Activated in July 1951 in Seoul, South Korea, the 10th Liaison Squadron supported the 930th and 931st Engineer Aviation Groups, the 6147th Tactical Control Group, and the 17th Bomb Wing, among others. Using L-5 and L-20 aircraft, the unit surveyed forward areas for airfield, radar, and communication sites and regularly surveyed abandoned air strips. The squadron provided emergency airlift to remote forward positions, transported air liaison officers to forward U. S. Army units, and performed courier service, including the delivery of mail and monthly payrolls to forward Air Force units. It also transported North Korean prisoners on occasion and dropped arms and supplies to guerrillas behind enemy lines. StationsFinger Ridge
On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 Robert E. Hays rhays@iamerica.net wrote: Robert (Bob) E. Hays 2313 16th Ave N Texas City, Tx 77590 (409)948-1252 I was in Korea from Nov. 1951 to Nov. 1952. 10th Liaison Sqd. Hqt'ed at Seoul but I was assigned to a forward air strip in the 2nd ROK Corps. Finger Ridge was in my area. Mjr. Thomas was the Pilot and I the Crew Chief for his L-10. OOoooh to be young again. More: The 10th Liaison was part of the 5th AIR FORCE, but as a Squadron, I suppose one could say it was a stand alone as we had very little to do with any other aircraft or their missions. The best I can remember, the military forces from the East to West coast of Korea along the 38th Par. alternated from a U.S. zone then a ROK zone then a U.S. zone then a ROK zone and so on all the way across. Each ROK zone had a U.S. officer stationed as close to the front lines as he could get who acted as a Liaison between the ROK forces and the U.S. forces, that was us, and that was our primary duty. HOWEVER; we had other duties, during the winter or any other time when the roads were too dangerous to travel we would air drop mail and or medical supplies in to the forward positions. We lost several planes doing this when the pilots misjudged and couldn't climb fast enough to get up out of a small valley and plow into the side of a mt. Scattered through out Korea was small emergency landing strips to be used by crippled aircraft that just couldn't go any farther, These strips were nothing more than a bulldozed river bed and had no personnel stationed there. During the winter when they had a layer of snow on them they had to be inspected to determine if they were safe to land on, and the only way to do this was to actually land a plane on each and every one of them, if you made it down and back up again it was OK. NOW if you don't think that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.---On rare occasions we would go up and observe jet air strikes on Finger Ridge, not sure what this was all about as I never saw the Mjr. talk to anyone on his radio.--and lastly we ferried the upper ranks around on their inspection tours. Bob Hays