On This Day in History: April 27

A North Korean fight pilot defects

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When you read the name of North Korean fighter pilot No Kum-Sok, you might imagine a masturbation receptacle. If so, you should feel ashamed; the man is a hero. Kum-Sok defected, flying his Soviet-made MiG-15 into South Korea. The U.S. was all hey awesome thanks for taking us up on our offer here is your $100,000. And Kum-Sok said what offer I just wanted to get the fuck outta that place.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: April 27, 1953--

It was called Operation Moolah and launched on April 27, 1953. Communicated via radio and leaflet drops, it began: “To all brave pilots who wish to free themselves from the communist yoke . . .” The Americans offered $50,000 (double for the first one to defect) to any pilot bringing them a MiG-15, because USAF pilots said it was a better plane than theirs.

The MiG-15 showed up early in the war and American pilots were kinda freaked out, saying the plane had numerous advantages over their F-86 Sabres. But they weren’t exactly correct about that, and Moolah ended up being something of a successful failure. The Korean War ended in an armistice three months after the operation began, with no takers, but what did happen was that MiGs were grounded for several days right after the public bribe campaign began, possibly for the North to do a psychological evaluation of their pilots to weed out any who might be tempted to defect.

And when the MiGs started flying again, Americans began blowing them out of the sky at an unprecedented rate. Not only that, but North Korean MiG-15 pilots often just noped right the fuck out of their aircraft, pulling the ejection cord at the first sign of American fighter planes. The reason was the Soviet pilots—the ones who weren’t supposed to be involved in the war in the first place—had been grounded because the USSR was fearful one of their own might take up the Americans on their offer, a PR catastrophe.

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 Two months after the war ended, Kum-Sok showed up in his MiG at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea, having no knowledge of the financial reward for doing so. He said he’d heard rumors his loyalty was being investigated and in North Korea that is a bad thing, so he said fuck you guys and boogied for the South.

Famed test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the captured MiG and said it was “the most demanding situation I ever faced.” It wasn’t that the plane was amazing, he said, but that the Soviet pilots were well-trained in dogfight tactics.

Kum-Sok immigrated to the U.S., changed his name to Ken Rowe, went to school, and worked as an aeronautical engineer for companies such as Boeing, Grumman, Pan Am, and Lockheed. He’s still alive, but his best friend isn’t. North Korea executed his friend and four of his fellow pilots as punishment for his defection.

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