over the pass, I felt a rapid "thunk, thunk, thunk" ...the ominous, familiar, and dreaded sound of bullets striking the thin aluminum skin of my airplane.

They had come from an unseen machine gunner sitting atop the pass ...in perfect alignment to catch me point blank as I approached the trucks. However, because I had pulled up so sharply before I reached his position, sooner than he had expected, he had not been able to fire straight-on as I hit the targets and, instead, had to rake my underside as I pulled up sharply to the left.

My first concern was to check my engine instruments, looking for any sign of engine malfunction caused by the three bullet strikes that I'd felt. All looked normal, so I turned my attention to checking my right wing ...no damage that I could see there; then, as I rolled level at the top of a steep chandelle climb, I looked out to check my left wing, and could see a ragged silver dollar-sized hole in the wing, through the area where the fuel tank and landing gear retraction mechanism was located.

Fuel was streaming profusely from the hole and fanning out into the slipstream. With about 3000 feet of altitude, and knowing I'd been hit at least three times ...yet not knowing where the other two or more slugs had gone through, I elected to "bug-out" for the bombline, which was by then more than one hundred fifty miles to the south. I could only hope that the engine would keep running long enough to get me over friendly territory!

I made a radio call to report my emergency to the Flight Leader, still not realizing that the rest of the flight was on another radio frequency, and that they could not hear me.

With my throttle pushed full-forward and hoping to get every last bit of thrust and speed that I could wring out of the engine before it might fail, I trimmed for a gentle climb ...just enough to clear the mountains which I could see out ahead, and checked my fuel tank selector, which was still on the half-full "Fuselage Tank". (In retrospect, I should have selected the Left Tank in order to use the fuel from the leaking tank, rather than allow it all to drain overboard.)

Only then did I realize that I was still carrying six big, drag-inducing five-inch rockets under my wings, and knew that I had to get rid of them immediately if I ever hoped to make it back to our lines.

Without another thought, I reached over by my knee, turned the Rocket Selector switch to the "SALVO" position and pressed the trigger button on the side of my control stick. As the six deadly missiles "whooooshed" out ahead of the airplane in a long, graceful arc, I really was not much concerned what or who they might hit in the mountainous terrain below ...if anything. There was no way to drop them in a "safe" mode; the only way to get them off was to fire them.

I was relieved to be rid of the drag, and could feel the little '51 surge ahead with still-greater speed, but as I looked out to the fuel fanning out of my left wing tank, I was then utterly dismayed to see that I then had a bright orange flame stretching out behind the trailing edge of the wing. I stared at it in disbelief ...the damned sparks from the salvoed rockets had ignited the raw fuel, but, for the moment at least, the flames seemed to be staying behind the wing, rather than working up across the wing toward the hole which I perceived to be the source of the fuel.

I mused, for just a micro-instant, at the phenomenon, wondering why the flame stayed back behind the wing... and worried that the flames might reach the fuel tank fumes to create an explosion. I debated momentarily whether I would be smart to bail out before it could explode, but remembered that I was still more than a hundred miles deep inside North Korea ...a very long walk home, even if I'd known my precise position ... which I didn't! I decided to risk staying with the airplane for awhile longer, praying that the fire would not explode the tank.

Then, thinking I might help keep the flame controlled, I pushed hard left rudder to skid the ship violently in an effort to keep the flames away from the fuselage, where it might ignite an oil residue, or an overly-rich mixture coming from my exhaust stacks.

Shortly thereafter, the cockpit filled with thick black smoke ... so thick that I could not see my instrument panel, and had to press my head tightly against the canopy-side in order to see outside to maintain my flight attitude.

I reached down to the floor behind my right leg, found the oxygen regulator handle and quickly switched to 100% oxygen, thereby preventing the acrid smoke from entering my face mask. I then cranked the canopy open a couple of inches, hoping to get rid of some of the smoke. But the effect was barely noticeable; the opening seemed to suck more fresh smoke into the cockpit than it let out, and there was a good possibility that I might tear the canopy off because of my high, skidding airspeed. I soon thought better of it, and cranked the canopy closed once again, keeping my face tight against the left side, where I could barely make out the nearby mountains and the far-distant horizon.

At that moment I recalled that the life expectancy of a fighter pilot in aerial combat was estimated to be "15 seconds"; I wondered what the survival period would be for someone remaining in a burning airplane... and felt very much alone. More alone and depressed than can possibly be imagined.

After several minutes of peering apprehensively at the flame, looking out ahead through the smoke to keep my course aligned with a selected mountain peak, looking back to the hole in the wing ...I was amazed, and gratified to see the ribbon of fuel finally slow to a dribble, then stop flowing completely.

