AVIATION: The Cats of MIG Alley

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It was, as the briefing officer said, "a day worth drooling over," a fine day for hunting MIGs. With the howl of a tornado, four F-86 Sabre jets roared up from the Korean airfield and headed north for MIG Alley. For half an hour they climbed steadily, timing their ascent to conserve fuel and reach the Yalu at 45,000 ft. At that altitude, everything was silvery and incredibly bright; above, the sky was dark and greyish.

The air was so thin that the pilots had to take in their oxygen under pressure to get it into their lungs. Working 90-odd controls with the light-fingered touch of master watchmakers, the pilots glanced now & then at the dozens of dials and flashing instrument lights that might warn of trouble, while they searched the sky for MIGs. Suddenly, from far below, came a glint of silver.

"Ten MIGs at 2,000 feet," crackled a Sabre jet pilot's voice on the VHF radio.

Peeling off in a split S, the four Sabres screamed into a dive. Flight Leader Major Vermont Garrison, 37-year-old World War II ace who is known as "the greying eagle," leveled out at 2,000 ft. on the tail of a MIG. After a quick burst from the Sabre's .50-cal. machine guns, the Red plane exploded. A few minutes later, Garrison downed another MIG. Captain Lonnie Moore, 32, drew a bead on a third MIG and brought it down; ist Lieut. Harry Jones Jr., 23, got another. Then at 1,500 ft., Wingman William F. Schrimsher, 24, a 2nd lieutenant from Alabama, got on the tail of a fifth MIG. The Red pilot shoved the throttle wide open, went into a steep left bank trying to get away. Instead, the MIG snapped on its back, went into a spin and crashed into a hillside. Thus did one more U.S. pilot bag his first MIG "the easy way"—without firing a shot. Could Schrimsher's F-86 have performed the maneuver that crashed the MIG? Said Schrimsher: "Sure, no sweat."

After the Sabre. On the Quonset wall of a pingpong room at Kimpo airfield, a crudely drawn cartoon sums up the pilots' feelings about the Sabre jet and North American Aviation, Inc., the Los Angeles company that makes it. The cartoon shows a MIG pilot, closely pursued by an F-86, yelling "Break!" as he clambers out of his cockpit armed with a large paddle against a watery landing. The caption: "Look to North American for leadership."

The man to look to for leadership at North American itself is Board Chairman James Howard ("Dutch") Kindelberger, 58, a beefy (6 ft., 194 Ibs.), salty-tongued West Virginian whose fringe of white hair and twinkling blue eyes make him look like a modern-day Friar Tuck. Kindel-berger, who learned to fly in World War I. has devoted his life to turning out better and faster planes for the U.S.