 us from being driven off the peninsula. That airstream had to be kept up and increased. This called for a program of intensive training in all phases of maintenance and operation. There was a lot of emphasis on the training of pilots. Lies for our ground forces as well as our air forces had to be airlifted in huge quantities every day. The military air transport service under the skilled command of Lieutenant General Lawrence S. Cuter met all requirements efficiently and continuously. The Pacific Airlift was a well-oiled engine of supply. The civilian airlines were called on for help, and at once turned over 66 transport aircraft and their crews to be used in the airlift. Before long there were 206 airplanes in operation, including the converted civilian airliners and aircraft of the military air transport service. It was the biggest wartime operation of its kind in history. By September 1950, when the Korean conflict was three months old, the Matt's Pacific Airlift was averaging 250,000 airplane miles per day, and 30 or more flights every day and supplies to the Korean battle zone. Our ground forces were being driven back to the Pusan perimeter. Our overall strength was fast building up, and a vital part of that strength was in the more than a hundred tons of supplies that Matt's was delivering every day. One day late in August of this fateful year of 1950, a C-47 from Japan arrived at the Taeku airfield inside the Pusan perimeter. Our big push to the north was in preparation, and there was to be a conference of top level commanders representing all three of the armed services. The naval group was headed by Admiral Joy and Vice Admiral Struble, commander of Joint Task Force 7. It was represented by the commander of the Fifth Air Force, Major General Partridge, and by Lieutenant General Stratomire, head of the Far East Air Forces with headquarters in Tokyo. Lieutenant General I.H. Edwards, acting deputy chief of staff, Operations USAF, came from Washington for the conference. In the air action that followed, in the ten days or so just before the Incheon landing, the workhorses were the B-29s. We had 140 of them ready for business. Their mission was twofold, to neutralize the enemy ground forces that still surrounded the Pusan perimeter in considerable numbers, and to attack all Korean airfields in enemy hands. Our air forces flew more than 3,000 sorties in the week before the Incheon operation. In a huge area around Incheon, the B-29s went after marshaling yards, tunnels, rail lines, anything useful to enemy logistics. These Air Force operations left the Reds without any hope of reinforcing or supporting their defenses at Incheon. We were practically unopposed in the air, for we had long since effectively disposed of the Red Air strength, which was not going to be troublesome until the MiGs appeared later in the year. There was effective bombing of targets of all descriptions. This was the Air Force's way of helping MacArthur in his magnificent operation at Incheon, which was about to begin. September 1950, at Incheon, on Korea's west coast, 150 miles behind the front at the Pusan perimeter, our naval elements went to work to soften up the Red defenses. An unpleasant surprise for the invaders, who had taken over nearly the whole peninsula in the deployment of the landing craft. General MacArthur witnessed the landing of the 1st Marine Division and the 7th U.S. Infantry Division. The Air Force had done its part by its hammering of the enemy's ground forces, supply lines, and airfields. On the day following the landing at Incheon, the U.N. forces hemmed in for a month at the perimeter around Pusan, broke through. Up to now, the Reds had done all the advancing. Now it was our turn. Our ground forces at the perimeter were now formidable. We had four U.S. Infantry Divisions, seven South Korean Divisions, and one British Brigade. During the war, our ground forces had had a tough time, but now everything was going as we wanted it to. Our air effort paved the way for this rapid advance. It had completely knocked out enemy aircraft and airfields. Our troops had nothing to fear from Red air action. There wasn't much effective opposition of any kind, as our forces went on to retake the South Korean capital city of Seoul, who soon to be a large-scale join-up of our ground forces that landed at Incheon with those that had come up from the Pusan perimeter or the advance to the Yalu River. There was still some scattered resistance from the Reds as our men moved farther to the north. In clearing out enemy rear-guard units, our people were getting good cooperation from the South Koreans. After the Incheon landing, aircraft of the Combat Cargo Command came through with a tremendous contribution to the success of the whole campaign. What's going to happen is that C-47s and C-119s will pull off one of the best managed air drops in combat history. And they're going to do it in enemy territory, about 30 miles north of the captured North Korean capital Pyongyang. And not only troops, ammunition, and food, but jeeps, trucks, and howitzers are going to be delivered in this big drop. The first time in combat history for big stuff, as well as paratroopers and their supplies to be delivered by air in the same drop operation. The objective is to trap as many of the retreating enemy as possible and to strengthen our continued advance to the Yalu. Besides, Swarmer held earlier than a valuable rehearsal for this operation in Korea. Although at the time, nobody realized that the game was going to be played for keeps so soon. In other words, the Russian-built MiG-15s made their debut in Korea. But in the meantime, the F-80s do all right. It was in an F-80 that Lieutenant Russell Brown shot down the first MiG. Politically photographed the air. The F-80s were decidedly inferior to the MiGs. But our old jets were much better handled, far than held their own because of the superior skill of our pilots. End of war offensive had gone splendidly. More than 100,000 Korean forces in the first five months of the war and frozen feet. It can be mighty cold in the upper reaches of North Korea in late November. Some of our forces got to the Yalu, but this was the terminus of the drive. Policy at the highest level forbade any advance or airstrikes beyond the river. Besides, the Chinese were now in the war. We were faced by a quarter of a million of them. Very soon there was going to be what MacArthur called an entirely new war. The decisive force so far in the Korean conflict was our air power. In spite of the fact that at this time, December, 1950, our air force was still suffering from the economy budgets that followed World War II. And in the new war, with a new anime that was about to begin, our side never lost the supremacy of the air. It was safely in the hands of the United States Air Force.