Hide & Seek

For the better part of ten days, the North Korean air force had been lying low. During the war's first two weeks, busy Russian-built Yak fighters and Ilyushin assault planes had taken a beating from U.S. jet planes. Then the Northern command apparently decided to husband its planes and airmen. U.S. observers guessed that the Reds had either withdrawn their planes to Manchurian bases, or had hidden them in underground hangars built into the Korean mountainside.

While the Red air force was out of sight, U.S. airmen concentrated on bombing North Korean communications. Despite bad flying weather, Superforts raided Seoul's railroad marshaling yards, interrupting traffic from the north to the southern battlefront, and blasted industrial targets near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. From a secret U.S. airbase built in four days, F80 Shooting Star jets attacked tanks and transports around Taejon; the highway northeast of Taejon was lined with burning vehicles. Other U.S. planes attacked Communist engineers who were trying to repair destroyed bridges across the Kum River.

Toward week's end, the Red air force cautiously reappeared. Over Taejon, four patrolling U.S. F-80s met four Yak fighters, shot down three; other Yaks tried to intercept U.S. B-29s on their mission to Seoul, giving them, in the words of a U.S. briefing officer, "a pretty good scrap." Airfields previously deserted were again abustle with Red aircraft.

The U.S. air force returned some of its attention to hunting down Yaks. Corsairs, Panther jets and land-based F-80s made a two-day attack on airfields at Pyongyang and Yonpo, knocking out at least 30 enemy planes on the ground.

The Reds were doing their best to defend their airfields and oil depots. Near Seoul, U.S. planes drew fire from a large number of 20-mm. antiaircraft guns and from some guns above 50-mm. ; bombing oil tanks at Wonson, U.S. airmen met what they believed to be their first radar-controlled antiaircraft fire in Korea.

By week's end, no additional Russian-made jets had been sighted in Korea (TIME, July 24), but U.S. airmen fully expected more. The battle for the sky over Korea was not over.

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