Photos from Gene Gould - Korea 1952-1953
This is an e-mail I received from Gene Gould on 24 September 2008. His many great photos follow!
"Hi Jay,
It is always good to talk to the old gang, although there are not a lot of us left.
No I always wanted to fly, and when I got back from Korea in July of 1953 I was stationed in Niagara Falls and was the supply officer for the 47th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. I had a friend who gave me flying lessons in a T-6 and also let me fly a Bell chopper (like the ones in Mash). I was in the 8th Fighter Bomber Wing HQ Squadron and then when they tossed me back into Base Supply I was reassigned to 8th Air Base Group.
I was always into photography and had a darkroom before I was 20. I took my Zeiss Ikon 120 to Korea with me, The PX was sending film to Seoul to develop, but even there the water wasn't good. Just before Christmas of 1952 the PX got in a couple of Kodak Signet 35mm cameras. Sold them for $95, which on a 2nd Lt. Ground Pounder's pay was a whole weeks pay. But I had a camera to take Kodachrome. We mailed the film in to Honolulu for processing. Film and processing was about $4. One of the things about the jobs I had was I could always go to the Motor Pool and check out a Jeep. So I drove all over the countryside taking pictures, Kodachrome slides in those days had a film speed of 24. You needed steady hands.
I also took quite a lot on the flight line. In addition, I knew the guys in the Hobo Photo quite well and they gave me some pictures. Black and White. They couldn't take color. I had my 80th birthday in August. I suppose you know there are not many of us around any more.
The Koreans are building a new cultural museum at the Fortress. About 50 of my Korean pictures will be on permanent display there. They wanted me to come to the grand opening, but I have two artificial hips and I was sort of afraid to do a trip like that.
I would be happy to send you all of the airplane pictures and also the ones from the base photo shop for your website. It would be easier for me to just burn them on a CD and mail it to you. Then you could choose which ones you wanted to put on the web. So send me your mailing address and I will get them to you in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here is a loaded Blue Tail for you. I didn't take any pictures on the flight line after we got the F-86s.
I'll attach a picture of me from Korea. I was dressed up to go to Japan to get books for the I&E classes and also stuff for the hobby shop as I remember, because we didn't wear "blues" around the base.
I am
Gene Gould"
Please note that most of these descriptions don't correlate to the pictures as displayed but are presented for the historical value of the comments. This is through no fault of Gene, but to your editor's graphically-challenged incompetence- Tex
File No.: Photo Description & Remarks
GG-001: 2nd Lt. Gene Gould Photo taken near ramp in Spring of 1953.Wearing blues without scarf. We usually wore a scarf with blues, but no tie.
GG-002: F-80 leaving on night I only took a few pictures in black and white mission with two 1,000 pictures on my Zeiss-Ikon 120. This is one of my better ones. Changed to KodaChrome shortly after this. This picture was probably taken in December of 1952. See addendum.
GG-003: F-80, “Here’s How” This is one of the other B&Ws I took. This taken the morning after our first snow. I think in December of 1952. Fairly early in the morning. Cold! As I remember around 25 degrees.
GG-004: F-80 “Patricia” The “Yellow Tails” were the 80th Fighter Bomber Squadron. This picture was taken in the winter of 52-53 early in the afternoon. It was cold because you can see the Crewman standing by the plane is all bundled up. Early afternoon from the looks of the shadow.
GG-005 & GG-006: are the same picture w/ different brightness
GG-007 & GG-008: F-80 Mission Ready. This was taken at sunset. This alternate bomb load consisted of two 500 pound bombs and four 250 pound fragmentation bombs.
GG-009: The ramp at sunset. I have always liked sunset pictures. With Kodak Signet, you set the shutter speed for 1/25, set the f stop for F 3.5 and hoped for the best. KodaChrome then was ISO 25.
GG-010: F-80 Takeoff I would have loved to have the equipment and a telephoto lens that I have now. The runway was quite a distance from the ramp. The structure in the background is a new hangar they were building on the West side of K-13 at the 51st FIW.
