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Korea: the carrier war: the aircraft carrier's role offshore Korea never garnered the attention of ground operations, but sailors aboard ship and crews in the air made a valuable contribution throughout the war

VFW Magazine, Dec, 2002 by Gary Turbak

When the Korean War began, naval aviation teetered on the brink of obsolescence. Jets, more difficult to land on a carrier, were replacing propeller-driven planes, and the atom bomb threatened to supersede tactical, non-nuclear sorties from flattops.

Between the end of WWII and June 1950, America's roster of aircraft carriers fell from 98 to 15, and the number of naval combat aircraft from 29,125 to 9,422. The notion of flying planes off ship decks appeared headed for the history books.

But no one told Navy fliers, and for the next three years these brave men played a crucial role in Korean skies. Navy, pilots (and their carrier-based Marine colleagues) helped preserve the Pusan perimeter, support the Inchon landing and the push north, and protect the U.S. withdrawal after China entered the war.

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Also, they inflicted vast, ongoing damage on enemy divisions and equipment. According to one air group commander: "The war in Korea demanded more competence, courage and skill from the naval aviator than did WWII. The flying hours were longer, the days on the firing line more, the anti-aircraft hazards greater, the weather worse."

Carriers in the Korean Theater included the Valley Forge, Philippine Sea, Princeton, Boxer, Leyte, Bairoko, Sicily, Badoeng Strait, Essex, Bon Homme Richard, Antietam, Kearsarge, Lake Champlain, Oriskany, Bataan, Rendova and Point Cruz.

From their eminently mobile decks, Navy and Marine pilots flew about 190,000 sorties in Panthers, Corsairs, Banshees, Skyraiders and other aircraft. They lost an average of about one plane per day--1,248 in all--and too often the man in the cockpit as well.

Daring Helicopter Rescue

On July 3, 1951, helicopter pilot Lt. (j.g.) John Koelsch and aviation machinist's mate George Neal were dispatched from the Princeton to rescue a downed flier, Marine Capt. James Wilkins. As their chopper hovered at 50 feet looking for Wilkins, it shuddered repeatedly from enemy hits. Yet Koelsch refused to abandon a fellow flier. "It was the greatest display of guts I ever saw, "Wilkins later said.

The rescuers located Wilkins, but as Neal was winching him aboard, enemy fire knocked the chopper to the ground. The three men survived and spent the next nine days, under Koelsch's leadership, dodging enemy troops. Eventually they were captured, but even in the POW camp Koelsch's courage thrived, as he shared his meager rations with other prisoners and demanded medical treatment for sick POWs.

Wilkins and Neal survived POW treatment, but Koelsch did not. His conduct as a prisoner, however, became the model for American POWs, and in 1955 Koelsch was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Some Navy air operations were well planned and massive--like the Sept. 1, 1952, 142-plane attack on the North Korean oil refinery at Aoji, the largest carrier-based action of the war. Others were spur-of-the-moment affairs--like the day Soviet MiGs attacked.

In November 1952, the Oriskany was in the Sea of Japan about 100 miles from Soviet territory when it was approached by seven MiGs. In previous encounters with these faster, more maneuverable Soviet planes (presumably piloted by North Koreans or Chinese), the greater skill and better training of Navy, fliers had prevailed. This time, however, the MiGs appeared to come from the Russian base at Vladivostok. Radio intercepts confirmed the pilots were speaking Russian.

The Oriskany scrambled four Panthers; one of the war's most important dogfights followed. When the smoke cleared, the four Navy fliers returned safely to their ship. But only one or two of the MiGs likely survived. No one knows why the Soviets attacked that day, but it didn't happen again.

Close Air Support

If Navy fliers had a specialty, it was close air support of troops on the ground. These pilots often operated within 50 to 200 yards of the front lines, with debris and shell casings from their attacks sometimes raining down on GIs.

One Navy jet, damaged during a close support raid, was found to have been hit not by a bullet, but by a rock presumably tossed into its intake duct by an enemy soldier. Once, two carrier-based Marine fliers swooped down to attack an enemy staff car with their revolvers, causing the vehicle to veer off a cliff.

Heroism was a daily occurrence with flattop fliers. On Dec. 4, 1950, Ensign Jesse Brown was forced to make a wheels-up crash landing onto snow-covered terrain behind enemy lines. After seeing Brown wave weakly from the twisted Corsair cockpit, fellow flier Lt. (j.g.) Thomas Hudner courageously jettisoned his own fuel and ordnance, then belly-flopped his plane onto the ground near Brown. "I was not going to leave him down there for the Chinese," he explained later.

But Hudner and the rescue helicopter pilot who soon arrived couldn't pull Brown free. With night and enemy soldiers approaching, the pair agonized about what to do, even considering an amputation of Brown's entangled legs. At that moment, however, Brown died from his injuries, and his two rescuers reluctantly escaped in the helicopter. For his heroic rescue attempt, Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Korea: the carrier war: the aircraft carrier's role offshore Korea never garnered the attention of ground operations, but sailors aboard ship and crews in the air made a valuable contribution throughout the war

VFW Magazine, Dec, 2002 by Gary Turbak

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