George Davis – Korean War Medal of Honor Recipient, Killed in Action

 

George Davis – Korean War MoH


George Davis

by JoeB

Below I copy/pasted a notes I prepared awhile back on Davis’ loss 10 Feb 1952 according to various Communist and US accounts other than his MOH citation often quoted. In summary I believe no precise conclusion can be drawn but IMO Davis was more likely downed by a PLAAF than VVS MiG.

Abbreviations:
RW: “Red Wings Over the Yalu” by Xiaoming Zhang
RD: “Red Devils on the 38th Parallel ” by Seidov and German
G/IAP: Guards/Fighter Regiment, Soviet
FAR: Fighter Regiment, Chinese
VVS: Soviet AF
1059, TFR-180: Lists of Soviet claims from the KW
M: MiG-15

Joe

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PLAAF: Zhang Jinhui formation of 12FAR 3AD sees 8 F-86’s @ 0740 area between Taechon and Chongye. Turns onto tail of 2 F-86’s; F-86 leader dives then pulled up into sun, dives in again. Zhang closes and fired, misses. Fires again downs one, then the other. Moments later “enemy reinforcements” shoot him down, he ejects. 3 MiG’s altogether shot down including his wingman, KIA, who was nonetheless “cheering him on” as he shot down the F-86’s. Zhang lands 500m from where Davis’ plane and body is later found, by a PLAAF search team the following week.

VVS: somewhat conflicting info. Bare entry in TFR180-1 says 1 F-86 shot down @ “Taisen” (Taechon) 0806-0954 period, 148 GIAP. Narrative acct in “Red Devils on the 38th Parallel” (RD) as related in RW totals 3*F-86 148 GIAP and 1 in unrelated engagement 17 IAP. Location for 148 battle is Suppong reservoir (on Yalu some ways N of Taechon). Formation of 22 148 GIAP M’s; 2*F-86’s pop from clouds attack front of formation. St. Lt Averin shoots one down from further back in the formation, it flips on its back and crashes.

USAF: Davis: most detailed acct by Davis’ wingman Bill Littelfield in Larry Davis’ “4th Fighter”. Two of Davis’ flt return to base with mech trouble leaving Littlefield (not normally Davis wingman) and Davis. Patrol “along Yalu” They see 12 M, 3 flights of 4, cross the Yalu southbound. Davis shoots down #4 of last flight, pulls up sharply dives to attack again. But by this time has overshot first 2 M flights, now shoots at #4 in lead flight. Littlefield sees and assumes Davis does that they’re cutting in front of the 7 remaining M’s in the trailing flights. Davis gets #4 of the lead flight but is hit himself and dives. Doesn’t fire at a 3rd MiG (2nd hand accounts generally he say shot down two and was going after a third when jumped by many more). Moments later Littlefield, attempting to track Davis as he goes down “falling leaf” with gear extended, engages another M, thinks he gets hits but gun camera film is inconclusive; makes no claim.

Rest of 4th ftr. According Douglas Evans in “Sabre Jets Over Korea” only his pair, Evans and wingman Beck (coincidentally thinned from 4 by mech problems also), besides Davis and Littlefield engaged any M’s that day. Headed north toward falling a/c they saw over the Yalu they passed a large flight of M’s which Evans thought had red-white-red striped noses. Evans and Beck attack the formation which scatters. Evans scissors with 1 of the M’s which fires at him from a poor firing position. Evans is gaining a good firing position in the scissors but is distracted by the approach of 4 a/c which turn out to be F-86’s, the M escapes in a climb waggling its wings.

However besides Evans’ engagement, the 51st FIW also engaged MiG’s. One of their F-86’s, 51-2732, was damaged by MiG cannon fire per original loss records. However, I haven’t found details of the combat that would show how it might fit in with the Soviet and Chinese accounts.

Conclusion: with new facts, it’s now clear that it’s still not clear. The simple scenario for crediting the Russians is Davis attacked the Chinese
formation, the Russians came up behind. But it doesn’t square with any of the 3 stories, all of which describe action by F-86’s against single formations, esp. Littlefield’s account of how Davis was shot down by MiG’s they both already saw, not additional ones which jumped them. Taking RD at face value would mean Davis attacked the fwd flight of the *Russian* formation, but then who shot down the 3 Chinese? No 4th Ftr. F-86 even opened fire that day except Davis and Littlefield and Davis claimed the only UN victories 2/10/52.

