USSR: the Korean War

A Nation Divided

Following the allied victory in World War II, Japan's 35 yearlong rule over Korea had ended. To Stalin, the fate of Korea was of such little importance to him that he easily agreed to divide Korean occupation between the Soviets and the United States along the infamous 38th Parallel. Failure of negotiation and the onset of the Cold War meant there would be no unification of Korea as promised in the Moscow Conference of late 1945. As the negotiations continued, the impact of the division deepened; opposing views of politics and occupational policy led to a transfer of population between the North and South, and ultimately leading up to the closing of the 38th Parallel border in May 1946.

Soviet supplied North Korean T-34s
were superior to the US M-41 bulldogs

The Soviet 25th Army occupied the northern half of Korea immediately after the end of WWII [1]. People's Committees had been established in the pseudo-capital of Northern Korea by Cho Man-sik, a veteran nationalist. The committees were friendly to Soviet leadership, but were soon taken over by the Soviet Civil Administration, beginning the communist takeover. After the war, Kim Il-sung returned from training with Soviet troops in Manchuria to establish a provisional government called the Provisional People's Committee. A month later, redistribution of land took place, forcing land belonging to pro-Japanese owners to be divided up and given to poor farmers. The result of this peaceful reform lead to a much more equal distribution of wealth among the North Korean populace. [2] Some 400,000 former landowners fled south because of the changes. [3] The Soviet occupational forces departed in 1948, but kept ties with the fledgling state.

In South Korea, a general election was held by the UN on May 10, 1948, and on August 15 the Republic of Korea formally replaced power from US occupation forces, with Syngman Rhee as first president. A few months later, on September 9, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was declared with Kim Il-Sung as prime minister, though the United Nations did not see the DPRK as a legitimate government. [4]

During the Soviet's occupational rule in North Korea, they were instrumental in the creation and nucleation of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) and Korean People's Air Force (KPAF); the Shineuiju Air Force Academy was founded by the Soviets in October 1945. [5]

The US had to ship in their heavy Pershing
tanks in order to compete against the heavy
Russian T-34s.

By 1949 Kim Il-Sung felt that South Korea was weak enough for an invasion. However, Kim sought the approval of Stalin. Stalin did not believe it was time for war in Korea, and especially did not want to risk an open confrontation with the United States. By early 1950, the strategic situation had developed in favour of Kim Il-Sung and a Korean war. In September 1949, the Soviets launched themselves as true contenders in the nuclear arms race, detonating their first nuclear bomb; American soldiers had withdrawn from South Korea, and the Communists had won the Chinese Civil War allowing sixty thousand Korean veterans and equipment to return to Korea. Stalin began an aggressive diplomatic campaign in Asia, gaining favour from China and North Korea, while supplying them with heavy equipment such as artillery, and tanks.  Consisting of veteran generals who had large experience from World War II, the Soviet Advisory Group was established.  The plan described by the Soviet generals was for a skirmish to be initiated in the Ongjin Peninsula on the west coast of Korea (such skirmishes were regular in the years leading up to the war). The KPA would then launch a 'counterattack', capturing Seoul and destroying the RoK army, followed by capturing of ports. This plan was altered by Kim Il-sung to involve a general attack across the whole 38th Parallel, which Stalin accepted. [6]

Stalin agreed to Kim's invasion as long as Mao would agree to reinforce DPRK if they became needed. China desperately needing the Soviet's economic and material aid, quickly agreed. Mao's involvement in the war was solidified two days into the fighting when US President Harry Truman ordered ships of the U.S. 7th Fleet to block the Straits of Formosa, saving the remnants of the Chinese nationalist forces opposed to Mao. [7]

Air intervention

Soviet involvement in the Korean war was dominated by political and economic goals, rather than military ones. As John Greenwood puts it in his book, Russian Aviation and Air Power in the Twentieth Century, 'Soviet participation in the air war over Manchuria and northwest Korea was a carefully orchestrated ballet'. [8] In Korea, Stalin saw three objectives; gaining the trust and friendship of their new Chinese allows through Mao; tipping the balance of the air war in the Communist's favour; and to pit new technology and tactics against those of the West. The Soviets had a tough balancing act in order to not overtly involve themselves too much to allow for a casus belli for a war against the United States or United Nations, especially with mutual nuclear war being a very real threat. No doubt the Soviet involvement would have been greater if the US had not unexpectedly involved themselves.

