On January 23, 1953, cannon fire from a MiG broke the right arm of Lt. Col. Edwin Heller, commander of the 16th Fighter Squadron, during a sortie over Manchuria. Bullets also severed his Sabre’s control stick and disabled its ejection system. Heller’s F-86 went into an uncontrollable dive from 40,000 feet. He struggled to disconnect his seatbelt, stood up in his seat and started trying to claw his way through an eight-inch hole in the canopy—at which point the 650-mph wind stream sucked him right through the opening. Among other injuries he suffered during the bailout, Heller’s left leg was fractured when it struck the horizontal stabilizer. Peasants captured the downed pilot, who endured 28 months in Chinese captivity.

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Heller’s shootdown over Chinese territory resulted in diplomatic protests that jeopardized ongoing peace talks. At about the same time, Swiss observers traveling through Manchuria to Panmunjon for the peace talks witnessed a dogfight well north of the Yalu. Their complaints finally forced senior Air Force officials to take action.

Captain Dolph Overton, an ace with possibly the hottest streak in Air Force history, became the scapegoat. Overton shot down five MiGs in just four days (January 21-24, 1953). During a visit to an Air Force radar site on Cho-do, he had learned where MiGs orbited while waiting to land, how long they stayed airborne and how they made their approach to landing. Overton positioned his jet above the MiGs’ landing pattern, flying a racetrack pattern with minimal maneuvering to lessen the possibility that the sun’s glint off his Sabre’s wings would give away his position. Then he waited to pounce on his prey. He turned off his IFF, hoping to fool enemy radar operators into thinking his aircraft was just another MiG getting ready to land.

Overton also tried to keep his jet between the sun and the MiGs in order to arrive at their 6 o’clock position undetected. All of his kills were achieved at close range without the use of the radar-ranging feature of the Sabre’s gunsight. “They never seemed to see us or recognize us until too late,” he boasted.

The day after his fifth kill, Overton was called into Colonel Mitchell’s office. He responded truthfully when asked, “Were you over the river yesterday?” Under pressure from higher headquarters, Mitchell grounded the ace. He also gave Overton a terrible efficiency report for his “inability to follow orders,” took away his captain’s bars and sent him home without decorations and without official recognition of his five victories. The Air Force eventually did bless Overton’s claims, but it took almost a year (normally victory claims were processed, reviewed and confirmed within a month).

Mitchell’s actions were an extreme example of hypocrisy. The wing commander had not only condoned flights across the border, he had personally participated in them. Overton’s treatment was particularly unfair because on the day in question he was flying as the No. 4 aircraft in a four-ship flight—in other words, he was just a wingman. Overton remarked, “I know that shit flows downhill, but it seemed to me that this was a long way down.” Within a year he resigned his commission and left the service. The squadron was grounded for a short period, but no other pilot was individually punished—possibly because the ground crews threatened to mutiny after learning of Overton’s fate.

Not all top pilots violated the rules of engagement in search of MiGs. In the foreword to MiG Alley to Mu Chia Pass: Memoirs of a Korean War Ace, which chronicles the air exploits of nine-victory ace Cecil Foster, Overton wrote: “Sometimes the MiGs just did not leave China. You cannot shoot a plane down if it does not fly when you are flying or does not fly into your combat zone. During those inactive times, some pilots ventured across the Yalu River into China hoping to engage in enemy activity. Cecil Foster never crossed the Yalu illegally.” Just the fact that Overton celebrates Foster’s disciplined adherence to the rules as a way to testify to his character suggests that the practice of crossing into Manchuria was widespread and routine. “[Our pilots] were coming back with blackened gun ports after every mission,” recalled one officer. “That meant they were shooting at MiGs every time they were up there. That couldn’t happen unless they were on the wrong side of the border.”

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