GG-011: F-80 leaving for mission. This plane is 35th FIS, “Blue Tail” taken shortly after lunch in early 1953 from the looks of the shadow. The K-13 control tower is behind the plane. Because the Prevailing winds were from the North and the runway ran north and south, they taxied to the south end of the runway and took off northwards.
GG-012: F-80 on late mission. This is another F-80 from the 35th FIS. This was taken in late afternoon. He is taxiing South. The sun is pretty low in the West. You can tell by the length of the shadow .
GG-013: Same picture
GG-014: Same as GG-011
GG-015: Same as GG-012 & 013
GG-016: Same as GG-014
GG-017: 35th FBS Parking Area Late afternoon early 1953. Standing about even with control tower facing South. Note tents in background and low hills East ofK-13.
GG-018: T-33 of 35th FBS. Each squadron had a T-33 at this time.Early 1953. Building in background is the Operations office for the 35th FIS.
GG-019: Same as GG-018
GG-020: F-94C This Lockheed F-94 is from the 319th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. They were assigned to K-13 but not part of the 8th FBW. They were located on the East side of the field just North of the 8th. After running into wreckage of slow flying aircraft on night missions they were at least temporarily grounded while I was there.
GG-021: F-86F The 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing was stationed on the West side of K-13. I met a number of the pilots who used to come over to the 8th Officers Club. I think they liked ours better than theirs and we had a pool table. A bottle of Canadian Club or or Seagrams VO was $2.00 at the bottle store.
GG-022: F-86F This F-86 from the 51st had just returned from a mission. Speed brakes are still out. Wing tanks are gone, and if you look you’ll see the gun ports are dirty. This was taken very late in the afternoon. Notice shadow. This would have been in March or April of 1953.
GG-023: F-86F Same picture but cropped and resized
GG-024: F-84s These F-84s were brought in for a mission the next morning. They were from Taeguand starting from Suwon gave them more time on target for missions to the Yalu dams and hydroelectric plants. I think this was the big joint mission in May of 1953.
GG-025: F-84s More F-84s for the big mission in May.Note tail markings are different than theGG-024 picture
GG-026: F-84s Same as 025 but brighter
GG-027: F-84s Same as 024 but less contrasty
GG-028: Panthers Marine Panthers in for mission. This squadron is the one that Ted Williams was flying with. His airplane was badly damaged the next day and he crash landed at K-13. Wheels up and skidded a major part of the 9,000 foot runway.
GG-028a: Panthers Same as 028 with different contrast
GG-029: Panther I walked over to the parking area just before dark. About a ten minute walk from the Quonset I lived in right behind the Officers Mess Hall and club. They were still fueling the Panthers and I can’t resist a nice sunset Silhouette.
GG-030: Panther Same as GG-029 but a little lighter so yousee the sky better.
GG-031: Panther This one is just coming into the parkingarea at almost dark.
GG-032: B-26 This a black one. Also at Suwon for the bigHydroelectric plants mission. Not surewhich squadron it belonged to.
GG-033: B-29 There is an interesting story about this B-29. The Fighter-Bombers closed the roads in the daytime and then the B-29s from Okinawa would come in and bomb the backed up traffic. This one was hit by anti-aircraft fire on a mission at Choak-tongin April of 1953. See picture GG-034 for hole in wing just inside the starboard outboard engine. The guys on duty at the field told me that you could see the flames from a long ways off. We didn’t have the facilities to make that kind of structural repairs at K-13 and it certainly wasn’t in condition to fly out. It was there a longtime.
GG-034: B-29 I rounded up a couple of mechanics who hanging around the B-29 and had them stand in the hole for reference purposes.
GG-035: C-124 I took these pictures of the C-124 with the cargo doors open at K-14, Kimpo, one afternoon. They were the biggest thing around until Lockheed built the C-5A many years later. I rode from Tachikawa to Seoul in one of these when I got to Korea.