RAF Gloster Meteors over Korea

The Soviet Union never officially entered the war. Despite this, on 1 November 1950, the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps (64 IAK) of the Soviet Air Force (SAF) was attached to the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) under the 1st United Air Army. On the same day, Soviet-piloted MiG-15s began missions over North Korea and the first instance of Soviet-US hostilities occurred when eight MiGs intercepted fifteen P-51 Mustangs, and later on the first jet-jet air battle took place. Both instances saw a Communist victory.

The introduction of the Soviet MiG-15 to the air war in Korea, whether flown by Korean, Chinese, or Russian pilots, was a huge threat to the US and UN forces. Instantly, the MiG-15 became the best fighter in the air, outclassing once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, Hawker Sea Fury, F4U Corsair, and even jet powered planes such as the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, American F-80, or the British Gloster Meteor. However, this was not the first use of MiGs in the far east; MiG-15s had been in action over Shanghai fighting Nationalist Chinese bombers, but western intelligence failed to note their presence.[9] The MiGs posed a very real threat to the B-29 Superfortress bombing raids, even when protected with a fighter escort. The MiG-15 flew higher and faster, and was more heavily armed than its western counterparts [10] (this was due to the Rolls Royce engine delivered to the Soviets in good faith by the British in 1946). The impact of the MiG-15 was felt greatly by USAF Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg to an extent which led him to question the ability of the Strategic Air Command to launch successful atomic attacks on Soviet or Chinese territory. [11] The Americans wouldn't receive parity in performance until late 1952, when they deployed their much updated F-86F Sabre. The Soviets had an opportunity to gain technological superiority over the west if they introduced the new MiG-17, but they were reluctant and refused, eventually relenting in the final weeks of the war where their impact was negligible. [9]

Ace American pilot Chuck Yeager
pushes a captured MiG-15 to its limits

To even the odds, the US transported over three squadrons of its new F-86 Sabre in December 1950. The Sabre was less heavily armed than the MiG, was slower and had a shorter ceiling. However, it was more manoeuverable, and special training and equipment allowed the US pilots to pull more G's than the Communists, giving an advantage in dog fighting. The Chinese and KPAF pilots' training was rushed by the well-trained Soviet pilots, leading to an overall deficiency in talent on the Communist side. The first instance of MiG v Sabre combat happened on the morning of 22 December, where a Sabre was shot down by an unknown MiG pilot. However, later that afternoon, eight Sabres chased fifteen MiGs over the Yalu River (on the border of North Korea and China), reportedly claiming six kills without any losses. Despite this, the MiGs still proved to be a successful weapon; on 23 October 1951 'Black Tuesday' marked the end of daylight bombings from Bomber Command after the US' most severe mauling by MiGs to date. The US Fifth Air Force concluded that the huge numbers of MiG-15s (many the upgraded MiG-15bis with a more powerful VK-1 engine and better guns) at the Yalu River region - over 500 MiGs in September 1951 - posed too large a threat to the B-29 bombers as there were simply not enough F-86 Sabre's to provide escort. [7][9][12]

American B-29 Superfortress

This region over the Yalu River became infamously known as 'MiG Alley'. Stalin was forever worried of the Korean War escalating into a nuclear war, and so limited Air operations to inside Communist controlled air space. Of particular importance to the Americans were the transport routes on the border of China and North Korea, where weapons and men frequently passed. A Communist tactic was to wait until western fighter jets began to return to base (after a bombing mission for example) due to low fuel and ambush them from above. The lack of fuel for western pilots meant they would not be able to sustain a dogfight, with the only option available being a retreat. Here, the MiGs higher speeds proved deadly.

On April 12, US and Soviet pilots fought the largest air battle of the war yet over Sinuiju. Three B-29s were short down with seven more damaged, with the US reporting an absurdly high number of MiG kills claimed. Contrary to this, the Soviets reported no losses for the day. Reports such as this were commonplace during the Korean War, and have made air loss/kill figures very unreliable. An extensive list of US losses can be found here, however a Soviet equivalent cannot be found easily (if at all). Here are some examples of how much kill claims differed: the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s (+108 other aircraft) shot down by Sabres, while only losing 78 to the enemy. The Soviets report 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG Combat losses.

