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Cookie,
F-86E 50-645 wasn't lost this day (lost June 24,
1953 in an accident) but hit with a single, probably 23mm, shell in the right
horizontal stabilizer, requiring replacement of the stabilizer and elevator
assembly. One thing I've found "looking under the hood" of Korwald is for
F86's when it says "damaged" and doesn't specifically say lost, it was
almost always repaired (for B-29's there are a higher % of damaged planes
not returned to service but still most were). Also not all damage incidents
are in K (virtually all outright losses are) and the day of
the month is not always reliable for damage (though this
one
seems correct). Thompson/McLaren "MiG
Alley" apendices are a better source for F-86 fates than Korwald IMO,
though a few mysteries remain in their entries too, and they don't
cover non-loss damage.
However the existence of another damaged a/c
tends to contradict Evan's (usually reliable I've found) statement that only his
pair and Davis met any MiG's at all on Feb 10, since he doesn't mention
damage.
The reason I lean to the Chinese claim is more at
the detail level of each of the 3 accounts, the Russian one (Red Devils account
as related by Zhang) doesn't seem to describe the Davis combat, while the
American and Chinese ones seem to come closer to describing the same combat,
albeit still with signficant discrepancies. For the Russian one to work one has
to assume they came upon Davis and Littlefield (his wingman) attacking Chinese
MiG's and the times and Littlefield's account seem to weigh against this; he
says Davis was downed by MiG's they both saw that were already in the formation
they attacked before they attacked it.
Joe
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