The Naval Air War in Korea

Preface

PREFACE M ore than thirty years have passed since the signing of a truce agreement at Panmunjom ended the United States' first experience with modern limited war. Since that time, an uneasy peace has prevailed, punctuated by violations that cost the lives of North and South Koreans, and Americans as well. These violations underscore an important point: despite the relief and optimistic predictions made at the time, the truce at Panmunjom has at best imposed an uneasy peace upon Korea. Today, and for the forseeable future, the potential for renewed conflict unfortunately looms as large as ever on this strategic peninsula, despite sporadic attempts to open a useful dialogue between the hard-liners of both the North and South. It is likely that Koreans, Chinese, Soviets, Americans, Japanese, and other closely interested nations will have to live with the possibility until the generations directly concerned with the war of 19501953 recede, and cooler heads prevail in North Korea. Despite the continued volatility of the Korean situation, awareness of Korea and the Korean War has slipped from the American consciousness to a remarkable and even alarming degree. Perhaps this reflects a subtle psychological recognition that the war really settled little except for curbing the expansionist tendencies of Kim II Sung, Mao Tse-tung, and Josef Stalin at that time. This is regrettable. The Korean War was thrust upon the United States and its Allies, who responded promptly to the attack on South Korea, and displayed loyalty towards the underdog, fierce determination , and courage. At the same time, the United States restored its vital strategic position in the Far East. Nowhere were such virtues better exemplified than in the conduct of the naval air war. Overshadowed in the public mind by the more glamorous (and certainly important) struggle of Sabres versus MiGs over the sinuous Yalu, naval aviation came out of the Korean War with little public recognition save for James Michener's evocative novel, The Bridges at Taka-ri. Though useful for creating an awareness that there had been a vii viii / Preface naval air war in Korea, it did not attempt to convey the full range and impact of naval air combat over the North and the South. Several specialized books and studies published during the 1950s and 1960s-notably those of Walter Karig, Malcolm Cagle, and Frank Manson-enabled military professionals to study the broad outlines of the naval air war, but problems with security classification (many records remained classified well into the 1970s, and some few-primarily on intelligence mattersremain so still) and the proximity of the events (with consequent lack of perspective) limited both the audience and the authors. As a new war in Southeast Asia intensified, the focus of historical study shifted from Korea's icy hills and dusty valleys south to the morass of Indochina and examination of conflicts there and in Malaya, Algeria, and Kenya. The pressing problems of the 1960s and 1970s consigned the Korean War to the ever-darkening archives of history. It is time to bring the Korean War once again into the forefront of our awareness. For even today it has much to teach us, some of which is neither pleasant nor easy to learn. The Korean conflict was a watershed in the evolution of carrier air doctrine and the employment of naval air power. Whereas the aircraft carrier-typified by the large fleet carriers of the American and Royal navies-had ended the Second World War as a destroyer of fleets, decisively and firmly supplanting the battleship as the true Titan of the seas, it served in Korea in quite a different role: that of a mobile airfield projecting military force ashore from stations close to hostile shores. During the climatic sea battles of the Pacific war, carriers had sortied forth on what were decisive but relatively short-lived strikes and operations. In Korea, by contrast, American and British Commonwealth carriers served on station for weeks and months, save for periods of replenishment, rest, and recreation at several Asian ports. In contrast to their presence in the Second World War, Korea's carrier operations had much less visible impact upon the war, though sortie and ordnance consumption quickly soared well beyond that of the earlier conflict. Unlike many naval analysts who deprecated the Korean experienQe as "untypical " at the time, more perceptive students of naval warfare recognized that Korea marked the beginning of a new chapter in the carrier's role: that of a force-projector in limited war...