"We Have Them Cornered"

At 20,000 feet above the burning North Korean border city of Sinuiju last week, fighter planes in history's first jet dogfight streaked across the morning sky. Eight or more Russian-made MIG-15s tangled for a deadly moment with four U.S. Lockheed F-80s. The score: one Communist jet shot down, another damaged; U.S. fighters, untouched.

Commanding the four Shooting Stars, Major Evans G. Stephens, a Texan, and his wingman, Lieut. Russell Brown of Pasadena, Calif., saw two Communist jets pull out of a dive 50 miles south of the Yalu and turn toward the river at the Americans' altitude, closing fast. Said Stephens afterwards, "Brown and I were between the enemy jets and the river. I called to the rest of my flight to come on up--we have two of them cornered."

The first Red jet got past Stephens, who "pulled the second MIG into my sights and fired. Debris flew off his wing tip and he went into a dive and got away across the border." Brown, meanwhile, was on the tail of the first enemy. Said Brown later: "He was diving at a near vertical angle. I figured we were both doing more than 600 miles an hour. Anyway, the last time I looked at the airspeed indicator it was registering 600 and I think I picked up speed after that.

"The MIG was not pulling away from me--but I wasn't closing the gap either. I was at the extreme effective firing range, but when I saw I couldn't gain on him I led him with my sights and held down the gun trigger. After two or three seconds of my fire his engine section area began to smoke and then his engine exploded. The MIG pilot did not get out, and his plane went into the ground."

At week's end the reality of jet combat --the fastest kind of fighting known to man--was becoming routine along the Korean-Manchurian border. At least five more Red jets were destroyed by U.S. jet fighters.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.