Soviet pilots in the Korean War
Young Kim
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 9:04 AM
Soviet pilots in the Korean War:
Abakumov, B. S. V nebe Severno i Korei. Kursk: Raduga, 1997.
Breuer, William. Shafow Warriors: The Covert War in Korea. NY: John
Wiley & Sons, 1996. P.223, "Soviet pilots were flying combat missions
over North Korea." P. 224, "...the solid red star of the Soviet air
force was painted on fuselages and wings, rather than Chinese or North
Korean markings. Also, for nearly two years, UN pilots had reported
hearing Russian voices on the radios when engaged in dogfights, and,
periodically, they saw 'Caucasian faces' under billowing parachutes
after a MiG-15 pilot leaped from his damaged plane. Moreover, many of
the enemy pilots were so skilled that the U.S. flyers felt they had to
be Russian."
Brooks, Robert O. Russian Airpower in the Korean war: The impact of
tactical intervention and strategic threat on United States objectives.
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Air University, 1964. U.S. Air War
College Thesis No. 2419
Gagin, V. Vozdushna i a vo ina v Koree: 1950-1953. Voronezh: Poligraf,
1997.
Halliday, Jon. "Air Operations in Korea: The Soviet Side of
the Story." In A Revolutionary War: Korea and the Transformation
of the Post War World,edited by William J. Williams, 1993.
Halliday, Jon. "A Secret War." Far Eastern Econonic Review, v.156, n.16,
April 22, 1993:32-36. "The US and USSR fought in an air war over North
Korea during the Korean War,and both sides kept it a secret. The truth
was recently uncovered after years of research and many interviews with
the Americans and Russians involved in the encounters."
Lineer, Thomas. "Evolution of Cold War Rules of Engagement: The Soviet
Combat Role in the Korean War, 1950-53." Army Command and General Staff
College, Ft. Leavenworth, KS. 1996.
McCarthy, Michael. "Uncertain Enemies: Soviet Pilots in the Korean War."
Air Power History, v. 44, n.1, Spring 1997, p.32-45.
O'Neill, Mark. "The other side of the Yalu: Soviet Pilots in the Korean
War." Dissertation, Florida State University, 1996. "This dissertation
is based on archival research in the Central Archive of the Ministry of
Defense of the Russian Federation in Moscow. In it the heretofore
unexplored role of the Soviet pilots who flew intercept missions in MiG-
15s during the Korean War (1950-1953) is explored. These pilots
initially entered combat on 1 November 1950 and continued to fight
throughout the remainder of the war. Their most important missions were
to defend the railroad bridge between Andong, Manchuria and Sinuiju,
North Korea, the hydroelectric facilities at the Suiho Reservoir and
the industries located in Manchuria from air attacks by United Nation's
aircraft. In conducting these missions during the first phase of the
Korean War, the Soviet pilots managed to prevent the United States Air
Force and its United Nations allies from destroying the Andong-Sinuiju
bridge. In the process, the MiG-15 and its associated intercept radars
revealed the vulnerability of the B-29 Stratofortress to modern jets.
Since the B-29 was still the major atomic bomber of the time, this
defeat had serious repercussions for the US's atomic strategy and the
mission of the Strategic Air Command in general. The Soviet
participation in the air war over North Korea and Manchuria also served
to limit the possibility that the US would expand the war onto Chinese
territory. The Soviet involvement was never officially admitted, but
intelligence sources with the United Nations Command and the US Air
Force were aware that Soviet nationals were piloting some of the
MiG-15s and training Chinese and North Korean pilots to fly the jet
interceptors and other aircraft. This study uses previously top secret
Soviet documents to illuminate the Soviet role and to analyse its
impact on this pivotal conflict in the early Cold War."
Paschall, Rod. Witness to War: Korea. NY: Perigee, 1995. P.116-126,
179-181. "Of course, the North Korean Air Force was not all Korean, but
basically Chinese with Russian and Polish pilots as well. Further,
there is substantial reason to believe that most of the fighter
squadrons actively engaging the F-86s were Soviet squadrons being
rotated through the front at six-week intervals." MiG-Alley
Seidl, Hans D. Stalin's eagles: an illustrated study of the Soviet aces
of World War II and Korea. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub., 1998.
Toliver, Raymond. Fighter Aces of the U.S.A. (Aero Pub., 1979 and
Schiffer Military History, 1997). "The author wrote a chapter on enemy
aces. The top enemy ace in the Korea War was not a North Korea pilot,
but rather a Soviet Union pilot. The leading Korean War Soviet ace with
21 planes shot was Captain Nikoloy Pepelyaev."
"The Soviet Union's Military Role in Korea" in The Korea War: Handbook
of the Literature and Research, edited by Lester Brune, Greenwood Press,
1996, p. 213-219.
A very brief comment about Soviet pilots in the Korean War in either
Alexander Zuyev's _Fulcrum_ or John Barron's _MiG Pilot_.
Mike Yared