Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea (2024)

As stated at the beginig of this small volume (a tad over 200 pages), the air conflict in the skies of Korea isn't very well covered, especially when compared with WWII or Vietnam conflict. 'Crimson Sky' tries to remedy this situation in interesting fashion - author focuses on pilot's experiences in a number of detailed descriptions of missions typical to that conflict. These stories are put in proper context with help of a rather generic overview of the war as it developed between 1950 and 1953.

This approach renders a very interesting book that catches reader's attention from the first page. After all, if you picked up this book, you will probably be fascinated by first hand accounts of dogfights in Mig Alley or the very first, improvised on the fly, SAR missions. At the same time I must say that I've picked this book up because I thought it would be a good starting point for a closer study of Korean conflict in the air and as it turns out, it didn't really meet that criteria.

It is however unfair to blame a book for not being what you want it to be and I did learn a lot from it. So even if it's not the best choice for a 'primer', in every other respect it is an excellent book and probably a 'must have' for anyone interested in that particular topic.

John R. Bruning, Jr.'s 1999 Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea is a brief-ish account of the United States efforts in the air during "the Forgotten War," a conflict that the author notes has been forgotten not only "by the American public at large but also by the military" and even historians, with military archives "very disorganized" (1997 Brassey's softcover, page ix), and with a paucity of histories and flyers' memoirs compared to those of the Second World War (page xvi). Bruning's treatment, which helpfully begins with a map of the Korean Peninsula and also includes a number of contemporaneous photographs throughout, helps address this lack.

When thinking about the air war in Korea, one may find it natural that the classic fierce dogfights of F-86s against MiG-15s in "MiG Alley" up near the Yalu River come to mind. Yet although this of course is part of the story, Bruning actually carefully makes it the last of the four parts of his book. The text is divided into four sections--"The Shoestring Air War," "From Strangle to Stalemate," "Mission to Namsi," and "The Fighter Pilot's War"--with Part One, Part Two, and Part Four being divided into six subsections, and Part Three into four. This division is both thematic and also rather chronological, starting with the haphazard beginnings of the aerial war in an unexpected conflict, then generally moving forward in time.

Throughout Bruning uses an adept mix of general and particular. That is, he will give context on the progress of the war--including the back-and-forth movement of the ground battle lines and how this affected what U.S. forces needed to do in the air--and then also showcase the experiences of individual American pilots on particular missions, often in gripping detail that is derived not only from earlier sources but also from the author's own interviews with these participants. These human-centered tales and firsthand accounts make for very immediate-seeming and exciting reads, and of course occasionally sad ones as well.

From the overall evolution of the strategy of the war down to the tactics and exploits of individual combatants in their machines of different abilities, John R. Bruning, Jr.'s Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea will be an approachable and enlightening 5-star book for anyone interested in Cold War military history, and especially aviation history.

As I flipped through this book, and saw a few swearwords, I was expecting to cringe every other page. To my pleasant surprise, though, there weren't that many instances of foul language. There were some- and don't get my wrong, none of it's acceptable- but it is a book relating men's experiences with the War, after all. Despite those few instances, I enjoyed reading about the air battles and skill of the pilots.

Parts of it were slightly boring, because I am not an expert, nor am I interested in different types of planes. If you are, though, I can imagine this would be immensely helpful and interesting. The author was thorough in describing many tactics and strategies.

Since there are limited books on the Korean War, this can be a good choice if you're interested in learning about some of it. I can't totally recommend it, though, because of the swearing, however minimal.

A good book, i was an eye opening view of the Korean War and the airmen who fought it. It was surprising how the U.S. was surpassed in war planes by the Soviet Union. Their MiG 15 was so superior to anything we had it was scarey!

The intervention of the Soviet Union, flying unmarked planes and giving their pilots restricted airspace sounded a lot like Germany in the Spanish Civil War. Using it as a test bed for their pilots and aircraft.

A good book about the "forgotten War."

Great aviation related stories plus adding the total history of this 'forgotten war'. Told in chronological order with stories from both carrier wings and the Air Force as well. Summarizes many parallels to what later happened in Vietnam. The military forgot many of the lessons learned in Korea in less than 20 years. Highly recommended.