I was now on flying status without a plane. A stroke of luck came my way. I really admired Tiger Lil, had a lot of respect for her crew. I was selected to become a member of Lil’s crew, and I could not have been happier. There is a special relationship between bomber crewmembers. You work together as a team, proud of your plane and proud of your crew. You live together, fly together, and quite possibly die together. I felt that I was finally getting somewhere, I loved the airplane and very much liked the crew. I gave it my best shot, doing my job as best I could.

Everything was really going great, but dark clouds were gathering on the horizon, with June 25, 1950 approaching. The Korean conflict started with the stark realization that the U.S. was not prepared. It became immediately necessary to obtain photographic coverage of all North Korean airfields, power plants, dams, rail systems, etc. The Tiger Lil crew was among the first to fly into enemy territory.

She took our crew over places like Pyongyang, where the antiaircraft fire was extremely heavy, and accurate. She took us to places with strange sounding names, like Sinuiju, Sinanju, Hamhung, and Hungnam, and forbidden places like Manchuria, Antung, the Yalu river, and Rashin, which was almost in sight of Vladivostok, Russia. The Sinuiju area was a beehive of activity by Mig-15’s. Even so I always felt safe in Tiger Lil, knowing that she received the very best maintenance, and each crewmember kept his equipment in top shape.