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Truckbusters At Dogpatch

K-46 forward operating base of the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in 1952. Baited Trap, the Ambush of Mission 1890, is the story of the Korean War's deadliest helicopter rescue mission. Written as a helicopter rescue tribute to Korean War Veterans, Baited Trap uses Korean War records, Korean War photographs, Korean War images and Korean War video to establish Air Force and Korean War history of the aviators who flew air combat rescue missions into heavily defended enemy territory in North Korea to save downed pilots. Baited Trap offers unique insights into the korean conflict, korean history, the korean war, korean war battles, korean war history by including many korean war photos, korean war pictures, and Korean war videos as a tribute to korean war veterans of the forgotten war. It also provides important new Korean War history of U.S. Navy operations, VF-74 and USS Bon Homme Richard (CV 31). Never before has one book included in-depth history of Korean War air combat operations by the P-51 or F-51 Mustang fighter-bomber, the F4U Corsair fighter-bomber, the H-5 and H-19 air rescue helicopters, the 18th Wing, 67th Squadron, Third Air Rescue Squdron or 3ARS, and the Fifth Air Force.

K-46 forward operating base of the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in 1952. The Operations Complex for the 18th Fighter-Bomber Group at K-46. The large building in center foreground is Group Operations. Other buildings (l-r) include: 39th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron Operations, 12th Fighter-Bomber Squadron Operations, 67th Fighter-Bomber Squadron Operations, 2 Squadron SAAF Operations. The sand bagged building is the briefing/debriefing room. The single runway is at left alongside which the Wing’s F-51 Mustang fighter-bombers were parked, maintained, refueled and rearmed for combat missions that often started before dawn and continued after dark, even though the Mustang was not equipped for night combat missions. The tents at extreme right were quarters--summer and winter--for the airmen and officers of the 18th Wing.

Over a hundred miles from the Bon Homme Richard’s off-shore position, at an air strip about fifty miles east of Seoul that had been carved out between mountains, the pilots and ground crews of the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing also were preparing for another day of combat operations.

The Richard had participated in one other period of combat operations during the previous year.

Operations offices of the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing at K-46.

Flight line for the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing at K-46.

For the 18th Wing however, it was just another dangerous, mission-filled day of close air support and armed interdiction in what would soon be two solid years of Korean combat operations.

No bugle call awakened 1st Lt. Archie Connors that Wednesday morning as he slept on a cot in the ten-man “army” tent that was the hard scrabble home of “H” Flight (pronounced “How” based on the phonetic alphabet used in the military at the time) of the 67th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. Instead, since he had a mission scheduled that day, a messenger from the Operations Office shook his shoulder.

“Lt. Connors, wake up, you’re scheduled for a mission today.”

The airman then moved around the tent to wake up Captain Elliot D. Ayer, How Flight leader, and Lieutenants John Hill and Bill McShane, who would also fly the RESCAP (Rescue Combat Air Patrol) mission with Ayer and Connors.

That Wednesday, How Flight was the designated RESCAP for the Fifth Air Force (FAF).

K-46 Air Base near Hoengsong, SK was about ten miles north of Wonju in the central highlands of South Korea. Pilots flying from K-46 annotated their lap maps with lines of bearing to and from the base drawn with grease pencil. Note the hand-drawn “Bomb Line” that zigzagged across the Korean Peninsula. K-46 was ringed with mountains ranging from 2,000-3,000 feet. Pilots called the valley approach to the K-46 strip “Deadman’s Gulch.”