At the end of the Korean War in 1953, there were 39 Sabre aces, and one more was added 50 years later after footage of some gun-camera film had been closely examined. All these pilots had the right stuff, and they also had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. The fighter pilots turned out by the Air Force in the late 1940s and early 1950s were of the same caliber as those who fought over Europe and the Pacific in WW II. There was one difference: they flew fighters with swept wings and jet engines. It was a new world in which aggression at a high Mach number and lightning-fast reflexes were the order of the day.
One of these Sabre aces was Lt. Col. George L. Jones (6.5 kills), who had an unusual track record while serving in Korea. He scored victories over the MiG-15s while flying with the 4th and 51st Fighter Wings. He was also one of the most successful pilots to fly the top secret GUN-VAL Sabres against the MiGs (1.5 kills).
There were, he recalls, several exciting dogfights, and one of the most stirring happened early in November 1951. By this date, the cold weather from Manchuria was being felt all the
