Combat Over Korea

This volume chronicles aerial combat of the Korean War through both historical narrative and the personal accounts of Allied airmen and POWs.

In Combat Over Korea, military historian Philip D. Chinnery offers a vivid account of aerial warfare above the forbidding terrain of the Korean peninsula. The firsthand accounts presented here run the gamut from air combat between fighters to a B29 Superfortress bomber ditching in the sea, and a C-54 cargo plane being attacked by North Korean fighters.


Veterans of the 21 Troop Carrier Squadron, USAF, recount flying into impossibly short strips to rescue thousands of wounded soldiers—a feat for which they received a Presidential Citation. Others tell of their hair-raising escapades after being shot down, while those who were captured tell of the brutal treatment they endured at the hands of the enemy. In a truly rare and remarkable tale, 1st Lieutenant Melvin Shadduck recounts his daring escape from a POW camp.