Strangling Enemy Supply Lines

Flight Journal, Dec 2004 by Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey

F-84 THUNDERJET ACTION IN KOREA

September 19, 1951. The 9th FS, 49th PC's F-84E Thunderjets were heading north at 12,000 feet, each airplane with two 500-pound bombs. The 7th, 8th and 9th FS sister squadrons were tasked with dive-bombing the main rail line between Sinanju and Pyongyang at a "chokepoint" just south of Sukchon, Korea, where the line went through a marsh between two hills-the most difficult place for the enemy to make repairs. It was their second mission of the day.

Leading the Purple Flight of the 9th FS, squadron CO Maj. Willie Williams was one of the Groups' most experienced pilots, having been with the 49th FG since shortly after the Inchon landings, back when his Group was flying the F-80 Shooting Star. Element lead to Williams was Maj. James F. Sprinkle with Williams' new Squadron Executive Officer, Capt. Kenneth L. Skeen, flying his third mission in an F-84 as Sprinkle's wingman.

"We had transitioned to the Thunderjet by late August," Williams recalls 53 years later, "and had been back in Korea for about a week at the time of this mission."

The mission was part of Operation Strangle, as the 5th Air Force had named its all-out effort to separate the enemy's main line of resistance north of Seoul from the supplies brought down the peninsula from China.

As the Thunderjets crossed the bomb line, the weather changed from clear skies in the south to broken clouds that became a heavy undercast by the time the 48 F-84Es passed east of Pyongyang.

Williams says, "I heard the Group Commander call out 'MiGs above us at 7 o'clock' and saw the contrails. I told the rest of the squadron not to pickle their bombs if the MiGs made a pass on us-unless it was life or death. At our altitude, the MiG was not that good, and I was pretty sure we'd be able to turn away from them with our ordnance. I knew they wouldn't stick around that low with 48 of us wanting to take a crack at them."

The MiG-15 had already been proven superior to the Republic Thunder jet in air-to-air combat, but in the hands of an experienced pilot, the big Republic fighter could hold its own at lower altitudes against the lesser-trained Communist (Korean, Chinese and Soviet) pilots. By this point in the war, the 49th FG was a collection of highly experienced fliers and most had flown at least 50 combat missions.

"I watched the MiGs above us and saw them head down. They were coming right after the four of us in the lead, so I very reluctantly called for Purple Flight to salvo their bombs. I broke hard to the right as I saw them set up on their firing pass, but they overshot. I reversed the turn to the left and saw Ken Skeen pull up high to my left and fall behind as I came around and into the MiGs before they could get away to set up another pass. I got off shots at two of them and then warned Jim Sprinkle that he had one on his tail. Suddenly, the MiG on Jim's tail caught fire and trailed smoke. Then Ken Skeen called for me to break right because I had another one on me. Ken had shot the one on Sprinkle's tail; he kept firing at it until it blew up."

Though the mission wasn't successful inasmuch as the MiGs had managed to catch the 49th without their Sabre escort and had forced them to jettison their bombs, there was an appropriate celebration back at Taegu that night because Skeen had scored the group's first MiG kill with the F-84.

"The next day, I had each airplane in the 9th painted with a red star to celebrate that kill. It was part of the squadron insignia for the rest of the war," says Williams.

By this stage of the war, sobering knowledge about the enemy dictated U.S. Air Force strategy and, most particularly, the use of the two Wings of long-range F-84 Thunderjets. These bombers and the F-86 Sabre were rapidly becoming the most important tactical aircraft of the war. The Sabre's battle for air superiority in "MiG alley" over the Yalu made extended F-84 operations over the north possible.

The Chinese had approximately 60 divisions in Korea, each of which required 40 tons of supplies every day to operate effectively. The air-interdiction campaign had reduced rail traffic to a minimum in the north; this meant that 6,000 trucks a day had to deliver their supplies to the Communist frontlines if they were to maintain their position against the United Nations forces. Operation Strangle officially began in July 1951 with the goal of totally cutting off the Communist frontlines from their supplies. Only U.S. air superiority made this possible.

The Operation was designed to force the Communist Air Force to attempt to block USAF fighter-bombers. As F-84s inbound for a strike passed between Sonchon in the south and Sinanju, the Communists would get word of the size of the strike. The MiGs would take off from the airfield complex at Antung in "off-limits" Manchuria and would climb to their ceiling of 50,000 feet. At that altitude, they could overfly the F-86 patrols south of the YaIu and hit the fighter-bombers north of Sinanju before they struck their targets. The Communist pilots' objective was to make the F-84s jettison their bombs and defend themselves against their superior MiGs. The reality was that only a few F-84s were shot down by MiG-ISs, but the Communists gained their goal with the first pass, as the Thunderjets had to salvo their bombs. Because of the buildup of AAA weapons south of Sonchon along the main line of resistance, by December 1951, it was estimated that only seven percent of the USAF bombs hit the intended targets.