Wings over Lebanon: Local Ingenuity and American Assistance in the War against the Islamic State

By Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Jackson, PhD, USAF, and Major (ret) Wael al-Taki, LAF

2 August 2014: Hundreds of Islamic State and al-Nusra Front militants stormed Lebanese Army positions in the Bekaa Valley, fifty miles east-northeast of Beirut. Under relentless fire, Lebanese troops conducted a fighting withdrawal, calling frantically for reinforcements. Amid the chaos, the militants captured 36 soldiers, brutally executing at least four.

High overhead, 1^st Lieutenant Wael al-Taki peered through the infrared camera on a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan – the same single-engine turboprop used by FedEx for rural package delivery. The Lebanese Air Force operated two such aircraft, both modified with surveillance gear. Only one, however, could carry a pair of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles – the same laser-guided missiles used by Apache attack helicopters and Predator and Reaper drones.

The Cessna required a crew of three: two pilots and a mission systems operator (MSO). Yet shortages of trained personnel forced al-Taki to act as both pilot and MSO, moving to the back of the aircraft after take-off to operate the mission systems while Lieutenant C.Y. took the controls.[1] A brigadier general from the operations staff took the other pilot’s seat, relaying strike approvals from the operations centre in Beirut.

Below, the militants surrounded a company of Lebanese troops, their withering fire wounding several soldiers, including the deputy commander. The Cessna banked toward the firefight. Al-Taki gripped the hand controller, aligning the crosshairs with the enemy fighters. He fired the laser designator. He had never fired a laser-guided missile before. In fact, no one in the Lebanese Air Force had ever fired one in combat. “I was just thinking of the guys down there, that someone should save them,” he later recounted. He stole a quick glance out the window as C.Y. jammed his thumb down on the firing button. With a flash, the Hellfire streaked off the launch rail – and into history.[2]

Lieutenant al-Taki’s Hellfire was the opening shot in Lebanon’s three-year air campaign against the Islamic State, culminating in Operation Fajr al-Jaroud, or ‘Dawn of the Hills,’ in August 2017. During that same period, Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition’s campaign in Iraq and Syria, hammered the Islamic State and other militant groups with over 24 thousand airstrikes from hundreds of the world’s most advanced warplanes, including fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and stealth bombers.[3] The Lebanese air campaign was exceedingly modest by comparison, yet it successfully rolled back the Islamic State’s western flank. Ultimately, Fajr al-Jaroud continued a pattern established over the previous two decades: modest US security assistance, combined with the ingenuity of Lebanese aviators, enabled the Lebanese Air Force to prevail under challenging battles against violent extremist groups.

A Bell UH-1H Huey II from the 11th Squadron participates in an exercise on the Hannoush Range. (Source: Author)

Rebuilding the Lebanese Air Force

Founded in 1949, the Lebanese Air Force once operated modern jet aircraft, including the de Havilland Vampire, Hawker Hunter, and Dassault Mirage III. American assistance began during the Cold War, with the US Military Assistance Program delivering six Hawker Hunters in 1963. However, a brutal sectarian civil war from 1975 to 1990 left the air force in ruins, forcing the reconciled government to rebuild it from scratch.[4]

Lebanon occupies strategic – and treacherous – terrain, wedged between Syria and Israel. Though the civil war ended in 1990, Syrian troops continued to occupy much of the country’s north until 2005. Israel invaded four times between 1978 and 2024, occupying southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

The US had straightforward goals for supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) after the civil war: building a non-sectarian national military would strengthen national cohesion and counter the influence of sectarian militias like Hezbollah. ‘The LAF is a key institution of Lebanese statehood,’ declared US Ambassador Elizabeth Richards in 2016. ‘It is Lebanon’s sole legitimate defense force and an essential element in exerting the state’s authority throughout all of Lebanon’s territory.’[5]

Between 1996 and 2001, Lebanon acquired 24 Bell UH-1H Huey helicopters from the US, most of which had been in storage since the end of the Vietnam War. Initially relying on pilots who had trained in the US in the 1980s, the Lebanese Air Force assigned 12 of the helicopters to the 11^th Squadron at Beirut Air Base, eight to the 10^th Squadron at Klayaat Air Base, 55 miles north-northeast of Beirut near the Syrian border, and four to the 14^th Squadron at Rayak Air Base, in the Bekaa Valley, 30 miles east of Beirut. These simple utility helicopters became the backbone of the Lebanese Air Force – and its only combat aircraft – until 2007.[6]

The first battle for the rebuilt air force erupted on 31 December 2000, in the rural Dinniyeh region near Lebanon’s northern border with Syria. Approximately 150 militants from the al-Qaeda-aligned group Takfir wal-Hijra attacked a military checkpoint, killing four soldiers and capturing two. The LAF immediately launched an operation to rescue the captives and eliminate the militants.[7]

Brigadier General S.Y., then a major in the 11^th Squadron, recalled first learning of the attack while at a New Year’s Eve party with his squadron in Beirut. The festivities had begun winding down at four o’clock in the morning when the commander of the air force suddenly burst in, his face pale. “Return to base immediately!” he ordered. The men thought he was joking—or drunk. Frustrated, he bellowed for them to obey his orders at once. “We learned the hard way that he meant business,” S.Y. said.[8]

Two hours later, the major lifted off from Beirut, leading four Hueys north along the Mediterranean coast to reinforce the 10^th Squadron at Klayaat Air Base, closer to the scene of the action. Upon arrival, they found the base buzzing with activity: Two companies from Lebanon’s elite Ranger Regiment had already arrived, along with two mechanised infantry companies and an armoured platoon. The LAF planned to deploy the Rangers to assault the militants’ mountain stronghold, while the mechanised infantry and armour secured Klayaat.

The helicopter force split into an assault group of eight and a reserve group of two, the latter consisting of one aircraft for medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) and another equipped with two 7.62-millimetre door guns for armed reconnaissance. In the afternoon, two 14^th Squadron Hueys arrived from Rayak to reinforce the reserve group.

At nine o’clock in the morning, with temperatures hovering just below freezing, the assault group launched for the target area. Situated 5,200 feet above sea level, the high-altitude landing zones limited each helicopter to carrying only seven Rangers with their heavy gear, instead of the usual eleven. “Navigation to the landing zones was the hardest part, as the air force still used primitive methods in those days,” recalled S.Y. “Our best navigational equipment were the terrain maps provided by the directorate of geographic affairs.”

The assault group split into two elements, each led by a 10^th Squadron pilot familiar with the terrain. “We flew nap of the earth,” said S.Y., “using the deep valleys and low terrain features to remain hidden from enemy observation.” The first element landed to the south and southwest of the target, while the second landed to the north. The Hueys then returned to Klayaat for another load. In total, they lifted approximately 200 soldiers onto the battlefield. The rapid encirclement enabled by air power allowed the Rangers to crush the militants in just forty-eight hours. The Lebanese Army lost 11 soldiers killed in action, including one of the men taken captive during the initial checkpoint attack.[9]

The Lebanese Air Force Adapts

The Hueys played a significant role in the LAF’s next major battle a little over six years later. On 19 May 2007, four armed men from the Sunni militant group Fateh al-Islam robbed a bank in the town of Amyoun, thirty miles north-northeast of Beirut, making off with $125,000 in cash. Lebanese paramilitary police quickly identified the militants and tracked them to a house ten miles to the north in Tripoli. A firefight erupted, soon spreading to the nearby Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, which served as Fateh al-Islam’s headquarters. Hundreds of militants stormed LAF military posts and checkpoints in the area, killing thirty-two soldiers, most of whom were asleep in their barracks. The LAF launched an all-out effort to secure Nahr al-Bared and neutralise the militants, leading to a nightmare scenario of urban combat amid the camp’s ramshackle buildings and narrow alleyways.[10]

The Lebanese Air Force initially restricted its support to MEDEVAC and overhead surveillance. However, just two months before the battle, Lebanon had acquired nine Aérospatiale SA.342L Gazelle light attack helicopters for the newly established 8^th Squadron. Armed with 68-millimetre unguided rockets, HOT guided antitank missiles, and .50-calibre machine guns, the Gazelles provided Lebanese ground troops with close air support for the first time.

The urban assault bogged down around the militants’ final position, a veritable fortress of concrete rubble. The Gazelles’ light weapons proved ineffective. With casualties mounting, the Lebanese Air Force adapted by jury-rigging three of its Huey utility helicopters as bombers.

The Lebanese Air Force had a stockpile of 500- and 1,000-pound bombs left over from the 1960s. Mechanics cannibalised bomb shackles and pylons from scrapped Mirage fighter jets and attached them to a steering rod from a decommissioned navy ship. To evenly distribute the weight across the cabin floor, they mounted the rig on an armoured plate salvaged from an inoperative M-113 armoured personnel carrier. Each heli-bomber could carry a single 1,000-pound bomb slung between the landing skids or a 500-pound bomb on either side. Mechanics lengthened the landing skids to ensure sufficient ground clearance.

The heli-bombers went into action on 9 August 2007. Using civilian Garmin 295 handheld GPS units to pinpoint their release points, the crews dropped dozens of bombs, blasting a path for the ground troops. The innovative air support helped bring the battle to an end on 7 September.[11]

The siege of Nahr al-Bared proved a formative experience for the LAF, underscoring the need to modernise the air force with fixed-wing aircraft capable of providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), target designation, strike coordination, and close air support. This set of requirements roughly aligned with what the US Air Force (USAF) defined as light attack armed reconnaissance (LAAR). The US government offered to assist in this effort, eager to prevent Lebanon from becoming another active battlefront in the Global War on Terrorism.[12]

In 2009, the USAF provided Lebanon with a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, funded through grant aid. Orbital ATK (later acquired by Northrop Grumman) reconfigured the Caravan as an AC-208 Eliminator, equipping it with a Wescam MX-15 electro-optical/infrared camera system, a microwave broadcast system for real-time video transmission, a weapons-grade laser designator, an infrared laser pointer, a flare dispenser, and launch rails to carry an AGM-114 Hellfire missile under each wing. A second aircraft arrived on 6 November 2013, configured solely for reconnaissance and lacking missile rails. A third aircraft, featuring a more powerful engine and a digital glass cockpit, arrived on 19 December 2016. The Cessnas were assigned to the 4th Squadron at Beirut Air Base.[13]

The Lebanese Air Force still had a handful of senior fixed-wing pilots who had flown Mirages and Hunters. However, without a fixed-wing pilot training program, it sent young lieutenants abroad to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States for flight training. Upon their return to Lebanon, they completed a short Cessna training course provided by Orbital ATK. According to US Ambassador Elizabeth Richard, these pilots built a solid reputation. “The LAF is recognized in the US for the quality of the officers and soldiers it sends to our training and education programs,” she said. “Lebanese students routinely finish at the top of their classes, earning ‘honor graduate’ recognition.”[14]

In addition to the grant aid, the US embassy facilitated $1.9 billion in foreign military sales (FMS) to Lebanon between 2014 and 2020, including the purchase of six RQ-11 Raven small, hand-launched UAVs and 1,000 Hellfire missiles – items paid for with Lebanon’s own funds.[15] The Lebanese Air Force also bolstered its rotary-wing fleet, acquiring 24 additional UH-1H Huey IIs from the US and nine Aérospatiale SA.330 Super Puma utility helicopters, license-built in Romania by Industria Aeronautica Romana. The Super Pumas were assigned to the 9^th Squadron at Hamat Air Base, located 30 miles north of Beirut.[16]

An Aérospatiale/IAR SA.330 Super Puma modified as a heli-bomber completes a rocket pass on the Hannoush Range. (Source: Author)

The Long Campaign

These modest modernisation efforts took place as neighbouring Syria spiralled into chaos. Protests against dictator Bashar al-Assad escalated into civil war and eventually gave rise to the Islamic State. More than one million Syrian refugees poured across the border into Lebanon, with at least 137,000 settling in camps within the Baalbek-Hermel Governate, Lebanon’s northeastern-most region. The town of Arsal, perched above the Bekaa Valley on the slopes of the Qalamoun Mountains, had the highest concentration of Syrian refugees of any municipality in Lebanon, with 39,300 registered in four camps.[17] On 1 February 2013, a patrol from Strike Force, Lebanon’s elite counterterrorism regiment, came under attack while chasing a wanted terrorist near the outskirts of the town. The ambush killed Captain Pierre Bachaalani and 1^st Sergeant Ibrahim Zahrman and wounded many others.[18]

The LAF found it increasingly challenging to operate near Arsal. Al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, used the town as a base for smuggling men, weapons, and equipment into Syria. The group began expanding its reach into the Bekaa Valley through a relentless series of deadly suicide car bombings and mortar and rocket attacks. Meanwhile, the Islamic State took control of the mountainous region east of Ras Baalbek and al-Qaa.[19]

