Dogfights

The two fastest jet fighters in Korea--the U.S. F-86 Sabre and Russia's MIG-15 --were hotting up the aerial combat phase of the air war. Near Sinuiju, on the Yalu River, last week there were two dogfights in one day. In the first, six MIGs tangled with four F-86s. The Sabre pilots shot down one enemy plane and counted as a "probable" a MIG that rolled on to its back and vanished into a ground haze.

In the second battle--biggest jet dogfight in air history--35 to 40 MIGs fought 15 F-86s. After visible hits had been registered on two of the enemy, all streaked to safety across the Manchurian border. The U.S. Air Force did not know whether the MIGs were flown by Russians or Chinese. In any case, the enemy pilots seemed to lack confidence in themselves or in their aircraft--perhaps both.

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