Pusan, South Korea. Wing Commander L. Spence, Commanding Officer No. 77 Squadron RAAF in the cockpit of his Mustang aircraft prior to takeoff on an operational mission over South Korea, August 1950.

Korean War

Led by Wing Commander Lou Spence, No. 77 Squadron was committed to action over Korea as part of United Nations Command (UN), and came under the operational control of the US Fifth Air Force. The Australian unit was specifically requested by General Douglas MacArthur, commander of UN forces; the Mustang was considered the best long-range ground-attack aircraft in the theatre, and Stratemeyer contended that No. 77 Squadron was the best Mustang outfit in Japan. The squadron flew its initial escort and patrol sorties from Iwakuni on 2 July 1950, becoming the first non-American UN unit to commence operations. Several Australian families were still living at Iwakuni pending their repatriation from what had become an operational theatre, and could watch the Mustangs depart for missions over Korea.

Pilots of 77 Squadron RAAF, being briefed by their Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader Richard (Dick) Cresswell (centre, facing camera), on the Kimpo airfield tarmac in front Meteor aircraft A77-616, prior to a mission over North Korea.

A friendly fire incident occurred on 3 July 1950, when No. 77 Squadron attacked a train full of US and South Korean troops on the main highway between Suwon and Pyongtaek, inflicting many casualties, twenty-nine of them fatal. Spence had raised concerns before the mission that the North Koreans could not have penetrated so far south, but was assured by Fifth Air Force controllers that the target was correct; the incident was widely reported in US newspapers but a public statement by Stratemeyer cleared the RAAF of any blame. No. 77 Squadron did not encounter enemy aircraft in the opening phase of the war but often faced intense ground fire. It suffered its first fatality on 7 July when its deputy commander, Squadron Leader Graham Strout, was killed during a raid on Samchok. He was also the first Australian, and the first non-American UN serviceman, to die in Korea.

Kimpo, South Korea. A22223 Sergeant R.D. Mitchell being strapped into his Meteor by A5185 Corporal T.C. Townley prior to a bomber escort mission to North Korea, 1951.

For the next two months, equipped with bombs, rockets and napalm, No. 77 Squadron supported UN troops retreating before the North Korean advance. To expedite turnaround times between missions, the Mustangs, which were still based at Iwakuni, often refuelled and rearmed at Taegu near the Pusan Perimeter, where UN forces made a last-ditch stand on the southern tip of Korea. One of the squadron’s Dakotas regularly flew between Iwakuni and Taegu carrying ordnance and spare parts. According to the official history of the Air Force in 1946–71, the squadron’s part in the victory at Pusan earned recognition “not only for the RAAF but also Australia at the highest political levels in the United States”. During a visit to Japan in August 1950, Prime Minister Robert Menzies presented the Gloucester Cup to No. 77 Squadron as the RAAF’s most proficient unit of the past year. That month, the squadron claimed thirty-five tanks, 212 other vehicles, eighteen railway engines or cars, and thirteen fuel or ammunition dumps destroyed.

On 3 September 1950, Sergeant Bill Harrop was forced down behind enemy lines and executed by the North Koreans. Six days later, Spence was killed when his Mustang failed to pull out of a dive during a napalm attack on Angang-ni. His death was a serious blow to the squadron, and the RAAF despatched Cresswell on his third tour as commanding officer to replace him. Cresswell arrived at Iwakuni on 17 September and set about restoring morale, undertaking four sorties on his first day of operations three days later. MacArthur had meanwhile launched an amphibious landing behind North Korean lines at Inchon on 15 September, forcing the communists to retreat from the Pusan Perimeter. No. 77 Squadron was transferred from Iwakuni to Pohang, South Korea, on 12 October, to support UN forces advancing northwards. On 20 October, the squadron became a component of the RAAF’s newly established No. 91 (Composite) Wing, which also included No. 391 (Base) Squadron, No. 491 (Maintenance) Squadron, and No. 30 Communications Flight, formerly the No. 77 Squadron Communications Flight. The wing and all units except No. 77 Squadron, which came under the operational control of the US 35th Fighter-Interceptor Group, were headquartered at Iwakuni.

