AN ENEMY MIG-15 BEING SHOT DOWN BY AN AMERICAN F-86 FIGHTER , AS SEEN THROUGH ITS GUN CAMERA . THOUGH NOT PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED DURING THE WAR , MANY MIGS FLOWN OVER KOREA WERE PILOTED BY SOVIET AIR FORCE PILOTS .
went to ground school for ten days , learned about the aircraft systems and tactics of the F-86 , as well as the tactics of the MiG-15 , the primary aircraft of our enemy , who we found out later were mostly Russians . I flew nine rides in the F-86 and was declared combat ready . I was a junior birdman at the time , so we were assigned to fly wing instead of lead . Our squadron was made up of a combination of older pilots , WWII veterans , and a lot of us younger guys . It was a great mix and a good opportunity for me to follow their lead and learn .
I flew about 80 missions as a wingman , taking in as much as I could from the more experienced pilots . One of the leaders of our squadron that I came to respect the most was Major General Frederick Corbin “ Boots ” Blesse . He was a captain when he first arrived , but eventually took over operations . When he became our squadron operations officer , he laid it out to us straight when he said , “ This is the sorriest outfit that I ’ ve ever been a part of . I ’ m taking you all out of combat for a week .” He fired three of the flight commanders and made me one , the only lieutenant at the time to serve as a flight commander . Major Blesse became known for orchestrating a real strategic shift in air combat , outlined in a booklet called “ No Guts , No Glory .” Rather than keeping the wingmen out wide where
they were out on a limb , he trained pilots to keep close to the leader ’ s wing position . This led to a complete change in tactics from a more defensive attitude to an offensive mindset . From that point on , the 334th squadron went from the bottom to the top of the heap in terms of kills . So he retrained us and restructured us in his own aggressive image .
I can vividly remember my first real air-to-air combat as a flight leader . It was a Sunday in July . The weather was a problem and all flights were canceled that day , but I convinced the assistant operations officer that my wingman and I needed to go up on a weather reconnaissance mission , so we could report back where the clouds were . We were the only two F-86s , or any other aircraft , in the sky all day . We got up to the Yalu River and , by Golly , it was clear . The clouds broke about 20 miles south of the river , with a thunderstorm around Antung , which was the major enemy airfield across the border in China . As we reached the Yalu River and turned southwest , our radar man called out a bandit headed our
“ CHICK ” CLEVELAND IN THE COCKPIT , 1950 .
way at about our altitude . I looked out and sure enough there was a little speck headed towards us , getting bigger and bigger . Quickly , we passed each other , not more than 50 feet apart . To this day , I have a clear picture in my mind of that huge tail with a big red star on it flashing by my cockpit . I broke hard left . If he didn ’ t want to fight , he could have continued on and I never would have caught him . But he broke hard with me and when that happened , I said , “ Geez , this isn ’ t practice anymore . This is for real . One of us is not going to go home tonight .” But I was very confident . I was a good pilot and I ’ d been trained well . By the time we came back around on our first turn , I had gained about 15 degrees on him . I could see the top of the airplane and his canopy . He started shooting at me , but I wasn ’ t worried . I knew his shots would miss me and they did . We went five or six turns , getting lower and slower each time . Finally , I slid into his six o ’ clock position and he practically filled my windscreen . I thought , “ Gosh , Cleveland , you ’ ve finally got your first MiG .” I ’ d heard enough stories of fighter pilots in WWII who had forgotten to turn their gun switch on and they fired and nothing happened . So I looked down , found the gun switch , and saw it was on , but by the time I looked up , the MiG was gone . I looked all around and decided , “ He ’ s got to be underneath me .” So I rolled over and sure enough , he ’ s right there .
What he ’ d done was perform a flawless bunt , a maneuver to push forward on the stick and pull the throttle back to get behind me , a maneuver I had never seen in practice . We started to roll around each other and I pulled the throttle to idle , put the speed brakes out and the flaps down and was able to get behind him again . We were going so slowly , only about 150 knots . We both pushed the throttle up , and he tried to climb away . That was one of the real advantages the MiG-15 had . It could outclimb and out-accelerate the F-86 . So he started to climb away but I had him in my sights and fired . I got strikes all over him and thought , “ I ’ ve got him .” He rolled over very slowly to his left
12 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY