The close coordination of aviation with the ground forces in the Chosin campaign was due in large measure to the assignment of additional pilots to the 1st Marine Division as forward air controllers. They had been plucked from 1st Marine Aircraft Wing squadrons barely in time to join their battalions before embarking at Inchon. Increasing the number of FACs to two per battalion did much to bring air support down to the company level when needed.[643]
[643] Air Officer SAR, 4.
Air units frequently had to rely upon charts with place names, grid coordinates, and scales different from those in the hands of the ground troops. Here the Marine system of the man on the ground talking the pilot onto the target by reference to visual land marks paid off.
Cloudy, stormy weather was common. Three night fighter pilots were lost because of icing, disorientation, and insufficient radio aids to navigation. Two VMF-212 land-based pilots saved themselves from destruction only by landing on the Badoeng Strait with their last drops of gas.
With the approach of winter and cold weather, aircraft on the landing strips had to be run up every two hours at night to keep the oil warm enough for early morning takeoffs. Ordnance efficiency dropped. Planes skidded on icy runways. Once, after a six inch snow, 80 men and ten trucks worked all night to clear and sand a 150-foot strip down the runway at Yonpo.[644]
[644] The material in this section is derived from: MAG-12 SAR, annex C, 10; VMF-214 SAR, annex F, 23; 1stMAW SAR, annex J, appendix S (VMF-323), 4, 9, 11; 1stMAW SAR, 5–7; Maj H. D. Kuokka Comments, n. d.
As early as mid-November it once took hours of scraping and chipping on the Badoeng Strait to clear three inches of glazed ice and snow off the decks, catapults, arresting wires, and barriers. Planes which stood the night on the flight deck had to be taken below to the hangar deck to thaw out. On another occasion VMF-214 had to cancel all flight operations because 68-knot winds, heavy seas, and freezing temperatures covered the Sicily’s flight deck and aircraft with a persistent coat of ice.
One pilot of VMF-323 had to return shortly after takeoff because water vapor froze in his oil breather tube in flight. With the back pressure throwing oil all over his windshield and billowing black vapor and smoke out of his cowl, he landed only to have the front of his Corsair burst into flames when the escaped oil dripped on the hot exhaust stacks. Quick work by the deck crews extinguished the fire.
A hazard as great as being shot down was a crash landing or bail-out at sea, where the water was cold enough to kill a man in 20 minutes. Survival clothing and equipment was so bulky that pilots could barely get into their cockpits.
Maintenance and servicing problems ashore, complicated by dirt, dust, and the scarcity of parts, kept mechanics working to the point of exhaustion. Insufficient trucks forced the ground crews to refuel and arm planes by hand, often from rusting fuel drums. Two destructive crashes, one fatal, were attributed to accumulated water in gasoline.