Tag Archives: mig-15

The Flight to Freedom’s final chapter

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We pause to remember a North Korean fighter pilot today, No Kum-sok.

Born in 1932 as Okamura Kyoshi in the Japanese-occupied Hermit Kingdom, he was the son of a baseball player. The teen considered becoming a kamikaze during the latter stages of WWII but was dissuaded from it and nonetheless later became an aviator for the Korean People’s Air Force.

Training in Manchuria under his new, more Korean name, he would complete no less than 100 combat sorties in the Korea War. Just after the truce was announced, and with his father dead and his mother in the West, he decided it was time to pull stumps for the South.

At the stick of his advanced MiG-15bis, he would famously streak from Sunan outside of Pyongyang to Kimpo Air Base in South Korea on 21 September 1953, a flight of just 17 minutes, and become probably the highest-profile defector of the day.

After being debriefed by the CIA, he was given $100K as authorized by Operation Moolah, although he was not aware of the reward for defectors who brought their MiGs over.

1.2 million of these pamphlets were dropped on North Korea in 1953. Operation Moolah promised a $100,000 reward to the first North Korean pilot to deliver a Soviet MiG-15 to UN forces, or just $50K for either a pilot or aircraft. The pamphlet carried the photo of LT Franciszek Jarecki, who had flown his Lim2 (license version of MiG 15bis) from Poland to political asylum in Denmark in March 1953.

No’s MiG, repainted in USAF markings and insignia, the under guard and awaiting flight testing at Okinawa. Note the M3 grease gun at the ready. (USAF image)

Taking the name Kenneth H. Rowe, he emigrated to the U.S.– where his mother had already escaped to– and, picking up several engineering degrees and a Korean-American bride, worked in the American aviation community and then as a professor at Embry-Riddle. Mr. Rowe, late of the DPRKAF, passed in Florida over the weekend, aged 90.

As for his MiG, following a career as a test aircraft in USAF custody, it was sent to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, where No visited it before his death. It has been restored to its original #2057 livery. 

MiG Alley at 70

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Original Caption July 1953: “Fifth Air Force, Korea; As a bright mid-day sun beams its warm rays upon a forward UN airstrip in Korea, two sleek U.S. Air Force F-86 ‘Sabre’ jets of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing become airborne, landing gear going up, fuel tanks filled to capacity and gun chambers filly loaded, bound for MIG-Alley in search of more Russian-built MIG-15s. Protecting Fifth Air Force fighter bomber operation from enemy swept-wing aircraft, MIG-killing ‘Sabre’ pilots daily patrol the skies over North Korea. Since shooting down their first MIG in December 1950, ‘Sabre’ jet pilots have destroyed 765 of the enemy interceptors.”

Photo 342-FH-4A-26483-91482AC via NARA https://catalog.archives.gov/id/148728240

The first Air Force F-86 MiG “kill” over Korea occurred 70 years ago today, 17 December 1950, when Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton, “commander of the 336th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, led a flight of four F-86s over northwestern North Korea. To trick the communists, the Sabre pilots flew at the same altitude and speed as F-80s typically did on missions, and they used F-80 call signs. Hinton spotted four MiGs at a lower altitude, and he led his flight in an attack. After pouring a burst of machine gun fire into one of the MiGs, it went down in flames.”

DAYTON, Ohio – Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton stands beside the North American F-86A Sabre in the Modern Flight Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The museum’s F-86 is marked as the 4th Fighter Group F-86A flown by Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton on Dec. 17, 1950, when he became the first F-86 pilot to shoot down a MiG. (U.S. Air Force photo)

The F-86 would chalk up an impressive 10.15-to-1 kill ratio over the MiG-15 in “MiG Alley,” downing 792 (another 118 were scored as “probables”) against a loss of 78 Sabres.

To be fair, however, it should be noted that Navy LCDR William T. Amen, in a VF-111 “Sun Downers” F9F-2B Panther from the deck of USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), splashed a MiG-15 piloted by Soviet Air Force KPT. Mikhail F. Grachev (139th GIAP, 28th IAD) over the Yalu River on 9 November 1950, to claim the first jet-on-jet Navy “kill” in the conflict.