On June 25, 1950, while the North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel and marched on the South Korean capital of Seoul, six Yak-9Ps of the Korean People's Armed Forces Air Force crossed the 38th Parallel and made for Kimpo airfield, near Seoul. Unopposed save for desultory ground fire, the Soviet-built fighters strafed the field and destroyed an American Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport before retiring. First blood had been drawn against the United States in a war that would never be officially declared, but that would rage on for three years.

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In the months to come, South Korean troops and the growing American contingent committed to their defense were subjected the unpleasant surprise of facing a well-trained, well-equipped, tough and highly motivated enemy who sent them reeling southward to the brink of defeat.

In the air, the story would be different. Very different.

At the end of World War II, Korea was divided between the two rival countries that had liberated it from the Japanese–the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Both powers wasted no time in establishing governments along their own respective political lines. In addition, the Soviet Union provided the Communist government of Kim II-sung with a sizable arsenal of weapons and military advisers to train the North Koreans in their use. Prominent among the land weapons was the superb T-34/85 tank, which was the best medium tank in the world in 1945 and which could still outmatch its best American counterparts in 1950.

The North Korean Air Force (NKAF) also boasted the best of the World War II Soviet weaponry–Yakovlev Yak-9U fighters and Yak-9P interceptors–along with a smaller contingent of the nimble, radial-engined Lavochkin La-7 fighter. Air support for troops and armor would be provided by the cannon-armed, armored Ilyushin Il-10, the ultimate refinement of the Il-2 Shturmovik, which had reached the front just in time to join its more famous forebear on the road to Berlin. Numerous other types supplemented these first-line warplanes, including some unlikely candidates for front-line service that the North Koreans would nonetheless press into combat as they felt necessity demanded. Among the more prominent such second-line aircraft were the Yak-11 trainer, whose twin machine guns would see some use in the ground attack role, and the 1928-vintage Polikarpov Po-2 two-seat biplane, which would reprise its World War II role as a most troublesome night intruder.

While North Korea's soldiers and tankers were as tough as they were mercilessly cruel, its airmen would prove to be less swift in mastering the subtleties of aerial combat.

Against the 122 aircraft estimated to be in the NKAF, the Southern Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) had 13 Piper L-4 and Stinson L-5 light aircraft and three North American T-6 Texan trainers–none of them armed. But several American air groups were based in Japan at the time of the North Korean invasion and were quickly mobilized for transfer to the Korean mainland. Within 24 hours of the Communist assault, the Far East Air Force (FEAF) had arrived over South Korea as detachments of four North American F-82G Twin Mustangs of the 68th and 339th Fighter (All-Weather) Squadrons patrolled at low- and medium-altitude over Inchon, the two squadrons having flown in from Itazuke and Yokota airfields, respectively. The two-seat, long-range escort fighters, which virtually comprised two F-51H Mustang fuselages joined by a central wing and tailplane, were up to protect refugee ships steaming out of the port when, in the afternoon of June 26, a pair of La-7s were reported to have made firing passes at two of the 68th's Twin Mustangs. Significantly, the North Americans did not press home their attack, nor did the Americans engage them. It typified the lack of enterprise with which the North Koreans exploited their initial air superiority and gave away their inexperience to the Americans.

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