U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950-1953, Volume 5 (of 5): Operations in West KoreaUnited States. Marine Corps
History
U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950-1953, Volume 5 (of 5): Operations in West Korea
United States. Marine Corps
Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Campaigns; United States. Marine Corps -- History -- Korean War, 1950-1953
A number of factors contributed to the reduced emphasis on the
interdiction strategy. Three, however, appear to have most influenced
the inauguration of Operation PRESSURE, the name given the new policy
of concentrating aerial attacks on major industrial targets considered
of greatest value to the North Korean economy. Mounting FAF aircraft
losses due to enemy flak (fire from ground-based antiaircraft weapons)
and an insufficient number of replacements helped shape the new
program. By April 1952 FEAF had received “only 131 replacement aircraft
of the types engaged in rail interdiction against the 243 it had lost
and the 290 major-damaged aircraft on interdiction sorties.”[93] These
heavy losses had resulted from the increasing accuracy of Communist
antiaircraft ground weapons, a capability Air Force planners had failed
to consider sufficiently.[94]
[93] USAF, _Ops in Korea_, No. 72, p. 156.
[94] Futrell, _USAF, Korea_, pp. 436–437.
Although significant, this loss factor was not the final consideration
in executing PRESSURE attacks against the power plants. More directly
responsible were two other recent developments. These were the decision
of the new UN commander, General Mark W. Clark, to take forceful
action to bring the Communists around to an armistice agreement and a
top-level Defense Department change of policy that had removed a major
North Korean hydroelectric facility from the restricted bombing list.
This was the Suiho plant, fourth largest in the world. Adjacent to
the Yalu River, about 75 miles northeast of its mouth, Suiho supplied
approximately 25 percent of the electrical power used in nearby
northeast China.[95]
[95] _Ibid._, pp. 452–453 and Cagle and Manson, _Sea War,
Korea_, pp. 443–445.
Results of the PRESSURE strikes, carried on from 23–27 June, were
highly successful. Marine, Navy, and Air Force planes flew 1,654 attack
and escort sorties in these raids. Of the 13 target plants attacked
during this period, 11 were put out of commission and 2 others were
presumably destroyed. North Korea was almost blacked out for two weeks.
Chinese and Russian experts were rushed to North Korea to lend a hand
in restoration. The hydroelectric strikes marked the first time that
Marine, Navy, and Air Force pilots had flown a combined mission in
Korea. The 23 June strike, moreover, was of particular significance
to 1st MAW since it was also the first time that MAGs-12 and -33 were
assigned group strikes at specific adjacent targets at the same time.
Led by Colonel Robert E. Galer, the new MAG-12 commander since 25 May,
group pilots struck and leveled the single power complex, Chosin 3, in
the 23–24 June runs. Colonel John P. Condon, who had taken over MAG-33
on 24 May, put 43 jets from VMFs-311 and -115 into the air during the
two-day mission. The first time that its F9Fs had ever been massed for
a strike of this type, the MAG-33 jets similarly destroyed the Chosin 4
plant, 11 miles northwest of Hamhung.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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