On 2 August 2014, al-Nusra Front launched an attack on the 8^th Mechanized Infantry Brigade’s positions near Arsal. Over the next five days, roughly 700 militants from al-Nusra and the Islamic State joined the battle, resulting in the deaths of 19 soldiers, the wounding of 86, and the capture of 36. Special operations forces from the Ranger and Air Assault Regiments quickly deployed to reinforce the embattled Lebanese troops.[20]

Stationed 30 miles southeast at Rayak, the 8^th Squadron launched its Gazelle attack helicopters to assist, relying on satellite imagery printed from Google Earth to orient themselves to the battlefield. The commander of the air wing at Rayak led the first mission, his helicopter armed with two .50-calibre machine guns. “When we arrived in the area, we did not know which military positions had fallen and the extent of the enemy’s penetration,” recalled his copilot, Captain M.B.[21]

Spotting a group of armed men, but unsure of their identity, the wing commander dove in for a closer look. Bullets from a Russian-built PK machine gun raked the helicopter. A round tore through the cockpit, destroying the collective lever and spearing through M.B.’s left hand. “I started bleeding, losing large amounts of blood,” he recounted. The wing commander took control of the helicopter and flew straight to the Dar al-Amal Hospital near Baalbek, where M.B. received emergency medical care. The wing commander then returned to Rayak, only to find that he could not shut down the engine. A bullet had damaged the fuel controls, forcing him to wait for the helicopter’s fuel tank to run dry before it finally shut down.[22]

Meanwhile, at Beirut Air Base, 1st Lieutenant C.Y., a Cessna pilot with the 4^th Squadron, received an urgent call from base operations ordering him to prepare his aircraft and crew—himself as pilot, Lieutenant al-Taki as pilot and mission systems operator, and a brigadier general from the operations staff to coordinate with the operations center. “A few minutes later, we were ordered to take off, destined for the outskirts of Arsal,” he recalled. Lieutenant C.Y. was already well-acquainted with the area, having frequently surveilled it since the ambush on the Strike Force patrol the previous year. Yet amid the chaos of the mass attack, the fog of war had set in. “The attack on the military centers happened suddenly,” said C.Y. “We did not have all the information on the disposition of military forces, especially after several fell into the hands of the terrorists.”[23]

Establishing radio contact with the ground troops, C.Y. and his crew began scanning the battlefield through their camera, watching as militants overran one post after another. The defenders executed a fighting withdrawal, buying time until reinforcements could arrive. In the summer of 2014, the 4^th Squadron had only two Cessna 208s, and the second aircraft had yet to be retrofitted to carry Hellfire missiles. That meant C.Y. and his crew were flying the only armed fixed-wing aircraft in the country. While the United States classified the AC-208 as an inexpensive armed tactical reconnaissance aircraft, for Lebanon, it was a strategic asset. It would take more than an hour to land, rearm, and return to the target area, so they had to carefully balance their ability to deliver aerial firepower with the need to maintain continuous ISR coverage. “Our plane was equipped with two Hellfire missiles,” said C.Y. “We were careful not to use them unless absolutely necessary.”[24]

That moment came when the militants encircled a company of Lebanese troops, wounding several with their relentless fire. “We saw through the surveillance camera a group of about ten armed men preparing to storm the center from the rear,” C.Y. recalled, “so we decided to intervene.” Watching the Cessna’s live video feed from the operations center, the LAF director of operations, along with the army and air force commanders, gave the green light for a strike. It would be the first precision airstrike in Lebanon’s history.

C.Y. recounted what happened next: “We turned toward the target and launched the first missile, which took fifty-eight seconds to reach its mark, striking with precision and inflicting heavy losses on the attacking force.” The militants retreated into a nearby house. Circling overhead, C.Y.’s crew waited for them to regroup before launching the second missile. “We deliberately waited for all the terrorists to enter the building before firing,” he explained. “The Hellfire missile is most effective in enclosed spaces – such as rooms, buildings, and fortifications – rather than open areas.”[25]

The missile streaked off the launch rail, and one minute and twenty seconds later, it slammed into the house. The cement walls collapsed, and the house erupted in flames, fuelled by secondary explosions from ammunition stored inside. No one emerged from the inferno. The airstrike reversed the tide of the battle, forcing the militants to withdraw from around the besieged company.[26]

The combat debut of the AC-208 in August 2014 marked the LAF’s first use of precision-guided munitions and the first real-time broadcast of battlefield surveillance video. Meanwhile, the Hueys and Super Pumas transported troops and flew MEDEVAC missions, while Raven UAVs and the Cessnas provided ISR, and Gazelles and the AC-208 delivered close air support. These efforts helped halt the militant advance, but the LAF could not yet push them back, and a three-year stalemate ensued. Of the 36 Lebanese soldiers captured in the battle, the militants executed four, released seven, and exchanged 16 for thirteen jailed militants in a prisoner swap. Nine remained unaccounted for, presumably still held by the Islamic State.[27]

According to Captain G.A., another Cessna pilot in the 4th Squadron, “Our squadron participated in continual military operations from 2014 to 2017. The unrelenting bombing over such a long period of time helped to exhaust and demoralize the militants, as well as to destroy their logistical capabilities and their command-and-control centers.” In addition to Hellfire strikes, the Cessna crews provided observation and adjustment for artillery fire. According to G.A., “The targets we attacked varied from command-and-control centers and logistical points […] to tunnels dug in the mountains […] bulldozers used in digging tunnels and fortifying fighting positions […] and on one occasion, we targeted an Army M-113 armored vehicle which the militants had captured.” While they typically struck preplanned targets, the crews also often searched for targets of opportunity.[28]

In the summer of 2016, the Lebanese Air Force launched its largest coordinated airstrike on militant positions – an operation they viewed as their own miniature version of Desert Storm’s high-tech ‘Instant Thunder’ air campaign. “The raid lasted for about forty minutes,” recalled Colonel A.M., who helped plan the operation. The Cessna fired the opening salvo, striking the first two of eight preplanned targets: an Islamic State field command headquarters and a house sheltering a high-value target. Both missiles hit with precision. “No one left the targeted buildings,” A.M. stated, “so we considered the casualties as confirmed.”[29]

Follow-on attacks targeted enemy infrastructure, including lodging, water tanks, ammunition dumps, and vehicle yards. To bolster the air force’s limited firepower, mechanics from the 9^th Squadron modified a Super Puma into a heli-bomber – similar to the Huey bomber experiment nine years earlier. They rigged a pair of steel I-beams through the cabin and mounted bombs or rocket pods on either side, creating a makeshift but effective strike platform.[30]

After the initial Hellfire strikes, the Cessna used its infrared laser pointer to mark targets for the helicopters and served as a tactical air coordinator, sequencing their attacks. The Puma dropped two 250-kilogram bombs, followed by the Gazelles strafing militants fleeing the bombing with .50-calibre machine guns and 68-millimetre rockets. Once the helicopters cleared the area, the Cessna called in artillery fire to finish the job. Throughout the operation, the Cessna and Raven UAVs provided continuous surveillance of the target area.[31]

While the LAF managed to contain the Islamic State and al-Nusra incursions into the Bekaa Valley, military and political leaders collaborated with their American counterparts to secure new equipment and training for a decisive operation to expel them entirely. For the air force, this included six Embraer A-29B Super Tucano light attack aircraft, which would equip the newly formed 7^th Squadron. The Lebanese Air Force identified twelve of its top pilots to train on the Super Tucano at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, under the USAF’s 81^st Fighter Squadron. The first group of pilots departed Lebanon in February 2017, with the first two A-29s scheduled for delivery in October and the remaining four the following June. USAF Special Operations Command also planned to deploy a team of combat aviation advisors to Lebanon in 2018.[32] Meanwhile, in January 2017, al-Nusra Front merged with four other militant groups to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which dubiously claimed to have severed its ties with al-Qaeda.[33]

It remains a point of contention whether Lebanon’s ingrained political paralysis or a strategic decision to wait for new capabilities like the Super Tucanos delayed a decisive operation against the Islamic State. On 20 July 2017, the Iranian-backed Shia militia Hezbollah pre-empted the LAF by launching its own campaign to retake Arsal.[34]

For at least six years, Hezbollah had been deploying fighters to Syria as part of Iran’s efforts to bolster Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime. A successful operation to expel HTS from Lebanon would not only serve Iran’s strategic interests but also undermine the LAF’s position as the nation’s principal security provider. From 21 to 24 July, Hezbollah seized more than 60 per cent of HTS-held territory, leading to a ceasefire on 27 July that allowed the remaining HTS fighters to withdraw into Syria. Hezbollah’s sophisticated propaganda apparatus flooded media channels with battlefield updates, maps, and footage highlighting combined arms operations involving infantry, artillery, and rockets. Press reports estimated that more than twenty Hezbollah fighters and 150 HTS militants were killed in the operation.[35]

The Lebanese government had no choice but to order an immediate offensive against the Islamic State positions north of Arsal – a far more challenging task given the rugged, defensible mountainous terrain – or risk appearing impotent compared to Hezbollah. The LAF assembled a frontline strength of 4,300 troops in the eastern Bekaa Valley, including the 6^th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the 1^st Intervention Regiment, the Air Assault Regiment, one company from the 4^th Intervention Regiment, and one company from the Moukafaha, a special operations unit under the Directorate of Military Intelligence. Another 4,250 personnel provided support, including elements of the 1^st and 2^nd Artillery Regiments with 36 155-millimetre howitzers.[36]

On 14 August 2017, the LAF initiated its opening manoeuvres, officially launching Operation Fajr al-Jaroud, or ‘Dawn of the Hills,’ on 19 August. That same day, Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army announced their own offensive on the Syrian side of the border, once again attempting to upstage the LAF. The simultaneous operations fuelled speculation of collusion between the LAF and Hezbollah. However, LAF leadership firmly denied such claims, emphasising that their only interaction with Hezbollah was limited to a deconfliction policy not unlike the one between US and Russian forces in Syria.[37]

Lebanese ground forces encountered improvised explosive devices (IEDs), fortified fighting positions, and suicide bombers, but years of sustained operations had already hollowed out the Islamic State’s defences. A steady barrage of air and artillery fire paved the way for the advancing troops. Over 11 days, the Lebanese Air Force flew 141 hours of combat missions. One of the seventy US military advisors in the country, observing the LAF’s coordinated use of ISR, precision air strikes, artillery, infantry, armour, and special operations forces, described the campaign as ‘twenty-first century maneuver warfare by a modern military.’[38]

Though delivery of the first two A-29s was still two months away, the 4^th Squadron had received its third Cessna in December 2016, and all three aircraft were now configured to carry Hellfires. Additionally, the Lebanese Army fielded a game-changing new weapon it had received several years earlier from the Americans: M712 ‘Copperhead’ 155-millimetre laser-guided artillery rounds. Flying parallel to the gun-target line, the Cessna could use its laser designator to guide in round after round with deadly precision. During Fajr al-Jaroud, the Lebanese Army fired 130 Copperhead rounds, including a blistering thirty-three in just thirty minutes at the operation’s climax.[39]

The Islamic State’s position collapsed in mere days, shrinking to a pocket of just twenty square kilometres by 27 August – down from the 120 square kilometres it had occupied at the outset. However, the LAF never launched a final assault; with the operation proving a stunning success, an alarmed Hezbollah quickly intervened to negotiate a ceasefire, allowing the remaining Islamic State fighters to retreat into Syria in exchange for information on the nine LAF soldiers captured three years earlier. Though all nine had been killed, the deal allowed the LAF to recover their bodies. On 28 August, approximately four hundred Islamic State fighters and camp followers departed on buses for eastern Syria.[40]

Operation Fajr al-Jaroud killed more than 50 Islamic State fighters, at the cost of nine LAF soldiers killed and 100 wounded. For the first time since the civil war, the LAF successfully conducted a theatre-level joint operation, demonstrating its ability to effectively utilise US security assistance.[41] Yet, the success owed to more than just the two-week operation. “When the battle is discussed, many people marvel at the short period of time that it was limited to,” said Colonel A.M. “They do not realize that it came as a result of three years of continuous targeting that exhausted the terrorists’ infrastructure and killed many of them.”[42]

Lebanese Air Force aircraft in the hangar at Hamat Air Base, foreground, left to right: SA.330 Super Puma, UH-1H Huey II, SA.342L Gazelle; background, left to right: AC-208 Eliminator, A-29B Super Tucano, Bell 212. (Source: Author)

Conclusion

Hezbollah’s efforts to undermine and overshadow the LAF failed to erode its legitimacy as Lebanon’s principal source of security. The success of the joint operation against the Islamic State spoke for itself.[43] Despite limited resources, the Lebanese Air Force played a decisive role. From the Dinniyeh operation in 2000 to the heli-bombers over Nahr al-Bared in 2007 and the precision airstrikes in the Bekaa Valley from 2014 to 2017, Lebanese aviators found ways – often audacious improvisations – to mobilise air power against violent extremist organisations. What began as a force rebuilt around hand-me-down Hueys gradually evolved into a capable mix of helicopters, crewed fixed-wing aircraft, and UAVs performing ISR, light-attack, and mobility missions. This transformation depended on steady but limited US security assistance: surplus aircraft, grant-funded upgrades, foreign military sales, and training programs that produced a new generation of skilled aviators.

