Warbird Information Exchange

A good friend of my sons' just related this story on Facespacetube today, Veterans Day.

Amazing how little we know of our friends families.

"Sgt Billie Beach, a tail gunner on an Okinawa-based B-29 Superfortress, shot down two MiGs on 12 April 1951, a feat unmatched by any other gunner. His own plane was so shot up, however, that it and the crew barely survived an emergency landing with collapsed gear at an advanced fighter strip......

We salute all Veterans,past and present who fought for our freedoms.....and like our Dad, they are all Heros...we thank you"

"yeah Scott, we have the pictures of my Dad standing on the tore up runway looking at the Props with holes in em as big as your head!!...as a side note for those of you who remember him , Van Johnson played my Dad in a Radio Drama of this incident...called 'Billy the Kid"...my Dad thought it was silly so he didnt stay up to listen...HA!!...we have the old script and cover letters"

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

is this Bud Farrel you are talking about?

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S.

No Sir, Sgt. Billie Beach.

From About.com

Air power played a significant role in the Allied offensive. Airlift actions ranged from the spectacular, to include the drop of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team to cut off retreating North Korean troops, to the more mundane but critical airlift of personnel and supplies. Foreshadowing a versatility shown by the B-52 in later decades, FEAF B-29s performed a number of missions not even considered before the war, to include interdiction, battlefield support, and air superiority (counter airfield). On 9 November 1950, Corporal Harry LaVene of the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, serving as gunner, scored the first B-29 victory over a jet by downing a MiG-15. LaVene’s victory was the first of 27 MiGs shot down by B-29 gunners during the course of the war. Sgt Billie Beach, a tail gunner on an Okinawa-based B-29, shot down two MiGs on 12 April 1951, a feat unmatched by any other gunner. His own plane was so shot up, however, that it and the crew barely survived an emergency landing with collapsed gear at an advanced fighter strip.

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

More:

http://afehri.maxwell.af.mil/Documents/pdf/beach.pdf

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

My father, PFC Marvin King - right gunner, was on this same April 12th mission to bomb the Yalu River bridges in 1951.
My father was one of 7 crewmen that bailed out of a B-29 (commanded by Capt Jim Chenault -371st BS, 307th BG) that was
shot up that morning. Thankfully, all 7 crewmen survived their 2 1/2 years in a Communist concentration camp.

There were three Bomb Groups sent in to MIG Alley that morning of April 12, 1951:
Two from Kadena AFB on Okinawa; 307th Bomb Group and the 19th Bomb Group.; and the 98th Bomb Group flying from Japan.

In an article that Sgt Billie Beach wrote for "Air Force Magazine" in September 1951, Billie Beach states that he was also a right gunner
a different plane called "No Sweat", (#44-87618) with the 93rd Bomb Squadron, 19th Bomb Group. I have the original newspaper
clipping from my late father's air force trunk.

I am writing a book about the April 12th mission and would like to include photos of any crew or aircraft related to that mission.

Dan King