INTERVIEW WITH GEOFFREY LUSHY – MAY 2004
Geofrey Lushy – an Australian airman
which fought in Korea against so-called “communist” armies. His personal
experience is closely related to the history of encounters with MIG-15s flown by the Soviet, Chinese and North Korean
fighter pilots…
Please, tell a bit about yourself: when
and where you were born, how you became an airman?
I
was born in Perth in Subiaco. I was educated in a state school situation until
junior high school and I then had two years in Scotch College in Swanbourne and
I got to junior level which is about two years before University entrance. I
didn’t go on with further education, did several jobs one of which was with an
insurance company and I became a cadet draftsman in the Lands and Surveys
Department. I was there till 1950 and then the Korean War started and I decided
being a survey draftsman wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t see myself making a
career of it. So I went around one morning to Air Force recruiting office and
asked if they were recruiting pilots. They were doing it, they said “yes” and I
was given a form and took it home, asked my parents to sign it. That would be
July 1950. I was accepted as a trainee pilot in the Royal AAF and then had my
air force training in Point Cook in Victoria in September 1950. It was supposed
to run for 18 months and you did the first four months in ground subjects only.
How to march, slope arms, play around with the rifle. I came home for
Christmas, that was about 2 weeks and went back to Point-Cook and resumed
training straight away. Training was initially on “Tigermoths” which you’re
probably very familiar with. There were about 56 trainees on the course and
your first 10 hours was used to assess your possibility of making it through as
a pilot. They used to call it flight grading. After the first 10 hours they
selected the pilots and I think there were about 30 or 40 of us selected for
pilot training. The others were sent to East Sale to train as navigators and I
was fortunate enough to be selected in those who continued through to pilot
training. We used to have lectures in the morning and flying in the afternoon
for one week then we reversed it.
This
was to give you the benefit of the better flying conditions in the morning and
just to mix it up a bit. So, one flight was not getting all the early morning
starts and that worked out very well. The Korean War had become very intense.
The casualties in the RAAF were such that the Air Force decided to cut three months
of our course. So instead of getting our wings in March 1952 we finished in
December 1951. We were reduced in number to about 19. 4 of them were Navy
pilots and two of them were Air Force officers who were going back to their
engineering mustering, why they were doing flying I don’t know, because I don’t
think any of them continued with flying to my knowledge. Of the 13 pilots that
graduated about I suppose 8 were selected to train as fighter-pilots. The rest
went onto transports - on the DC-3 transports. I was amongst the first group to
go to RAAF station Williamstown to do a jet conversion. In January 1952 I flew
approximately 25 hours on Mustangs and then we did a conversion to Vampires and
did about 50 hours flying on those. That was like formation flying and
air-to-ground work mainly with 20-mm cannon and a lot of general flying just to
get you used to flying with jets. When it was over, five of us finished the
course. We lost one off the course through a flying accident and we went up to
Japan and started our conversion at a station called Iwakuni in Japan where we
did a conversion onto Meteors – another British two-engine fighter. The
procedure there was…– I did about two sorties which is about 5, no – 3.5 hours
with an instructor-pilot: two sessions and then we were allowed to fly the
Meteor-VIII which is a single-seater plane. For this conversion you only got
about 10 hours. There again it was practicing rocketing fire and air-to-ground
fire and a fair bit of formation flying. We would go off in two pairs and
practice air-to-air and our main role would be ground attack. It was quickly
proved that the Meteor-VIII was no match for the MIG. We lost three guys in one
day.
VK: 1st of December 1951. The
Aussies were ambushed – their 3d position at the time had been calculated by
the Soviet Fighter Corps command.
Yes…
As a result of that the next day they took us off the interception duties and
then we were mainly on the ground attack. We used to do the main supply rout to
discourage transport of supplies down to the front line and we did a couple of
escorts. They were very rare.
Did you go to Korea voluntarily?
Most
definitely – yes. I’d not thought of flying as a career before the Korean War
broke out. That was my motivation in joining the Air Force – I considered
myself very lucky first to be selected as trainee air crew and then even more
pleased to become a trainee pilot, and then to be amongst the first group to go
to the Operational Training Unit at Williamstown for fighter conversion. That
was all pretty exciting stuff, so I had no compunctions about a posting to
Korea.