Yet US assistance alone cannot account for the LAF’s battlefield performance. At every stage, Lebanese officers, NCOs, and technicians adapted faster than their inventory changed. They welded together heli-bombers when they lacked aircraft capable of striking hardened urban positions. They mastered precision weapons that they had never fired in training. They built tactics around a single missile-toting Cessna, rationing its firepower while keeping it on station as the country’s only persistent ISR asset. They overcame shortages in personnel, spare parts, and navigational equipment through ingenuity, improvisation, and a deep sense of obligation to the soldiers fighting below.

By the time the Islamic State threatened Lebanon’s northeastern frontier, the Lebanese Air Force had become something unexpected: not a conventional air force in the American sense, but an adaptable, hybrid force optimised for Lebanon’s terrain, politics, and threats. Its air campaign from 2014 to 2017, though modest by comparison with the coalition’s industrial-scale air power in Operation Inherent Resolve, proved decisive along the Islamic State’s western flank, steadily degrading militant capabilities until Operation Fajr al-Jaroud finally drove them from Lebanese territory.

From its rebirth in the 1990s through its campaign against the Islamic State, the history of Lebanese air power demonstrates that modest US security assistance, when paired with Lebanese ingenuity, produced an outsized strategic effect. The Lebanese Air Force did not win battles because it possessed the most technologically advanced equipment, the largest fleet, or the most refined doctrine. It won because Lebanese aviators extracted maximum value from every aircraft, every munition, and every training opportunity. In doing so, they provided the Lebanese Army with the air support it needed to survive, adapt, and prevail against some of the most dangerous violent extremist groups in the world.

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Jackson PhD is an Assistant Professor of History at the US Air Force Academy. He served as a U-28A instructor pilot, Combat Aviation Advisor, and Adaptive Precision Strike evaluator pilot in Air Force Special Operations Command, flying 236 combat missions and 125 combat support missions in support of Operations Inherent Resolve, Freedom Sentinel, Enduring Freedom, Enduring Freedom-Philippines, and Damiyan. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Fallen Tigers: The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II (2021).

Wael Nawaf al-Taki is the manager of Strategic Defense Solutions, Ltd. He served as Chief of the Lebanese Air Force Operations Room and as an A-29 Super Tucano instructor pilot and squadron commander. In addition to flying more than 200 hours in combat operations, he spearheaded organisational and tactical reforms that enhanced air-ground integration within the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Header image: A Lebanese Air Force student prepares to fly the Embraer A-29B Super Tucano for the first time at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia (Source: US Air Force)

[1] The names of most Lebanese military officers have been withheld for security reasons.

[2] Major Wael al-Taki, oral history interview by Daniel Jackson, February 27, 2025.

[3] Department of Defense, ‘Operation Inherent Resolve: Targeted Operations to Defeat ISIS,’ Operation Inherent Resolve, 9 August 2017.

[4] National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 330, Military Assistance Program 1000 System Master File, 1986.

[5] US Embassy in Lebanon, ‘US Ambassador Delivers Cessna Aircraft to Lebanese Armed Forces,’ 19 December 2016,.

[6] Brigadier General S.Y., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 3 August 2022.

[7] Lebanese Armed Forces, Air Force Operations, Beirut, 2021.

[8] Brigadier General S.Y., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Lebanese Armed Forces, Air Force Operations.

[11] Ibid.: Riad Kahwaji, ‘The victory – Lebanon developed helicopter bombers,’ Skyscraper City, 3 September 2007.

[12] Lebanese Armed Forces, Air Force Operations.

[13] Orbital ATK, Mission Systems Operators Manual: Lebanon Armed Caravan SN1239, 02TMAOP-002, Fort Worth, 2016; Stephen Trimble, ‘USAF orders 2^nd Cessna Caravan for Lebanon,’ FlightGlobal, 18 January 2012.

[14] US Embassy in Lebanon, ‘The United States Delivers Four A-29 Super Tucano Aircraft to the LAF,’ 12 June 2018.

[15] Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, ‘US Security Cooperation with Lebanon,’ Fact Sheet, 20 January 2025.

[16] Defense Security Cooperation Agency, ‘Lebanon – Huey II Helicopters,’ Transmittal No. 12-07, 20 July 2012; Defense Security Cooperation Agency, ‘Lebanon—Huey II Rotary Wing Aircraft and Support,’ Transmittal No. 14-20, 19 September 2014; Defense Security Cooperation Agency, ‘Lebanon—AGM-114 Hellfire II Missiles,’ Transmittal No. 15-29, 4 June 2015.

[17] Aram Nerguizian, The Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and Military Legitimacy, Draft, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2017), p. 9.

[18] Lebanese Armed Forces, Air Force Operations.

[19] Nicholas Blanford, ‘The Lebanese Armed Forces and Hezbollah’s Competing Summer Offensives Against Sunni Militants,’ CTC Sentinel 10, no. 8 (2007), p. 27.

[20] Nerguizian, The Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and Military Legitimacy, p. 11.

[21] Captain M.B., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 6 August 2021.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Captain C.Y., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 6 August 2021.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Blanford, ‘The Lebanese Armed Forces and Hezbollah’s Competing Summer Offensives Against Sunni Militants,’ p. 27.

[28] Captain G.A., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 10 August 2021.

[29] Colonel A.M., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 10 August 2021.

[30] The author inspected this aircraft himself and spoke with the maintenance officer who oversaw the modifications while in Lebanon in 2020.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Defense Security Cooperation Office, ‘Lebanon—A-29 Super Tucano Aircraft,’ Transmittal No. 15-13, 9 June 2015; Sierra Nevada Corporation, ‘SNC, Embraer Complete Early Delivery of A-29 Super Tucano Aircraft to Lebanese Air Force for Close Air Support Role,’ Press Release, 12 June 2018.

[33] Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Al Qaeda and allies announce ‘new entity’ in Syria,’ Long War Journal, 28 January 2017

[34] Nerguizian, The Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and Military Legitimacy, p. 15.

[35] Ibid., pp. 15-6.

[36] Ibid., p. 20, 22.

[37] Ibid., p. 16, 23.

[38] Ibid., p. 24.

[39] Lebanese Armed Forces, Air Force Operations.

[40] Blanford, ‘The Lebanese Armed Forces and Hezbollah’s Competing Summer Offensives Against Sunni Militants,’, p. 29.

[41] Nerguizian, The Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and Military Legitimacy, p. 24, 27.

[42] Colonel A.M., oral history interview by Wael al-Taki, 10 August 2021.

[43] Nerguizian, The Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and Military Legitimacy, p. 5.

#BookReview – Marshall’s Great Captain: Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews and Air Power in the World Wars

Reviewed by Dr John J. Abbatiello

Kathy Wilson, Marshall’s Great Captain: Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews and Air Power in the World Wars. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2024. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pbk. 273 pp.

Kathy Wilson highlights the career of a key player in US air power history in Marshall’s Great Captain: Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews and Air Power in the World Wars. This is a much-needed and valuable contribution about a senior leader of the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) and the Army Air Forces (USAAF) – a leader who was a driving force behind American air power, yet not a well-known figure to our reading public. Who was the namesake of Andrews Air Force Base (now styled as Joint Base Andrews), located in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and currently the primary military airbase serving America’s capital city?

Wilson, an independent scholar and Writing Fellow for Norwich University, published Marshall’s Great Captain as part of the University Press of Kentucky’s Aviation and Airpower Series, edited by US Air Force Academy command historian Brian Laslie. Wilson’s narrative begins with Andrews’s time at West Point (Class of 1906) and ends with his untimely death due to an aircraft accident on 3 May 1943. The author correctly argues that the extant works on Second World War air power leadership gloss over Andrews’s career and fail to fully explain his significant contributions. Wilson rectifies this oversight with this thoroughly researched volume.

After a brief introduction and prologue, the latter teasing the reader with the circumstances of Andrews’s final flight and Consolidated B-24 crash, Chapter 1 succinctly covers the subject’s time at West Point and first 11 years in the US Army as a cavalry officer. A descendant of Confederate cavalry officers and related to two Tennessee governors, Andrews thrived as a young leader. In 1914, he married Jeanette ‘Johnnie’ Allen, daughter of a senior Army cavalry commander.

As Wilson explains in Chapter 2, Andrews transferred to the US Army Signal Corps’ Aviation Division, forerunner of the US Army Air Service and USAAC, in 1917 but did not see action overseas. His contributions during the First World War included staff duty in Washington, D.C., and command of Rockwell Field in southern California. By 1918, he was a 38-year-old temporary Lieutenant Colonel. In the early 1920s, he served in Germany in the Army of Occupation. A series of typical assignments followed, to include attendance at all three of the US Army’s professional schools: Air Corps Tactical School, Command and General Staff School, and Army War College. This chapter provides extensive context about US air power in the 1920s and early 1930s, including coverage of the Billy Mitchell trial, air-coastal defence experiments, and the Air Mail fiasco of 1934.

The next two chapters examine Andrews’s appointment to and service as Commanding General, General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force, and the development of the Boeing B-17 bomber. Once again, Wilson provides extensive background, this time explaining the various boards and commissions investigating US air power, to include the Drum Board (1933) and the Baker Board (1934). In early 1935, US Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur appointed Andrews to serve as the first commander of GHQ Air Force. Comprising three under-resourced wings, the new GHQ Air Force was to serve as the Army’s air strike force, and here Andrews took charge of operations and training for the Air Corps. Wilson recounts his challenges stemming from a fragmented command structure in which the Chief of the Air Corps was responsible for supply, procurement, funding, assignments, and other supporting functions. At the same time, Army regional commanders exercised control over bases, maintenance, and court-martial authority. During his four years commanding GHQ Air Force, Andrews increased combat efficiency for USAAC, advocated for the long-range B-17 bomber, and, through air demonstrations and humanitarian flights, raised public awareness of the capabilities of US air power. He also established a solid relationship with a future mentor, then Brigadier General George Marshall, during the summer of 1938 by hosting the latter at GHQ and providing him with a personal tour of USAAC bases across the country. This visit paid dividends in two ways: it established a sense of trust between the two leaders, and it provided Marshall—then serving as the new Chief of Plans for the Army – with a solid understanding of air power’s roles, missions, and capabilities.

Boeing XB-17 (Model 299). (Source: Wikimedia)

Marshall became US Army Chief of Staff in September 1939 and appointed Andrews as the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, or chief of operations and training for the Army. Andrews was the first aviator to serve in this critical role for the Army, and, according to Wilson’s Chapter 5, it ‘was the most important and impactful assignment of Andrews’s career.’ (p. 105) Here, Andrews played an essential role in preparing the US Army for future combat in the Second World War, including establishing the Armored Force, improving training for the National Guard, setting up the Army’s emerging airborne infantry capability, and generally better integrating air units with Army operations. Chapter 6 then covers Andrews’ increased responsibilities first as commander of USAAC units in the Panama Canal Zone and then as overall US Army commander of the Caribbean Defense Command. These were important roles given American fears of potential Axis interference with the Panama Canal. Andrews demonstrated his expertise in reorganising forces, building and improving facilities, nurturing relationships with regional Allies, and most importantly, improving combat readiness.

Chapter 7 continues the Andrews story by describing the subject’s role as Commander, US Forces Middle East, starting in November 1942, and then as Commander, US Forces European Theater of Operations (ETO) beginning in February 1943. In these responsibilities, Andrews once again excelled at organising, training, and employing forces against the Axis. As ETO Commander, headquartered in London, he oversaw the rapid buildup of US Army ground units for Operation OVERLORD and the US 8^th Air Force for the Combined Bomber Offensive; throughout, he maintained an excellent working relationship with his British counterparts.

In the final chapter, Wilson details the planned trip from London back to the United States via Iceland on 3 May 1943, which ended in a tragic crash due to poor weather. Her epilogue speculates – using the best available evidence – what next role Andrews may have taken on had he lived. Unfortunately, Andrews’ story ends too early.

