Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [48]
October 27,
At sea,
Took off at 1430 and landed at 1440. The engine started cutting out as soon as I got my wheels up and almost dumped me in the water before I got it smoothed out. It still wasn’t right so I came back to the ship and made an emergency landing. My 150th carrier landing.
October 30,
At sea,
“We’re here to stay. Home in May.” This is our latest sad song. Flew from 1400 to 1715 on a TARCAP over the landing going on up at Iwon about 80 miles NW of Wonson. We spent most of the time looking for floating mines (didn’t find any) and covering roads looking for enemy troops.
November 7,
At sea,
At 1030 we received a dispatch requesting more air support so we sent off 3 special strikes and I was on the second one. We worked 20 miles west of Wonson where a bunch of guerrillas are causing trouble. On my last run of the afternoon, a rocket and strafing attack, a burst of 20 or 40mm AA fire tore a 10 – 12 inch hole in my right elevator and the fabric kept peeling off all the way back to the ship.
November 12,
At sea,
No flying after the first two hops had to return and we are sailing through snow and hail now.
November 14,
At sea,
After the big snow yesterday we sailed into the clear late last night and ran into the big freeze. When we got up this morning we had 3 inches of solid ice covering everything topside.
November 15,
At sea,
We are to steam into Sasebo tomorrow which will end our 31 days at sea.
November 23,
At sea,
We go underway this morning and so will spent Thanksgiving at sea. We were issued winter flying gear which consists of long underwear, heavy knee length socks, one piece rubber exposure suit, special gloves and special boots. We are going to relieve Task Force 77 which consists of 3 Essex Class Carriers with 4 squadrons apiece.
November 28,
At sea,
Finally flew today after 4 snow days of no flying. We were assigned to support the ROK Capital Division in their drive up the east coast to the Soviet border. Flew the early morning CAP and was up for 3.6 hours and then flew a strike this afternoon for 3.4 hours and practically had to fight our way to the beach, it was snowing so hard. Our strike was 15 miles north of Chougjin. I was leading the hop and they wanted us to drop our bombs and rockets 500 yards ahead of them which we did and strafe 200 yards ahead of them as they moved up to take the ridge line. A Korean interpreter thanked us very profusely.
November 30,
At sea,
We worked with the Marines south of the Chosin Reservoir and they are bottled up with the Chinese Commies moving in in force.
December 1,
At sea,
Our afternoon hop was in support of the Marines in the Chosin Reservoir. We supported a couple of battalions which are cut off and trying to fight their way back. The controller was so frantic, he couldn’t talk fast enough or clear enough but it made little difference because we could drop our bombs, napalm or strafe in any direction and hit enemy troops. He wanted us to make strafing runs closer than 50 feet in front of our men because the Commies were pulling the pins from grenades and rolling them down the hill into our lines. When we expended all our ammo, the next flight was not on station so the controller requested that we make dummy runs anyway.
December 2,
At sea,
Worked over the Chosin Reservoir again and I am happy to report that some of the men we were helping yesterday broke out of the trap and made it across the ice to comparative safety. The Commies have infiltrated so far south that they have the entire 1st Marine Division cut off and isolated, except by air.
December 3,
At sea,
Supported some reinforcements which are trying to battle their way through to the 1st Division in the reservoir. The weather over the target was very poor as it has been all week.