Officers in Flight Suits: The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots in the Korean War

by John Darrell Sherwood

Book Overview

Sherwood recounts the story of American Air Force pilots in the Korean War and the development of a lasting fighter-pilot culture

The United States Air Force fought as a truly independent service for the first time during the Korean War. Ruling the skies in many celebrated aerial battles, even against the advanced Soviet MiG-15, American fighter pilots reigned supreme. Yet they also destroyed virtually every major town and city in...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814780385
• ISBN13: 9780814780381
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A great read!

My Son In Law is in The Air Force Reserve and recommended it, and I really enjoyed this book. Too bad it did not have a hundred more pages.

Officers in Flight Suits: Excellent Reading

Many authors, such as Robert Futrell and Larry Davis, have written very thorough histories of the air war in Korea, with great detail of dates, missions flown, technical date, etc.,but this is the first book on social and cultural histories of that subject. Unlike World War II, the exploits of fighter pilots in Korea overshadowed the bombing campaigns. This book is an extensive examination of the "flight suit attitude," a combination of cockiness and pride, that has always characterized the fighter pilot. "Officers in Flight Suits" details these pilot`s social background, aviation training, combat effectiveness, and off-duty activities, focusing on eleven living participants (such as Robinson Risner)after Sherwood interviewed approximately fifty flight suit officers. The air war in Korea is best remembered for its legendary air battles between the American F-86 Sabre and the Russian built MiG-15, which Sherwood emphasizes, but he also covers the fighter-bomber pilots involved in air interdiction. I have visited by phone with Mr. Sherwood several times and he is exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful with my hobby of giving programs on the Korean Airwar. This is a great book! If you have an interest in the Korean War and haven`t read this book, buy it now!

Very enlightening, and brought back SAD moments of REALITYS.

Personal thoughts while reading "The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots",Usually after the Flyboys, We found dead civilians & burnout villages, the CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) would be in conceal bunker,, waiting for us.For the first two years after my return to the states, about every night I would relive some horrible frontline experience in a nightmare. One night, I saw people dressed in white coming out of a cave. They were covered with blood. Some carried what must have been little babies. Then there was the little girl sitting by the side of a road eating grasshoppers that she roasted in a tin can over a fire that had once been her home. There were dead, burned, and decapitated bodies all around her. They were everywhere. I glimpsed in the direction of some of my squad members. They appeared to be indifferent like they saw but didn't see. Occasionally a sniper would aim a shot in our direction, or there would be a long burst from a concealed machine gun somewhere near, at which time we would dive for cover among the dead bodies and commence firing in the direction we suspected the enemy gunner to be concealed. Looking back in the direction that the little girl had been, I saw that she was still sitting there eating the grasshoppers, seemingly undisturbed. There were other small children about, crying as they crawled over dead bodies, searching for their mothers or family members..Then would come the command "Ok Let's go, soldier, let's go!² and I would run to catch up with my squad that was following behind the tanks.. Yes, Wars is Hell & very crude. But if it wasn't for our Air Force many of us Infantry & ground forces wouldn't be alive..(One of those forgotten warriors, of a forgotten wars) Now,a Pacifist

To Fly and Fight--USAF Fighter Pilots in the Korean War

When the Korean War began in the summer of 1950, the United States Air Force was the youngest branch of the American military, having been created as a service coequal to the Army and Navy less than three years earlier. Although the operational history of the USAF and the experience of many of its officers stretched back into the time when it was a branch of the Army known as the United States Army Air Force, the USAF hadn't yet made its mark as a separate service. The Korean War came at a propitious time, giving the USAF a vehicle in which to shape itself as an institution. The fighter pilots who fought in the Korean War would become the leaders of the new Air Force. Their attitudes toward flying and toward the military in general would come to shape Air Force thinking over the next several decades. In this book John Sherwood has provided the reader with a close look at the pilots who flew fighters during the Korean War--pilots who, by their skills and attitudes, would establish a style for those who followed. This style is defined by the author as "flight suit attitude." He writes: Flight suit attitude ... was a sense of self-confidence and pride that verged on arrogance ... the aircraft of preference was the high-performance, single-seat fighter ... This culture placed a premium on cockiness and informality. A flight suit officer spent more time in a flight suit than in a uniform. In his world, status was based upon flying ability, not degrees, rank, or "officer" skills (p. 6). Where did this flight suit attitude develop? The author begins by examining the backgrounds of Air Force fighter pilots in this fledgling branch of the United States' military services. In a chapter entitled "An Absence of Ring-Knockers" he looks to a lower percentage of college-educated officers in the Air Force than in the Army or Navy, and particularly to the absence of academy graduates, as a contributing factor to a flight suit attitude. Success in this early Air Force was not based on a fraternity of academy graduates, indoctrinated in a set of shared military values; success was based, rather, on the ability to fly well and on the opportunity to participate in combat in Korea. The author presses home his point by looking at the backgrounds of eleven pilots who flew in Korea, perhaps the best known of whom are Robinson Risner and Earl Brown. Only one pilot whose experiences are described in this book came into the Air Force from West Point; many came from relatively humble backgrounds. Their reminiscences of life in training and combat are spread throughout the book, giving it a personal, anecdotal character. Pilot training is another factor that the author considers. In a chapter entitled "Stick and Rudder University," Sherwood examines the training given to Air Force pilots in the late 1940s and early 1950s and its contributions to the flight suit attitude. He notes that the majority of Air Force officers during the Korean War we