The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot

by Blaine Harden

  “Welcome to Nellis AFB, men”: Robert Holland, “Memories of Nellis,” Sabre Jet Classics 13, no. 2 (Summer 2005), http://sabre-pilots.org/classics/v132nellis.

  The Sabre was “the vehicle in which the new aces of the jet age were achieving stardom”: T. R. Milton, “Robinson Risner: The Indispensable Ingredient,” in Makers of the United States Air Force, ed. John L. Frisbee (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1987), 312–13.

  “The one thing that never left me was the intense, gripping anxiety and excitement”: Frederick C. Blesse, Check Six: A Fighter Pilot Looks Back (Mesa, Ariz.: Champlin Fighter Museum Press, 1987), 65, cited in Sherwood, Officers in Flight Suits, 91n95.

  Four out of five of the aces with thirteen or more “victories” died violently: Werrell, Sabres over MiG Alley, 144–45. Werrell’s book provides an excellent analysis of aces and their eagerness to risk everything and violate the Manchurian sanctuary.

  As many as twenty-five of the thirty-nine aces flew into Manchuria: Ibid., 132–33.

  “I could pick, say, eighteen who could actually be depended upon”: Mahurin, Honest John, 31.

  “Over the past year of negotiations we have virtually curtailed military operations”: Kim Il Sung to Stalin via the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, telegram, July 16, 1952, trans. in Kathryn Weathersby, “New Russian Documents,” CWIHP Bulletin, no. 6/7 (Winter 1995/1996): 77.

  Characterized in an official U.S. Air Force history as “savage”: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 517.

  So they launched Operation Pressure Pump: Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 122–23; Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 517.

  Mao wanted the war to continue—and so did Stalin: This argument and archival evidence for it are gathered in Kathryn Weathersby, “North Korea and the Armistice Negotiations,” http://www.koreanwar.com/conference/conference_contents/contents/text/04_kathryn_weathersby.pdf.

  Stalin also found value in the war: See Weathersby’s analysis in “Stalin, Mao, and the End of the Korean War,” in Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963, ed. Odd Arne Westad (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998), 110.

  an end to the war “is highly disadvantageous to us”: Mao to Kim Il Sung, telegram, July 18, 1952, trans. in Weathersby, “New Russian Documents,” 78.

  Mao said, the war “limits the mobility of the main forces of American imperialism”: Ibid.

  “This war is getting on America’s nerves”: Conversation between Stalin and Zhou Enlai, Aug. 20, 1952, trans. Danny Rozas and Kathryn Weathersby, CWIHP Bulletin, no. 6/7 (Winter 1995/1996), 12.

  “Every American soldier is a speculator”: Ibid., 13.

  his third and final visit with Stalin: “Russian Documents on the Korean War: 1950–53,” CWIHP Bulletin, no. 14/15 (Fall 2003–Spring 2004): 378.

  “It is necessary to send already trained air force bomber units”: Kim to Mao, telegram, July 16, 1952, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, 90–93, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113642.

  Chapter 9: Attack Maps and Defection Bribes

  The North Koreans “should not be launching either strategic or tactical offensives”: Conversation between Stalin and Zhou Enlai, 13.

  “The Korean people look up to Marshal Stalin as to the sun”: Editorial, “The Boundless Gratitude of the Korean People Toward Marshal Stalin,” Rodong Sinmun, May 22, 1952, 1, quoted in Scalapino and Lee, Communism in North Korea, 1:434.

  “In his revolutionary activities and entire career”: “The People’s Love and Respect for the Leader,” Rodong Sinmun, Apr. 1, 1952, 1, quoted in Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, 1:428.

  “The focus on Kim became ever more conspicuous”: Ibid.

  “Kim’s failure to unify Korea militarily gave rise to a conviction”: Dae-Sook Suh, Kim Il Sung, 127.

  The plot to overthrow Kim leaned heavily on the skills of officers from the institute: See ibid., 128–30. This account is based on information that came out in 1953 at a trial. The facts might well have been invented by Kim’s government, but Suh accepts the basic outline of the plot as real.

  Zhou Enlai “urgently proposed that the Soviet side assist the speeding up” of armistice talks: Foreign Ministry of the U.S.S.R., “On the Korean War, 1950–53, and the Armistice Negotiations,” trans. in “From the Russian Archive,” CWIHP Bulletin, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 17.

