Norm Zehr in Korea

Norm Zehr in Korea
Story by Norm Zehr

Submitted by David Morgan (Yahoo NAVION Group)

As to the L-17 in Korea, I thoroughly enjoyed flying that bird, and did so as often as possible. We did most of our work in Cessna L-19 Bird Dog, an airplane I truly loved. We flew the L-19 so much it became another part of our body. Fortunately, I never had any serious mishaps in the L-19 (not to say we weren't shot at).

The most serious problems with the Navion were twofold:

1. It was somewhat underpowered for getting in, and especially out of, short dirt strips. You just had to make a maximum performance take-off at times.

2. The nose gear was vulnerable to rough dirt strips. We quickly learned to put the wheel in our gut, put on full power, get the nose gear off the ground as soon as possible. Then ease back for a "normal" takeoff.

I never had any trouble, but it took some mishaps before we were all told how to avoid them. Now, the Commanding General's Navion. While checking out in the L-17 each of us flew a few hours with one of Instructor Pilots. Once we were cleared to solo, we needed 10 hours in the L-17 before we could carry passengers. I had about 9 hours when my buddy the Ops Officer called me. He had a mission to Seoul, which would give me my 10 hours. Landing at A-2 airfield in Seoul was not easy. It was called the "Racetrack" because that is exactly what it was. They took one of the long sides of the oval track, lengthened it the few yards that could, and that was it. So - it took a power approach to get in there, and not go off the end of the "runway". In flight training we had plenty of experience using a power approach (similar to a Navy carrier approach). Pull the nose up to a near stall, and control your decent with the throttle. If the engine quit your ass was grass (if there was any). OK. I put the L-17 into the Racetrack, where I was to pick up our Company medic and bring him back to the outfit. No problem. In addition, since it was the day before Palm Sunday, I was to load a crate of palm fronds for the chaplain in the back seat, also no problem. I waited an hour for the medic to show up. It was getting dark, so I had to leave, without him. Never did find out what happened to him. The flight north to an auxiliary strip, near Division Headquarters in the Chorwan Valley, took about an hour. The strip was laid north/south. As I approached heading north the wind was 90 degrees across the runway. I went around and turned back to land to the south. Of course with the crosswind I had little wind component to slow me down. I "crabbed" in - wasn't quite sure how I would do in the L-17 with a cross control, wing low approach. That didn't matter as I was very experienced with either system. As I was ready to round out I could see I was going to land long. Like a damned fool, I put on full flaps. I really knew that would give me more lift rather than slow me down. Wasn't fast enough to dump all the flaps, ballooned a bit, and went off into the rice paddy next to the strip. The pictures will show you what happened to the L-17. I opened the canopy, jumped out and ran onto the strip - in case of fire. I quickly realized she wasn't going to catch fire, and went back to look. I was truly pleased to find both the mag and gas switches turned off, just as they taught us. I had no conscious recollection of turning them off. So much for good training. The chaplain's assistant, who was waiting at the strip for the palm fronds came up and asked if I was OK. I said "Yes, and you can get your f---ing palm fronds out of the airplane". I called our main strip and soon our engineering officer arrived in an L-19. he looked at my work and said "The General is going to be really pissed off". I knew that, and he later sent down an officer to conduct an investigation. The investigating officer ruled it was "pilot error" - which it was, but relieved me of any pecuniary liability - read "pay for the airplane". The final indignity was that the Ordnance people, in their infinite wisdom, decided to repair the airplane at the A-22 strip, rather than take my suggestion to take off the wings and truck it down to their depot at Ascom City, near Seoul. Well, they worked on it for about two weeks. Each day on my way up to a surveillance mission on MLR, I flew over to see what they were doing. They had her jacked up, and were working diligently. The gear had been wiped out, as you will see, the prop was bent and the engine had a sudden stoppage. Finally, the word came down that they were ready to fly it back to Ascom City. I flew over to A-22 to watch. The Ordnance pilot (after the accident the plane became their property) ran it up at the north end of the strip. As he rolled past where I was standing he started to rotate. The main gear collapsed. He had no choice but to fly on to Ascom City with the gear half down. He couldn't get it up or down. That must have been a very uncomfortable flight. When he arrived at Ascom City (A-33) he had no choice but to belly it in, wiping it out again. I just shrugged my shoulders. That's the story of the CG's L-17. We got it back later and I took pleasure in flying it often. Believe you know that the first number (8 in this case) was the year of production or the contract. That means our two Navions were built in 1948 (or on a contract dated 1948). This system was also used on the serial numbers of our L-19 Bird Dogs. You will see that the serial number of the 7th Division Navion in one of the pictures I sent was 8972. I should also tell you that toward the end of the war in Korea the Navions were being replaced by the L-20 Beaver, an excellent airplane and better suited to Korea operations. But because the 40th and 45th Infantry Divisions had been National Guard divisions (California and Oklahoma respectively) before they were federalized in September 1950, and would be the first to go home, they never received the L-20 Beavers. Early in the war, in 1950, Army L-17's were used to direct USAF air strikes. This was solely because the L-17 had a VHF radio which could communicate with USAF aircraft. The L-4's and L-5's the Army had at that time did not have radios which could talk to the USAF aircraft (F-51 Mustangs, F-80 jets, etc.). The L-19, which arrived in Korea on 16 February 1951 had suitable radio, as it did in my time (1953). But by that time the USAF was using T-6 aircraft to direct air strikes. In 1953 I went to the 40th Division as a replacement officer, and was not a NG officer, although I had served in the Colorado NG as an enlisted man before Korea. By the time I arrived at the 40th all of the California NG personnel had been rotated home (most in mid and late 1952).

Incidentally, the USAF also had some Navions in Korea, but I don't recall ever seeing one, or where they were attached.

Hope the pictures, and my story of the accident with 8950, will be of interest to you.

Norm