At the dawn of the Cold War, U.S. forces faced a new type of global warfare while engaged conventionally in Korea. Resources were limited, commitments growing, and strategic attack was on the rise as the cornerstone of U.S. security strategy. These competing issues contributed to a doctrinal failure of CAS during the Korean War. By studying the environment in which the armed forces found themselves in June 1950, one can better understand the nature of this failure.
Looking at the global situation some 50 years ago, one can appreciate the emphasis on strategic attack. The West had just survived the first Berlin crisis largely through the efforts of air power—notably the Berlin Airlift—but communism was on the offensive and gaining ground. In 1949, China fell to Mao and the Soviet Union conducted its atom bomb test. The great fear in the West was that free nations bordering communist states would "fall like dominoes." When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, it looked like the next step in the communist plot to take over the world. No one dared pull away combat forces tasked to defend Europe to send to the Far East. The Air Force nuclear bombed force and its strategic attack mission were seen as the most credible deterrent to Soviet designs.
The only Air Force unit positioned to fight in Korea was the Far East Air Force (FEAF). FEAF "responded quickly and heroically" but faced several shortcomings:
- It was "built around air defense and light bomber squadrons" to defend Japan against Soviet bombers and fighters.
- Many of its 1,200 aircraft—World War II-vintage F-51 Mustang fighters, B-26 light bombers, F-82 Twin Mustang night fighters, and F-80C Shooting Star jet fighters’—were not operational.
- Like most U.S. units in the Far East, it was largely unprepared for the type of fighting it would do in Korea.
The post-World War II armed forces had been gutted by cutbacks, and the difficulty was to match limited resources against the most likely threat—in essence, to predict the next war. Then as now, the services aligned their resources along doctrinal lines. The Air Force, for example, was the nation’s striking force against global communism, with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) as its nuclear fist. Its primary mission of strategic attack required it to go deep in the heartland of an aggressor to strike his centers of gravity. Its primary instrument to do that was the B-36 Peacemaker.
Because FEAF was ill equipped for the Korean War, its commander, General George E. Stratemeyer, repeatedly requested aerial reinforcements, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff generally refused, as “Korea was always considered a secondary theater.” Nonetheless, a few token reinforcements were sent, including some obsolescent, conventionally armed B-29 bombers from SAC.
These Okinawa-based B-29s came under FEAF command. Most airmen believed they were adequate for Korean operations and could accomplish interdiction. SAC’s commander, General Curtis LeMay, however, believed the B-29s were best used as conventional strategic attack aircraft, and he later would conclude that had they been used that way early in the Korean War, it would have ended in 1950.
LeMay’s view is arguable, but what is not debatable and in fact more pertinent is that in June 1950 no joint doctrine for close air support existed. There was no joint definition or even agreement on what CAS was or where it took place. Not surprisingly, there were problems. The official Navy view describes the situation:
The term “close air support” as used by the Air Force generally applies to a type of operations considered by the Marines and Navy to be “deep support.” The operations considered by the Marines and Navy to be “close support” [are] generally not engaged in by the Air Force. Broadly speaking, the two sides of this controversy believe that each is providing close air support, neither understanding the term as used by the other.
The “implications of these differences, whether semantic or doctrinal, were profound. But even without a Navy or Marine interface problem, the Air Force experienced considerable difficulties in working with Army ground forces.” Although a joint operations center (JOC) was formed in Korea to help coordinate air and ground operations, poor communication, lack of joint doctrine for control of air operations, and the physical separation of units delayed its effectiveness.
The Army and the Army Air Forces had prepared a doctrinal CAS manual at the end of World War II, but a joint Air Force-Army directive for air-ground operations was not issued until 1 September 1950, more than two months after the war erupted. And because Army doctrine favored artillery support within the first 1,000 yards of the front, the Air Force left out that part of CAS from its doctrine. Thus, during the initial stages of the Korean War, when ground units were woefully short of artillery, a serious disparity appeared in the general CAS plan. Fortunately, innovation by FEAF, along with outstanding CAS support from Navy-Marine Corps aviation (whose CAS doctrine planned for, trained, and equipped units to fight in an environment of little or no artillery support) helped to fill that gap.
Although the joint doctrinal issues eventually were worked out, one wonders what the impact would have been had DoD developed a joint CAS doctrine prior to June 1950, if the services had trained together in peacetime, planned and coordinated CAS missions in an experienced JOC, and spoken a common CAS language. At a minimum, it is probable that U.S. forces would not have been plagued with basic issues such as conflicting terminology and doctrine.
Major Dusch is an assistant professor of military strategic studies at the Air Force Academy and director of the Cadet Aerospace Strategy and Instructor School. He has flown some 2,100 hours in the F-15E and F-4, including more than 90 combat hours, has been an air liaison officer in the Republic of Korea with the Combined Field Army, and served as a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile crewmember.