Some key themes emerge throughout Wilson’s narrative. In mentioning the leadership style and personality of the gregarious and hard-charging USAAF Commanding General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, admiration of Andrews’s soft-spoken, gentlemanly demeanour is obvious. In all his roles, Andrews sought to educate superiors, peers, and subordinates about air power, not to antagonise them as other airmen sometimes did. Andrews’s relationship with George Marshall was important not only for the former’s rise through leadership positions but also for Marshall’s clear understanding of air power’s role in its various capacities. Finally, Wilson skilfully describes the technical development and acquisition processes of US aircraft, topics seldom mentioned in similar histories of this formative period for American air power.

This reviewer submits only one minor complaint about this study. Several verbatim quotes appearing throughout the volume are unattributed in the text, requiring the reader to flip to the note pages at the end of the book to determine the source. Many of these are lengthy. For example, page 115 presents an extensive excerpt on Marshall’s approach to selecting Army leaders, with no clues about the source. The endnote at the back of the book reveals that this was a quotation from a 1943 New York Tribune article by a staff writer.

Nevertheless, Wilson’s well-researched biography of Frank Andrews is a welcome addition to our understanding of air power leadership during the interwar years and the Second World War. Andrews was a key player, skilled in diplomacy yet laser-focused on organisation, training, and readiness. Airmen today have much to learn from Frank Andrews’ story.

Dr John J. Abbatiello earned his PhD from King’s College London’s War Studies program in 2004. After 18 years of faculty service at the US Air Force Academy’s Department of History and Center for Character and Leadership Development, he then served as the Training and Education Branch Chief for North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command. He is the author of Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I: British Naval Aviation and the Defeat of the U-Boats (Routledge, 2006) and a chapter on Lewis Brereton in The Worst Military Leaders in History (Reaktion Books, 2022).

Header image: General Frank M. Andrews, theatre commander of US forces in the ETO, was responsible for directing the American strategic bombing campaign against Germany and for planning the land invasion of occupied western Europe, 1943. (Source: Wikimedia)

#BookReview – Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning

Reviewed by Dr Ross Mahoney

Randall Wakelam, David Varey and Emanuele Sica (eds.), Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2020. Hbk. Notes. Index. vii + 260 pp.

Air power history is dominated by accounts of operations, especially those of the First World War, the Second World War, and the Vietnam War. There is relatively little written about how air forces prepared for war. However, an inherent part of this preparation is how air forces have educated their aviators throughout history. As such, it is refreshing to read a volume dedicated to the subject of learning in air forces. Moreover, as the editors of the volume correctly write (p. 1), [i[f we accept that militaries are professions and that professions need education […] then we could reasonably want to know how militaries are educated and how well they perform this task.’

This edited volume is the outgrowth of a 2016 conference held at the Royal Military Academy of Canada on air power education. The book consists of 13 chapters organised into three chronological eras (the interwar years, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War). Many of the chapters were presented as keynote lectures at the 2016 conference. Several chapters, such as James Beldon and Peter Gray’s reflection on air power education in the modern Royal Air Force (RAF), were added for the publication of the volume (pp. 232-44). The addition of such chapters helps to round out the book and give shape to the subject.

Before examining some of the chapters, it is essential to recognise that, conceptually, this edited volume focuses on learning rather than solely on education. However, the latter is its main focus. This is an important distinction, as some of the chapters deal with educational establishments whose primary focus was training rather than education. As the editors relate, a tiered system of learning exists in military organisations that moves from training through to education (pp. 3-4). Nonetheless, for example, the chapters by Emanuele Sica (pp. 30-50) and John Farquhar (pp. 111-33) address institutions – the Accademia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force Academy) and the United States Air Force (USAF) Academy, respectively – whose primary focus is training. However, such institutions still have a broader educational role to play, and in this, we have a case of ‘Athens in Sparta,’ or a mix of skills-based training (Sparta) with broader education (Athens).

A review of this kind cannot hope to critique each chapter individually. As such, a couple of examples taken from each period will suffice. In the section on the interwar years, Sica examines the role that Giulio Douhet’s writing played in the education of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) through the lens of the Accademia Aeronautica. In doing this, Sica presents a well-trodden subject – the writing of Douhet – in a new light. As Sica highlights, the place of Douhet in the development of his own country’s air force remains ‘open to debate’ (p. 43). Moreover, while the appointment of Italo Balbo in 1926 as undersecretary for air in the Italian government has been interpreted as ‘boon for Douhet’s fortune,’ the former’s policies illustrate the difficulty of assessing Douhet’s impact. This is born out in the teaching at the Accademia Aeronautica. As Sica argued, Douhet’s ‘ideas […] did not appear to gain wide acceptance, especially in the first years of the Italian Air Force Academy’ (p. 44).

In the section on the Cold War, the chapter by Richard Goette is of particular interest to this author, given the parallels between the Canadian and Australian experiences in the early years of the Cold War. Canada’s experience with creating its own Staff College is the subject of Goette’s chapter. However, it is worth noting that during the interwar years, both the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) relied on the RAF to provide mid-level officer education through the RAF Staff College at Andover, the latter examined by Gray in his chapter (pp. 15-29). The experience of the Second World War led the RCAF and RAAF to establish their own staff colleges. Goette, however, points out (p. 103) that ‘[a]ir force education at the RCAF Staff College […] involved much more than studying and time spent in the classroom.’ Goette’s point here is important. Attendance at institutions such as staff colleges is about more than just formal learning; it is about the experience as a whole and the opportunity for socialisation, networking and the sharing of ideas amongst peers.

The establishment of the USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies (now the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS)) by the world’s preeminent air force is the subject of Harold Winton’s chapter. In this chapter, Winton compares SAASS with the interwar Air Corps Tactical School and examines five key areas of comparison: origins and purpose, faculty, curriculum, students, and significance (p. 154). In his conclusion, Winton rightly highlights that, in creating an institution for the ‘elite’ education of select officers in the form of SAASS, the USAF must ensure that its officers show ‘intellectual humility’ to prevent them from degenerating (p. 163) into ‘elites of privilege and entitlement.’ Conversely, Martin James discusses the role of education and the establishment of the Air Power Studies Centre (APSC) (now the Air and Space Power Centre) by the RAAF. In this, James highlights the importance of key stakeholders, notably, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Ray Funnell, in supporting the establishment of APSC. Indeed, the role of such ‘champions’ needs to be more fully understood. For example, Marshal of the RAF Lord Cameron was instrumental in establishing the role of Director of Defence Studies for the RAF in 1977. The RAAF was fortunate in having a CAS, Funnell, who recognised that the study and writing of air power, including its doctrine, had been neglected (p. 170).

It is hard to criticise an edited work such as this, as it does not purport to be a comprehensive examination of air power learning. It could never hope to be, but it does offer a valuable insight into a much-underappreciated subject. However, the volume focuses on the experience of Western air forces. It would have been interesting to compare the experience of Western air forces in learning with that of non-Western countries. For example, discussing air power learning in communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China could highlight the role ideology played in officer education.

In conclusion, despite the author’s criticism above, the editors are to be commended for bringing this volume to fruition. The volume offers a starting point for any scholar researching learning in the military, generally, and in air forces specifically. It should be read by both scholars and practitioners who are interested in military learning.

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has 20 years of experience in the education, museum, heritage and government sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum from 2013 to 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents.

Header image: Ramslade House, the home of the RAF Staff College in Bracknell after the Second World War. (Source: Wikimedia)

#ResearchNote – The Forgotten Few: The Royal Australian Air Force and the Korean Air War – A Historiographical Note

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This article first appeared on the author’s website. It has been reproduced here with permission.

The Korean War is often described as the ‘Forgotten War’ due to it being sandwiched between the more commonly known Second World War and the Vietnam War. Furthermore, a debate persists over its character, with some referring to it as ‘police action.’ Despite this, the Korean War has received its fair share of examination by historians since the conflict ended. Arguably, the most comprehensive history in the English language is Allan Millett’s history of the conflict. So far, two volumes of The War for Korea (2005 and 2010) out of a projected three have been published, covering the period up to 1951. From an Australian perspective, the late Jeffrey Grey’s work on the role of British Commonwealth armies, The Commonwealth Armies and the Korean War (1988), remains a key work.

In addition to Grey’s work, the key source on Australia’s involvement in the Korean War remains the two-volume official history written by Robert O’Neill. Starting research in 1970, O’Neill’s two-volume history dealt with strategy and diplomacy in its first volume, while the second volume covered the combat operations of the military forces deployed, including the experience of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). While the first volume has generally been praised, the second volume has been described by at least one critic as a ‘regimental history.[1] Indeed, with specific reference to the RAAF’s contribution, Glen St John Barclay questioned the validity of volume two, arguing ‘if one is not going to make even a passing reference to the aviators of the US Air Force and Navy who achieved total command of the skies for the United Nations Forces in Korea. This is Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, indeed.’[2]

O’Neill’s appointment nevertheless marked a significant departure from previous official historians, who were journalists by background. Here, the Australian Government made a conscious decision to appoint an academic – O’Neill also served as the Head of the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the time he researched and wrote the official history. Since O’Neill’s appointment, the subsequent official histories published in Australia have adopted a significantly more academic tone. Moreover, as Peter Edwards, the Official Historian of Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975 has written, O’Neill ‘pioneered the coverage in official histories of the strategic and diplomatic policy-making that led Australian forces to be involved in conflicts, with the same precision and authority as had always been given to the experience of those forces.’ [3]

A South African Air Force North American F-86F Sabre from No. 2 Squadron at Tsuiki air base, Japan, in 1953. No. 2 Squadron SAAF was attached to the US Air Force 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing during the Korean War. (Source: Wikimedia)

Returning to air power, the historiography is generally dominated by accounts detailing the role of primarily the United States Air Force, with some attention paid to US naval air power and the role of US Marine Corps aviation. Key amongst these is Conrad Crane’s American Airpower Strategy in Korea (2000). Crane is critical of the USAF’s official history published by Robert Futrell in the 1960s, noting that The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (1961) ‘emphasizes the success of air power in Korea and not the air force’s failure to learn enough from that ordeal.’[4] The role of naval aviation is dealt with in Richard Hallion’s 1986 work, The Naval Air War in Korea. Xiaoming Zhang’s 1998 article in The Journal of Military History and his 2002 book Red Wings over the Yalu remain the key works in the English language that examine the Chinese and Soviet use of air power over Korea.[5] Of interest is John Sherwood’s 1996 cultural history of US pilots during the Korean War, Officers in Flight Suits: The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots in the Korean War. In addition to these works, a useful general introduction to the subject can be found in Michael Napier’s 2021 history, Korean Air War.

Dealing with Australian air power, writing on the experience of the RAAF began even before the war had ended when George Odgers published Across the Parallel in 1952. Odgers had served as a public relations officer for the RAAF in Korea and had access to No. 77 Squadron that would have been hitherto unheard of for other writers of the time. The work was generally well received at the time of its publication, although it is now somewhat dated. Odgers would later write a biography of Wing Commander Richard Cresswell, Mr Double Seven (2008), who commanded No. 77 Squadron during 1951. Few personnel accounts of the RAAF’s involvement in the air war over Korea have been published. A notable exception is Colin King’s Luck is No Accident (2001).

Little was published on the RAAF’s operations in Korea until the arrival in 1994 of David Wilson’s Lion Over Korea. The RAAF’s role in Korea was discussed by Alan Stephens in the second volume of the Air Force’s official history, Going Solo, in 1995. Stephens’ work is arguably the most comprehensive treatment of the campaign, despite the experience in Korea warranting only a single chapter. The volume, however, situates the deployment in context and links it to other ongoing issues in the history of the RAAF at the time. Then, at the turn of the 21^st Century, Doug Hurst published The Forgotten Few (2000) while more recently Owen Zupp has published an account of Australia’s contribution to the air war (2024).

Despite the lack of personal accounts and Hurst’s contention that the No. 77 Squadron represented a ‘forgotten few,’ there has been a surprising amount published for what was ostensibly a small contribution to the war effort. Nevertheless, there are problems. While it might be argued that much has been written about the RAAF’s contribution to the air war, their contribution can still be overlooked. For example, In from the Cold, a 2020 edited collection reflecting on Australia’s contribution to the Korean War, did not include a chapter on the RAAF. Based on a 2011 conference at the Australian War Memorial, the event featured chapters on the Australian Army and the Battle of Maryang San, as well as the four-month deployment of the Royal Australian Navy’s aircraft carrier, HMAS Sydney. However, the closest we see the RAAF discussed is in a chapter on coalition air operations by Richard Hallion.[6]

Additionally, apart from Stephens’ work, the cited works above primarily focus on the experience of No. 77 Squadron. Little attempt is made to link expertise back to the development and operations of the RAAF in Australia and other places such as Malaya. Indeed, any consideration of Australian air power strategy in this period cannot separate Korea from Malaya, as the two campaigns were clearly linked in the mind of the Australian government.[7]

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum between 2013 and 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here.