  A meeting was proposed between the new Soviet premier: See Jager, Brothers at War, 275.

  “The ardent heart of the great leader”: Kim Il Sung, “Stalin Is the Inspiration for the Peoples Struggling for Their Freedom and Independence,” Rodong Sinmun, March 10, 1953, 1, repr. and trans. in Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, 1:434.

  the fields that grew it could be classified as “war materiel”: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 667.

  “Attacks on the irrigation dams”: Air University Quarterly Review staff, “The Attack on the Irrigation Dams in North Korea,” Air University Quarterly Review 6, no. 4 (1953): 42.

  “The damage done by the deluge”: See Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 669; Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 163.

  “field after field of young rice”: See Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 669n78.

  Each MiG that the Americans shot down received more coverage: Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 162.

  They called it Operation Moolah: “Fat Offer,” Time, May 11, 1953.

  General Mark W. Clark, commander of U.S. forces: Mark W. Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 205–8.

  “He wouldn’t have any worries the rest of his life”: Herbert A. Friedman, “Operation Moolah: The Plot to Steal a MiG-15,” Psywarrior, http://www.psywarrior.com/Moolah.html.

  Russian pilots in Manchuria “felt they were not respected”: Alan K. Abner, Psywarriors: Psychological Warfare During the Korean War (Shippensburg, Pa.: Burd Street Press, 2001), 71.

  “disillusionment with the way [their] proposal had been distorted”: Ibid., 73.

  He told North Korean pilots to “strengthen their discipline and protect their equipment”: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 653.

  “These pilots flew far fewer missions”: Mark W. Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu, 208.

  An air force analysis found “no positive information”: Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 194n22.

  What General Clark described as “our most spectacular psychological warfare exploit”: Clark, 205.

  Chapter 10: Uncle Yoo

  “blaze of glory”: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 683.

  “[He] believed his allies owed him”: Weathersby, “North Korea and the Armistice Negotiations,” 93.

  North Korea vacuumed up more short- and long-term aid: See Charles K. Armstrong, “‘Fraternal Socialism’: The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953–62,” Cold War History 5, no. 2 (May 2005): 165; Erik van Ree, “The Limits of Juche: North Korea’s Dependence on Soviet Industrial Aid, 1953–76,” Journal of Communist Studies 5, no. 1 (March 1989): 57–58.

  China’s no-strings aid to the North in 1954: Shen Zhihua and Yafeng Xia, “China and the Postwar Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953–61” (working paper 4, North Korea International Documentation Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 2012), 7.

  “The Korean people are brave”: Ibid., 39–40.

  the “fundamental calculations are based not on the maximal use of domestic resources”: S. P. Suzdalev to the Soviet leadership, telegram, Aug. 7, 1953, cited and trans. in Weathersby, “North Korea and the Armistice Negotiations,” 91n55.

  Chapter 11: Flying Clear

  He needed to find, expose, and destroy a “wicked spy clique”: Baik, Kim Il Sung Biography, 2:388.

  T
heir confessions implicated Eisenhower in fantastic schemes “to topple the Party and the State”: Ibid., 393.

  “We must bear deeply in mind that if these factional elements are left alone”: Ibid., 389.

  Arrests of “anti-party traitors” had begun: Dae-Sook Suh, Kim Il Sung, 130.

  He was on vacation in Tokyo: Ibid., 132.

  “Any notion of plausibility seems to have deserted the scriptwriters”: Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, 95–96.

  “I am a running dog of American imperialism”: Ibid., 96.

  He pleaded guilty to the absurd charge: Dae-Sook Suh, Kim Il Sung, 132.

  “Although he called himself a Communist”: Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, 96. The trial coverage quoted in Lankov comes from a detailed account of the proceedings found in Kim Nam-sik, Namnodang yongu (Seoul: Tol Pegae, 1984), 480–506.

  “I am grateful for having been provided with an advocate”: Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, 97.

  “To have successfully fought U.S. imperialism”: Baik, Kim Il Sung Biography, 2:393.

  Eighty MiGs in wooden crates had been smuggled: J. L. Keiper, “Mig-15 Lands at Kimpo,” Friends Journal: The Air Force Museum Foundation Magazine, Summer 2006, 12–14.

  One of these planes was later described as “ridden hard and put away wet”: Ibid., 13.

  It was so busy during daylight hours: Wilfred M. Husted to Air Force Museum Foundation, Nov. 2, 2002. Husted worked in the control tower at Kimpo Air Force Base when No Kum Sok landed.