But the Zhang story has the minor inconsistency of seeing 8 F-86’s at first and the more serious one of his wingman still flying when he shot down Davis. Zhang himself being downed is not necessarily a logical problem with crediting him with Davis, the “reinforcements” could have been Littlefield and the hits just not visible on the film. Locations are a muddle: the Russian location in RD doesn’t square with the Davis crash site, the 1059 location does. But Littlefield and Evan’s account also suggest locations not consistent with the reported crash site. The time in 1059 is another problem for Russians coming to the aid of Chinese.

X. Zhang in RW comes to no conclusion. Adding the more detailed US eye witness accounts, still wouldn’t say for sure though Chinese claim seems more likely. The Russian one is unlikely on a greater number of counts. Assuming TFR180 represents the real Russian claims and RD tends to have higher claims from veterans later recollections (as seems to be the case in other incidents), the single F-86 might have referred to Evans. He was also 1 of 2 F-86’s attacking a formation of VVS M’s. And the M opened fire on him, enough for a kill claim by the Russians, and a perhaps a waggle of the wings?

On a side issue some sources seem to suggest the Russians found Davis’ body; the Chinese say they did. Here it’s clearer, the official Russian position in the Joint Commission on MIA/POW in the ’90’s was that they had no info on Davis’ fate, and the Commission actually suggested in one doc his status be changed to reflect possible survival of his downing. 31 409 6202 31.1083086553

George Davis – Korean War MoH – Re: George Davis – Korean War MoH, by Raider

Mr. Zampini,

I read with great interest your article on George Davis Jr. as he was from my hometown. One correction in your article. Davis flew with the 348th Fighter Group in WWII not the 318th. I can get the enemy a/c types he shot down in WWII if you would like those to list in your article.

Has anyone ever seen any photos of his assigned Sabres? In particular his F-86E BuNo 51-2752. There has to be one out there somewhere as he was the first double ace in Korea. He was also a triple ace and as mentioned previously one of only seven American pilots to achieve ace status in two wars. He is also one of only thirty-five American pilots with 20 or more victories. From information from his widow and son it is known that all his a/c were named Doris after her.

On a side note to Mr. Zampini revising victory claims based on Soviet VVS data. USAF officials did not grant victories based on claims with indifference. Victories were awarded only when confirmed from multiple sources and/or gun camera film. There may have been the occasional unsubstantiated claim that slipped through but this was not in line with USAF policy. The USAF has conducted several studies over the years to revise official data as new information as become available. I don’t recall seeing any revision on USAF claims made in Korea.

Do you have an official USAF source to substantiate your declaration that only 60% or so of victories attributed to US pilots in Korea is correct?

I understand that your research through Soviet VVS documentation may tell a different story but then the Soviet VVS commanders certainly had reason to inflate victory claims as well as downplay losses to USAF pilots. I’m sure many did not fancy spending time in Siberia. On the other hand the USAF had no reason at all to distort claims in the official documents over North Korean aircraft. Just my two cents.

If the Chinese recovered Davis’ body would you be able to locate any information that might tell where they buried his remains. We certainly would like to have him brought home.

Regards.

31 901 2185 31.1124121026

George Davis – Korean War MoH – Re: George Davis – Korean War MoH, by JoeB

by author=Raider link=topic=31.msg901#msg901 date=1124121026]

On a side note to Mr. Zampini revising victory claims based on Soviet VVS data. USAF officials did not grant victories based on claims with indifference. Victories were awarded only when confirmed from multiple sources and/or gun camera film. There may have been the occasional unsubstantiated claim that slipped through but this was not in line with USAF policy. The USAF has conducted several studies over the years to revise official data as new information as become available. I don’t recall seeing any revision on USAF claims made in Korea.

Do you have an official USAF source to substantiate your declaration that only 60% or so of victories attributed to US pilots in Korea is correct?

I understand that your research through Soviet VVS documentation may tell a different story but then the Soviet VVS commanders certainly had reason to inflate victory claims as well as downplay losses to USAF pilots. I’m sure many did not fancy spending time in Siberia. On the other hand the USAF had no reason at all to distort claims in the official documents over North Korean aircraft.

Raider, I don’t generally agree with a lot of Diego Zampini’s findings, but OTOH we have to face the fact that almost all air wars in history claims of one side exceeded the real losses of the other, although the *degree* varied a lot. It’s not realistic and factual, or at all logically workable to take the position that ace claims are sacrosanct, and we’re dishonoring or insulting them by checking the other side’s records, IMO.

