Night Fighters Over Korea

The Korean War is well known for its daytime battles between the American Sabrejets and Communist MiGs over North Korea, yet few Americans have heard of the wild night skirmishes between the U.S. Navy-Marine Skyknights and their Chinese and Soviet adversaries. Readers of this story will soon come to realize that in that air war the foe was more often the blackness of night than enemy airmen. The Navy night fighters - jet-powered F3Ds - chronicled here were a detachment of Composite Squadron 4 (VC-4) known as "The Nightcappers". Lt. G. G. O'Rourke led the small team of Skyknights on board the USS Lake Champlain in the Korean War. With no ground attack capability, O'Rourke's intrepid band of frustrated night fighters found themselves unloved, unwanted, and exiled ashore to a forward air base in South Korea. There, they lived and fought with Marine Night Fighter Squadron 513 (VMF[N]-513) and became the U.S. Navy's only jet night fighter squadron to see combat in the war. This landmark contribution describes in detail the development and training of Navy night fighters after World War II, their deployment to Korea, and their nightly encounters with MiGs and monsoon weather. Of particular interest are O'Rourke's rousing descriptions of his own encounters with enemy MiGs where it becomes clear that in his desperate fight for survival, he learned to use the night as his ally.