- 5/24/2025
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00:00Next, on Secrets of War, heroes of the air war one day, prisoners of war the next.
00:08UN pilots battle anti-aircraft fire under mysterious enemy in the skies over Korea.
00:14Previously classified telegrams reveal Stalin's personal role in the conflict and how Britain
00:19unwittingly aided the communists.
00:21This year, Stalin's secret air war is next on Secrets of War.
01:21To some young men, the war was an invitation.
01:48Meet me in Korea.
01:50Lose your innocence and follow me.
01:55In this rare home movie taken in 1950, American pilots suited up for a sortie into the skies.
02:05Within minutes, they would be catapulted off the carrier deck of the USS Valley Forge,
02:10en route to targets in enemy territory.
02:17Some would encounter near-death experiences, rewarded with half a crate of whiskey when
02:22they were rescued from the chilling sea.
02:27Some would never make it back for dinner.
02:32And still others would be captured, brainwashed, or allowed to die in prison camps.
02:41All who fought in Korea soon lost their innocence.
02:47The idea was then, we thought the war would be over, and when the war folded up, I'd come
02:54home at the end of 90 days.
02:57Colonel Bud McHurin was one of many pilots who were summoned to Korea to fight expanding
03:03communism.
03:06His targets were tiny glints of steel fleeting against gray skies miles away.
03:14The airmen who were ordered to bomb and strafe never fully realized how their combat missions
03:19affected the enemy on the battlefield.
03:25Nor could they understand how their actions modified the major political and strategic
03:31decisions made in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing.
03:39Information from the Soviet archives, not uncovered until the 1990s, reveals the secret
03:45involvement of the pilots' real adversary, Marshal Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union.
03:55They were rewarded secretly.
03:57This is the way it was done, you know, secret rewards.
04:01Nobody knew, and we never admitted that we participated in the Korean War.
04:09The story the pilots never knew began when the North Koreans invaded the South on a rainy
04:14Sunday morning in late June of 1950.
04:21First reports of the attack were not considered sufficiently urgent to wake General Douglas
04:26Arthur at the U.S. Embassy in Japan.
04:35The world's alarm clock had sounded.
04:38Democracies were caught napping.
04:44When Korea was partitioned at the 38th parallel by the Soviet Union and the United States
04:49at the end of World War II, the Americans tried to create in the Republic of Korea a
04:55model democracy for Asia.
05:01In the industrial North, however, Soviet-style military training forged a well-armed, well-equipped
05:07North Korean army of 180,000 men.
05:18Kim Il-sung, the young ruler of North Korea, was intent on reuniting the two Koreas and
05:23badgered Joseph Stalin for permission to invade the South.
05:30They exchanged more than 40 secret coded telegrams.
05:37Finally, in April 1950, the aging Stalin agreed to let Kim invade the South.
05:46These classified communications revealed that both men believed all of Korea could be forcefully
05:52occupied.
05:54To ensure a swift victory, Stalin secretly provided advisors, equipment, and ammunition
06:00to the North Koreans, documented here by Soviet cameramen.
06:10Neither dictator expected the Americans to intervene so far from their own shores.
06:17The South Korean army, with only three years of training from American advisors, tried
06:22vainly to stop the onslaught on the 25th and 26th of June, but then retreated in disarray.
06:35If you look at Korea, you look at just colossal irresponsibility on the part of the United
06:41because we had proclaimed that South Korea was not within our area of interest.
06:49To prevent a total takeover of South Korea, President Harry Truman immediately ordered
06:54General MacArthur to direct American naval and air power against the communists.
07:05The huge, impenetrable tanks Stalin had given to the North Koreans drew some of the first
07:10American aerial attacks.
07:16Since the South Korean army had few anti-tank weapons, air power was the only available
07:23option.
07:27Then Truman committed ground troops, at MacArthur's recommendation.
07:34But it would be weeks before these new troops could counterattack.
07:42Covering the evacuation of refugees from Seoul, American F-82 Mustang pilots destroyed three
07:48North Korean Yak fighters.
07:53In light of this threat to the North Korean air force, Stalin had to re-evaluate his plans.
08:03The United Nations resolution brought American and British forces together again, with other
08:08allies to defend South Korea.
08:11Pilots were mobilized, some from reserve units.
08:15And what a shock it was for these people.
