Korean War: Night bomber biplane

[vtsaogames]

The third of my father-in-law’s stories of his time in the Korean war is here

I had never heard of this low-tech raider before.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[Jim Webster]

Wasn’t there an episode of M.A.S.H. where one of these planes came into the story?

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[Tony S]

The Germans in WW2 also faced those planes.  The planes used roughly the same tactics as in Korea, and the Germans found them just as annoying and difficult to shoot down.  They called them “sewing machines” because apparently the engine sounded like a sewing machine.

Thanks for sharing some first hand reports of a bit of history.

(And I think you’re right Jim; seems to jog a memory of that show).

[irishserb]

Thanks for sharing this.   My Dad also talked of this, but didn’t even realize that if was a “military” event.  He thought it was just a NK civilian loyalist that had a bi-plane and was doing his thing.

My Dad was there in ’53/’54, based at what had been a girl’s school in Seoul.  He said that occasionally this “crazy” guy in a bi-plane would fly over and drop grenades or small hand made bombs on them, but that he never hit anything at their location.  They hated it, because he had to help lug an M2 .50 cal MG up four floors on their tallet building to engage the bi-plane, which would inevitably be gone by the time they could get their MGs set up on top of the building.  They never fired a shot at him, and most of this took place after the cease fire.

Anyway, cool post, thanks again for sharing it.  Nice to learn a little more about what was happening in these situations.

 

[vtsaogames]

According to the Wikipedia article on Po-2’s, night fighters had trouble finding them because the wood and cloth construction had a tiny radar signature: low tech stealth.

 

I suspect if you leave comments at the blog, it may spur my father-in-law to give up some more stories. I’ve told him I can use any and all of his stuff.

 

 

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[Steve Johnson]

I heard a documentary on these planes used in WWII and from memory, were flown by female pilots. IIRC they were called Night Witches or something similar by the Germans. They used to switch their engines off on the approach to glide silently over the German positions and then re-start them once they’d dropped their payload.

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