Re: Korean War Aerial Losses and Claims - Interim Look

[Joe Brennan <jbren1@optonline.net>]

Diego,
Serial nos. of F-86's "lost to enemy action", no date. It's actually 18 now
that I look back at the list, a few I've seen
published reference to:

-48-301: pre war photo Davis "4th ftr" pg 29
-49-1109
-49-1147
-49-1281: Eagleston's damaged 6/17/51 (or 6/25 or 6/28?) Bombed as decoy
6/17 or 7/17?
-49-1318 :Jabara's 5/20/51 a/c when became ace?
-49-1334: dest on grd by Po-2 6/17/51
-50-0587
-50-0622
-50-0666: "Temptation" damaged by MiG  w/o 12/52 (Davis "4th ftr"
p. 124)
-50-0672
-51-2746: Gabreski's "Michigan Center/Lady Frances" a/o 10/2/51 (Davis "MiG
Alley"
p. 36)
-51-2768
-51-2770
-51-2792
-51-2824
-51-2906
-51-2942
-52-4313?

The wreckage serials you mentioned:
F-86's 9/14/52:
FU-727: 51-2727 was an E op loss 12/28/52 per Korwald
FU-725: 51-2725 an E no known incident
FU-555: 52-4555 was an F block 30, so that's too soon I think.

F-84's 9/9/52:
51-766 and 51-798 were F-84G's. 49th FBG got first G's
sent to Korea 8/52, first G losses in Korwald 10/52 though recorded losses
from that particular block
(G-1's, 692-996) all from spring/summer '53.
The other 7 serials are other types that wouldn't have been there (C-124,
F-89 etc.)

To correct typo in my first note 50-682 was the F-86 "lost" twice.

 Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Diego Zampini" <dzampini@hotmail.com>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: Korean War Aerial Losses and Claims - Interim Look


> Hi, Joe:
>
> >On the other side of the ledger I note in Joe Baugher's
> >database of serial numbers 16 F-86's "lost to enemy action"
> >without date and not in Korwald. Some are known cases
> >(49-1281 Eagleston's a/c in "Casey Jones" incident,
> >49-1334 taken out in Po-2 raid frequently published photo,
> >50-0666 is a MiG damage write off pictured in Davis
> >"4th Fighter Wing") but mostly mysterious (to me).
>
> Could you share such 16 serial numbers with us? The Russians gave some
> serial numbers in many cases that they claim Sabre kills and USAF do not
> mention losses. For example: MiG-15 pilot Boris N. Zabelin claimed an F-86
> downed on July 20 1952, and in the site of crash reported by Zabelin the

> Russians asserted they found a wreckage with the pilot killed in the
cockpit
> and a serial number: ´15-24001´. The only F-86 reported loss that day was
> the 49-2828 whose pilot, John Ellis, became POW; and he seems to had been
> shot down by other MiG-15 pilot, V.L.Lepikov. It would be interesting if
the
> ´15-24001´ appears in such list.
>
> >Given the high rate of fire and low per round lethality of F-86
> >armament many hundreds more MiG's must have been hit for
> >500-600 to have been shot down. If we added all 34 (or 50)
> >F-86's wouldn't we have to add a bunch of MiG's?
>
> Your suspicions about a lot of MiGs also written off by battle damage
caused
> by Sabres have its logic and merits. But the matter is that the Russians
> (and comsequently, the Chinese) do not clasify the losses with the same
> criteria than USAF, and the figure of 314 MiGs (538 if you consider the
> Chinese ones) already includes all the cases (aircraft shot down in air
> combat, writtes off due to battle damage, crash or belly landings due to
> battle damage, missing probably lost in air combat, etc) so Ithink you can
> consider the number of 538 as a definitive one.
>
> >The escalation of F-86 AAA losses toward the end of the war,
> >sometimes noted with suspicion in Russian writings, has a
> >straightforward explanation. Many from 8th and 18 FBG's. More F-86's
> >were lost to AAA once they began to be risked on air-grd, from 4th Ftr's
> >strikes at target of opportunity after sweeps starting spring 52, and
much
> >more when FB units converted to F-86F's by '53.
>
> Certainly those are valid reasons of the increasing F-86 losses by AAA,
and
> actually I take them into account (and I think Cookie do so). Certainly
most
> of the 19 Sabres USAF reported as downed by AAA were actually downed by
AAA.
> But about 5-9 of them which match with Soviet claims deserve a research.
For
> example, when Walker Mahurin was released in 1953, he asserted his F-86E
was
> shot down by AAA. There is no doubt that he was hit by AA fire first, but
> later, with smoke in the cockpit (Mahurin himself admitted his cockpit
> filled of smoke) I guess he could not check whether a MiG was trying to
get
> him or not. The book ´Red Devils over the 38th Parallel´ mention that day
a
> MiG-15 pilot of 821 IAP, A.R.Prudnikov, claimed to shot down a Sabre in a
> air-ground mission in that same area. It is clear to me that the AAA hit
> Mahurin first, but who gave him the ´coup d´grace´ was Prudnikov. Of
course
> not all the cases are like that, and as I said before, most of the 19
Sabres
> USAF reported as downed by AAA were actually downed by AAA.
> Certainly there were a huge Soviet over-claiming (50% - 70%), no doubt
about
> it. To inflate the numbers to keep a dying Stalin happy evidently helped
> such over-claiming. But also remember that the secret of the Soviet
> envolvement also invalidate the propaganda purposes in Soviet statistics.
> And other proofs given by the Russians (serial numbers, tail codes,
corpses)
> which do not match with US reported losses, make me thing that the final
> word about the definitive kill ratio between US-Russian pilots had not be
> told yet. Even when I am sure it will keep on being favourable to US
pilots,
> it will be probably inferior to the one claimed today.
> Regards,
> Diego.
>
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