“Operation Moolah”

“Operation Moolah”. . Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force effort to obtain a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter for analysis. The operation focused on encouraging a Communist pilot from the Soviet Union, China, or North Korea to defect with a MiG aircraft. The plan provided $100,000 for delivery of the aircraft and political asylum for the pilot., On September 21, 1953 – two months after the Armistice was signed – North Korean pilot Lieutenant No Kum-sok took off from his base in Pyongyang, North Korea and flew his MiG-15 to Kimpo Air Base, South Korea. He was paid the $100,000 and allowed to emigrate to the United States., He changed his name to Kenneth H. Rowe. He earned two degrees from the University of Delaware, became a citizen, married, raised children, and worked for several U.S. aerospace companies before retiring to Daytona Beach, Florida., His MiG-15 was analyzed by the Air Force and flown by test pilots. It is now displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio., About the MiG-15 , The MiG-15 was the first swept-wing jet fighter to see combat. Developed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in Moscow, the MiG-15 first took to the skies in 1949. It was successful in the Korean War against slower piston-engined and straight-wing jet aircraft flown by the United Nations, but met its match with the swept-wing North American F-86. Nearly 18,000 MiG-15s were built until 1952. The MiG-15 depicted in this Memorial bears the fictional markings of “Casey Jones,” a feared and deadly MiG-15 pilot found on the pages of the Korean War Novel (and later film) “The Hunters” by James Salter.