Military History 15: Namsan-ni Chemical Plant

 

I had the reputation of doing the least amount of work on a flight but that I always knew where the plane was. I wasn't lazy I just did a good job. We were assigned X number of [25] missions to fly and the tour was over. We flew that last mission and were met upon our return with the news that we had one more flight to make. There was a feeling of mutiny that passed over the crew. But we settled down and flew the mission.

 

On September 30, 1952, B-29 Superfortresses destroyed the last strategic bombing target of the Korean War. Overnight from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, forty-eight B-29s from three units (19th BG, 98th BW, and 307th BW) destroyed the Namsan-ni chemical plant located 1,300 feet from the Yalu River and near the Sui-ho dam. During the bombing, five B-29s served as electronic countermeasures flak suppression aircraft, and seven B-26 Invaders swept in at low altitudes to suppress eight of some 40 searchlights.

 

 Dean Allan: The 25th mission, supposedly our last mission, was a night training mission at 16,000 feet, call sign "Sickbay 53." We flew this mission on September 23.

We quickly found that we had to fly one more mission. A maximum effort by the two wings from Okinawa and our 98th Bomb Wing. September 30 we flew our 26th mission against the "Namsi Chemical Plant" just five miles from Antung, China, across the Yalu River. There were 245 MiG 15s and 50 piston-type aircraft based there. Our call sign was "Suspicion 25." Our crew Police Action, was the only airplane to get good strike photos and our 500-pounders went right through the middle of the plant for a perfect drop, again by our Radar Operator, Lieutenant Robb. We had a lot of flak and spotlights, but our E.C.M. operator kept them off of us. The MiGs were up looking for us, but fortunately they didn't get to our airplane. We always dropped three magnesium bombs to give us pictures of the bomb strike. It was concluded by the Wing Intelligence people after seeing our strike photos that our bomb strike completely destroyed the target and the other 97 B-29s would not have been needed. Our Wing Commander recommended the "Distinguished Flying Cross" for our crew because of the excellent strike. Unfortunately, the colonel left our wing for another assignment and the medal was never given to our crew.

 

 

 Namsan-ni Chemical Plant

 

 

 

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15

The Soviet Union developed the MiG-15 following World War II and the fighter entered service in 1949. By 1952 the Soviets provided the MiG-15 to a number of communist satellite nations, including North Korea. The MiG-15 operated extensively against United Nations forces.

 

 

 When the Korean War ended, the B-29s had flown over 21,000 sorties, nearly 167,000 tons of bombs had been dropped, and 34 B-29s had been lost in combat (16 to fighters, four to flak, and fourteen to other causes). B-29 gunners had accounted for 34 Communist fighters (16 of these being MiG-15s) probably destroyed another 17 (all MiG-15s) and damaged 11 (all MiG-15s).