Did you have any ideological motivation
to fight against Communists?
No,
I didn’t. I don’t think it came into it that much. We had our own soldiers in
the UN forces to do what we could to protect them and stop supplies coming
down. So it wasn’t to fight Communists as such – it didn’t matter what they
were – it was them against us. My motivation was - you had a job to do and it
wouldn’t have mattered much what nationality they were…
What was your main duty in Korea?
Our
barrel role in Korea was mainly ground attack. The Meteor was quite a good
aircraft in that role, had four 20-mm cannons in the nose and could carry 8
rockets. Later on they put two other tandem rails so we could carry 16 rockets.
I think they would be very much overloaded, the aircraft itself was extremely
stable. When you rolled into an attack and speed built up the airplane would go
where you pointed it, and you could use your weapons with considerable accuracy.
The Vampire jet was very unstable, didn’t have enough keel surface. If its
speed built up it would start this swishing, you know, fishtailing. But,
anyway, we didn’t have to fly them in combat. That wasn’t a problem but during
our conversions it was very hard to get a high score with the air-to-ground
work on the Vampire but you could do it with the Meteor. It also had the
advantage of two engines – I didn’t think it was an advantage at first but I
grew to like the airplane very much – it was quite a nice airplane to fly.
There were no vices in it except if you left your recovery from a dive it was
inclined to mush (the plane keeps decending whilst its attitude is “nose up”),
particularly if you were too heavy when you pulled the stick back. She’d change
attitude but it would just squash. So you had to be that little bit mindful as
to when you were going to terminate attack.
Did you encounter “communist” aircraft
in Korea?
I
only saw them very early in the piece from a distance – I was in a section of 4
aircraft and the four of us were Sergeant-Pilots and we encountered 4 MIG-15s.
And you could see then the complete contrails. We were at 20 000 feet, they
might have been at 35 000. When the contrails cut out we knew that we’d been
spotted and the MIGs would be coming down which they did. As I said it was very
early in my experience up there. When you’re flying in formation you’re
concentrating on the leader. So, I thought: Well, I’d better get myself
orientated so that if I did get shot down I could make to the Chinampo estuary. But anyway the leader of the section
was just about at the end of his tour – he’d done over 200 missions – he was a
very capable fellow. When the MIGs came down at us we just turned into them and
they broke the attack and repositioned so every time they positioned to make an
attack we turned into them. For some reason or other they didn’t come down, we
didn’t go up because it was to our disadvantage… So, anyway that was the only
encounter…
The
only other time I saw the MIGs was coming back from up North along the West
coast and came across two MIGs surveying the Inchon Harbor. So the 16 of us
instead of turning down the Han River headed over Inchon, saw the two MIGs and
they were below us going very fast. I advised this to our leader and I just got
no reply… I called them again and thought: surely we are going to have a go. My
first reaction was – I’ve got it wrong and they were not MIGs, the leader was
in a better position to see. Anyway when they went underneath us very-very fast
and climbing they were MIGs – but we’d left it too late to do anything, not
that you could because head-on attacks are rarely going to come off. Presumably
they were on a reconnaissance mission and they were not interested in a dog
fight. Anyway it was the closest I got to them. Couple of my friends got to
encounter them but it was sort of a rarity, really. They never came down to
where we were skirmishing…
VK: They were rather Chinese or N.
Koreans – it was too far south…
Yes,
far from the MIG Alley… The Americans used to do all the patrols south of Yalu,
but occasionally they ventured down if they saw the opportunity they’d have a
go. On two occasions they had a go, actually two of the fellows I went up there
with – they got one each. They were lucky…
VK: But none of the MIGs was shot down
by the Meteors…
They
shot down twoMIGs!
VK: No, statistically it never happened.
Pilot
officer Surmon got one and then Simmons got the other.
VK: I think it was mentioned in the
books but in reality they only damaged the MIGs. Those were more likely Chinese
or North Korean pilots...