Header image: A United States Air Force North American F-86 Sabre parked alongside Gloster Meteor Mk8s on No. 77 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force at Iwakuni in Japan, June 195. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] Glen St John Barcley, ‘Australian Historians and the Study of War, 1975-88,’ Australian Journal of Politics & History 41, no. 1 (1995), p. 241.

[2] Barclay, ‘Australian Historians and the Study of War,’ p. 241.

[3] Peter Edwards, ‘Robert O’Neill and the Australian Official War Histories: Policy and Diplomacy’ in Daniel Marston and Tamara Leahy (eds.), War, Strategy and History: Essays in Honour of Professor Robert O’Neill (Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, 2016), p. 71.

[4] Wayne Thompson, ‘Book Review – American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953 by Conrad Crane,’ Journal of American History 87, no. 4 (2001), p. 1565.

[5] Xiaoming Zhang, ‘China and the Air War in Korea, 1950-1953,’ The Journal of Military History 62, no. 2, (1998), pp. 335–70.

[6] Richard Hallion, ‘The Air War in Korea: Coalition Air Power in the Context of Limited War’ in John Blaxland, Michael Kelly and Brewin Higgins (eds.), In from the Cold: Reflections of Australia’s Korean War (Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, 2020), p. 129, 141.

[7] Mark Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950 to 1966 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2021), p. 75.

#Commentary – Strategic Air Power in Yemen: A Cross-Domain Solution or Just Mowing the Grass

By Dr Jacob Stoil

Starting on 19 October 2023, the Houthi attacks against international shipping and Israel have seen many air power firsts. In their very first attack, the Iranian-backed Houthis employed attack drones against maritime targets, which eventually led to the first instance of the German Navy shooting down enemy aviation since the Second World War. Even more significantly, Houthi ballistic missile attacks against Israel led to the first combat interception in space. However, as much as things have changed, the strategic problem the Houthis present and the air-centric means that the US has chosen to oppose it, has a long history in the Middle East and raises questions about the strategic limitations of air power.

The Houthis sit aside a strategically critical sea line of communication (SLOC). In peacetime, between 10-15% of global trade and around 30% of global container traffic flow through the Suez Canal and into the Houthi crosshairs. Should a great power war occur, the significance of the waters of Yemen will only increase. The SLOC through the Red Sea represents the fastest way to move resources at scale from Europe to a Pacific theatre of operations and an essential alternative to the Panama Canal for transiting from the eastern seaboard of the United States to the Indian Ocean and Southwestern Pacific. These two factors mean that the US can little afford the Houthis and their Iranian backers to maintain their at-will blockade of these critical waterways. This same logic led the British Empire to take and hold Aden and launch military campaigns in the Horn of Africa throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Since the US is focusing its combat power on the Pacific and the European powers are most concerned with the threat to their borders, neither is looking for another long-term Middle Eastern entanglement, and so this is an unlikely approach. Instead, the Western allies have turned to an approach with a long history in the Middle East whenever an economy of force is desired – air power.

While by virtue of its strategic position and resources, the Middle East as a region is of critical importance to any modern state wishing to project power globally, most of its territory is not. Occupation is expensive and manpower intensive, and so since the 1920s, powers have attempted to ensure the security of their vital interests by following the mirage of strategic air power. In the Middle East, the basic idea has remained remarkably consistent. The strategic concept is that with air power, a country can conduct scalable punitive raids, which will either erode capability so a potential adversary cannot mount a significant threat, create deterrence by demonstrating the cost of threatening a strategically vital area, or finally weaken an adversary to the point a local rival can unseat them. In theory, this use of air power, a cross-domain version of the punitive expedition, allows countries to achieve and sustain their strategic objectives while not having to involve themselves in the costly and manpower-intensive business of occupying the hinterlands of the Middle East. The current US operations in Yemen appear to be the latest in this long history.

For decades, Israel pursued a similar policy known as ‘mowing the grass.’ In this mode of operation, whenever militant groups or adversaries escalated beyond a certain threshold, Israel would respond with an air campaign (supported at times by special operations and even limited ground forces). The purpose of these operations was to buy quiet. They did not attempt to change the fundamental dynamic that led to the escalation; instead, they tried to degrade enemy capabilities until the enemy (at least temporarily) no longer posed a credible threat and deter certain forms of future enemy operations. The air campaigns reduced the capabilities of Israel’s enemies. They forced them to spend resources on reconstitution. However, as is now abundantly clear, this did not stop Israel’s enemies from developing the capability to inflict significant harm, nor did it do anything to remove the motivation.

From their initial conception, these air-centric ‘mowing the grass’ operations acknowledged they could not achieve decisive results or a permanent effect. The strategic conditions meant it would always be worth it for the enemy to rebuild and try again. The damage might have been severe, but if it was in Iran’s interest to rebuild its capabilities, then the targeted groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would always be able to rebuild. Without large-scale ground operations and potentially long-term occupation, air power could only achieve a limited strategic effect within the larger geopolitical pressures shaping the Middle East.

The Houthis potentially find themselves in a similar situation to Hamas and Hezbollah facing the Israeli Air Force, which highlights one of the strategic limitations of air-centric campaigning. Turning maritime traffic away from the Red Sea SLOC requires minimal capability. If the Houthis present a credible threat and continue to target vessels, the maritime insurance market will keep many merchant vessels away. This lowers the level of capabilities to which the Houthis must rebuild to interdict the SLOC, as they only need enough to make maritime insurers nervous. The Houthis have also demonstrated to countries like China and Iran, who have been backing them, that they present a relatively low-cost option to complicating US global sealift – even during a time of war. Should the Houthis attack shipping during wartime, they would force the US either to divert precious naval and air power to tackle the challenge or slow global movement by avoiding the contested waters off Yemen. While devastating to the Houthis, the current air campaign is doing little to change either of these two realities. The Houthis’ strategic position is too important to their backers, the cost of closing the straits too low, and the ideology of the Houthis too absolute to be dissuaded by even the most effective air campaign alone.

There has been one recent exception to this pattern, which may provide a way forward for the US air campaign in Yemen. Since 7 October 2023, Israel launched an air campaign against the Assad government in Syria. The purpose of the campaign was not to remove Assad but to diminish the immediate risk Assad posed to Israel. Eventually, Israel added a covert operations campaign and ground offensive against Hezbollah, on whom Assad relied to keep his government in power. Taken together, this weakened the Syrian regime to the point that local Turkish-backed adversaries could overthrow it. Likewise, the Houthis have several regional enemies waiting in Yemen. The Houthis and their backers have managed to hold these enemies at bay. However, the severity of the US air campaign is such that it may hit a tipping point at which point the UAE and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen may take the opportunity to launch a ground offensive. If so, like Syria, it may be counted as a rare win for the strategic employment of air power in the Middle East, but only inasmuch as other forces on the ground are prepared to fight. If not, Yemen will prove a lesson that the Middle East has taught repeatedly – air power is useful, but by itself cannot change the strategic dynamics of the region.

Dr Jacob Stoil is a military historian who is the Research Professor of Middle East Security at the US Army Strategic Studies Institute, Chair of Applied History at the Modern War Institute, Senior Fellow of the 40^th Infantry Urban Warfare Center, and Trustee of the U.S. Commission on Military History. He has worked extensively in the Middle East, including in support of Task Force Spartan. He has published multiple policy and academic articles, which can be found in publications such as the International Journal of Military History, Wavell Room, and Modern War Institute. He can be followed on X as @JacobStoil.

Header image: A US Navy F/A-18 fighter jet taking off at night before the 2024 Yemeni airstrikes, 12 January 2024. (Source: Wikimedia)

The Korean War and the OODA Loop: What Happened to the Kill Ratio?

By Stephen Robinson

The United States Air Force (USAF) Colonel John R. Boyd’s most enduring idea is his Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop theory. For example, Antulio J. Echevarria concluded that it ‘became the most memorable aspect of Boyd’s legacy.’[1] The basic idea is to move faster than the enemy through a four-stage cycle.[2] With a relative speed advantage, the victor seizes the initiative while the loser becomes paralysed by disorientation and panic.[3] The winner gets inside their adversary’s OODA loop, and, as Martin van Creveld explained, the loser is in a situation ‘comparable to that of a chess player who is allowed to make only one move for every two made by his opponent.’[4] Towards the end of his life, Boyd refined the OODA loop into a vastly more complex idea involving multiple feedback loops and different pathways between the four stages.[5] While the final version has had little influence, the same cannot be said of the earlier concept.

The OODA loop is applicable outside the military; as Frans P. B. Osinga explained, it ‘has spread like a meme beyond military organizations, infecting business consultants, psychiatrists, pedagogues, and sports instructors.’[6] Why did the OODA loop spread like a meme? What convinced so many that the idea had merit? As Michael W. Hankins explained, ‘something about Boyd’s expression of the OODA loop resonated with a certain audience in a powerful way.’[7] There is one prominent example that may explain this trend. In the early days of his Patterns of Conflict briefing, Boyd used his emerging, but not fully formed, OODA loop idea to explain the remarkable kill ratio F-86 Sabres achieved against MiG-15s during the Korean War (usually given as 10:1).

The example of Sabre versus MiG-15 combat in Korea was a decisive factor in the OODA loop spreading like a meme because it is usually the most prominent and compelling evidence provided in literature advocating the theory. The Korean War air combat example also benefitted from a certain mystique as it touched upon Boyd’s personal experience as an F-86 pilot during that conflict.

In my book The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War (2021), I claimed the OODA loop explained the remarkable 10:1 kill ratio and the air war in Korea.[8] However, I thank Hankins for correcting my error since ‘this “famous” ratio is almost certainly wrong’ and it ‘was more likely much lower, although still in the US’s favor.’[9] I did not realise that the 10:1 kill ratio had been convincingly debunked. Therefore, the relationship between air combat in Korea and the OODA loop must be reconsidered.

The Anomaly

The final Far East Air Forces report from the Korean War stated that ‘it is believed the ten to one victory ratio of the F-86 over the MiG-15 was gained by superior tactics, well-trained, experienced and aggressive pilots, and a superior armament and fire-control system.’[10] Nevertheless, that result seemed odd since both aircraft were roughly equal from a technical perspective and even when acknowledging superior American skill, the level of Sabre success seemed strangely high.

Three US Air Force North American F-86F Sabre fighters of the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing over Korea, c. 1953. (Source: Wikimedia)

To Boyd, the 10:1 kill ratio was an intriguing anomaly since MiG-15s were faster and could operate at a higher ceiling and make tighter turns.[11] ‘The MiG,’ as he explained, ‘could out-climb, out-accelerate the F-86, throughout the entire envelope, accelerate quite a bit better. Its sustained turn was better, its instantaneous turn in some areas it was better, in other areas it wasn’t as good.’[12] Boyd also noted that the Sabre’s bubble canopy offered pilots superior observation while its hydraulic flight controls made it more responsive ‘just like power steering in a car’.[13] When all those factors were considered, both planes were roughly equal on paper, and a more even result should have occurred.[14] Although American pilots were generally better trained and had greater experience, Boyd did not consider that sufficient to explain the kill ratio.[15] According to Robert Coram in Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, ‘Boyd made a list of attributes of the MiG and the F-86. For days he went into frequent trances as he groped for the answer.’[16]

Boyd concluded that the F-86’s bubble canopy gave American pilots superior ‘observation’ and ‘orientation’. At the same time, its hydraulic flight controls allowed rapid transition from one manoeuvre to another, making it easier to translate a ‘decision’ into an ‘action’.[17] Therefore, Boyd concluded that American pilots completed OODA loops faster than communist pilots, who accordingly became disoriented and paralysed as they could not keep up. Before this insight, Sabre pilots knew that its bubble canopy and hydraulic flight controls gave them advantages.[18] However, Boyd uniquely explained that these advantages allowed F-86 pilots to achieve OODA loop domination. Superior observation resulted in faster orientation, and hydraulic flight controls resulted in quicker actions that collectively meant faster American OODA loops. In this way, Boyd explained the curious anomaly – or so it seemed at the time. However, with the benefit of hindsight, the anomaly is more convincingly resolved by lowering the inflated kill ratio.

The OODA Loop and the Kill Ratio

In 1977, in the USAF oral history, Boyd stated: ‘We had [an] 11 to 1 exchange rate of 86 over MiG-15; somewhere between 10 and 14 to one rounded off to 11 to 1 – very high.’[19] One year later, during a Patterns of Conflict briefing, he stated that the kill ratio was ‘11 to 1 or somewhere between 10 to 14.’[20] During that briefing, Boyd’s most prominent example of the effectiveness of the ‘observation-decision-action loop’ was Korean War air combat as he explained ‘observation’ concerning the Sabre’s bubble canopy and ‘decision-action’ through its hydraulic flight controls.[21] Therefore, the F-86 versus MiG-15 combat example would have influenced the audience’s mind.

