Those Marines were the two squadrons of Corsairs comprising Marine Air Group (MAG) 33 that began operations against targets in Korea the first week of August 1950. VMF-214, the renowned “Black Sheep” Squadron, and VMF-323, the “Death Rattlers,” were based on the U.S. West Coast when the war began, but movement orders to Korea came in early July. MAG 33’s aircraft went to the escort carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE-116), which left San Diego on 14 July bound for Kobe, Japan. Another escort carrier, the Sicily (CVE-118), commanded by Captain Jimmy Thach of World War II fame, embarked an antisubmarine squadron and sailed for Guam. The Sicily was thereafter ordered to Yokosuka to await further instructions. These two ships formed Carrier Division 15, under the command of Rear Admiral Richard W. Ruble. Admiral Ruble flew to Tokyo in early July, temporarily becoming Commander, Naval Air Japan. On the 27th, the Sicily reached Yokosuka, followed four days later by the Badoeng Strait’s arrival at Kobe.
On the afternoon of 1 August, the Sicily put to sea for a rendezvous with escorting destroyers, having at that time no aircraft on board. That same day, the Badoeng Strait catapulted all her Marine Corsairs, which landed at Itami Air Force Base near Osaka. The Corsairs from the escort carriers were then set to participate in Korean operations. VMF-214 subsequently was ordered to join the Sicily while the carrier was at sea.2 On the afternoon of 3 August, VMF-214’s Corsairs landed on the Sicily but went back immediately to support ground units on the Pusan Perimeter. The first Marine air strike of the war was a rocket and bomb attack against Chinju.
As VMF-323’s pilots received several days’ refresher training at Itami, the Sicily sailed westward into the Yellow Sea, positioning for air strikes against targets in southwestern Korea. On 5 August, the Death Rattlers finally flew back to the Badoeng Strait, which launched close air support and combat air patrol sorties while operating in the Korea Strait on 6 August. The 1st Marine Provisional Brigade, which constituted the lead element of the 1st Marine Division, had arrived in Pusan Harbor on 2 August, immediately finding itself in the midst of an increasingly desperate situation on the ground. Because no serviceable airfields were within the ever-shrinking perimeter, the Marines would have to make do with their integral air support flying from escort carriers for the indefinite future. Fortunately, this was to prove a useful arrangement.
Admiral Ruble’s immediate superior was Commander Naval Forces Far East, Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy; the Sicily and the Badoeng Strait, as well as their escorts, were not under Seventh Fleet command. Two separately administered U.S. carrier task forces were therefore in operation off the Korean coast by early August (the other being Task Force 77, built around the fast carrier Valley Forge [CV-45]).
The first week of August marked an important push by the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) all along the front, with enemy units reaching the Naktong River line. By 5 August, the Sicily and the Badoeng Strait had established tactical communications with the Marine Brigade’s own air support controllers, and the vast majority of sorties flown over the next month by the two carrier-based Marine squadrons were in direct support of brigade operations.5 Task Force 77, meanwhile, operated largely under the direction of General Douglas MacArthur himself, responding to various emergencies along the perimeter.
In the first weeks of August, the Marine squadrons were engaged in supporting a Marine Brigade drive on the western end of the perimeter. The Corsairs were used to devastating effect against enemy troop concentrations at this time. The average Marine Corsair close air support mission consisted of eight strike aircraft, carrying a total of four 500-pound general purpose bombs, four napalm bombs, 64 rockets, and 6,400 rounds of 20- mm cannon ammunition.5 When the Sicily withdrew for replenishment on the 10th, VMF-323 pulled double- duty, flying 44 sorties that day alone. The following day, the Badoeng Strait’s Corsairs strafed and rocketed a large number of enemy trucks attempting to pull out of Kosong, which was seized by the brigade shortly thereafter. But the brigade then redeployed northward to counter a mounting enemy effort on the Naktong front west of Yongsan. The Marines succeeded in driving the NKPA back across the Naktong in heavy fighting during the third week of August. The Sicily’s 18 August action report notes that “the enemy was killed in such numbers that the river was definitely discolored by blood.”5
Late August was a time of relative quiet in Korea, as the NKPA licked its wounds in preparation for a renewed effort to wipe out the perimeter, and the buildup for the Inchon invasion proceeded. But the temporary lull ended abruptly on the night of 31 August, when the NKPA launched an all-out attack, with a heavy concentration of effort on the Naktong River front. The Marine squadrons were ashore temporarily in Japan at this time, and emergency orders were cut to employ them from Ashiya on missions over Korea until they could redeploy on board the Sicily and the Badoeng Strait. By 3 September, however, the approach of Typhoon Jane had grounded the Marine squadrons at Ashiya.6
Action resumed on the 5th, with the Badoeng Strait operating off the west coast of Korea and VMF-323 pounding targets between Kunsan and the parallel. The Sicily shortly rejoined her sister ship in launching strikes against west-central Korea.7 On the 10th, the Marine squadrons dumped 95,000 pounds of napalm on Wolmi Do before departing for replenishment. Subsequently, the Marine air effort was in direct support of the X Corps’ Inchon invasion.
Between early August and mid-September, the two Marine Corsair squadrons flew a combined total of 1,359 sorties in support of the Pusan Perimeter. Marine tactical control parties on the ground oversaw 80% of the strikes in support of Marine units.8 Brigadier General Edward A. Craig, the Marine brigade’s commander, later summed up the quality of MAG 33’s aerial effort:
“Close air support furnished by Marine airmen was a marvel to everybody concerned, including the Marines. We had never seen anything like it even in our practice.”9
Marc D. Bernstein
1. Quoted in “Out of Millions of Words, . . . Confusion, Doubt and Concern,” Air Force 34 (March 1951), p. 21, citing a newspaper columnist’s recording of ground troops’ feelings on 19 August 1950.
2. Lynn Montross and Capt. Nicholas A. Canzona, U.S. Marine Corps, The Pusan Perimeter: U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950-1953 (Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, G-3, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1954), p. 89.
3. James A. Field Jr., United States Naval Operations— Korea (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 130.
4. Commander, Carrier Division 15, “Chronological Narrative 1 July-15 November 1950,” in Commander- in-Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet, Korean War U.S. Pacific Fleet Operations, Interim Evaluation Report No. 1, Period 25 June to 15 November 1950, Vol. 3, 1950, Annex S, S3. (In Navy Department Operational Archives, Washington, D.C.).
5. See Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957; paperback, 2000), p. 65.
6. See Field, p. 165.
7. Ibid., p. 185.
8. See Cagle and Manson, p. 65, n.73.
9. Quoted in Gerald R. Pitzl, A History of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1987), p. 14; see also, Ernest H. Giusti, “Marine Air Over the Pusan Perimeter,” Marine Corps Gazette 36 (May 1952), p. 27.
