Korean War Mission Reports

[norman malayney]

"I'm now trying to understand why there are no reports for 1953. Were they destroyed in the archives fire? Or maybe not declassified yet? Just trying to piece together if there is any possibility in the future of acquiring missions reports from 1953."

I am not sure about the Korean war but suspect the units destroyed the mission reports before leaving the country. The USAF historians ordered all combat mission reports during the Vietnam War be destroyed., an action I consider "criminal."

By chance was your wife's grandfather's last name "Knapp."

[jdeters79]

Great video, I was wondering if Jordan ever found anymore info?

Adam,

Still searching. Recently found this;

https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/ref-info-papers/rip103.pdf

Recent Accessions
II.443 The National Archives has recently accessioned security-classified Korean war combat operations records, 1944–53 [UD-UP, Entry 1] (131 ft.), generated by various commands including the Far East Air Force (FEAF) and FEAF Bomb Command (Provisional), 1947–51 (43 cubic ft.), and the Fifth Air Force, 1946–53 (61 cubic ft.). FEAF and FEAF Bomb Command (Provisional) files consist mostly of general correspondence, messages, weekly intelligence roundups, daily diaries, reports of investigation, regulations, board of officers proceedings, command directives, final mission summaries, and military history files. Fifth Air Force records include 118 general correspondence, messages, investigation files, conference files, daily journals, daily summaries, staff meeting briefs/summaries, operations planning files, operational summaries, operations analysis files, intelligence summaries/reports, inspection reports/files, special reports, incident case files, frag orders, statistical health reports, aircraft status reports/summaries, and other records pertaining to ammunition expenditures and malfunctions, and aircraft lost, damaged, or “aborted” on mission. A listing is available for use in the Textual Research Room in College Park, MD, or upon request.

I'm a bit unclear about the "Recent Accessions". The first sentence states "...security-classified Korean war...". Does this mean those documents are still classified? Or are they available for review? The last sentence of this section states that "A listing is available for use in the Textual Research Room...". So is this just a de-classified summary of the available documents? Or does this mean the documents are available?

I've reached out to a researcher on the matter, and will reach out again to a point of contact at NARA.

Jordan

[jdeters79]

By chance was your wife's grandfather's last name "Knapp."

His last name was Ferguson. William (Bill) James Ferguson. At K-8 Jan-Aug 1953.

http://www.koreanwar-educator.org/topics/p_flying_cross.htm#F