James Fallows’ article ‘The Muscle-Bound Super Power’, published in Atlantic Monthly in 1979, argued that Boyd’s ‘observation-decision-action cycles’ explained why ‘F-86s had consistently gunned down Russian MiG-15s, even though the MiGs were “better” planes.’[22] That example of air combat was his article’s most prominent example of the OODA loop’s effectiveness. Two years later, in National Defense, Fallows insisted that ‘F-86s consistently destroyed the MiGs.’[23] No kill ratios were given in both cases, but his words ‘consistently gunned down’ and ‘consistently destroyed’ indicated a large margin of success.

Rodger Spiller from the United States Army’s Command and Staff College questioned Boyd’s analysis of the Korean air war in an unpublished critique in the early 1980s and sent a copy to Boyd. After Spiller explained that the ‘foundation of the OODA loop is to be found in the aerial combat of the Korean War between the MIG-15 and the F-86,’ he concluded:

The basic data that gave rise to the OODA loop hypothesis has never been openly challenged; however, there apparently is classified information that may call these conclusions to question. During our conversation, Boyd indicated that he was aware of this information, and he discounted the possibility of its adverse impact on his view.[24]

In response, Boyd commented, ‘No – OODA loop came from work and anomalies associated with evolution and flight tests of YF-16/17 [prototypes].’[25] Nevertheless, Boyd knew that people with access to classified information were questioning his ‘basic data’ regarding F-86 versus MiG-15 combat. By ‘basic data’ Spiller may have meant the kill ratio. Boyd did not challenge Spiller’s assessment concerning the ‘basic data,’ and he noted: ‘Information I was referring to were the U[niversity] of Chicago[’s] work on the Korean War.’[26]

Boyd may have meant a report written by John Wester titled ‘Effectiveness of the Gunsight,’ published by the University of Chicago’s Institute for Air Weapons Research in 1954.[27] The F-86E and F-86F variants included new radar-ranging A-1C(M) gunsights, and during the last six months of the war, many Sabre pilots credited the device with helping them shoot down MiG-15s. However, many other pilots considered the gunsight too complex and unreliable to be practical while adding useless extra weight. As Steven A. Fino explained, ‘we see clearly two narratives emerging: one of a “great machine” that incorporates cosmic technologies to simplify pilots’ tasks; the other of a “great pilot” who somehow triumphs in spite of the new and poorly designed machinery.’[28] As Boyd did not praise the gunsight in his briefing and since his Fighter Mafia and Reformers movements preferred simplicity over complex gadgets that reduced manoeuvrability, he almost certainly was in the latter category of sceptical pilots.[29]

Furthermore, Brigadier General Benjamin N. Bellis, head of the F-X project, Boyd ‘hated the complexity and sophistication of an on-board fire control system (radar)’ in the F-15 Eagle.[30] Therefore, it is likely that Boyd also opposed the A-1C(M) gunsight in Sabres. Although the gunsight was not fully automated, pilots who carefully studied its manual and took the time to learn how to incorporate it into their manual processes improved their efficiency in what Fino referred to as ‘a more effective human-machine system.’[31]

Boyd and Spiller may also have discussed Dennis Strawbridge and Nannette Kahn’s ‘Fighter Pilot Performance in Korea’ published in 1955 by the University of Chicago’s Institute for Air Weapons Research. Although this report noted the 10:1 kill ratio, it stressed that many MiG-15 kills were attributed to Sabre pilots who never opened fire, as enemy pilots had lost control and either crashed or bailed out.[32] Therefore, Boyd and Spiller may have discussed the pros and cons of the A-1C(M) gunsight or MiG-15 losses not involving Sabres opening fire. In any case, Boyd knew that Spiller was scrutinising his claims regarding air combat during the Korean War.

In 1985, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Kross, a USAF officer, challenged the kill ratio in Military Reform: The High-Tech Debate in Tactical Air Forces:

The F-86’s 10-to-1 kill ratio also should be examined more closely, say TACAIR [Tactical Air] Planners. In the first part of the war (June 1950–December 1952), when Russian “Honchos” flew with the North Korean MiGs, the kill ratio was only 4.9-to-1 in favour of the F-86. When the Russian pilots were pulled out in January 1953, the kill ratio soared to 20-to-1 in the last six months of the war.[33]

As Kross was a high-profile critic, Boyd probably knew that Kross and TACAIR were questioning the kill ratio. Nevertheless, they were voices in the wilderness, and commentators advocating the OODA loop theory continued to use the 10:1 kill ratio.

Boyd’s acolyte William S. Lind, in his 1985 Maneuver Warfare Handbook, gave the kill ratio as 10:1.[34] Lind repeated that figure a year later in America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform, a book he wrote with Senator Gary Hart.[35] In both books, just before the OODA loop is introduced, the air war in Korea is the most prominent example used to explain Boyd’s conflict theory, as expressed in Patterns of Conflict.

During the 1980s, Boyd stopped citing a kill ratio. For example, in a Patterns of Conflict briefing from the early-to-mid 1980s, he stated:

Now typically today many people or until very recently, people thought the MiG-15 was a more manoeuvrable airplane than the -86 […] I will dispel that myth. I will show you why and make it very compelling and convincing. For one thing we have a new frame of reference with which we can compare those aircraft. We have the OODA loop.[36]

Although Boyd did not cite a kill ratio, he implied that the Sabres achieved remarkable success against MiG-15s.[37] He similarly stated in a 1989 briefing that ‘in a sense the -86 was a better airplane, particularly if you examine them through the OODA loop.’[38] Boyd again implied that Sabres achieved an undefined high level of success without mentioning a kill ratio.[39] Boyd may have been aware that the 10:1 kill ratio was inaccurate. In any case, with the information available in his lifetime, he could not possibly have guessed how far the kill ratio would eventually decline. But before that correction occurred, the 10:1 kill ratio or words indicating remarkable success, continued to be used by others promoting the OODA loop.

In 1994, in The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and AirLand Battle, Robert Leonard stated that Boyd ‘had been investigating why American fighter pilots had been consistently able to best enemy pilots in dogfights [in Korea].’[40] F-86 versus MiG-15 combat is the only example he used when explaining the ‘Boyd cycle’.[41] After Boyd died in 1997, the close acolyte of Boyd and defence analyst Franklin C. Spinney, in his tribute ‘Genghis John’, cited the 10:1 kill ratio and air combat in Korea as the most prominent example supporting the ‘observation-decision-action cycle’.[42] In 2001, in The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security, Grant Hammond similarly gave the kill ratio as 10:1, but it did fluctuate ‘wildly (from 4.9:1 when Russian pilots flew the MiGs to 20:1 in the last six months of the war after the Russian pilots were pulled out in January 1953).’[43]

Although Coram in Boyd questioned the 10:1 kill ratio, he had no basis to challenge it as ‘the ten to one kill ratio remains the number published in histories of Korea.’[44] In Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business, Chet Richards stated that the ‘Americans won ten air battles for every one they lost’ during the Korean War.[45] Osinga, in Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, agreed that ‘the kill ratio was 10:1 in favor of the F-86 during the Korean War.’[46] More recently, in 2018, Ian T. Brown noted in A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare that the ‘F-86 had regularly outperformed its MiG-15 counterpart.’[47] Although Brown did not cite a kill ratio, his words indicated an impressive margin of success. Brown also stressed the importance of Boyd’s F-86 versus MiG-15 combat analysis to his theory of conflict because ‘the contrast in performance between Soviet and American fighter aircraft resonated with him, and he would revisit it later as he developed his warfighting theory.’[48]

The kill ratio was also an essential consideration in Colin S. Gray’s endorsement of the OODA loop as a strategic concept in Modern Strategy:

As a fighter pilot and subsequent investigator of the reasons why USAF F-86 Sabre jets achieved such remarkably favourable kill ratios in combat against MiG-15s over North Korea (10 to 1), Boyd found in the OODA loop the essential logic of success in battle […] The OODA loop may appear too humble to merit categorization as grand theory, but that is what it is. It has an elegant simplicity, an extensive domain of applicability, and contains a high quality of insight about strategic essentials, such that its author merits honourable mention as an outstanding general theorist of strategy.[49]

Despite such statements, the famous kill ratio would dramatically deflate.

What was the actual Kill Ratio?

In Red Devils over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950‑53, the Russian historian Igor Seidov disputed the 10:1 kill ratio. He noted the official USAF claim that of the 224 Sabres lost, only 110 were caused by enemy action before concluding: ‘Isn’t the figure for non-combat losses suspiciously high?’[50] Stuart Britton supported Seidov’s argument, explaining that ‘since the war, the number of USAF MiG-15 claims has been steadily revised downwards, while its admitted losses of F-86s have slowly increased.’[51] Similarly, in Red Wings Over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea, the Chinese historian Xiaoming Zhang questioned the ‘astonishing 7:1 kill ratio’ and concluded that American histories tend to ignore or dismiss Chinese sources ‘because American analysts have a tendency to view the other side’s story through their own myths and values.’[52] In Sabres Over MiG Alley: The F-86 and the Battle for Air Superiority in Korea, Kenneth P. Werrell reduced the kill ratio to 8.2:1 but noted that in 1953, it was 13:1.[53]

Gun camera photo of a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15 being attacked by US Air Force North American F-86 Sabre over Korea in 1952-53, piloted by Captain Manuel ‘Pete’ Fernandez, 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing. (Source: Wikimedia)

In F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15: Korea 1950-53, Douglas C. Dildy and Warren Thompson concluded that kills tend to be awarded based on political and propaganda needs, while logistics records tend to be more accurate given the necessity of documenting equipment losses.[54] They estimated ‘an overall “kill ratio” of 5.835 MiG-15s destroyed for each Sabre lost.’[55] However, they noted that the F-86s only achieved a 1.4:1 kill ratio against the elite Soviet 303rd and 324th Fighter Aviation Divisions. However, against other Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean MiG-15s, the Sabres achieved a 9.07:1 kill ratio – highlighting the importance of training and experience.[56]

Colonel Walter J. Boyne, a former USAF pilot and historian, frankly stated in his foreword to Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s MiG Alley: The US Air Force in Korea, 1950-53: ‘Much of what has been recorded as “official history” of the Air Force in the Korean War is little more than recycled wartime propaganda.’[57] Cleaver agreed that the 10:1 kill ratio was ‘propaganda’ and concluded: ‘The “MiG kill” number became the measure of success for commanders of the USAF fighter units in Korea, like the “body count” in Vietnam. As a result, the numbers were increased by lowering the standards for measuring success.’[58] For example, he explained that ‘since any airplane that returned to base, no matter how badly damaged in combat and no matter that it never flew again, was not recorded as a “combat loss”.’[59] He added: ‘By 1952, gun camera film of aircraft not seen to go down, explode, disintegrate, or where the pilot ejected, was accepted as evidence of a “kill” regardless.’[60] Cleaver concluded that the overall kill ratio the Sabres achieved was somewhere between 1.1:1 and 1.5:1.[61] In Korean Air War: Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950-53, Michael Napier agreed that the 10:1 kill ratio ‘does not stand up to scrutiny.’[62] The more recent scholarship cited above demonstrates that Sabre versus MiG-15 combat was attritional, with Sabre pilots achieving a slightly better overall result. However, the OODA loop model does not address many factors contributing to instances of Sabre success.

Beyond OODA Loops

At times, MiG-15s experienced instability at extremely high speeds that the Russians called valezhka, during which the aircraft would flip and go into a dangerous spin. Some Sabre pilots shooting at MiG-15s, experiencing valezhka, likely assumed that their bullets were responsible for the enemy’s demise.[63] The valezhka phenomenon probably explains many of the cases that Strawbridge and Kahn noted of Sabre kills not involving American pilots opening fire. In any case, MiG-15 losses caused by valezhka had nothing to do with OODA loops because they resulted from a design flaw, not communist pilots becoming disoriented or paralysed.