  “The perceived threat after the war had not changed”: Author interview with John Lowery (June 3, 2013), a combat pilot in Korea and Vietnam, as well as the author of Life in the Wild Blue Yonder: Jet Fighter Pilot Stories from the Cold War (North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2013). Some details in this chapter draw on a chapter in that book titled “Escape to Freedom.”

  “There is somebody landing the wrong way”: Author interview with Jim Sutton, a Sabre pilot who was on a landing approach to Kimpo at the moment when No Kum Sok landed. Sutton heard Williams shout over the radio. Dec. 15, 2013.

  American airmen were watching him with their fingers on the triggers: Keiper, “Mig-15 Lands at Kimpo,” 12.

  “I saw this jet coming in upwind”: “Former Red Airman, Yank Reunited,” Buffalo-Courier Express, Feb. 25, 1956, 16.

  “The flier pulled out the picture of a girl”: Associated Press, “Red MiG Flies to U.S. Base; Pilot Quizzed,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 21, 1953, 1.

  The night before, at a sumptuous Kremlin dinner: “Russia Will Provide Cash, Technical Aid to Rebuild North Korea,” Toronto Globe and Mail, Sept. 21, 1953, 1.

  “The glorious Korean people have written a new and wonderful page”: “New Epoch in Far East; Mr. Malenkov on Korea Symbol,” Times (London), Sept. 21, 1953, 8.

  In response, Kim thanked the Soviets: “M. Malenkov Condemns U.S. Policy in Far East,” Times of India, Sept. 21, 1953, 1.

  General Wang Yong, the top commander of the North Korean air force: “Russ Heads Red Korea Air Force, Refugee Says,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1955, 18. A United Press dispatch from Seoul reported that a newly arrived defector, Captain Lee Un Yong, told American intelligence officers of the demotion of General Wang Yong and said it was due to No Kum Sok’s defection.

  Soon after No shut down the engine on his MiG: Associated Press, “Red MiG Flies to U.S. Base; Pilot Quizzed,” 1.

  The Associated Press reported that an “Allied officer revealed”: Associated Press, “MiG Jet Flown to Allies May Be Reds’ Latest Model,” Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1953, 1.

  A MiG certainly would not approach the vital air base: Associated Press, “Red MiG Flies to U.S. Base; Pilot Quizzed,” 1.

  They did not realize what was in their midst: Lowery, Life in the Wild Blue Yonder, 79; author interviews with Lowery and Sutton.

  Only then did the air base spring into action: E-mail to the author from James K. Thompson, a Sabre pilot at Kimpo when the MiG landed. June 4, 2013.

  Dutifully, Husted said nothing: Husted to Air Force Museum Foundation, Nov. 2, 2002.

  One of his commanders, General Earle E. Partridge, called him “a one-man war”: Michael E. Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow: U.N. Special Operations During the Korean War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2186), 78.

  He had arrived in Korea in 1946: Donald Nichols, How Many Times Can I Die? Autobiography of Donald Nichols (Brooksville, Fla.: Brooksville Printing, 1981).

  He controlled more than six hundred agents on both sides of the border: Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 78.

  Nichols lured—and later interrogated—the North Korean air force pilot: Nichols, How Many Times Can I Die?, 124.

  Nichols personally wrote the report on No’s initial interrogation: Donald Nichols, Air Intelligence Information Report, Ro [sic] Kum Sok, North Korean People’s Army Air Force, Sept. 24, 1953, 6. USAF Intl. Repts., 1942–64, AF 59786-597495, box 1793, 631/52/54/5; AF 592236, box 1758, 631/52/53/6, National Archives, College Park, Md.

  “Even after becoming full-fledged MiG-15 pilots”: Ibid., 4.

  No also explained the odd, erratic, and seemingly cowardly behavior: Ibid., 46.

  No was asked why a lone MiG pilot: Ibid.

  Chapter 12: Squeezing the Moolah

  They authorized the air force to announce in Washington: “Reward to Be Paid, Air Force Says,” New York Times, Sept. 22, 1953, 3.

  Air force headquarters also sent a message to its Far East Command: “U.S. Will Return MiG to ‘Owner’; Withdraws Reward Offer in Korea,” New York Times, Sept. 25, 1953, 1.

