S.Korea, a book, and war history.

[toad]

Well the last two kids that I was sponsoring in the S. Korean orphanages have graduated from highschool, gotten jobs, and have left the program. It got me to thinking about the Korean War, the Vets that I worked with, and family members who were in it.
I also started thinking about a book called "Battle Hymn" by Dean Hess. They made a movie out of it but left out some some stuff and cast Rock Hudson as the star.....Urp. Anyway the book covers stuff that has been overlooked and forgoten by a lot of people. I remember in the Movie they showed some refugees who had gotten too close to a communist invasion force getting hosed by a P51. You just see some splashes in the water and men, women, and children falling down.
Those of you who are familiar or have at least read a bit about the terminal effects of the .50 Browning round would realized how much of a fanasy that is. People would have disintigrated into bloody hambuger and guts. Col. Hess was supposed to be training up and starting the S.Korean airforce. He had a mixed bag of people to work with, Koreans with no experience, some who had flown light aircraft, and others who had flown a Mitsubishi product known as the "Zero". One of the former Zero pilots during a mission forgot he wasn't flying a Zero with its light wing loading and pulled a manuver in the Mustang that sent him into the ground.
My relative flew F-86 Sabres and didn't get too detailed a view of straffing runs and was mostly concerned with keeping the Russians in the Migs off our ground support aircraft. Still he heard things, saw after action reports and photographs and talked with the guys who were doing ground attack.

[Denis]

Well the last two kids that I was sponsoring in the S. Korean orphanages have graduated from highschool, gotten jobs, and have left the program.

Good on you for helping them.