Re: Soviet Aircraft Types in Korea

["Love Shack" <Home@DanSources.com>]

So were most of the airbattles with the Koreans or Chinese or Russians in
1951?

Dan Fahey

----- Original Message -----
From: <RonaldS842@aol.com>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: Soviet Aircraft Types in Korea


> Hi all-
>
>    Especially after January 1951 COMINT and the USAFSS was monitoring
almost
> every air to air, ground to air and ground to ground transmission and we
> probably knew every PLAAF and Russian aircraft in and around Korea and the
> names of the pilots. We had ferrets (RB 50B) that went along with the B-29
> raids in 1953.  We destroyed the Danish made telegraph service from PLAAF
> headquarters in Beijing to the commander of the PLAAF 5th Air Division at
> Kaiyuan AIR Base in Manchuria who controlled  80 Il-10 ground attack
> aircraft. This gave us the opportunity to monitor HF and VHF
transmissions.
>    Between December 1950 and June 1951 the size of the PLAAF grew from 650
to
> 1,050 combat aircraft including 445 first line MIG-15 jet fighters in the
> PLAAF inventory by the end of June 1951 (1st RSM Historical Report January
1,
> 1951- March 1 1951). At the start of the War the NKAF had only 80 pilots,
40
> of whom were rated as "proficient" so the brunt of the airwar was not
Korean
> pilots.
>    In March 1951 COMINT confirmed that two regiments of Soviet-made
Ilyushin
> Il-10 fighter bombers were training for ground support missions at an
> airfield near Kaiyuan in Manchuria and were used by the PLAAF.
>    In October 1950 two elite PVO fighter divisions (the 303rd and the
324th)
> were deployed from the Moscow region to Chinese air bases around the
> Manchurian cities of Antung and Mukden.  They immediately began flying
combat
> patrols over the Yalu River. Russian pilot intervention was significant.
>    Thanks to Matthew M. Aid's  "American COMINT in the Korean War."
Matthew
> says once he gets all of his info on the subject together, which is
probably
> as much as anyone has in the group, he is going to write a book. It should
be
> a good one.
>
> Ronald Schultz
> Moraga, CA