Sabre Jet Ace – Communists saw it differently. Joseph Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, military historian Xiaoming Zhang said, “instead of US air pressure, it finally brought progress in the armistice talks.” Hoping to gain combat experience for as many ground forces as possible, the Chinese launched a major summer ground offensive supported by 350 Chinese MiGs and three North Korean MiG units.
But this bid for air superiority recruited many inexperienced pilots. Jabara later said, “The orders were that if your tank was hung, you had to throw it home.” But he wasn’t about to give up on what could be his last try at academia.
Sabre Jet Ace
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“I called my partner and told him we were joining the fight.” Following Kemp, Jabara drew his sword sharply. He saw three MiGs and opened fire on them. Three other MiGs attacked from above and behind.
Jabara turned to face the new attackers and the two MiGs separated. That fall, Pete Fernandez, then 28, arrived in Korea. Although he qualified as a combatant during World War II, Fernandez never saw combat. Eventually becoming an air weapons instructor at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, he watched in frustration as his students were deployed.
“He trained all these young men,” his father, an Air Force colonel, later told reporters. “Everyone left, he didn’t.” After graduating from Wichita High School in May 1942, Jabara entered the Air Cadet Program at Fort Riley, Kan.
In October 1943, he received his pilot’s wings and commission as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force at Moore Field. , Texas. Seeing this, Roberts ordered his plane to drop its tanks. As Jabara pulled the lever to release his tanks, he felt Saber roll to one side.
He had to hold the control stick in both hands to keep the plane under control. One of the wing tanks could not be released and was still attached to the Sabre’s wing. Jabara’s feat during his 63rd mission came when US Air Force superiority was in doubt at MiG Alley, located in northwestern North Korea along the Yalu River bordering Manchuria.
As Blaine Harden, author of several major books on the Korean War, explained in an interview: “When the Korean Air War started, the MiGs kind of wreaked havoc. Their pilots were Stalin’s elite. As a result, the skies over northwest Korea looked more and more like an American game reserve.
New York Times reporter Robert Alden wrote, “[USF] pilots … are eager to fight, while the Communists appear unmotivated and poorly trained.” Jabara latched onto the third MiG. “He tried everything in the book — diving and spinning — to get rid of me,” Jabara said, “but he couldn’t.”
Jabara got within 1,500 meters of the MiG’s tail and fired three rounds from his machine guns. , hitting the fuselage and left wing of the MiG. “He did two violent kicks and started spinning,” Jabara recalled.
The MiG turned from 27,000 feet to 10,000, followed by Jabara and Kemp. At 10,000 feet, the pilot ejected; seconds later, the MiG-15 disintegrated. “All I could see was a firestorm,” Jabara recalled. McConnell flew the 51st while Fernandez went ahead and killed with the 4th wing.
It wasn’t until January 1953 that Fernandez’s improved shooting under Nellis’ tutelage earned him the lead in the 39th FIS. After an initial victory on January 14, McConnell defeated three more before the end of the month.
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Now both men are one win short of a core. With Baker’s departure, the focus of the ace race shifted to Capt. Harold E. “Hal” Fisher Jr., pilot of the 51st Wing, who later outscored Fernandez’s nine-six victory.
Fisher, a “shy, blue-eyed 27-year-old farm boy from Iowa,” was sure to beat both Baker and Davis, at least according to the 39th FIS staff. A squadron officer noted, “With over 30 missions left, ‘How could Hal miss it?’
In December 1952, the Air Force approved Major Jabara’s request for a second tour, and he returned to Korea in January 1953. The 4th Fighter Wing, now commanded by Colonel James K. Johnson and equipped with the F-86F, an upgraded version of the Sabre.
In early 1953, Jabara flew support missions and patrols in MiG Alley with his old squadron, the 334th, often flying two missions a day. McConnell, meanwhile, has shown no intention of throwing in the towel. During a morning duel on April 12, Major Semyon A. Fedorets, one of the few successful Soviet pilots in the last war, defeated him.
