In America, we love reading about wars that we won. We’re talking those times U.S. soldiers went in, guns blazing, and fought the evil cartoonishly scary bad guys for freedom! This, of course, is basically describing how many people see World War II, and a lot of it ends there for the simple reason being that we haven’t really “won” a war ever since. That’s not even how WWII was, but that’s another discussion altogether. Perhaps the most overlooked of these post-WWII military conflicts is The Korean War. Long ignored by pretty much everyone, and usually even further brushed away as a “police operation”, it exists to many only in MASH reruns late at night on network television.

I have a sincere interest in learning about The Korean War because my own grandfather served in The United Sates Army during the war, and hope this book is the first step of many of me growing my knowledge of it. Even more obscure than the war itself is an entire book about Korean War air power, and that’s the topic for today. Korean Air War – Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950–53 by Michael Napier pulls together more information than I ever expected on that topic, showing that the origins of air combat, as we know it today, started in those early 1950’s skies over Korea.

I think one of the more interesting parts of the book was reading about some of the growing pains involved in the switchover from propeller based planes to jet planes during the war. At times, many of the parallel-developed planes from various countries had similar shapes and colors resulting in many cases of unfortunate friendly fire and other accidents. Pilots were still not used to the power of such planes, and many early dogfights were won by antiquated World War II planes.

The book does a great job of giving a broad overall history of the war itself, and is perhaps one of the most well-researched aviation books I’ve ever read. It can get a bit repetitive at times, but honestly, there’s only so many ways you can describe an airplane battle so I wasn’t worried about it. I feel like I now need to search out a solid book on the ground offensive, and I might have a working knowledge of the war far surpassing most of my peers. Great book overall, solid for aviation, military, and history buffs.

A great read for aviation lovers and military history buffs. The book is thoroughly researched and covers a significant, but little known, air war between North and South Korea.
One of the most interesting aspects the author has covered is the transition from propellor to jet-powered aircraft. Both aircraft types had a significant role to play trading off the high speed and short range of a jet, against the relatively low speed and long-range of propellor-driven aircraft.
The author discusses the fact that the first three air kills by the US were by a propellor-driven aircraft, the F82 Twin Mustang - one of the most unusual aircraft developed during WW2. As an aside, the only surviving aircraft of this type was recently up for sale for $12 million!
The Korean War was perhaps the first post-WW2 proxy war between the US and the USSR, with a number of countries participating, including North & South Korea, China, South Africa, Canada, the UK, and Australia.. From a military history perspective, the collection of photographs were amazing and brought the air war to life.
My only criticism is that the book could have been improved by more personal stories from the participants.

This is highly technical book and should be treated as an expert portrait of this particular war. I spent many a sessione asking my husband questions to clarify some of the situations.
The Korean War is only a vague part of modern history and most people are only reminded of it when the present-day tensions arise on the Korean peninsula.
This is the most comprehensive book that I have seen on the extraordinarily complex Military situation in Korea 1950-53 with the focus on the Allied air campaign. The detail from start to finish in this book is staggering, gleaning as it does very many sources from both sides combined with the political constraints that were imposed on the combatants during the air war. Only 5 years had passed since the end of WWII so many of the aircraft and tactics from that war were employed at the outset in Korea. Very quickly, the employment of jet aircraft on both sides together with the legacy piston-engined fighters and bombers, forced new strategies and operational tactics to be employed.
The details of the individual actions were very graphic and the author presented them all in a very readable form. The book also brings to light the way that both sides involved several other nationalities into the conflict; the UN forces in an open and ‘legal’ way under the auspices of the UN Resolution 83 of 1950 however the antagonists from N Korea backed up by the Chinese agreed to host elements of the Soviet Air Force clandestinely.
From a military aviation historical perspective this is a fascinating insight to this particular conflict that marked a shift in military and political aspiration in Asia that run through to the present day.

Michael Napier has thoroughly and fairly covered the air battles of the Korean Air War. Covering not just the US side but also those of America's allies and the North Korean-Chinese-Russian side, this book is a must have for aviation history buffs. Many good rare historical pictures also..

This is an another impressive work from Michael Napier, following on from his ‘In Cold War Skies’. In this book Napier takes us into a strangely neglected conflict that cost many lives, both civilian and military and whose echoes still contribute to the geopolitical context of the Korean Peninsula and the Great Power tensions between the USA, China and Russia (as successor in military terms to the former Soviet Union). The author’s focus is naturally on the military aviation aspects of the Korean War, but it is inevitable that the wider political context of the conflict is also given due prominence. This is especially relevant in that the Korean War was in many ways the defining proxy war between the USA and the Soviet Union (and, to a lesser extent, China). The fact that the Soviet and Chinese pilots - initially seen as advisors or volunteers - were increasingly deployed and recognised as full military actors in their own right in distinctly ‘hot’ air battles without the conflict escalating into a full war between these military powers says much about the desire on all sides to apply firm boundaries to the conflict.
Inevitably, a book such as this is bound to include a series of brief descriptions of missions that were seen as representative of the wider conflict, which can make for a dry and almost routine account of a war that was anything but for the pilots involved. Napier helps to address this by including first person accounts from pilots involved that are interesting and informative in their own right, but especially enlightening when overlaid with the Communist Party inspired propaganda from Korean or Chinese pilots.
In addition to the factual accounts of dogfights, bombing missions and the bravery of Combat Search and Rescue teams the author takes time to emphasise a number of points that deserve attention. In the first place, whilst the limited coverage of the Korean War has majored on the fact that this was the first conflict involving jet v jet combat, the majority of UN (mainly US) aircraft losses were actually due to ground anti-aircraft fire; and - a feature shared by armed forces after many conflicts - whilst some lessons were learned, there was painful relearning of many lessons of the Korean War in Vietnam, in particular the limited of long term interdiction of enemy logistical support (notably the failure to seriously impede the NVA logistical and manpower resource deployment via the Ho Chi Minh trail. Finally, Napier reminds his readers of the cost in human lives, both military and - notably - civilian of this conflict - forgotten possibly in the West, but certainly not in Korea.

I don't know much about aviation history, as gender studies is my jam (and focus), but I really love illustrated history books and seeing different perspectives is always important. We can all agree that history books with pictures and illustrations and maps are awesome, right? \o/

The photographs in this are simply stunning, by the by. Old photography was so cool, man. And all the archival pictures really makes me miss going to the archives ;_; Bloody pandemic!!

An interesting and well researched volume on the air war in Korea. The book provides an overview of the war but from the air campaign perspective, detailing action by all sides including the Russian and Chinese involvement.
Very well researched and an excellent guide to the forgotten war.
At times the book felt a little samey and repetitive but well worth the read. The only point I would make to improve the book would be to include more personal accounts of individual sorties flown.
Great book and one well worth keeping on the shelf.