08:17I knew a number of them very well.
08:19They were young lawyers, young bankers, young men getting started in their businesses, young
08:25people in school, and suddenly they were swept up and they left their wives and families
08:29and found themselves riding this carrier off of Korea.
08:36Among the first pawns in Stalin's secret war were American Air Force and Navy veterans
08:41like pilot Don Engen aboard the carrier USS Valley Forge.
08:49The Air Force was heavily committed with P-51s and P-80s to supporting that land battle.
08:56We ranged the breadth of the Korean peninsula and attacked all those moving targets that
09:03were coming down from the north.
09:05Tanks, trucks, troops, trying to stem the flow of people into South Korea.
09:16Air bombardment was not the only task of the rapidly assembled Air Force.
09:23Throughout the course of the war, the air was filled with paratroopers,
09:30with equipment and supplies,
09:33with helicopters rescuing downed pilots,
09:38with psychological warfare leaflets,
09:43and with loudspeakers urging the enemy to surrender.
09:53Allied warplanes were able to zero in on the Soviet tanks, eliminating them at a far faster
09:58rate than soldiers who would attempt to pry open their hatches to drop grenades inside.
10:07Air power knocked out 180 tanks at a time when the army did not possess any type of
10:16anti-tank weapon that was truly effective against tanks.
10:24Overwhelming air power demonstrated that the Soviets and Kim Il-sung
10:28had grossly underestimated the resolve of the United Nations.
10:36Bombs dropping in Korea reverberated in Moscow and Beijing.
10:44Stalin found himself backsliding into a war he did not expect.
10:53He launched an urgent barrage of secret communications directed at Kim Il-sung
10:57and at Mao Tse-tung, ruler of China.
11:03Discoveries from the newly opened Russian archives confirm what many suspected.
11:12We provided the Chinese with aircraft, with the pilots too,
11:16because the Chinese couldn't run the aircraft.
11:21They were just learning this job.
11:24And the pilots were given the instruction that if something happens, you must commit suicide.
11:32Never say that you are a Soviet pilot.
11:39Soon, the Cold War turned hot.
11:44Soviet airmen secretly entered the war against their one-time allies, the Americans.
11:51With the sleekest, fastest, and highest flying jet yet seen,
11:55Stalin's men could only be countered by a new breed of pilot in a new jet aircraft.
12:02The battle for air superiority over a slice of northwest Korea
12:06bordering the Yalu River, known as MiG Alley,
12:09would be a clash between MiG-15s and F-86s.
12:19Against the Soviets' head, against the best of the USA.
12:34Marshal Joseph Stalin was shocked by the continued air raids on North Korean troops in late June 1950,
12:41just six days after the invasion.
12:50Using one of his codenames, FinSea, he telegrammed his ambassador in the North Korean capital.
12:57He wondered whether the demoralized North Korean command would push on.
13:02The attack absolutely must continue.
13:06The sooner South Korea is liberated, the less chance there is for intervention.
13:13...how the Korean leaders regard the attacks on North Korean territory by American planes.
13:20The Soviet ambassador responded to Stalin the next day.
13:25Because of the frequent attacks by American planes on population points
13:29and industrial and military sites in North and South Korea,
13:33the political mood of the population is somewhat worsening.
13:39Kim Il-sung humbly sought advice from his Soviet advisers on how to regroup after the American air raids.
13:49The Chinese were already criticizing the North Koreans'
13:52underestimation of the probability of American military intervention.
14:02Kim could see as well as anyone else that once the war had started,
14:06it was more than likely the People's Republic of China would be forced into supporting it.
14:11On the 5th of July, Stalin was so alarmed by the American bombardment,
14:16he dispatched a telegram to his minister in Beijing.
14:22Stalin wanted Mao to station nine Chinese divisions on the Manchurian border,
14:27in case the Americans crossed the 38th parallel.
14:33In exchange, Stalin offered to provide limited air cover to protect the Chinese forces.
14:45Within a month, the first of Stalin's new airplanes arrived in China,
14:50crated and unassembled, as documented in this Chinese film from 1950.
14:57One jet fighter division, equipped with 124 aircraft,
15:01sufficient to cover Mao's troops stationed near the border,
15:04began training their Chinese counterparts from bases in Manchuria.
