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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AN ABSORBING ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF A MiG-15 PILOT, June 12, 1999
By A Customer
ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1953, A YOUNG NORTH KOREAN MiG-15 PILOT, NO KUM-SOK, DEFECTED TO THE AMERICAN SOUTH KOREAN AIR BASE AT KIMPO, TURNING OVER RUSSIA`S TOP JET FIGHTER TO THE UNITED STATES, AND FULLFILLING SEVERAL YEARS OF PLANNING TO ESCAPE THE REPRESSION OF COMMUNISM. NO KUM-SOK WESTERNIZED HIS NAME TO KENNETH ROWE, AND IS NOW A PROFESSOR AT EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY IN DAYTON BEACH, FLORIDA. HIS LIFE STORY, "A MiG-15 TO FREEDOM," IS A FASCINATING AND RICHLY DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST AIR WAR PITTING JET AGAINST JET. THE KOREAN WAR ALSO FEATURED THE LAST AERIAL BATTLES AT RELATIVELY CLOSE QUARTERS USING GUNS, RATHER THAN THE RADAR GUIDED AIR-TO-AIR MISSLES THAT SOON FOLLOWED. ON ONE SIDE WAS THE AMERICAN MADE F-86 SABRE, AND ON THE OTHER, THE RUSSIAN BUILT MiG-15, EACH REPRESENTING THE LATEST AND BEST TECHNOLOGY OF THE TWO SUPER POWERS OF THE COLD WAR. AS J. ROGER OSTERHOLM POINTS OUT, LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT, OR PORTRAYED ON FILM, THE NORTH KOREAN AND SOVIET SIDE OF THE KOREAN WAR. THIS BOOK GIVES IMPRESSIVE INSIGHT INTO LIFE IN NORTH KOREA, ESPECIALLY IN THE COMMUNIST AIR FORCES, WITH EXTENSIVE DETAIL OF RUSSIA`S INVOLVEMENT IN KOREA, A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET AT THE TIME. STALIN SENT TWO DIVISIONS OF TOP SOVIET FIGHTER PILOTS TO MANCHURIA, FROM VARIOUS UNITS WITHIN THE SOVIET BLOC. IN LATE 1949, AND AGAIN IN EARLY 1950, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, DEAN ACHESON, PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED THE DEFENSIVE PERIMETER IN ASIA THAT THE UNITED STATES WOULD VIGOROUSLY DEFEND, BUT EXCLUDED SOUTH KOREA. THE U.S.S.R., CHINA, AND NORTH KOREAN LEADERS THEN BELIEVED THAT THEY COULD , BY FORCE, REUNITE THE TWO KOREAS UNDER THE COMMUNIST BANNER WITHOUT INTERVENTION BY THE UNITED STATES. THEY WERE WRONG. THE EVENTS THAT LEAD TO THIS BOOK BEING WRITTEN, PROBABLY WOULD HAVE NEVER OCCURRED WITHOUT THE EARLY PARENTAL INFLUENCE FAVORING AMERICA AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. NO KUM-SOK`S FATHER WAS NON-COMMUNIST AND A MEMBER OF A DEMOCRATIC PARTY. HIS MOTHER WAS A ROMAN CATHOLIC, WHO REGULARLY ATTENDED CHURCH SERVICES, IN THE DAYS BEFORE COMMUNISM AND KIM IL-SUNG. NO KUM-SOK`S LIFE LONG ASPIRATION WAS TO LIVE IN AMERICA SOMEDAY. MOST KOREAN WAR HISTORIANS DISCOUNT THESE FACTS, AND, IN FACT, SUGGEST THAT NO KUM-SOK`S DEFECTION WAS ONLY FOR THE $100,000 REWARD OFFERED SEVERAL MONTHS EARLIER (OPERATION MOOLAH) TO THE FIRST RED PILOT DELIVERING AN AIRWORTHY MiG-15 INTO ALLIED HANDS. AMERICAN B-29`S HAD DROPPED LEAFLETS OVER AIR BASES IN NORTH KOREA WITH THIS OFFER IN APRIL, 1953. NO KUM-SOK IS CERTAIN THAT NO MiG PILOT EVER SAW ONE OF THE LEAFLETS, OR EVEN HEARD OF THE OFFER. NO CHINESE OR RUSSIAN PILOTS WERE STATIONED IN NORTH KOREA AT THE TIME, AND HAD A NORTH KOREAN PILOT READ ONE OF THE LEAFLETS, THE MONEY OFFER WOULD HAVE MEANT LITTLE, NOR WOULD THEY HAD TRUSTED THEIR AUTHENTICITY. "A MiG-15 TO FREEDOM" EXPRESSES WITH STUNNING CLARITY, THE FEELINGS EXPERIENCED BY A YOUNG NORTH KOREAN JET PILOT, LIVING A COMMUNIST LIE, HAVING TO FACE SUPERIOR TRAINED AND EXPERIENCED AMERICAN F-86 PILOTS IN "MiG ALLEY." THE BOOK OFFERS MANY TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE AIRCRAFT INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE FOR AIR SUPERIORITY-THEIR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. HAVING A HOBBY OF GIVING PROGRAMS ON THE AIR WAR OVER KOREA TO CIVIC CLUBS AND SCHOOL HISTORY CLASSES, I TRAVELED TO FLORIDA IN DECEMBER OF 1997,WHERE I HAD LUNCH WITH, AND INTERVIEWED, MR. KENNETH ROWE (NO KUM-SOK), AND FOUND HIM TO BE A VERY JOVIAL, INTELLIGENT, AND ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL GENTLEMAN. I HAVE READ HIS BOOK TWICE, AND HAVE GIVEN IT AS GIFTS TO AMERICAN F-86 ACES OF THE KOREAN WAR. NO KUM-SOK`S STORY WOULD MAKE A TREMENDOUS MOVIE. "A MiG-15 TO FREEDOM" IS AN AWESOME BOOK! I LOVED IT!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Pour out and zero-in this vindictive ammunition to the damn Yankees!', July 20, 2008
