Book review: Red Wings Over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union and the Air War in Korea

[Mike Yared <mikeyared@yahoo.com>]

http://www.washtimes.com/books/20030607-102038-6034r.htm

How the great powers flew over Korea
By Joseph C. Goulden
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 8, 2003

    "On Nov. 1, 1950, United Nations pilots and their
planes faced a surprise attack by swept-wing jet
aircraft over the Yalu River," writes Ziaoming Zhang
in an important book on the Korean War, Red Wings Over
the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union and the Air War in
Korea (Texas A&M University Press. $39.95, 320 pages,
illus.). "In contrast to official American accounts,
Russian pilots, not Chinese, flew them." Thus opened a
new and dangerous phase of the Korean "police action,"
the core details of which were concealed from the
American public for decades. The U. S. Air Force's
"official history" of the war, published in 1983,
suggested that the pilots were Chinese. 
    The Soviet entry was significant because
previously U.S. planes dominated the air, enabling
ground forces to maintain a toehold on the foot of the
Korean peninsula until the Inchon invasion in
September turned the course of battle. The appearance
of Soviet built Mig-15s "made every other plane in
Korea obsolescent with their speed and performance,"
Dr. Zhang writes. 
    Even a year later, with hundreds of American
planes shot down in flames, the air enemy was still
officially identified as the Chinese Communists. Gen.
Hoyt Vandenberg, the Air Force chief of staff,
proclaimed after a visit to the Far East that
"Communist China has become one of the major air
powers of the world." To put it charitably, Gen.
Vandenberg took gross liberties with the truth, and
pilots serving under him knew it. When I researched a
book on the Korean War two decades ago, numerous U. S.
pilots told me of hearing Russian voices daily from
opposing cockpits. They knew exactly who they were
fighting. 
    So why conceal reality? Here one of the many
anomalies marking the odd little war in Korea. Neither
President Harry Truman nor Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin wanted to risk all-out war, and surely such
would have been demanded by much of the American
public had it known that Russians were killing
American fliers. 
    For its part, Moscow put the semblance of a fig
leaf over its air operations. "Soviet planes were
disguised with North Korean markings, and Soviet
pilots were required to wear Chinese uniforms when
they arrived in China" enroute to North Korea," Dr.
Zhang writes."Every Russian had a Chinese pseudonym,
and they were expected to speak Chinese on the radio,
although few pilots did." 
    Soviet operations were restricted to the far
north, and the Soviets were forbidden from flying over
United Nations lines or the sea. If captured, they
should claim to be Eurasian Chinese of Soviet
extraction. Dr. Zhang writes that not a single Soviet
pilot was captured. (I am told, however, that one and
possibly two Soviet pilots managed to defect to U.
S.-held territory, one of them with a Mig-15 that gave
our intelligence people the chance to examine the new
Soviet weaponry.) Dr. Zhang's account of how Soviet
air power came to Korea comes from U.S.S.R. and
Chinese files to which he gained access. 
    The combat between Soviet and U.S. pilots enabled
both sides to learn jet aircraft combat. No fewer than
32 Soviets emerged as "aces," that is, credited with
five or more kills. The top Soviet ace shot down 21
U.N. (read American) planes. Eventually, the Chinese
developed their own air capability, and the thrust of
Dr. Zhang's book is how the war enabled the Chinese
People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAFF) to grow
into the world's third largest air power. 
    The level of the writer's expertise is suggested
by the dedication to his father, "a veteran of the
PLAFF." Dr. Zhang, who now teaches history at the
Texas A&M international university branch in Laredo,
Texas, carries the warning that the collapse of the
U.S.S.R. means that Chinese airpower provokes serious
concerns for regional security and world peace. How,
he asks, might "China use that new military strength?"
A sobering question, and especially at a time of
crisis on the Korean peninsula. 
     
    Joseph C. Goulden' s books include "Korea: The
Untold Story of the War" (1982). He is writing a book
on Cold War intelligence. His e-mail is
JosephG894@AOL.COM. 

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