February 1953

Ground activity along the front continued at a slow pace, characterized by patrol engagements and minor enemy probes. Intelligence revealed the enemy had built twelve new by-pass rail bridges. Fifth Air Force reconnaissance in the area immediately behind the enemy's front lines to some twenty miles to the rear gave very little evidence that the enemy was preparing to attack but did spot an influx of vehicles to replace those destroyed during weeks of FEAF attacks. Enemy antiaircraft weapons decreased to the lowest total since the end of 1951, but radar-controlled guns made up a greater proportion than ever.

MiGs frequently penetrated south of Chongchon then immediately withdrew when interceptors rose to meet them. They were possibly probing UN radar defenses and testing the scramble time of the Sabres. At a cost of two F-86s lost in air combat, the Sabre wings destroyed twenty-five MiG-15s.

Fifth Air Force and FEAF Bomber Command kept most North Korean airfields out of service. Most fighter-bomber interdiction strikes went against the enemy's transportation network, and Fifth Air Force claimed 2,850 vehicles destroyed in February. When transportation interdiction work was light, Fifth Air Force aircraft attacked hostile concentrations of troops and supplies.

Light bomber attacks against locomotives traveling at night continued in Operation SPOTLIGHT, which maintained locomotive kills at the same high level as in January. Likewise, similar roadblock tactics continued with flare support provided by the 6167th ABG during the dark phases of the moon.

Bomber Command scheduled B-29 attacks as irregularly as possible and planned missions against heavily defended targets during the dark of the moon. The B-29 aircrews varied altitudes, avoided contrail-forming altitudes, and employed electronic countermeasures with great success against hostile gun-laying and searchlight-director radar. The compressed bomber stream provided mutual protection for the bombers by much greater concentration of chaff and electronic jamming power in the critical target area.

Far East Air Forces gave top priority to C-124 fuel cell modifications, and the 22d TCS Globemasters, which had been grounded since the end of December, returned to duty. The 19th and 307th Bomb Wings provided personnel for a detachment at Itazuke AB, Japan, to provide an emergency facility for B-29s unable to return to their home base at Yokota, Japan, or Kadena, Okinawa, after a combat mission.

February 2: Ninety-six Fifth Air Force fighter-bombers struck a troop billeting area located six miles south of Kyomipo, destroying 107 buildings.

February 9: At Kyomipo, Fifth Air Force fighter- and light bombers left in smoldering ruins the former steel mill being used as a munitions factory and locomotive repair shop.

February 15: In the strike of the month, twenty-two F-84 ThunderJets of the 474th FBW struck the Sui-ho hydroelectric power plant. With no losses, eighty-two escorting F-86 Sabres drew off thirty MiGs while the ThunderJets dropped their one thousand-pound bombs. The attack halted power production at Sui-ho for several months.

February 15/16: Radio Pyongyang went off the air when B-29s attacked the nearby Pingjang-ni communications center, damaging power lines.

February 16: 1st Lt. Joseph M. McConnell, Jr., USAF, 39th FIS, achieved ace status. The 1st Marine Air Wing led a 178-aircraft formation including Fifth Air Force fighter-bombers in an attack against troop billeting and supply storage in the Haeju to Sariwon region of western North Korea. The 45th TRS transferred all its remaining RF-51s to Japan, leaving it an all-jet RF-80 unit.

February 18: In one of the highlights of the air-to-air war, four F-86s attacked a formation of forty-eight MiG-15s just south of the Sui-ho Reservoir, shooting down two enemy aircraft. Two other MiGs, attempting to follow an F-86 through evasive maneuvers, went into uncontrollable spins and crashed. In this battle, Capt. Manuel J. Fernandez, Jr., USAF, 334th FIS, achieved ace status, downing his fifth and sixth MiGs.

February 18-19: In one of the largest all-jet fighter-bomber strikes of the war, 511 aircraft placed high explosive bombs on a tank and infantry school at Kangso, southwest of Pyongyang, destroying 243 buildings.

February 22: In a letter to Kim Il Sung, Premier, Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, and General Paeng Te-huai, CCF commander in Korea, the UN Command stated its readiness to repatriate immediately seriously ill and wounded POWs who were fit to travel and asked whether the North Korean and Chinese leaders were prepared to do the same.

February 26: Fifth Air Force instituted routine armed daylight reconnaissance over northwestern Korea in response to the enemy's vehicle movements.

February 28: 3d ARG received two new and larger H-19 helicopters. MATS C-124s had flown the dismantled helicopters directly from the factory in the United States to Japan, where they were assembled and test-flown before being ferried to Korea.