CHAPTER 7 - Bob Veazey's Memoirs - Page 3
squadron color. It was the custom to mark the brim
of your hat with a small line for each combat mission
flown. This made it easy to spot the "old heads"
(more experienced pilots) from the "new heads".
There was also a squadron of F-94B all weather
fighters, the 319th Fighter Interceptor Squadron,
based at the north end of the 8th Wing side. They
rarely flew combat missions, however, and mainly
flew defensive sweeps over friendly territory at night.
The arriving replacements were assigned to temporary living quarters in the Replacement Training
Unit (RTU) area. Living quarters at K-13 were Quonset huts, those rounded top metal buildings
developed during the war. The morning after arrival we began classes in the "Little Jet Schoolhouse,"
as the building was called. We were briefed on the combat situation, the call signs currently in use by
the area radar controllers, what to do if hit during a mission, and the type of formation flown by the 8th
Group. Of course, there was also a refresher on F-8OC engineering.
My first flight in Korea was on 13 August in a "T -Bird" and the instructor, a pilot who had completed his
100 missions, conducted a tour of the local area. He demonstrated the use of the call signs and the
procedures with the radar controllers, and finally let me shoot a couple of landings. The same day I
checked out in an F-80C and made a personal tour of the local area and shot more landings. On the
14th, we practiced some four-ship formation flying in the local area, dropped bombs and fired the
machine guns on the Suwon Range, basically a small island off the coast and in the Yellow Sea.
On the 16th we flew two combat missions, that is, we flew over the "bomb line", which is what the line
between the North and the South was called, and dropped bombs and fired machine guns against
the enemy. The area we flew over was the Haeju peninsula, and we were not fired upon by ground
fire, that is, as far as I knew. This was also an opportunity to get familiar with identifying features
on the ground. This included a lone large smokestack that hundreds of pilots had tried to
knock down with bombs, rockets, and machine guns--but there it stood!! Another significant
checkpoint was a lake shaped like a butterfly. Most missions conducted to the west side of Korea
used the "butterfly lake" as the initial point for navigation. On these flights we simulated "breaking"
as if we were attacked. Rather than the familiar "finger four" we used in gunnery school, we flew
essentially a line abreast spread formation, which provided more defensive options.
A third combat mission was flown on the 17th, along with a T- Bird flight for instrument training
and all weather approach procedures for K-13. With the completion of the three combat missions,
we were graduated from RTU and moved into our assigned squadrons.
During the initial combat missions I was impressed by the fact that nothing seemed to be
moving within the North Korean territory. This was in contrast to the territory south of the
"bomb line", where there were personnel and vehicles in plain view. Airfields in the North