Prowling the uneasy aerial no man's land between East and West one clear day last week, a U.S. Navy P4M Mercator patrol plane lumbered along at 7,000 ft. above the Sea of Japan, 55 nautical miles east of the North Korean coast. A few minutes after noon, Tail Gunner Donald E. Corder, 20, aviation electrician's mate, spotted two red-starred MIGs, already boring down in a gunnery run on the Mercator. Their guns began to spit bullets. "They're firing at us," he shouted into the intercom. Lieut. Commander Donald Mayer, 35, barked a...
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