RAAF 50th Anniversary/Reading/EN

RAAF 50TH ANNIVERSARY (1971)
WHEN WAR GATE-CRASHED THE SQUADRON PARTY
It could have been a scene from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair….. war gate-crashing the regimental ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo.
On Sunday morning, 25th June, 1950, war gate-crashed a farewell party in the Sergeant’s Mess of No. 77 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. It came in the form of a telephone call.
The squadron at the time was based at Iwakuni in the Yamaguchi prefecture of Southern Japan and the party was to celebrate the long awaited and imminent return of the Squadron to Australia.
Some of the revellers who heard that particular telephone call were soon to die, for it brought news of the crossing of the 38th parallel in Korea by the North Korean Army, plunging the whole of the peninsula into a bloody conflict which was to last three years.
The RAAF ‘double-seven’ squadron was the sole remaining Australian squadron still on occupation duty in Japan and it was all set to go home after plans had been completed; equipment checked and packed. But instead of going home the squadron went to war.
The farewell party had begun the night before – Saturday 24th June – and it was morning when the Korean war began.
Outside the mess, the sergeants had built a model sailing ship. To gain entry to the party the guests had to board the ship and walk the plank. But not until they had drunk the required quota of cocktails. Everyone had to be dressed ‘as you would be if you were shipwrecked’. One came in a night shirt with a bottle of ‘snake bite cure’ under his arm.
The weather was hot and sticky. The guests ate delicious prawns and tasty Hiroshima oysters. No one had a care in the world.
Dawn came (the moment of the assault in Korea) and the party guests continued their fun. Then the telephone rang. One of the sergeants who had been assigned weekend orderly duty answered it. The call relayed a message from the Operations Officer of the United States 5th Air Force to alert the squadron. The North Korean army had invaded South Korea and was headed in a powerful two-pronged thrust for Seoul, the capital. ‘We might be going to do something about it’ the Ops. Officer had said. His surmise was correct.
So the pilots prepared for action and the ground staff men armed and serviced the sleek Mustangs. In the opening month of the Korean war, the first Australian pilot died in a flaming crash while .50 calibre ammunition exploded all around him. He was the late Squadron Leader Graham Strout of Adelaide, South Australia who failed to return from his mission over Samchock. He was the first serviceman of the British Commonwealth of Nations to die in the Korean war.
Not many weeks later, when the United Nations forces were still hemmed in behind the narrow perimeter around Pusan in South Korea, Wing Commander Lou Spence, the Commanding Officer of No. 77 died in the same way. Only a week before the American Air Force Leader, Lt. General George E. Stratemeyer, had come down specially from his headquarters in Tokyo to invest Spence with the American Legion of Merit for his leadership of the squadron in those crucial early weeks of the conflict.
In the first week of operations In Korea the pilots of No. 77 Squadron flew as fighter escorts for American Superforts and B26 light bombers. They supported the ground forces in their many advances and retreats. Later they joined in the victorious breakout from the Pusan defence box when General Douglas MacArthur made his surprise pincer move on Inchon.
Then the Australian Mustangs flew in support of the United Nations ground forces across the 38th parallel only to meet the greatest disappointment of the war – the invasion of North Korea by Chinese troops from across the Yalu River border with Manchuria.
No. 77 Squadron RAAF was in battles that were lost but it assisted ably in the total effort that saved a war from being lost.
And what a strange war it was! It was fought out within the confines of Korea itself and more than nineteen nations were directly engaged with all the guns, supplies tanks, and equipment they could use.
Mostly the combatants were Koreans (north and south), Chinese and Americans, but there were also fierce Turkish infanteers from Istanbul and Indian medical orderlies from Calcutta. There were Frenchmen, Belgians, Filipinos, Swedes, Porto Ricans, Englishmen, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Thailanders and Abyssinians to name but some of the nationalities engaged in the fighting.
Above these ground contingents flew the air forces of the United States and Korea with No. 77 Squadron, RAAF, in support.
In November of 1950 No. 77 Squadron moved from Pohang in South Korea to Hamhung in North Korea where ground crews had to sweep snow from the wings of the Mustangs before the pilots took off on missions. Servicing aircraft was a constant battle against the freezing conditions, but with the Chinese armies now pushing southwards from Manchuria the RAAF had to maintain a maximum combat effort.
Flying out of Hamhung the RAAF pilots struck heavily at Chinese transports pouring down the roads out of Manchuria. They flew close support missions for the Turks and the Australian 3rd Battalion in action at Pakchon. But the Chinese armies soon gained the upper hand and in the general withdrawal No. 77 Squadron was ordered south to Pusan where missions continued on a maximum effort basis.
In April 1951, the squadron was withdrawn from Korea to Iwakuni to be re-equipped with Meteor 8 twin-engined jet fighters. In July, with training in Meteors completed, the squadron went back to Korea, this time to join the American 4th Fighter group at Kumpo, near Seoul. The following month the RAAF pilots fought their first battle against the Russian MiG-15 aircraft and this and later battles demonstrated that the Meteor as an aircraft was no match for the swept-wing MiG-15s. The Meteors were later fitted with rocket rails and assigned to the ground attack role using rockets and cannons and they continued in this role until the fighting ended in July 1953.
In three years No. 77 Squadron lost 35 members dead and in addition a number of Royal Air Force pilots on exchange duty with the squadron were killed in action. The squadron carried out 18,872 individual sorties, destroyed 3,700 buildings, 1,500 vehicles and 16 bridges. It shot down three MiG-15s and three other enemy fighters. One of the MiGs was shot down by a young Flying Officer freshly graduated from RAAF College, Point Cook. He was Bill Simmons of Bunbury, Western Australia. Today the same Bill Simmons is a Wing Commander and now commands No. 77 Squadron at Williamtown – 20 years after he flew with the same squadron in 1951.
RAAF Dakotas of No. 30 Transport Unit carried out most of the aerial supply and medical evacuation for the British Commonwealth forces in Korea. The Transport unit grew into No. 36 Squadron in March 1953. In the medical air evacuation role alone the Dakotas carried a total of 12,000 troops out of Korea. They also carried 100,000 passengers and 13,500,000 lbs. of freight and mail.
The Korean war was a conflict that added luster to the proud name of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Enquiries:
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