Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [45]
As the commandant of the test pilot school, I was the chief administrator, but I knew the test pilot instructors in the program would probably be teaching me a lot, not having been a test pilot myself. None of the students seemed to mind my lack of test-pilot experience; quite the contrary, they seemed honored to know me. They were a good group of students, and I enjoyed getting to know and encourage them, along with interacting with the instructors and occasionally flying myself. At the time, we were having the students fly advanced supersonic F-104 Starfighter aircraft and the modified NF-104 aerospace trainer rocket-powered jets that could soar to over 100,000 feet, in effect becoming spacecraft in thin air. The exercises tested each student’s ability to fly with extraordinary precision under unusual conditions, including zero gravity high-angle maneuvers, and steep landing approaches, and required the pilots to report on the performance of the plane in those conditions.
As much as the students appreciated my presence out in the field to observe their test flights, and as much as they were fascinated by my moonwalking experiences, they were equally, if not more, intrigued by my early years as a fighter pilot. While a number of them had joined the military to become fighter pilots, few of them had actually seen combat action at war. I had.
I graduated from West Point, number three in my class in June 1951. Thanks to my high academic rating, I had several choices for pursuing my military career. The Air Force was most attractive to me because I had wanted to fly from the time I took my first flight with my father when I was only two years old.
From West Point I went straight to flight training school at Bartow Air Force Base in Florida, and then to Brian Air Force Base in Texas, where I earned my wings. The Air Force needed pilots of all sorts, but my goal was to become a jet fighter pilot. The competition was intense, and after eighteen months of concentrated training, I qualified as an F-86 Sabre jet pilot.
The Korean War—or the Korean Conflict, as it is often referred to today, although it was definitely a war to those who fought in it— had been raging for a full year, ever since Communist North Korea, equipped by the Soviet Union, invaded Democratic South Korea, backed by the United States. Before long the Chinese also entered the fighting, and it looked as though things could escalate further at any time.
Not surprisingly, with Korea still a powder keg, I put in for combat duty but by the time I arrived there in December 1952, the ground war had slowed and cease-fire negotiations were underway. The battle in the air was still furious, but because their defenses were disintegrating, the North Koreans, Chinese, and Soviets had moved their air bases as far north as possible, north of the Yalu River, the dividing line between Korea and China. American commanders ordered their pilots not to cross the Yalu into China, even if engaged in aerial combat. But the standing orders were often ignored, as U.S. fighter jets gave chase to Soviet-built MiG-15s, their elusive and dangerous adversaries.
I was assigned to the 16th Fighter Squadron of the 51st Interceptor Wing at Suwon Air Base, located about twenty miles south of Seoul. By then, American pilots regularly flew all the way north to the Yalu, where they could often catch the enemy at lower altitudes, or better yet, still on the ground at their air bases. We affectionately but respectfully referred to that area as “MiG Alley.”
I flew a total of sixty-six combat missions over the war zone while I was stationed in Korea. Many days, I was simply patrolling the air, hunting for MiGs that might be heading south toward our troops, often seeing little more than the mountainous terrain below and the blue sky above. It was never a joy ride, though. I was constantly