F-51 Mustangs Over Korea - USAF and South African Air Force

Here's some great U.S. Air Force film from the Korean War, depicting piston-engine Mustangs in service.

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang fighter of World War II was a winner. It boasted 400-mile-an-hour-plus speeds, great range, and the ability to carry various ordnance under its wings.
In 1950, and by now redesignated the F-51, Mustangs were available when urgently needed to combat North Korean aggression. The Air Force had an abundance of many warplanes with the end of World War II. The decision was made to keep some Mustangs in service while drawing down other fighters like the P-38 and P-47 in the postwar world.

For Korea, Mustangs were less likely to be air-to-air combatants in a world quickly dominated by jets. And efforts to use F-51s on night interdiction sorties proved less than desirable as the muzzle flash from six wing-mounted .50-caliber machine guns was temporarily blinding to pilots.

Because the Air Force used bases in Japan early in the Korean War for some fighters, the long range of Mustangs was attractive when the war started. When American and Allied forces moved onto the Korean peninsula, Mustangs moved with them.

Ground attack was the forte of F-51s over Korea. They wielded some bombs, napalm, and five-inch air-to-ground rockets as well as those devastating .50-caliber wing guns. The Air Force acknowledged the vulnerability of the liquid-cooled Merlin engines to groundfire, but still that service's Mustangs delivered ordnance on targets from 1950 at least to the end of 1952, and did it well. Other allied nations flew their Mustangs over Korea, ranging from the South Korean Air Force to Australia and South Africa.

Some of the F-51s in this film carry markings of the South African Air Force. They flew as Number 2 Squadron assigned to the U.S. Air Force's 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Korea. It is said the South Africans lost 74 Mustangs during the war, to enemy action and mishaps. (The South Africa Squadron is incorrectly identified in the voiceover on the video; but we were able to change this text to reflect the correct No. 2 Squadron.)

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