by LCOL Don Tooker, USMC(Ret)
In aviation, combat missions seldom reach a personal level — that is, eyeball to eyeball. Close air support and armed reconnaissance missions are generally quite impersonal. The enemy shoots at you and you shoot back. In the Korean War flying F4U Corsairs, this could involve anything from six .50s to a l,000-lb. bomb.
As a member of the VMF-212 Devilcats, I was flying my 31st combat mission from the narrow flight deck of USS Bataan (CVL-29) on 24 January l951. Flight leader CAPT Al Grasselli and I had been catapulted off the pointy end of the ship on a pre-dawn armed recce to an area 50 miles or so north of the bomb line. Anything that far north was fair game for us to attack, and by arriving at first light we might catch North Koreans or Chinese moving their supplies southward before they holed up through the daylight hours.
“We’ll catch ’em at breakfast,” Al had said after the 0530 briefing. Only the day before CAPTs Dave Swinford and Del Davis had smoked a l2-truck convoy, leaving a twisted trail of vehicle wreckage burning grotesquely in a snowy North Korean valley.
Our cat shots had been routine except for the snow flurries, no horizon and the pitch-black darkness (we were supposed to be day fighters). I remember a little trouble finding Al during our rendezvous, as I’d attempted to join up on the planet Sirius, which looked a lot like Al’s white formation tail light.
As we motored north over the 28-degree water off the west coast of Korea, I couldn’t help thinking about the possibilities of engine trouble and having to ditch. Four days earlier my good friend and roommate, CAPT Al Agan, had been forced to make a water landing in the Inchon Harbor. When the Sikorsky HO3S helicopter picked him up some 30 minutes later, he was frozen stiff.
Another discomforting thought that all carrier pilots share — when we complete this combat mission, there are two challenges remaining. First, find the carrier. Next, get aboard. The latter is particularly exciting when there is no alternate runway. Our only navigational aid was the YE-ZB hand-cranked homer. Radio silence in carrier operations was the order of the day, though I never figured out why. The other guys knew we were there.
At beautiful Haiju, with its landmark 300-ft. smokestack, we turned inland, charged our guns and consulted the carefully folded maps on our very cold kneecaps. Unhappily, our cockpit heaters were wired shut due to several previous fatal carbon monoxide accidents in a sister Corsair squadron.
The terrain below was completely snow covered, making any roads hard to distinguish. We let down, Al in front at about 40 to 50 feet above the ground and me 150 feet above him and perhaps a football-field’s length behind. The plan was for the leader to surprise the enemy, shoot if he could and call out to the trailing wingman what to do. We carried one napalm tank, eight 5-in. rockets and six .50-cal. machine guns. To conserve ammo, both Al and I had been briefed to only fire two guns at a time — unless we found the mother lode as Swinford and Davis had done a day earlier.
“Easter Two from One. I’ve got a secondary road ahead. Looks promising. Let’s get a little lower. Maybe we’ll catch ’em with their pants down.”
I double-clicked the mike switch to acknowledge Al’s instructions.
We wound around several low hills on either side of the barely discernible road on a northerly course. You can’t hear “quiet,” of course, except for our two R-2800 Pratt & Whitneys, it was just that — very quiet. Apparently all the North Koreans were holed up, having their rice and who knows what else.
Suddenly Al came up on the radio: “Easter Two, enemy soldier dead ahead.” The sound of his .50s firing blanketed out the rest of his message. “Looks like a sentry with a rifle, right on the road,” Al continued. “He’s guarding something. I couldn’t depress the guns enough. So heads up!”
I rounded a slight bend in the road and, sure enough, a lone soldier was standing motionless ahead. I squeezed the trigger and plumes of snow leaped up all around him. But miraculously I missed him. I was so low (15 feet or so) that when I flew past him, I could see his facial features and uniform, and even his rifle that resembled a World War I Enfield still slung over his shoulder. He was swarthy, clean shaven and wore a parka with a hood of some kind. Strangely, he didn’t appear to be frightened.
“What luck, Easter Two?”
“I think I missed him, Al. Make a 360 and we’ll nail him. Didn’t see any groundfire, did you?”
“No, but he wouldn’t be out for a morning stroll. There’s something there. I’ll take a look on both sides of the road farther up. Could be a supply cache of some sort. You can take out that sentry.”
“Roger, Leader. I’ll get on that.” So saying I made a gentle turn, circling around the small hill just to the left of the road. A mental snapshot of the uniformed soldier was crystal clear in my mind’s eye. He was an older man, definitely Korean. Why he had not fired his rifle at me was puzzling, but even more so was that he’d not taken cover. Why? Was he stupid? Brave? I wondered.
In about 25 seconds the question would be moot, assuming he was still doing his “John Wayne” bravado scene.
I switched on the other four machine guns and tightened the left turn, lining up on the now-familiar snowy road. Wings level, ball in the center, speed down to 200 knots — I’d not miss this time. The idiot was still standing in about the same spot, but by now he’d lifted the old firing piece to his shoulder. Mano a mano, I figured, although he was outgunned at least a hundred to one.
“You in your run, Don?” Al asked from somewhere.
“Affirm, rolling in.” I had to concentrate. The gunsight pipper inched up the road and steadied on Mr. Foolhardy. What was he so zealously protecting? I wondered as my fingers tightened on the trigger. I couldn’t miss a target less than a football field away. His face from the previous run flashed through my mind — a slight squeeze and he’s history.
But history was never written — I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Either he was too brave or I was too impressed with his gutsy performance. As I passed over him the second time, our eyes actually met. I’ve often wondered over the years what crossed his mind while he was staring at the business-end of my fighter aircraft.
“What luck, Easter Two?” Al’s voice crackled in my headset.
“Couldn’t pull enough lead at that low altitude, so no joy. Doesn’t seem like it’s worth it to spend more time here. Let’s look for something better. Over.”
“Roger that, Two. Fall in behind — I’m at your eleven o’clock, level.” We resumed our road reconnaissance foray to the north, but found nothing worth shooting at. The mission was a bust from the combat-results point of view, but we found the carrier (in a snowstorm), made successful traps and lived to fight another day.
So did my North Korean soldier, I believe, with his old rifle and nerves of steel.