Korean Combat (Yeoman Series) Read online

  He gave a short, bitter laugh and drained his glass, pushing it over the bar for a refill.

  ‘They attacked all right, this time. The bastards hit us from all directions. They ripped through us time after time and hit the B-29s, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it.’

  He was suddenly, amazingly, stone-cold sober, or so it seemed.

  ‘Those B-29 guys sure had plenty of guts,’ he continued. ‘The MiGs were hitting ’em again and again and they never wavered, just kept right on with their bomb run. Two of them went down just after they had dropped their bombs, and I saw a third blow up on the way in to the target. One second it was there, then there was a big flash and a cloud of smoke, and nothing. I guess it must have taken a hit in the bomb-bay.’

  He took another drink, a smaller one this time, and toyed with his glass for a moment, staring down at it,’ before going on.

  ‘We’d lost two F-84s by this time. We were fighting on the turn, trying to form a defensive circle, but we just couldn’t get it together. My wingman called that he’d got a MiG, and that was the last I heard from him. He never made it back, and neither did another guy. That’s four who didn’t make it. Jesus, I hope they convert us to F-86s, fast.’

  The show in the mess hall was clearly at an end, for the bar suddenly began to fill up. Major Devonlee excused himself and made his way to bed, clutching a bottle of Bourbon.

  ‘Best goddam sleeping draught in the world,’ he muttered, as his broad back disappeared among the crowd.

  Yeoman and Thornes lingered a while longer, mulling over what Devonlee had told them. In a corner, a small group of fighter pilots began to sing softly. It was a song which, like ‘Irene’, was peculiar to the Korean War.

  ‘Halleluja, oh Halleluja, throw a nickel on the grass

  Save a fighter pilot’s ass.

  Halleluja, oh Halleluja, throw a nickel on the grass

  And you’ll be saved … ’

  They were still singing when Yeoman and Thornes went to bed, in very thoughtful mood. Yeoman, refusing to take one of the sleeping pills prescribed by the medical officer-he had refused to take them all through the last war, and had no intention of starting now-lay awake for a long time, thinking. There was an early morning briefing at 0700, and although he had no details as yet he felt certain that it would involve another bomber escort mission. He also had a feeling that No. 77 Squadron, newly arrived at Kimpo to begin operations with its Meteors, would be taking part.

  He was wrong on the first count, right on the second. The detail-or ‘Fragmentary Order’, in Fifth Air Force parlance — was to bring the MiGs to battle. Four B-29s were to take part, but they were to be in the nature of a decoy; they would carry no bombs and would head south, flat out, at the first sign of trouble.

  The main effort was to involve three separate groups of fighters: the two Australian squadrons, with a total of twenty-eight aircraft, and forty F-86 Sabres. This was about as many Sabres as the American 4th Fighter Group could muster, for about half its aircraft had recently been withdrawn to Japan for a necessary overhaul.

  Take-off was fixed for 0830 hours. No. 493 Squadron was to operate its sixteen Meteors — it had recently received some fresh aircraft-in four flights of four, callsigns Anzac Able, Baker, Charlie and Dog. No. 77 Squadron’s callsign was ‘Dropkick’.

  The idea was for 493 Squadron to fly top cover, with No. 77 at five thousand feet below. The Sabres were to be split into two formations, one at twenty-five thousand and the other at twenty thousand feet. Each squadron was to patrol with its flights in line abreast.

  No. 493 Squadron’s Meteors took off in pairs, at three-second intervals, and formed up over the airfield before setting a northerly course. A few minutes later they were joined by 77 Squadron’s aircraft from Kimpo, following them up in the climb. The faster Sabres would follow soon, catching up with the Australians before they reached the Yalu.

  As they climbed, Yeoman, who on this occasion was leading Anzac Dog Section — and counting himself lucky to be flying at all, since the Australian pilots were now up to full strength-irrationally found himself humming a verse from the song he’d heard in the mess the night before.

  ‘Cruising up the Yalu doing 320 per,

  Came a call to the Major, “Oh won’t you save me, Sir!

