Therese Park

 

The news of No Gum Sok's recent death saddens me.

He was every Korean child's hero when he escaped the communist regime on September 21, 1953, liberating the Russian-made MiG-15 he was in during the 16-plane patrol near Pyongyang undetected and landed at a military airfield manned by the United States Air Force at Kimpo near Seoul. It was huge news not only in Korea but worldwide. I particularly was fascinated by his being a Catholic who served the Kim Dynasty as a zealous pilot, hiding his Christian identity, and a freedom seeker, who patiently waited for a chance to flee to the South.

When he actually escaped North Korea, two months after the ceasefire agreement was established between Chinese leaders and those of UN at Panmunjom along the 38th Parallel (July 27, 1953) he became the focus of the world's attention. Having been born in 1932 during Japan's control of Korea (1905-1945), like all Koreans, No Kum Sok, too, had adopted the Japanese name "Okamura Kyoshi" in 1939 under the "Change Names" policy our tyrants enforced onto all Koreans. He was in an elementary school.

In his book A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector Who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953, readers can feel a young man trapped in a Communist "cage" with an unquenchable thirst for freedom, and one day he leaps to the open sky much higher above the "dividing line," and reaches the free territory guarded by the Americans, bringing a gift to his future hosts—the MiG-15 he was flying in. (This gift, known for its supremacy over American F-86 Sabre jets, has been kept in at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio, having been test-piloted by such legendry pilots as Major Chuck Yeager, who became the first pilot in history to confirm the speed of sound in level flight in 1949.)

In his book, No talks about the daily routine flights as a novice pilot at age 19, from the airbase in Dandong, Manchuria, where North Korean air fights fled from B-29s that destroyed all airbases in North Korea earlier in the war. "I flew to meet the U.S. F-86 Sabre in the skies of Mig-15 Alley above the City of Sinuiju along the Yalu River in a close formation of 16 to 24 MiGs. We met groups of 2-4 Sabre F-86 flying in loose formation. I fought as well as I knew how (but) before the war ended in July 1953, our "Air Murderers" destroyed 700 MiG-15s. I was twice decorated…Soon I was the vice Chairman of my Second Battalion Communist Party, the second Commander of four fighters, and the only pilot in my division whose MiG-15 bore the Youth Organization Seal. Articles about my fight skills and devotion to Communism were published, with my photos, in magazines and newspapers."

In his book, he admits that he lived a double life in North Korea—one in a protective garb of loyalty to the communist state, practicing Marxism, shouting anti-capitalism slogans; the other who longed to escape to the free world, like a bird in a cage, and orchestrating his gigantic leap to the free world, praying. And one day his chance came.

He wrote that on Sept 21st, 1953, the first flying day at the rebuilt airbase in Pyongyang, he was the first pilot to fly. When he reached high above the man-made "dividing line" on earth he abruptly turned toward the South and within 13 minutes, he was looking down at his destiny.

"I prayed for my safety," he wrote. "I landed on the runway at U.S. Kimpo Air Base near Seoul from the wrong end, almost crashing into an F-Sabre 86 that had just landed from the other end. Eager to signal (to the Americans) that I was not a threat to them, I reached to the left, lowered the wing flaps, and rocked my wings, left and right, as a friendly signal that my batteries are low… I then pressed the button to fire colored flares as a distress signal…As soon as my wheels touched down, I shouted, "I made it! I'm safe! I'm free." I had never felt anything like this before. I unfastened my oxygen mask and breathed free air for the first time in my life. But seeing the F-Sabre 86 coming toward me, I desperately steered my MiG to the far right as I could…"

He parked his MiG-15 amid American warplanes, removed a framed photo of Kim Il-sung from his instrument panel, jumped out of his cockpit and smashed it to the ground, and lay flat on his stomach on the ground, a performance he had practiced in his mind often.

A flock of Americans scrambled toward him, each shouting something he couldn't understand. Two pilots put him into a jeep, and one of them told him to turn over his semiautomatic pistol, which he gladly did. The next thing he knew he was in a room in front of men asking questions, while cameras flashed nonstop. He knew he became a subject of the world news. He felt relieved.

In Busan, after No's defection to the South, the story of his courage and brilliance buzzed wherever you went, and our 7th graders' classroom in the Girl's Middle School I attended was no exception. Our teacher, Mr. Hong, talked about Mr. No's escape with excitement, and also brought the newspaper articles to the class and read them to us.

The photo of No meeting with US vice president Richard Nixon in the newspaper impressed me, then a 12-years old, but later when the news revealed that President Eisenhower changed the U.S. immigration rules so No could remain in the U.S. and work, too, rather than renewing his visa every six months without the privileges of working and earning wages, I was moved. I decided to someday go to America, the Land of Freedom and Opportunity.

No's success in the U.S. which began at the University of Delaware where he received an engineering degree and worked as an engineer for major defense and aerospace companies, and later taught engineering in Daytona Beach, was impressive. However, his gallantry in fleeing to his freedom in the South at age 21, bringing a priceless gift to his future motherland of America, was something no one else could have done but him. However, his flight to freedom brought death to his air fighter comrades, which he learned later from a defector in the South. The Five MiG-15 fighters, including the squadron leader and No's best friend from the Korean People's Army Air Force Academy, were executed by the firing squad obviously ordered by the Great Leader Kim Il-sung himself, accusing them of not having known No's plan to flee his Dynasty or ignored it.

 

Though he was recently called to his eternal home by the Creator, millions of people, Christians or not, will remember No Kum Sok's courage that allowed him to leap from his Communist motherland of North Korea and surrender himself and the MiG-15 that carried him into the hands of the Americans, knowing he could lose his life.

I'll someday visit the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio where the MiG-15 No had brought to the free world and the American F-86 Sabre jets are displayed in the same room. I must.