Also the accusation that losses were understated can as easily be directed at anybody’s records, and tends to devolve into a political not military historical discussion. Mr. Zampini seems to get most of his info from one book the Russian language “Red Devils on the 38th Parallel” by AA German and IA Seidov. Throughout that book USAF info on US losses is presented, much lower than the Soviet claims, then continually derided as false and a cover-up. Such statements get very tedious when the shoe is on the other foot, that is my only point, and by what *objective* criteria (not political statements) do we say one’s sides loss records were false but the other side’s true? Even if based on objective political fact (Stalinist Russia was a police state in which everyone exhibited healthy paranoia), how do we know that meant understating losses and overstating claims instead of just greatly overstating claims (much safer, much harder to get caught doing it and denounced by somebody). But it’s all speculation, IMO just find out what the records say (Red Devils doesn’t 100% agree with Soviet records, but not major discrepancy), and present that info. This relates to *losses*; each side knew its losses.

Enemy losses (claims IOW) on the other hand can never really be known by either side during the war, this is not a question necessarily of falsehoods. Even if there’s clear gun camera footage, who can say absolutely two or more camera’s were not photographing the same plane? In fact gc photo’s seldom show actual destruction, this was a judgment. No USAF data could ever definitively say how many MiG’s were really downed, only the MiG air forces know that.

The total MiG combat losses in Korea are not exactly known, and this the main problem with Mr. Zampini’s 60%, it’s based on not all the losses. According to Red Devil’s the Soviets lost 319 MiG’s in combat, some other sources say more, some less. The Chinese official total of losses is 224. The NK losses aren’t known, but were probably around 50 IMO based on indirect info in several sources. The UN fighters claimed around 800 MiG’s; B-29’s claimed a couple dozen more but almost none of those can be verified in Soviet accounts (and were almost all Soviet planes based on detailed operational info of both sides). So MiG losses were roughly 74% of UN fighter claims by that count. For sub periods of the war when basically only the Soviets were engaged, and their losses known (from other sources besides Red Devils) the numbers come out in the same ballpark, so tending to confirm this range. But we should note that some “probables” were also really shootdowns (there are specific examples), so the average likelihood of a “confirmed” representing a real MiG loss would be less than 74%.

I know some people on both sides (of any air war usually) intensely dislike this sort of analysis, but the opposite idea, where anything in the enemy records is rejected if it doesn’t match ‘our’ (whoever ‘we’ is) claims, makes air war history boring IMO. German and Japanese records don’t have all the US WWII claims either, just like our records don’t have all theirs. It’s pretty universal, and obviously impossible that everybody everywhere was always understating losses so all good faith claims of all AF’s were really true. The 3/4 ballpark is similar to or better than the accuracy of late WWII US claiming, and much better than US early WWII claim accuracy. Accordingly I don’t see a clear reason to doubt the ballpark of the loss totals revealed by Russia and China.

Going the other way, the US KW air combat losses were something like only 10-15% of the Soviet claims. The condition of the statement is the same, based on what can be found in original US records (though it’s obviously easier to research those in detail). The real US losses per those records *are* a bit higher than the common totals in books, for example more like 85-90 F-86’s were downed or written off from damage in MiG encounters than the official 78; further info from the Soviets clarifies some cases, and some were just left out of the 78, demonstrably from monthly figures making up the 78 v. incident by incident. The Soviet/Chinese figures probably also have some issues like this.

George Davis – Korean War MoH – Re: George Davis – Korean War MoH, by Twitch

On a side note concerning confirmations- in Korea when viewing film it was noted from earlier confirmed victories how many hits it took to cease a MiG’s flying ability. Subsequently combat footage that saw a MiG take the required number of hits to the engine area and the film ended due to the fact that the Sabre pilot banked to avoid collision with the stricken enemy or for whatever other reason the camera was shut down, the kill was awarded.

George Davis – Korean War MoH – Re: George Davis – Korean War MoH, by Raider

by author=Twitch link=topic=31.msg916#msg916 date=1124724944]
And only 5 men became an ace with kills combined from Korea and WW2. Davis was the only pilot to score a quadruple too- 3 TU-2s and a MiG 15 in late 1951. 🙂 His MOH was the only one awarded to an ace in Korea.

The following seven (7) pilots achieved ace status in two (2) wars. John Bolt(USMC) WWII (6) – Korea (6) =12
George A Davis Jr WWII (7) – Korea (14) =21
Francis “Gabby” Gabreski WWII(28) Korea (6.5) = 34.5
Vermont Garrison WWII (7.33) – Korea (10) =17.33
James Hagstrom WWII (5) – Korea (8.5) =14.5
Harrison Thyng WWII (5) – Korea (5) = 10
William T Whisner (15.5) – Korea (5.5) =21