Fedorets recorded McConnell’s sixth win, but before Mack fought back, Fedorets made it eight. The Soviet major spent a month in the hospital, McConnell, who was immediately rescued at sea, assured his colleagues in the squadron: “I barely got my feet wet.”
Colonel Meyer, as well as Lt. Gen. Earl E. Partridge, commander of the Fifth Air Force. “So he said, ‘Take it right in front and see what you can do,'” Meyer recalled. “That’s how we started. . . . It was all a milk run, it didn’t go; whatever was in the Yalu, it was gone. . . . The other three
It didn’t take long to get it.” On April 10, Jabara shot down another MiG-15 at MiG Alley. Two days later, on April 12, a third took over. Then on April 22, Jabara shot down a fourth MiG-15. On December 13, James Jabara shot down 4-
arrived with the 3rd Fighter Wing and was assigned to the 334th Fighter Protection Squadron. Jabara joined other 334 Squadron pilots patrolling a 100-mile stretch of airspace south of the Yalu River known as “MiG Alley.” In total, Jabara flew 163 sorties during his two tours of duty in Korea.
Despite numerous encounters with MiGs, Jabara was never injured over Korea, and none of the sabers he flew there were damaged. In addition to his previous decorations, Jabara received the Oak Leaf Cluster for the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross Second for Gallantry. Jabara and his flight six
attacked the MiG; engaged the sixth MiG and shot it in the tail. The MiG burst into flames, forcing the pilot to take off. “Suddenly my soldier started screaming to disperse,” Jabara x threw, “…other MiGs were also coming towards us;
they were shooting at us.’ First Lieutenant Joseph C. “Mac” McConnell Jr., a New Hampshire native approaching 31, rose through the ranks to fly B-24s during World War II, but did not commit to the USAF’s pilot wings until 1948.
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He was flying F-86s in Alaska when the conflict began in 2011. In Korea, Mak, who was 28 at the time, was too old to go. Still, he told another pilot in Korea, “I know I’m going to ace.”
Davis’ stunning loss dealt a propaganda blow to the Communists and dealt a crushing blow to the morale of the 4th Fighter-Chopper Wing. The commander of the new air group, Colonel Walker “Bud” Mahurin, shared his anger that his pilots were able to escape to enemy refuge in Manchuria.
Author Kenneth P. told me that Mahuri’s men “literally saw airfields across the Yalu River and planes coming in.” Verel, who interviewed many MiG Alley veterans. Meanwhile, Jabara’s riots in the United States drew attention. According to a Nov. 12 news release: “Major James Jabara, the Air Force’s first jet ace, today requested a recall to combat duty in Korea.
The 29-year-old … said in his application: “I … want to complete the tour that was interrupted in May 1951.” On 3 April, Jabara took off from Suwon with 12 334th Sabers and soon saw 12 sorties.
MiGs 15 fly on the Chinese side of the Yalu, where American aircraft are prohibited from flying. As the MiGs crossed the Yalu into Korean airspace, Jabar and 11 other Sabers on patrol attacked them. “It wasn’t much of a problem: I caught the No. 10 guy on that flight, and he made a big turn trying to get back to the Yalu River.”
Jabara got on the MiG’s tail and opened fire with a 6.50 caliber. machine guns. “He was at a low altitude and I was able to actually hit him… He went straight down.” Jabara didn’t make his first jet flight until 1948, when he took control of the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star jet fighter.
“It was completely different,” Jabara recalls. “I was at 10,000 feet before I remembered to lift the landing gear. . . . It was very quiet and fast. . . . I think it was the happiest moment of my life.”
In August 1958, during the Kemoi and Matsu crisis with Red China, Jabara’s 337th went to Taiwan, where they flew their F-104s off the coast of mainland China for three months. “We were flying up and down the Formosa Strait… at twice the speed of sound,” Jabara recalled, “and they got the Chinese Communists to look at us on their radar… I’m sure it shook them up a bit.
