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The only pilot with a Distinguished
Service Cross and Air Force Cross was always ready to fly and fight.
September
26, 2012 -
Retired Col. Ralph Parr flew a P-38 Lightning in World War II and an F-86 Sabre during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
He is the only military member to be award the Distinguished Service Cross and the Air Force Cross.
And when he retired in 1976, Parr had flown more than 6,000 hours. His
other 60 plus decorations, included the Silver Star and 10 Distinguished
Flying Crosses.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr. |
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(AFNS -9/26/2012) - A glint of light in the sky above North Korea
attracted the F-86 Sabre pilot's attention, so he descended from
41,000 feet and saw four MiG-15s. But as then-Capt. Ralph S. Parr
surveyed the rest of the sky, he realized he and his fellow pilots
in Shark Flight actually were facing 16 enemy fighters.
The
two MiGs Parr shot down on June 7, 1953, were the first of 10 kills
in a seven-week period during the Korean War. Parr made double ace
with his 10th kill on July 27, when he shot down a Soviet
Ilyushin-12 cargo airplane on the last day of the war. He's the only
American pilot who has received both the Distinguished Service Cross
and the Air Force Cross.
"You wind up either wanting to
fight or not wanting to fight," said 88-year-old Parr, now a retired
colonel living in New Braunfels, Texas. "I made the decision I was
going to fight to begin with. I didn't think I could see anything up
there that I thought
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would be able to take me." |
Parr joined the Army Air Forces and began pilot training
in 1942 and flew the P-38 Lightning in the Philippines
during World War II. When the war in Korea began, Parr was
flying the F-86, but was reassigned to the 49th Fighter
Group and the F-80 Shooting Star. After 165 combat missions,
his experiences were beneficial as he helped to develop new
combat tactics for fighting MiGs. Parr returned to action
and the F-86 in May 1953 and became an ace with five kills
in 11 days.
Retired Col. John Lowery, who flew under
his command in Korea, described Parr's plane when he
returned to Kimpo Air Base after his first two kills in his
book, "Life in the Wild Blue," scheduled to be published in
early fall. "At the time, all fighter-interceptor pilots
instinctively checked the gun ports of returning flights for
the dark gray soot, indicating their guns had been fired,"
Lowery said. "This would imply contact with MiGs. And sure
enough, the .50-caliber blast shields of one aircraft showed
the unmistakable signs. The ship's entire fuselage was very
badly scorched from nose to tail, as if its paint had been
singed with a giant blowtorch."
On June 7, Shark
Flight was on a fighter sweep to intercept and destroy any
enemy planes over North Korea. After his F-86 left Kimpo AB,
he flew north toward the Yalu River boundary with China,
nicknamed "MiG Alley." He was looking north toward China
when he saw four MiGs with a 15-degree dive angle firing at
them. After the initial confrontation, Parr looked down and
saw a flicker across light-colored sand bars along the Yalu
River shoreline. He rolled his plane down and leveled it at
300 hundred feet when he saw there were many more MiGs than
he'd thought.
"As I closed rapidly to about 4,000
feet, I noticed there weren't two, there were four, no,
there were eight," Parr said. "Then, off to my left, I saw
eight more. Immediately, I decided to put a big notch in the
MiG leader directly ahead." He downed another MiG and
damaged another and added another kill three days later. On
June 18, he notched two more victories while protecting the
fighter-bombers that were striking targets in North Korea,
giving him five kills that made him an ace. He received the
Distinguished Service Cross for a June 30 mission when he
shot down two more MiGs and drove off two others that were
attacking his wing commander.
Hours before the
armistice on July 27, Parr was leading one of three flights
of F-86Fs escorting a Marine photo-reconnaissance aircraft
that was sent to photograph a dirt airfield in the Yalu
River bed and saw an airplane flying close to the river on
the Manchurian side. After he was cleared to investigate the
plane, he saw it had the same red star as the MiGs and was
flying over North Korean territory. Parr shot the plane
down, which turned into a major international incident when
the Soviets claimed it was a civilian airliner with a truce
team on board 200 miles north in Manchuria. "I knew where it
was and what it was," Parr said. "The only thing I didn't
know was why it was there. I called our formation leader,
and he said to take it, so I did. It almost hit the front
page when it happened. Word got loose really fast that I'd
shot down a truce team. Their side was serious, but so was
ours."
The Soviet Union filed a lawsuit against Parr
in the International Court of Justice, although they later
withdrew the suit, and shot down an RB-50 Superfortress over
international waters two days later. None of the bomber's
crew ever returned, although most were presumed captured.
In Vietnam, Parr served two tours in Southeast Asia. He
flew 226 combat missions as the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing's
deputy commander of operations, including a mission that
earned him the Air Force Cross at Khe Sanh on March 19,
1968. Khe Sanh was located 7 miles from the Laotian border
in the Bru Montagnard villages in northwest Quang Tri
Province and was the government seat for the Huong Hoa
district, Lowery said. It was the People's Army of Vietnam's
major infiltration route to the south. Parr's mission was to
escort a large C-130 Hercules resupply effort to support the
Marines and elements of the South Vietnamese Army. He faced
severe weather and intense fire to support Marines. Despite
being told several times by the Marine ground commander to
abandon the mission because of the fire he was taking, Parr
refused because of the damage the gun emplacements would
cause to the C-130s, and he attacked in eight passes and
destroyed eight North Vietnamese mortar and gun positions
that were within 200 meters of the Marines. His F-4 Phantom
II sustained 27 hits in the attack.
He returned to
the 12th Fighter Wing twice, as deputy commander and
commander, and flew 201 more combat missions during his
second tour during the war. A back injury sustained while
inspecting a roof for hurricane damage at Eglin Air Force
Base, Fla., forced him to retire in 1976. During his career,
he flew 641 combat missions with more than 6,000 hours and
received more than 60 decorations, including a Silver Star,
10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 41 Air Medals, all of
which he attributes to his willingness to fight.
By USAF Randy Roughton
Air Force News Service
Copyright 2012
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