15:12Though Stalin's unmistakable fingerprints were on the war, it could not be detected.
15:20During the summer of 1950,
15:23During the summer of 1950,
15:25Allied forces were pinned down behind the Pusan perimeter.
15:30Though more heavily armed, they still risked being pushed into the sea.
15:38The Inchon invasion changed that.
15:44Starting on September 13th,
15:46General MacArthur's sweeping amphibious counterattack on North Korean forces
15:50began with saturation bombardment from the air and from the sea.
15:57The terrain where thousands of Marines were going to land had to be softened.
16:04This was a major, major assault,
16:06and probably the first time that the U.S. really came back into the war with a vengeance.
16:12That was a stroke of genius on the part of General MacArthur.
16:15And the Navy supported that fully.
16:17So the Inchon assault really started the next dynamics of the war,
16:23which was the move back into North Korea.
16:29MacArthur's stunning success at Inchon
16:31compelled a politically weakened President Truman
16:34to congratulate him at Wake Island four weeks later.
16:39It also led to a flurry of communications
16:42among Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung.
16:47Classified telegrams recently uncovered
16:50reveal their secret fears and orders.
16:55Panicked, the three dictators found themselves embroiled in a war
16:59from which they could not easily escape.
17:03As the Allied troops began their advance on Seoul,
17:07two days after landing at Inchon,
17:09Stalin ordered the North Koreans to abandon the Pusan perimeter
17:14and to defend their capital of Pyongyang.
17:20He ordered his defense minister to provide air cover,
17:23but to keep it secret.
17:27The Soviet defense minister,
17:29The Soviet defense minister, responding to Stalin's request,
17:33informed him that Soviet air cover for the capital
17:36would require almost a week to prepare.
17:42The minister pointed out that the Russian stakes were even higher.
17:47Activity by Soviet ground controllers and pilots
17:50would be easily detected by the Americans,
17:53since they would be speaking in Russian.
17:56Above all, Stalin wanted to avoid
17:59a direct confrontation with the Americans.
18:04He never enforced the order.
18:08Air bombardment from the United Nations forces
18:11continued furiously.
18:14Fighters and B-26 bombers were ordered to strike
18:17every moving target 24 hours a day.
18:25We would take off in the end of the night
18:28and we would get out to the target area
18:31while the trucks were still using their headlights,
18:34but it was dawn,
18:36and so we would be able to take the targets that way.
18:41Launched off the carrier deck of the USS Valley Forge,
18:44the props and the jets would align themselves in the air.
18:51James Holloway piloted a Skyraider.
18:56We would be in ahead of them,
18:58firing our machine guns,
19:00firing the rockets, and then recover,
19:02and as we were pulling out of our dives,
19:05the first dive bombers would be coming in with the bombs.
19:08The timing was terribly important.
19:12By the end of September,
19:14Allied bombing and strafing had destroyed
19:16a large number of North Korean tanks and artillery
19:19and reduced their food supply by one half.
19:25The Cold War in Korea was effective in the sense
19:29that it made very difficult
19:33the Communists' effort to supply their troops at the battlefront.
19:39Just ten days after MacArthur's invasion,
19:41Stalin fired more withering telegrams
19:44to the Soviet military advisers in North Korea,
19:47criticizing them for incompetence on many fronts.
19:52North Korean troops were ordered to get out of the South
19:55if they could be organized in time.
20:01From Pyongyang, another telegram reached Stalin
20:04on the 27th of September.
20:06The situation is severe.
20:09The Air Force has dominated the airspace without hydrants.
20:13Troops have suffered heavy losses,
20:16mainly from the enemy's Air Force.
20:20Communications were thus interrupted
20:22by the enemy's air raids.
20:24The Chinese railroads are overloaded.
20:29The Russian ambassador telegrammed
20:31Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on September 29th.
20:38One can feel confusion and hopelessness.
20:41The military situation has worsened dramatically lately.
20:45Railroads do not function.
20:47Bridges and railway stations are demolished.
20:53After almost two weeks of intensive fighting,
20:56MacArthur's troops recaptured Seoul.
21:01Proudly, the general handed the fire-torn city
21:04back to Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea.
21:10Within 90 days, South Korea was restored to its status
21:13before the invasion,
21:15primarily because of overwhelming air power.
21:20The weakened and desperate North Korean army
21:23began its withdrawal from South Korea.