  “I realize that the recommendations sent to me: Eisenhower to Smith, Sept. 21, 1953, Korea 1953 (1), International Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower: Papers as President, Eisenhower Presidential Library.

  The president wrote that if MIGs “start coming in to us by the hundreds”: Ibid.

  “We are not anxious to have this one”: Ibid.

  the United States could “stand before the world as very honorable people”: Ibid.

  transform his wrecked country into “a glorious socialist power”: Baik, Kim Il Sung Biography, 2:425.

  New factories . . . began churning out diesel motors: Van Ree, “Limits of Juche,” 57.

  “Comrade Kim Il Sung, with his unbounded love for the country and the people”: Baik, Kim Il Sung Biography, 2:435.

  He wanted it done fast, a blitzkrieg to industrial modernity: Ibid., 426.

  “Reconstruction was, in a sense, war by other means”: Armstrong, “Fraternal Socialism,” 168.

  His first three-year plan made no mention of building paved roads: Balázs Szalontai, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953–1964 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2005), 59.

  “It is a quite common scene that 6–8 women are dragging the plow”: Ibid., 63.

  In a foretaste of what would become North Korea’s chronic “eating problem”: Ibid., 69.

  No replied, “Yes, they do, and they are preparing for it”: Greg MacGregor, “Pilot Says Reds Expect War,” New York Times, Sept. 23, 1953, 3.

  He also said Kim Il Sung’s government continued: Reuters, “New Planes Flown into N. Korea, What Pilot Saw: Why He Came,” Manchester Guardian, Sept. 23, 1953, 1.

  What “startled reporters” most at the press conference: Victor Kendrick, “Runaway Pilot Says Reds Preparing to Resume War,” United Press, The Daily Notes (Canonsburg, Pa.), Sept. 22, 1953, 1.

  “After a pause and alternately grinning and wetting his dry lips”: MacGregor, “Pilot Says Reds Expect War.”

  “She is somewhere in South Korea”: Reuters, “New Planes Flown into N. Korea, What Pilot Saw.”

  “He was most cooperative and in no way obnoxious”: Jack H. Bristow, Air Intelligence Information Report No. C-1717-G, 6004th Air Intelligenc
e Service Squadron (n.d.), 1.

  Boyd’s briefing covered these points: Yeager and Janos, Yeager, 259–60; Operation Moolah: A MiG-15 Reunion, video with Tom Collins and No Kum Sok (a.k.a. Kenneth Rowe), Network Group, Sept. 1994.

  “I want Tom to be the first one to fly it”: Operation Moolah: A MiG-15 Reunion.

  Yeager, who hated to be second at anything, groaned: Ibid., video remembrances of Collins. An alternate version of this story, found in Yeager and Janos, Yeager, 261, says that Collins and Yeager flipped a coin to see who would fly first and Collins won.

  Smith explained that he would “try to arrange to have the pilot reject the $100,000”: Smith to Eisenhower, memorandum, Sept. 23, 1953, Dulles-Herter Series, Eisenhower: Papers as President.

  Eisenhower scribbled at the bottom, “Now we’re clicking”: Ibid.

  No’s handler called himself Andy Brown: This sketch of Arseny Yankovsky’s life is drawn from interviews with Kenneth Rowe; David Wise, Mole Hunt (New York: Random House, 1992); Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001), 110–16.

  After the polygraph, he settled into a grueling routine of interrogation: “The Handling of North Korean Defector, No Kum Sok,” History of 6002nd Intelligence Service Group, Jan.–June 1954, K-GP-Intel-6002-HI, 1.

  His control of the throttle “was very smooth”: Ben Thompson, “The Story of No Kum Sok,” Air Intelligence Digest, Feb. 1955, 21.

  Chapter 13: Right Stuff and Fake Stuff

  “No!” Yeager said. “Dr. Mach is very old and has a beard”: This encounter is described in detail by Collins in Operation Moolah and separately by Kenneth Rowe (a.k.a. No Kum Sok) in interviews.

  He had “been taken under the wing”: United Press, “MiG-15 Tested at Okinawa,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1953, 17.

  “The Koreans probably lost more pilots spinning than from American guns”: Yeager and Janos, Yeager, 260.

  “Frankly, we lost our guts and didn’t spin it”: “These USAF Pilots Flew the MiG,” Air Intelligence Digest, vol. 6, no. 12, Dec. 1953, 9.