Kunsan, South Korea. 1954-06-23. Pilots of No. 77 Squadron RAAF left to right, Roy (Nugget) Hibben, John Arthurson, and Keith Cottee after an operation in their Meteor MK8 jet fighter aircraft. Meteor A77-867 is at left rear and the tail of A77-368 is in the foreground. The latter aircraft is preserved and displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

China entered the war in mid-October 1950, attacking advancing UN troops as they closed in on the Yalu River. No. 77 Squadron undertook its first sorties against Chinese ground forces on 1 November. The squadron flew its first missions supporting the Australian Army on 5 November, when it attacked Chinese troops opposing the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, at Pakchon. No. 77 Squadron personnel were housed in tents in freezing conditions at Pohung; two pilots died from burns after a fire in their quarters on 14 November. Two days later the Australians began moving forward with the 35th Group to Yonpo Airfield, near Hamhung. North Korea’s counter-attack, supported by Chinese forces, led to the squadron being withdrawn to Pusan on 3 December 1950. The communists operated a Russian-designed swept-wing jet fighter, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, that was far superior to all other fighters in the theatre except the new North American F-86 Sabre. Although the MiGs carried Chinese or North Korean markings, they were frequently operated by seasoned Russian air force pilots, whose deployment was unofficial, as the Soviet Union was not a combatant in the Korean War.

The RAAF attempted to procure Sabres to replace No. 77 Squadron’s Mustangs, but the priority being given to re-equipping the USAF meant that deliveries would not be possible until 1954. The Australian government agreed to purchase GlosterGloster Aircraft Company: A pioneering British aerospace manufacturer, most famous for designing and producing the Allied forces' first operational je... More Meteor straight-wing jet fighters from Britain as the only viable alternative; the initial order included thirty-six single-seat Mk.8 interceptors and four two-seat Mk.7 trainers. No. 77 Squadron completed its last Mustang mission on 6 April 1951 and returned to Iwakuni the next day to begin converting to Meteors. It subsequently transferred to Kimpo, South Korea, and commenced operations with its new aircraft on 29 July.The squadron deployed twenty-two Meteors at Kimpo, and came under the control of the USAF’s 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing. Although it had operated effectively as a ground-attack unit with its Mustangs, No. 77 Squadron’s primary role in the RAAF was interception, and it was expected that with the Meteor it could again focus on fighter duties, particularly as by this stage the USAF had only two squadrons of Sabres in the theatre.

KIMPO, SOUTH KOREA. 1952. SERGEANT KEN TOWNER OF NO. 77 SQUADRON RAAF CLIMBING INTO HIS METEOR AIRCRAFT FOR AN OPERATIONAL MISSION OVER NORTH KOREA.

Wing Commander Gordon Steege succeeded Cresswell on 16 August 1951, by which time No. 77 Squadron’s Meteors had conducted offensive sweeps up the Yalu River with USAF Sabres, and escorted BoeingThe Boeing Company: A global aerospace leader and one of the world’s largest defense contractors, specializing in the design and manufacture of milita... More B-29 Superfortresses on bombing missions. MiG-15s had appeared on several occasions without engaging the Meteors; it was speculated at the time, and subsequently confirmed, that they had been observing the performance of the newly arrived RAAF jets. No. 77 Squadron’s first Meteor fatalities occurred on 22 August, when two aircraft collided in mid-air as they returned to Kimpo after a sweep. The Meteors first engaged MiG-15s on 25 August, but scored no hits. Four days later, eight Meteors and sixteen Sabres fought twelve MiGs; one RAAF pilot ejected when his aircraft was shot down, and a second Meteor was badly damaged. One week later another Meteor suffered severe damage in a dogfight with MiGs. As a result of these clashes, Steege became convinced that the Meteor was outclassed as a fighter. Following discussions with the Fifth Air Force, he decided to take No. 77 Squadron out of its air-to-air combat role and curtail its operations in “MiG Alley”, the area between the Yalu and Chongchon Rivers on North Korea’s border with Manchuria. This caused controversy among those who believed that proper tactics exploiting the Meteor’s manoeuvrability and heavy armament would have allowed it to remain competitive as a fighter; for the Australian pilots the change of role amounted to a loss of prestige. The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal George Jones, backed the decision, which relegated the squadron mainly to escort duty and local air defence. Morale suffered and it was not until Wing Commander Ron Susans succeeded Steege on 26 December 1951 that the Meteors were once more assigned an offensive role, namely ground attack.