  I’ve two big flak holes in my wings,

  My tanks they have no gas,

  Oh, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! got six MiGs up my ass … ” ’

  He could not shake the tune out of his mind, and was irritated with himself, but it did much to relieve the tension he had been feeling since before take-off. Yeoman did not go much on premonition, but he had a sense of unease about this operation. In his mind’s eye he kept on seeing the face of General Krylenko, hard and determined.

  He also recalled the day, soon after the war’s end, when he had talked with one of Germany’s leading fighter aces, Colonel Joachim Richter. He and the German had served in much the same theatres of war, except that Richter had been in action on the Russian Front in the autumn of 1941. Then, the Russians’ air fighting tactics had been hopeless, and the Luftwaffe had shot their squadrons out of the sky. It seemed that the Reds had learned a great deal in the past decade or so. He had corresponded with Richter over the years since their meeting; the German was now living in the United States, where he was involved in some way with a team of German aeronautical engineers working for one of the big aircraft companies. He planned, he had said, to take out United States citizenship.

  There was no sound over the radio, apart from a hiss of static, as the squadrons climbed to their assigned altitudes. The Meteors gleamed in the morning sun; the ground crews had polished their wings and fuselages, for a highly polished surface could add a vital few knots to the speed. Their twin turbojets began to stream contrails. Yeoman tilted a wing and looked down; below and behind, the Sabres were moving into position. They would stay below contrail height where, with any luck, the MiGs would not see them until they committed themselves to battle.

  No. 77 Squadron’s commander broke the radio silence.

  ‘Anzac from Dropkick Leader. Contact with the big boys at nine o’clock, low.’

  There was a moment’s pause before Dick Thornes answered.

  ‘Roger, Dropkick, I’ve got ’em.’

  Yeoman looked down to his left and picked out the silvery shapes of the four B-29s that were to act as the decoys, heading north towards the Yalu. The broad ribbon of the river was clearly visible now, although Yeoman saw that broken cloud was beginning to creep in from the east. The cloud, he estimated, went up to twelve, maybe fifteen thousand feet. In a few more minutes, it would be close enough to provide welcome cover for anyone who got into difficulty.

  Half a dozen contrails suddenly appeared ahead and to the right, close together. A split second later, there was an excited cry from one of the Australians in Anzac Baker Section, who was a new boy.

  ‘Bogies, two o’clock!’

  The voice of Dick Thornes countered the error immediately.

  ‘Relax, they’re Sabres.’ He was right; as the six aircraft turned, Yeoman could see their sleek arrow-shapes. Even at long range, it was not hard for an experienced pilot to distinguish between the Sabre and the MiG-15; although they shared the same swept-wing characteristics, the MiG was tubbier, with a more barrel-like fuselage surmounted by a big tail fin on which the tailplane was set high up. Yeoman had long since learned that aircraft of similar size often reflected sunlight in a completely different way, and this was true of the Sabre and MiG. It was the latter’s big fin that usually caught the sun first, so that when one sighted MiGs from a long distance, the first impression was of a brilliant dot at the end of a contrail; the Sabre, on the other hand, showed up as a bright arrowhead.

  The Sabre pilots, however, were not as quick to identify the Meteors. Yeoman saw them begin to turn hard towards the Australian formation and at the same time jettison their underwing fuel tanks, a sure sign that they were gett
ing ready for action.

  Dick Thornes, too, saw the glittering tanks showering down towards the North Korean landscape. His voice, urgent now, came again over the R/T:

  ‘Anzac and Dropkick aircraft, keep your eyes on those Sabres closing from two o’clock. They’re playing silly buggers. Stand by to break into them, if we have to.’

  Yeoman was sure that the six Sabres were not part of the overall plan; to use the time-honoured phrase, there had obviously been a cock-up. But the danger was soon over; the Sabres passed over the top of the Meteor formation, still turning, and flew away southwards. With their auxiliary fuel tanks gone, they were forced to curtail their patrol.

  The Meteors reached their patrol area and adopted battle formation, keeping the river off their starboard wingtips. The forty Sabres that were part of the operation were somewhere below and out of sight. There had been no radio contact between the Australians and Americans; that, too, was part of the plan, for the enemy would be monitoring all radio traffic.