21:28But the Chinese were setting a new trap
21:30for the American imperialists.
21:34The Korean War
21:43Still devastated by the relentless hail
21:45of bombs and bullets from the sky,
21:47Kim Il-sung wrote a very humble telegram to Stalin
21:51on the 1st of October, 1950.
21:56As the South Korean 3rd Division crossed the 38th parallel,
22:00Kim bemoaned the overwhelming power of the Americans.
22:07The enemy's air force, numbering a thousand airplanes,
22:11totally dominates the airspace.
22:14The enemy's air force impedes the provisions of our supply.
22:19Communications lines are cut off.
22:21We need an appropriate air force.
22:24We need direct military assistance from the Soviet Union.
22:31Kim did not tell Stalin
22:34that he had just received an ultimatum from General MacArthur,
22:37calling for unconditional surrender.
22:43It would be the first of two Kim would reject within a week.
22:49And Stalin was concerned, first of all,
22:51as to whether he could save anything of the North Korean forces.
22:55It seemed to him, on reflection,
22:57the only way to do this was by bringing China in.
23:01Stalin desperately pleaded with Mao Tse-tung
23:04to provide the Chinese divisions he'd originally promised
23:07near the 38th parallel.
23:12Stalin hoped the Korean comrades
23:14could then reorganize under Chinese protection.
23:20Stalin then ordered Kim to evacuate the North Korean troops.
23:27On the 2nd of October, however,
23:29Mao told Stalin that he was rejecting Stalin's original plan
23:33to move his divisions south.
23:38It's now known that Mao went even further.
23:42He actually wanted to call off the war.
23:47He recommended to Stalin
23:49that the Koreans should suffer a temporary defeat
23:52and change the form of the struggle to a partisan guerrilla war.
23:58On the 5th of October,
24:00Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko
24:02dictated to the Soviet ambassador in Pyongyang
24:05that the evacuated troops
24:07could be re-established in the USSR and in China.
24:15Stalin was prepared to abandon Korea
24:18to avoid direct confrontation with the United States.
24:28Four days later,
24:29Kim Il-sung again begged Stalin to send assistance.
24:37To be successful in a struggle against a strong enemy
24:41armed with the latest technology,
24:43we need to have thousands of trained pilots,
24:47tank and radio operators,
24:49and engineering officers urgently.
24:54On the 14th of October,
24:56Stalin received two communications from Beijing.
25:01After much internal debate,
25:04Mao had finally changed his mind.
25:07China would send troops into Korea,
25:10provided the Soviet Union would protect them with an air force.
25:18Relieved by China's decision,
25:20Stalin contacted Kim Il-sung.
25:23Delay the evacuation of troops and advisors, he ordered.
25:28Stalin would supply the men and equipment Kim had requested.
25:33But Kim would have to work out
25:35some of Korea's problems with the Chinese directly.
25:40Stalin would also provide the Chinese with their armaments.
25:47To make the deal financially viable,
25:49both countries would have to sign long-term loan agreements
25:52with the USSR, still recovering from the Second World War.
26:00So what the Soviet Union is doing is funding and training
26:04the Chinese and North Koreans to bear the brunt of the fighting.
26:09Thus, the stage was set
26:11for the intervention of 300,000 Chinese troops,
26:14initially disguised as North Koreans.
26:17One month to the day after the momentous Inchon landing.
26:25Within another week,
26:26the first Soviet MiG-15 fighter planes
26:29appeared in the skies over North Korea.
26:36For the UN forces, a trap had been set,
26:38and the war was about to enter a new stage.
26:47One document from the Soviet archives
26:49shows the 151st Fighter Aviation Division
26:52was ordered to defend the Chinese 13th Army Group
26:55around Andong on the Chinese border.
27:02Soviet planes were strictly prohibited
27:05from crossing the Yellow River into North Korea.
27:08Russian pilots were to train the Chinese to fly the new MiGs.
27:13They put down something like 900 MiG-15s
27:17in the course of the war.
27:19They supported it with training.
27:21They supported it with the ground control.
27:23They had Russian controllers on the ground,
27:25Russian radars, Russian artillery.
27:29China had many sophisticated industrial complexes
27:32in lower Manchuria.
27:34Stalin viewed these as collateral for his loan agreement
27:39and issued orders to protect these new assets
27:42from American air bombardment.
