Korea and "the Blue Airplanes‪"‬

The painted symbols tell the story of the differences between World War II and Korea. On a scoreboard that once adorned the hangar deck aboard USS Essex (CV 9), row upon row of Japanese rising sun flags are testament to the prowess of the carrier's embarked air groups in the Pacific: the silhouettes of enemy carriers, battleships, and cruisers speaking to the great sea battles of World War II. Arrayed below in stark contrast is the ship's combat record from the Korean War. Great ships of a global war have been replaced by silhouettes of locomotive engines, factories, and even ox carts, symbols of the interdiction missions that were the hallmark of the naval air war in Korea. When North Korean troops stormed across the 38th parallel into South Korea on 25 June 1950, they launched a war that was not supposed to be.. The mushroom clouds billowing up over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 signaled to many U.S. military strategists the end of conventional wars. In addition, the government's desire to cut military spending as the nation transitioned to a peacetime economy resulted in a massive drawdown of the nations forces. Particularly-hard hit was the Navy, as the number of its combat aircraft dropped from 29,125 in 1945 to 9,422 by 1950. Similarly, whereas there had been 28 large-deck aircraft carriers in commission on V-J Day, by June 1950 only 11 plied the world's oceans, most of them concentrated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Only one, USS Valley Forge (GV 45), operated in the Western Pacific, and it was from her deck that Naval Aviation first responded to the North Korean invasion on 3 July 1950.