Earl J McGill Lt Col USAF (Ret.) - Black Tuesday over Namsi : B-29s vs MiGs ; the forgotten air battle of the Korean War, 23 October 1951

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Originally published by Heritage Books 2008

This revised and expanded edition published by Helion & Company 2012

eBook Published 2012

Designed and typeset by Bookcraft Limited, Stroud, Gloucestershire

Cover designed by Bookcraft Limited, Stroud, Gloucestershire

Printed by Gutenberg Press Limited, Tarxien, Malta

Text Earl J. McGill, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.) 2008, 2011

Images as individually credited.

ISBN 978-1-907677-21-2
eISBN 978-1-908916-08-2

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Front cover: This photo captures the feeling of flying a combat mission, a sense of loneliness in the company of others as they drive on toward the target, not knowing what awaits. (Courtesy of Glen Morris)

Rear cover: Earlier daylight combat mission photo of #44-86295, Baker Lead, commanded by Lt. William Reeter on Black Tuesday. (Courtesy of Alan Reeter)

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Dedicated to all b-29 flight and ground personnel who served in the forgotten war

of an event that too many refer to as The Forgotten War find here remembered a story of great and common men, of bounty and sacrifice, of life and death, of America, Korea and a freedom so costly won. Find here a story to tell to your children so that they too may know and understand how high to carry the torch.

John N. Duquette, Lt. Col. USA (ret.)

Every Man a Tiger Website

History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see whats inside the box, how the mechanisms work the generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan

Contents

List of Illustrations,
Maps and Diagrams

Preface

B

Astonishingly, virtually nothing has been published about this event. Official Air Force historical records mention it only in passing. Literature of the period too often emphasizes the gung ho aspect of Hollywood-type action movies than the grim reality of war. Most of what is written is, in fact, rife with exaggeration, myth, and downright lies. Some of this is most certainly the result of the way the war was reported; mostly by young, inexperienced airmen who thought this was the proper way to impress their commanding officers. A more serious hindrance to sorting out events that took place half a century ago is simply finding the records. Much of the Korean War paperwork was sent to the National Archives (NARA) in cardboard boxes, unsorted, and in no particular order.

In an effort to find an accurate account of the great air battle of the forgotten war, I employed several methods, but mostly a tool that was not available until recently, the internet search engine. My internet searches have yielded numerous informative pieces from combatants on both sides of the Korean War. Unfortunately, very few touched on the Black Tuesday mission. One short piece detailed events after the mission, and the only other references contained errors that have little to do with what actually happened. As for written material (except for John R. Brunings, Crimson Sky, The Air Battle for Korea), none of the published material, historical or otherwise, acknowledged the sacrifices of the airmen involved or showed appreciation for what they experienced.

This book is the result of several fortuitous occurrences. After viewing my B-29s in the Korean War web site, Rolland Miller, left gunner on the crew of the Able Flight lead B-29 on the Black Tuesday mission, emailed me. Rolland provided a great deal of information about the mission, including the email addresses of the navigator, Fred Meier, and Nick The Greek Kourafas, the bombardier. Together, we were able to assemble a series of Black Tuesday web pages. Then, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War, Rolland suggested I write and submit an article to VFW Magazine. The editor, Richard Kolb, accepted and published the article, which also appeared again as part of the VFW anthology, Battles of the Korean War.

Research for the short version of Black Tuesday Over Namsi, published in the October 2001 issue of VFW Magazine, and subsequent contacts provided a treasure chest of previously unrecorded facts about the mission. Following publication, emails, phone calls, and letters began pouring in from other crew members that had flown the mission and from the children and grandchildren of those combatants who are no longer with us. Old scrapbooks, photographs and personal correspondence were opened for my inspection, some of them not shared in a lifetime. I felt privileged to be so honored. I also felt a growing sense of duty to write the full story of Black Tuesday with all of its ramifications, its historical significance, and especially because I felt, in no small way, that I owed my life to those who flew, fought, and were lost.

My contacts include experts on the Korean Air War, from both the Allied and the Soviet perspectives, and contain statements made by MiG pilots describing the attack. Together, both Americans and Russians have supplied never before published photographs of the mission and its aftermath, including the aerial photo of the Namsi Airfield that was used to plan the mission. This book also records, from verifiable historical documents, the broader events and conditions that led up to confrontation, plus the first-hand accounts of aircrew members and ground personnel who were there. The facts and circumstances of the event are further verified by reconstructing the mission from first briefing to final landing. With help from others who were actually there, Ive assembled what I believe is a true and accurate account of that historically important but forgotten air battle, the story of a Korean War bombing mission on a day marked forever in the minds of Allied airmen who flew and fought in the Korean War as Black Tuesday.