TV Program Description
Original PBS Broadcast Date: December 18, 2007
In the early 1950s, epic battles
unfolded in the skies over North Korea as American and Russian fighters faced
off in history's first jet war. This program explores the Korean
War's aerial tactics, technology, and grim aftermath for downed pilots,
many of whom disappeared without a trace.
The Korean War pitted the two most
advanced fighters of their day, the American F-86 Sabre and the Soviet MiG-15,
in furious air battles in North Korea's notorious "MiG Alley."
With the help of dramatic reconstructions, rare archival footage, and
interviews with veteran American and Soviet pilots, NOVA puts viewers in the
cockpit to experience the lethal split-second duels that erupted in MiG Alley.
"Missing in MiG Alley" investigates
the pioneering engine technology and cutting-edge aerodynamic designs that gave
both the Sabre and MiG their phenomenal performance capabilities (see MiG vs.
Sabre Anatomy). The MiG, for example, was a brilliant blend of borrowed
elements: Like the Sabre, the MiG's raking swept wing was inspired by the
Nazi high-speed, swept-wing fighter design, while its engine was a direct copy
of an advanced Rolls-Royce model that the British rashly handed over to the
Russians in a post-war trade agreement. Both fighters were so well matched that
human factors—superior training and tactics—as well as plain luck
proved to be crucial in deciding MiG Alley's harrowing dogfights.
The program also follows the
poignant efforts of family members to trace what
happened to airmen who disappeared over 50 years ago. The files are still open
on over two dozen Sabre pilots who were shot down behind enemy lines and whose
fate has never been definitively established. Years after the Korean War ended
in 1953, rumors persist of pilots held captive by the Soviets. (For more on
efforts to find missing service personnel, see Bringing Home MIAs.)
Although the Soviet Union was not
officially a combatant in the Korean War, it supplied its latest aircraft, the
MiG-15, to North Korea and China, and the skill of the MiG pilots soon caused
Americans to suspect they were dealing not just with Soviet planes but with
Soviet pilots, who were among the best in the world.
"Neither before nor after the
war were we allowed to reveal that we were going to fly for the North
Koreans," MiG pilot Sergei Kramarenko tells NOVA. Kramarenko was one of
the top Soviet aces of the war. In addition to helping their North Korean
allies, the Soviets were eager to test their planes and pilots against the U.S.
Air Force as a proving ground for a possible World War III.
But the Soviets' intense
interest in the capabilities of U.S. jets was bad news for captured Sabre
pilots, since it often led to harsh questioning by Soviet interrogators. Former
POW Michael DeArmond tells NOVA that he "became more and
more concerned about the purpose of this Russian running my interrogation,
because one of my frankly deepest fears was to wind up in a gulag someplace. So
I tried to be the dumbest F-86 pilot he had ever interrogated."
DeArmond's ruse worked, but
he's convinced that at least three fellow pilots were sent to Russia for
further questioning. Their fate is unknown.
In the most moving part of the
program, NOVA traces the efforts of three families to learn what happened to
their loved ones, all Sabre pilots. Russia's newly opened archives
provide some clues, while the Chinese are now receptive to searches of Sabre
crash sites on their territory.
At the climax of the film, one such search yields
stirring clues to the fate of a missing Sabre pilot: the sole of a shoe, a
watchband, a rusted pocket knife, and a handful of bones hint at his identity.
A DNA analysis of the bones finally brings closure to a grieving son after more
than half a century.
Program Transcript
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