The hottest fighting in Korea nowadays is the battle of U.N. planes against Red antiaircraft guns. The U.S. Fifth Air Force had some grim announcements last week: in fighter-bombers (56 Thunder jets and Shooting Stars; 55 propeller-driven Mustangs) have been lost to enemy AA. fire in the past five months. January was the worst month of the air war, with 52 U.N. planes lost in combat, and 44 of them were downed by flak. Already heavy and deadly, Red flak is growing constantly more so. Said a U.S. airman gravely: "The free ride is over."
At the end of last August, the allies started "Operation Strangle"—a sustained interdiction attack on the enemy's supply and communications. Sluggish at first, the Communists finally reacted, brought in more guns and better crews (some of them believed to be Russian or European). By last week the enemy had so much flak that it was strung out along the North Korean rail lines, in addition to the lethal concentrations around the important targets. In spite of the U.N.'s high losses, the battle has not been one-sided: since Operation Strangle started, the U.N. claims to have destroyed 900 Red antiaircraft gun positions, damaged 443 more.
The enemy has large numbers of big, radar-directed AA. guns, 88-or 85-mm. (and possibly a few long-range 120s or 155s; U.S. Sabre jets have occasionally reported flak bursts above 30,000 ft.). He also has an even larger quantity of smaller guns, 37-and 20-mm. cannon and 12.7-mm. heavy machine guns. And he has radar-directed searchlights, which can hold a night-flying U.N. plane transfixed. The U.N. is using newfangled electronic jamming against the enemy radar on the big guns, but the fact is that most U.N. planes lost to ground fire are downed by the Reds' smaller, radarless guns.
Operation Strangle has kept on hitting its targets, knocking out enemy guns and taking its losses in stride. Perhaps the operation was too optimistically named: it has not prevented the Reds from assembling enough men, arms and supplies for a major offensive. But it has undoubtedly hurt and hampered the enemy, and it may have deterred him from actually launching an offensive.