27:47The Soviet pilots were ordered to take command of the air
27:50over the Yellow River,
27:52disrupt American photointelligence,
27:55intercept the massive B-29 bombers,
27:59and prevent the Americans from attacking railroads and bridges
28:03coming down from China.
28:05If Stalin was going to fulfill his commitment to Kim Il-sung
28:09and to Mao Zedong,
28:11he needed a working supply line.
28:18Stalin's primary goal was to defend the Asian side
28:22of the Soviet Union with Chinese soldiers and Chinese airmen,
28:26not with Soviet troops.
28:30Though Allied intelligence could monitor
28:32the presence of Russian and Chinese-speaking personnel
28:34on the radio,
28:36it was not known for many years
28:38how extensive the operation had become under Stalin.
28:44Evidence suggests the Russian presence
28:46eventually grew to some 70,000 men
28:49disguised in Chinese uniforms.
28:53As inducement to the mobilization,
28:55Stalin granted special privileges and rewards for the Soviets.
29:03To prevent any further revelations about Soviet participation,
29:08Stalin insisted that the veil of secrecy
29:11cloaked the whereabouts of Russian pilots
29:13from their own families.
29:17I think the practice when a Russian pilot is shut down
29:21is the same as now.
29:23You see, something happened, you know.
29:25A man just got a heart attack
29:28and working for his country
29:31and the wife got the message
29:33that he was a great man,
29:35he was a great patriot,
29:37but they never revealed the truth.
29:42The deception was rendered complete
29:44when families were informed
29:46that husbands or fathers were on a special mission.
29:51Pilots often died because they, quote,
29:54contracted some strange disease, close quote.
29:58The man-made plague of secrecy
30:00concealed their real cause of death.
30:06Only in the air war over Korea
30:08did the Americans come closest
30:10to identifying their true rivals
30:12one kill at a time.
30:16The hunch that the enemy was Russian
30:18is now substantiated by hard evidence.
30:22One uncovered handwritten document
30:24represents the daily combat log
30:26of the Russian 151st Fighter Aviation Division.
30:34Beginning when the Soviets flew air defense missions
30:37over the Yalu River,
30:39it monitored who was flying,
30:41when and where.
30:46The Soviets were in the air
30:49almost every day in MiG Alley.
30:54From November 1st of 1950 to fall of 51,
30:57it is a Soviet air war.
30:59There are no other pilots flying up there
31:01as far as we can tell.
31:03The Soviets lost their first MiG in December 1950.
31:12But they still possessed better planes
31:14and more of them,
31:16than the Americans did at that time.
31:21Ironically, Truman's defense team
31:23was so concerned with Soviet expansion in the West
31:27that they sent the best weaponry in the U.S. arsenal
31:30to NATO forces in Europe.
31:33Equipping NATO against a potential Soviet threat
31:36was peculiarly more urgent
31:38than a so-called police action in Asia.
31:42After months of deliberation,
31:44President Truman replaced General MacArthur
31:47with General Matthew Ridgway in April 1951.
31:55The vicious winter of 1950
31:57had combined with the harsh weather
31:59of the Soviet Union,
32:01and Truman was forced to resign.
32:05He was forced to resign
32:08The vicious winter of 1950
32:10had combined with the hordes of Chinese
32:12to push back U.N. troops on the ground.
32:16Allied pilots tried their luck in the air again.
32:21On the 7th of April,
32:23B-29s tried to bomb the supply lines
32:25leading down from China,
32:27but could not escape the quick MiGs
32:29and anti-aircraft fire.
32:32With MacArthur out
32:34and the trustworthy Ridgway in charge,
32:36nuclear bombs were secretly sent to Guam.
32:41There, they would be more accessible
32:43to the new commander
32:45if the war escalated near China's border.
32:52But even this most threatening concept
32:54had to be suspended
32:56while the Korean skies were filled with Stalin's MiGs.
33:02The deadly effectiveness of the MiGs
33:05was evident on one of the worst days
33:07for the U.S. 5th Air Force.
33:11On the 23rd of October, 1951,
33:14eight B-29s escorted by 55 Thunderjets
33:18were engaged by 50 MiG-15s.
33:24Three bombers were shot down.
33:26The rest were heavily damaged.