Yes,
they must have been Chinese… Simmons got what they called a “jackpot” – the
American pilots used to call them that – they were very inexperienced pilots.
If you got to close to them with a tracer they would throw the airplane away
and Simmons, his MIG just pulled straight up and pilot bailed out. Surmon was
credited with one destroyed. They both claimed one each and they were given
credit for it. Anyway, we couldn’t get up and it would be foolish to do it as
Meteors couldn’t handle high altitudes…
Did you know that the main opponent of
the UN Air Force in Korea was the Soviet Air Force and the vast majority of the
lost USAF and RAAF planes were downed by the Soviet airmen?
We
knew that there were more Russian pilots. We arrived in Korea in April 1952 we
got up there and finished our tours in October. We assumed that the majority of
the MIG pilots towards the end would be Chinese or North Korean but that
probably was not right.
What can you say about the battle
qualities of your opponents in Korea?
We
used to have a fair bit to do with the Americans and they’d be talking about it
and they reckoned you could tell because between the Russian pilot and Chinese
pilot the skill levels were so noticeable… The Yanks were saying that their
opponents were most formidable.
VK: They called the most skillful
opponents “honcho” – boss in Japanese…
Yes,
I remember this word (Geoffrey laughs –
VK)…
I
never got into situation of air-to-air combat which is probably fortunate. On
one occasion we had an American in our mess talking about how he’d shot his
engine down, he‘d followed this fellow down and he said the engine was out… He
(the MIG pilot – VK) spiraled down
and when he got enough speed he pulled up and had
another go at the Sabre. He missed and the American continued to follow the
shot up MIG all the way down until the MIG pilot ejected. But they never talked
much about tactics, they were all pretty gung-ho. They had a nice airplane, it
brought them considerable respect. There were of course lighter moments in the
mess where they’d talk about somebody claiming a “jack-pot” – which obviously
had not been just blown out of the sky – but just threw the airplane, because
he’d been frightened or damaged – you don’t know how experienced these fellows
were. You would assume they didn’t have a great deal of experience. They were,
I think, Chinese…
VK: There were some experienced pilots –
formerly of the Nationalist China Air Force incorporated into the Red China Air
Force… But most of the lost UN aircraft were shot down by the Soviet pilots.
The score was approximately equal with 260-280 jets on each side. I wouldn’t
credit the Chinese or North Koreans with many Sabres or other jets shot down.
Which day of the war (your tour of duty)
do you remember most of all?
I
remember the first rocket attack – I was flying as a wingman with a very
experienced pilot. It was at the end of his second tour, he’d had over 300 missions
behind him. Wally Rivers… And this was very early in the piece with rockets and
everything – about a week after I got there. We were just positioning to make
our attack. We attracted quite a bit of ground fire. Several antiaircraft
shells burst around us. And I don’t know why but I thought we’ll go and find
another target. Why would you think that?! Anyway, the next thing we were on
our way down, Wally Rivers got hit in the ventral tank – not the best place to
be hit. He said he’d been hit – could I confirm – and I confirmed it. So he
dropped his tank and we went home.
I
don’t remember much about the last trip because we were programmed for another
two days flight. A colleague who I went up with came into our tent and said we
are going home. I said: No, we are not - we’ve got another two days. I didn’t
know it was my last trip at the time.
I
think on one occasion I was subject to fairly heavy flak. I don’t recall any
damage but at the time it was quite scary. I was pretty lucky I never received
any serious damage.
…And
I was flying with one of the fellows I went to Korea with. We shared the same
tent. He failed to recover from a dive on a target. That was John Surmon.
VK: Obviously, a ground attack pilot has
no time to bail out…
Exactly…
I remember days when other fellows were lost. Eventually you learn to get over
it, especially when you are only 22 years old.
Please tell what you would like to tell
about the war in Korea.
From
a pilot’s point of view and I think it’s a point of view we would all express,
it was a great experience. We had a reasonable sort of airplane to fly.
Generally speaking we were pretty inexperienced. But it was a very exciting
time. To me it was a great experience but it’s very hard to say that you
thoroughly enjoyed it because that’s not the way you should look at wars when
you realize the amount of damage and life that was lost…