GG-036: C-124 Closer view of cargo bay.
GG-037 & GG-038: C-119 Combat cargo was on the West side of the runway at K-13 just South of the 51st FIW. Most of the planes that carried personnel and supplies into K-13 were C-119s with a few C-54s. Everyone preferred riding ina C-54 over a C-119. K-13 was on the rail line that went all the way from Inchon to Seoul and South to Pusan. So we got most of our supplies by train.
GG-039 & GG-040: Mariner I went on a trip to Itasuke Japan where our major maintenance was done. I no longer remember the reason for the trip. It may have been a boondoggle to get away from the base for a few days. This Martin Mariner was parked on the ramp and I had my camera with me. The mission of course was air-sea rescue.
GG-041” 50,000th Sortie I cannot explain this photo of the color Picture of the 50,000th Sortie flown by 2nd Lt. Warren Guibor in October of 1952, about a month before I arrived at Suwon. The men at the base photo lab gave me the black and white photo and claimed they took it. I remember the faces of the three pilots in that photo. I don’t know if the pilot in this color photo is Warren Guibor or not. Unless someone from the 80th FBS who was there in October of 1952 and knows about the picture it will remain a mystery of why the two different pictures exist and which is the real one.
Gene continues:
"General Comments Regarding Weather:
During the time I was stationed at K-13 from November 1952 until July of 1953, the weather in the Suwon area was quite nice. In terms of flying weather, I have no recollection of any overcast days. I actually remember very little rain. During the winter of 1952-53, we had a few nights when the temperature dropped near zero, and the daytime highs were under 30 degrees. It was a great deal like a winter in the Washington, D.C. area as far as temperature goes. We had a couple of light snows. The most was around two inches. The Base Operations Officer at the time lived in the same Quonset that I did. I am certain that no mission was ever cancelled for weather. All of my photos show clear skies with occasional wispy clouds. June and July were warm but not uncomfortably so. I certainly do not remember being bothered by heat or humidity. My memory tells me that a warm day was in the mid-80s.
At this time there was a big push in the air war to get North Korea to come to the table and sign an armistice. There was one period when they were sending the F-80s out at night. Considering the level of navigation instruments at that time it sounded a little dicey to me. The worst event that occurred was a C-46 hospital plane flown by a Greek crew with a very limited command of English had stopped at K-13 to pick up some of our people and take them to the hospital in Japan. One of the F-80 pilots had started his take off run from the South end of the runway when the C-46 pulled out onto the runway at about the middle right in front of the F-80. The control tower had been screaming at him to stop, but he didn’t understand. The pilot in the F-80 tried to get it off the ground and clear him, but with the two large wing tanks and two thousand pounds of bombs on an airplane that only had 3700 pounds of thrust he didn’t make it. He actually got the plane off the ground at about the 4,000 or 5,000 foot mark to almost clear, but he hit the top of the C-46 killing himself and everyone on board the C-46. We all spent most of the rest of the night picking up the pieces of airplanes, people and bombs. It was not a good night at K-13.
I hope you enjoy the pictures that I took while I was there. I was only in Korea a little over eight months because my father, then 53, hit the end of the bridge over the Chetco River at Brookings, Oregon, nearly killing himself. He was not expected to live and the Red Cross took me home. Because I only had a little less than three months to serve on my one year tour, they elected not to spend the money to send my back. Instead I served the last two years of my service time as the Supply Officer of the 47th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (F-86Ds) at Niagara Falls AFB, NY.
I was released from active duty on June 19th, 1955. I started work with Boeing in Seattle in 1957 and retired on December 31, 1990. So while I was not a pilot, I was around airplanes for just about all of my working life. I started saving airplane pictures when I was about 5 in 1933 and have among other things the original news release photos from Barrow Alaska when Wiley Post crashed killing himself and Will Rogers. I also have a photo my dad took when he took me to the airport in Rochester New York to see the Winnie Mae."