U can’t touch this.

[lafeber]

At the same time, MacArthur’s fliers labored under severe and sometimes deadly restraint. They encountered Soviet Mig-15s piloted by Chinese airmen based in Manchuria. The Chinese quickly realized that the Americans wouldn’t bomb their bases or even pursue them back over Manchuria. Accordingly they gained a great advantage in their air combat with the Americans, making the bombing of the Yalu bridges nearly impossible. General Emmet O’Donnell, the head of MacArthur’s bomber command, later explained what it meant for his pilots to be forbidden to violate Chinese territory. “By violation of territory I mean we were not allowed to fly over an inch of it,” O’Donnell said. “For instance the Yalu has several very pronounced bends, like most rivers, before getting to the town of Antung, and the main bridges at Antung we had to attack in only one manner. There was only one manner you could attack the bridge and not violate Manchurian territory, and that was a course tangential to the southernmost bend of the river. As you draw a line from the southernmost bend of the river to the bridge, that is your course. These people on the other side of the river knew that and put up their batteries right along the line and they peppered us right down the line all the way. We had to take it, of course, and couldn’t fight back. In addition to that they had their fighters come up alongside and join our formation about two miles to the lee and fly along at the same speed on the other side of the river while we were making our approach. And just before we got to the bomb-away position they would veer off to the north and climb up to about 30,000 feet and then make a frontal quarter on the bombers just about at the time of the bomb-away in a turn. So they would be coming from Manchuria in a turn, swoop down, fire their cannons at the formation and turn back into sanctuary. O’Donnell concluded with an understatement: “And the boys didn’t like it”.”

H.W.Brands, The General and the President.

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