Concealment 

While heavily suspected by UN forces, the Soviet Union kept the participation of their pilots and aerial divisions a secret. Soviet planes donned North Korean or PLAAF markings, and the pilots wore the respective uniforms. The pilots used very basic Chinese or Korean to communicate over a radio, often having a short translation card to read from inside their cockpit. At times, suspected soviet pilots were heard swearing in Russian during dogfights. [9]

In the event of a Soviet pilot surviving a crash over enemy territory, they were to shoot themselves to prevent being captured and interrogated or used as proof of direct Soviet involvement. To reduce chances of Soviet pilots crashing over South Korean territory, they operated under tight restrictions, and were prohibited from flying in UN-controlled airspace. Allegedly, one Soviet pilot had to shoot himself with a pistol, and another was strafed by a fellow Soviet pilot as not to be taken captive (the source for this was the Dogfights: MiG Alley TV show, hence the use of 'allegedly'). These restrictions meant the Soviets could never provide ground support on the front lines. 

Hero of the Soviet Union, WW2 and
Korean fighter ace, Marshal of Aviation,
and Commander of Soviet air forces in
Korea, Ivan Kozhedub. He was forbade
from piloting in missions over Korea
because of his celebrity status in the USSR.

Washington knew that Russians were piloting MiGs, and of the restrictions they were operating under. Paul Nitze, the head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff at the time, said: "The argument [against revealing the Soviet involvement in the Korean War] was that if we publicised the facts, the public would expect us to do something about it and the last thing we wanted was for the war to spread to more serious conflict with the Soviets." [13]

Legacy

March 5, 1953 marked the end of Stalin's reign over the USSR. The man reportedly died from a heart attack, but his legacy lingered. The war continued after his death, but by then the most dangerous period of the summer of 1951 had passed. The war turned into a bloody stalemate along the 38th Parallel and both sides of the war preferred to save their technology and trained pilots for future wars. Before his death, Stalin had managed to alter the balance of the Cold War for good. Thanks to Soviet efforts, Mao's China quickly became the third global superpower. 

References
[1] Charles K. Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950, 2004
[2] Michael E. Robinson, Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey, 2007
[3] Allen R. Millet, The War for Korea: 1945-1950, 2005
[4] Adrien Buzo, The Making of Modern Korea, 2002
[5] North Korea: The Founding of the Armed Forces, ROK National Intelligence Service. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
[6] Kathryn Weathersby, "Should We Fear This?" Stalin and the Danger of War with America, 2002
[7] Mark O'Neill, Soviet Involvement in the Korean War: A New View from the Soviet-Era Archives, 2000
[8] J. Greenwood, V. Hardesty, R. Higham, "Russian Aviation and Air Power in the Twentieth Century", 1998
[9] Steven J. Zaloga The Russians in MiG Alley. Journal of the Airforce Association, Airforce Magazine, 1991
[10] Stokesbury, James L, A Short History of the Korean War, 1990
[11] T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A study in Unpreparedness, 1963
[12] Daniel T. Kuehl, Refighting the Last War: Electronic Warfare and USAF B-29 Operations in the Korean War', The Journal of Military History 56, 1. 1992
[13] Jon Halliday, A Secret War: US and Soviet Air Forces Clashed Directly in Korea, Far Eastern Economic Review, 1993

Further Reading
For a general overview, John Greenwood's Russian Aviation and Air Power in the Twentieth Century, 1998 is a good read.
For an in-depth look at Stalin's political and strategic motives, Shen Zhihua's article Sino-Soviet Relations and the Origins of the Korean War: Stalin's Strategic Goals in the Far East (2000) in the Journal of Cold War Studies is a fantastic piece. (Can only be read with appropriate authorisation or subscription to the journal). Another good article is Joel R. Campbell's The Wrong War: The Soviets and the Korean War, 1945-1953. 
For a detailed look at the air war over Korea, Xiaming Zhang's book, Red Wings Over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (2002) is a good read.