As the routed North Korean People's Army (NKPA) withdrew into the
mountainous reaches of their country and the People's Republic of China
(PRC) funneled in its massive infantry formations in preparation for a
momentous counter-offensive in the last months of 1950, both lacked
adequate air power to challenge US and UN air supremacy over both the
battlefields and the logistics channels from China into North Korea.
Reluctantly, Josef Stalin agreed to provide the requisite air cover,
introducing the superior swept-wing MiG-15 to counter the American's
straight-wing F-80 jets and to repel the United States Air Force (USAF)
B-29 bomber formations that were interdicting the PRC's flow of troops
and supplies into North Korea. This in turn prompted the USAF, against
its conventional wisdom of retaining its first-line air-defence fighters
to face Soviet air forces across the 'Iron Curtain' in Europe, to deploy
its very best - the F-86A Sabre - to counter this threat. Thus began a
two-and-a-half-year struggle in the skies over a corner of North Korea
known as MiG Alley.
In this period, the unrelenting campaign for aerial superiority
witnessed the introduction of successive models of these two
revolutionary jets - the MiG-15bis, the F-86E, and eventually the
F-86F - into combat. It also saw the transition of operational
leadership on the communist side from the Soviet volunteers to the newly
formed Chinese PLAAF air divisions, and witnessed the re-introduction of
the NKPAF, with its just trained MiG-15 units, into the air-combat
arena. This meticulously researched study not only provides technical
descriptions of the two types and their improved variants, complete with
a fighter pilot's assessment of these aircraft, but also chronicles the
entire scope of their aerial duel in MiG Alley by employing the
recollections of the surviving combatants - including Russian, Chinese,
and North Korean pilots - who participated.
