AIR GROUP STRIKES
Air group strikes were scheduled for major fixed objectives such as bridges, dams, or large industrial areas. These missions were composed of planes from each of the group’s squadrons with the propeller planes carrying the heavy bombs and the jets providing air cover from hostile fighters and conducting flak suppression at the target with 20mm gunfire and rockets. The thirty to fifty aircraft in the group would make a simultaneous attack on the target, coming in from different directions, the Skyraiders in near vertical dives, the Corsairs in sixty-degree glides, and the jet fighters strafing and rocketing the defenses at low level before, during, and after the bombing passes. The Skyraiders and Corsairs might be assigned different aim points within the target complex, but all ordnance was dropped on a single pass.
These missions were also known to the planners as deckload strikes, as every plane that could fit on the flight deck for a single launch was included. To the pilots they were familiarly referred to as group gropes. This term also came to be applied at the squadron pilots’ muster at the Officers’ Club (O Club) happy hour. A well-executed strike was a source of personal professional satisfaction to the pilots. A less-than-perfect operation, usually due to faulty timing or bad weather over the target, might get the job done but provided lots of fuel for ready room arguments for the next week. These pilot sessions were a natural way to improve the coordination among the squadrons and the effectiveness of the combined group operations without too much senior finger pointing. In the heat of battle it is often difficult to accurately determine just what happened.
By 1951 there were very few group gropes, primarily because all of the major target complexes in Korea had been obliterated or were on the prohibited list.
INTERDICTION
Deep interdiction missions were made against military targets twenty to forty miles behind the front lines. These usually were areas of troop concentrations, staging areas for Chinese army units headed for the front or suspected fuel and supply dumps. Our targets were generated by the photo interpreters in the Intelligence Center on board the carriers from photography taken by the air group’s photo planes. The photo planes were F9F Panther fighters with the four nose 20mm guns removed and equipped with a stabilized camera system. The photo missions were flown by specially trained and designated photo pilots.
Deep interdiction missions were assigned to a particular squadron on the group’s daily flight plan, and four to eight planes were committed to the strike. The armament load was prescribed by the task group staff, Air Operations Section.
Sometimes these deep interdiction targets were large visible targets, easily identifiable by the strike leader. One such objective was the North Korean airstrip at Hyesanjin on the Yalu. Once every two weeks, a flight of eight Panthers would be scheduled to crater the runway with 250-pound GP bombs to keep it unusable by enemy aircraft. It was always an interesting flight, penetrating to the limits of enemy territory and striking a real target under the noses of the Chinese MiGs. A hard left turn on pullout from the bombing run was necessary to avoid overflying Manchuria. My main recollection from these flights was the forbidding barrenness of that vast expanse of land north of the Yalu.
Often, though, these deep interdiction missions were directed against strategic areas, where we seldom saw the actual targets that were the objectives of our mission. The enemy troops or equipment were obscured from observation by terrain, forests, or camouflage.
In the fall of 1952 a special deep interdiction campaign nicknamed “Cherokee” was initiated in a major effort to attack Chinese Communist troops as their armies were shifted behind the front lines to exploit weaknesses in the UN front. Cherokee was named for the commander, Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. Jocko Clark, an energetic and aggressive flag officer in the Halsey mold who became a very personally engaged leader in the air campaign. Clark, a native of Oklahoma, proudly claimed to be a full-blooded Cherokee.
The targets in these Cherokee strikes were difficult to pick up by armed reconnaissance flights because of the excellent camouflage that effectively hid men and equipment. So the photo interpreters back at the intelligence centers at the fleet headquarters were doing most of the Cherokee targeting.
CLOSE AIR SUPPORT
One of the most profitable uses of tactical air, especially during the last two years of the war, was close air support. On these missions, the carrier planes were under the positive radio control of a FAC and ordnance could be delivered against enemy targets within one hundred yards of our own men. Close support involved strict operating procedures to make the most efficient use of the planes and weapons on hand as well as to minimize the danger to our own troops on the ground.
In the early days of the war, close air support of the troops on the ground by Navy and Air Force tactical aircraft was totally unsatisfactory. Although the aircraft were generally available, our troops were desperate, and the enemy were in the open and vulnerable, there was unfortunately no reliable control system in place, and our troops on the ground could not communicate with the pilots in the planes. The frustrations with this very bad situation extended from General MacArthur in Tokyo to the private in the foxhole.
The root cause was that the interservice arrangements and doctrines for CAS had never been agreed upon, much less rehearsed, since the Reorganization Act of 1946, which established the services’ roles and missions and governed the joint and combined operations in Korea. Compounding the lack of procedures for command and control of tactical air assets were technical communication problems so basic that the radios of the Air Force, Navy, and Army were not compatible. The situation was in such disarray that it became a primary concern of the senior officers to the extent that they were persuaded to be more flexible in their perceived command prerogatives. They were virtually shamed into making the concessions necessary to create a workable system for tactical air support for the ground forces under the conditions existing in Korea. By 1951 an effective system was in place and working well.
In essence, the organization consisted of a JOC in Taegu and, later, Seoul in which the Air Force, Navy, and Army were all represented by flag officers, whose joint staff allocated the resources of the supporting arms, such as strategic aircraft, tactical air, and naval gunfire, in response to requests from ground force commanders — the Army, Marines, ROK, and other UN allies. Colocated with the JOC in Seoul was the TACC, which processed all requests for tactical air support as sorted out and passed down by the JOC. The TACC would also receive requests for air support from the two TADCs, which were responsible for managing the air support requirements and assignments for the ground forces engaged with the enemy. One TADC handled all units in the eastern half of Korea, and the other was responsible for the western sector. Each TADC was networked with a total of sixteen TACPs embedded with the troops at the regimented or battalion level. It was these TACPs, located with the ground forces in contact with the enemy, that ultimately assigned a close air support mission — a flight of Air Force, Marine, or carrier aircraft — to a forward air controller. It was this FAC, in either a mosquito (a light liaison aircraft) or a foxhole, who was in visual contact with the enemy and radio control of the CAS mission aircraft.