The fire behind the wing disappeared, and it seemed that the smoke in the cockpit began to dissipate. It had been almost ten minutes since I had been hit and, I assumed, the self-sealing composition of the internal wing tank must have gradually done it's intended job and had filled the holes where the fuel was leaking out. (I found out later, that it was not the sealant that stopped the flow, but the fact that fuel had been gushing out through the holes in both the top and the bottom of the wing tank, and the tank had simply run out of fuel, causing the fire to go out!)

With the fire out, I could finally relax my quivering right leg and ease out of the violent right skid that I had been holding, and again pick up the 'normal' 465 mph war-rated speed of the Mustang. I knew that I was still in trouble, and would be until I crossed the lines into friendly territory, but things were beginning to look up, just a little bit.

The fire was out, the smoke was gone ...what other damage had been done, I still did not know. I had not heard any radio transmissions from the rest of my flight; I had been too busy with my problems to notice the silence in my headset, but then I realized that if I went down, or had to bail out, there would be no one able to report my position. I then felt even more alone ...and was still very, very apprehensive...(to tell the full truth, I was "scared shitless"!!)

Glancing up to my rearview mirror for the first time, I was elated to see a tiny, winged speck 'way back in the distance. It was the unmistakable silhouette of another Mustang ...'hell-bent, full-throttle, trying to catch me. Only then did I try another radio call ...and realized, at last, that I'd been on the wrong frequency all that time.

I promptly switched channels and was answered immediately by the flight leader. He confirmed that we were about ten minutes north of the front-lines, and suggested that I keep right on going, don't slow down, because he could stay close enough to keep me in sight. I described the problems I`d been having, and he too was relieved to hear that things now seemed to be coming under control.

Upon crossing the battle-lines, I angled westerly toward Seoul and, finally, felt sufficiently confident to ease back on the throttle, allowing my airspeed to gradually drop from 450 mph, back to about 350 mph ...a more comfortable cruising speed, which allowed the flight leader to catch up with me. My engine instruments still appeared within their normal ranges, except the coolant and oil temperatures which were just slightly high because of the full-power running for the past twenty minutes. But I was still apprehensive because I did not yet know where the other two bullets had hit, and I was afraid of the possibility that one might have hit a tire, and could give me a rough time on landing.

Before reaching Seoul I slowed to about 200 mph, lowered my landing gear, and asked the flight leader to fly in close to look over the underside for any signs of other damage. He reported that I had a big hole behind the tailwheel, and the left wheel-well was blackened from the fire, but all tires and wheels appeared to be inflated and OK.

I elected to make a normal traffic pattern at Seoul's K-16 airstrip, and called the tower to have a fire truck and medics standing by, just in case there was damage that I was not aware of, then made a wide pattern with a long straight-in final approach ...to a careful but uneventful landing.

After taxiing back to the parking spot, I shut down the engine, then climbed wearily out to survey the damage to my airplane. I found the entire underside of the wing was covered with soot ...the main fire had been in the wheel-well, it was no wonder it looked so odd to see the flames appearing only behind the wing; the tire was slightly charred, but was still inflated. The left wing was damaged so badly that the entire wing would have had to be changed. Instead, they scrapped the entire airplane, taking off all remaining usable parts to use for spares.

And so went the war ... after half a dozen "cupcake" missions, I'd then run into one which made up in sheer terror for every easy one that I'd ever flown!

Since our original mission plan on that ill-fated mission had been to fly on down to Chinhae at the end of the flight, and I was slated to have the next day off, my schedule went slightly askew when it became necessary for me to go back into K-16 with my sick and sooty Mustang. Instead, I talked the Operations Officer into letting me stay on at Seoul to get in a few more missions before taking any time off. He was agreeable ...'told me to just let him know when I was ready to go south again. He'd keep me on the schedule each day until then. I really appreciated their cooperation in helping me to get my missions completed as quickly as possible; they, too, felt that we'd been 'shafted' by having to return to Korea to fly combat again a second time.

I flew three short close-support missions on 14 May'51, slip-sliding between rain showers to catch the Communists as they were probing for a new offensive along the mountainous central front.

I briefed at 0500 AM, made my first take-off at 0615, landed one hour later, 'spent an hour on the ground and took off on my second mission at 0815. I was back from that one by 1000 AM, spent another hour on the ground for lunch, then off once again at 1100 AM, returning at 1230 PM ...with three more 'painless' combat missions under my belt.

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