� � � � Just received your Fall issue of KCR Vol.7, No.3. On page 9 -- a picture of Capt. Ernest Fiebelkorn. I thought you might be interested in a first hand report of his last flight. I was his squadron commander and sent him out on that day.

� � � � I took command of the 4th. Night Fighter Sqdn in Oct. 1949. Capt. Fibelkorn was already there and was my premier pilot and A Flight Commander. Fieb was due to rotate shortly, but prefered to extend and bring his family over. He was the only guy who could sit tall in the cockpit of the Twin Mustang that he didn't have to zig-zag to see where he was going (standing maybe?).

� � � � After Korea broke out, I depended on Fieb a lot. He would take any mission without question and wanted to dogfight with the Yaks. We told him the airplane was too heavy for that, but he said he could muscle it around and take 'em. I believe he could have, too. For the first ten days, we were the only airplanes with the range to get to the front. Soon the brass wanted to know if we could get off with 2 - 300 gallon drop tanks and a full ammo load. Fieb volunteered to do it. It was a hairy take off. Fieb said he was rolling on all four when he left the ground at overrun. That's when I found out there was 145 octane gas available but they were saving it for the C-46 transports. We were using plain old 130 grade, weaker than 100 octane. I went to the brass after that take off and got the 145 octane that we were designed for.

� � � � On that fateful day! -- For two days we had been frustrated by a low overcast over Korea. We knew the North Korean tanks and Army were moving fast and we had to know how far they had penetrated. We had airplanes over there from Itazuke all day but couldn't see them. I sent Fieb over there with four airplanes early afternoon on July 6th. hoping to find a break to find out where the tanks were. Capt. Foley was Fieb's element leader and he brought the three airplanes back late in the afternoon. He said he and Fieb were always in contact and had criss-crossed the expected penetration area for over two hours and found no break in the clouds. Fieb said he thought they were thinning out a bit and was going to go down and see if he could get through them. In a few minutes he called Foley and said he was level at (an altitude he thought was safe from the peaks, I can't remember his exact altitude) but was still in the clouds. He said he was going to saty there awhile to see if he could find a break. About 5 minutes later Capt. Foley tried to contact him but got no reply. He had hit a high peak and was not found until we invaded.

F-82 Twin Mustang like the one Fiebelkorn and Higgins were lost in.

� � � � Foley said the clouds were thinning so I had them load my airplane with 6, 5inch HVAR rockets and went over at about ten o' clock that night. The night was clear and sure enough the tanks had penetrated 25 miles further than our intelligence had estimated. I could see them because there was a fire-fight across the river. The tanks must have been backed up about five miles although I could not see the entire column there was alot of activity. I unloaded four rockets into the tank column. Then further up north we obliterated a speeding car heading south with it's headlights on. We assumed it to be a command car and hoped it was. Best shot I ever made -- two five-inchers within 3 feet broadside (ground bursts).

� � � � I wish Fieb had been able to find those tanks -- God knows he tried. It would have given us about 12 hours start to get some heavy frieght over there. As it was their position was not known until the wee hours of July 7 (my report) and 5th. AF Ops did not move the bomb line until well after daylight.