If the Korean War had played on Broadway, it would have been one of the great flops of all time. The opening date of June 25, 1950, was remarkably bad timing-only five years after the end of World War II. The millions who fought and survived that pandemonium were desperately trying to build a new life and forget the chaos from which millions had not survived. Korea? Whoever heard of the place?

So when President Harry Truman ordered American troops to Korea via the United Nations, the majority of our nation read the headlines, muttered something like "Old Harry! He's got his dander up again," and went back to the business at hand. Some were completing their education, using their GI-Bill benefits. Others were starting a new family. Companies that had stashed profits during the war were expanding. Other new companies were starting. Fresh technology was bursting at the seams, eager to be developed: plastics, rayon, Tucker and Kaiser-Fraiser automobiles, jet airplanes, something called TV, and new sophisticated calculators that would grow up to be computers. And hanging like a dark cloud over all was the beginning of a New Age called "Atomic."

Few, if any, were interested in a new war. But despite the bad timing the show opened. It played for three years, killed over 50,000 of our fighting men and closed quietly where it started-along a man-made line called the 38th parallel.

The war was fought by United Nations forces, by North and South Koreans, and by Chinese and Russians. The preponderance of the United Nations' forces was US military men. Many were veterans from World War II who had remained in the service. But most were young draftees; and still others were reservists recalled from civilian life.

In name, our forces were about the same as we have today. The Army sent several divisions. The Navy was there with carriers and battleships, with destroyers and tankers and hospital ships. The same Marines who made beach landings in the Pacific just a few years before would make landings in Korea. The flying branch of the Army-called the Army Air Force by the end of World War II-now dropped the Army label and became the US Air Force.

All would see action and all would suffer casualties. But not many would write about their experiences. Libraries today have few books on the subject of the Korean War. Public knowledge of the war has come in the main from the entertainment media-the TV series M*A*S*H, and a James Michener book and movie titled The Bridges at Toko Ri. I do not recall an episode of M*A*S*H that mentioned Navy Carrier Pilots.

My entry into the war was on December 5, 1950, when I made my first combat flight. The mission was close air support near the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. An estimated 100,000 Chinese surrounded fewer than 20,000 US Marine and Army troops in the mountains of northeast Korea. Seventy miles down a narrow mountain road was the only way out. Night and day the high ground atop steep cliffs had to be cleared of tough, hard-fighting Chinese soldiers. In the areas of most intense combat, five-to-one odds and higher favored the bad guys. Fifty-mile-an-hour winds, snow storms, temperatures of minus 30 at night, little if any sleep, bugles and whistles in the dark, frozen bodies stacked and used as sand bags-usually theirs, sometimes ours-all were a constant reminder of sudden or slow death. Either could be waiting at the next bend in the road.

Our squadron and many others flew every hour of every day that weather would permit, and sometimes when it did not. Waiting at the end of the trail was the harbor of Hungnam. Air controllers in battle-scarred buildings fired smoke flares to target our bombs only one city block from tired men fighting to make that last mile to waiting ships. Evacuation was completed on Christmas Eve.

Good men died trying to escape the Chosin. A lot of them. Their deaths did settle one matter: No doubt remained that China had entered the United Nations Peace Action.

On June 23, 1952, I flew "section" (the third aircraft in a division of four) with Art Downing, Carrier Air Group Commander (CAG) of Air Group Two. CAG led three air groups, each containing three divisions of AD dive-bombers plus jet cover, from three carriers. This was the largest assemblage of carrier aircraft for combat since World War II. Our target was the Suiho hydroelectric plant, only 35 miles from a huge concentration of soviet Mig-15 fighters based at Antung airfield. Suiho was the largest of the North Korean hydroelectric plants.

Many historians now agree that protection of these vital sources of power was one of China's primary concerns in Korea. Their destruction in June of 1952 brought darkness to large parts of Manchuria and North Korea. The armistice was signed in 1953.