"Pour out and zero-in this vindictive ammunition to the damn Yankees!" So reads an inscription in red Korean characters just below No Kum-Sok's gunsight in his swept-wing MiG-15bis fighter jet . That inscription may still to this day be seen by visitors to the US Air Force Museum, where his North Korean MiG (aircraft number 2057) has been on display for the past several decades. [A small photo of `Glorious Leader' Kim Il-Sung was originally displayed next to it on the instrument panel, as it was in all North Korean MiGs, but it was removed, thrown down, and stepped upon by No Kum-Sok as his first act upon arriving safely upon South Korean soil in 1953.]
No Kum-Sok changed his name when he became an American citizen to "Kenneth Rowe", the name by which I shall refer to him here. His story of a flight to freedom from North Korea to South Korea in a MiG jet is one of the most interesting in recent aviation history, in my opinion, and all the more so because so very little is actually known by the American public today about that formative 'UN police action' that helped launch the subsequent 'Cold War' era (a `police action' in which more than 53,000 American soldiers died, despite the fact that it lasted only a third as long as the subsequent Vietnamese conflict, in which 55,000+ died).
Ken, now 76 years of age, visited us at the Aerospace Museum of California very recently (located at the former McClellan AFB site in Sacramento, CA) and spoke to a gathering of invited aviation people and the general public about his amazing life. Although many were drawn to his presentation owing to technical interests in the MiG aircraft he flew, by the time his presentation had ended, the MiG had almost been entirely overshadowed by the personal story of this fascinating refugee from Communism who knew from his earliest years that he wanted to live as a free citizen in the United States of America. By the time Ken had finished speaking, it was clear to all of us that the MiG played only a relatively minor role in Ken's story and that the desire to live in a truly free society was the primary theme of his interesting life.
Of the many smaller highlights and anecdotes Ken shared with us about his flight to freedom were two that remain strongly with me. The first was that after it became known in North Korea that he had `defected' [a word Ken detests, since he repeatedly emphasises that he was never a Communist North Korean...just a native born Korean who wished for freedom (hence there was nothing to defect from, in his view) from his earliest childhood], five of his closest fellow squadron pilots were arrested and executed in symbolic retribution for his act.
The second concerns his amazing fortune in reaching South Korea's Kimpo Air Field without first being intercepted and shot down by American Air Force Sabres. It seems that on the day Ken made his escape to Kimpo, US Air Force technicians had shut down the field's radar for 15 minutes, so as to allow for some much needed repairs to that system. Ken acquired the field five minutes after that radar was switched off and managed to land five minutes before it was switched back on, by pure coincidence. If the radar had been active at the time, he would certainly have been intercepted well before he even reached the field; as it was, he managed to actually land safely on the US runway before anyone was even aware of his presence (an absolutely astounding coincidence, seemingly).
It was interesting to learn in the course of Ken's talk that the CIA played a major role in his life after he landed, and that even the $100,000.00 reward that US propaganda leaflets had offered to any successful defector bringing a MiG to the South was ultimately paid to Ken out of a covert CIA black operations `slush-fund' (Ken makes it clear that he knew absolutely nothing of this offer prior to his escape, since any North Korean caught looking at or reading leaflets in North Korea was summarily shot on the spot). Of course, those who have any awareness of military history in the post WWII period already know how large a part the CIA played in just about all `Cold War' operations, and this information is therefore not startling (to me personally); to the politically naive American who persists to this day in thinking of America in the simplest, purest, and most ethically ideal terms, that particular revelation may be startling.