  Yeoman’s neck was beginning to ache from the constant effort of twisting his head from side to side in an attempt to see above and to the rear. Once again, he felt that the lack of rear vision from the Meteor’s cockpit was something that should be rectified without delay, before it cost lives.

  It was one of 77 Squadron’s pilots who saw them first, and made an urgent radio call.

  ‘Swept-wing fighters coming up at three o’clock, climbing.’

  Yeoman saw them and counted; there were only ten of them, just beginning to stream their contrails. As he watched, they turned and flew parallel with the Meteor formation, at a slightly lower height on the opposite side of the river, making no move to attack.

  ‘More bogies at two o’clock.’

  This time there were twelve. Like the others, they turned and flew on a parallel course. Then a similar number appeared, this time at four o’clock, to the right and slightly astern of the Meteors. Over the R/T, somebody said:

  ‘This is getting bloody monotonous.’

  ‘Cut the cackle.’ There was no mistaking Dick Thornes’ commanding tones.

  Another group of eight or nine MiGs came up, a long way astern, still remaining on the other side of the river. Yeoman pressed the R/T transmit button.

  ‘Anzac Leader from Anzac Dog One.’

  ‘Go ahead, George.’

  ‘I think they’re going to box clever. I’ve a feeling they’ll turn in at any moment and hit the low squadrons, to try and bring us down. Then they’ll try for a bounce. There must be more of the bastards around somewhere, but I’m damned if I can see ’em.’

  ‘Okay, George, thanks. We’ll sit tight and see what they’re up to. Everyone keep their eyes peeled.’

  For a moment, it seemed that the enemy had reverted to their former tactics. Half a minute later, as Yeoman and the others strove to keep the MiGs in sight, the enemy fighters suddenly broke away in pairs and came down over the river at high speed, right on Mach i. They ripped through the Sabre squadrons, as Yeoman had predicted, but the Sabre pilots knew what they were up to and turned to meet them. The enemy’s first pass was a fiasco; the MiG pilots showed none of the expertise that had been apparent recently, and within seconds two of the jets were plummeting to earth, dragging dense banners of smoke as they fell. Each pair of MiGs made only one firing pass before diving away across the river. The Sabres suffered no damage, and reformed after each attack. Several thousand feet above, the two Meteor squadrons had not been engaged.

  The Meteor pilots, their nerves taught, had eyes only for the speeding MiGs and the battle that was spreading across the sky beneath their wings. Yeoman, who had been continuing his vigil of the dangerous area above and behind, suddenly winced as a spasm of cramp seized his neck. He raised a hand to massage the spot, rolling his head to the left as he did so-and looked into an area of sky that was suddenly filled with contrails. His yell cut through the cross-talk that was going on over the R/T.

  ‘Dropkick and Anzac, look out, bogies at nine o’clock, climbing!’

  The crafty bastards, he thought. They must have crossed the river low down, unseen, and passed right under the Sabre and Meteor formations before starting their climb, their intention clearly being to cut off their opponents’ avenue of escape.

  He counted forty MiGs, and they were still climbing, a couple of miles to the south. He estimated that they had already passed 35,000 feet. It was time for a drastic revision of tactics.

  Dick Thornes had seen the danger too, and called: ‘Anzac aircraft, climb like hell!’ Below, the leader of Dropkick Squadron was also instructing his pilots to go up another few thousand feet.

  The MiG pilots, however, held all the advantages of height and speed; they could choose their moment to attack. Yeoman saw six of them suddenly break away from the main force and enter a wide left-handed turn, apparently intending to get behind the highest and rearmost section of Meteors, which was his own.

  Quietly, he warned the others over the radio.

  ‘Bogies coming round through seven o’clock, Dog Section. Keep turning left. On my signal, break starboard as hard as you can. Stand by.’

  He already had a plan in his mind. Even at this altitude, the MiG could not turn as tightly as the Meteor, so he ordered the other three pilots of his section to tighten their turn still further. The MiGs tightened theirs too, but did not move past the seven o’clock position, to the rear and high to port; this meant that Yeoman’s ruse was working, and that the MiGs were not succeeding in out-turning their opponents.

  Suddenly, the MiGs split into two flights of three and came down on the Meteors, in perfect formation.