33:31After Black Tuesday,
33:33B-29s never flew in daylight hours again.
33:39Part of Stalin's plan was working.
33:43His private, secret Air Force
33:45was successfully defending his assets.
33:51Ironically, the Soviet-trained pilots
33:54were dominating the skies
33:56in a plane powered by a jet engine
33:58that had been booned
34:00from the Rolls-Royce company in Great Britain.
34:04This little-known fact,
34:06the whereabouts of the Nen engine,
34:08always represented a huge embarrassment
34:10to America's principal ally.
34:16The major contribution
34:18that Britain makes to the air war
34:20is to provide the engine design for the MiG-15.
34:24Back in 1945,
34:26while still pursuing a policy
34:28of getting as good a relationship
34:30with Stalin's Soviet Union as possible
34:32in the post-war era,
34:34a British Rolls-Royce Nen engine,
34:36a much more advanced jet engine
34:38than anything the Russians themselves had,
34:41had been given to the Russians
34:43as a goodwill gesture.
34:45The Soviets just simply copied it.
34:50On the 1st of December, 1951,
34:53Truman, under strong pressure,
34:55sent more F-86 Sabre jets to Korea,
34:58bringing the total to just 127.
35:06They were pitted against nearly 1,000 MiGs
35:09from airfields in Manchuria.
35:15No other plane could compete
35:17with the agile MiG jet fighter.
35:21Since the battlefield had extended
35:23after the conflict in the first phase
35:25of the peace talks,
35:27F-86 Sabre pilots had to try
35:29to change the situation on the ground
35:31and at the armistice table.
35:37If U.N. pilots, using new tactics,
35:40could clear the MiGs from the skies,
35:43B-29s could fly again.
35:45Supply lines could be interrupted.
35:47Bridges and tunnels for the railroads
35:49could be destroyed.
35:52Concessions could then be won
35:54in the War of Words.
35:57Again, the outcome of the war
35:59depended on pilots armed
36:01with new technology.
36:06The F-86 Sabre jet was a marvelous airplane.
36:09It was the first successful swept-wing fighter
36:12the United States Air Force had.
36:15The airplane was easy to fly.
36:19The swept wings added nearly
36:21100 miles an hour speed to an airplane
36:23that originally had been designed
36:25with a straight wing.
36:27The bubble canopy gave the fighter pilot
36:30magnificent visibility.
36:34The MiG could turn tighter than the F-86
36:37at low altitudes.
36:39At higher altitudes,
36:41it had almost double the rate of climb.
36:45Though smaller and lighter,
36:47its performance was impaired
36:49by its high-speed instability.
36:54But America's most famous test pilot,
36:57Chuck Yeager, flying the Bell X-1,
37:00had proven a new advantage
37:02for the F-86 Sabre,
37:05a moving horizontal stabilizer.
37:10The flight controls of the F-86
37:12were hydraulically boosted
37:14so that even at the highest speeds
37:16the pilot could still fly with two fingers
37:19and control the aircraft smoothly.
37:23Hydraulics and the innovation of the slab tail
37:26created a more maneuverable aircraft.
37:32We knew that we could turn faster than they could,
37:34we could dive faster,
37:36and we could pull out quicker than they could.
37:40Frederick Blessee, Boots as he was known to all,
37:43was one of those extraordinary pilots
37:45who have an eager sense of how to find the enemy.
37:53Thirty-nine aces,
37:54men who shot down more than five enemy aircraft,
37:57were responsible for most of the MiG kills.
38:03Boots would have ten.
38:07I think you had to be aggressive.
38:09The key ingredient, I think,
38:10to a successful air-to-air pilot
38:12is some previous experience in tactics
38:14and the aggressiveness and the desire
38:17to really want to mix it up.
38:21Aggressive pilots had to listen to their radios
38:24to find out where the flight was.
38:28Tiger 1, Tiger 2 here.
38:29I got a couple bogeys out there.
38:31There's one coming around the 2 level.
38:42All right, there he goes. He's going down.
38:44You got him?
38:45All right, boy, that's a good deal.
38:47Watch it, we got two of them coming in here on the 7 o'clock.
38:50Hang on.
38:51Invisibly padlocked together,
38:53wingman and leader would perform intricate loops and turns,
38:56dives and thrusts for miles at a time
38:59at the speed of sound
39:01in completely synchronized maneuvers
39:03while the leader kept his enemy in his sights for the kill.