Ken details much in his book about post-war Soviet style Communism that led to a predominance of that form of political philosophy in Southeast Asia and it may therein be seen that, just as in the case of a Middle East region whose later difficulties may be directly attributed to agreements reach at the conclusion of the First World War, so too can Southeast Asia's difficulties be placed squarely at the feet of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt (Truman), subsequent to the defeat of the Axis Powers at the end of WWII.
Years after Ken's having been granted US citizenship (through a special act of Congress), he continued his academic studies and ultimately acquired a doctorate in aeronautical engineering, after which he eventually became a professor of aerospace studies at Embry-Riddle University in Florida (where he resides). I am pleased to say that Ken is a wonderful, kind-hearted, patient, and very wise man whom I had the greatest pleasure meeting and listening to. After the lecture he presented at our air museum, we took him over to our museum's MiG-17PF and F-86F aircraft, where some memorable photos were taken. He was most gracious in signing numerous copies of his book, a great number of litho prints (of an original piece of art done of him by Col. Dick Stultz, former F-106 driver and chief of flight test at McClellan AFB), and even signed a Chinese flight helmet/mask set and a few MiG-15 models. To say he performed yeoman's duty thereby is considerably understating his good-nature, but he was able to maintain his cheerful demeanor throughout the lengthy ordeal. His students at Embry-Riddle University say he is a demanding, but supremely patient and understanding teacher. And so he is.
I highly recommend Ken's fascinating book to anyone who professes an interest in the little-understood Korean War conflict, but most importantly I suggest it to anyone who wishes to gain some rare insights on what the genuine meaning of freedom is to those who STILL do not enjoy the many rights and privileges most Americans accept unquestioningly as their birthright. His message is both inspiring and encouraging and the book remains something every American should read to gain fresh insight on what a wonderful gift freedom actually is!
[The original 300 page publication (by McFarland Publishers) was a limited edition library-bound version, brought out in 1996. The book was reissued in paperback form (222 pages) in the same year and is available today at most booksellers. Ken's aircraft was exhaustively flight-tested by the US Air Force, after his flight to the South, and provided the West with its first close-up operational analysis of this important first Russian swept-wing aircraft design; in that series of tests, no less luminaries than General Albert Boyd and General Chuck Yeager figured prominantly. The plane is today a very popular US Air Force Museum display memorial to the Korean War era, in Dayton, Ohio.]
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great first hand account of life in an enemy cockpit., September 12, 1997
By A Customer
All right all right! In cyberspace I stand corrected ...its No, not Ro Kum-Sok. I never could get those Korean names straight when I lived there either. Rudyard Kipling would have loved Seoul....
This is a good book, interesting reading. As a non-flyer, non-pilot all the tech talk about MiGs vs. Sabres is a bit daunting, but if you are a fan of the Public Television show Wings, this book is for you.
The book starts with the author landing at Kimpo before some dumbfounded US personnel. Then he flashes back to his childhood under Japanese occupation. Mixed in with discussion of childhood pranks is a rapid fire, zipped version of Korean history from the Shilla dynasty to the present. While no admirer of the Japanese (like many Koreans, he stauchly refers to the Sea of Japan as the 'east sea.') he points out that the Red Army also had a record of rape and pillage. This will not sit well with selective outrage enthusiasts who use the 'comfort women' issue for Japan bashing in the region.
Kum-Sok states that the Korean Navy and Air Force collapsed early in the war...it was the Inmingun, or North Korean Army, that held together. Kum-Soks' summary of the war is essentially the western rendition of the battles. When the stalemate developed after mid 1951, the war shifted to the skies over North Korea and Manchuria. It remains a common myth that the US did not pursue MiGs into the skies of northeast China, but after April 1952, says the author, they did exactly that with deadly effectiveness, knocking MiGs down as they slowed to land. Again, stories about air wars and battles are hard for me to follow and understand, and Kum-Sok often gets lost in endless renditions of sorties, statistics, or engineering specifications. Still, he does discuss a number of weaknesses that MiGs had:
...they were not supersonic, even when diving;
...the T-shaped tail obscured your view and often was fatal when exiting the cockpit;
...the double-wall canopy would often fog up;
...there was no rear view mirror;
Authors comment. Rear view mirror?? Fighter pilots use rear view mirrors? Do they use turn signals too?
...poor fuel economy;
...long and visible contrails from Soviet jet fuel;
...lousy tires;
and a few other sundry items.
After he defected to the south came the inevitable interrogation, tests of his credibility, and finally, fame. OF COURSE, one issue of tremendous relevance that our security services made sure to ask about was whether No Kum-Sok 'ever had sex with another man.' [I can just hear these losers on the runway at Kimpo ..."what? You are gay? Take that MiG back to North Korea NOW, homeboy!!!"]
By the way Kum-Sok was unaware of the operation Moolah offer for a MiG, and defected to the west almost two months after the KoreanWar was over. He did receive the 100 grand, however
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