According to Seidov, almost half the MiG-15 losses experienced by the 97th and 190th Fighter Aviation Divisions occurred between January and August 1952 while the aircraft took off or landed.[64] Zhang also made a similar claim regarding MiG-15s taking off and landing, concluding: ‘Many Soviet pilots died before they had a real opportunity to engage their opponents.’[65] Although F-86 pilots could enter Chinese airspace during pursuits in 1952, many pilots exceeded the rules by ‘hawking’ the skies above airfields to swoop down and ambush vulnerable enemy aircraft during takeoffs and landings.[66] The Soviets even withdrew two MiG-15 regiments to rear airfields to provide combat air patrols over the forward airfields as protection against ‘hawking’.[67] As Napier explained, ‘hawking’ increased Sabre success, but ‘it is hardly indicative of the relative performance of aircraft and pilots in air combat.’[68] Therefore, ‘hawking’ had nothing to do with the moves and countermoves of OODA loop-like dogfights, with the loser experiencing psychological defeat.[69]

American pilots were generally more experienced than MiG-15 pilots.[70] However, another factor was Russian unit rotation rather than individual pilot rotation. In early 1952, the elite 324^th and 303^rd Fighter Aviation Divisions were replaced by the inexperienced 97^th and 190^th Divisions. The new pilots had to learn the hard way without the benefit of experienced veterans, dramatically reducing combat effectiveness.[71] Werrell also concluded that superior American equipment, such as the A-1C(M) gunsight, flight helmets and “g” suits, contributed to Sabre’s success.[72]

The secrecy of Soviet participation in the conflict prevented their pilots from crossing the coastline or approaching too close to the frontline due to the risk of capture.[73] Therefore, Russian pilots could not chase Sabres over the sea or too far south. ‘A great number of damaged US aircraft,’ Seidov explained, ‘taking advantage of this circumstance, escaped MiG pursuit by crossing the coastline out to sea, and if this restriction hadn’t been in place, then I’m sure the American combat losses would have increased sharply.’[74]

Boyd arrived in Korea on 27 March 1953, four months before the end of the war. Therefore, he had a personal experience that was quite different from earlier F-86 pilots who experienced a far deadlier attritional struggle, such as Captain Dick Becker in 1951:

There was no 14-to-1 kill ratio when I was there. The guys we flew against were good, and they were as committed as we were. Every fight that I was in was decided by the guy in the cockpit who was better able to take advantage of the moments presented by luck. The MiG-15 was a dangerous opponent. We were very evenly matched and I am certain that overall in that first year, we fought them to a draw.[75]

In March 1952, James Jabara, the highest-scoring Sabre ace, stated in a lecture to the Royal Air Force that, on average, one American jet was lost for every MiG-15 shot down.[76] Just before Boyd arrived, F-86 numbers dramatically increased, which helped the pilots gain air superiority.[77] Russian pilots had also become far less aggressive. Following Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953, ceasefire negotiations reopened, and the Soviets began withdrawing MiG-15s. According to MiG-15 ace Nikolay Ivanov, this resulted in the remaining pilots tending ‘to be evasive in their encounters with enemy airplanes to avoid casualties’ as ‘no one wanted to be the last to be killed in action.’[78] Boyd completed 29 missions, roughly one-third of the typical experience of 100 missions. Therefore, given his more limited exposure during a time of Sabre numerical superiority and low communist aggression, his subjective experience did not cause him to question the 10:1 kill ratio. If Boyd had flown 100 missions earlier with Becker or Jabara, he probably would have realised the kill ratio was propaganda. Consequently, he would have had no reason to investigate or explain an intriguing anomaly.

A Wider Lens

Although Napier rejected the 10:1 kill ratio, he decided against offering a corrected figure because doing so would perpetuate a distorted view of the air war as ‘a direct comparison between MiG-15 and F-86 is akin to comparing apples to pears.’[79] Therefore, he looked for a more holistic answer: ‘While the F-86 exclusively fought against the MiG-15, the MiG‑15 fought against the F-51, F-80, F-84, F-86, F-94, Corsair, Banshee, Panther, Skyknight, B-26 and B-29, thus any comparison of air-to-air kills must include these types.’[80] After evaluating the entire air war, Napier concluded ‘almost parity’ existed between United Nations Command and Soviet fighters, while success was greater against Chinese pilots.[81]

Boyd never truly placed himself in the minds of MiG-15 pilots. Therefore, he never considered what they were trying to achieve. Their mission was to defend airspace against air-to-ground strikes by intercepting bombers.[82] Hence, seeking combat with Sabres was not a priority; they could achieve their mission while avoiding Sabres. As Fino explained, ‘Despite the abundance of MiGs in the sky and their occasional bouts of aggressive, offensive action, most days the MiGs chose not to battle the Sabres.’[83]

The Korean War ended in a stalemate, and both sides can claim victory in the air based upon different criteria.[84] The Americans can insist that their pilots achieved air superiority and enemy aircraft, as Werrell pointed out, ‘did not venture far south of the Yalu River.’[85] On the other hand, MiG-15s disrupted bombing operations, as Cleaver concluded: ‘The Soviets sent their units to Manchuria for air defence, and their goal was to deny to the enemy the ability to bomb at will throughout North Korea, as had been the situation for the first nine months of the war. In this, they were successful.’[86]

Mao’s strategy in sending MiG-15s to Korea was not just to affect the outcome of the war – it was also a means of building the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) that would ‘gain live combat experience’ while noting that ‘there will be some losses in combat’.[87] In that way, the Chinese leadership, as Napier explained, ‘sacrificed short-term tactical success for longer-term strategic gain: by rotating all the MiG-15 units through the combat zone, they exposed the maximum number of pilots to combat flying.’[88] That policy allowed the PLAAF to grow from a small force of trainees in 1949 to a large jet-equipped force within four years.[89] Therefore, even when Chinese pilots lost tactically against the Sabres, they were winning strategically.

Conclusion

As is evident in key Boyd-related literature previously mentioned, belief in outstanding Sabre success against MiG-15s, usually quantified as the 10:1 kill ratio, was likely a critical factor in establishing the credibility of OODA loop theory in the minds of prominent commentators. Given the OODA loop’s influence in military and non-military contexts, the perception of outstanding Sabre success was probably a paramount factor in the theory spreading like a meme. However, the 10:1 kill ratio originated from wartime propaganda that was just as dubious as the infamous Vietnam War body count – a metric that Boyd despised.[90]

The myth of the 10:1 kill ratio did have an unintended positive benefit because it was used as a measure to assess air-to-air performance in the Vietnam War. For example, Hammond contrasted the kill ratios of Korea and Vietnam:

The loss ratios against both North Vietnamese and Soviet pilots were not good. In fact, they began at 1:1 in 1965 and overall were far less than the 10:1 ratio in Korea. From 1 April 1965 to 1 March 1968, despite some interludes of great success, the United States had an exchange ratio in air-to-air combat of 2.4:1. Why were U.S. planes and pilots performing so poorly?[91]

Osinga declared: ‘While loss ratios over Korea were 10:1, in the skies over Vietnam F-100, F-105 and F-4 aircraft scored dismal ratios of 1:1, sometimes peaking at 2.4:1.’[92] Of course, we now know that the Korea and Vietnam kill ratios were quite similar. However, the belief that American air-to-air performance had drastically declined resulted in active measures designed to improve performance to restore what was perceived to be lost. The USAF’s Red Flag exercises and the United States Navy’s Top Gun program improved pilot training and combat performance in this context. The post-Vietnam generation fighters – the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon, F-14 Tomcat and F-18 Hornet – have all achieved outstanding success, gaining air superiority with genuinely lopsided kill ratios.[93]

The collapse of the 10:1 kill ratio’s credibility has implications for the OODA loop theory. If the model genuinely reflects the reality of air combat, why did Sabre pilots not achieve ‘decision cycle’ superiority and a lopsided kill ratio in Korea? Why did the F-86’s bubble canopy and hydraulic flight controls not translate into American pilots achieving decisively faster OODA loops? It is important to note that in the more recent histories, Werrell, Dildy, Thompson, Cleaver and Napier do not mention the OODA loop in their detailed studies of Sabre versus MiG-15 combat, which indicates the theory lacks utility in that context. Although the OODA loop is not an adequate model to explain F-86 versus MiG-15 air combat outcomes, it is nevertheless valuable despite its flaws. As Hankins explained: ‘Many fighter pilots, among others, continue to use the OODA loop as a useful tool.’[94] Therefore, as we reevaluate the OODA loop, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, we need a much wider analytical lens to ensure victory in the air.

Stephen Robinson is an officer in the Australian Army Reserve, currently serving in the Australian Army History Unit. He is the author of False Flags: Disguised German Raiders of World War II (2016), Panzer Commander Hermann Balck: Germany’s Master Tactician (2019), The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War (2021) and Eight Hundred Heroes: China’s Lost Battalion and the Fall of Shanghai (2022).

Header image: Four U.S. Air Force North American F-86E Sabre fighters over Korea in November 1952. Note that the first plane carries only a single drop tank. (Source: Wikimedia)

[1] Antulio J. Echevarria, War’s Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), p. 177.

[2] Franklin C. Spinney, ‘Genghis John,’ Proceedings, Vol. 123 (1997).

[3] John R. Boyd, ‘Organic Design for Command and Control’ and ‘The Strategic Game of ? and ?,’ in Grant T. Hammond (ed.), A Discourse on Winning and Losing (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2018), pp. 224 and 302.

[4] Martin van Creveld, Air Power and Maneuver Warfare (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 1994), p. 3.

[5] Grant T. Hammond, ‘Appendix – The OODA Loop,’ in A Discourse on Winning and Losing, pp. 383-5.

[6] Frans P. B. Osinga, ‘The Enemy as a Complex Adaptive System: John Boyd and Airpower in the Postmodern Era’ in John Andreas Olsen (ed.), Airpower Reborn: The Strategic Concepts of John Warden and John Boyd (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015), p. 50.

[7] Michael W. Hankins, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021), p. 229.

[8] Stephen Robinson, The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War (Dunedin: Exisle Publishing, 2021), pp. 11 and 30.

[9] Email to author from Michael W. Hankins, 26 July 2023. Hankins also recommended that I read Xiaoming Zhang’s Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002). I am incredibly grateful for this advice as it was the catalyst for this article. For further consideration regarding the kill ratio, the essential books to read also include Douglas C. Dildy and Warren Thompson’s F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15: Korea 1950-53 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012), Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s MiG Alley: The US Air Force in Korea, 1950-53 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2019) and Michael Napier’s Korean Air War: Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950-53 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

[10] Quoted in Kenneth P. Werrell, ‘Aces and -86s: The Fight for Air Superiority during the Korean War,’ in Jacob Neufeld and George M. Watson, Jr. (eds.), Coalition Air Warfare in the Korean War 1950-1953 (Washington DC: US Air Force History and Museums Program, 2005), p. 62.

[11] Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington DC: Smithsonian Books, 2001), pp. 65-6 and Frans P.B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Abingdon: Taylor and Francis, 2006), p. 21. Notably, the F-86F Sabre variant had considerable flight capability improvements over the earlier variants. Therefore, generalising Sabre flight characteristics without reference to specific variants is problematic. Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, pp. 140-3.

[12] John R. Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript),’ in Discourse on Winning and Losing, Marine Corps University, Quantico, 25 April/2 May/3 May 1989, p. 13.

[13] Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript),’ p. 13.

[14] Hammond, The Mind of War, pp. 65-6.

[15] United States Air Force Historical Research Center, US Air Force Oral History Interview, K239.0512-1066, Colonel John R. Boyd, Corona Ace, 28 January 1977, p. 143.

[16] Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Hachette, 2002), p. 255.

[17] John R. Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Delivered on 26 May 1978)’, in Proceedings of Seminar on Air Antitank Warfare, Battelle Columbus Laboratories, Columbus, 1978, pp. 7-8; Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript) ’, pp. 13-4.

[18] The F-86E and F-86F variants had a new flight control system and hydraulics system without a manual backup, which made these models more responsive than the earlier and more common F-86A variant. Therefore, generalising Sabre agility is problematic as different Sabre variants had different hydraulic flight controls. Steven A. Fino, Tiger Check: Automating the US Air Force Fighter Pilot in Air-To-Air Combat, 1950-1980 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 84-5 and 533-4; Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, pp. 35-6.

[19] U.S. Air Force Oral History Interview, p. 141.

[20] Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Delivered on 26 May 1978),’ p. 8.

[21] Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Delivered on 26 May 1978),’ pp. 6-8.

[22] James Fallows, ‘Muscle-Bound Superpower: The State of America’s Defense,’ The Atlantic (October 1979).

[23] James Fallows, National Defense (New York: Random House, 1981), p. 28.

[24] Quoted in Ian T. Brown, A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare (Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2018), p. 283.

[25] Quoted in Brown, A New Conception of War, p. 283.

[26] Quoted in Brown, A New Conception of War, p. 283.

[27] Werrell, ‘Aces and -86s,’ pp. 57 and 65.

[28] Fino, Tiger Check, p. 88.

[29] Hankins in Flying Camelot provided a comprehensive overview of the Fighter Mafia and Reformers movements and their opposition to ‘an overreliance on complex, expensive weapons.’ Hankins, Flying Camelot, p. 24.

[30] Quoted in Hankins, Flying Camelot, p. 142.