In the intervening period, Flight Lieutenant “Smoky” Dawson registered No. 77 Squadron’s first jet combat claim when he damaged a MiG during an escort mission near Anju, North Korea, on 26 September 1951. On 27 October, Flying Officer Les Reading was credited with damaging another MiG while covering B-29s over Sinanju; it was subsequently confirmed as having been destroyed, making it the squadron’s first MiG “kill”. The squadron was awarded the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation for “exceptionally meritorious service & heroism” on 1 November. On 1 December 1951, over Sunchon, at least twenty Soviet-piloted MiGs from the 176th Guards Fighter Air Regiment (176 GvIAP) attacked a formation of fourteen Meteors. Both sides apparently overestimated the scale of the battle and the damage inflicted to their opponents: three Meteors—one flown by Pilot Officer Vance Drummond—were lost, but Soviet pilots claimed nine destroyed; Australian pilots claimed one MiG shot down and another damaged, from a formation of at least forty, though Russian sources suggest that all the MiGs returned to base and less than twenty-five were available to 176 GvIAP at the time.

KIMPO, SOUTH KOREA. 1953. A LINE OF GLOSTERGloster Aircraft Company: A pioneering British aerospace manufacturer, most famous for designing and producing the Allied forces' first operational je... More METEOR MK 8 AIRCRAFT OF NO. 77 SQUADRON RAAF ARMED WITH ROCKETS READY FOR A STRIKE.

On 8 January 1952, Susans led the squadron on its first ground-attack mission in Meteors, which were armed with eight rockets under the wings as well as their four internal 20 mm cannon, at Chongdan. They continued to operate mainly in the ground-attack role until the end of the war, but registered two more victories over MiGs near Pyongyang on 4 and 8 May 1952. The squadron took part in a mass air strike on 29 August, when 420 UN aircraft attacked Pyongyang. One Meteor was shot down and another damaged by MiGs following a ground-attack mission on 2 October 1952. The squadron played a leading role in the destruction of a large North Korean convoy on 16 March 1953: two Meteors discovered a line of some 140 vehicles in a mountain pass south of Wonsan, halted it by destroying trucks at the front and rear of the convoy, and then called in further support from Kimpo and the USAF. The Australian aircraft eventually claimed twenty-four trucks out of a total of ninety vehicles destroyed or damaged by UN forces. No. 77 Squadron was credited with downing its last MiG southeast of Pyongyang on 27 March. Squadron Leader Len McGlinchey became its final wartime fatality when his Meteor crashed while taking off from Kimpo on 16 July.

Following the Korean Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953, the squadron remained in South Korea on garrison duties—initially at Kimpo, later at Kunsan—until transferring to Iwakuni on 12 October 1954. It departed for Australia on 19 November and arrived in Sydney on 3 December, having been based overseas for eleven years, a record for an RAAF unit. Its performance in the early days of the war has been cited as a factor in the United States’ decision to ratify the ANZUS treaty in September 1951. The squadron’s casualty rate in Korea was twenty-five percent killed or captured. Forty-one pilots died, thirty-five from the RAAF and six on exchange from the Royal Air Force. A further seven pilots became prisoners of war. Aircraft losses totalled almost sixty, including over forty Meteors, mostly to ground fire. The squadron flew 18,872 sorties: 3,872 in Mustangs and 15,000 in Meteors. It was credited with shooting down five MiG-15s and destroying 3,700 buildings, 1,408 vehicles, ninety-eight railway engines and carriages, and sixteen bridges.