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Post by okla on Oct 10, 2011 23:48:26 GMT 8
Hey Fots....Thanks so much for posting that photo of the Sabres in their revetment at Suwon (K-13), South Korea. No, that's not me in the background, but if this shot was taken between August 1952 and July 1953, I was about 100 yards away in the Wing Ops shack. The Squadron depicted in the photo is the 25th as denoted by the red stripe atop the checker tails. The 39th had yellow and the 16th sported blue stripes. The pilots of the 39th flew F models and the guys in the 16th and 25th had E models for their "mounts", causing some belly aching. Our unit had a fierce rivalry with the 4th Fighter Wing over at Kimpo. the 4th had a broad yellow stripe on their tail assembly causing our flyers to rib them saying "the stripe on 4th F-86 tail was the same color as the stripe that ran down the 4th pilot's backs". Needless to say this caused many fat lips and bloody noses when these same pilots were drinking in the Officers Club down at Tsuiki, Japan, where both the 4th & 51st shared a Maintenance and Supply Depot that serviced both Wing's, doing major overalls and taking care of major battle damage. I gotta say that year of my young life still remains the most interesting and exciting of my 79 years. Somewhere on Internet (I have never been able to locate it again) is an aerial photo of Suwon AFB (luckily I had my Cousin print me a copy at the time) that shows the whole layout of our side of the base (the 8th Fighter Bomber Wing and their F-80s occupied the other portion of K-13). I was able to identify my quonset hut and even the quad .50 Anti Aircraft emplacement that damned near shot our roof off while trying to knock down "Bed Check Charlie" one night back in June 1953. The Army guys got their trajectory a bit too low. A Navy pilot, flying a slower Corsair night fighter, got 'ole Charlie a few nights later and added 4 more in the following 10 days, becoming the only Navy/Marine Ace of the Korean War. They may have only been Crop Duster type A/C, but he still shot down 5 enemy A/C, qualifying for Ace. The Navy needed an Ace. After all, the 51st had Joe McConnell, the top USAF pilot of the Korean conflict. The good Captain had 16 Mig-15 kills. Our F-86 could, in no way, handle those "crop dusters" flown by Charlie. Same handicap with the F-94, but that Corsair did the job. The USN also furnished Kimpo and the 4th with a Corsair for their "Bedcheck" problem. Those were the days, I gotta say.
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Post by okla on Oct 11, 2011 4:32:22 GMT 8
Hey Battery....I just noticed that one of the model kits in your collection is "Beautious Butch II", one of Captain Joe McConnell's "steeds". He was shot down flying Beautious Butch I earlier in his tour, but ditched over the Yellow Sea and was picked up out of the drink and flew that afternoon, if memory serves. It was certainly a tragic event for him to lose his life while performing as a test pilot after returned to the states. We have wandered afar from Corregidor in this thread, but it was an interesting time. I would imagine EXO will be shooing us back to "The Rock" shortly. I will take the majority of the blame for our transgression. Cheers.
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Post by batteryboy on Oct 11, 2011 7:19:06 GMT 8
Hi Okla, Yes that is one of McConnell's steeds. Dont worry, the last photo I posted of Sabre Dogs flying over the island is Corregidor related as EXO will pardon me for that.
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Post by darthdract on Oct 13, 2011 1:52:06 GMT 8
Hi Okla did you fly Sabers in Korea,?
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Post by darthdract on Oct 13, 2011 1:53:10 GMT 8
batteryboy wow those where the good old days of the Phil Airforce.
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Post by okla on Oct 13, 2011 4:33:25 GMT 8
Hey Darth....No way did I "mount up" in Sabres or any other A/C, for that matter. I was a lowly Buck Sergeant, at the time, laboring seven days a week in 51st FIW Wing Operations/Intelligence Section. I was fortunate enough to have had a very interesting job. I had a Top Secret Security Clearance and was the "little fly on the wall" when the "honchos" gathered. I would best describe my situation as an enlisted "flunky" who, due to my military job title, was privy to some pretty good stuff. Certainly interesting stuff. Over the years, I have often thought that, maybe, I should have re-enlisted and done my 20 or so years. As Harry Truman once said, "hindsight is 20-20". Just another of the many forks in the road that a person wonders about the choice he made. Cheers.
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Post by xray on Nov 1, 2011 10:10:21 GMT 8
Sweet 86 I photographed last year at the K-Zoo air museum in MI. I see the flying 86 just about every year on the airshow circuit. Is often accompanied by a black Mig, wasn't this year.
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Post by okla on Nov 2, 2011 0:24:25 GMT 8
Hey Xray...Thanks for posting the pic of that slick looking F-86. I will never tire of looking at those neat A/C especially when they are sporting the "checker tail" of my old unit, the 51st FIW. The narrow yellow stripe over the "checkers" denotes that this aircraft, the former "mount" of Major John F. Bolt (6 Mig-15 kills) on loan from USMC, is from the 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Somewhere on this forum I have told of how the members of the 16th and 25th Squadrons envied the 39th because they, mostly, flew later F models of the Sabre. Cheers
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Post by xray on Nov 2, 2011 8:08:34 GMT 8
You would drool at this museum okla, I've been to quite a few, this one is world class. I'll post some more pics in the general topics section.
The F-86 is simply a bad ass jet, even by todays standards - Easy to imagine that it must have seemed like something from outer space when it first took to the skies. I saw one flying this summer at Selfridge ANGB in MI, clear blue sky, this guy did about 12 passes and stole the show.
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Post by okla on Nov 2, 2011 8:51:17 GMT 8
Hey Xray....If my old 79 year old mind ain't playing tricks, one F-86, after initial development, cost 250,000 dollars to manufacture. The only reason I remember this is soon after I arrived at Suwon, our installation, one of the "old timers" remarked when a flight of 4 took off one day, " well, there goes another million dollars". When I asked him what he was talking about, he replied, " each one of those babies costs a quarter of a million bucks". After all these years, I question my memory. That price certainly seems cheap these days, even factoring in all the inflation that has taken place since 1952. I have no idea where he got his numbers, but this guy was a junior officer in the Operations Section. Anyhow, the Sabre remains a sleek, good looking, and deadly efficient jet fighter for it's time. Those six 50 calibers raised a lot of Hell up in "Mig Alley".
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