  ‘Dog Section, break-now!’

  Yeoman pushed the stick hard right, then pulled it back into his thigh. A huge force pulled at his body as the Meteor abruptly reversed its turn, rolling to the right and then curving up and on to its back. Behind him, the other three Meteors were following the manoeuvre. A dark veil passed over Yeoman’s eyes as the ‘g’ forces pulled at him, then it cleared and he saw in an instant that the brutal manoeuvre, which he had often used in combat during the last war and which he had practised often in training with the Meteor pilots, had achieved the desired result.

  Through the perspex of his cockpit canopy, from his upside-down position, Yeoman saw the brown, craggy Korean terrain far below, and superimposed on it the fleeting shapes of the MiGs which had attacked his section. The enemy pilots had been taken completely by surprise and had overshot, their high speed now a disadvantage, their cannon shells spraying uselessly into space.

  Yeoman, still followed by the others, completed his roll and pulled the Meteor through into a screaming dive, hurtling down in the wake of the MiGs. He knew that he had only seconds to get in a burst or two before they drew away.

  One of the MiGs seemed to be trailing behind the others and he concentrated on this aircraft, getting it centred nicely in his sights. The enemy pilot made no attempt to take evasive action and Yeoman found himself with a beautiful no-deflection shot, the sort fighter pilots dream about. He pressed the firing button and the Meteor’s four 20-mm Hispano cannon thudded and roared, lashing out shells from the gunports in the nose. A grey trail streaked across the sky, and disappeared in the MiG’s starboard wing root.

  Smoke burst from the enemy aircraft in a series of rapid puffs, and its dive steepened until it was almost vertical. There was a sudden vivid flash on the fuselage, just behind the trailing edge of the wing, and the MiG broke in half.

  Yeoman pulled out of his dive and looked around, weaving from side to side to clear the dangerous blind spot behind his tail, and called up the other pilots of Dog Section. His number two, a sergeant pilot who had been with the squadron since the days when it operated Mustangs, had stuck faithfully to him all the way down. His voice came over the radio.

  ‘Nice work, sir. Not much doubt about that one.’

  The two other pilots had also fired at MiGs and each had claimed hits, although the superior speed of the Russ
ian-built jets had enabled them to get away.

  In the strange way of high-speed combat, the sky now seemed to be empty although Yeoman knew that it was a dangerous illusion. It meant, simply, that the battle had taken the opposing fighters down below contrail level, where they were harder to spot. Yeoman’s concern, now, was to get back up to altitude, where they would run less risk of being taken by surprise. He checked that the sky around him was clear, then took a few seconds to look down and assess the situation. An occasional glimpse of a flashing aircraft, together with shouts over the radio, told him that a major air battle was still in progress.

  Circling, he called up Dick Thornes. It was some moments before the latter answered, having been involved in driving a MiG off the tail of another Meteor.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, George, come on down and lend a hand. The bastards are everywhere.’

  ‘Roger. Just looking for something to shoot at.’

  Thornes and the rest of the squadron were, indeed, having a hard time of it. Something like a hundred and fifty aircraft, friend and foe, were by this time spread out in combat over a considerable area of sky, and several smoke trails marked the end of the unlucky ones. Even during the Second World War, dogfights of this size had been comparatively rare.

  Dogfight, however, was not the right word to apply to this deadly game of cut-and-thrust five miles above the earth, with silvery jets flashing across the blue at speeds of ten miles a minute.

  Yeoman’s wingman, who seemed to have an uncanny knack of spotting enemy aircraft before anyone else, called: ‘Bogies, eleven o’clock low!’

  Looking down, Yeoman saw two pairs of MiGs, flying in line astern quite slowly; he realized that their pilots, too, must be gazing down, looking for potential targets below.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get ’em.’

  The four Meteors winged over, flashing down towards the enemy aircraft. Yeoman centred one between the luminous diamonds of his gunsight and forced himself to wait until the distance narrowed, for he wanted to make certain of this one with his first burst. But the MiG pilot saw him coming at last and broke hard to the right just as Yeoman pressed the firing-button, and his cannon shells streamed to the left of the enemy jet, which now began to pull away in a long dive.