[31] Fino, Tiger Check, pp. 88 and 199.

[32] Michael W. Ford, Air-to-Air Combat Effectiveness of Single-Role and Multi-Role Fighter Forces (MA Thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College, 1984), pp. 51-2 and 121.

[33] Walter Kross, Military Reform: The High-Tech Debate in Tactical Air Forces (Washington DC: National Defence University Press, 1985), p. 97.

[34] William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), p. 4.

[35] Gary Hart and William S. Lind, America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform (Maryland: Adler and Adler, 1986), pp. 5-6.

[36] John R. Boyd, Patterns of Conflict Part 2. Ian Brown concluded that this version of ‘Patterns of Conflict’ available on YouTube dated from the early to mid-1980s: ‘Based on the sign in the background, this version of the brief dates to early-mid 1980s, when Rep. Jim Lightfoot would have been in office.’ Ian Brown, The John Boyd Primer, 25 September 2021.

[37] Boyd, Patterns of Conflict Part 2.

[38] Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript), p. 13.

[39] Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript), pp. 13-4.

[40] Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and Airland Battle (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1991), p. 51.

[41] Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver, p. 51.

[42] Spinney, ‘Genghis John.’

[43] Hammond, The Mind of War, p. 66.

[44] Coram, Boyd, p. 55.

[45] Chet Richards, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business (Xlibris US 2004), p. 64.

[46] Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, p. 22.

[47] Brown, A New Conception of War, pp. 96-7.

[48] Brown, A New Conception of War, p. 11.

[49] Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 91.

[50] Igor Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950-53 (Solihull: Helion and Company, 2014), pp. 27-8.

[51] Stuart Britton, ‘Editor’s Note,’ in Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu, p. 20.

[52] Zhang, Red Wings over the Yalu, pp. 70-85.

[53] Kenneth P. Werrell, Sabres Over MiG Alley: The F-86 and the Battle for Air Superiority in Korea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), p. 92.

[54] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, p .148.

[55] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, p. 152.

[56] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, p. 152.

[57] Walter J. Boyne, ‘Foreword,’ in Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 8.

[58] Cleaver, MiG Alley, pp. 13-4.

[59] Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 14.

[60] Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 230.

[61] Cleaver concluded: ‘The USAF policy of “fudging the figures” regarding combat losses makes it difficult to come to a firm number of actual victories versus losses. In fact, for the entire war, researchers now believe that the “victory total” favors the USAF by something between 1.3 and 1.5 to one.’ Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 14. Cleaver also stated: ‘While the majority of MiG pilots who opposed the Sabres were less-experienced Chinese, a victory/loss ratio of 10:1 as claimed after the war by the US Air Force, which was uncontradicted by information from the other side for 40 years, is not realistic. Researchers believe the figure was between 1.1:1–1.3:1 in favor of the Sabres’. Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 230.

[62] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 419.

[63] Britton, ‘Editor’s Note,’ in Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu, p. 21.

[64] Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu, p. 1046.

[65] Zhang, Red Wings over the Yalu, p. 1878/4020.

[66] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, pp. 134-5

[67] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, pp. 134-5.

[68] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 420.

[69] Osinga explained that Boyd perceived ‘air combat as a contest of moves and countermoves in time, a contest in which a repertoire of moves and the agility to transition from one to another quickly and accurately in regard [to] the opponent’s options was essential.’ Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, p. 28.

[70] Werrell, Sabres Over MiG Alley, p. 221.

[71] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 205-7.

[72] Werrell, Sabres Over MiG Alley, p. 26.

[73] Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu, p. 1050.

[74] Seidov, Red Devils over the Yalu, p. 1050.

[75] Quoted in Boyne, ‘Foreword,’ in Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 8.

[76] Napier, Korean Air War, pp. 418-20.

[77] Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, pp. 144-5.

[78] Quoted in Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, p. 138.

[79] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 419.

[80] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 419.

[81] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 420.

[82] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 420.

[83] Fino, Tiger Check, p. 137.

[84] Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 230.

[85] Werrell, Sabres Over MiG Alley, p. 219.

[86] Cleaver, MiG Alley, p. 230.

[87] Quoted in Dildy and Thompson, F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15, p. 139.

[88] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 410.

[89] Napier, Korean Air War, p. 410.

[90] Boyd condemned the Vietnam War ‘body count’: ‘They were thinking body count, attrition. That’s what they were thinking. I know exactly what they were thinking.’ Boyd, ‘Patterns of Conflict (Transcript),’ p. 43.

[91] Hammond, The Mind of War, p. 116.

[92] Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, p. 24.

[93] F-15 Eagles have been credited with 104 ‘kills’ without suffering any aerial combat losses. John T. Correll, ‘The Reformers,’ Air Force Magazine (2008), p. 44. F-16 Falcons have tallied 72 ‘kills’ without any air-to-air losses. Michael Sanibel and Dick Smith, ‘Quest to Build a Better Fighter,’ Aviation History, Vol. 21 no. 3 (2011), pp. 48-53.

[94] Hankins, Flying Camelot, p. 319.

#Podcast – “A Dizzy Idea” – The Airplanes that Didn’t Make It: An Interview with Dr Kenneth P. Werrell

Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones, produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

For every military aircraft that takes to the skies, many others never get off the drawing board or make it into full production. Renowned and prolific aviation historian Kenneth P. Werrell talks to us in his new book, Air Force Disappointments, Mistakes, and Failures, 1940-1990, about some of these projects and why some aeroplanes never seem to take off.

Dr Kenneth P. Werrell is the author of Death from the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing, Sabres over MIG Alley: The F-86 and the Battle for Air Superiority over Korea, Chasing the Silver Bullet: US Air Force Weapons Development from Vietnam to Desert Storm, Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers Over Japan During World War II, and other books.

Header image: A North American XB-70A Valkyrie rolling out after landing, employing drag chutes to slow down. In the photo, the outer wing panels are slightly raised. The panels were lowered to improve stability when the XB-70 was flying at high speed. (Source: Wikimedia)

#Podcast – “There is a Holy Trinity of US Air Force History”: An Interview with Dr Brian Laslie

In our latest podcast, we put our co-host and editor, Dr Brian Laslie, in the hot seat to discuss his newest book, Fighting from Above: A Combat History of the US Air Force, from the University of Oklahoma Press. He discusses the earliest days of American air power up through the present and looks into the future.

Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. Formerly, he was the Deputy Command Historian at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (2021), Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Header image: A North American P-51 Mustang of the United States Army Air Force over France, c. 1944. (Source: US National Archives and Records Administration)

#BookReview – Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions – The Missing Chapters

Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie

Paul F. Crickmore, Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions – The Missing Chapters. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2023. Appendices. Bibliography. Hbk, 528 pp.

Author Paul Crickmore is the unofficial Dean of the school of SR-71 studies. Much of what is public knowledge is due to his diligent efforts and publication record. Crickmore has spent decades uncovering every piece of paper concerning the program, from its reception to its retirement. He has left no stone unturned and no recently declassified document unexamined. No discussion of the A-12, SR-71, or any other variants is complete without mentioning his name. Every academic or researcher interested in air power studies, particularly those interested in low observability or the history of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, has one of his books near. His previous titles include Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions (Revised Edition 2016), Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed (Osprey Modern Military) 1993, Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed 1997, and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird 1986. Crickmore has recently published what might be rightly said to be the final word on the history of this iconic airframe in Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions, The Missing Chapters.

This is not just the history of the SR-71 but begins with a rather detailed examination of aerial ISR platforms in the post-World War II and Cold War era, including the U-2. Crickmore should be commended early on for his thorough analysis and excellent work on stealth vs performance characteristics (p. 44). An early highlight is the section detailing Convair’s ‘First Invisible Super Hustler (FISH),’ a modified B-58 with a parasitic jet-powered aircraft attached to the hull that would drop and rocket off on its mission. I chuckled at the idea of a B-58 crewmember being forced to trade in their coveted ‘I fly to the Hustler’ for an ‘I fly the FISH.’ While Convair worked on their flying FISH, members of Lockheed went through significant changes in designs for their ‘Archangel’ concept. ‘Archangel’ was the name Lockheed engineer Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson used for his internal design efforts for a future Surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. The final concept drawing was the twelfth of a series of the ‘Archangel,’ thus the A-12 (44-45).

DF-ST-89-06277 — An air-to-air overhead view of an SR-71A strategic reconnaissance aircraft, c. 1988. (Source: US National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 6438039))

Crickmore’s book really ‘takes off’ in his chapter on SR-71 operations over North Vietnam as part of Operation BLACK SHIELD and its photo reconnaissance missions detecting North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites and other targets of interest, including photographs of the Hoa Loa (Hanoi Hilton) prison complex. This chapter also gives an excellent description of North Vietnam’s missile operators’ attempts to track and engage the A-12. From there, Crickmore covers every possible A-12 and SR-71 operation and deployment. Historians of the Cold War will especially enjoy Crickmore’s details about the USSR’s attempts to intercept the SR-71.

There are some drawbacks to what is otherwise a very fine work. The book is weighty, both for its in-depth research and size. At more than 500 pages of high-gloss paper, the book is literally heavy. Its measurements are 9.9 x 12.55 inches, and its weight is nearly seven pounds. This has become a trend for some presses, which one might call the ‘high-end coffee table book.’ This is not a book to be carried around in your spare time and read; it remained firmly ensconced on my desk for the duration of its review. In reality, this is something of a hybrid between an in-depth history, a photographic coffee table book, and a reference book. One of my students who noticed the copy sitting on my desk stated, “It looks good on a bookshelf, but no one actually reads those cover to cover.” No one except book reviewers, of course. Another problem is that there are also no footnotes, another trend in some recent publications, perhaps to attract a larger audience and not be perceived as a stuffy academic tome. However, there is a real and dangerous drawback to not noting where particular quotes or data were extracted. The appendices – one of Crickmore’s greatest contributions is his appendices – are slightly different from the previous version published in 2016, although the missing information is available online.

Crickmore’s book, this new and expanded edition of Lockheed Blackbird, is indeed the final word and ultimate reference guide for the history of the entire SR-71 program. As Crickmore notes, few aircraft transcend to being ‘iconic,’ and undoubtedly, the SR-71 surpassed that label many years ago. Crickmore’s book is a must-have for every aviation enthusiast and a must-read for every aviation and Cold War scholar who seeks to understand this legendary aircraft’s history, operations, and legacy.

Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. Formerly he was the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (2021), Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Header image: A right front view of an SR-71B Blackbird strategic reconnaissance training aircraft, silhouetted on the runway at sundown at Beale AFB, 1 June 1988. Image by Technical Sergeant Michael Haggerty. (Source: US National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 6438040))

#Podcast – “Women aren’t in combat but they’re being killed”: An Interview with Eileen Bjorkman

2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the first female American combat fighter pilots. How did the US go from women not being allowed in military aeroplanes to having women combat pilots? Eileen Bjorkman (Colonel, USAF, ret’d) joins us to discuss these momentous changes. She is a former flight test engineer who has flown in aircraft like the F-4 Phantom and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and she is the author of Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of the Women who Kicked Open the Door to Fly in Combat (2023), from Knox Press.

Eileen Bjorkman is a retired US Air Force Colonel. She was a flight test engineer during her USAF career, flying more than 700 hours in twenty-five different types of military aircraft, including fighters such as the F-4 and F-16. She is also a civilian pilot and author of The Propeller Under the Bed (2017) and Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin (2020).

Header image: Female fighter pilots assigned to the 36th and 25th Fighter Squadrons join together before flying a historic all-female flight at Osan Air Base, South Korea, on 25 October 2021. The flight is the first time 10 female Airmen have planned, led and flown in a formation together while assigned to Osan AB. Eight pilots are A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots, and two are F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots. (Source: US Air Force)

From Balloons to Drones

Air Power throughout the Ages

Tag: United States Air Force

Wings over Lebanon: Local Ingenuity and American Assistance in the War against the Islamic State

#BookReview – Marshall’s Great Captain: Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews and Air Power in the World Wars

#BookReview – Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning

#ResearchNote – The Forgotten Few: The Royal Australian Air Force and the Korean Air War – A Historiographical Note

#Commentary – Strategic Air Power in Yemen: A Cross-Domain Solution or Just Mowing the Grass

The Korean War and the OODA Loop: What Happened to the Kill Ratio?

#Podcast – “A Dizzy Idea” – The Airplanes that Didn’t Make It: An Interview with Dr Kenneth P. Werrell

#Podcast – “There is a Holy Trinity of US Air Force History”: An Interview with Dr Brian Laslie

#BookReview – Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions – The Missing Chapters

#Podcast – “Women aren’t in combat but they’re being killed”: An Interview with Eileen Bjorkman

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Air Power throughout the Ages

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