The pilot’s main concern was that the plane would be launched before he was ready. Instruments and power had to be checked and control settings adjusted. A premature shot was usually fatal. The plane was full of fuel and ammo and had no buoyancy; it immediately sank. These were categorically known as “cold shots,” because usually the engine had not come up to power enough to sustain flight at the end of the cat shot. Some cold shots were due to mechanical malfunction rather than operator error. The plane was held back by a disposable holdback link and pulled forward by a steel cable bridle, also disposable. If either of these were mechanically faulty or not properly adjusted, the plane would not have flying speed at the end of the catapult run.
In May 1953, during the final months of Korea, I was piloting a Panther of VF-52 on a CAS mission. As I taxied up to the port cat of the Boxer, the Panther ahead of me was launched and immediately disappeared below the flight deck and plunged into the sea. There was a short pause by the port cat crew, and after a flurry of hand signals and shouting among them, the yellow-shirted plane director signaled me to taxi onto the cat for hook up to the shuttle. I shook my head. I was not about to ride that cat for another shot until I was assured that my predecessor’s accident had not been a cold shot. I called the ship’s flight control on the very-high-frequency (VHF) radio and told the ship’s air officer (a senior commander) that I wasn’t hooking up until he personally cleared the cat for use. In less than a minute he called back to say that the crash had been due to pilot error. The squadron commander had been with him in primary flight control and agreed that the pilot had overrotated the plane at the end of the cat shot and stalled out. The catapult crew had checked the instruments and gauges and reported all indications were normal. But I also knew the air officer was under pressure from the ship’s captain to keep the launch on schedule. So reluctantly I eased onto the port catapult, and after double-checking all instruments, setting my controls, retightening my seat belt, and freeing the inflation tabs on my Mae West (the bright yellow life vest that was a trademark of the U.S. Navy), I saluted — the signal that the pilot is ready. Before I could change my mind, I was airborne and en route to Korea.
PATTERN OF OPERATIONS
The pattern of operations for the carriers in Korea was substantially different from that in World War II. In the last war, the fast carrier task forces, such as TF 38 and TF 58, commanded by Admirals Halsey and Spruance, consisted of several carrier task groups. Each group had three to five carriers (CVs and CVLs) to provide the striking force, and battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to furnish defense against Japanese ships, aircraft, and submarines. The aircraft carriers in these task forces were fleet carriers with decks big enough to handle large numbers of the latest production combat planes and could make a speed of thirty knots. This thirty-knot speed was a requirement for all of the combatants assigned to the fast carrier task force, including the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Task groups were organized so as to be capable of a high-speed run into an objective area. They used this speed, and the striking range of their aircraft, to achieve surprise and flexibility, which became major advantages for the U.S. Navy during the drive across the western Pacific in 1944 and 1945.
For the World War II carrier squadrons, the fast carrier operations translated into a schedule of two months of training, refit, and planning, a week for the fast run to the objective area, and then four or five days of intense combat, dogfighting with Zeros, attacking Japanese warships and shipping, and raiding enemy targets ashore — airfields, naval bases, and arms-production centers. The group then moved on to a second objective, perhaps one thousand miles away, for a similar series of fighter sweeps, attacks on fleet units, and strikes on military shore installations. After hitting two or more of these target areas, the task force withdrew to a forward staging area for refit and rest, while the other fleet, the Third or Fifth, went into action with its own fast carrier task force (TF 38 or TF 58) taking over the rapid, long-range strikes deep in Japanese territory. For the pilots this meant relatively long periods of preparation followed by brief and intense weeks of combat in different, widely separated areas against a fresh array of targets with each strike. These operations were characterized by the great carrier air battles of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, the strikes on Formosa, and the raids against the Japanese home islands.
In Korea it was a different kind of war for the carriers. During the first year, the front lines were fluid. The UN forces pushed to the Yalu, were repulsed by the Chinese, and then stiffened and counterattacked. In these campaigns the target objectives for the tactical aircraft were varied and covered a wide range of areas over the Korean peninsula. Then, in 1951, as the front became static along the eventual lines of the DMZ, the missions for the pilots remained essentially unchanged for the next two years until the cease-fire in July 1953.
Although the missions fell into a fixed pattern, this is not to be criticized. Our commanders were employing their available forces in the most effective fashion against the now routine tactics of the enemy and limitations imposed by Washington. Both of these factors, Chinese tactics and Washington rules of engagement, were, on the other hand, reasonable and prudent policies, given the unique circumstances of this limited war.