By late December 1950, the Sabers of the 4th Fighter Wing had a spectacular 8 to 1 kill ratio against MiGs. The Swordsmen of the 4th Wing were then sent back to Japan during the Chinese Winter Offensive in January 1951, during which Kimpo Airfield was captured.
The distance from Japan to the MiG Alley was beyond Sabre’s range, briefly halting patrols over the Yalu. After UN ground forces pushed the Chinese back from the 38th parallel in March, the 4th Wing returned to South Korea, resuming its patrols from Suwon Air Base, 20 miles south of Seoul.
King continued to score in March. “I always thought Friday the 13th was lucky for me,” he told reporters after hitting 13 on Friday, March 13. But the next day, after 127 missions, with 12 more days of planned rotation, Baker abruptly — and voluntarily, Air Force sources insisted — quit.
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One news service dispatch said, “Crack flyer,” “I feel I’ve done my job here.” (Three Tupolev Tu-2 bombers were also considered downed aces.) Finally, on May 17, when Fernandez had 14.5 victories and McConnell 13, General Barkus stepped in. “He ordered enough kills for Pitt and McConnell,” he said.
Lowery. “They should stop fighting immediately and go home.” I remember when the order reached the 334th, but McConnell’s men claimed they didn’t get it, so he flew out the next day. A newspaper report said Fernandez had “little time for anything but flying.”
(“I had never heard of Marilyn Monroe,” he said.) According to aviation writer and MiG Alley veteran John Lowry, who occasionally flew with Fernandez, such attention allowed Pete to develop a technique that later became the doctrine of the 4th Wing.
Climbing to an altitude of 49,000 feet, Fernandez flew deep into Chinese airspace before turning south. Watching at Mach 0.90, he literally joined the MiG formations. Any opponent who took the bait summoned a fatal spin.
In early May, the 334th Squadron was returned to Japan. Unwilling to leave Korea before his fifth kill, Jabara transferred himself to the 335th Fighter Engagement Squadron, a new unit that replaced the 334th. Increasing turbulent airflow in the boundary layer triggered flight control shocks at Mach 0.91, which became more severe as Mach number increased.
At Mach 0.93, the aircraft showed a strong tendency to nose up. The biggest surprise was that the maximum speed of the MiG-15bis was officially limited to Mach .92, even though it was Mach .98. After Jabara returned to the United States with the 337th in July 1960, he entered the Air Force College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
After graduation in June 1961, he accepted command of the 43rd Bombardment Wing at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, where he flew Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic bombers. In July 1964, he commanded the 4540th Fighter Crew Training Group at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, where he trained NATO pilots to fly the F-104G Starfighter.
As the Korean War continued, Jabara began pleading with his superiors to allow him to return to combat. “I just want to go out there and shoot more,” Jabara said. He flew only 63 missions in a 100 mission tour and was restless at his desk.
4th Wing commander King “The King” Baker, then in the lead with 11 victories (the first Lavochkin La-9 propeller), applauded the reckless aggression of the Reds: “The more planes they blow up … we’ve got. Meanwhile, Harden said
, the F-86 has improved: “High speed, maneuverability, targeting. The MiG improved somewhat, but was a much heavier aircraft to fly and its manufacturing tolerances were less precise. Time passed. , those things were loading.” On June 30, 1953, Jabara had his best day. On one mission that morning, he shot down a MiG-15. That afternoon, he was on another mission, an F-86F fighter-bomber.
Jabara returned to the United States in 1949 and joined the 4th Fighter Wing at Langley Field. While at Langley, he piloted and entered service with the Air Force’s first fighter, the F-86. About a month after Becker and Gibson were returned to the United States, in October 1951, Maj. George A. Davis made a complete disdain for Korea against MiG opponents.
), he had what many called “MiG fever” – a deadly addiction to MiGs.
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