39:13Many American pilots thought their enemy was Russian
39:17but could never confirm it.
39:20No Russian pilot was ever captured.
39:26The predominance was Russian pilots.
39:28As a result, we didn't see very many Orientals.
39:31We did, however, experience one time,
39:33and it happened a couple of times,
39:35when the controllers up north were confused
39:38and they actually intermingled the Russian airplanes
39:41with the Oriental airplanes,
39:44and the Russians shot down a couple of their own pilots,
39:47the Oriental pilots.
39:50The confirming communication came through to the UN forces
39:53who monitored the radio traffic
39:55between Russian ground controllers and their flight teams.
40:02The Soviets went to enormous lengths
40:04to stop their intervention in the war being known,
40:07even to the extent, on one occasion,
40:09of killing one of their pilots
40:11who had been shot down in the sea.
40:13His companion shot him up
40:15so that he could not be picked up by Western forces,
40:17and we would not discover officially
40:19that the Soviet Union was in the air war.
40:24Even in a watery grave,
40:26Stalin's absolute rules of secrecy had to be preserved.
40:40Limited warfare required certain rules of engagement.
40:44In Korea, some of these restrictions
40:46were extremely frustrating for the UN forces.
40:50One command prevented UN pilots from crossing the Yalu River
40:54and pursuing MiG pilots
40:56into the privileged sanctuary of Manchuria.
40:59President Truman didn't want to fight the Chinese over their soil.
41:04But the pilots in the heat of combat, in hot pursuit,
41:07theoretically cleared to cross the Yalu
41:09and to shoot down an enemy plane they were pursuing.
41:12Though UN pilots were not permitted to do more,
41:15they often did, for what they considered very valid reasons.
41:23I do know that a number of Air Force pilots
41:27went north of the Yalu to get MiGs,
41:31and the reason was apparent.
41:33You rob a bank because that's where the money is.
41:35You go north of the Yalu because that's where the MiGs are.
41:38This secret archive copy of a Soviet radar document
41:42indicates that the Russian technology
41:45could not detect low-flying jets.
41:51After discovering this through trial and error,
41:54UN pilots crossed the Yalu River under the enemy radar,
41:58attacked the MiGs, then quietly retraced their paths.
42:05You're allowed the right of hot pursuit.
42:08If you have the enemy in sight and you have engaged the enemy
42:11and he's fleeing across the border,
42:13you can go across the border and shoot him down.
42:17Well, we stretched that hot pursuit
42:19like the longest rubber band you ever saw,
42:21because they basically had no way to tell
42:23whether you were in hot pursuit or not.
42:25And what that did was that gave us an opportunity to hunt
42:28and to stretch our hunting grounds out
42:30to where it was a lot more lucrative.
42:33When the returning pilots debriefed after their mission,
42:36officers didn't ask and pilots didn't tell.
42:42UN airmen were rarely without support.
42:47Even in the freezing winter,
42:49downed UN pilots would aim for the Western Sea,
42:52where rescue by carrier
42:54or by friendly North Korean guerrillas awaited them.
42:59In the Western Sea, secret Allied forces
43:02infiltrated several small islands
43:05where they trained thousands of anti-communist forces.
43:11A couple of the islands had airfields on them,
43:14and they were used not only for evasion and escape operations,
43:19but they were a place that we could use to resupply those forces.
43:24Some downed UN airmen, however,
43:26fell into enemy hands as prisoners.
43:31The first UN POWs were generally treated without mercy.
43:38Many were later discovered bound, bayoneted,
43:41and buried in mass graves by the side of a road,
43:45victims of North Korean atrocities.
43:50Later in the war,
43:52Later in the war,
43:54every POW could expect to be interrogated
43:57by English-speaking Chinese,
43:59who would first pry out tactical information.
44:04The higher the rank of the prisoner,
44:06the more intense the investigation.
44:10Critical information would be telegrammed back to Moscow
44:14for evaluation.
44:18Since the communists were always looking for converts
44:21who would denounce American imperialism,
44:24most POWs were subjected
44:26to some form of harsh treatment or brainwashing.
44:33As part of their daily briefings,
44:36the airmen were told to tell their captors
44:38anything they wanted to know,
44:41for it would not affect the outcome of the war.