I have never talked with a single person actively involved in the war who did not believe our fight was necessary to stop Communist domination of additional millions in Asia, the Far East and the Pacific Basin. Had this happened, our world today would be different. A comparison of contemporary North and South Korea reveals in graphic detail what that difference would have been.

Those with whom I flew were a unique group of people. Most of us wanted to be where we were. Not necessarily fighting a war; we just wanted to fly. We were not bitter because of the lack of attention back home. The youngest of us were in high school during World War II, enjoying the benefits of being outnumbered by good-looking girls. We were well aware that most of our country, at the time of Korea, was thinking only of settling down. "A little plastic palace in Dallas" are words from a popular song of the era.

The years from World War II until the beginning of the 1960s were, for most of us, sweet and special years. A lot happened other than a conflict in Korea. Most of what happened was good.

The world, especially this country, seemed to be pausing, taking long deep breaths, sipping cool clear water, reflecting on a time-the forties-when mankind nearly lost all that we enjoy today. Our country, and indeed much of mankind, deserved a break; and while many of those who had run the race rested, others were preparing for that which was to come. It is a time worth recording.

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Effective communication can be difficult at times, and during this apprenticeship as a first-time book author I ran into "writer's block." My youngest son, Greg, who is the real writer in the family, heard of my problem and sent to me a great book written by Pulitzer winner Rick Bragg titled, All Over But the Shoutin'.

I read the book in a single sitting, could not put it down, and during the night my wife rolled and tossed and said more than once, "That must be some book you are reading." And it was.

I had hardly begun the book when I read how Rick was in New Orleans doing a feature story for the New York Times and was interviewing an elderly black lady in the ghettos who had just lost her grandson due to a senseless shooting. He described how the little boy's "Dr. Seuss" books just dropped to the ground and the grandson died looking up at his grandmother with a shocked expression, unable to speak a word.

When the interview was over, the grandmother thanked Mr. Bragg for taking the time to write about her grandson.

Rick said that his normal reply to such a response from someone consumed with grief is simply to say Thank You and leave. But in this instance he replied, "Why in the world do you want to thank me? All I have done is to scribble a few notes. Your grandson is gone forever and you are the one who will live with his loss for the rest of your life."

The grandmother replied by showing him a few carefully folded clippings from New Orleans newspapers. The little pieces of paper, coldly and briefly, reported the story of her grandson's tragic death.

Then the grandmother said to Rick Bragg. "You sees, sir, if it ain't writ down, peoples forgets."

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Screams stopped the ground controller in mid-sentence. "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! I'M ON FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!"

All radio chatter stopped. Flying Dave's wing in the AD, I could see that he was searching for the caller. Then we saw him. The Corsair was close, a mile or so ahead, low to the ground in a shallow dive. Orange-red flames reached from the rear of the engine back past the cockpit and blue gulled wings. Heavy black smoke trailed behind, drifting down toward dirty snow-covered ground.

Again the screams. Now louder, more desperate. "I'M ON FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!" Sheer terror in a young voice without time to prepare for sudden death.

Abrupt silence, when the Corsair disintegrated into a long trail of flame stretching across a rough, battle-scared field. Unmoving, a hunk of rolled blackened metal lay where the flames stopped.

Total quiet held for a brief moment. Then the gentle chatter of other flights continued. Our controller's voice picked up without change. "Tiger One, I am firing red for effect. Commence your run when ready."

Dave turned my way. I could see him clearly. We held eye contact for a second, then Dave wiped his forehead with his forefinger, shook his head slightly, passed the lead with a casual salute, and began his run.

Thus did we spend most of Sunday, Christmas Eve day, 1950. The evacuation of surviving US Marines and Army from Hungnam harbor was completed by dark. The battle of the Chosin Reservoir was ended. Ensign Hugo Scarsheim, his last transmission, and the Chosin, remain only as a memory in the minds of a few.

The next day atop an old gray metal table in front of our squadron's ready-room there was a small Christmas tree. Someone's mother had mailed the tree in a cake box. Flakes of white powder from the cake stuck to the little green leaves. All in all, quite nice. It added something to the day.

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