On 10th June 1952, between 21:50 and 22:30 four MiG-15bis attacked a formation of B-29s over Sonchon and Kwaksan. Lt. Col. Mikhail I. Studilin seriously damaged a B-29A, forcing it to land at Kimpo Air Base, close to Seoul. Some minutes later Maj. Anatoly Karelin shot down two more superfortress. Their wingmen also managed to damage one B-29 each. Eventually Karelin achieved the ace status by shoting down six B-29, all of them at night. After those actions, the B-29's nightly raids were cancelled for two months.
The MiG-15 wasn't as effective against the Marine Corps' ground-based F3D Skynight which overtook the role of the F-94 Starfire after proving its ineffectiveness. The F3D had some concers regarding performance, however it compensated with their search radar that allowed the Skynight to see their targets clearly, while the MiG-15's directions to find bomber formations were of little use in detecting escorting fighters. On the night of 2-3rd November 1952 a Skynight piloted by Maj. William Stratton and Hans Hoagland as radar operator damaged a MiG-15bis piloted by Cpt. V. D. Vishnyak. Shortly later, on the night of 8-9 November another Skynight shot down the MiG-15bis of Lt. Ivan P. Koyalov who ejected safely. During that first months of operations of the F3D, the Skynights claimed five MiGs for no losses on their own and no B-29 escorted by them were lost to the enemy. However, on the night of 16th January 1953 a Skynight almost was shot down by a MiG-15bis when the Skynight of Cpt. George Cross and Master Sgt. J.A. Piekutowski was seriously damaged in an attack by a Soviet MiG-15bis. The Skynight made it back home in Kunsan Air Base with difficulty. Later, on the night of 29th May 1953 Chinese MiG-15 pilot Hou Shujun shot down a F3D over Anju killing the radar operator (whose remains were found in the year 2001) and making the pilot, Cpt. James B Brown to go MIA.
The MiG-15bis also had to face planes from the Royal Navy. In fact, on 8th August 1952 a Hawker Sea Fury belonging to the Royal Navy and piloted by Peter "Hoagy" Carmichael shot down a MiG-15bis making the Sea Fury one of the few propeller aircraft to shot down a jet fighter after the end of the World War II. On 10th September 1952 a Vought F4U Corsair shot down another MiG-15bis but the F4U was shortly later shot down by another MiG.
According to Soviet sources, the MiG-15s of the 64th IAK (the fighter corps which included all the subordinated units that took part in the conflict) made a total of 60450 daylight combat sorties, 2779 night ones, engaged the enemy in 1683 aerial battles and 107 of them at night claiming to have shot down a total of 1097UN aircraft over Korea including 647 F-86s, 185 F-84s, 118 F-80s, 28 F-51s, 11 F-94s, 65 B-29, 26 Gloster Meteors and 17 aircraft of various types.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force and the North Korean Air Force (the union of those two air forces received the name of United Air Army) had also the MiG-15 and MiG-15bis in their rows. Despite the complains of the USSR about the Chinese being too slow on introducing more MiG-15 regiments into the conflict, by 1951 there were only two Chinese fighter regiments operating over Korea, both of them in the night-fighter duties. As they weren't completely trained and equipped, they were commited to the defence of China, but saw some action against USAF's recon aircraft, some of which went very deep into China.
As by September 1951 the aerial supremacy was almost in Communist hands, plans were laid down to deploy Chinese and North Korean fighter regiments into Korean soil, outside of China. Except for some brief period in January 1951, it wasn't until 25th September 1951 that the PLAAF's MiG-15s saw action. That day 16 MiG-15s engaged a formation of F-86s with pilot Li Yongtai claiming a victory at the cost of a MiG and its pilot. The North Korean fighter regiment got into action one year later, in September 1952 and, from then until the end of the war, the United Air Army claimed to have shot down 211 F-86s, 72 F-84s and F-80s and 47 aircraft of other types at the cost of 116 Chinese pilots and 231 aircraft including 224 MiG-15s, three Lavochkin La-11s and 4 Tupovlev Tu-2s. Many Chinese pilots achieved the ace status, among them Zhao Baotong with 7 victories, Wang Hai, with 9 and both Kan Yon Duk and Kim Di San with 5 each.
It's not known the number of North Korean MiG-15s lost during the conflict but, according to defectors, it should be at around 100 for the whole war. Therefore a total of 659 MiG-15s were lost during the Korean War at the cost of 224 F-86 Sabres. However numbers are not completely clear and they could vary.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15#The_Korean_War_(1950–1953)
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/53180
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
No comments:
Post a Comment