44:45Because of their vulnerability,
44:47the pilots were deliberately denied access
44:49to strategic information.
44:53On the ground, General Ridgway needed new targets
44:56to advance the peace talks.
45:03The U.S. Fifth Air Force bombed Stalin's Manchurian assets,
45:07the hydroelectric facilities,
45:09and the centuries-old irrigation systems
45:12which provided food to the North Koreans.
45:18However, secret documents now show
45:21that damage to the complexes
45:23had very little impact to the bargaining table in Panmunjom.
45:31U.N. pilots dramatically altered the course
45:34and the outcome of the war.
45:41Time after time, they enabled troops on the ground
45:44to hold onto terrain and to advance against the enemy.
45:49Bombing had slowed the enemy down
45:51and made his life miserable.
45:54But it did not stop him.
46:01We were not successful in stopping the Chinese
46:03from supplying their troops.
46:05In what our mission was,
46:07I mean, our piece of it was to blow up railroad tracks
46:10and to catch any trains and anything we could.
46:13And we did a wonderful job of that.
46:16But that wasn't enough.
46:18Perhaps Ensign Ken Schechter's story
46:21best symbolizes the courage, skill, and tenacity
46:25of the airmen during the Korean War.
46:30Through government oversight,
46:32his accomplishment and that of his buddy Howard Thayer
46:35almost remained a secret forever.
46:38Ensign Schechter left the deck of the USS Valley Forge
46:41in a Skyraider
46:43on a routine bombardment mission near the end of the war.
46:51I was in a run, probably about 1,000 feet,
46:54heading to release my bomb,
46:56and there was this giant explosion.
46:59And what had happened is an anti-aircraft shell
47:01had blown up in the cockpit.
47:03And I'm sure I was knocked out for a couple of minutes,
47:06but when I came to, I was blind.
47:09And I felt this lip was just hanging there,
47:15and my face was all chewed up by shrapnel.
47:18And so I started yelling on the radio.
47:21I said, I'm blind.
47:24For God's sakes, help me, I'm blind.
47:27Hearing the cry, Howard Thayer flew alongside
47:30and told Schechter to rock his wings
47:32so he could identify the aircraft.
47:35Instinctively, Schechter responded.
47:38Over the next tense minutes,
47:40Thayer talked to his buddy on the radio.
47:47Schechter could not see and was losing blood, he said.
47:52Schechter could not see and was losing blood,
47:56he slipped in and out of consciousness.
48:00Bonded as wingman to leader,
48:03Thayer guided Schechter out of the clouds
48:05and down to a tiny gravel landing strip in South Korea
48:09that they'd flown over before.
48:15On board the aircraft carrier, as dinner was being prepared,
48:19their conversation was monitored
48:21by men who guided a helicopter to rescue Schechter.
48:31Aboard the USS Constellation,
48:33Ken Schechter was finally honored in 1995.
48:38With Howard Thayer's widow and children looking on,
48:41next to Schechter's own family,
48:43he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
48:48Though it took more than 43 years,
48:50both pilots were forever locked together
48:53in the skies over Korea.
49:00Stalin's secret air war achieved one goal.
49:03He had manipulated the Chinese
49:05into confronting Americans on Korean soil.
49:10But he unwittingly transformed a potential communist rival
49:14into an uncertain partner.
49:18China was propelled onto the global stage,
49:21now armed with the world's third largest air force.
49:26At home, Stalin did not live to see the results
49:29of the secret war he'd begun three years earlier.
49:38Actually, secrecy was one of the main points
49:41of the communist regime over there at that time.
49:45And it was somehow even pleasant, you know?
49:48You participated in something very secret,
49:52and everybody loved it.
49:55Stalin's legacy, the plague of secrecy,
49:58had left most Soviet people in worse condition
50:01than they were in before the Korean War began.
50:07Now contained by stronger alliances like NATO,
50:10the Soviet Union was also surrounded
50:13by the thriving democracies of Japan and Germany.
50:18Few Russians knew of Stalin's gamble in Korea,
50:21or his failure.
50:25Even as they viewed Stalin's casket,
50:28few suspected that the first nail
50:30had already been hammered in the coffin of the Cold War.
50:40IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF STALIN
50:42STALIN'S FOURTH RETURN
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