A Nervous Time

How goes the air war? For the slashing U.S. Sabre jets, it is going well; for the bombers and tactical planes, not so well. For the men who have to guess what the enemy is going to do with his 1,400-plane potential, it is a nervous time. Said one top air commander: "They have the capacity to hit us hard."

Shipped to Korea in two aircraft carriers, another wing of Sabres has arrived to fight the enemy's MIG-158. But though this doubled the number of Sabres in combat--now 150--they are still heavily outnumbered by the Reds' 700 MIGs.

Those Characters. "When we go up now," said Jet Ace Colonel Francis Ga-breski, "we spend 59 out of every 60 seconds looking over our shoulders." Nevertheless, last week the fast U.S. jets scored their biggest one-day kill of the war: 13 MIGs destroyed, two probables, one damaged. Only one Sabre was lost. , Although the Sabres have consistently given the MIGs a bad beating, the Red jet is a first-class military fighter, a nimbler craft in maneuver, a faster climber, with more speed above 32,000 feet than the heavier, longer-ranged Sabre. Among reasons for the Sabre's performance in battle: superior speed below 25,000 feet, better diving speed, a fine electronic computing gunsight, better pilots. "If I could have a couple of sessions against those characters in one of their own planes," said a U.S. airman last week, "I could really show 'em some tricks."

The enemy seems to be using "MIG Alley" (northwestern Korea) to train novices in regular cycles, removing each class when it gets fully seasoned. But each class is a little better than its predecessor.

Fifth & Main. The Far East Air Forces' lumbering, obsolescent B-29 bombers have been forced to do most of their work at night. There have never been enough Sabres to give the bombers a good day time screen, and the combination of flak and MIGs caused heavy proportionate losses. There are not many strategic targets in North Korea, and the Reds seem to know just when & where the U.S. bombers are going to strike. Says Brigadier General Joe Kelly, the B-29 commander: "The war we're fighting now is one in which we say to them, 'O.K., boys, we'll meet you at Fifth and Main.' They know where it is, and we know where it is."

The bombers are being helped by tactical planes (older jets and propeller-driven craft). Many of the U.N. ground-support jobs have been taken over by artillery and three-fourths of the tactical planes have been released for interdiction work --mainly, blasting away at the enemy's never-ending flow of trucks to the front. These planes which have to make low-level attacks, are the ones that suffer most from ground fire.*

A Very Hairy Ride. If the enemy launched an all-out attack against U.N. troops and supply centers, how would allied antiaircraft perform? Probably not too well, at first. Reported TIME'S Tokyo Bureau Chief Dwight Martin: "There are indications that some of the Red equipment is better than ours. Also, the first days of any Red attempt to knock us out of the air war would probably see our AA. come off a poor second to theirs, because our crews just haven't had the practice."

If the enemy attacks, U.N. airmen believe he will launch his MIGs first at allied fighter bases in South Korea, try to knock them out, then follow with bombers. Said one top U.S. airman: "If they do hit us, you can bet we'll hit them back hard and fast. Chances are we'd try to limit our strikes into Manchuria strictly to air bases for obvious political reasons. We can hit them the first time for free. But the second time it will start getting expensive. How expensive it will be the third time, or the fourth, we just don't know. But we do know one thing: it will be a very hairy ride from there on out."

*The U.N. has lost upwards of 1,300 planes in the Korean war. About 600 have been lost in combat (most of them victims of ground fire); the rest are "operational" losses. The enemy, which has not fought over U.N. territory, has lost some 300 planes in combat, a creditable mark for the U.N. under the circumstances.

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